Chapter 88

The copied mural meant key information, so I immediately sat up straight to examine it.

There were countless leather figurines painted on this mural and almost all the spaces were filled with them. The reason why I could tell they were leather figurines instead of living people was because their fingers were the same kind of shell as the leather figurines I saw before.

Uncle Two made notes on the side and said that there was a total of 432 statues. Each had their own identity, ranging from musicians, soldiers, palace maids, warriors, and guardian deities. I squinted at all the neatly-arranged statues for a while. This mural’s focus was on the symbolic concept design of the South Sea King’s tomb.

There was an area at the top that was surrounded by palace maids. The South Sea’s King Zhi sat on a throne, which was surrounded by a sea of clouds. The immortal boats were surrounded by palace maids, while ministers paid homage. It formed a beautiful world of ultimate bliss. This was the setup we had seen in the main tomb chamber.

There were guardian deities around this world that looked like thunder gods. They were the thunder god statues we saw in the tomb passage.

Under this most blissful world, there were countless chariots and horses. Those thunder god statues from just now were calling these strange chariots and mounting them to gallop under the blissful world. These were the horses and chariots that were in the burial pit below the tomb passage.

Under the chariot and horse army was a group of soldiers and craftsmen who were worshiping. These soldiers and craftsmen were at the very bottom of the whole mural and worshiped upwards. These were the underwater leather figurines we found in the drainage channel.

The overall structure of the South Sea King’s tomb was very simple. Uncle Two also marked the possible identities of every leather figurine according to their different costumes. There was a leather figuring woman among them whose face was blurred on the mural. Uncle Two had placed a circle around it. This blurriness wasn’t from the mural corroding, but from the lack of clarity when it was originally painted.

Every part of the rest of the mural was very clear, and only this part was painted very hastily. As a result, this leather figurine woman’s face looked strange and sinister. This leather figurine woman was in the paradise among the sea of clouds at the top of the mural. Since it was painted by the South Sea King’s side, it was logically one of the most important compositions.

But why was it like this?

Could it be that leather figurine woman?

I picked up my cell phone and sent a short message to Poker-Face asking him where the leather figurine woman was.

Poker-Face’s short reply said: “Brought it out.”

I thought about it. Uncle Two couldn’t carry this kind of thing around, so he must have returned to Hangzhou to put it in storage.

I looked at Uncle Two’s note on the margin, which read: “There are many immortal boats in the main tomb chamber that are recorded in the mural. The indistinct leather figurine woman in this mural should be located on the first boat in the tomb chamber, but we haven’t found it. Based on the clothing, this leather figurine woman should be a sorceress who stuck close to the emperor.”

I looked between the photos of the first boat and mural and compared them. Sure enough, there was a leather figurine woman missing from the photo of the first boat.

Uncle Two took a close-up photo of the ground in front of the first stone boat where clear traces of footprints could be seen. His comment read: “This leather figurine woman was obviously taken away by whoever came in before.”

But why?

Uncle Two asked himself this question: “Why did Third Brother take the leather figurine woman away?”

It wasn’t taken away, I said to myself. If this leather figurine woman was the one we had found in the waterway, then it had just been left down there.

Uncle Three had copied all the leather figurines in the mural, so from my point of view, this was done to record specific details. I shook my hands out and called Uncle Two.

You could never tell what Uncle Two was doing from his voice alone. When he asked me what was wrong, I said, “You told me it was ok to provide you some information.”

Uncle Two told me to go ahead, so I continued, “Uncle Two, I have a farfetched idea. Do you think it’s possible that there are two South Sea King’s tombs?”

Uncle Two paused. “Why do you say that?”

I didn’t really have a particular reason in mind, it was just a sudden thought. “I read through the information you gave me,” I said. “Uncle Three copied the mural to record the details, so there must be another ‘thing’ that has to be compared with the copied details. That’s why I thought there might be another completely identical mural, only with some small differences in detail. Uncle Three needed to copy it for comparison. If there is an identical mural, then I wonder if it came from an identical ancient tomb. In other words, there are two South Sea King’s tombs.”

Uncle Two was silent for a while and then said, “It’s not like that, but it’s a bit similar to what you said. There’s another tomb with murals that are very similar to those of the South Sea King’s tomb, but there are several dynasties between this other tomb and the South Sea King’s tomb.”

“Song Dynasty,” I said.

Uncle Two paused, “How did you know?”

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