The Lost Tomb Vol. 1

Chapter 24: Living Corpse

Frightened, we all immediately took a few steps back. Although we had anticipated that there might be something wrong with this coffin, now that we had actually encountered it, we couldn't help but feel surprised. This shaking clearly indicated that the coffin owner was moving inside, and anything moving in a coffin definitely couldn't be good.

Da Kui's face turned pale and he started trembling as he said, "There seems to be something alive in there. Master Three, I don't think we should open this coffin."

Uncle Three carefully looked at the coffin seams and shook his head before saying, "That's impossible. This coffin is so tightly sealed that no air can get in there at all. No matter what living thing might have been in there, it definitely would have suffocated to death after three thousand years. Besides, this is a coffin set, which means that there are several more layers inside. Let's break through one or two layers first and then see if we can hear more clearly."

I roughly estimated this thing's weight. As far as I could recall, the heaviest bronze coffin ever found was the giant outer coffin from the Marquis Yi of Zeng's tomb in Leigudun, which had weighed about nine tons.(1) This one was about the same size, but the Marquis Yi of Zeng's outer coffin was a large wooden box with a bronze framework. The coffin in front of us, however, was all bronze. It probably weighed far more than nine tons but I couldn't guess its exact weight at all.

Da Kui and Uncle Three used their knives to scrape away the wax in the seams and then stuck their crowbars in and pressed down hard, grunting from the effort. There was a loud bang and then the bronze coffin lid tilted up. I rushed over to help them push it out of the way and found that the thing weighed at least eight hundred catty.(2) It took us a long time to move at least half of it out of the way, by which point we were completely exhausted and totally out of breath. But after we all pitched in and pushed, we finally managed to move the lid to one side, revealing the inner coffin at last.

An exquisite, lacquer-coated jade cover had been placed over the coffin, along with embedded jade stones that were neatly arranged into shapes that looked like diamonds and circles. These two shapes basically represented the ancient Chinese theory that the sky was round and the earth was square.(3) Under the jade cover was a wooden lacquer coffin, the outside of which was covered in paintings. But I couldn't see what these paintings were because the jade cover was blocking them from view.

Pan Zi's eyes practically popped out of his head when he saw the coffin, his face a blend of excitement and pain as he covered his wound with one hand, "Shit, with this much jade I'll be able to do whatever I want from now on!"

He started to move towards it but Uncle Three quickly shouted, "Don't be absurd! This is jade from Manasi, Xinjiang. If you want to take it apart and sell it, you'll only get a few hundred thousand yuan. That obviously won't be enough to split between all of us. If we want this trip to be worth it, we have to take the jade cover as a whole!"

Pan Zi knew that he had already caused enough trouble so he didn't dare say anything when Uncle Three glared at him. Instead, he just scratched his head and backed away.

Uncle Three tapped on the painted lacquered wooden coffin and said, "Generally speaking, kings in the Warring States period had two outer coffins and three inner coffins. If this tree counts as the first outer coffin and this bronze coffin is the second one, then this wooden coffin should be the most valuable item." With that said, Uncle Three carefully used his knife to separate all of the gold threads connecting the jade cover to the lacquered coffin. He moved very carefully so as not to damage the jade cover and finally managed to remove the whole thing after half an hour had passed.

As soon as the jade cover was removed, I could finally see the colorful paintings on the wooden coffin. Thankfully, they were much easier to understand than the inscriptions were. I lit one of our miner's lamps and looked at them carefully, finding that they consisted of several narrative paintings. The one on the coffin lid was probably the scene when the tomb owner had just been interred. I could see a huge tree with a hole in the middle, along with an open bronze coffin being carried by many skeletons. There were also many people next to them who were kneeling respectfully.