Volume 5 Chapter 6 The Hall of the Spirit Palace

The Hall of the Spirit Palace is the main part of the entire mausoleum complex, the largest. After entering, the first thing you see are the large stone pillars on either side of the Spirit Road in the middle of the Spirit Palace. I think of the scene in the film where they used a flying scissor to lift the coffin. I think that all the things here must have been lifted up little by little in this way from the cliff that we now consider to be the most impossible.

In the darkness between the stone pillars, you can vaguely see large black lanterns. Beyond that is complete darkness. I don’t know why, but when I shine my flashlight, there is no reflection of light. It seems like there is a void there, and I don’t see any burial objects.

The fat man lit a firecracker and wanted to try lighting the lanterns. I told him no, this building is still standing here and has not collapsed. The low temperature here is a very important factor. If a large number of lanterns are lit, causing the ice crystals on the roof to melt, it may cause some small collapses, so it’s better not to.

We could only rely on flashlights to move forward in the dark, affecting the environment. Everyone was silent, as if afraid of waking something in this spiritual palace. The silence was terrifying, and all that was left in the air were the echoes of our footsteps and the heavy breathing of the people around us.

Ye Cheng was the most inexperienced of the group. After walking a few steps, he couldn’t help but say, “It’s so quiet, I feel cold all over. The more quiet it is, the more panicked I get. Let’s talk, don’t make it sound like we’re thieves…”

Before he could finish his sentence, the silent oil bottle made a soft hand gesture to tell him to shut up. The fat man whispered to Ye Cheng, “Don’t you fucking think of a bad idea. Aren’t we thieves? This young man has very good ears. If you speak, we won’t be able to hear the trap even if we step on it. Can you handle it?“

Ye Cheng heard that there might be a trap here, so he quickly covered his mouth and nervously looked around, afraid that some hidden weapon would fly at him.

Hua said, ‘There’s no need to be so nervous. This is a place for worship. The government of Dongxia probably still comes here to worship every year, so there’s not much chance of a trap. Besides, this place is a bit old, so there’s nothing to worry about.’

”Nonsense,” the fat man said, wanting to refute Hua.

I slapped him and told him to stop meddling. He had just told others to stop talking, but he kept talking himself.

The ice dome outside is so thick that it is difficult to open once it is closed. The plank road outside has long since burned, which shows that no one planned to return after the Ling Palace was closed. Hua Monk could not have failed to think of this, but it is unnecessary to increase unnecessary panic in such matters.

We continued on, and after less than five minutes we had reached the center of the main hall of the spirit palace. In front of us was a jade platform, surrounded by several huge bronze statues of human-headed birds. The statues were neither human nor Buddha, and looked like a twisted pillar covered in lichen.

The fat man asked the monk, “What the hell is this? Shouldn’t there be a seated statue of the tomb owner in the spirit hall? Could it be that the tomb owner looks like this? Isn’t this a big leech?“

Huasheng said, ‘This may be the deified ’Longevity God’ of the Dongxia religion… their main god.”

“This god is too ugly,” the fat man muttered. “What’s the difference between him and a laundry pole?”

I patted the fat man again to ask him to be more respectful. We’re still on its territory, so he shouldn’t be afraid of retribution.

But this strange black totem, I know it is not the god of immortality. I don’t know much about shamanism, but I know that the god of immortality has no image. It represents a kind of omnipresent, infinite power, a kind of cosmic worship. Hu monk said this either to confuse the fat man, or to cover up his own guilt.

The environment here does give one an inexplicable sense of tension. Except for Chen Pi A Si and the stuffy oil bottle, who still have that same sour face, everyone else is acting a little bit strange.

But if the spirit hall is not a shrine to a god, then it should be a seated statue of the tomb owner. Could it be that the Dongxia royal family looked like this, as the fat man said? This is not human at all. It looks more like the evil gods of Haitian fetishism. I saw it once when I was at an exhibition in Shanghai. The gods there were like lumps of burnt rice, like giant molluscs.

I suddenly remembered the record in the bronze fish: the Dongxia royal family were all monsters dug out of the ground. Could this be it? No, this thing can only be described as a demon. I believe the Dongxia people would not be so stupid as to recognize a piece of burnt rice as their emperor.

If only I could see what was recorded in the other two bronze fish. I thought to myself, then I wouldn’t have to guess so hard. I didn’t know when I would have this opportunity.

While I was thinking, Pan Zi called out to us, “Look here.”

We turned around and saw that Pan Zi had climbed onto a bronze vessel and carefully held something out of the mouth of the bird-faced human.

Pan Zi is also a troublemaker. I was nervous and said, “Be careful of the trap.”

Pan Zi nodded and carefully held it. Soon, a gilt bronze monkey with a green face and fangs was revealed. It was also carved with countless strange patterns, like a tattooed demon.

We were all very curious and had never seen a vessel with such a design. Pan Zi jumped down and held it in the middle of us. Several people surrounded it to take a look. After looking at it for a long time, we only found out that this thing was actually made of bronze, and we couldn’t say anything else about it.

This kind of thing is common in archaeology, because tombs have a strict and mysterious system on the one hand, and on the other hand, they are the personal affairs of the tomb owner. There are many tombs that have appeared with inexplicable burial objects. You can collect and organize the things that are established rules, which are infinitely close to the facts, but the personalized things can only be guessed. There are many things that have only appeared once in history, and no one except the victim in the tomb can know what the intention is.

Hua Shang checked the other four bronze statues and found the same thing. He speculated that if this rod was their main god, the surrounding area should be the guardian beast of the main god. This may be related to the local, very localized myths and legends. We are no longer in that dynasty, and we can no longer understand the real situation. What he couldn’t figure out was why it was made of bronze, when the Ming Dynasty was already in the Iron Age.

Looking around the totem didn’t reveal anything. We walked back a little further, but it was dark and we didn’t know how deep it was.

At this point, I was a little surprised that there was no trace of the giant sacrificial cauldron and the long-burning candle, the warm room, the treasure bed, the throne and the god’s position that are usually placed in the main hall of the spirit palace. However, form is more important than substance. The Dongxia Kingdom has always lived in the depths of the dense forests of Changbai Mountain, and I don’t know what kind of living conditions it is.

The fat guy was already a little irritated. His purpose in coming here was to touch things. He had run all the way and hadn’t seen any Mingqi that he could take away, so how could he not be depressed. As he walked, he asked us if he could go behind the lantern slaves to see what was in the darkness behind them.

Muyoubing waved his hand at him, meaning that it was not possible. He took out a flashlight and threw it over there. A green light flashed past and fell into the darkness behind the lantern slaves. The green light disappeared all of a sudden, as if it had been thrown into black cotton.

The fat man looked at it in amazement and asked softly, “What’s going on?”

Muyoubing shook his head, indicating that he didn’t know.

I said to him, “We didn’t see the main hall from the outside, and our flashlights didn’t reflect light. The walls must have light-absorbing paint. If you go off on your own, I guarantee you won’t be able to come back. It’s better not to take any rash action.”

The fat guy said, “Then tie a rope around my waist. If you touch something, you get a share, and you get a share of the technology. Ten percent… how about that?”

I hate this kind of behavior from the fat guy, and I said angrily, “You’re crazy. Wait until we’re all out. Don’t get us into trouble now.”

Pan Zi also said, “What are you so anxious for? We’re not even halfway there yet. If you tie a rope in and pull it out, all that will be left is a thigh. Do you think we’re going in to find you or not? Look at how united Master Chen’s team is. You’d better not embarrass the Third Master.”

The fat man let out a sigh and said disappointedly, “Fine, you guys outnumber me, so I can’t argue with you. I’ll just obey the organization’s arrangements. I won’t betray the organization until I’ve ascertained the enemy’s situation.”

“Even if you find out, you’re not allowed to betray. You’re already starting to take advantage of the situation. What if you get into the underground palace? How much can you take?” I said angrily.

The fat man raised his hand to surrender, smiling. I knew his temper, so there was no use saying anything now. There was nothing I could do about him, so I had to remind myself to keep an eye on him to prevent him from getting into trouble.

Further in, we saw the end of the main hall, where there was another jade door, made of four pieces of white marble, with a dragon coiled in glass on the door hinge, a relief of a hundred dancing figures on the lintel, and two child-like guardians carved on the door. There was no running water behind the door either, and the door was sealed with a sentry. After we prised it open, we found that behind the door was a corridor leading to the rear hall of the spirit palace, which was pitch black.

The fat guy saw the two dragons on the door and immediately perked up, his eyes shining. He said to us, “I saw this kind of door at an auction. It’s called a dragon-coiled glass bolt. The whole door was auctioned off for 200 million Hong Kong dollars. Oh, this door doesn’t look very heavy either…“

I knew what he was trying to do, so I poured cold water on him: ‘Don’t get your hopes up. That was hype. Now, in the antique market, anything that can fetch more than 20 million is considered a bargain. This door is worth at most 400,000.’

”No way.” The fat guy didn’t believe it: ”400,000 to 200 million? Is that really possible?”

I thought to myself that the two copper fish in my pocket are worth 20 million, but who will buy them when they are really sold? Everyone knows the tricks of the auction house. They all think that if they don’t open for three years, they will eat for the rest of their lives. If they meet a fool who really pays 200 million for a door, their job in the next life will be to spend money.

The fat man’s worldview was instantly destroyed by me. Looking at the door, he looked a bit dazed. We ignored him and walked into the corridor and walked towards the back hall.

The rear hall is generally where the entrance to the underground palace is located. There is usually a decorative coffin, with a candle burning for immortality that never goes out, or a large number of offerings that are regularly replaced by the tomb keeper. Dongxia, a small country on the border that is in a state of constant war, is not expected to have too many good things, but the entrance to the underground palace is usually located inside, so we must go see it.

Entering the corridor, with the ceiling above and the walls on both sides, there are murals in front, covered with a layer of ice, frozen and gray. After I saw the double-layered mural through the gap, I was always interested in this kind of descriptive thing, so I took a flashlight and looked.

At first glance, it was like a wall covered with centipedes.

The murals were divided into several sections, and some of them even had many soldiers wearing fur coats, bowing to the centipede dragons in the sky.

The head of the dragon was also painted with two centipede dragons entwined together, and it was not clear whether they were mating or fighting.

On each mural, the centipede dragon was always the main part. The figures around them all appear very small and extremely humble. It is clear that the Dongxi people’s worship of this centipede dragon is even greater than our Han people’s worship of the coiled dragon.

Ye Cheng took out his camera and photographed all the murals, which could be used when selling funerary objects. Because the Dongxi people were not sure of their political power, the price of a photograph of a tomb could increase several times.

“What do you think was buried in this tomb? Was it the wife or a subordinate of the king? Why are there so many murals like this?” Ye Cheng asked while taking pictures.

I didn’t know either, and I felt a little strange in my heart.

Generally speaking, there are two types of tomb owners in a burial mausoleum: one is their own descendants and relatives, and the other is their own favorite servants. If it is the descendants and relatives, the content of the murals should be mostly scenes of life. If it is the favorite servants, it is usually a scene of the court, such as a civil official controlling the water or a military official fighting the enemy. If there are so many deified dragons, it is normal to see them in the main tomb, but it is not right here. Moreover… the image of the tomb owner is not visible in the murals.

Even if the dragon is the main subject, these paintings emphasize the majesty of the dragon, then there should be a leader kneeling reverently below, because it is a burial mausoleum, the leader must be the king of slaves, and the owner of this mausoleum should be worshiped on the left and right of the king of slaves, but on the murals all the people are dressed as slaves or soldiers, there is no leader.

This is simply not logical in the murals of the imperial mausoleum, and it does not conform to the murals of the Three Rules and Five Constant, so the paintings here are equivalent to no paintings.

The fat man suddenly asked, “Could it be that the murals here are also double-layered?”

I touched it and found that some of the murals here had already fallen off. I shook my head and said no. The mural in the crevice of the volcano must have a story behind it, otherwise it would be hard to explain why there are two layers of murals in such a place.

While I was thinking about this, I walked for about 200 meters, but the murals suddenly stopped. The corridor ended, and the exit to the rear hall appeared in front of me.

There was no door at the exit, but there was a bronze lamp stand with crane legs in the center, about half a person tall, with a very peculiar shape. A layer of white ice film had formed on it, making the color look dark.

We walked out of the corridor and into the rear hall. The fat man lit a cold firework and looked around. He found that the layout of the rear hall was almost the same as the main hall, but it was much smaller. We could see the surrounding hall walls directly, and the walls were still covered with murals of centipede dragons. The colors should have been bright red, but now they were all frozen gray.

The rear hall was empty, with no burial goods at all. There was no need to search, and everything was clear at a glance. Three black stone beds with dragon patterns were placed horizontally in the middle, and the platform was covered with carved wooden baskets with cloud borders, all of which had frozen and cracked.

This is the coffin platform. After the coffin was carried in, it was temporarily placed here. There were three of them, so it was clear that there was not only one coffin at the time of the burial.

The wife and children of the person buried were also buried with him at the same time. It sounds very unfortunate to be buried with the person buried, but in those days, there was no way to do it.

Behind the three stone beds, there is a huge square stone slab protruding from the ground. On the stone slab are two human-faced birds carved in a circular shape, and in the middle of the stone slab is a relief of the Taiji Bagua diagram. This is the tombstone, and the entrance to the underground palace must be under this stone slab.

Other than that, there is really nothing in the rear hall, it is so empty.

The fat man looked around and said, “Old Man Wan Nu is really stingy. He is willing to spend money on building a house for his subordinates, but he is unwilling to spend money on buying furniture. How can people live like this? He must have taken all the good things for himself.”

The monk Hua said, “Don’t talk nonsense. If he can build such a large tomb, he won’t be reluctant to spend a few offerings. There must be some special reason for this.”

I also feel that it is not that simple. The situation in the back hall is a bit off. Even if it is a small country on the periphery, as we expected, it is not strong enough, but no matter what, a broken ship still has three nails. Without gold and silver, there are always a few pieces of ordinary copperware.

After searching again, there is no passage around to other places. They came to the side of the tombstone slab. The fat man threw his arms up and lifted it with all his might, but it didn’t move at all. He hurriedly called for help.

To prevent traps such as poisonous sand or water under the stone platform, the oil bottle carefully inspected the green brick floor next to the tombstone. After confirming that there was no problem, Lang Feng put Shunzi on the coffin platform on the side, and then he and the monk and Ye Cheng pushed the stone slab.

The strength of these several burly men was really amazing. They heard a crunching sound, and the stone slab was moved a little. They continued to push hard, slowly pushing the entire stone slab to the side.

When we looked under the stone platform, we were surprised to see that there was no sign of a secret passage entrance (no stone slab to seal the tomb door) under the stone platform, but rather the same green bricks as on the side.

“What’s going on?” Pan Zi was surprised: “This tombstone is fake, a display?”

“No way, this is the most basic burial style, no one would play with this, the entrance must be here.“ Hua said.

”Could it be sealed under this layer of bricks?” Ye asked.

I frowned, these bricks were only sealed with iron mortar, it seemed a bit problematic, but if I had to make a conclusion, I didn’t know what to say.

The fat man said, ‘Who cares? There’s no one here anyway, it’s rare to get into the imperial tomb, just tear down the bricks and take a look.’

Ye immediately agreed. In fact, I think the same way. We can’t say we’re tomb robbers anymore. We’re just robbers. When we were tomb robbers, we were afraid of disturbing the residents around us and of encountering patrolling police. But now the nearest police station is 800 miles away, so we don’t have to be afraid of anything.

We all began to over-secretion of adrenaline. Excavation and opening the underground palace is always an exciting moment. Sometimes opening the coffin is not as tense as this moment.

Muyoubing squatted down, used his long fingers to hold a piece of green brick, and pulled it hard, pulling the brick up from the ground. Ye Cheng and Hua Monk were dumbfounded, their mouths agape.

The fat man was very proud, his face showing a look of “Did you see that? Muyoubing didn’t give him face, not even looking at him. With a gap, it was easy to do. We went up to help, using a pickaxe to dig out the brick.

What was strange was that the bricks below still showed no trace of iron mortar, and they were all interlaced, so it wasn’t difficult to dig them out.

My ominous premonition grew stronger. Because the entrance to the underground palace was the most heavily guarded part of the fortress, when Sun Maozi dug the tomb of Empress Dowager Cixi, if it weren’t for explosives, he wouldn’t have been able to remove even the outer layer of stone sealing the underground palace. It was definitely not right that the bricks could be removed so easily here.

But the oil lamp was silent. Usually, if there is a problem, he can definitely find it right away. He didn’t say anything, and I didn’t feel like I was qualified to speak.

In the time it took to smoke half a cigarette, we quickly dug out a large pit, and the last layer of bricks was unearthed. There were only seven layers, probably because the height of the building here was fixed, and in order not to hit the ceiling, the number of floor tiles underneath had to be sacrificed. At the bottom of the pit, a black stone similar to a tortoise shell with patterns appeared.

“Is it a seal stone?“ Ye Cheng was excited.

”No.“ The monk at the bottom knocked on it and knocked out the bricks around the black stone. Under the bricks, a black two-headed stone turtle the size of an eight-legged table appeared. The pattern on the turtle’s shell turned out to be a woman’s face.

”What’s going on?“ The group was puzzled. This should be the entrance to the underground palace, but there was a stone turtle buried there.

”Why isn’t there a tomb door?” Pan Zi, who had just done the most work, was panting and wondering.

“Let’s move it out first! Let’s see what’s under the turtle.” Hua Monk was also at a loss, and began to give random instructions.

In fact, I knew that there was definitely nothing under the turtle without having to move it. I had already seen the black rock under the turtle, and we had already dug to the bottom of the hole.

Several people scrambled into the pit, trying to lift the stone turtle. Just as they were about to squat down, the fat man let out a “hmm,” as if he had discovered something wrong.

I went over to take a look and saw that the fat man’s shovel, which was hanging around his waist, had somehow stuck to the turtle’s back. The fat man tried to pull it off, but as soon as he let go, the shovel was sucked back in.

I looked at it and thought, “Could it be that this turtle is made of a magnet?”

Several people gathered around to take a look and were all amazed. The fat man took out a coin and threw it onto the turtle’s back. He said to himself, “Hey, this is really funny. With a magnet this big, does the tomb owner collect scrap metal?”

Chen Pi A Si was resting on top and saw what we had found. Thinking that we had found the entrance, he asked what was going on. Hua Monk reported the situation to him.

Before he could finish, Chen Pi’s expression changed. He hurriedly asked Ye Cheng to help him down, walked up to the turtle, took out a compass from his pocket, and after a quick look, his face turned green. He slammed the compass down and said coldly, “Damn, we’ve been tricked! This tomb is a trap, and we’ve fallen into it!”