El beso inolvidable de Ghost Lips

Capítulo 16

We took turns banging on it for a long time, until our hands bled, before the lid finally cracked open. We continued to use force along the crack, and soon the sturdy coffin lid was dismantled into large pieces by us.

We moved the stone coffin lid aside, revealing a black wooden coffin inside, adorned with gold thread. This wooden coffin wasn't easy to open either, but it was much better than the stone one. The young master and I immediately pulled up the crowbar and quickly pried open a corner of the lid. Just as we were about to insert the crowbar deeper and then pry the lid off with a powerful blow, Ruonan suddenly screamed.

We were all startled, thinking, "What's wrong with them? Can you make that sound in an ancient tomb?"

The young master said, "What are you doing? Look around. Are you trying to scare us to death?"

Ruonan said softly, "No, look, something is sticking out from the crack in the coffin."

We quickly looked down and saw three long, blue, fingernail-like things sticking out of the gap that had been pried open with the pry bar. We were so frightened that we immediately fell out.

"Wh...what...thing?" The young master swallowed hard, his voice trembling with nervousness.

"It looks like a fingernail," I whispered, touching my neck and breaking out in a cold sweat.

"How could fingernails be so long?" Ruonan trembled with fear.

The young master took a deep breath and feigned composure, saying, "Don't be afraid, it's alright. Many corpses have long fingernails after they die, so many corpses have very long fingernails, right, young master?"

I shook my head and said softly, "Nonsense, I've hardly ever encountered that. I've heard that only high-ranking monks who have passed away do this. That's because they die in Nirvana, and their bodily functions slowly cease at the time of death. So, when they are judged to be dead, part of their so-called corpse is still alive, which is why their fingernails continue to grow."

The young master swallowed hard and said, "Then... is there a monk in this coffin?"

I thought to myself, how could that be? Liu Qu is a man with a strong desire for power. How could such a person become a monk? And even if he did become a monk, his body wouldn't be able to pass away peacefully like a monk who has been eating vegetarian food for many years.

Another strange thing is that I originally thought there would be a few more coffins inside, as these were quite common during the Western Han Dynasty, but now it seems that the wooden coffins actually contained corpses directly inside.

Forget it, even if it's a zombie inside, we have to bite the bullet and go for it. Anyway, we won't live for more than a few days if we don't die now.

I told the young master not to panic, and the two of us went inside. We first touched the fingernail with a crowbar, but it didn't move. Then we continued to use the crowbar, inserted it, and knocked hard. With a bang, the coffin lid, which weighed at least a hundred pounds, was opened and slid to the side, crashing heavily onto the brick floor.

We cautiously approached, and the young master even picked up a crossbow, but he even misplaced the bamboo arrowhead. The three of us were trembling, almost with our eyes closed, as we peered into the coffin with three flashlights.

The young master was the first to rush over, but after one look, he turned away, his face deathly pale, and said, "Damn, why is this corpse green?"

Upon hearing this, I broke out in a cold sweat even more. I slapped myself to bolster my courage and hid behind the young master as I approached.

Inside the coffin lay a corpse, lying on a silk quilt. The clothes on its body had rotted into clumps of decay, unrecognizable as they were when it was originally worn. The corpse was almost entirely greenish-blue, severely shrunken from dehydration. Its face was contorted with a gaping, grotesque expression, and its fingernails and hair were exceptionally long, indicating that they had continued to grow for a considerable period after death. Its hands were strangely raised, which explained why its fingernails protruded from the cracks when we opened the coffin.

This was the first time I had ever seen an ancient corpse face to face. I felt cold sweat pouring down my back and my legs were trembling. The young master next to me was obviously the same; his face was deathly pale and his whole body was shaking.

But what surprised me was that even someone like Yaya, who deals with ancient corpses every day, was clearly uncomfortable and kept shrinking back.

I patted the young master, which startled him so much that he almost jumped up and yelled, "What are you doing? You're scaring me half to death!"

I asked, "You seem completely out of it. What are you doing? The coffin's already open, aren't we going to get in?"

The girl suddenly shook her head and said, "There's something wrong with this corpse; we can't go in!"

I asked, "What's the problem?"

The girl pressed down on the corpse's chest with a crowbar and asked me, "Guangchuan King Liu Qu, shouldn't he be a man?"

I nodded.

She whispered, "That's strange. This corpse is definitely a woman!"

I couldn't accept the girl's sudden statement at all, because the corpse looked exactly like a man. I asked her to produce evidence, and she simply pointed and said, "When a corpse decomposes into a dried-up or mummified body, it's hard to tell the gender. But for any female corpse, the burial item placed on the left side of the body is definitely a mirror. Look for yourself."

As he spoke, he used a crowbar to pry open the rotten silk quilt under the corpse's left hand, and sure enough, a bronze mirror appeared in front of us.

The girl said she had seen at least 500 to 1,000 corpses, and she could tell the difference between male and female ancient corpses with this one trick, which was 100% accurate and had never failed her.

I was momentarily speechless, but I knew I had heard of such a method and that the girl was right.

But that's impossible. We came here entirely according to the information on the map, and we did find an ancient tomb. But why isn't Liu Qu inside the tomb?

Could the information derived from the map analysis be incorrect? Or is the record in that notebook novel wrong, and this is not the territory of Liu Qu, the King of Guangchuan?

If that's the case, then isn't everything we've done a waste of time? Does that mean our lives are about to end?

I checked my watch; in just over 40 hours, one of us would die.

I reorganized my thoughts. If this isn't Liu Qu's tomb, then it should be the place marked on the map, which should be correct. Assuming that Liu Qu came to this place and something happened to him that allowed him to break free from the curse of the Rakshasa coffin, then we should be able to come here as well.

But what happened to him here? Did he just come here, stand there for a while, or did he take something, eat something, or perform some kind of ritual? We have no idea, what should we do?

Liu Qu was a tomb raider. When he came here, he should have been interested in the coffin, just like us. But the stone coffin was not damaged when we came in, which means that they did not open the coffin when they came in. So, what did Liu Qu do to break the curse?

"What should we do?" Wang Ruonan asked me.

I said, "We still have time. Let's check inside the coffin first to see if there's any writing on it. That way we can find some clues. If not, we'll study this place more carefully later."

In fact, this is the only way right now.

According to the rules of the Southern Crawlers, I set up a mirror and reflected it onto the female corpse.

The Nanpai people did this to prevent tomb raiders from desecrating the female corpse. I looked at the image in the mirror and adjusted the angle of the mirror to face the female corpse.

If the mirror reflects the female corpse's face, it means the soul is gone and you can proceed. If the mirror is completely black and nothing can be seen, then the tomb cannot be robbed; you must put everything back and close the coffin lid intact. This is a very important rule for the Nanpai people regarding female corpses, because they believe that the human eye can awaken the body.

Originally, we were supposed to turn our backs to the body and put the coffin in with our hands behind our backs, but that was too difficult and we couldn't do it. So we put our hands in front of us, but we were looking directly into the mirror.

I nervously adjusted the angle and peeked in the mirror. Thankfully, I could still see that the corpse's eyes were still closed.

The young master, who had been waiting impatiently, asked, "Is it ready yet? We don't have time!"

I nodded, and the two of them immediately put on gloves, climbed onto the coffin, and began to touch the corpse's body.

Generally, the epitaph written by the deceased himself would be placed in the coffin with him. All deceased people would definitely put this in their pillow. The epitaph would record some of the deceased's real circumstances.

We each held one hand and supported the corpse's neck, then slowly lifted her up. Because it was a wet corpse, it still had some elasticity, so it wasn't too difficult to get the corpse to sit up halfway.

The young master quickly brushed aside the broken hair and took out the pillow underneath. It was a hollow jade pillow, with nothing inside. The young master touched it several times to make sure there was nothing there.

He wanted to look for something else, but I stopped him. "Don't bother looking. If it's not inside the pillow, it's probably not anywhere else either. Women rarely have epitaphs."

The young master immediately became dejected. We put the pillow back in its original place and then slowly lowered the woman's head back down.

When I lifted the woman's head, it had already moved out of the mirror's view. I was so nervous that I didn't pay much attention. Now that the head was back in its original position, I instinctively looked at it. Thankfully, the mirror wasn't dark, and I could still see the woman's face.

Wait a minute, something's not right. The female corpse's face looks different from before.

Upon closer inspection, I felt a chill run down my spine and a shiver ran through my body.

We didn't know when, but the woman's eyes had opened, and her two blood-red eyes were staring at us.

Chapter Twenty-Six: Chaos

I screamed, unable to control my neck any longer, and abruptly turned my head to look at the woman's face. I saw that her face was shrouded in a layer of black mist, her eye sockets had shrunk, her cheekbones had protruded, and her expression was even more terrifying.

The zombies have turned into monsters!

That was the only thought in my mind. The three of them scrambled back several steps. The young master trembled and said, "That woman is so fickle! She wasn't changing when we opened the coffin, was she? How could she change so suddenly!"

I certainly don't know, but I'm sure we've gotten something wrong at some point. My so-called knowledge of tomb raiding in the south was all heard piece by piece, and I really can't be sure if I've missed anything.

I shone my flashlight on the coffin, and the female corpse had actually sat up. As soon as the flashlight shone on her, her head immediately turned. I quickly turned the flashlight away and said to the other two, "Don't breathe, that way the old zombie won't be able to find you!"

They simply pinched their noses, and I pointed to a corner, indicating that we should hide there!

We walked a few steps when we suddenly heard something fall from the coffin behind us. I knew immediately that the body had come down, so I quickly turned back to look, but I didn't see anything. There was nothing in the coffin.

When I looked down at the ground again, I was stunned. The female corpse was lying motionless on the ground like a gecko.

"What's going on? Didn't you say she couldn't find us if we didn't breathe? How did she know our location?"

I said, trembling, "Holy crap, I didn't know. Is there a fourth person nearby who hasn't stopped breathing?"

"Impossible!" the young master said. Indeed, it was impossible. We shone our flashlights around randomly, but there was no one there.

The young master pulled out his crossbow and yelled, "Damn it, we're all going to die anyway, so let's take on this woman. Old Xu, you keep an eye on her, I'm going to go after her today!"

As soon as I finished speaking, my legs suddenly gave way and the blue bricks beneath my feet sank in. Before I could even understand what was happening, I lost my footing and fell.

The fall left me completely disoriented. Looking around, I realized there was another passageway below.

Strange, how come there's a passageway here? Could this ancient tomb be two-story?

I looked around in bewilderment. The young master had already pulled us up, shouting, "Stop looking! Run!"

I quickly got up and ran, not knowing where to run. Both sides were pitch black. I saw the young master dragging the maid and running wildly into the darkness. I gritted my teeth and followed.

As I ran, I noticed the brightly colored murals on both sides of the passageway, but I could hear the rapid dragging of chains behind me. I didn't have a chance to stop and look at them myself.

After running for a short while, they heard the young master shout, "There's a door here!"

I swept my flashlight across the room and saw a huge tomb door standing at the end of the passageway. It was more than twice the size of the tomb door we had seen when we came down from the outside. The wooden door was carved from white jade, and two glass dragons were lying on the door on the left and right sides. At first glance, they looked like they were alive.

The sound of chains being dragged behind us indicated we were approaching. Without lingering, the young master flicked his crossbow and ordered me to open the tomb door, while he himself fought the female corpse behind it to buy time.

By this time, I was so scared that my hands and feet were weak and I couldn't even hold onto the hook. After all that fuss, I couldn't even squeeze through the crack in the door.

Upon closer inspection, it became clear that the gap in the massive tomb door was far too narrow, and that it was filled with molten copper, making it impossible to insert the Wanxiang Hook.

My heart sank immediately. Was this the end for the three of us?

In the midst of my panic, the girl suddenly pulled me back, saying, "Watch where you're stepping!"

I looked down and saw that the brick surface of the passageway under our feet had turned into large bluestone slabs. Moreover, the bluestone slab under our feet was a little loose when we stepped on it, as if it were hollow.

I suddenly remembered the story those old Southerners told me. This place is called "Pigeon Turn," and there's a very complicated secret passage underneath that leads to the tomb chamber. This tomb door is just for show; it's not meant for anyone to go in or out. Inside the tomb door, there are six or seven layers of stone sealing the stone, stacked together. Even if you use explosives to blast it, even if you blast the passage above and collapse it, you still can't blast the tomb door open.

I've seen this kind of mechanism in books before, but I never expected to see it in person today. This kind of mechanism is very common in Western Han Dynasty tombs. Suddenly, a thought popped into my head—could this be Liu Qu's tomb? And whose tomb is that with such a distinct Southern Song Dynasty style?

One bridge connects to all six bridges, and I immediately understood what was going on—this was a tomb within a tomb! Years ago, an old professor told me a story. He said that before the Cultural Revolution, they received a tip that a tomb-raiding hole had been discovered. He immediately led his men to the scene, and upon going down, they found that everything inside had been looted, leaving a scene of utter devastation. While the professor was heartbroken, he noticed a strange mark: the coffin had been moved from its bed to the side.

The old professor was puzzled. He had the coffin moved aside and, to his astonishment, a large hole had been dug in the brickwork at the bottom of the Ming Dynasty tomb, revealing a dark, gaping hole—a tomb raider's tunnel. The professor was immediately baffled. He sent more people down to investigate and discovered that directly beneath the Ming Dynasty tomb lay a smaller tomb from the Southern Dynasties period—a true case of one tomb within another.

The tomb raider went down to the small Southern Dynasty tomb, but suffocated to death. The old professor said that his accomplice might have sent him down, then pushed the coffin over and sealed him inside. But the coffin weighed two tons, and no one could explain how his accomplice could move it.

A flood of images flashed through my mind in an instant. The young master had already flipped over the bluestone slab below. At this moment, the stench was very close to me. I could no longer care about anything else. I flipped over and jumped down into the secret passage under the pigeon.

The secret passage below was extremely narrow; one could barely stand upright while crouching. The young master quickly covered the bluestone slab above, and then there was a loud bang, followed by a sudden tremor above, as if something had stepped onto the bluestone slab.

"The zombies won't open the door, right?" I prayed silently.

After that tremor, everything fell silent. We breathed a sigh of relief and looked around to find that the secret passage was about four people wide. Such a path was not meant for people to walk on, but was called the "preceding path," meaning the path for the dead inside to ascend to heaven. It was very difficult for anyone to walk on. These kinds of paths were often located above the tomb entrance, called the "preceding gate," or sometimes on the ground. Liu Qu liked to dig, so he probably chose the ground.

The young master urged me to go inside. To prevent theft, they sometimes set up quicksand traps inside. It's difficult to move around here, and once you fall into a trap, there's no way to escape.

Several people crawled half-prone towards the other side of the secret passage. After crawling for about the time it takes to smoke a cigarette, they reached the other side. At the end of the secret passage was a carved beast head, and there were some reliefs on both sides depicting officials seeing off their loved ones. This meant that your soul came out from here, and the officials were sending you to heaven to become an immortal.

Above the beast's head was a rock, weighing about five or six hundred pounds. The two of us used our shoulders to lift it, using all our strength, and we managed to pry a crack in the board.

I poked half my head out, shone my flashlight around, and then climbed out one after another. Looking around, all four of us were already awestruck by the grandeur of the tomb.

This is a huge circular tomb chamber, about half the size of a football field. I saw twelve enormous pillars standing on either side of the chamber, supporting the roof of the burial chamber (a pavilion built inside the tomb, usually modeled after the deceased's living conditions). In the center of each pillar was an ever-burning lamp, now extinguished. In the middle of the chamber was a pyramid-like platform, with four steps leading up to it. At each of the four corners of the platform was a treasure chest, completely concealing the contents of the platform.