The Complete Collection of Yellow River Ghost Coffins

Chapter 8

Of course, when you apply these theories to real-world situations, you'll quickly find they're all bullshit. In the young master's words, they don't judge what they dig up based on what's in the books; instead, they revise the books every time they dig something up. The conditions involved in this line of work—ethnic customs, regions, dynasties, identities, and beliefs—are almost impossible to clarify in books.

I looked at the stone coffin in the water. The seams were almost invisible, and it seemed to be a single piece. Moreover, there were no gates to the immortals on either side, which made me very puzzled.

Beneath the coffin were four stone rings, with four iron chains wrapped around them. Once I was under the coffin bed, I tried to pull one of the chains, but to no avail. The coffin was secured here.

The stone coffin was made of a very special material. Under the light of my flashlight, it emitted a fat-colored light and seemed somewhat translucent. I could see a black shadow inside the coffin. At first, I thought it was the outline of the inner coffin, but after looking at it again, I realized that the shadow seemed to be a person.

Chapter Fifteen: Yellow River Water Ghosts

I gasped, my worldview instantly turned upside down. What was going on? How could someone be placed directly inside a coffin?

A figure emerged from the side and waved to me. I knew it was the young master signaling me to come over, so I waved back in response. Before I could examine the contents of the coffin closely, I asked him to wait a moment, but he grabbed me and pulled me back.

I didn't know what he was doing, but when I followed him, I found that he was looking at the reliefs on the walls of the tomb.

I've never liked relief sculptures because many Chinese reliefs are too exaggerated and the themes are too simplistic, consisting of mythological stories or random mythical beasts. You might be fascinated when you first start out, but after a while, you'll find them quite monotonous. This is why so many scholars and writers are interested in newly excavated ancient tombs; they want to find something new.

But when I saw the reliefs here, I was stunned and thought to myself, "How strange!"

This is a series of narrative reliefs carved on a bluish-gray rock slab. The carving is very rough, and the figures look somewhat strange. I glanced at it and couldn't understand what it was about.

The young master was engrossed in looking at the reliefs, pointing at them repeatedly. I thought he seemed to have figured something out. I found it amusing; he often did this when I was with him, but most of the time he was just pretending to know what he didn't and spouting nonsense.

He walked up to a relief sculpture, shone his flashlight on it, and showed me what was inside. The wall depicted people carrying river mud on their backs with straw hats. This must have been a dredging project initiated by the locals during the Yellow River's dry season. In the middle of the sculpture, there was a stone platform half-exposed in the sand and mud, exactly like the square coffin I had seen on the coffin bed. Many people were surrounding the coffin, their expressions full of surprise.

Seeing that I understood, the young master pulled me to look at the next one. I followed his gaze and saw that on another relief, a coffin had been excavated and a shadow had been carved on it. The shadow was lying on the coffin, and it seemed to be a person but not quite. In the next relief, this thing was leaving the coffin and walking towards a person in a very strange posture.

As I watched the shadow's movements, I realized they were exactly the same as Shan Jun's dying actions, and a chill began to run down my spine.

The next painting shows everyone dead on the ground, with only the coffin remaining in the picture.

The young master told me to look at his mouth. I looked at it and saw him mouthing, "It sounds like a warning?"

"Superstition," I mouthed. "There are no evil spirits."

The young master turned to look at me, mouthing, "Wasn't Shan Jun dead?"

I recalled the expression on Shan Jun's corpse and couldn't help but shudder. I cursed, "Don't give me that nonsense. Be careful someone overhears you and writes you a book."

The young master muttered something and fell silent, probably thinking about the Cultural Revolution. I patted him, signaling him to start searching and to pack up any good stuff he found. I also wanted to see where Shan Jun had broken off the bronze shard he gave me. The young master nodded.

The two of them composed themselves and went to examine the burial objects around them. They had only taken two steps when the young master pulled me back. I thought to myself, "Aren't you annoying? It's so uncomfortable to stay in this pitch-black water. I feel like there's something around me." I turned around to ask him what he was doing, but when I turned my head, I saw the young master leaning against the wall, gesturing frantically at me.

I thought to myself, "What's wrong with me?" Then I turned around and saw a clay figure standing motionless in the corner behind me.

When I was looking at the relief just now, there was nothing there. I thought it was strange and thought I was seeing things. So I shone my flashlight over it, and as soon as I shone it, the clay figure suddenly turned around, its strange face looking like mud.

〖BT1〗Fifteen, Yellow River Water Ghost

My scalp tingled instantly. I swallowed a huge mouthful of water and almost choked to death. I was completely stunned, and my heart felt like it was about to burst out of my chest.

He hurriedly reached for the knife at his waist, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't pull it off.

The young master was also terrified, and the two of them involuntarily began to back away.

The pottery figure just stared at us. I looked at its face, which was like a lump of paste, all mud, but it was clear that the thing was watching us, eerily.

But after watching for a while, he didn't do anything, which puzzled the young master. He looked at me, as if to say, "Maybe I'm seeing things wrong?"

That one second passed so quickly that I really couldn't be sure, so the two of us took a few more steps closer to see clearly.

When they got about two or three meters away from the pottery figure, the young master took out a hammer from his equipment bag and threw it at the pottery figure. The hammer hit the pottery head and knocked off a patch of mud.

Just as I was about to say that I had indeed seen wrong, the pottery figure suddenly stood up, and a huge creature rose from the mud, instantly blurring our vision with a cloud of mud and water.

I immediately ran back, yelling in my head, "Holy crap, holy crap, what's going on?! What is that thing?"

Suddenly remembering what Nanpaizi had said—that anything could happen inside an ancient tomb—I immediately regretted my decision. No wonder those two wouldn't come down on their own; if I had known about this, I wouldn't have done it even for a terracotta warrior.

But there was no time to think about these things at that moment. I looked back and saw that the pottery figure was slowly approaching us. We retreated little by little. There were many bronze armor plates on his body.

Chapter Sixteen, Six Months Later

The situation was chaotic, and I didn't know what to do. In the end, the young master reacted quickly and pulled me back towards the Jade Gate. The two of us tumbled and scrambled back into the tunnel. I had only taken a few steps in when I suddenly felt something pulling me. I touched it and found it was the pipe behind me. I didn't know if it was stuck somewhere or if the pottery figure was holding it back.

The young master completely ignored me and ran off in a flash. I tried to call out to him but couldn't. I pulled hard on the tube, feeling like I was going into a frenzy, but no matter how hard I pulled, I couldn't move it.

I suddenly remembered the scene when we were pulling Dan Jun, and the expression on Dan Jun's face before he died, he was almost going crazy.

At that moment, I remembered the bronze pieces I still had in my pocket. I pulled them out suddenly, then pulled them behind my head and slashed them with my elbow. The tube was severed in an instant. I gritted my teeth, and water rushed in through the helmet hole, blurring my vision immediately.

But I was free in an instant. I immediately put down all the weights on my body and swam forward, bumping into things along the way.

I swam out of the tunnel in one breath, my vision blurred, and I couldn't even see where the cave I had come from was. Several times I tried to climb up, but I bumped into the ceiling of the stone chamber. The more panicked I became, the more chaotic things got. At this point, I had reached my limit, and I suddenly realized: It's over.

I'm afraid I'm going to die here. When they pull me out tomorrow, I'll probably have the same expression on my face.

The thought flashed through my mind in an instant. I choked on my own throat and took a few more reluctant glances. Suddenly, I saw a blurry shadow swim up behind me. Then, my consciousness gradually faded, and finally, there was only silence.

When I woke up, I was in a provincial hospital. My mind was blank, and I couldn't remember anything.

It wasn't until three days later that some memories gradually returned to my mind. I remembered the deep hole at the bottom of the Yellow River and the broken face of the potter. It felt like I had just had a dream.

I couldn't speak for a few days. Later, the young master came to see me, and I felt a little relieved to see that he was safe and sound. Once I had recovered enough, I asked him what had happened afterward.

The young master sighed. It turned out that the figure I saw a few seconds before I lost consciousness was him. When he realized I hadn't followed, he went back to look for me and found that I had cut my trachea and swallowed several mouthfuls of water. His expression was terrifying. The tunnel was murky, so something was definitely trying to come out. In a moment of panic, he ripped off my helmet, released his weight belt, and then pulled me up to float upwards.

After we got on the boat, we discovered that the two scoundrels were gone, and we didn't know where they had gone. He didn't care about that. First, he docked the boat on the shore, and then he carried me on his back and ran towards the Yellow River bank.

The riverbed was filled with phosphorescent light. As he ran, he heard the sound of numerous iron shackles. The young master was already terrified by what was in the water, and he couldn't bear the shock. He didn't dare to look at what was making the shackles in the riverbed, so he ran straight to the shore. Relying on his memory of the way there, he carried me back to the small village at a jog.

When I ran to the village, Wang Ruonan and the others were still there. When they saw me like this, they were terrified. Old Cai's nephew quickly called over the old man who was sitting on the corpse. When the old man saw me, he said there was still hope. He gave me a handful of yellow sand and slapped it into my nostrils. I choked and was able to breathe smoothly again.

Later, because there was no tractor, they used an oxcart to take me back to town overnight. I was unconscious the whole time. When we got to town, I went to a folk doctor who gave me an injection and told me to go back to the county seat. I traveled around and passed by several large hospitals. Later, my customer in Shanghai received the goods and was very interested, so he came here to find me. When he saw that I was in such a state, he took it upon himself to take me to a large hospital in the province.

The young master said, "Your guest threw down 100,000 yuan at you and left, saying to let him know when you wake up. I just called him yesterday, and he might come to see you in a few days."

I nodded and asked, "How's the cave?"

The young master shook his head and said, "There's no time to worry about these things anymore. His shop is failing; he said running a restaurant is much more comfortable, otherwise he could lose his life in this line of work."

I laughed, but it was incredibly bitter.

A few days later, my client came to see me. I carefully explained the situation to him, and he asked me if I could still get my hands on this kind of stuff. I shook my head and told him not to get my hopes up. I only have a few decent ones.

I was discharged from the hospital two weeks later and gave some money to the young master, who had a hard life too. The two of us went on a wild trip in Taiyuan, partly to vent our fears. But we didn't vent our fears, but we did expend a lot of money, so I went back to Shanghai to continue my business.

Half a year has passed in the blink of an eye. Although the incident is still fresh in my memory, the feeling of fear has gradually disappeared, and my life seems to be back on track.

After this incident, I put up two pieces of paper at home, one saying "Abstain from greed" and the other saying "Abstain from eccentricity." I have been following these principles ever since, and my business has improved significantly. The remaining 100,000 yuan quickly turned into 400,000 yuan.

I thought that was the end of it, but unexpectedly, two people came to Shanghai to look for us on New Year's Day that year.

The two people who arrived were the young master and Wang Ruonan.

Chapter Seventeen: The Seven-Day Curse

I find it very strange. I spoke with the young master on the phone about two weeks ago, but we only talked about it briefly. I didn't mention that he was coming over. And Wang Ruonan also came over, which makes me even stranger.

We went to a restaurant for dinner and talked about some things from back then. Then I steered the conversation back to the topic and asked them why they came to see me.

The young master's face darkened, and after a long silence, he finally said, "I have bad news. The professor is dead."

I paused for a moment, then said "Oh," expressing my regret. Perhaps the blow was too great. I saw that the professor's mental state was already very unstable at that time. He was getting old, so it was inevitable that such things would happen.

The young master, however, seemed not to have finished speaking, and pulled a photograph from his pocket: "Take a look."

When I took a look at the photo, I felt a chill run down my spine and immediately covered it up again.

The photo shows the professor's remains. I think it was taken during the autopsy at the hospital. The professor's hair was disheveled, and his mouth was strangely grinning, just like the expressions of Wang Quansheng and Shan Jun when they died.

I felt a chill run through me and asked, "What happened?"

The young master sighed, glanced at Wang Ruonan, and the little girl, her eyes reddening, recounted what had happened in a trembling voice.

It turns out that a few months after we left, an expedition team was organized to investigate the water cave. They carried out a massive excavation, lifting the entire ancient tomb up and then pumping it dry.

Under the blazing sun, with nearly a platoon of soldiers nearby, everything was peaceful. The young girl didn't participate in the direct work; she just accompanied the professor to remotely control the on-site operation from the provincial capital. Later, the cultural relics were transported to Taiyuan, and the huge stone coffin was also moved to the cultural department's warehouse.

After assessment by several expert groups, the items in the ancient tomb were determined to date back to the Western Han Dynasty. The tomb was quite large and was considered to be of a high standard at the time. However, no inscription was found, making it impossible to ascertain the identity of the tomb's occupant.

Archaeologists do not accept the theory of the Zhenhe Tomb.

Strangely, the stone coffin in the tomb was very special, and the relief patterns on it were also very ancient, seemingly dating back to before the Western Zhou Dynasty.

This means that the ancient tomb was built many years later than the coffin, and that period of history is very vague. This one night could be a difference of thousands of years.

At the bottom of the coffin was an inscription in a language they had never seen before. The professors attempted to decipher it; the inscription contained 172 characters. However, it seemed they ultimately came to no avail.

I know very well how the old men do things. Even if they translate those few words, they won't easily publish them. First, they're afraid someone will steal their credit; second, after the Cultural Revolution, they've lost track of what should and shouldn't be said, so they simply won't say anything.

The old professor was an expert in this field, and the final data was compiled and handed over to him. He then devoted himself to studying these things. At the time, they lived next to the warehouse where the cultural relics were stored, and the old professor asked Wang Ruonan and the others not to disturb him.

Wang Ruonan was used to the professor's working style and was naturally not very talkative, but there was no need for everyone to wait outside, so she left a few people behind while the others went back to their work. Wang Ruonan still had many reports to finish, so she returned to her unit early.

Around 6 PM, she felt it was about time, and that the professor had probably finished his work, so she returned to the warehouse. However, she found the professor's door still closed.

The professor was in poor health, and Wang Ruonan was worried that he couldn't handle working so much, so she went to knock on the door. After knocking for a long time without any response, she pushed the door open and went into his room. When she got there, she found the professor lying on the floor, motionless.

The little girl was terrified. When she turned him over, she was almost scared to death. The professor was already stiff, covered in water, and the expression on his face was exactly the same as in the photograph, just like Wang Quansheng's expression before he died.

I gasped when I heard that, and my head started throbbing.

Recalling the expressions on Wang Quansheng's face after his death, as well as the expressions on the professor's and Shan Jun's faces after their deaths, it's easy to tell that this was definitely not a coincidence.

Seeing the expressions on the young master and maid's faces, I knew they realized the same thing. So I asked, "What do you think?"

The young master said, "This matter is probably a bit unusual. We both feel there's something wrong, so we came to discuss it with you."

I asked, "What did the hospital say?"

The young girl said, "They say it's a heart condition. The professor does have a heart condition, but even when he's in great pain, he wouldn't show that kind of expression."

The young master handed me some documents and said, "These are all materials Ruonan compiled, information about the underwater tomb. Take a look."

My self-cultivation has been very effective these past few months. At this moment, I calmed down, lit a cigarette, and opened these documents.

The report at the beginning of the document stated that flashlights and breathing hoods belonging to tomb raiders were found inside the ancient tomb. They were initially startled, thinking they were too late again. However, the outcome turned out to be fortunate, as the tomb was not severely damaged.

All the unearthed artifacts were photographed; there was a thick stack of photos. I saw those bronze figurines, which were much clearer than when they were underwater. There were also many bronze and wooden artifacts. These things should have been in the silt, which we didn't see at the time.

Some important discoveries were circled in red. I saw photos of the murals; there were seventy-six in total.

Analysis of many artifacts is provided below, dated to the Western Han Dynasty. Bronze artifacts of that period were generally plain. The ding (鼎) mainly followed the Qin style, but its three legs were generally shorter. It was box-shaped. Hu (壶) existed in two sizes; the larger hu had a slightly constricted lower belly, more bulging than Qin hu; the smaller hu had a slender belly, often cast with stylized dragon patterns. Some were very elaborate, with triangular cloud patterns inlaid with turquoise throughout. These characteristics are quite obvious.

There are many analyses about who the tomb owner was, but based on the records on some of the reliefs and compared with the records in the Yellow River Chronicle, they put forward a legend.

The coffin depicted in the relief is called the "River-Suppressing Dragon Coffin." Legend has it that during the reign of Emperor Xuan of the Western Han Dynasty, a "Water Balance Commandant" unearthed it from the silt at the bottom of the Yellow River while directing dredging efforts. Upon seeing the bird-like markings on the coffin, the people knew it belonged to their ancestors. Everyone knelt and kowtowed, not daring to touch the coffin even slightly. They then replaced it with the coffin.