Chapter 481: The Meaning of Zhang Qiling's Name

After just a few lines, I knew what was going on. Because I saw two very key characters: "selected as."

This person was selected as "Zhang Qiling" at the age of nineteen. I was stunned, realizing that Zhang Qiling was not just a simple name, but a title.

However, this title had clearly become this person's name, just like Genghis Khan—who was originally called Temüjin.

"Holy crap!" Fatty said. "So this Zhang Qiling is some kind of official position!"

"'Qiling,' if you look at it alone, is indeed a word with other meanings. Qiling means removing the spirit tablet of the deceased and transporting the coffin for burial. The Zhang family is a tomb-robbing clan. This 'Zhang Qiling' might be a designation for some very important position," I said.

"If it's about transporting the coffin for burial, that wouldn't be a grave robber's job, but the work of a funeral procession. So the position of Zhang Qiling might be the person within the clan specifically in charge of encoffining the Zhang family's dead."

I nodded. This was a major discovery, and judging by the size of this tomb chamber, this Zhang Qiling was indeed a very important position. That's why it was so luxurious and massive.

We turned our attention to the inside of the coffin. The bones inside, having been exposed outside the coffin, had crumbled to powder in many parts. There were also some cotton-like things inside the coffin. Fatty pushed those aside, wanting to see the burial goods inside.

The burial goods were beneath the corpse. The cotton quilt under the corpse looked very neat, with only one corner disturbed. We pushed aside the broken bones of the corpse and lifted the rotted cotton quilt, revealing over a dozen burial goods neatly arranged there. There were various jade pendants, two leather items that were too decayed to identify, and others. In addition, we saw traces of three objects that had been placed there, but those things had already been taken away.

"This really is grave robbing," I said, picking up a string of beeswax bracelets. It was a string of old gold-wire beeswax, aged and already blackened. I could tell at a glance that it was from Tibet and priceless. "But why only take these few? This string of old beeswax alone is worth at least a top-of-the-line off-road vehicle!"

Fatty took it, looked it over, and directly put it on his own wrist: "They don't know quality!" He kissed it. "There, there, don't be sad! Those people don't know what's good. Big Fatty will take care of you."

"Can you be any more disgusting?" I said.

From the neatly arranged burial goods, I also picked out a string of agate necklace. The necklace had three agates separated by an old coral—also something from Tibet. It seemed that this Zhang Qiling had once had gift exchanges with people in Tibet—these were all quite precious gifts in those days.

Fatty accepted it as usual. I said, "This string of beads, judging by the number and quality of the agates, is also quite valuable. And see, these corals all have Tibetan inscriptions, suggesting this necklace likely has a history, so its actual value could be even higher! None of these were taken—what did they take?"

"I told you, not many people are as knowledgeable as us, brother. Or, the three things they took were worth far more than these, enough to live on for several lifetimes," Fatty said.

I looked at the impressions left on the cotton quilt by the three missing burial goods. Two of them, I could tell at a glance—they were rings.

They were two rings, one large and one small: the big one was as big as a plate, the small one like an ashtray. Fatty gestured: "Jade?"

I shook my head: "No idea. But jade rings, unless the quality is extremely good, are definitely not too valuable. That was especially true in the era when the ghost-shadow crew came in. Because the jade antique market is very deep, in that period jade prices might have been only ten-thousandth of what they are now. So, purely based on monetary value, I don't think it should be antique jade, but something very expensive in that era."

"Besides jade rings, what else is shaped like that?" Fatty said. "Could it be porcelain?"

I sighed, and had to look at the long strip-shaped impression. Fatty and I both stared at it, and then he suddenly said, "Tianzhen, doesn't this long mark look a bit familiar?" I stroked my chin, and it did seem kind of familiar, as he said. But I really couldn't figure out what it was. "What do you think it looks like?" After staring for a long time, I asked him.

He seemed to have a clue but couldn't grasp the details, going "Hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm..." for a long time. Suddenly he snapped his fingers. I looked up. He gestured and said, "Blade, blade, the Black Gold Ancient Sword!"

I also gestured, continuously trying to visualize that unlucky divine blade in my mind. Slowly, I started to break out in a cold sweat.

"It really is the Black Gold Ancient Sword—the length and width are very close," I said. "Holy crap! Was this thing mass-produced? Every Zhang family member had one?"

In my mind appeared a scene of a whole row of Poker-faces, each carrying a Black Gold Ancient Sword, marching out for drills—that was truly terrifying, but also quite imposing.

"There absolutely can't be that many Black Gold Ancient Swords. If ancient times had such forging techniques, China would have conquered the world long ago," Fatty said. "Little Brother's Black Gold Ancient Sword is an exquisitely crafted, perfectly forged blade. I've lifted it; it's hard to lift even with both hands. This kind of blade must have been made by the greatest swordsmiths of antiquity. Not to mention the difficulty of obtaining the materials, forging the edge perfectly and making it that heavy—it's definitely not traditional craftsmanship. It would take hundreds of attempts to succeed once. So there probably aren't more than three of these Black Gold Ancient Swords in existence." I steadied myself. Suddenly a possibility occurred to me, and I said to Fatty, "Suppose that the ghost-shadow crew at that time entered the Zhang Family Ancient Tower—we can almost rule out small-time grave robbers or other experts entering, because getting in here requires too much information. Without a large organization, it's basically impossible. So this tomb being robbed was likely done by someone from the ghost-shadow crew."

In other words, it was this group of people who took the two ring-shaped objects and this Black Gold Ancient Sword.

In the end, many of the ghost-shadow crew died inside because of the ancient tower's "fumigation" mechanism. But the items were definitely taken out.

So, was the Black Gold Ancient Sword that appeared in Third Uncle's shop (later sold to Poker-face) the same one stolen from here?

I had a strong intuition: yes, otherwise things wouldn't add up! Then why did the Black Gold Ancient Sword brought out of the ancient tower by the archaeological funeral procession end up in Third Uncle's hands? And why did the archaeological funeral procession that entered the ancient tower open this coffin, but only take the Black Gold Ancient Sword and those two mysterious rings? What were those two mysterious rings?

It seemed that many things had already been set in motion before I received Third Uncle's "chicken eye yellow sand" text message—I just didn't know about them. The game had already entered a white-hot phase.

"Look at this." While I was thinking, Fatty called me again. I walked over. He was squatting on the opened coffin lid, pointing to the family tree carved on the inside of the lid.

At the center of this family tree was the name of the tomb owner, carved as: Zhang Ruitong. The "Rui" generation? I thought. There was someone before named Zhang Ruishan.

The characters "Zhang Qiling" next to it were one size smaller. If you didn't look carefully, you'd think Zhang Ruitong and Zhang Qiling were a married couple.

This Zhang Ruitong had six children, two of whom also had descendants. Fatty pointed to one and said, "Look at this name."

I saw that among Zhang Ruitong's two grandsons, one was named: Zhang Qishan. Grand Master Zhang.

I scratched my head and chuckled with interest. Son of a bitch, we finally found solid evidence.