The Complete Collection of Yellow River Ghost Coffins

Chapter 33

I was startled by his words and instinctively said, "Old man, don't talk nonsense. I'm still alive, where would I get any corpse energy from?"

The old man chuckled twice, revealing a mouthful of yellow teeth, and after a long while said, "You're very tough; you won't die easily. Even the King of Hell will have to think twice before taking you."

I forced a smile. "You're joking, old man. I've been on the verge of death several times. My life isn't very strong."

The old man didn't say much after hearing this. He turned to Professor Sun and said, "Xuanzi, let me see the thing!"

Upon hearing this, Professor Sun quickly turned around and carefully took out a roll of gold and silk from his office drawer. I could clearly see that the roll of gold and silk was the epitaph of Liu Qu that we had retrieved from the Guangchuan King's Mausoleum.

The old man took the gold and silk, read it from beginning to end, frowned and said, "It's just an epitaph, how is it as strange as you say?" Professor Sun grinned lewdly, pushed up his thick glasses, and said with a fawning smile, "Uncle-Master, what Xuanzi wants to ask is, what does the 'Golden Thread Maiden' mentioned in this epitaph refer to?"

It turns out that Professor Sun, like us, had no idea about the origins of the Golden Thread Maiden, so he wanted to ask this senior martial uncle for guidance. I, however, was even more curious: how did Professor Sun's senior martial uncle end up with those Southern scoundrels?

The old man rolled his eyes and asked, completely unconvinced, "What do you want with Jinlu Su Nu, Xuan Zi? Don't blame your uncle for not warning you. I told you when we were kids, don't mess with things from under the Yellow River."

I was stunned when I heard this. So this old man already knew there was something at the bottom of the Yellow River! Then why did he tell Hu Lai and Wang Ming to go tomb raiding in the middle of the night?

Professor Sun's expression changed, but Huang Zhihua could no longer listen. He immediately walked to the old man's side and said coldly, "This is a major state secret case. You'd better assist us in the investigation."

As soon as I heard that, I knew things were going to get bad. This old man was very strange; he was clearly someone who wouldn't listen to reason. Sure enough, upon hearing this, the old man rolled his cloudy eyes and said coldly, "This old man seems to have nothing to do with your confidential case, nor is there any need for me to assist you in your investigation. This old man will take his leave now!" With that, he stood up unsteadily, and Hu Lai and Wang Ming hurriedly went to help him.

Seeing that he was about to leave, Professor Sun and I both panicked. Huang Zhihua might not care, but I wasn't ready to die yet. I took a step forward and blocked the old man's path, smiling apologetically, "Please take care, sir."

I said, "This matter is a bit strange, and it's really hard to explain in just a few words. Could you please sit down and let me explain slowly?" Professor Sun was also quick-witted. Seeing that I was holding back the old man while I was speaking, he quickly pulled Huang Zhihua away and whispered something to him, finally managing to calm the reckless officer down.

"What's so strange about it? It's just an epitaph, isn't it? If you're interested in this, just have Xuanzi translate it for you," the old man said bluntly.

I have absolutely no interest in that old pervert, King Guangchuan! So I immediately shook my head, ignoring Hu Lai and Wang Ming's suggestive winks, and said to myself, "Do I know these two friends of yours?"

Upon hearing this, the old man was visibly stunned for a moment, then sneered, "Young man, stop trying to be friendly. These are my two juniors. You can get to know them if you want, but they have nothing to do with me."

What does it mean to be an old hand with spiciness? Now I've truly experienced it firsthand. However, I just smiled calmly and said, "Old man, I'm in the antique plate business, and I've messed with things from under the Yellow River. All of this is thanks to your two good descendants. Now, our situation is very bad."

The old man turned his face and glared fiercely at Hu Lai and Wang Ming, angrily saying, "It seems I really am getting old... Even the two of you dare to do whatever you want behind my back."

Hu Lai and Wang Ming could only lower their heads and remain silent. Seeing this, Professor Sun quickly tried to smooth things over, saying, "Uncle-Master, please don't be angry. We juniors were just curious, that's all."

This time, the old man seemed genuinely enraged. Trembling, he pointed at Professor Sun and said, "Where is your senior brother? Tell him to come out and see me!"

I didn't know Professor Sun had a senior colleague, and I looked at him with confusion. To my surprise, Professor Sun sighed, and after a long pause, said, "Senior Brother Wang is dead, and this Mr. Xu saw his body and said it came back to life..."

"What?" The old man jumped up instantly, his previous aged demeanor vanishing completely. He raised his cane and struck Professor Sun, roaring, "What have you little bastards done?" Only at this moment did I realize that Professor Wang and Professor Sun were actually from the same school, and moreover, they were from the same school.

I was stunned by this discovery. There are actually people from southern China among the archaeological researchers? That's just too absurd!

No, it was just too interesting. Now I finally understand why Professor Wang only took Shan Jun and Ya Tou to the Yellow River, and why Shan Jun was such a good swimmer. Afterwards, he hesitated, not wanting the Yellow River Dragon Coffin to be unearthed, but in the end, he couldn't resist the temptation. Moreover, he opened the Yellow River Dragon Coffin openly and honestly; perhaps he thought that all evil should not be exposed to the light of day.

As a result, he lost his own life, along with countless innocent lives.

Professor Sun quickly jumped aside, and Huang Zhihua, unable to bear it any longer, was about to stop him. Just then, the phone rang. After answering the phone, his expression immediately changed, and he said to Professor Sun, "You're in charge of this matter. No matter what, it has to be resolved as soon as possible, otherwise, who knows if someone might die."

Dead people are never a good thing. Just as Huang Zhihua walked out, the old man plopped down on the sofa. "Young Master, Wang Shengnan, and I are all outsiders, so we didn't dare say anything; this is a matter within their sect," Professor Sun said with a forced smile, serving tea again.

The old man didn't even accept the tea, only glaring at him fiercely. Professor Sun smiled obsequiously, and the atmosphere in the office instantly became a bit awkward. I really wanted to leave with the girl and the young master so they could talk amongst themselves. After all, with the three of us outsiders present, Nanpaizi had many taboos, and some things were inconvenient to say.

But we're still prisoners, so we can't move around freely. The old man sat for a moment, then cursed fiercely, "You bunch of good-for-nothing wretches. Back when your senior brother said he was going to do archaeology, I knew he wasn't up to any good..."

Professor Sun smiled and was about to speak when the old man beckoned to the three of us, saying, "You three, come here too."

We were puzzled, but we all knew this old man was no ordinary person. Even the young master didn't dare to spout nonsense, so we immediately went to the old man's side. The old man sighed and asked, "What's wrong with you three? Did you have nothing better to do than touch that thing?"

Originally, we did have some respect for him, but after he said that, the young master wouldn't stand for it and hurriedly said, "What are you saying, old man? As the saying goes, people die for money, birds die for food. Isn't everyone in this world just for money?"

The old man nodded, remaining silent for a long time, only fidgeting with his fingers like a fortune teller, calculating something. Hu Lai and Wang Ming hadn't dared to say a word since entering the office. At this moment, Hu Lai couldn't help but ask, "Master, please say something. We know we were wrong, but..."

"Sixty-one years, it's exactly sixty-one years now. Sixty-one years ago, the Yellow River dried up once, and the dragon coffin at the bottom of the Yellow River was revealed. And your ancestor waited by the Yellow River for twenty years, finally waiting for that day. But what happened? He just disappeared, neither alive nor dead," the old man said.

My heart skipped a beat. Sixty-one years later, my childhood memories, which had become hazy, began to gradually become clearer. The turbulent, roaring Yellow River, with its turbid waves, was intertwined with the story of my grandmother.

Could it be that the Yellow River Dragon Coffin we are seeing today is the same white jade platform that was the main character in my grandmother's story? And the ancestor the old man mentioned is the old man who was carried onto the high platform by the villagers?

I voiced my question, and the old man looked at me curiously before finally saying, "Probably. The villagers made the story sound incredibly mysterious back then." He was away on business at the time, and by the time he returned, the platform had already been submerged by the Yellow River again.

Professor Sun asked, "What exactly does the sixty-one years mentioned by the patriarch represent?"

I couldn't help but say, "If that sixty-one represented sixty-one years back then, then it would be exactly one cycle of sixty years, one complete cycle."

The young master asked me, "How did you know that? Isn't a cycle of sixty years exactly sixty years? Why is it sixty-one years?" I was immediately stumped by his question and couldn't answer. Yes, a cycle of sixty years is exactly sixty years, so why is it sixty-one years? But the old man said that heaven and earth are incomplete, therefore, the cycle of sixty years is not complete...

My head suddenly went blank. Was the world incomplete? Was the sexagenary cycle broken? After some questioning, we finally understood the relationship between the old man and Professors Sun and Wang. It turned out that the old man was a senior member of the Southern Expeditionists. During the Cultural Revolution, the Southern Expeditionists dared not act, and Professor Wang, who deeply loved the profession, first thought of using his knowledge to infiltrate the archaeological field, researching ancient tombs under the guise of state authority.

Soon, Professor Sun also followed suit and entered this field. Naturally, due to their family tradition, both Professor Sun and Professor Wang made outstanding contributions and achieved considerable success in this area. Gradually, even they themselves forgot their original origins.

Because of their family tradition, they naturally knew the legend of the Yellow River Dragon Coffin. Professor Wang's trip to the Yellow River was originally just for a casual visit. However, on the way, he encountered Hu Lai and Wang Ming, who were disguised as herbal medicine collectors. Professor Wang, who was also from the same Nanpai tribe, saw through their identities at a glance. To prevent them from getting there first, he took a risk and had Shan Jun and us go into the water together.

Dan Jun didn't make it out of the Yellow River alive. Professor Wang, filled with deep guilt, prepared to leave with the girl. But Hu Lai and Wang Ming had no intention of abandoning the Yellow River Dragon Coffin. As a result, the young master and I went into the water, which almost cost me my life.

Later, for some unknown reason, Professor Wang still managed to get the Yellow River Dragon Coffin out. Thus, under the curse of the dragon coffin, the shadow of death began to spread.

Professor Wang himself is dead, and his body has mysteriously disappeared. Faced with such a bizarre and mysterious death, both the public security organs and the military have become involved, making the case increasingly unusual. However, since the problem originated from archaeology, solving it requires consulting experts. Professor Sun thus became involved as well.

Professor Sun is a smart man, but he doesn't understand bird script, so he can't explain many things. Left with no other option, he had to seek help from this old man. The three of us, however, are the only ones who came into contact with the Yellow River Dragon Coffin and are still alive. Naturally, the police wanted to find a breakthrough by focusing on us.

But we are struggling to survive, teetering on the edge of life and death. Our understanding of the Yellow River Dragon Coffin consists of only a few bronze fragments and a single, brief encounter with it underwater in the middle of the night.

When the old man heard that we had visited the Guangchuan King's Mausoleum, he immediately became interested and asked us many questions.

I didn't hide anything; I told him everything I could, though I couldn't help but chuckle to myself. As the old saying goes, a leopard can't change its spots. This old man, despite his age, had been putting on airs when he arrived, looking all high and mighty. But the moment he heard about a large ancient tomb, he was like a man who'd just eaten bee droppings.

After asking a series of questions about the Guangchuan Royal Mausoleum, the old man changed the subject and asked Professor Sun, "Now that you've unearthed the dragon coffin, tell me, what exactly is inside it?"

Not only was the old man interested in this question, but the young master, maid, and I also craned our necks and strained our ears to listen. Hu Lai and Wang Ming, on the other hand, had their eyes gleaming with curiosity. However, Professor Sun stammered for a long time but couldn't come up with a coherent answer.

The old man got angry and asked, "What's wrong with you? Now that you're a professor, you can't even speak like a human being anymore?" Hearing this, the girl, the young master, and I couldn't help but laugh, while Hu Lai and Wang Ming, because the old man was there, wanted to laugh but dared not, and felt uncomfortable holding it in.

Professor Sun said this time, "The higher-ups have ordered it to be kept secret!"

"Damn it!" The old man got angry immediately, and not just him, but we were all a little angry too. What kind of talk was this? They asked us to assist in the investigation, but they didn't say a word. What kind of investigation was this? The old man immediately stood up and called to Hu Lai and Wang Ming, "Let's go!" With that, the old man really picked up his cane and started to walk away. Hu Lai and Wang Ming kept giving Professor Sun meaningful glances, signaling him to quickly stop the old man.

To my surprise, the old man took a few steps, then turned back and said to me, "Kid, you should go too. Don't waste this precious time hanging out with them. I'd rather use that time to dig up some potatoes, make some money, and win over some women. I can't say for sure about that girl and me, but you're very lucky. You definitely won't die young, so don't worry."

After what he said, I didn't know whether to be happy or upset. Professor Sun, however, was genuinely anxious. Seeing the old man about to leave the office, he quickly said, "Uncle-Master, wait a minute..."

As he spoke, he took out a thick stack of documents from the drawer and handed them to the old man, saying, "They're all here. I secretly took these photos."

"Get lost! Do you think I don't know your little tricks?" the old man cursed. This time I realized that the old man had no intention of leaving at all.

The old man sat down on the sofa again. I was also curious about what was inside the Yellow River Dragon Coffin, so I hurried over to take a look. Thus, the seven of us huddled together on the sofa, flipping through the huge pile of documents.

“Uncle-Master, look, this is what’s inside the dragon coffin. It looks like an ancient seal,” Professor Sun said, pointing to the large color photos at the beginning of the folder.

I couldn't help but exclaim "Ah!" and instinctively asked, "Is there no corpse inside the dragon coffin?"

"Of course there's no corpse. This is just a river-suppressing tomb. Where would a corpse come from?" Professor Sun looked at me with a puzzled expression.

I remained silent, puzzled. That night, beneath the Yellow River, in the dim yellow light of a flashlight, I clearly saw the blurry shadow of a person inside the white jade coffin. How could there be no corpse inside the dragon coffin, but instead an ancient seal? I turned my gaze back to the photographs.

The photo was very clear and showed the dimensions, confirming it was indeed an ancient seal. According to the dimensions indicated, it was exactly 30.3 centimeters square. The front showed the pattern we saw, resembling a map. The four sides, however, depicted four different human faces, seemingly ancient warriors, each with a ferocious and terrifying expression. The only thing they had in common was that each face wore a sinister and eerie smile, just like the savage smiles of Professor Wang, Shan Jun, and Wang Quansheng after their deaths.

When I saw the square ancient seal, my heart skipped a beat, and I felt an indescribable discomfort.

"Strange, strange!" the young master exclaimed repeatedly. The old man turned and glanced at him, asking, "What's strange?"

I was puzzled too. This ancient seal was indeed a little strange, but I couldn't quite put my finger on what was odd about it. We all looked at the young master with suspicion, and he casually remarked, "Don't you all find it strange? This size—30.3 centimeters—how big is a washbasin? Where would you put such a big seal? Don't forget, there was no paper in the Western Zhou Dynasty; writing was recorded on bamboo slips. And look, the information on this says it's similar to jade. This raises another question: if it's jade, you can imagine how heavy it would be. Who would be so bored as to carry around a stone all day?"

I thought about it and realized he was right. Why would anyone carry such a big, heavy stone around? The old man frowned and said that modern seals symbolize a person, an organization, etc., but that wasn't necessarily true in ancient times. Just as I was about to ask him what ancient seals represented, he had already turned to another page.

It was also a color photograph, but the difference was that this photograph showed the text under the seal, which, without exception, was bird script that none of us could understand.

Such a large seal, yet it only has four characters. I naturally don't recognize this bird-script, but when the young master, maid, and I saw these four characters, we couldn't help but exclaim "Ah!"

The young master jumped up first, pointing to the four characters on the photo and saying, "These, these are the four characters on the hilt of the sword!"

"What sword hilt?" the old man asked, his brow furrowed deeply.

I could only mention that a bronze sword had been found in the Guangchuan Royal Mausoleum. The old man asked, "Where is this sword now?" I looked at Professor Sun.

Professor Sun sighed and said he would bring it over for the old man to see later. Then, with a forced smile, he asked, "Uncle-Master, what are these four characters?"

This Professor Sun is truly shameless. He's a professor of archaeology, yet he doesn't recognize the bird-script seal script. It's one thing if he doesn't recognize it, but how dare he ask a mere tomb raider for help? Doesn't he care about losing face as a professor? And what intrigues me even more is how this tomb raider, a mere grave robber, could possibly know the bird-script seal script?

Much later, I learned that the Nanpaizi (a type of tomb raider) had passed down their knowledge through generations. Having seen countless ancient tombs, they possessed extensive expertise in various burial methods. Furthermore, for their own safety, they needed to learn some previously unknown knowledge, such as ancient script and cryptic writing. This old man was a seasoned Nanpaizi, his knowledge far surpassing that of that half-baked Professor Sun.

The old man pondered for a moment, then lowered his voice and said, "Heavenly flaw and earthly defect!"

I almost jumped up. If it really was a flawed and incomplete structure, then could it be that the desolate and helpless sigh I heard on the hundred-odd high platform at the Guangchuan King's Mausoleum, and the sound that seemed like poetry yet also like a sigh, were all real and not just my hallucination?

The Eight Trigrams and the Sixty-Year Cycle: Divine secrets and hidden mechanisms, transforming into snakes and dragon bones, heaven and earth incomplete!

What exactly do these sixteen characters mean? The old man flipped through a few more photos. They were all pictures of different parts of that ancient seal, but I had no interest in looking at them anymore. My mind was filled with those sixteen characters, which kept churning over and over again.

"What is this?" the old man suddenly asked, pointing to one of the blurry black-and-white photos.

Professor Sun shook his head, saying he hadn't seen the photo either; it wasn't from the records. Curious, I looked down. It appeared to be a large, dark hole, with a section of dark iron chain protruding from the opening. This chain looked strangely familiar; it seemed to be the chain from the underwater passageway of the Guangchuan King's Mausoleum, or perhaps the chain used to control those black corpses. However, the photo was so blurry that I couldn't make it out.

The girl, who hadn't spoken until now, said that she found the photo in the professor's notebook, which was later found by the police and probably brought here along with the other items.

I frowned. I knew about the professor's notebook; I had even read it myself. The girl had originally planned to keep the professor's notebook as a souvenir, but it was still found during the search.

Professor Sun flipped through a few pages of the materials, pointed to one of the photos, and said to the old man, "Uncle-Master, could you please take a look and tell me what characters are written here?"

I craned my neck to look at the enlarged photo. It was still in bird-script, with sixteen large characters. I didn't recognize the first four, but the last four were clearly identical to the four characters on the ancient seal I had just seen. Below these sixteen large characters was a row of smaller characters, which were blurry and illegible.

The old man stretched out his withered, yellow fingers and touched the photograph. I could see that his fingers were trembling. After a long while, the old man finally said, "The Eight Trigrams and the Sixty Years, Divine Secrets and Ghostly Tricks, Transformation of Serpents and Dragon Bones, Heaven's Flaws and Earth's Incompleteness!"

"Ah..." I couldn't help but exclaim. Sure enough, the Guangchuan King's Mausoleum and this Yellow River Dragon Coffin were closely connected. No, it shouldn't be called the Guangchuan King's Mausoleum, but rather the same Western Zhou tomb chamber as the tomb of King Liu Qu of Guangchuan. On the high platform of the pool, I had been trapped by the Bagua formation and ultimately fell into a hallucination. Once, I clearly heard a desolate sigh, and someone in my heart murmured those sixteen characters, clearly and without error.

I always thought it was an illusion caused by the Bagua formation and never took it to heart. But now, I know from the old man that there are also sixteen bird-script characters on the Yellow River Dragon Coffin. But what do these sixteen characters mean?

"Uncle-Master, what do you mean?" Everyone's attention was on the old man, and no one noticed my unusual behavior.

The old man rolled his eyes and said coldly, "How should I know?"

"Then, what is this?" Professor Sun, unperturbed by the old man's retort, asked again about the smaller characters below. The old man carefully examined it for a moment, his expression changing slightly. He snorted coldly, "So small? My old eyes are failing; how could I possibly recognize it?"

I noticed the old man's strange expression earlier, and knew he must have gleaned something from those small print, but I didn't know why he was pretending not to know. Professor Sun immediately panicked, pacing around the office before asking, "What should we do?"

"Let me see the actual object; perhaps then I can identify it," the old man said bluntly.

I chuckled as soon as I heard that, thinking to myself that this old man was really funny, actually pulling such a stunt. Professor Sun wiped the sweat from his brow, I don't know if it was from being anxious, and frowned, saying that he had to consult his superiors, and that he couldn't make a decision on this matter.

The old man didn't press him, readily agreeing that he could just ask for permission, since he wasn't leaving for the next few days and was going to wander around the area. Professor Sun nodded, then changed the subject, asking again what exactly the "Golden Thread Maiden" mentioned in the epitaph of Liu Qu, the King of Guangchuan, was.

The old man said that his ancestors had said there was something beneath the Yellow River. However, people went to great lengths to alter the course of the mountains and rivers, creating the Shadow Kunlun Mountains. Therefore, in the eye of the storm of Shadow Kunlun, there must be another large tomb. And this auspicious tomb is only suitable for burying women. Therefore, the "Golden-Threaded Maiden" mentioned in the epitaph of Liu Qu, King of Guangchuan, may refer to this tomb.

I panicked as soon as I heard that. I had just crawled out of the Guangchuan Royal Mausoleum, and I had absolutely no interest in tombs, especially large ancient ones. I like antiques, but only for their huge profits; I don't like risking my life, especially dealing with the dead.

That's the Golden Silk Maiden; whoever's interested can go ahead. Raping her is none of my business; I will absolutely never again become a slut.