Chapter 26: Seven Stars: Purple Jade Box

Amethyst is purple crystal, commonly used for amulets and warding off evil; it was rarely used to make boxes. This box appeared to be carved from a single piece of amethyst, which was extremely rare. Amethyst is not easy to carve, so the box had no patterns on it, only a gold rim around the lid. Judging by where it was placed, it was probably used as a pillow for the corpse. Ordinary jade pillows were already very precious, and amethyst ones were priceless; even emperors of that time probably did not enjoy such treatment.

We carefully lifted the box out and placed it on the ground. The box had no lock. When we opened it, inside was a roll of yellow silk woven with gold threads. The fibers of this item were inlaid with gold threads, and it was very well preserved. When we unrolled it, we saw on the left side a line of characters writing "Earth Record of the Departed Lord Shang," and next to it were densely packed small characters.

Fatty was more interested in the jade shroud than in the silk manuscript. Seeing that he could not understand it, he muttered a few words and went over to study the jade shroud. Poker-face pulled the knife out of the tree, lay down beside the jade bed, and stared blankly at the corpse of Lu Shang King, his eyes becoming misty.

Third Uncle and I sat down beside him and carefully examined the text on the silk manuscript. With my level of skill, I could only understand some fragments, but connecting these fragments together gave a general idea. The things recorded in this Earth Record of the Departed Lord Shang were absolutely incredible. If I had not already experienced so many strange events, I truly would not have believed that such things could exist in the world.

Next to the line "Earth Record of the Departed Lord Shang," there was a line of small characters, a preface written by himself, only a few lines. After that came a record of all major events from his birth to his death. If it were all translated, it would probably take half a month. Fortunately,

I could understand two of the most important events.

The first event was how Lu Shang King obtained the Ghost Seal. The record in the silk manuscript was relatively brief, so I first roughly sorted it out and read it aloud.

At the age of twenty-five, he inherited his father's official position and plundered ancient tombs for the Lu state's army, extracting gold to supplement military funds. Once, he entered a tomb of unknown age. Lying in the coffin was actually a giant snake, motionless. Lu Shang King was very bold. He said to himself, "A giant snake lying in a coffin must be a demon." With one stroke of his knife, he beheaded the snake and forcefully ordered his men to cut it open. As a result, a purple-gold box was scooped out from the snake's belly.

When I saw this, I was stunned. Was the box I had placed in my bag exactly the one scooped out from the snake's belly? Seeing that I had stopped speaking, Third Uncle said impatiently, "Don't stop, continue!" I could not think too much, so I pulled myself together and continued reading.

Lu Shang King did not pay much attention to the box; he only thought it had been swallowed by the snake. Later, when he went to sleep at night, he dreamed of an old man with a white beard who asked him, "Why do you want to kill me?"

Lu Shang King was usually very violent and had killed many people, often forgetting after killing. He did not know who this old man was, so he said, "I kill whenever I want!"

The old man suddenly turned into a giant snake and bit him. But who would have thought that Lu Shang King was so fierce? In the dream, he slashed the snake again, injuring it, then stepped on it and was about to cut off its head. The snake suddenly began to beg for mercy, saying that its physical body had already been killed by him, and if its soul was also killed by him, it would never be reborn. If he spared it, it would pass two treasures to him, which could elevate him to the highest rank. At that time, military officers who robbed tombs, although directly under the emperor's command, held low status. Lu Shang King had a very high opinion of himself, and this condition was very attractive to him. So he agreed.

The snake then told him how to open the purple-gold box in its belly and taught him the method of using the treasures inside. After hearing this, Lu Shang King "deeply grasped the marvels within" and felt that this matter should only be known to Heaven and must not be passed on to the world. He immediately cut off the snake's head.

When I saw this, I couldn't help clicking my tongue. This Lu Shang King was too ruthless.

Fatty came over at this moment and asked, "One of those treasures is definitely the Ghost Seal. What is the other? It was never mentioned in ancient texts. Could it be this jade shroud?"

I motioned for him not to rush and continued reading. After Lu Shang King woke up, he tried the method from his dream and indeed opened the box. But he never wrote what the treasure inside was; he only said that after using it, it was "quite handy." He felt that this matter must not be known to others, so he slaughtered the attendants he had brought, along with their families, one by one, not even sparing a one-month-old infant.

When I read this, I gasped again. I said to myself that Lu Shang King must have had some psychological issues; how else could he be so cruel? Fatty said, "How could he kill so many people by himself? He must have used that treasure. I'm really dying of curiosity. Hurry up and see if there's anything written about what it is?"

I cursed, "Why the hell are you so talkative? Go and deal with your jade shroud!"

He grinned, "Alright, alright, I won't interrupt. Just read faster, you bastard! I'm itching all over!"

I ignored him and continued reading.

In the following decades, relying on those two treasures, he was invincible. Whether in war or in court politics, he was victorious and enjoyed a period of glory. But in his later years, due to prolonged exposure to corpse energy, his body developed many stubborn illnesses, causing great inconvenience. As a result, the emperor, thinking him too old, stripped him of his military command and ordered him only to dig tombs and not to handle military affairs. This was effectively a demotion.

As his body deteriorated day by day, he began to fear death. One day, he dreamed of the giant snake from decades ago. The giant snake told him that his death was imminent, and they were all waiting for him in the netherworld. He looked and saw that almost all were people he had unjustly killed! Waking up, he remembered the content of the dream and became very frightened. He went to his military advisor for advice.

His military advisor was a man named Tie Miansheng, who was proficient in the arts of fate and feng shui. After a brief thought, he said to Lu Shang King, "In ancient times, there was a jade shroud. Wearing it could make one rejuvenate and achieve immortality. Unfortunately, it has long since disappeared. To find it, one must search in ancient tombs." By that time, Lu Shang King was at the end of his rope. Whether Tie Miansheng's words were true or not, they gave him a glimmer of hope, and tomb robbing was his specialty. So he stayed up all night studying ancient texts. At that time, there was still a wealth of literature and many things had not been lost. Finally, he discovered in a bamboo slip the location of a large tomb that might contain a jade shroud.

Then, employing over three thousand men and spending half a year, he excavated a mountain and found a massive Western Zhou imperial tomb in the estimated area. At that time, the national strength of various states was modest, so the scale of this imperial tomb was already considered breathtaking. It was built by opening up a mountain and using natural caves. The tomb passages inside were extremely complex, based on the principles of the Book of Changes. If Lu Shang King had not been proficient in the esoteric arts of Qi Men Dun Jia, he would not have been able to enter. The most peculiar thing was that in

After examining it, Tie Miansheng said decisively, "This is a jade burial suit. This young male corpse seems neither dead nor alive—every so often, his dead skin peels off, revealing new skin underneath. He estimated that this young man must have been a withered old man when he died."

This Tie Miansheng was extremely capable, actually knowing how to subdue a blood corpse. Using a special method, he removed the male corpse from the funerary figurine and sealed it in a stone coffin in the secondary chamber. Following the entire plan laid out by Tie Miansheng, King Lu Shang took a fake death pill and feigned death before the emperor. The emperor believed he could truly move freely between the realms of the living and the dead and was terrified. To appease him, the emperor granted him a burial treatment surpassing that of ordinary vassal kings. His trusted men, using the pretext of excavating a tomb, secretly built a fan-shaped ancient tomb atop this Western Zhou imperial mausoleum. Because he was well-versed in all kinds of tomb-robbing techniques, he laid out numerous decoys, leaving seven false coffins, while hiding himself inside the thousand-year-old tree within the Western Zhou tomb.

Before he himself entered the coffin, he killed all the people involved in the project and pushed them into the river. Then he poisoned all his attendants, leaving only one loyal male and one loyal female follower to encoffin him. After completing everything, those two also took poison and died. I suspect that most of the ancient corpses in that corpse cave accumulated precisely at this time.

At this point, I had a question and said to Third Uncle, "What eventually happened to that Tie Miansheng? It seems like it's not mentioned here. Did he also die in the burial?"

Third Uncle shook his head and said, "A man as clever as that would have long anticipated that King Lu Shang would kill him to silence him. He wouldn't have been foolishly loyal enough to be buried with him."

Poker-face said calmly, "Of course he wouldn't, because in the end, the one lying in the jade burial suit was no longer King Lu Shang, but himself."