I grabbed one of them and pulled it out of Fatty’s ear. The “shellfish” grabbed my finger like a little baby’s hand, but it was definitely much stronger. I held it over the candle and roasted it under the flame for a little bit until it let go. I then dropped it on the ground and quickly stomped on it with my foot.
I used the same movements to pull the other ones out one by one and then cleaned Fatty up. But he still didn’t wake up. The towel was covered in mucus from those little “hands”, so I couldn’t hide my shame anymore (1). I dragged Fatty back towards the entrance, nearly collapsing from all the strain.
As I passed the stone boats, I carefully looked at the leather figurines’ hands. They had all been made using those shellfish, but most of the shellfish had dried up.
I was very anxious since Fatty was still in a coma even though so much time had passed. I used a lot of resuscitation methods and pinched all the parts on his body that could be pinched, but he still didn’t wake up. Luckily, his breathing remained steady. I held his head, fearing that the fingernails had buried themselves in his brain, but he started snoring quickly, which made me feel relieved.
I took the candle and returned to the murals, quickly looking for the contents I didn’t have the chance to photograph so that I could leave as quickly as possible.
Before King Zhi staged his rebellion, there was a long story about his achievements, which included teaching the Xu people how to fish, sail at sea, and develop inland rivers. What worried me here was that the murals clearly showed that these inland rivers were underground rivers. In other words, King Zhi used the ancient South Sea country to develop a huge underground river system.
In fact, after we analyzed all the murals later, we were surprised by the conclusions that could be drawn. After the South Sea’s King Zhi was finally defeated, he first fled to the depths of the underground river. On the surface, the whole South Sea kingdom was only a small country in Minyue’s primitive forest, but it was actually a big country that ruled and explored the huge water system below.
This also proved that my intuition about the mountains near Rain Village was correct. I always felt that the underground water system there was too complicated to have appeared naturally.
I thought of the murals on both walls near the tomb gate and stopped, forgetting all about Fatty’s snoring and the kind of environment we were in. I had been so nervous before that I didn’t look at them closely. I could tell that they were “three-dimensional” like the “sea market” I had seen in the tomb passage before. In fact, it was really just a combination of relief sculptures, bonsai, and murals. There were a lot of pavilions and terraces carved on it, among which were a lot of “ceramic people” who were telling stories of the South Sea King.
For some unknown reason, Emperor Gaozu appointed a Minyue nobleman the title of South Sea King in 195 BCE. In the murals, the South Sea King vividly depicted the truth of this historical mystery.
When this South Sea nobleman was developing the underground water system in Minyue, he discovered a strange place while exploring. At the center of the underground river system, there was a strange giant coffin.
<Chapter 57><Table of Contents><Chapter 59>
****
TN Notes:
(1) He’s basically completely naked now lol. His junk is hanging out for the whole world to see.
MereBear's Translation 