Chapter 25 Jade Burial Armor

I was so shocked that I took several steps back, my muscles tensing up for fear that the corpse would suddenly stand up and launch itself at me. “How can this corpse still be breathing?” I asked. “Have you ever encountered anything like this before?”

“Of course not,” Da Kui said while trembling. “If this was a frequent thing, I’d rather clean toilets than go grave robbing.”

I looked at Pan Zi, who was covering his wound and sweating all over. “It doesn’t matter what it is,” he said to us, “just empty a clip in it. If it’s not dead now, it certainly will be then! I’m afraid things will become problematic if we wait any longer and he stands up.”

As soon as I heard this, I knew that it made a lot of sense—in this underground environment, it was better to act first and think later so that you could be one step ahead of everything—so I quickly raised my gun and took aim. But Uncle Three and that fatty started waving their hands and shouting, “Wait…wait, wait!”

As he spoke, Uncle Three was already moving closer to the armored corpse. He waved his hand at me again and then looked at the armor in such surprise that his mouth couldn’t seem to close properly. He pointed to the black armor and said, “Isn’t…isn’t this jade burial armor?! My God, this thing really exists!”

Feeling confused, I asked him what it was. Uncle Three was so excited that he nearly burst into tears as he stammered, “Holy…Holy Mother of God! I, Wu Sanxing, have been grave robbing for so long and have finally…finally found an amazing artifact—jade burial armor.” He grabbed me by my shoulders. “As long as you wear this thing, your body will continue to rejuvenate and become younger. Do you see this? It’s true! This corpse is living proof!”

Forty or fifty was considered very old back in those days but even though this corpse’s muscles were a bit shriveled, his face really did look very young. I couldn’t help but feel surprised as I wondered if such a thing as rejuvenation really existed in this world.

The fat guy’s eyes were also glued to the armor as he said, “I can’t believe it. Even the first emperor Qin Shihuang couldn’t find this thing. But as it turned out, it was on this guy’s body the whole time. Master Three, do you know how to take this thing off?”

Uncle Three shook his head. “I heard that this thing can’t be taken off from the outside. But that just gives rise to another problem—should we carry the corpse out while it’s wearing the armor?”

The two of them walked back and forth as they examined it, even going so far as to pull at the corpse’s arms and legs while they did so. When I saw that the corpse didn’t show any signs of discontent and didn’t seem to be dangerous, I couldn’t help but gradually relax. “If you take this jade burial armor off, what will happen to the person wearing it?” I asked.

The fat guy apparently hadn’t thought of this either and said, “I really don’t know. If worst comes to worst, he might scatter into ashes or go up in smoke.”

“So if he’s been alive and well this whole time, wouldn’t doing that be the same as committing murder?” I asked.

The fat guy laughed so hard that he almost fell over. “Young comrade,” he said, “if grave robbers had your ideals and conscience, then nothing would have ever been done. Which of these ancient aristocrats and nobles didn’t have blood on their hands? And even if this guy were to come out alive, he’d end up in front of a firing squad. Continuing to worry about this is just a waste of time.”

I thought about it and knew that he was right. After seeing how busy they were with the armor, I knew that it wasn’t good to remain idle so I went to check the coffin to see if there was anything good among the funerary objects. There was a thick layer of scale-like things on the bottom of the coffin, along with some funerary objects that I couldn’t recognize at first glance. I grabbed a handful of these scales and asked, “What are these things?”

Uncle Three was still preoccupied with the armor, but when I asked this, he sniffed them and said, “This is the skin that fell off of that guy’s body.”

I felt sick to my stomach and immediately threw them away with a curse, “Shit, was this King Shang of Lu suffering from a skin disease to be losing so much skin?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Uncle Three said. “That’s the old skin he shed as his body rejuvenated. Every time he shed, he became younger. Based on the amount of skin, he probably shed five or six layers.”

I had no interest in these disgusting things that reminded me of snakeskin, but my thoughts were interrupted when the fat guy cried out, “I found something!”

We all looked over and saw that there was a thin gold thread on a piece of jade in the armpit area of that jade burial armor. Feeling impressed, I said to him, “I say, you damned fatty, your fucking eyes are way too sharp if you can pick out one thread among so many.”

He rolled his eyes at me before muttering, “You southern comrades are so greedy for profit that you wipe out every tomb you’ve come across. But grave robbing is a meticulous art. Do you see now? If I hadn’t been here today, you guys would have already destroyed this corpse to get the jade burial armor off.”

Uncle Three must have felt as though he was losing face because he started cursing, “Fuck you. We don’t even know if this is really the way. Maybe it’s just an extra thread.”

The fat guy laughed and said, “You fuckers are so skeptical.” He went to pull the thread, but his hand was only halfway there when I suddenly heard a whooshing sound and felt something flash before my eyes like a bolt of lightning.

Uncle Three reacted very fast and immediately kicked the fat guy out of the way right as a black sword embedded itself deep in the tree with a bang. I stood there stunned as I realized that the sword would have pierced the fat guy’s head if it weren’t for Uncle Three’s kick just now.

We all looked back and saw Poker-Face standing by the platform’s steps. He was covered in blood and a previously hidden bluish-green Qilin⁽¹⁾ tattoo had appeared on his body. His left hand was still poised in a throwing motion while his right hand was holding a strange object. When we got a closer look at it, we all gasped in shock.

The thing he was carrying in his right hand turned out to be the head of a blood corpse.

Poker-Face glanced at us and then staggered up the steps. He was breathing very heavily and his condition didn’t look too good. Judging from all the wounds covering his body, it must have been a fierce battle. He looked at the coffin first and then waved his hand at us before saying softly, “Get out of the way.”

The veins on the fat guy’s forehead bulged—there was no way he would listen to Poker-Face—and then he jumped up and shouted, “What the hell were you trying to do just now?!”

Poker-Face turned his head, stared at him coldly, and said, “Kill you.”

Furious, the fat guy rolled up his sleeves and started to rush towards Poker-Face but Da Kui quickly stopped him. Seeing that the atmosphere was strained and the fat guy didn’t seem like the type to easily let things go, Uncle Three hurriedly said, “Don’t panic. Little Brother must’ve had a reason for doing such a thing. Let’s hear him out first. Hasn’t he saved your life a few times during this adventure? Just take it easy.”

After thinking about it, the fat guy realized that he was right and that it wouldn’t be good to fight. He broke free from Da Kui’s grip and sat down on the ground angrily before saying, “You fuckers are all banding together. That’s it, I give up. There’s no way I can beat four of you by myself. You guys are the ones calling the shots now.”

Poker-Face put the blood corpse’s head on the jade bed and then coughed before saying, “This blood corpse is the previous owner of this jade burial armor. When King Shang of Lu was robbing this tomb, he found him and removed the jade burial armor from his body. As a result, he became what he is now. When you put on this jade burial armor, you shed your skin every five hundred years. You can only remove the armor when your skin is in the process of shedding. Otherwise, you’ll turn into a blood corpse. The living corpse in front of you has been around for more than three thousand years. If you had pulled that thread just now, the corpse inside would have immediately transformed and we would have all died here.”

He coughed a few more times after he finished speaking and I saw blood seeping out of the corner of his mouth. Not good, I thought to myself. He may have hurt his internal organs.

Pan Zi, who had been leaning off the side in pain and remaining silent the whole time, suddenly spoke up, “Little Brother, I’m a blunt person so don’t take offense, but you seem to know too much. If it’s convenient, you might as well tell us what kind of immortal you are. You saved my life, so if I make it out of here alive, I’ll definitely visit your home and properly pay my respects.”

Pan Zi’s words were spoken very skillfully so I didn’t think Poker-Face could ignore him, but I was surprised to find that he remained silent, as if he hadn’t heard anything at all. He walked up to King Shang of Lu’s corpse and gave him a once-over with eyes full of loathing. Then, a cold light suddenly flashed in his eyes and his hand moved to wrap around the corpse’s throat, lifting the body out of the coffin before I even realized what was happening. A screech emerged from the corpse’s throat as tremors wracked its whole body. Everything happened so fast that I didn’t have time to react at all.

“You’ve lived long enough,” Poker-Face said to the corpse in a tone that was as cold as ice. “Now die.” The veins in his hand were bulging and the sound of cracking bone could be heard as the corpse’s limbs kept twitching. Then, the corpse gave one final kick and its skin quickly turned black.

As we all stared at him in stunned silence, he threw the body on the ground as if the jade burial armor was worthless garbage. I immediately grabbed him and asked, “Who the hell are you and why do you hate this King Shang of Lu so much?”

Poker-Face looked at me for a few seconds before saying, “What’s it to you?”

“Why did you do that?” The fat guy asked indignantly. “We worked so hard to get down to this tomb and finally opened this coffin only for you to strangle the corpse without saying a word. You should at least give us a fucking explanation!”

Poker-Face turned his head and looked at the blood corpse’s head on the jade bed with a very somber expression. He then pointed to a purple jade box at the back of the painted lacquer coffin and said, “Everything you guys want to know is in that box.”　

<Chapter 24><Table of Contents><Chapter 26>　　

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TN Notes:

(1) Qilin (sometimes called Kirin) is a legendary hooved chimerical creature that appears in Chinese mythology. Qilin generally have Chinese dragon-like features: dragon heads with antlers, eyes with thick eyelashes, manes that always flow upward, and beards. The body is fully or partially scaled and often shaped like an ox, deer, or horse. They are always shown with cloven hooves. Sometimes they’re depicted with parts of their bodies on fire. According to Taoist mythology, although they can look fearsome, they only punish the wicked. Way more info here.

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I should’ve had this out yesterday but I went on a “Bad and Crazy” and “Bulgasal” bender this weekend lol. Let’s just say I may or may not be in love with Ok Eul-Tae