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.

Uncle Three carefully folded the jade cover and put it in his backpack. I tried to lift it but found that it was unbearably heavy—that thing looked like it would definitely be hard to carry.

Encouraged by what we had found, Da Kui suddenly became excited and moved to continue opening the painted wooden coffin. But Uncle Three quickly grabbed him and started scolding him, “You fucking faint when you see ghosts but become willing to die as soon you see money. There’s one more layer below this so don’t be so careless. Just take it nice and slow.” After he said this, he squatted down, put his ear up against the coffin lid, and then made a gesture for us to keep quiet.

We all held our breath for fear of disturbing him. After listening for a long time, he turned around and said with a pale face, “It sounds like something’s breathing inside this fucking thing.”

We were all stunned. If we had heard a ghost crying inside the coffin, then we might have been able to accept it. But now that something was breathing inside this coffin, it was just too bizarre.

Da Kui was so terrified that he started stammering, “It…it’s not a living corpse is it?!”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Uncle Three said. “Don’t start spouting any of your fucking bullshit here! We’ve already gotten to this point—what, do you want to put the coffin lid back on?” He then took out a black donkey’s hoof, tucked it under his armpit, and motioned to me. I lifted my gun while Da Kui raised the crowbar in his hand, the two of us standing guard at the edge of the coffin, ready to put up a fight no matter what jumped out at us.

Uncle Three then spat into his hands, stretched his arms to give himself a minute to boost his courage, and inserted the pry bar into the wooden coffin. But as soon as he did so, a voice behind him suddenly shouted, “Stop!”

We looked back and saw that the fat guy had woken up at some point. He was rubbing his head and waving his hand at us while saying, “No, no. Something bad is going to happen if you open it like that. Are you guys really trying to rob a grave with so little fucking experience? It’s like turning on a flashlight in a fucking latrine to look for shit. You’re clearly asking for trouble.”

Uncle Three snorted, “Then what do you suggest?”

The fat guy motioned for Uncle Three to move out of the way before putting his hand into the gap between the wooden coffin and bronze coffin, closing his eyes, and groping around for a long time. Then, he suddenly gave a hard tug and we all heard a snapping sound. The coffin lid cracked neatly down the middle and we all seemed to hear an extremely anguished cry coming from inside the coffin. I was so scared that my hands went numb and I almost dropped my gun.

The fat guy immediately jumped back and spread his hands while shouting, “Get back!”

I subconsciously raised my gun and pointed it at the coffin while quickly taking a few steps back. The wooden coffin rose from the bronze outer coffin like a lotus flower in bloom, the split lid falling away on either side. This ingenious design was so amazing that we couldn’t help but stare at it in wonder, but at this time, we saw a man in black armor suddenly sit up from the coffin.

I lifted my gun, ready to shoot, but that fat guy grabbed my arm and said, “Don’t shoot! That armor he’s wearing is a precious treasure! You can’t destroy it!”

At this time, I finally saw what the mysterious King Shang of Lu looked like. He was a rare “moist corpse”, which was a corpse whose body hadn’t rotted away and whose skin was still moist and supple. I could see that his skin was white to the point of being transparent and both of his eyes were closed. It looked like he had suffered a very painful death since his facial features were contorted in agony. I was a little surprised. Since he had a way to keep that female corpse’s body from decaying for thousands of years, why couldn’t he preserve his own body?

Uncle Three walked over to the coffin and said, “I thought it was another fucking zombie but look, there’s a piece of wood behind him. No wonder he was able to sit up.”

We all walked over and saw that, sure enough, it was a very delicate mechanism. It was set up in such a way that as soon as the coffin was opened, the body inside would be propped up by that piece of wood. If any ordinary grave robbers came across this, they would probably be scared to death.

As we all breathed a sigh of relief, I couldn’t help but think that this King Shang of Lu was really calculating. But it was unfortunate that he didn’t take into account the fact that those who were afraid of ghosts weren’t grave robbers while those who robbed graves weren’t afraid of ghosts. After all, those who dared to open another person’s coffin at night were clearly desperadoes. He was obviously underestimating us by using such scare tactics.

As we all gathered around, I finally got a good look at the armor he was wearing, which was actually the last coffin layer. Its scientific name was Gold-Threaded Jade Armor, but I didn’t know why all the jade pieces on it had turned black. I leaned in for a closer look and couldn’t help but freeze in shock when I saw that the corpse’s chest was still rising and falling as though it was still breathing. The breathing sounds were so distinct now that I almost felt as if I could see a cloud of moisture coming out of his nose.

Da Kui’s mouth dropped open in surprise, “This…this… this fucking thing seems to be alive!”　

<Chapter 23><Table of Contents><Chapter 25>　　

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TN Notes:

(1) Marquis Yi of Zeng lived during the Spring and Autumn Period. The tomb was built around 433 BC, either at the end of the Spring and Autumn period or the start of the Warring States period. Info on the tomb is on wiki and this historical site (the latter has more detail and pics of the coffins. Just scroll down to the “double coffins” section).

(2) 800 catty=480 kg=1058.22 lbs

(3) Taken from this article: Ancient Chinese believed that heaven was like a dome covering the square earth. This comes from traditional Chinese philosophy named 天圆地方(Tian Yuan Di Fang, literally meaning that the heaven is round and the earth is square). Derived from the Chinese Yin and Yang theory, the chaos of the universe was initially called Taiji, which refers to the origin of yin (negative, or female), yang (positive, or male) and of universal changes. When the earth wasn’t separated from the heavens, the universe was a great mass like a huge egg. Then, Taiji evolved into Liang Yi (two phases) and the Yin and Yang theory came into being as well as the separation of heaven and earth. Celestial objects like the sun and moon are eternally moving in circles over the sky while the earth is serenely bearing the people on it like a stable square. So, as a result, the idea of a circular heaven and square earth came about.  

When looking at the physical world, circular objects are seen as unstable and active (just like the round sun and moon). Contrary to that, square objects possess characteristics of stability and inactiveness like the earth. Generally, activeness represents Yang and inactiveness represents Yin, so the round heaven (天圆Tian Yuan) is a symbol of Yang, while the square earth (地方Di Fang) is a sign of Yin.

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This is the first half of episode 6 of Season 1 if you want visuals. Viki link here, iQiyi link here, and kissasian link here.