Volume 1 Chapter 26 The purple jade box
Purple jade is a type of amethyst, and is generally used to make talismans and amulets. This box looks like it was carved from a single piece of purple jade, which is very rare. Purple jade is not easy to carve, so there are no patterns on the box, except for a gold border around the lid. Judging from its position, it seems to have been used as a pillow for the corpse. Generally Jade pillows are already very precious, and purple jade is even more valuable. I’m afraid even the emperor at the time didn’t have this kind of treatment.
We carefully took out the box and put it on the ground. The box was not locked, so we opened it and saw that inside was a scroll of gold-embroidered silk. The fibers of this thing were inlaid with gold thread, and it was very well preserved. When we unfolded it, the first line from the left read “The Book of the Land of the Dead King,” and then there were dense small characters on the side.
The fat guy Compared to the silk book, he was more interested in the jade figurine. He couldn’t read it, so he muttered a few words and went to study the jade figurine. He took out the knife from the tree and lay down on the jade bed. He stared at the corpse of King Lu Shang, his eyes blurred.
My sitting next to him, carefully read the text on the silk book. At my level, I could only understand some fragments, but by connecting these fragments, I could see a general picture. The things recorded in this book of the King of the Dead are simply unbelievable. If it weren’t for the many strange things I’ve already experienced, I really wouldn’t believe that there are such things in the world.
On the side of the The book of the land of the dead, there is a line of small characters on the side of the line of characters, it is his own preface, only a few lines of words, and then all the major events from his birth to death, if all translated, I’m afraid it will take ten days or two months to get it done, fortunately, I can understand the two most important things.
The first thing is the story of the king of Lu Shang getting the ghost seal, which is written in the book of silk in a relatively brief manner.
He inherited his father’s position inherited his father’s position at the age of 25, and he used his position to rob tombs for the army of the state of Lu, and to pay the soldiers with gold. One time, he entered a tomb of unknown age, and in the coffin was a giant snake, lying there motionless. was very brave. He thought to himself that a giant snake lying in a coffin must be a demon, so he chopped the snake in half with a single blow and forcibly ordered that the snake be disemboweled. As a result, a purple and gold box was cut out of the snake’s belly.
I looked I couldn’t help but be stunned. Could it be that the box I put in my bag was the one that was cut out of the snake’s belly? Uncle San looked at me and said impatiently, “Don’t stop, keep going!” I had no choice but to think about it, so I had to come back to my senses and continue reading.
King Lu Shang didn’t care about the box either, thinking that it had been swallowed by the snake. Later, when he was sleeping at night, he dreamed of a white-bearded old man asking him, “Why do you want to kill me?”
King Lu Shang King Lu Shang was very violent and had killed many people. He forgot about the killings and did not know who the old man was. He said, “Kill me if you want to!”
Suddenly, the old suddenly turned into a giant snake and bit him. Who knew that the king was so fierce that he cut the snake in his dream with a knife, then stepped on it and was about to cut off its head. The snake suddenly opened its mouth and begged for mercy, saying that its body had already been killed by him, and if its soul was killed again, it would never be reborn. If he let it go, he would pass on two treasures to him. make him a very important official. At that time, the officer who was in charge of tomb raiding was directly under the emperor’s management, but his status was very low. The king of Lu Shang regarded himself as very high, and this condition was very attractive to him. He agreed.
The snake told him how to open the purple box in its stomach, and also taught him how to use the treasures inside. After listening to this, King Lu Shang was “deeply impressed by the wonder of it all,” and felt that this matter should only be known to heaven and not spread to the world.
I couldn’t help but clap my tongue at this point. This King Lu Shang was too ruthless.
The fat man came over at this time and asked, “That treasure must be the Ghost Seal, but what is the other one? The ancient books never mentioned it. Could it be this jade figurine?
I signaled him not to rush and continued reading.
After the king woke up, he tried the method in his dream and opened the box. But he never wrote what was inside the box. He just said that it was “quite handy” after he used it. He felt that this matter could not be known to others, so he killed all the servants he took with him, along with their families, even the children who had just turned one month old.
I looked I took a deep breath and thought to myself that this King Lu Shang must have some psychological problems, otherwise how could he be so cruel?
The fat guy said, “How could he have killed so many people by himself? He must have used the treasure. I’m so anxious. Look down and see if it says what it is.”
I scolded, “Why are you so full of crap? Go clean up your jade figurine!”
He He grinned, “Okay, I won’t interrupt you. Just read faster, I’m itching to hear what you have to say!”
I ignored him and continued reading.
In the next In the following decades, he relied on those two treasures to win every battle, whether in war or in politics, and he was very successful for a time. However, in his later years, because of his many years of exposure to corpse gas, his body developed many chronic illnesses, which was very inconvenient. As a result, the emperor thought he was too old and took away his military power, so that he only needed to dig graves and did not need to deal with military affairs. This was actually a demotion.
As As his health deteriorated, he began to fear death. One day, he dreamed of the giant snake from decades ago, which told him that his time had come and that they were all waiting for him in the underworld. When he woke up, he was very scared and went to his military advisor for advice.
His military advisor was a man with an iron face who was well versed in the art of geomancy. After a brief thought, he said to King Lu Shang, “In ancient times, there was a kind of jade figurine that, when worn, could make a person young again and live forever. Unfortunately, it had already become extinct. To find it, you can only go to an ancient tomb. King Lu Shang was already at the end of his road at that time. Whether or not the words of this iron-faced man were true, they gave him a glimmer of hope. Moreover, digging tombs was his forte. So he spent the night studying ancient books. At that time, the literature was still relatively abundant, and many things had not been lost. Finally, he found a large tomb with a possible jade figurine in a brief book.
Then, he mobilized more than 3,000 people and spent six months excavating the mountain. He found a huge Western Zhou imperial tomb in the area he estimated. At that time, the power of each country was not very good, so the scale of this imperial tomb was already amazing at the time. It was mountain and built it using natural caves. The tomb passage inside was extremely complex, using the principles of the Zhouyi Bagua. If it weren’t for King Lu Shang’s mastery of the Qimen Dunjia, there would be no way to get in. The most peculiar thing was that in the cave that served as the main tomb, there was also a giant tree that he called the nine-headed snake nan, and a nearly skinless young male corpse wearing a black jade robe of gold thread sitting on a jade bed under the giant tree.
After seeing this, Mr. Tie Mian After seeing it, Mr. Tie Mian said decisively, “This is a jade figurine. This young male corpse is neither dead nor alive. Every once in a while, the dead skin on his body will fall off and new skin will grow from within. He estimated that this young man must have been an old and decrepit man when he died.
This Mr. Iron Mask was very capable, and he even knew how to restrain the blood corpse. He used a special method to remove the male corpse from the clay figure and seal it in the sarcophagus in the secondary burial chamber. King Lu Shang followed all of Mr. Iron Mask’s plans and took a fake death pill to feign death in front of the emperor. The emperor thought that he could really come and go freely between the two realms of Yin and Yang, and was very scared. To appease him, the emperor gave him a burial treatment that was higher than that of the average prince. His trusted men secretly built a fan-shaped ancient tomb on top of this Western Zhou tomb, using the excuse of digging the tomb. Because he was familiar with all kinds of tomb-robbery techniques, he set up a suspicious array everywhere, leaving seven fake coffins and hiding himself in the ancient tree of the Western Zhou tomb.
Before before he himself entered the coffin, he killed all the people involved in the project, pushed them into the river, and then poisoned all his entourage, leaving only two loyal confidants, a man and a woman, to bury him. I estimate that most of the ancient corpses in the corpse cave should have accumulated at this time.
At this At this time, I had a question and said to my uncle, “What was the final outcome of Mr. Iron Mask? It doesn’t seem to be mentioned here. Did he also die in the funeral?”
My uncle shook his head and said, “This kind of person is very smart. He should have long since expected that King Lu Shang would kill him to silence him. He should not have been foolishly loyal to him and buried with him.”
Muyoubing said indifferently, “Of course he wouldn’t, because in the end, it wasn’t King Lu Shang who was lying in the jade figurine, but him.”