Chapter 156

I saw Pangzi use the "Corpse-Binding Rope" to hook the ancient corpse's neck, swing his arm "slap slap slap slap slap," and viciously slap the ancient corpse five loud ear slaps. I hurried to stop him, hearing him speak strangely, so I continued asking: "Are you stuffed from overeating, beating a dead person for what?" But then I thought: earlier Pangzi was hit by the "Tongue Curse," maybe it wasn't fully cleared, still leaving something. Thinking about it, the owner of that set of "shamanic robes" was also killed by the残害 of the Prince of Xiang. Could she have become a vengeful ghost, attached to Pangzi, just to sneak into the Yin Palace, learn what Wu Zixu did back then, whip the corpse to vent her hatred?

Thinking this, I immediately raised my hand to pull off Pangzi's gas mask, looked at his eyes—there was nothing particularly unusual—when Pangzi said: "The dampness here is suffocating, why did you pull off my gas mask?" Saying that, he snatched it back, put it on his face, and continued: "I say, Commander Hu, Chief of Staff Yang, don't you see it? You look at this..."

Pangzi pointed at the skull of the ancient corpse in the coffin, had just said half his sentence, when I saw the eyeless ancient corpse's head suddenly sway three times on the corpse body, shake three times, only hearing a "click," and it actually fell off, landing perfectly on the edge of the "Stone Essence Ghost Coffin." The stone essence was smooth as ice; after a brief pause, it immediately rolled onto the bottom of the outer coffin.

The three of us were startled. This ghost coffin made of stone essence was tightly sealed, and unlike ordinary coffins, the stone essence, though considered an ominous object, had a unique yin-cool property that could extremely well preserve the corpse's original appearance. When opening the coffin, we saw the ancient corpse's beard and eyebrows as if alive, muscles not atrophied or collapsed, most of the body's moisture also locked inside, with no signs of rot or desiccation. How could this person's head be so fragile? Pangzi's few ear slaps, though fierce, could never possibly actually knock off the head?

Pangzi also found it very strange, immediately picked up the fallen skull from the ground. I saw that the skull's skin was beginning to gradually turn black. This should be due to the damp air environment inside the "outer coffin," causing a rapid oxidation effect on the ancient corpse long placed in a sealed environment.

Pangzi said: "How could it be so fragile? Even if you pulled it down, it shouldn't come off, right?"

Shirley Yang took the ancient corpse's skull from Pangzi's hand: "Then let me take a look." She immediately asked Pangzi: "What were you just trying to say? We didn't catch what you meant."

Pangzi said to Shirley Yang: "Oh, that... I said, don't you see what I was just doing? According to that fortune-telling blind man, back when they were grave-robbing, when they encountered fresh corpses, they would use the corpse-binding rope to wrap them up, then viciously slap them several times. If they didn't do this, the corpse's burial goods and the mingqi in the coffin couldn't be retrieved. When he said this, we were eating together—you should have heard it too. I originally wanted to show you: this zongzi's head is no different from a living person's, so it should first be given a good slap. Who would have thought it would be like paper mache, falling off with a light touch?"

I nodded: "So you're talking about this matter—the fortune-telling blind man did say that, correct—but that was their method, done to bolster their courage and suppress the dead corpse. As for not slapping dead people's ears, the burial goods and mingqi being ruined—【garbled text】"

Pangzi wanted to argue, but then heard Shirley Yang holding the ancient corpse's skull say: "You guys stop arguing, hurry and look at this head..." Saying that, she placed the skull on the coffin lid for us to observe.

I walked over and took two looks. In this short time, the ancient corpse's skull had become even blacker than before, appearing extremely terrifying, especially the deeply sunken eyes, making it look like a pitch-black skull. Around the eye sockets were rings of spiral-shaped dark red bloodstains. Since the skull was continuously turning black and drying, I only glanced once, and those traces were already gone.

I haven't seen many corpses in ancient tomb coffins—at most, the golden figurines tomb at Fengkou, the jade coffin in the jungle entrance of Chonggu Valley, where there was a corpse soaked in blood. Seeing this ancient corpse's skull, aside from the eyes being gouged out, I saw nothing special. I asked Shirley Yang: "Examining ancient corpses, I'm not skilled. Do you think this could possibly be the Prince of Xiang's head?"

Shirley Yang said: "Whether it's the Prince of Xiang's head is still hard to confirm. You just saw—the eye sockets have traces of having undergone the Black Wan punishment. In ancient times, there was a torture device shaped like a wine cup, with rotating blade teeth inside. Placed on a person's eyes and turned, it could gouge out the eyeballs alive."

I and Pangzi nodded simultaneously. Two years ago in Beijing, we saw an ancient Tibetan folk exhibition that included a bowl for gouging out live human eyeballs. Though those artifacts were Tibetan, it turns out the inland also had similar torture devices in ancient times. But why would this ancient corpse have had both eyes gouged out while alive? And why would it be laid to rest in a "ghost coffin" heavy with yin气? Royal tombs would never bury non-royal members—so who exactly is this ancient corpse?

Additionally, I discovered that beneath this ancient corpse's skull, there were traces of being cut by a sharp weapon—but not like decapitation, rather cut off after death. It seems this wasn't Pangzi's heavy hand breaking the corpse's neck by slapping; the head was originally spliced onto the corpse. Why do this? Did the ancient Dian Kingdom have a custom of posthumously cutting off the head and reattaching it?

I suddenly thought of a possibility, though I can't yet confirm it—must first examine the corpse inside the "ghost coffin" to further confirm. So we gathered again around the coffin. I had Pangzi hold the flashlight for illumination, while Shirley Yang and I used paratrooper knives to cut open the layers of white silk wrapping the corpse. Han dynasty royalty had the custom of jade burial suits (also called jade coffins), using cool, moist jade for preservation. But this ancient corpse was tightly wrapped in white silk, yet the head was left exposed—this is utterly absurd.

Those white silks also began to be eroded by damp mold. The deeper inside, the harder to peel. In the stuffy gas mask, sweat even broke out on my nose tip. Fortunately, with Shirley Yang's help, we finally tore open all the layers of corpse-wrapping cloth completely.

While peeling those several layers of white silk, I already sensed something abnormal in the touch, but seeing the situation inside, the flashlight beam shone into the coffin, reflecting countless golden lights onto the smooth stone essence surface. The dazzling golden light hooked the soul, and my heart felt even more astonished: how could this be?

Inside the white silk wrapping the corpse, there was a golden glittering skeleton. Except for the spine and hip area, which still retained a few human bone fragments, the rest was entirely filled in with yellow gold, not a trace of flesh or skin. This half-bone, half-gold framework seemed due to the corpse's bones being too rotted—almost turned to soil and air—then artificially reassembled and reconstructed into a golden skeleton.

This glittering golden skeleton, contrasted with the skull Pangzi knocked off, formed a stark contrast: one body nearly rotted away, needing gold to fill the bones, yet that head showed not the slightest decay. If saying that opening the corpse wrapping caused rapid corpse dissolution, vanishing instantly into air—also utterly unreasonable.

Shirley Yang said to me: "Old Hu, look at the neck of this yellow-gold bone—there's a jade ring, used to connect the skull. Earlier, Pangzi's barrage of ear slaps knocked off the jade ring, causing the skull to fall."

Pangzi immediately said: "Chief of Staff Yang still understands reason. If it weren't for Commander Hu's grip being just right, we might not have so easily discovered this ancient corpse's secret. This entire golden skeleton—ordinary people couldn't bear it. I think this is that old thing, the Prince of Xiang."

Shirley Yang couldn't deny it, merely pointing at the golden glittering skeleton and saying: "The left side ribs are missing a few pieces, as if intentionally not filled in..."

Seeing this, I already had a clue, so I said to Shirley Yang: "This is quite obvious—it's preserving the state of the corpse having undergone the heart-extraction punishment in life. It seems the corpse in the ghost coffin is made by combining the occupants of three coffins in the tomb chamber into one body. We already thought earlier: three coffins from different eras, each holding a high-ranking person punished by extreme penalties. Though they were executed, they were still granted burial rites matching their former status. They are all considered the Prince of Xiang's past lives, indicating he underwent three hells, and this shadow bone is what he left in the netherworld before becoming immortal."

Since ancient times, "Confucius had benevolence, Laozi had the Dao." Daoism specially refines elixirs and cultivates Qi to seek proof of the Dao and become immortal, to escape the suffering of birth, aging, sickness, and death in the mortal world. But immortality is not easily obtained. If one wants to shed the mortal body and transform the bones, it's not as simple as peeling off layers of skin—must undergo several great tribulations. These tribulations cannot be forced. So some in Daoism find the skeletons of their past three lives, bury them in yin tombs as shadow bones, to indicate to heaven and earth that they have already undergone the three hells and are capable of shedding the mortal frame and transforming the bones. Thus, becoming immortal in this life becomes possible.

It seems the Prince of Xiang did just that. This "outer coffin" in the Yin Palace tomb chamber represents the netherworld, assembling the punished parts of three corpses into a complete substitute here. And those three残 corpses, since they are considered the Prince of Xiang's three past lives, are not different from him, and were also placed in the main tomb chamber.

Shirley Yang and I thought similarly. She said to me: "Perhaps each layer of this tomb chamber symbolizes different meanings—the middle layer represents the human world, the lower outer coffin represents the void of the netherworld, and there should still be another layer of tomb chamber above, representing the immortal mountain, where the Prince of Xiang's true skeleton lies."

I said to Shirley Yang and Pangzi: "What we just said are only hypotheses—we still need further verification. For a royal tomb seeking immortality through cultivation, few have seen it; everywhere seems full of mysteries. Better first to check if there's any other valuable information in the coffin. Now we've already examined the head and body. Stone essence can preserve corpses for a thousand years without decay, so the bone state should match the original appearance in their respective coffins. I think the head's such good preservation means it must come from that top-quality eight-inch board pit coffin. This middle section, where the bones are nearly rotted, had to be filled with gold—likely the残 bones from the stone coffin. And the cinnabar lacquer outside the stone coffin was probably added later."

Pangzi said: "This assembled substitute skeleton only has the legs left unexamined—maybe it's again some valuable cargo."

I think that's unlikely. The legs come from that huge bronze coffin. The first two hells were "gouging eyes" and "extracting heart," so the third hell must be the most terrifying "soul extraction." Thus, the occupant in that bronze coffin must be so fierce. As I peeled off the white silk wrapping the corpse's legs, I asked Shirley Yang and Pangzi: "Do you know what 'soul extraction' is?"

Shirley Yang said: "It seems during the Shang dynasty, there was a witchcraft punishment that could suck out a living person's soul, leaving the body as a walking corpse that neither lives nor dies. But exactly how it was done, there's no historical record—still a mystery. Is that mysterious witchcraft the 'soul extraction' punishment?"

While peeling off the corpse-wrapping silk, I briefly told Shirley Yang about an event not long ago: the "soul extraction" witchcraft disappeared by the Warring States period. Once, at the Panjiayuan antique market, suddenly several items appeared—a old farmer from Anyang, Henan, brought over a hundred strangely shaped bone tools to find a buyer. They looked somewhat like "bone needles," but thicker and longer, hollow inside, all stored in an ancient pottery jar covered in ancient characters.