Chapter 68: Candle Blown Out by the Ghost

In the dim burial chamber, fifteen damp stone steps slanted downward, as if they were the road of no return leading to the Yellow Springs and the Nine Nether Hells — or perhaps the broad avenue to wealth and glory...

Blocking the grave robbers' path was a tomb-guardian beast called "Fangxiangshi," meant to drive away the legendary monster "Wangxiang" that feasts on the dead. Who would have thought that after several centuries, instead of ghosts and monsters, it would be a band of grave robbers who showed up.

The others, having little experience and never having seen such a thing, all retreated in fear. Only Chang was unafraid. He walked up close, patted the two beast heads of the Fangxiangshi carved into distorted dragon faces, and stroked its four branching antlers. Regretfully, he said, "A pity it's stone. If it were bronze, we could haul it off and melt it down."

Chang could not figure out the tomb owner's exact status. Not only were there abundant sacrificial burials all around — people, chariots, and horses encircling the great tomb like stars cupping the moon — but the tomb also had steps of such a high specification and was guarded by an exceedingly rare tomb guardian. Looking at the stone beast's exquisite, lifelike carving, it was absolutely not something an ordinary noble could possess.

He simply shook his head, stopped pondering the question, and urged the five of them to work together, slowly shifting the tomb-guardian stone beast that pressed down on the entrance to the burial chamber's outer coffin room. Then, using iron spades to pry and smash, after struggling for a long while, they finally pushed open a crack in the stone outer coffin room...

Cold air poured into the outer coffin room, and a stale, putrid odor wafted out, choking the men and making them stumble backward repeatedly.

"Out of the way!" Chang shoved the other five aside, approached by himself, lay flat on the ground, and shone a torch inside!

"Hahaha, we're rich!"

Looking at the burial goods piled up in abundance inside the outer coffin room, Chang burst into loud laughter.

The others crowded over as well. Peering inside by the torchlight, the first thing that met their eyes in the outer coffin room was row upon row of neatly arranged, exquisite lacquerware. Further inside, though unclear, they could vaguely make out the outlines of a full set of bronze bells and ding-tripods and gui-vessels...

Fine lacquerware could be worth as much as gold or silver, and those bronze vessels could fetch a good price too — not as antiques, of course, but as bronze material.

"At least all these days of hard work weren't for nothing."

Overjoyed, the men left one person outside to watch the torches and weapons, while the rest continued pushing the outer coffin room open with force. Once it was pushed open enough for one person to enter, they suspended a torch inside. After repeating this several times until the torch no longer went out, Chang urged:

"Xing, get in there, quick!"

Xing was the name of that half-grown boy. Unlike the others, he had not draped himself in clothes dug out from the graves. At that moment, he stood to the side hugging his arms, shivering violently from the cold.

Hearing Chang force him down into the tomb again, Xing's face twisted into a mournful grimace. Unlike the others, he had been coerced into this trade. The grave robbers needed a skinny, small youth who could squeeze into burial chambers, so they had tricked him, an orphan whose parents were both dead, into coming from the Chu region...

Xing was terribly afraid of ghosts and monsters, and lately he had been having frequent nightmares, dreaming that the tomb owners whose burial goods he had carried away were lining up to demand his life. But he also knew that pleading was useless; if he refused, a beating and kicking awaited him.

The villains standing before him were far more terrifying than any vague, illusory ghosts. Xing could only steel himself and, trembling with fear, crouch down at the edge of the steps, grip the rope, and test with his feet, cautiously lowering himself into the outer coffin room...

"Crack." A crisp sound rang out. Xing looked down by the torchlight above his head and was instantly scared out of his wits!

Human bones! A skeleton dressed in a woman's long robe was leaning right beneath his feet! Xing had just stepped on and broken its hand!

"Ah!"

Xing screamed and jumped away, but as he turned his head, he unexpectedly saw even larger bones: this time, the jagged skeletons of four horses, lying quietly together, still hitched to a war chariot behind them. The wheels had rotted away, leaving only the bronze chariot body. There was also a human skeleton, wearing a set of Chu-style leather armor, sitting slumped in the chariot with its head tilted...

These people, chariots, and horses were all sacrificial burials for the tomb owner.

"Stop that screaming! Take the torch!"

Chang's furious voice sounded from above, and then another torch was lowered down. Xing had no choice but to carefully avoid the bones of the sacrificial victims, take the torch, and plant it in the ground.

By now, he could more or less see the full layout of the outer coffin room. It was very large, made of stone, with the coffin placed in the center, surrounded by a dense mass of burial goods.

Trembling, Xing knelt on the ground, bowed toward that pitch-black, eerily gloomy black coffin, and said that he too was forced and had no choice — that if he did not do this, the men above would beat him savagely, kill him, and abandon his body in the wilderness...

Only then did Xing carefully pick up those lacquerware pieces, beautifully dyed in alternating red and black, and hand them up to the men above.

After moving several lacquer boxes and lacquer wine vessels, Chang told him to go move the ding-tripods and gui-vessels.

By the light of the torch on the ground, Xing saw that on the north side of the outer coffin room, seven ding-tripods and six gui-vessels were indeed arranged neatly, their sizes decreasing one by one from left to right.

He had no idea, of course, that this was the ritual vessel specification for a "Fief-Lord" within Chu, equivalent to a feudal lord. The largest ding-tripods were half a person's height, far too heavy for him to move. He could only hoist the smallest ding-tripod onto his shoulder and barely manage to pass it up...

When he was panting for breath and tried to pass up the smallest gui-vessel, he held it up for a long time, but no one came to take it.

"Aiyo!"

From the ground above came a series of miserable cries!

It was the man watching the torches and weapons who cried out, followed by the heavy thud of a body hitting the ground, and then the sharp warning shouts of Chang and the others...

"Careful, defend yourselves!"

"Defend? What's happening?"

Xing knew nothing of what was going on below. Terrified, he slowly retreated, clutching the cold bronze gui-vessel, but accidentally stumbled and stamped out the torch planted in the ground...

In an instant, the outer coffin room plunged into darkness!

It was as if a mischievous ghost had puckered its lips and blown gently, extinguishing the only light...

Xing felt himself utterly engulfed by darkness, and his hair stood on end.

All around was pitch black. He looked down and saw that the eye sockets of the female sacrificial victim's skull seemed to flicker with a pale green light, staring at him, questioning why he dared disturb the dead!

"Help!" The bronze gui-vessel clattered to the ground. Xing pressed himself against the tomb wall and screamed at the top of his lungs, but no one paid him any attention.

At this very moment, the ground above the outer coffin room was in the thick of a heated fight. Torches flashed chaotically, and all kinds of sounds mingled together:

Spear tips clashed with sword blades, and the piercing wail of metal echoed through the tomb; the trigger of a crossbow mechanism was pulled, and with a whoosh, a bolt flew toward its target, only to strike a wooden shield with a dull thud; the twang of a bowstring followed, drawing a pained human cry. Even arrows struck the stones of the outer coffin room, sending up a spark.

A fierce battle was clearly raging on the ground above, but Xing believed that what had come were not men.

"The ghosts have come, the ghosts have come to punish us..."

Xing recalled all the ghost stories he had heard since childhood. He had heard a day-diviner say that ghosts had a most ferocious appearance — when sleeping, their bodies folded in half, and when walking, their legs pressed together, making them look like a one-legged monster hopping along. The village folk called them "Ci-ghosts."

Xing had heard people claim to have witnessed Ci-ghosts more than once. Now, those ghosts were here, right outside!

Xing was utterly terrified. He crouched down, wrapped his arms tightly around his head, closed his eyes, and in that pitch-dark outer coffin room, the child wailed loudly...

Weeping could not dispel the fear. The sounds of killing outside poured endlessly into his ears, and the bone-chilling wind howled through the cracks of the outer coffin room, producing an eerie, mournful wail...

After who knows how long, the sounds of fighting outside gradually ceased, replaced by the sound of human voices speaking.

Xing quickly opened his eyes in surprise and delight, walked to the exit of the outer coffin room, and stood on tiptoe to peer outside...

Without the slightest warning, a face suddenly appeared before him — whiskered cheeks, a red birthmark on the forehead, and the tip of the nose and the brow still smeared with fresh blood!

"A ghost!" Xing was so frightened he collapsed to the ground.

Unexpectedly, the person outside was also badly startled by him, leaping backward and cursing loudly, "Heifu, there really is a ghost in this tomb!"

"Nonsense, what ghost could there be."

Footsteps approached, and torchlight shone into the outer coffin room, exposing Xing's skinny frame for what it was.

"I thought so — so there's still one inside..."

A thick, brawny hand reached in — the left hand.

Immediately, a full-throated voice rang out overhead: "Young fellow, coming up or not?"

PS: What ghosts detest: they crouch sleeping, sit sprawled, walk linked, stand lopsided. When a ghost attacks a person without cause and will not stop, this is a piercing ghost. Make a bow of peach wood, arrows of male thorn, fletch them with chicken feathers — upon sight, shoot it, and it will cease. — *Yunmeng Shuihudi Qin Slips, Day Book, Interrogations*

(End of Chapter)