Volume 1Chapter 10: The Shadow

At first I thought he was trying to scare me, but looking at his expression and his personality, he didn’t seem like that kind of person. The oil-filled bottle kept making a “gurgling” sound, but I didn’t see him move his mouth. The four of us looked at him, and I thought, “This can’t be right. Could it be that the oil-filled bottle is actually a zongzi?”

Uncle San saw his expression so terrifying, he pulled the Pan Zi out. Suddenly, the Mian You Ping was silent. The tomb room was so quiet that there was not a sound. I was a little impatient, and just wanted to ask him what was going on, when the coffin board suddenly flipped up and began to shake violently. Then a chilling sound came from the stone coffin, very similar to the description in my grandfather’s notes. It really sounded like a frog calling.

Da Kui Upon seeing this, he was so scared that he sat down on the ground. I also felt my legs go weak and almost sat down. My third uncle had seen the world after all, and although his legs started shaking, he didn’t fall.

After hearing the sound, the mummy bottle had a very ugly look on his face, and suddenly he fell to his knees and bowed his head heavily towards the coffin. As soon as we saw this, we immediately followed suit and all knelt down and bowed our heads. The mummy Oil bottle raised his head and made a series of strange sounds, as if he was chanting a spell. Uncle San was sweating and said softly, “Is he talking to it?”

The stone coffin finally stabilized and stopped shaking. The oil bottle bowed again and then stood up and said to us, “We must leave here before dawn.”

Uncle San wiped his sweat and asked, “Young man, were you just bargaining with this Zongzi grandfather?”

The oil The bottle made a gesture of not asking: “Don’t touch anything here anymore. The master in this coffin is very powerful. If you let him out, even the great gods can’t get out.”

Pan Zi still didn’t know what was good or bad, and asked with a smile, “I said, little brother, what kind of foreign language did you just speak?”

The bottle didn’t pay any attention to him, pointed to the passage behind the coffin, and said, “Go gently, and don’t touch the coffin!” Uncle San calmed down. To be honest, with such a person on the side, we were much more courageous. So we packed up our equipment, with Uncle San leading the way and Mian Youping bringing up the rear. We turned on our miner’s lamps and headed straight down into the tunnel behind the coffin. When Da Kui walked past the coffin, his back was pressed firmly against the wall, trying to keep his distance. It was a very funny sight, but at this point I had no interest in making fun of him.

The tomb The tunnel was sloping downward, and there were inscriptions on both sides of the tunnel, as well as some stone carvings. I looked at them, but I didn’t understand what they meant. In fact, I do a bit of rubbing and antique business, so I have some research on these things, and I can understand a few words.

But I can say that even if I understood all these words, it would be very difficult to understand the meaning because there was no punctuation at all. The ancients speak very concisely and with great skill. For example, one word: “然” (ran). I remember a king of Qi asked his military advisor a question, and the advisor nodded and smiled and said, “然.” The king went back and thought about it for a long time, wondering whether the word “然” meant “yes” or “no.” In the end, he became ill from overwork, and on his deathbed, he told the advisor the answer he had come up with, and asked the advisor if that was what he had meant. The advisor laughed and said, “然.” The king died immediately.

Uncle San We walked very carefully, taking a long time for each step. The penetration of the miner’s lamp was not very strong. It was dark in front and dark behind. This feeling was the same as when we were in the water cave. I felt very uncomfortable. After walking for about half an hour, the tunnel began to rise. We knew that we should have already walked halfway. At this time, we saw a thief’s cave. Uncle San was shocked. He was most afraid that someone else would get there first, so he hurried over to check it out.

This thief’s was definitely dug not long ago, even the soil is relatively new. I asked Uncle San, “The old man said that a group of people entered the valley two weeks ago. Could it be that they dug this hole?”

“I can’t tell, but this hole was dug in a hurry. It doesn’t look like it was dug to get in, but rather to get out! I’m afraid we really have been beaten to the punch.”

“Don’t Don’t be discouraged, Uncle San. If they were smart, they would have gone out the same way they came in. Something must have gone wrong. I think the treasure should still be there,” Pan Zi said reassuringly.

Uncle San nodded. Then we continued on. Since someone had cleared the mine for us, we didn’t need to be so cautious.

We We picked up the pace and walked for another 15 minutes. We arrived at a thick corridor, which was more than twice as wide as the one we came from. The decorations were also much more elaborate. It looked like we had arrived at the main tomb area. At the bottom of this The bottom of this corridor is a huge jade door, very transparent, and now it is wide open. It must have been opened from the inside. On the sides of the jade door are two statues, two hungry ghosts, one holding a ghost claw in his hand and the other holding an official seal in his hand.

Uncle San checked the jade door and found that the mechanism on it had been destroyed. We went in through the gap in the door. The space inside was very large and it was pitch black. The power of the miner’s lamp was not enough to illuminate the area very well.

But we could already see the general outline. This should be the main tomb. Pan Zi swept the light around with his miner’s lamp and exclaimed, “Why are there so many coffins!”

In the absence In the absence of a strong light source, it was indeed very difficult to see what was in the tomb. I took a quick look and sure enough, there were many stone coffins in the middle of the tomb, and at a glance, it seemed that they were arranged in some kind of order, not a very regular or neat arrangement. The top of the tomb was a large dome covered with murals, surrounded by square stone slabs, with dense writing on them. I put I put the miner’s lamp on the ground, and Pan Zi put the one in his hand in a cross-shaped direction with me, and took a general look. We saw that there were two more side chambers next to the tomb chamber.

Uncle San and I walked to the first sarcophagus and lit a firecracker. The sarcophagus was completely different from the one we saw when we entered the cave. This one was carved with inscriptions. I looked at it and was able to understand some of it!

The describes the life of the owner of the sarcophagus. It turns out that the owner of the tomb was a vassal of the state of Lu. This person was born with a ghost seal, which allowed him to borrow soldiers from the underworld, so he was invincible in battle. He was given the title of King Lu Shang by the Duke of Lu. One day, he suddenly asked to see the Duke of Lu, saying that he had borrowed soldiers from the underworld for many years, and now the Lord of the Underworld had a small demon rebellion, and he must return to the underworld to repay the Lord of the Underworld’s debt (of course, the original sentence was not written like this), hoping that the Duke of Lu would allow him to return to the underworld to report. The Duke of Lu The Duke of Lu immediately granted his request, and King Lu Shang bowed and sat down to die.

The Duke of Lu thought he would return, so he built this underground palace for him here to preserve his corpse, hoping that when he returned he would continue to serve him. Inside, there is a detailed description of the battles he fought, and almost every time he flashed his ghost seal, a large number of underworld soldiers would emerge from the ground to steal people’s souls. Pan Zi After listening to my explanation, he sighed, “So powerful! Fortunately, he died early, otherwise Lu would have unified the six states.”

I laughed, “That’s not necessarily the case. Ancient people were very good at blowing things up. If King Lu could summon the ghosts, then who in Qi could summon the heavenly soldiers? I remember there were even flying generals. Haven’t you read the Classic of Mountains and Seas?”

“Anyway, we finally know whose urn we’re looking at. But with so many coffins here, which one is his?” Pan Zi asked.

I looked at the inscriptions on the other coffins, most of which were similar and all had the same content. We counted and there were seven coffins, exactly the number of the Big Dipper. There was no record on the seven coffins that could give us a hint. While I was studying some other inscriptions that I couldn’t read, Dakuai yelled, “Look, this sarcophagus has already been opened.”

I walked I went over and saw that, indeed, the coffin board was not completely sealed with the coffin, and there were fresh traces of prying in many places on the coffin. Third Uncle took out our crowbar from his bag, and bit by bit, he prised open the coffin board, then shone a light inside. Pan Zi let out a strange sound, looked at us, and said in a confused voice, “How come there’s a foreigner inside?”

We We looked inside and sure enough, it was a foreigner. Not only was it a foreigner, but it was also very fresh. It had definitely not been dead for more than a week. Pan Zi wanted to reach in and take something out, but the stuffy oil bottle grabbed him by the shoulder. It looked like he was using a lot of strength, and it hurt Pan Zi so much that he opened his mouth and said, “Don’t move. The main character is under him!”

We We took a closer look and sure enough, there was another corpse underneath the foreigner. We couldn’t see what it looked like, so Uncle San took out his black donkey hoof and said, “It should be a black-haired person.

At this time, Dakuai pulled my clothes behind me and pulled me aside.

He was usually quite straightforward, so I was surprised and asked him what was wrong. He pointed to the shadows of the several of us projected by the miner’s lamp on the opposite wall and said softly, ‘Look, this is your shadow, right?’

I didn’t I said angrily, “What, are you afraid of your own shadow now?”

His face was not very good, and when I said that, his mouth trembled a little. I thought to myself, “No, really, are you afraid to this extent?” He waved his hand and told me not to speak, and then pointed to the shadows again: “This is mine, this is Pan Zi’s, this is Third Uncle’s, and this is Little Brother’s. You’ve seen them all, right? There are five in total, including yours?”

I nodded nodded, suddenly seemed to have discovered something, Dakuai swallowed his saliva, pointed to another lonely shadow that was not with us, and almost cried out and asked, “Whose shadow is this?”