The Lost Tomb : Extras & Special Stories

(Extra Story: 2009 Chinese New Year Special) Chapter 3: Mistake

According to the names on the tombstone and the records in the genealogical tree, there should be a total of nine coffins under the yellow sandy soil of the Wu family's ancestral grave. This was different from counting soybeans, and it was difficult to make any sort of deviation. Since there were only a few ancestors, it was really incredible to have an extra coffin.

The incident caused quite a stir in the crowd, and the onlookers who were there to help were constantly whispering.

Of course, the most shocked group was the Wu family's representatives from the village, who were born and raised there. They had never heard of such a thing and naturally found it hard to accept.

At this time, I had no regard for whether I was qualified or not and also went over to look at the tomb. I only saw a pit that was dug deep, and a large number of old black bricks wrapped in mud and grass roots that had been tossed aside, but I couldn't see the original appearance of the tomb.

Ten coffins were placed on the gentle slope. After they were all lined up, I found that this last one that was carried out didn't have any mark or name, but was one of the four oldest coffins lined up at the bottom of the tomb. From this point of view, it was unlikely that an owner-less solitary coffin had been dug up, because there were blue bricks around the tomb.

After consulting with another old man (whose name I really can't remember), Biao Gong immediately sent all ten coffins back to the ancestral hall and found someone to guard them day and night. The ceremony here was concluded, and in short, the issue needed to be discussed behind closed doors.

At this time, we young people naturally couldn't get a word in, and only felt that the atmosphere had changed. This matter obviously had a great impact on the Wu family's face, and if the genealogy was wrong, it would all have to be redone. This would be a very big deal that might even require the family members staying overseas to come back. But this possibility was unlikely, unless there was something hidden in this ancestral grave that we didn't know about.

My father was also at a loss, saying nothing the entire time, so the Taoist priest cleared the way. It was already dark by this time, and the dark mountain roads coupled with the cold weather made me shiver involuntarily. But my mind was constantly filled with the ancient coffin in the deserted thatched hut behind the ancestral hall. Sure enough, in this village, it was impossible to get rid of a coffin.

As was custom in the evening, everyone had a "big table meal" in the ancestral hall. The ancestral rules stated that it was to be vegetarian today. After eating a table of tofu dishes and lighting a charcoal stove to warm themselves, they began to ponder over these coffins.

The coffins were placed in the mourning hall, so I was able to approach them for the first time. I found that the first two coffins pulled from the tomb were well preserved and sealed [1]. But the old coffins caked with mud were still not dry yet, and the veneer was so rotten that it showed a deep, dark green. It looked so disgusting that I didn't dare get too close.

One of the four oldest coffins should've been dated a long time ago, so the reconstruction in the late Qing dynasty was very suspicious. But none of the people who could remember that time were present, and the genealogy only contained a simple sentence, which was basically unreliable. It was surprising, however, that there wasn't any word-of-mouth information—both Biao Gong and all those old people said that they hadn't heard anything related to this from the previous generation.

My father's face looked sad when he heard this, and I didn't know what he was worried about until much later.

In the Wu clan, the ancestral graves were full of firstborn sons and grandchildren, which meant that the second and third children had to build their own graves. This meant that grandpa couldn't enter the main tomb under normal circumstances. But his generation's situation was really too special—the last three generations were all dead, and my grandfather's elder brother had no descendants. Only my grandfather's family had successors, otherwise there would be no one to install the ancestral graves.

So it wasn't reasonable to say that my father was the authentic Wu family. Although the Wu family didn't have many businesses, and my father basically wasn't in charge of the family, he still had an advantage—whether it was to divide the land or decide anything, my father had to first give his approval. So as soon as something like this happened, idle people were sure to stir up trouble.

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There were many aspects involved here— such as Uncle Three's business in the village, and the relationship between our family and the main family— so my father, as the head of this family, naturally had to handle everything carefully. But he was also the kind of person who took an honest approach, had a traditional style of work, and believed in working hard until he died. Naturally, he wasn't good at dealing with such complicated situations, so I thought he was a little worried about the emergence of such a situation.

I couldn't help him with this kind of thing. On one hand, I didn't know about the situation and couldn't differentiate between the old men in the family to determine their seniority, so I could only pretend to be clueless; on the other hand, even if something embarrassing happened, the Wu family's ancestral hall was really the only one that could be managed and couldn't be sold, so there was nothing to lose. According to my mother, it was high time to distance myself from these things since they were arduous and thankless tasks.

But this matter was quite fascinating. They were all smoking and pondering over it while warming up, and I was stuck in the middle listening, which was a bit fun.

Biao Gong mentioned a possibility: this coffin was placed on the lowest level, so naturally it was the oldest one and housed someone from our great-great-grandfather's generation who lived during the Jiaqing period (Translator's Note: any time from 1760-1820). It may be that this ancestor had a concubine that he doted on, and although she couldn't be added to the genealogical record on the tombstone, she was secretly buried in the ancestral tomb.

A search of the genealogical record showed that it was impossible, because this great-great-grandfather died before his wife and she was one who made the funeral arrangements. According to the social ethics at that time, it was unlikely that such a thing would happen. Moreover, once they became rich and wealthy in this line of work, they would desperately search for a wife, afraid that the family line would end with them. My grandmother was from a good family and gave birth to three children. There must have been one brood after another in the village, since love was basically not an integral part of life at that time.

Anyways, could the body have been damaged? Maybe something happened during a job and the whole body wasn't recovered so they buried it first. Later, the rest was dug up and buried in two separate coffins. Uncle Two shook his head at this nonsense, saying that in this kind of situation, it was absolutely necessary to open the coffin and re-bury it. The ancestral grave wasn't a freezer where you put your head on the top shelf and your bottom on the lower shelf, and exchanged them whenever you liked.

This was a little disturbing, and the surrounding people frowned and smoked faster than incense could burn.

I was thinking about it myself, and the strangest thing was that the coffin had no name. According to the custom here, it was very humiliating not to inscribe a name on the coffin and since coffins were qualified for burial in ancestral graves, it was impossible to receive such treatment. In this way, I felt that there may not be a corpse in this extra coffin.

It was meaningless to think about it, however, since there was essentially no basis for reference regarding the situation. I thought this was the case, but then again, I was totally guessing.

At that moment, Uncle Three suddenly raised a possibility: "Everyone knows what our ancestors did. Do you think one of them, for whatever reason, hid something in the ancestral grave?"

The other people's faces changed when Uncle Three said this.

Although this statement sounded shocking, it was also a possibility. Because in this line of work, people would definitely be willing to do something out of line. Compared to those who made baseless conjectures, I felt that this possibility was still a little more likely.

Everyone looked at each other and didn't know how to react. Uncle Two gave a tut and seemed to want to refute it when suddenly, Biao Gong stood up and said to us, "Don't think about it, damn it. Just open it and have a look!"

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Note:

[1] Wu Xie's grandpa's coffin + Wu Xie's great-great-grandpa's coffin.