Volume 5Chapter 28: The Coffin of Indescribable Beauty

This burial chamber was nearly ten times larger than the wine chamber we had just seen. Four giant pillars with relief carvings stood in the four corners of the chamber. The ground of the chamber was piled with many things. When the cold fireworks lit up, we discovered that it was a mountain of gold and silver utensils, precious stones, glass, pearls, and jade.

“My grandfather…” The fat man’s eyes were bigger than a cow’s, and his face was distorted.

I was also shocked enough to almost stand still. Pan Zi muttered, ”What did I say? The treasury of the Jurchen, the annual tribute of the Southern Song Dynasty, I’m not wrong, am I?”

After so many years in this business, I’ve seen nothing but broken metal and scrap iron. I thought I would never escape my fate, but I never imagined that there would be so many treasures in the tomb of such a small, weak country. Could it be true that, as Pan Zi said, all the treasures of the Great Jin were brought here after the country was destroyed? If that’s the case, it’s not a matter of getting rich. If you take a few of these things out, you can eat for a lifetime.

The fat guy wanted to roll into the pile of gold and silver, and I had the urge to roll in too, but I still had a shred of reason left in me, and I pulled the fat guy back to stop him from getting carried away. Many of the gold items in the tombs were sprayed with highly toxic substances, and it would be foolish to roll into them and be poisoned to death. It would be best not to touch these things.

But I held back the fat man, but not Pan Zi, who had already rushed into the pile of gold and grabbed a handful of gold. He stared in amazement, and the reflected light of the gold made his face golden and his whole body trembled. Then he let go of his hand, and the objects fell from between his fingers, making a metallic clanging sound.

I saw that Pan Zi was safe even after grabbing a handful, and knew that the gold was not poisonous. I relaxed and couldn’t help but grab a handful too. The feeling of the heavy gold almost made me laugh uncontrollably. I don’t know who said it, but the human love of gold has been written into our genes, becoming an innate, irresistible instinct. He was damn right.

Even if I am like this, although I appear to be a righteous person, when I see the throbbing of gold, it comes from the bottom of my heart. I can’t even lie to myself. I like these things.

A few people forgot everything at once. We ran over to this pile, picked up a bunch of things, ran over to that pile, took out a headband studded with precious stones and looked at it carefully. These things are all genuine masterpieces. If you have just one of them, it will be the treasure of the museum. Now there are so many of them here, you can take them and step on them at will without feeling sorry.

The fat guy had already started to pack things into his bag. He emptied his equipment, threw everything away, and stuffed it into the bag. When it was full, he felt that it wasn’t right, so he emptied it out and stuffed other things in. He made meaningless sounds while packing.

But soon we all realized that no matter how much we packed, we couldn’t take away even a tiny bit of this treasure. As soon as we packed these things, we would immediately find something better and more precious underneath.

After packing that more precious thing, we would find a genuine item that we had never seen before. After packing that more precious thing, we would find a genuine item that we had never seen before. After packing that more precious thing, we would find a genuine item that we had never seen before. After packing that more precious thing, we would find a genuine item that we had never seen before. After packing that more precious thing, we would find a genuine item that we had never seen before. After packing that more precious thing, we would find a genuine item that we had never seen before. After packing that more precious thing, we would find a genuine item that we had never seen before. After packing that more precious thing, we would find a genuine item that we had never seen before. After packing that

I wiped the sweat off my head, got up from the pile of jewelry, and shone the flashlight around. I saw Shunzi standing on a pile of gold, looking at something.

I walked over and asked him what he was doing. Wasn’t he excited to see all this gold?

He didn’t say anything, but pointed down. I followed his flashlight and saw that in the middle of the piles of gold, surrounded by countless treasures, there were several people curled up, motionless, as if they were dead.

I was suddenly startled, and the excitement I had just felt suddenly disappeared, and I got goosebumps.

The fat man and Pan Zi saw that Shunzi and I were standing there, thinking that we had found some more treasures, and they came running over to take a look, but it was just a few rice dumplings, and they were also surprised.

We walked down the depression in the pile of gold and held the flashlight in our hands, shining it carefully. We found that they were indeed dead, and had been dead for some time. The skin of the bodies had frozen and dehydrated into an orange peel-like appearance. It was strange that these people were wearing rotten fur coats, which were modern clothes, and there were also a few old-fashioned rucksacks that had rotted beyond recognition.

The fat man said in surprise, “What’s going on? Who are these people? Are they our colleagues?”

I shook my head and put on gloves to look through the backpacks and clothes of those people. This kind of outfit should have been popular in the 1980s and 1990s, and now people in the rural areas of the northeast who are about 40 or 50 years old would also wear it. We have seen many such middle-aged men in Yingshan Village. Judging from the degree of decay, these people should have been dead here for five to twenty years.

Pan Zi asked, “Could it be that the herb gatherers or hunters from Changbai Mountain entered here by mistake and died after they couldn’t get out?”

“Unlikely.” I pulled open the clothes of one of the corpses, which was a female corpse. I looked at the ears of the female corpse again, which were hanging with old-fashioned earrings. There was also a watch on her hand, which had long since stopped rusting. “Look, this is a plum blossom watch, an old model. Even people at the level of mayor at the time might not necessarily be able to get it. This woman is not from a small village.”

“Then could it be that it was a lost tourist from the 80s?” Pan Zi asked again. “The marks we followed along the way were carved by them?”

I shook my head. It was impossible that they had carved the mark, because I had seen the mark in the underwater tomb. It must have been carved by someone related, either Ning or Mian Youping. It was possible that they were lost tourists, but could they really get lost to such a place? The underground palace tombway, without considerable courage, ordinary people would not dare to go down.

However, if this woman has some background, such as being the child of a leader or having some connection with the local bureaucracy, then her disappearance might have a big impact on the local area. Shunzi is not a young girl, and at that time, she might have heard about it and wanted to turn around and ask him if there had been any more sensational disappearances in the past 5 to 20 years.

When I turned around, I saw that Shunzi had not followed us down, but was still standing on the pile of gold, with a very stiff expression.

I thought to myself, “Is Shunzi also like the fat guy, possessed by the corpse’s tongue? I didn’t see anything on his neck, but I could tell he was trembling, so I knew something was wrong.

The fat guy said to him, ‘What’s wrong? Are you afraid of the dead? I didn’t see you afraid before.’

Shunzi ignored the fat guy and walked down the stairs with heavy steps. He came to one of the corpses and squatted down. I saw that he was so nervous that he almost fell.

Suddenly I thought of what was going on.

The fat guy wanted to take a picture of him, but I stopped him and waved my hand at him. The fat guy asked me softly, “What’s wrong with him? Is he possessed?”

I shook my head. If I’m right, these corpses might be the ones that Shunzi told me about. His father was part of the team that went into Changbai Mountain ten years ago. The corpse that Shunzi is looking at now might be his father, which is why he’s acting so nervous.

I never thought that he would be right, that following us would really lead us to his father’s remains…

But was it a coincidence or something else? Did the team from ten years ago get lost here? Or was there something else that we didn’t know about?