The Lost Tomb Vol. 1

Chapter 55: Porcelain Paintings

I had just managed to understand what Fatty was talking about with nourishing qi and corpse incubator coffins, but then Poker-Face came out of nowhere and said this sentence. I thought about it for a while but still didn't understand so I asked him what he meant.

Poker-Face pointed to the coffin and said, "Look closely at their heads. Do you notice anything different about them?"

When I looked to where his finger was pointing, I only saw six heads of various sizes hanging from the torso like a bunch of grapes. There didn't seem to be anything special about them except for how nauseating they looked. I shook my head to indicate that I didn't notice anything, but he told me to look more carefully. This time, I squinted my eyes and was finally able to see what he was talking about.

As it turned out, all of the heads except for the one on top seemed to be lacking facial features. Moreover, none of them seemed to have a basic skull structure. They almost looked like giant sarcomas growing from the torso.

When I saw this, I finally understood what he was talking about. I immediately followed his train of thought and found that the joints of each hand really did seem to be connected to the torso. The reason why it looked like there were so many corpses twisted together was because the torso was so badly deformed that it looked like it had been wrung out in a washing machine. Plus, the muddy black liquid obstructed people's view.

The more I looked at this corpse, the more disgusted I felt, but I still had some reservations about Poker-Face's theory. If this person lying in the coffin had a rare deformity where they grew twelve limbs, then what was their origin and identity? Back in those days, how could such a monster reach adulthood?

Fatty also looked inside, spat in disgust, and then said to us, "Shit, is this thing even human? It looks just like a bug!"

He had described it rather aptly, but it was still a rude thing to say. "We can't see clearly through all this liquid," I said to them. "It's too early to draw conclusions. Logically speaking, a person with such a serious deformity would have looked like some kind of monster and would've been killed by their parents as soon as they were born. There's absolutely no way they would've been raised to adulthood."

"Nothing is absolute," Poker-Face said faintly.

I shook my head, still unable to believe it. "You know, there's actually a very simple way to find out," Fatty said. "Why don't we do as I said and go next door and get some jars to scoop up this water? That way, we can see clearly. Plus, there's a piece of slate under this corpse. We can take it out and get a good look at it while we're at it. Maybe we'll find something unexpected."

I immediately became interested as soon as I heard this. I hadn't seen a single word since entering this undersea tomb and essentially had no knowledge of the tomb owner. If I could understand the words on this piece of slate, I could at least make a guess or two, which may also help our future actions.

Fatty and I immediately came to an agreement, turned around without another word, headed to the room across the corridor, and picked out three porcelain bowls with handles. To the outside world, these things were considered treasures worth millions, but in my hands, they were returned to their original use—just dishes.

When I picked up the first bowl, I unconsciously began examining the blue glaze on top out of professional habit. But as I was studying it, I was surprised to find that the patterns on it actually told a narrative.

When we first came in, I was probably too preoccupied thinking about what happened to Uncle Three to study these funerary objects very carefully. But now that I was looking, I immediately thought of something that I didn't pay much attention to before— when Uncle Three and the others entered this tomb, he, like me, just took a cursory look at these things before going to take a nap. But the others were different. It was their first time entering a tomb so they were very excited and must have carefully examined these porcelain wares. Could they have found a critical clue on the porcelain?