Chapter 155

Main Text Chapter 157 Stone Essence

I knew the situation was bad; I had originally planned to first set up equipment to suppress the zombies, then open this bronze coffin, but nobody expected there to be a linked set in this tomb chamber, with a wooden coffin hidden below; the force of the bronze coffin falling was too great, causing the chains and heavy lock to loosen, and that mysterious bronze mirror also fell down. If the ancient corpse inside were to crawl out first, for us the situation would take a sudden turn for the worse, which would be very disadvantageous.

At this moment my blood surged upward, I had no time to think further, I grabbed that bronze mirror and shouted to Pangzi and Shirley Yang: 'Quickly find the adhesive tape!' As I spoke, I leapt into the wooden coffin below (a tomb chamber built of wood is called a wooden coffin, not the 'coffin' of the ordinary coffin).

As soon as I landed I almost twisted my ankle; those long rectangular timbers were completely rotten, stepping on them sank a piece, with a puffing sound black water welled up. The cold firework was still burning; in its light, inside the bronze coffin's seam I saw a layer of cold wooden coffin planks, the lid of those planks had been broken into two large holes, from which protruded several rings of long fingernails, those nails were pallid and extremely sharp; being too long, the nails had curled upward, the sound we heard in the tomb chamber, eighty percent likely came from those nails scraping the bronze coffin lid.

I didn't have time to worry about my sore wrist, nor did I intend to closely examine the nails' shape; I immediately snatched up the bronze mirror in my hand, pressed it into the recess at the back of the bronze coffin, my body jumped onto the lid of the bronze coffin, with who knows where this great strength came from, I pressed down with both hands and feet, actually forcing the overturned lid back onto place.

Shirley Yang immediately followed, jumping into the wooden coffin and handing me a roll of adhesive tape; she was a step behind, hadn't seen what was inside the coffin, so she asked me: 'What's inside?'

While I was applying the adhesive tape layer by layer to secure the bronze mirror, I told her: 'What else could it be? Nothing but a walking corpse; I don't know why this bronze mirror can suppress it, but as soon as it's removed, its fingernails will grow wildly fast.' Pangzi also jumped down, hearing my words, he immediately said: 'I knew this mirror was a good thing; when we retreat, I'll figure out how to take it, determined not to leave a single blade of grass or tree for the enemy.'

Seeing the bronze coffin had been resealed, I thought there would be no serious trouble for now; I looked up at the upper tomb chamber, which was entirely made of black rotted wood wooden coffins, less than three meters high, with severe water seepage and a suffocating dampness. Originally I wanted Pangzi to stay above to provide support, but looking down from here, if anything goes wrong, climbing up directly is no problem. Moreover, opening the coffin below, having the three of us together would at least provide some mutual watch, so I told Pangzi and Shirley Yang: 'There is a coffin in the corner of the wooden coffin; I don't know if it's meant to hold the Xian King's remains; this tomb is full of mysteries, when we lift the coffin to seek wealth, we must be careful.'

Having said that, the three of us came to the coffin emitting fluorescence in the darkness; in the dark, damp wooden coffin the space was cramped, for ease of movement we all turned on the tactical searchlights on our mountaineering helmets; only then did we see the coffin pressed down by several fallen square timbers, what I worried most about was that these rotten timbers might collapse at any moment and bury us alive down there, so we set to work among the collapsed timbers, picking out two or three that were still fairly sturdy, propping them beside the gap where the bronze coffin had smashed through, to bear the weight.

While I was working, I thought: these square timbers are also called 'wooden struts'. Originally they were layered and stacked, built into a dovetail structure, appearing very tight; I don't know why they have rotted to this extent, so that even the supposed yellowish 'wooden struts' have turned black and decayed. By rights the 'Xian King's Tomb' should be a divine cavern with round, moist, non-leaking vital energy; how could such a cavern be eroded into this state, and moreover have corpse energy rushing upward, to the point that the omen of a 'black pig crossing the heavenly river' actually appears as a dark star portent; leaving those aside, just the ancient corpse in the bronze coffin showing signs of corpse transformation is already unreasonable, suggesting that deep within this thousand-year-old tomb there must be something terrifying hidden.

As we quickly cleared away, the ancient coffin covered by the rotted wooden struts gradually emerged; I wiped off the debris and muddy water from the decayed wood with my hand, the blue fluorescence on the ancient coffin became more evident, the whole coffin body was smooth as a mirror, like a piece of dark blue profound ice from the deep icy sea, shining with captivating luster; Pangzi exclaimed repeatedly: 'Damn his ancestors***, how come each coffin is more valuable than the last… this… what is this made of? Jade? Crystal? Ice?' Having said that, he kept stroking it, unable to put it down.

I shook my head and said: 'I don't know; when I was an engineer, I dug up stone for many years, and during visits to the geological survey team I saw countless mineral slices, yet I had never seen this kind of stone material; it seems not to be ice, besides being very smooth, it is not cold.'

Shirley Yang, attracted by this strange ancient coffin, had been observing it closely; only now did she speak: 'It is blue stone essence rock, or a variant of crystal, formed only in subterranean stacked rock caves.'

Stone essence is recorded in ancient texts as a stone found only in valleys near the underworld; legend says that in hell there is a stone mill made of stone essence, and anyone who has committed enormous evil, upon falling into the netherworld, will inevitably be ground by that mill; underground there is a black dog that waits to stick out its tongue to lick the minced meat produced, while the remaining scraps of flesh turn into flies and mosquitoes, which are swatted by people in the world, never to be reborn.

Of course that is superstitious folklore, but one thing can be certain: the deep blue 'stone essence', although dazzling and soul‑capturing, is not very auspicious, unsuitable as a coffin, let alone for holding the remains of nobles.

It seems this is definitely a 'ghost coffin' from the netherworld; what is its purpose? Why is it hidden in this gloomy, damp wooden coffin beneath the tomb chamber? The unsealed, unplanted wooden coffin was common before and after the Western Zhou, but by the Qin‑Han period hardly anyone used it; we have already found ten 'longevity candles' in the tomb chamber; could the corpse in this ghost coffin before us correspond to one of those ten bodies? There are simply too many questions, with no clue at all.

Shirley Yang glanced at the bronze coffin behind her and said: 'Coffins in royal tombs are extremely rare, puzzling beyond comprehension; the more so, the more it feels like walking on thin ice over an abyss; we must find a breakthrough point to fully reveal the secret buried in the Xian King's Tomb.'

I told Shirley Yang and Pangzi: 'Better to maim all ten fingers than to cut off just one; therefore we will adopt the method of breaking them individually—see coffin, lift coffin; see wealth, gain wealth. Let's get to work now, string up the trip rope, first see whether this ghost coffin actually contains the Xian King.'

Pangzi immediately rolled up his sleeves: 'I'm an old hand at coffin‑lifting for wealth; I even practice it in my sleep. I'm not afraid of a thousand techniques, just afraid of one being mastered—you two go set up the trip rope; the job of opening the coffin, I, Grandpa Pang, will take care of it all myself.'

I patted Pangzi on the shoulder: "Nice work, Commander Wang—amidst the surging sea true heroism shows, but remember, holding a red heart you must make two‑handed preparations; while feeling out the mingqi also guard against corpse transformation, both hands must grasp, both hands must be firm. Additionally, ancient coffins contain corpse qi; check your gas mask beforehand, and don't forget to wear gloves like last time in the northeast…" After I finished telling Pangzi, we split up and got to work, taking out three red cords soaked in cinnabar. Shirley Yang, who has always been curious about zombies, asked me: "Lao Hu, why do zombies fear red cinnabar?"

I said to Shirley Yang: "This kind of thing you'd have to ask that fortune‑telling blind man; I'm not really sure, but I think cinnabar is useless. The principle is simply: use a rope to block the coffin opening; the corpse inside is stiff and can't bend, its arms and legs can't lift, so it can't get out. Before I only encountered corpses sealed with talismans; I don't know how they compare to zombies in strength, but it looks like we'll definitely have to face a zombie today, because later we still have to open that set of bronze coffins. As for whether there's a zombie in this ghost coffin right now, that's hard to say. In any case, we'll be prepared—let's block it ahead of time."

As we spoke, I had already prepared the "tripping rope"; Shirley Yang, according to the positions of the two coffins inside the "wooden outer coffin", lit two candles in the corner. I signaled Pangzi with my hand, and he immediately used the sharp "spirit‑probe claw" to scrape off the vermilion lacquer sealing the interface of the "ghost coffin". The ghost coffin's material is a rare, special stone, bluish‑green in color; if classified, it could be grouped with jade coffins as a stone coffin. This stone coffin has no nails, being sealed entirely by stone mortise‑and‑tenon joints. The "spirit‑probe claw" of the grave‑robbing officers is like a multifunctional Swiss army knife, one end of which is specially designed to pull out the tenons.

The ghost coffin has seven mortise‑and‑tenon joints—one on top, three on each side, none on the bottom. Pangzi worked away happily, one after another, and in a moment he had pried the lid open. Beneath the lid lay a layer of fish‑glue adhesive, long hardened; only the fine needle of the "spirit‑probe claw" could be inserted a little to grind it open.

Finally all I heard was Pangzi shout, "Done." Shirley Yang and I waited on the side; seeing it was about right, we immediately placed the three cinnabar‑soaked tripping ropes across the coffin. When the lid opened, the visibility inside the "wooden outer coffin" did not diminish, indicating there was no corpse qi in the coffin. I thought to myself, how strange—perhaps there are no bones inside, or the ghost coffin's structure is not tight, allowing the foul vapors from the corpse's release to escape through the seams. I hurried to look inside the ghost coffin.

Upon looking, I relaxed—inside indeed lay the coffin's occupant, a male corpse lying flat, wrapped in white silk from the neck down, only the head visible. The body was relatively well preserved; even the facial muscles had not collapsed or wasted, so lifelike it could be called vivid. Yet his deathly appearance was truly horrifying: both eye sockets were sunken, forming two holes black with red, the eyeballs having been removed. Because the eyes were missing from the features, he looked extremely frightening.

I was about to take a closer look when Pangzi already used the "corpse‑binding rope", looped it around the corpse's head, pulled it up out of the coffin, raised his hand and swung left and right, delivering seven or eight heavy slaps to the dead body.

Shirley Yang and I stared, dumbfounded, thinking what screw had Pangzi loose—had he been possessed? We hurried to stop him and ask what he was trying to do.

Pangzi's face was covered by his gas mask; I couldn't see his expression, only hearing him bewilderedly retort: "Don't you guys see it yet?"