Chapter 152

Pangzi was about to ask again when I waved my hand to cut him off: "What's the matter? Did you get scared just seeing the coffin? There used to be rules about pit coffins, bronze outer coffins, and not approaching if the eight characters weren't firm, but we were able to cross the Three Lives Bridge and arrive at the Yin Palace and Nether Gate, which shows our fate is absolutely strong enough; otherwise, we would have already fallen into the netherworld before even stepping on the Three Lives Bridge." Pangzi said: "Nonsense, when has Commander Pang ever been afraid? I just haven't seen this kind of coffin before—like a tiger biting a hedgehog, I don't know where to bite." Actually, I didn't know whether our eight characters were strong enough either; I was just saying that to boost Pangzi's courage. At the entrance of the yin wall, there was still a certain distance from the three strangely shaped coffins deep in the tomb chamber. Although the flares were brightly eerie, they couldn't reveal fine details, so I waited a while. Seeing that the door had been pried open without triggering any mechanism, I nodded at Shinley Yang and Pangzi, signaling we could enter. Shinley Yang held up the "Diamond Umbrella" to lead the way, and I and Pangzi followed closely behind. The flares that had been shot in earlier were still unextinguished, illuminating the dark tomb chamber brightly. As I had expected, this was a large "hui"-shaped tomb chamber. The Yin Palace consisted of inner and outer layers; inside the white wall was the first layer, with a distance of seven or eight meters between this wall and another brick wall encircling the middle. The tomb gates on the two walls faced each other, and inside was merely a low, arched doorway without any barriers to block passage. The flare shot straight through, penetrating into the deepest tomb chamber. Upon entering the outer gate, I first used the "Wolf Eye" flashlight to illuminate both sides—this was the interlayer between two tomb walls, piled high with various grayish-brown giant bronze "ritual vessels." These bronze plates, bronze tripods, and the ivory, jade coins, and jade cauldrons stacked among them symbolized the tomb owner's royal status.

This is the tomb with the most burial goods I have ever seen in my life. These burial goods were specially made for the deceased, not like the random valuable items dumped into the tombs of the Jingjue Kingdom. During the Han and Tang dynasties, the extravagant burial custom was at its peak; legend says some imperial tombs contained burial goods exceeding a thousand tons, equivalent to one-third of the entire national financial power of ten countries at that time. Although the burial objects in this "Xian King's Tomb" are not as luxurious and numerous as those imperial tombs, they nearly represent the entire Dian Kingdom being buried in the tomb pit. However, these subjects, slaves, and treasures—none could follow the Xian King to heaven; they all rotted away in this gloomy, dark, sunless underground over two thousand years.

I sighed, thinking how China's former valuable antiques have all been ruined like this. I then quickened my pace, following Shinley Yang into the inner tomb chamber. The two tomb chambers were like the inner and outer cities of an ancient walled city, and this deepest chamber was the core of the ancient tomb.

The flare's light was gradually fading. As we stepped into the tomb chamber, the surroundings instantly plunged into pitch black. We immediately turned on the headlamps on our helmets and instantly saw the bronze outer coffin suspended in midair by copper rings. It was the largest in volume and most prominent among the three coffins; the other two were not hanging on copper rings.

The bronze coffin was pitch black, with no luster, covered in a thick layer of dust. I put on gloves and brushed off a layer of dust from the coffin's surface; the coffin body immediately reflected the light into an eerie bluish-gray hue. Already, much green patina had grown on the bronze coffin. At a glance, it looked as if covered in thin green centipedes; upon closer inspection, the coffin was also wrapped in nine heavy chains, sealed airtight, with many strange plants cast on the outside. Besides that, there were no other obvious features—just large, heavy, and heavy. The true coffin wood should be inside it. Looking at the other two coffins: one was wooden. Judging by its style and size, it should not be a wooden outer coffin but only a single layer of coffin planks. Yet this coffin wood was not ordinary; roughly speaking, the planks were about eight inches thick, with no lacquer applied, revealing the wood's natural color, appearing like charcoal, yet the wood was extremely fine and steel-tough.

Shinley Yang wondered: "The coffin wood seems not to have undergone special processing, but how could such wood exist in the world?" I tapped the coffin lid with my tool, producing a hollow "clang-clang" like a bronze bell. In the tomb chamber, the sound was exceptionally loud and deep. I told Shinley Yang: "This is the legendary pit coffin. In deep mountains and old forests, in mountain gullies and shaded valleys where sunlight never reaches, there exists a kind of black-colored strange tree. This tree, from the moment it begins growing, has never seen sunlight. Ordinary trees grow one ring per year, but this sunless tree takes several decades or even a hundred years to add one ring—this is called pit wood. The name is very special, describing a tree that grows in a cellar."

Pangzi also reached out and touched the pit coffin: "My goodness, if this is truly a pit coffin, then it's really a treasure. I've heard this pit coffin wood is very hard to grow into usable timber, let alone made into a coffin, and the planks are this thick, with no other materials added. At current market prices, it's worth more than an equal volume of gold. I really can't find a suitable place to put it—we should carry it back… also fine. That way, our trip to Yunnan this time wouldn't count as Saturday voluntary labor, right?"

I said to Pangzi and Shinley Yang: "How could gold compare to this wood? Even ten golden coffins couldn't exchange for it. Look how thick these planks are, and they're all the finest heartwood of the pit tree. This has a name: pit wood section (I don't recognize this character—left wood, middle metal, right gen) eight-inch planks. It's not ten-thousand-year pit wood, so where would such thick heartwood come from? Back then, even Empress Dowager Cixi, the Old Buddha, never enjoyed this treatment. After all, this tree had already gone extinct in the Han dynasty; later generations could never find such a thick tree again." What are we waiting for? Hurry up and carry it out!

Shinley Yang ignored Pangzi and said to me: "The bronze coffin suspended in midair in the tomb chamber is also special—what's the story with that? And there's another strangely shaped coffin over there—could this be the Xian King and his two wives?" I shook my head: "I'm also somewhat at a loss now. The bronze coffin is also an anomaly in mausoleum systems—only used for major criminals or nobles who contracted infectious diseases to be sealed in bronze coffins. Another theory says it was used when there were signs of corpse transformation before burial, to prevent zombies from breaking out of the coffin. Look at the nine heavy locks on this bronze coffin—who knows how easy it would be to open it? Ghosts only know what's inside." Shinley Yang said: "I only know there's a kind of bronze horn gold coffin used to prevent corpse transformation. Originally, this suspended bronze coffin was for the same reason, but why is it suspended in midair?" Pangzi chimed in: "This I know too. Earlier, we once saw a human-faced bronze coffin, far more ferocious than this—back then, Commander Hu almost pissed his pants. Later I heard these hanging coffins were specifically used to hold bamboo-path immortality seekers, so after death they wouldn't touch the ground's impure vapors. Based on my estimate, there's a ninety percent chance what's inside here is the Xian King's old zongzi—he didn't become immortal but instead first grew hair and began corpse transformation, so he hung the bronze rings and coffin in the tomb chamber. We'd better not touch it; better just carry this pit coffin back—we'll be counting money for lifetimes and still not finish." I told Shinley Yang: "Don't listen to his nonsense— the person who got scared and pissed his pants was him, not me. But his latter part is correct: things suspended in midair are usually Daoist practitioners. The bronze coffin is used to hold zombies, though we can't conclude the inside is just the Xian King based on that. These three coffins have a lot to them; we'll figure it out before acting." We decided to first examine the third coffin's appearance before deciding how to open it, so we all walked to the deepest part of the tomb chamber. There lay a seamless stone coffin, made from a single piece of "threaded stone" directly formed into a stone coffin. The stone coffin's planks appeared especially ancient and even primitive, decorated with hundreds of interlinked circular rings. These ring carvings, gathered together, formed the shape of a black wild beast—neither dragon nor tiger—filled with ancient, mysterious color.

The seamless stone coffin was sealed on the outside with a layer of semi-transparent vermilion lacquer, and the coffin seams were sealed inside. Yuan Fa saw it, but through some experience accumulated from frequenting Panjiayuan, although there are many fakes there, the information is rich enough to access many things beyond ordinary sight and hearing, especially some private collectors who, from their mouths, can tell us much about various burial goods—information hard to find in books. I had heard people mention this seamless stone coffin more than once; it's said it was dug up twice before in the Western Mountains. However, this stone coffin is obviously much shorter than a normal coffin by a large margin, with four thick, sturdy single-legged stone figures supporting it underneath, making it appear much taller than that pit wood coffin. Pangzi looked and immediately said: "This must be the Xian King's son, a prince who didn't finish middle school, so he was buried with his father—no diploma needed. Waiting to ascend to heaven and become immortal together?" Shinley Yang said: "Impossible—I've never heard of anyone letting their children be buried with them; even a tigress wouldn't eat her own cub." I said to the two of them: "When it's not some prince or princess, this stone coffin being short likely means it doesn't contain a full corpse. During the Warring States period, states contended, the Hundred Schools of Thought flourished, and burial customs diversified. There was a practice called dismembered burial, another called fragmented burial, and also curled burial, prone burial, crouched burial, suspended, lateral burial, etc. Different understandings of death led to different ways of placing the dead. This should be a curled burial stone coffin, and the threaded stone is no small matter—connected to a rare kind of cooling stone, whose nature resembles jade and water; the corpse inside must have definitely been a person with a head and face in life." However, that kind of "curled burial" practice had already disappeared by the time of Emperor Wu of Han; whether any remnants remain in southern Dian is hard to say. The problem is these three coffins—aside from all being extremely special, they are completely incomparable, even though they're in the same tomb chamber, they seem to have no connection at all. I thought: since I can't figure it out anyway, we might as well open them all and see. So I had Pangzi go to the corner by the entrance, light three candles, and then start with this most valuable "pit coffin"—the Xian King may have rotted into soil, but the "Huangchen Pearl" should still be inside the coffin. While Pangzi was lighting the candles, I saw the three candle flames ignite, illuminating the gloomy tomb chamber corner, and suddenly I thought of something: Three Lives Bridge, three coffins?

Just as I was thinking hard, Shinley Yang said to me: "I just recalled the Three Lives Bridge before the Yin Palace gate—the corpses in these three coffins might all be the Xian King's, though we can't be sure, but it's possible they don't contain what we're looking for—the Xian King with the phoenix gallbladder. The coffins in the tomb chamber might be ones he dug up from other ancient graves, possibly he identified them through some means as his past-life remains." I thought for a moment and replied: "Yeah, that makes it easier to understand—these three coffins don't belong to the same period but represent the Xian King's three lives and three worlds in the human realm. Daoism has always had the legend of cultivating the Dao through three lives; these three lives are called the three prisons, and the final state of death is always extremely grim, which is why such special coffins were used for burial. The true Xian King must also be hidden somewhere in this tomb chamber…… Ah, we two were just staring at these three demonic coffins—Pangzi, who went to light candles in the corner, why hasn't he come back yet? Three… six… nine… there's only wine and candles in the corner. How did this guy light so many candles? Where is he?"

Shinley Yang made a gesture to me, lowering her voice: "Do you hear anything from inside the bronze coffin?"