Chapter 0891 – Tomb Chamber

Inside the quiet and dimly lit tomb tunnel, near the stone door, there were two white bones that emitted an eerie phosphorescence under the light, the clothes on their bodies had long since decayed, and it was unknown which era they were from.

Zhang Da Niu, who was walking in the front, arched his hand repeatedly at the white bones, his mouth still chanting, “Passing by, passing by, your old man is not to blame!”

Zhang Daniu’s behavior made the people behind him laugh, how dare he rob the tomb with this kind of guts? No wonder he didn’t even dare to open the coffin when he entered the tomb, and there wasn’t a single piece of gold or silverware in the objects he took out.

“Come on, turn on two more lights, it’s a bit dark.”

Professor Meng squatted down next to the two corpses and carefully inspected them, and since he had to work in the tomb all the time and didn’t know how long he would stay, the electric lights had to be used sparingly.

After Zhuang Rui and Dr. Ren turned on the strong light, the whole tomb passage became bright all of a sudden, and the light traveled through the damaged stone door into the chamber.

Professor Meng used the wooden stick in his hand to fiddle with the clothes on the two corpses that had been turned into fibers, and after observing them carefully for a while, he said, “These are two grave robbers, and judging by the looks of it, they should be from the middle of the Qing Dynasty, and died after being hit by a hidden weapon of a mechanism.”

“Organs?”

The Da Niu who walked in front was shocked and quickly said, “Meng …… Meng Elder, you can t scare me! Last time I came, I didn’t encounter any organs!”

In folklore, there are many legends, the ancient tomb is full of organs, what arrows across the stone, poisonous water traps, can not be defended against, superstitious a little bit is that there is a Yin soldiers inside the guards, taking people’s souls.

Da Niu heard that there are organs, immediately is two legs trembling, standing there a move do not dare to move, forgetting that he has already come here once.

“Hmph, you still have the life to talk here when you encounter an organ?”

Professor Meng snorted coldly, reached out and took the lamp in Da Niu’s hand, moved in a little bit towards the corpses and bones, and said, “Look at what’s inside these corpses and bones.”

“What is this blackness? Iron bumps?”

When Da Niu came here last time, he didn’t dare to look much at these two dead people at all, and only now did he realize that there were four or five rusty, triangular iron lumps stuck in the chest ribs of the dead people.

“Teacher, this is an arrow, right?”

Zhuang Rui came closer, going in and out of the Archaeological Institute of Beijing University every day, Zhuang Rui was already accustomed to dead people.

On the ground next to the two corpses, there were also quite a few of these arrowheads, Zhuang Rui roughly grouped them together, there were as many as forty to fifty of them.

Looking up at the gate, Zhuang Rui couldn’t help but feel a dark chill in his heart, if it came back this way, I’m afraid that so many of his people would have to be planted here.

Professor Meng nodded and said, “It’s the arrow, Xiao Zhuang, what else do you see?”

“The arrow shafts should have rotted, and these iron arrowheads are almost rusted out, eh?”

Zhuang Rui carefully surveyed the bones and suddenly became alarmed, pointing at the two bones and said, “Teacher, is it that the arrows are poisonous?”

Zhuang Rui said this because the bones of a normal dead person are usually white, and even after a long time, they are slightly yellowish, while the bones on these two dead people are a bit blackened, like a sign of poisoning.

“That’s right, there is poison on the arrows, I didn’t expect that after more than a thousand years apart, these toxins can still work, Ren, when you turn back and leave, take one of the ribs and have it tested to see what kind of poison it is?”

Professor Meng’s face was a bit grave, this is not an archaeological excavation with a big reveal, who knows what crisis will be inside this thousand year old tomb?

“You’ll all be careful in a while, don’t touch anything.”

Arrow organs had been installed just within the drainage tunnel, so if it was in the main chamber, there was no telling how many killing machines would be hidden? Prof. Meng had brought people here for archaeology, and didn’t want anyone to lose their lives due to carelessness.

Speaking of the Da Niu brothers are lucky, hundreds of years ago, there are two grave robbers to help them send a small life, otherwise the Da Niu two people, probably will die quietly here, do not know how many years, to be discovered.

Prof. Meng saw one of the staff accompanying him, poking and prodding with a wooden stick above the stone door, and hurriedly said, “Xiao Liu, don’t touch that, maybe the machine Juan hasn’t completely decayed, and will still shoot out arrows!”

Zhuang Rui sniffed and glanced towards the place, and found that in the soil above the stone door, there was a one meter square iron box that had rusted out of shape.

But what made Zhuang Rui marveled was that there were actually four or five arrows inside, and they were well preserved, even the feathers of the arrows were not decayed.

Of course, Zhuang Rui naturally wouldn’t tell what he saw, but after hearing Professor Meng’s words, he also kept an eye out, and in a moment, he would properly sense this entire tomb with his aura.

“Teacher, where did these two grave robbers come in from?”

Zhuang Rui suddenly remembered something, listening to the two Da Niu brothers, before they came in, the stone door was intact, so how did these two grave robbers from hundreds of years ago, enter this tomb?

After Professor Meng heard Zhuang Rui’s words, he pointed to a hole on his head that was only the size of his fist, and said, “Nuo, that’s the robber’s hole, and the dirt on the ground was dug down by them.”

“This is the Thief Hole?”

Following Professor Meng’s finger, Zhuang Rui realized that there was a very small hole above his head, at best a little bigger than a fist, about the same as the mouth of a bowl for eating at home.

Zhuang Rui’s face revealed an unbelievable look, he couldn’t believe his eyes, this motherfucker is practicing the bone shrinking skill also can’t climb in ah!

“Oh, Zhuang Rui, this is hundreds of years, the earth’s crust as long as there is a slight change, the structure of these soil distribution will naturally change, but also left a hole is good.”

Dr. Ren saw Zhuang Rui’s surprised look, spoke out to explain to him, general robber holes, not to mention hundreds of years, is after thirty to fifty years, originally can enter and exit the hole, will become very small.

“It seems that the entrance of this tomb passage is still in this mountain, Xiao Ren, wait for tomorrow, you bring two people and make some holes in the mountain to see if we can find it, let’s go and take a look at the tomb chamber first now!”

The discovery of the robber holes showed that the mountain was not all encased in rock, if tomb robbers could get in in ancient times, modern people must be able to do the same, so Prof. Meng’s face was a little anxious, if the main chamber was stolen, it would be a major loss for the national science and research community.

The group drilled through the stone door and entered into the chamber where the Zhang Daniu brothers had once come, the ground inside the chamber, which was covered with thick dust, was trodden with haphazard footprints, no need to ask, they must have been left behind by these two brothers.

The entire chamber is almost about twenty square meters in size, about three meters high, the top ceiling part is also very chic, not flat, but with a few by the angle of the wall and ceiling to the center of the roof part of the gradual incline of the diamond shape by the composition, above also carved with subtle lines.

The four walls were built of relief lapis lazuli, each stone beautifully carved, the reliefs much finer than those in the tunnel, and all related to each other, as if to set forth some story.

In the middle of the chamber, placed a two meters five or so long, one meter wide sarcophagus, in the surface of the sarcophagus is also carved with cloud reliefs, sarcophagus below is a huge lapis lazuli as a pedestal, the size of the sarcophagus just and sarcophagus match.

And in the two diagonal corners of the chamber, there are two square tall stone pillars, four sides are very smooth and flat, this should be to strengthen the load-bearing of the chamber, increase the ability to resist collapse used.

“Who did this …… this all?”

There were also some broken ceramic tiles left on the ground, and Professor Meng was instantly furious when he saw them.

Although these ceramic tiles were not of high value, they were also left behind more than two thousand years ago and were irreproducible cultural relics, so it could be said that there were fewer of them when they were broken one by one.

“This …… this is my brother accidentally touched and broke.”

Zhang Da Niu shrunk his neck, carefully replied, in fact, he did not tell the truth, these things are the second cow is too bulky to move out, a moment of boredom to take a hammer to play to break off.

There is a very large pottery jar, just because in front of the door is a bit in the way, was Erniu whole to knock off.

Professor Meng really couldn’t suppress the anger in his heart and pointed at Zhang Daniu and said, “Alright, get out, you get out now.”

The reason why archaeologists hate these half-assed grave robbers is because they have no concept of protecting cultural relics in their hearts, they just measure the value of cultural relics by whether they are worth money or not, and their harm is far greater than that of those professional grave robbers.

Tomb robber gangs like Boss Yu, if they can’t get something, they will never damage it, in a sense, they themselves are archaeologists, even more than some experts have more knowledge and experience.

While some tomb robbers in ancient times, they were even more particular, some of them went into the tombs and only picked up the three most valuable things to take, and would never take more than one, which was also the reason why many big tombs had been stolen a dozen or even dozens of times.

“Old master, I …… will roll, this will roll.”

Zhang Da Niu after hearing that those two dead bodies were shot to death by the organ, has been suspicious of some of the soul, Professor Meng this chased him out, just fit his mind, and immediately rolled and crawled from the stone door to drill out.

“Xiao Zhuang, you’re in charge of filming, Xiao Ren, check to see if there’s anything of value left behind.”

After scolding away Da Niu, Prof. Meng took a few deep breaths before calming his mood down, because the next job was to open the coffin, and there was no room for a single slip-up.

“Teacher, other than some pottery, there’s nothing left.”

After carefully searching through the chamber, Dr. Ren grouped all those broken pieces of ceramics left on the ground into a pile.

Although these things were broken, they could still be pieced together and repaired after they were brought out, and for archaeologists, repairing broken funerary objects, this was a basic skill that had to be mastered.