Chapter 153

Main Text Chapter 155: Longevity Candle

The candlelight in the corner of the tomb chamber, the one closest to us, was placed in the same position as the three monster coffins in the room and arranged in a triangle; this light was familiar to me, definitely the three candles Pangzi had just lit.

However, to the right of these three candles there were two rows of faint blue light appearing upright on the wall, in groups of three; this light could only let one sense its presence in darkness, while the gloomy blue light source itself gave no illumination; the dark places remained dark, merely adding six dim blue ghost fires in this pitch black.

The huge bronze coffin hanging from the bronze ring was also emitting a series of metallic scraping sounds; I thought it must be the sound of a zombie scratching the coffin lid inside—damn, how did we run into a corpse transformation as soon as we entered the yin palace? Could it be that when I just wiped the dust off the bronze coffin, the ancient corpse inside sensed the vitality of a living person? No way, I remember I was wearing gloves.

After thinking again, never mind where those six ghost fires came from; our three Gold‑seeking Corps commanders' life lamps are still lit and positioned correctly, so at least so far no corpse transformation or evil ghost has occurred in this tomb chamber, yet I don't know what is causing the mischief.

I calmed down at that thought and shouted in the tomb chamber: 'Wang Commander, you damn bastard, what junk are you picking up again? Get out here fast, or I'll have you dealt with by military law!'

Only then did Pangzi's head appear from the other end of the bronze coffin, asking: 'Hu Commander, are you looking for me? I've pried loose a good thing from this copper coffin—it looks like gold.' Having said that, he walked over holding a round metal object.

I took it and saw it was a bronze mirror; after wiping off the dust, its surface was still bright and clear, hardly rusted; the back was mottled with copper corrosion, surrounded by a ring of golden‑yellow agate stones used as decoration—these round stones are easily mistaken for gold. Though the back of the mirror is battered, it gives a unique sense of antiquarian decayed beauty. Why would a bronze coffin have a mirror mounted on it? Could it be to suppress the thousand‑year corpse inside? I'd never heard of such a thing. I handed the mirror to Pangzi and said: 'This is a bronze mirror; the inlay is agate, not gold. Take it from wherever you got it and put it back where it belongs—we have important business now, don't waste time on these trivial burial objects.'

Shirley Yang asked Pangzi from the side: 'Just now, how many candles did you light in the southeast corner of the tomb chamber?'

Pangzi, hearing Shirley Yang's question, exclaimed in surprise: 'Three, of course! I'm a cultured man—I can still count.' As he spoke he turned his head and looked, then went blank; he also saw that besides those three candles there were six more points of dim blue light—seems they too are flames, but the fire source is too weak to burn fully, so the light appears blue, just like the ghost fires in wild graves.

I saw that the six ghost‑like blue flames were indeed not Pangzi's doing, but as long as the three candles stay lit there won't be too much danger; still I went over to have a clear look. The three coffins in the tomb chamber are solid and will need some time to open, so if there really is some ominous sign we should nip it in the bud, quail bored trickle chin sneak flatter therefore suppress awaken cease translate side bureau firewood gatherer ornate burn practice.

The fact that candles can be lit in the tomb chamber shows the oxygen level is gradually increasing. I first swept the area with a flashlight, but in the absolutely dark underground space the air still had some impurities; after shining for a while I still couldn't see anything.

I found the visor of my gas mask too heavy to see clearly, so I temporarily took off the mask and hung it on my chest, put on a mask instead, grabbed the MIAI, and led Shirley Yang and Pangzi over to check.

The spot emitting the eerie blue light was right beside the tomb chamber door; because the chamber in this yin palace is not small, the candles Pangzi lit in the wall corner are relatively concentrated, their light is quite limited, and the distance between the two light sources is about eight or nine meters, so neither can illuminate the other.

When we walked to a point five meters from the ghost fire, the Wolf's Eye flashlight could already illuminate the tomb wall clearly. As soon as we entered the tomb chamber, our line of sight was drawn to the three coffins in the center; the range of our portable light sources is limited, so we didn't notice anything beside the inner chamber doorway.

The first thing to come within the Wolf's Eye's range was a strange face covered in black scales; it had no lips, only two rows of bared sharp teeth, and the faint glow of the ghost fire was issuing from its mouth.

When Pangzi and I first saw that hateful, terrifying visage, the thought that sprang to mind was an evil spirit; we even forgot to wonder whether bullets would work, and we raised the 'Chicago Typewriter' that was already cocked and ready to fire.

Shirley Yang has double night vision; her eyesight is superb, so in darkness she often sees things more clearly than Pangzi and I. She suddenly said: 'It's a black‑scaled merperson… don't worry, they're all dead. This is actually the tomb's eternal lamp, the guiding‑light candle.'

I slowly lowered the muzzle I had raised; we had just been talking about how the underground palace's ever‑lasting lamp never goes out, yet we ran into it as soon as we entered. I couldn't help wondering: 'Do real mermaids exist? Or is that just an ancient name for the sea cow?' I stepped closer a few paces, wanting to see what the black‑scaled merperson looked like.

What I saw were two copper pillars set into the tomb wall, each pillar binding, from top to middle to bottom, six half‑human, half‑fish monster desiccated corpses. The merpeople's upper bodies resemble women, they also have two breasts, their necks are slender, and their gills run along the neck; but they have no human skin, their bodies are covered in sparse black large scales, except the belly which is scale‑free.

The corpses seemed to have undergone special treatment—dry, hard, and black—showing no decay in the yin palace. Chains on the bronze pillar pierced the six merfolk's pipa bones, locking them in a squatting kneel, reversed and aligned neatly from top to bottom. Their mouths were extraordinarily large, all gaping wide. I shone my wolf‑eye flashlight inside and saw that each merfolk's throat was plugged with a white, asbestos‑like substance, and a piece of tinder was stuck in their dry, hardened tongues, burning with a dim blue light.

Pangzi curiously poked the merfolk with the barrel of his MIAI gun; the corpses had already hardened: "Not quite like the mermaid I imagined, but the strange appearance is a plus—they're still dead stiff; looks like selling them to a zoo is out of the question; our capital's natural history museum really lacks such a specimen."

Seeing that the black‑scaled merfolk, though strange, was merely an ordinary longevity candle in this underground palace—a device used symbolically to show that although the tomb owner's flesh has perished, his soul still exists—I immediately let my hanging heart drop, took out a cigarette, lit it with the blue fire in the merfolk's mouth, blew a smoke ring onto Pangzi's face, and said to him: "Commander Wang's awareness this time is still relatively high; he didn't just think of himself but first considered the nation, this great collective. You carry it back and donate it to the natural history museum, filling a gap in this field—you might even manage to snag a commendation to hang up."

Shirley Yang said to me: "This isn't the first discovery; many people worldwide have found merfolk skeletons, and the Meiguo navy once even captured a live one. It's said that the oil of sea merfolk has a very low flash point, and just a drop can burn for months without dying; in ancient noble tombs it was common to use their fat as a myriad‑year lamp. However, using merfolk corpses directly as candles, I've never heard of that before—I think it relates to the Qin‑Han legend of the immortal mountains being in the sea."

I recalled that ancient Chinese burial regulations had detailed records of longevity candles; my heart suddenly sank, and I said to Shirley Yang: "You only know the first two, not the third. Legend says the eastern sea merfolk are extremely lewd, their mouths crave blood, and they all gather beneath an island formed by dead coral in the sea. The coral caves beneath that island are crisscrossed, unfathomably deep—that is the merfolk's lair. They emit sounds and colors in the nearby sea to attract passing ships and merchants; victims are eaten completely, leaving no bones. Someone caught a live black‑scaled merfolk, slaughtered and dried it, injected its oil, and made it into a longevity candle worth three thousand gold and pearls. I have heard these stories from my grandfather before; I used to think they were just tales, but now they seem true. Moreover, the sealed stable micro‑environment of this tomb chamber has been broken by us; the tinder catches fire upon contact with air, so these… ghost flames suddenly blazed up—I don't find it strange at all."

The strangest thing is that there are six longevity candles in total. According to burial regulations, the longevity candles in the underground palace exist only in the tomb chamber, unlike the myriad‑year lamps—one longevity candle corresponds to one important corpse in the tomb; of course, sacrificial victims are not counted. For example, in a husband‑and‑wife joint burial tomb, there are often two longevity candles placed before the coffin.

Pangzi counted on his fingers: "There are only three coffins in the tomb chamber; adding us three living people makes the number right—damn his ancestors! Could it be that they're counting us too?"

Shirley Yang shook her head: "No, I think the Prince shouldn't be in the three coffins right in the middle of the tomb chamber; although his coffin can't leave this tomb chamber, it must be hidden extremely deep. And these three older sets of coffins—their remains respectively represent the Prince's previous lives, plus the Prince himself, making four corpses. Lao Hu once said that the animal carvings on the Three‑Lives Bridge always come in male‑female pairs; this royal tomb is a joint burial, so that would mean at least five corpses here, but calculated this way, the number of corpses still doesn't match the number of longevity candles…"

Just as we were speaking, a gust of yin wind blew past; the three candles in the southeast corner of the tomb chamber went out simultaneously, and a piercing screech of claws scraping metal came from the bronze coffin behind us; in the silent, gloomy underground palace, such a sound can deeply strike the human cerebral cortex, producing an intense, overwhelming fear from within outward. We immediately turned around, and Pangzi said beside me: "I swear to Chairman Mao, this time it really wasn't me who did it."

I said to him: "The organization has always trusted you, but now is the time to test you! Go quickly and see what's inside that bronze coffin…… No, damn it, this is truly ghostly! Look at that end of the coffin—why are three big balls of ghost fire lined up in a row popping out again? Could there be nine corpses in here?"