Volume 6Chapter 7: The Four-Eyed Goddess of the Ninth Heaven

The stone wall with the human head and bird body that Uncle San mentioned has appeared in the myths and legends of various ethnic groups. I believe it should be the same creature as the strange bird we saw in the palace of the gods on the top of the mountain.

I later found out that this kind of spirit was called a ba in ancient Egypt. It represents the immortal soul, which means that if you were in ancient Egypt, then their ghosts would be like this. In India, the god is called “Kalimkini,” and according to legend, it is a divine bird that lives on the snowy mountains and sings for the Buddha’s paradise.

In China, this bird is even more famous than the first two. It has a human head and a bird body, and it is the Chinese “Nine Heavens Mysterious Lady.” It seems that it is recorded in the Book of Songs or the Dragon Fish River Map or some other ancient book that it sent the Yellow Emperor a book of heavenly seals containing the mysterious art of the Nine Gates (Dragon Armor Divine Chapter).

There are many other legends, one of which says that the “Nine Heavens Immortal” is the Queen Mother of the West, but most of these legends are confusing, and these cannot be pursued. During the Six Dynasties period, Taoism even had a large number of records of the “Immortal” teaching the Huangdi’s bedroom techniques. I don’t know if this Immortal is the other Immortal, otherwise, being taught bedroom techniques by such a thing is never a pleasant thing.

So what was Uncle San thinking when he looked at the four eyes of the relief? His guess at the time was this: there were four indentations on the forehead of the relief, and it was obvious that four pebbles should have been embedded. Now there were only two, and it was obvious that two had been taken away. It was unlikely that people came to the tomb frequently, and the person who took the two away was most likely the uncle at the time.

These are all simple things that anyone can think of, so I won’t explain them here.

The important point is, why are the remaining two still in their original position?

The grave robbers are particular about not taking everything at once. Since the uncle was interested in the pebbles, why didn’t he take them all at the time, but leave two behind?

Uncle San thought again about his conclusion: the incident that made the uncle like that must have happened in this secret room.

But there was nothing strange about it, it was just a sealed space.

The only thing that was strange was that two of the four pebbles had been removed. There was no reason for Uncle to have left two of them deliberately. If he hadn’t left them deliberately, then could it be that the incident that happened to him that year had happened when he was taking the pebbles? After he had taken two of them, because of something that happened suddenly, he didn’t have time to take the rest?

When San Shu thought about this, his heart suddenly became clear, and the hypothesis of the pebbles and the whole incident were seamlessly linked together. He hurried over and looked carefully at the black, strange stone.

The pebble was deeply embedded in the relief, and the whole relief was like a whole. If you didn’t look closely, you couldn’t tell that it was two parts of the stone wall. The reason why Uncle San noticed it at once was because two of them had already been dug out. At the time when there were four of them, it would be impossible to discover them without paying close attention. It seems that Uncle San was not a simple person back then.

So, what would happen if these pebbles were prised out? After the stone wall, there was definitely no mechanism. Could the pebbles be poisonous? No, I just touched it.

Uncle San hesitated for a moment, but then an uncontrollable urge welled up in his heart. He decided to pry off another one to see what would happen.

Uncle San took out his machete, rubbed it twice on the side of the wall, and then approached it with trembling. He touched one of the stones with the tip of the machete. Then he inserted the machete into the gap on the side, and then pryed.

As soon as the pebble fell, Uncle San took a step back, looking around warily, afraid that some hidden mechanism would suddenly activate.

However, nothing happened. The pebble fell into his palm, cold and motionless. There was no sign of anything unusual, the relief was still a relief, and the wall was still a wall.

Uncle San waited for a while, then let out a sigh of relief when he was sure that everything was fine. He wondered to himself, “Did I make a mistake in my assumption? Or could it be that the incident at the time could only be triggered once, and no matter how many times you pry it now, it can’t be triggered?

He put away the pebble and went to pry another one. He followed the same steps, inserting the knife into the gap on one side. At this point, he calmed down a bit and used more strength. When he pryed, “pop,” the pebble moved and popped out.

Uncle San quickly went to catch it, but the pebble bounced too quickly and he couldn’t react in time. It fell to the ground with a “pop,” like a sand ball hitting the cement floor, and it shattered into powder. The black pebble was covered in a layer of bronze dust, which flew into the air.

Uncle San was startled, and his heart said, “This is bad.” He coughed and felt a spicy taste in his mouth. When he thought of the color of the blood-covered corpse outside, he subconsciously felt that the dust might be poisonous, so he quickly covered his mouth and nose with his clothes and backed away.

After taking a few steps back, he immediately went to look at the place where the pebble had fallen. He saw a red bug crawling out of the cracks in the ground, curled up in a ball and making a “squeaking” sound.

When San Shu saw the bug, his mind went blank and he involuntarily took a step back.

He recognized the bug at first glance. It was a corpse bug, and not just any kind. The red corpse beetle, as the old people in the family said, is extremely poisonous, a demon insect that kills on contact with blood.

But this red corpse beetle is said to only live in the bodies of ancient corpses, and it is almost impossible to capture it. How could it be wrapped in a pebble and then embedded here? The most outrageous thing is that the insect wrapped in the stone is still alive?

Uncle San found this very strange, but he immediately realized that he didn’t have time to think about it anymore. On the ground, the red bug circled a few times, gradually spreading out, and began to flutter its wings and crawl, as if it were going to fly.

Uncle San had never seen a red bug before, and he didn’t know if it was really that poisonous, but he knew that if it was, then in such a small space, the moment this bug flew, it would be announcing its own death sentence.

He took a few cautious steps back, raised his machete and tried to kill it before it could fly. But before he could press down, he suddenly heard a “cackling” sound coming from under the machete, and then a red shadow suddenly jumped out and flew onto Uncle San’s shoulder.

The rainbow light was too fast, and Uncle San didn’t have time to hide. He was so scared that he was sweating all over, and instinctively swung the knife back, slapping it on his shoulder. The centipede king was startled, and flew up again, stopping on the wall on the side.

At this time, the centipede king had completely come to his senses, flapped his wings, and kept making a “cuckoo cuckoo” sound similar to a frog’s call. A spicy stench kept coming out of him.

Uncle San thought to himself, “This is no good. This thing is even more difficult to deal with than the blood corpse. Staying here is certain death. Thirty-six stratagems, the best plan is to flee.

The secret passage did not allow for turning around, so he had to crawl backwards, rolling and crawling all the way to the entrance of the secret passage. Fortunately, when he looked back, the blood-colored insect did not follow him.

Uncle San calmed down and went to touch the bolt of the secret door, but his heart was a little panicked and his hands were shaking so badly that they were almost out of control.

After finally touching the bolt and pushing open the secret door, Uncle San had just breathed a sigh of relief when suddenly a red light flew out of the darkness of the secret passage at lightning speed, so fast that it was almost like teleportation, heading straight for Uncle San’s face.

Uncle San cried out “Oh no!” and it was too late to try to hide. At the last minute, he was quick-witted and quickly retracted his neck, then blew hard at the bug.

Uncle San had a lot of lung capacity from practicing while blowing the stove, and he had a lot of strength. In an instant, the corpse bug was blown in a different direction, rolled over, and hit the wall.

Uncle San took advantage of this opportunity, and with a single hand movement, he rolled out of the tunnel and slammed the trapdoor shut with his back hand.

The king of the centipedes came out almost at the same time, but this time it was too late, the trapdoor had already been covered. It slammed into the stone slab and fell back in, emitting a series of “gurgling” sounds.

Uncle San felt his scalp tingle and his whole body go limp. He collapsed on the edge of the coffin and only then did he realize that he was soaked in sweat and it took a long time for him to recover.

I knew the king of the centipedes was powerful and I was sweating all over. I hurriedly told him to make it short and not to be so vivid.

Afterwards, Uncle San realized that it was not a good place to stay for long and he had no more thoughts. He packed up his things, reversed the hole and climbed out of the tomb with the bones of several ancestors.

After returning to Changsha, Uncle San did not tell anyone about this, including Grandpa, but he became very interested in the Warring States silk book and began to study it in secret. However, Uncle San’s friends at the time were either local thugs or gangsters, and none of them were up to the task. He had spent more than half a year looking for results, but none were forthcoming. The black pebbles he brought out of the secret tunnel were also shown to many predecessors, but none could say what they were.

Uncle San gradually lost interest and became disheartened until he went to Xisha.

At that time, one of his friends died of illness, and an old ox-nose was hired to perform a ritual. At that time, ox-noses were part-time, and they could be Taoist priests when they put on their Taoist robes, but they could be anyone else when they took them off. After the ritual, a group of people drank, and Uncle San himself forgot what was going on. It seemed that he was drunk and bragging, so he took out the pebble to show off.

Unexpectedly, the ox-nose changed his expression as soon as he saw the object, sniffed it, and suddenly said that it was not a stone.

Uncle San did not take this person seriously, and asked him with a hint of ridicule, “If it’s not a stone, what is it?”

The ox-nose told him seriously, “It should be a pill.”

The ox-nosed man spoke with absolute certainty, and Uncle San didn’t think he was just talking nonsense. He thought he had met a master, so he pulled him aside to talk to him in private. However, this ox-nosed man was also a half-baked expert, and he only knew that this thing was a pill, but he didn’t know the origin or the details. The reason he knew it was a pill was because the Taoist temple where they lived was very old, and it was said to have been there since the time of the Five Barbarians. There were many antiques in the temple, and over the generations, he had pawned many of them, including many tools for refining pills. He had seen this stone-like pill before and smelled it, so he was sure of it.

Uncle San was disappointed, but he finally saw a ray of hope. Later, he found a few people who studied gold and stone and had them take a look. They also confirmed this statement. This thing is indeed a “dan.”

However, the study of pills is a metaphysical and very personal subject. Almost every alchemist has his own method of making pills. Without the help of ancient characters, it is impossible to tell what is on a pill. However, the old man told him that since it was found in an ancient tomb, it must be the elixir of immortality that the ancients believed in, because only this kind of pill would be used for burial. Uncle San was very confused when he heard this, because he knew that the pill contained a giant centipede. Pills are generally taken internally, and this thing is definitely fatal to eat, and it will die a miserable death.

Uncle San was at a loss for a long time, and after trying almost every channel, there was still no progress. Just as Uncle San was about to give up completely and throw the pill down the toilet to flush it away, an unexpected thing happened.