The Lost Tomb : Sea Of Sands

Chapter 149: The First Jar

There was only one way to break this balance—the relationship between those four or five subordinates was so special that it transcended any suspicion. For example, if the subordinates loved each other and formed a spousal relationship, or if they were all related by blood, then the leader wouldn't be far from being killed.

Therefore, the core of power wasn't the difference in forces or what position of power you were in, it was the product of that contest of balancing interests.

This was very tragic. Possession of wealth was a one-time act, so you didn't have to worry about your relationship with it once it had been obtained. Nor did you have to worry about whether it would suddenly kill you one day. But power was different. To put it bluntly, it was a state of balance.

The black-clad people controlled how some "events" occurred by controlling key positions, which was exactly the essence of power. So if they controlled enough to where the bottom layer became crucial, then they could take hold of "fate".

This was tantamount to a community of interests of tens of thousands of people, distributed throughout all aspects of society. They were all brothers and sisters with common core interests, so they could easily elevate themselves to the upper-class and form a great ruling power.

Small ethnic and regional groups had such power. There were many townsmen associations [1] in China. No matter how powerless their members were in their everyday lives, the group itself would be very powerful. It was also for this reason that Australia's Māori communities could often confront the armed police forces.

Of course, there were also large groups that had achieved such a goal because of their unique culture, or simply through careful planning. Take for example, the Jewish consortium and the Rothschild family in Europe.

"Generally, traffic and communication are the most valuable things to control. You might not understand, but this is the core of domination and control." The black-clad man said. "But this country is different from others, because it's a public-owned country. The officials have a lot of power, but it's as fragile as paper money. They're appointed by a piece of paper, and immediately gain the power of life and death. But a piece of paper can also immediately deprive them of their power. The economic lifeline is all in the public—not the private— system. This is the key to our success."

Zhang Qilin's family controls everything by controlling wealth and those at the top who have power. Meanwhile, we control everything by controlling the weaker ones. We spent an almost incalculable amount of time usurping their power for centuries, and even changed the social system for this purpose.

"In a public-owned country, if you control the communications, it makes no sense for you to get the local boss to take action. They don't know where the base station is, or how to shut it down, so you can't force them to shut down only some of the base stations—and the boss of a private communication company can forcibly stop the service of some base stations. The company is his, so he can bear the losses and destroy everything. This means you'd be better off controlling a maintenance worker, who can easily shut off a local cell phone signal for more than ten minutes."

Li Cu knew nothing about politics, and only partially understood what the leader was saying, but he finally got a whiff of information. He didn't delve into it further, though, because he couldn't.

That night, under the light of the big moon, they went to the pond with the group of grave robbers. Li Cu didn't get out of the car, since the wheelchair made it too troublesome to get in and out. He merely sat in the car and watched those people knock out the three villagers who were watching the pond. Then they unloaded the pump, and started pumping the water out.

The process was very smooth. No one passed by in the wilderness, and within three hours, the pond began to bottom out. They turned on a spotlight similar to the ones used by shops to illuminate signboards, and pointed it at the bottom of the pond. There they saw countless water-logged jars exposed in the mud.

These jars were different from what he had imagined. He thought that they would just be ordinary jars with a lid on them, but they were actually made of two huge jars stuck together. Many had been damaged and were full of mud.

Because the pump had stirred up the water, it was now impossible to distinguish the red markings on the jars. The grave robbers jumped into the bottom of the pond and wiped the sides of the jars with their hands to reveal the patterns. The greedy people directly put their hands into the damaged jars to see what was inside.

Li Cu felt a chill when he thought of the corpses inside the jars, and knew he wouldn't dare do such a thing. Seeing the mud churning and bubbling, and fish jumping out of it from time to time, he felt disgusted.

"Urn coffins were a burial method used by the poor. There are few opportunities to find good things, but sometimes you'll find a few solid goods. It all depends on luck. Sometimes things like bracelets and jewelry boxes that weren't valuable at the time are worth something now if there aren't many in the world." The leader said.

They soon found their first trophy—a red jar. They wiped the mud off the side of the jar with their hands and found that the seam in the middle was very well sealed.

The person below asked those up top, "This jar is good, and looks fine. Do you want us to drag it up?"

This was basically asking for a pay raise. It was just like stone gambling [2] because the contents of the unopened coffin were unknown. People skilled in the trade could judge the value of the contents according to the surface patterns and specific conditions, but there was still a high chance of losing money. The merchant rejected the proposal, and after sternly negotiating in the local dialect, the people kept searching for the coffin.

Obviously, the black-clad people had offered a very good price, and these guys didn't want to take the risk. Moreover, the two sides had the same amount of people, so they were cautious about starting any conflicts.

When the first red urn coffin was dragged up, Li Cu's curiosity had reached its peak, and he almost poked his head out of the car to watch them remove all the mud from it. It was dark all around, and the pale light shone on the old mossy jar.

When it came to death, tombs, and heaven, anyone would be curious, especially someone at his age. He watched the merchant and one of the grave robbers use an impact drill to bore a hole in the side of the jar.

No water or sludge flowed out, showing that the jar was completely sealed.

The grave robber standing on the side was stupefied for a moment, before he suddenly shouted at the men who were still fishing in the pond.

All the people below rushed up, and when the merchant saw that things were going sideways, he immediately whistled. The leader— who had been sitting on the roof of the car— immediately rolled over and jumped down. Both sides immediately confronted each other, and knives were drawn.

If such a large jar had been completely sealed, it was impossible for it to sink firmly to the bottom of the pond. Unless something was inside weighing it down.

The objects in the jar might be stones, but the patterns on the outside were too exquisite, indicating that the owner of this urn coffin wasn't an ordinary poor person. It was likely the person was from a poor background, but had engaged in a special occupation like thieving. If that were the case, then the objects weighing the urn coffin down might be gold, or something much more valuable depending on whom the deceased was.

Obviously, the merchant's price wasn't enough in the face of these grave robbers' ambitions. 

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Notes:

[1] An association of people from the same village, town, or province. I guess you could vaguely consider it something like an HOA that looks out for the town/village's interests.

[2] Not sure if anyone has seen the drama "Golden Eyes" but gambling on stones is the practice of buying a raw stone and then cutting it open, with the hopes of it holding some gems. If a jade is in the stone, the buyer can make a huge profit. But if the stone holds nothing, the buyer has bought a valueless rock at a high price.