The Complete Collection of Yellow River Ghost Coffins

Chapter 50

Unexpectedly, the corpse beneath him began to curse loudly—

"Damn it, what kind of monster dares to ambush me... cough... cough... ouch... don't think you're a ghost and I'm afraid of you. Damn it, I've become a ghost now too, who's afraid of who? If you dare to come out, I'll eat your intestines... Damn it, you evil ghost, what are you doing pressing down on me? Are you a female ghost who hasn't seen a man for a thousand years and is lonely and restless...?"

"Oh dear...cough...cough...If you were a young and beautiful female ghost, this young master wouldn't mind having a one-night stand with you..."

Young Master… My expression immediately changed. This guy I mistook for a “corpse” was actually the young master. Moreover, although his voice was very weak, he was still full of energy when he cursed, so he was obviously not dead.

I quickly rolled off him and was about to speak when, in the darkness, he cursed again: "You're smart enough to know your place. Damn it... We're all ghosts. Old ghosts don't bully new ghosts. You should know that these days, little ghosts are more troublesome than Yama. Damn it, people say that ghosts don't feel pain, but I still feel pain. Damn it... It turns out that's mostly a lie."

Just as I was about to speak, suddenly, I heard a soft "snap" from the side, and a strange orange-red flame lit up. Instinctively, I closed my eyes in the darkness, and only dared to open them after a long while. I heard Huang Zhihua's distressed voice beside me...

"My young master, aren't you tired?" It turned out that the light just now was Huang Zhihua taking out a high-performance lighter and lighting it.

"Am I not dead yet?" the young master shouted first.

I wiped the water droplets from my face, struggled to sit up, and while pulling the backpack off the young master's back, I rummaged through the spare flashlight and said with a wry smile, "Congratulations, you got it right, ten points!"

I turned on my flashlight, and finally a ray of light appeared in the previously pitch-black underground world. At that moment, I also had a chance to take a look around...

What kind of place is this? The place we are in should be a white jade platform, not very big, slightly smaller than the white jade platform found in the Yellow River. It looks more like a coffin. I shone my flashlight inside, and inside the translucent white jade platform, something seemed to be flowing. I don't know if there are any corpses.

Thinking of this, I couldn't help but shudder. The three of us were sitting on... a coffin, which was extremely disrespectful to the deceased inside.

But then I thought, we're here to do tomb raiding, our job is to open coffins to make money and rummage through corpses, so why should we be so particular? That would be disrespectful.

Thinking of that damned whirlpool, I couldn't help but look up. No more than three meters away from us, there was a ball of water, far away, forming a spiral whirlpool that kept spinning.

"Old Xu, how did you know the entrance to the ancient tomb?" Huang Zhihua asked me.

A bitter feeling welled up inside me. How was I supposed to know that whirlpool was the entrance to the underwater tomb? I was just annoyed to see that bronze terracotta figure, which resembled me, tied to a pillar, so I swung my sword at it. Thinking back, I quickly searched around. Thankfully, the bronze sword wasn't lost. I now realized how incredibly valuable the bronze sword was in such an ancient tomb.

This place is truly amazing. I can tell that the vortex above is probably groundwater. I just don't know what kind of mechanism is used here, but it uses the air at the bottom to create some kind of special relationship, pushing it up and preventing the water above from coming down, resulting in this underground tomb being completely dry.

As I sheathed my bronze sword, I struggled to my feet, surveying my surroundings—this place was somewhat similar to the high platform in the Yellow River's eye, yet with many differences. I looked closely and saw a spiral connection on the left, extending downwards. It was also made of white jade, and its shape was very similar to a kindergarten slide, but much longer. I shone my flashlight down, but couldn't see the end.

"Old Xu..." The young master was lying on the high platform, which made me involuntarily think of the maid in the Guangchuan Royal Mausoleum.

"What's wrong?" I asked, a little annoyed.

"You were pressing down on me just now, why didn't you say anything? Fine, you didn't say anything, but why did you hit me again? My bones feel like they're about to be broken..." the young master complained to me.

I gave a wry smile. How was I supposed to know I was pinning down the young master? Huang Zhihua couldn't help but chuckle: "Young master, you were just calling him an old ghost, you thought he was a ghost, and he probably thought you were a little ghost too..."

I could only manage a wry smile, because it was indeed the truth. The young master looked at me strangely, and after a long while, he said, "Old Xu, you're really something else. If you really had a ghost on your hand, would you have dared to do that?"

I gave him a cold look. This guy has never been one to hold back his words. In ancient tombs, the word "ghost" is the most taboo. Yet he kept talking about it. If it really is a dead ghost that's being suppressed, I'm afraid it won't be as simple as it seems.

"Stop talking. The important thing is to look around for the girl and find a way out. Aren't you tired?" I said, rolling my eyes at the young master.

"Old Xu, I can't walk anymore... That last moment was truly unbearable. I feel like my internal organs have been torn apart." The young master lay on the ground without any regard for his image.

"You're still alive!" I said irritably.

Huang Zhihua was in much better physical condition than me. He was lying on the ground, holding a flashlight and shining it on something. He said to me, "Old Xu, come here quickly, what is this?"

Curious, I quickly went over and, using the reflection of my flashlight, I could vaguely see a shadow in the white stone platform, which had appeared as smooth as solidified jade. Intrigued, I followed Huang Zhihua's example and lay down on it. What I saw terrified me... there was a person inside...

"Could this be a coffin?" I forced down my fear and looked up to ask Huang Zhihua.

Huang Zhihua shook his head, and after a long while said, "It doesn't look like it. There shouldn't be any living people inside..." I thought to myself, "Of course there aren't any living people inside. Where would there be any living people in here?"

"What are you looking at?" The young master also came over, took the flashlight from Huang Zhihua's fingers, and, imitating us, pressed his face against it, staring intently. After a while, he said, "What's so interesting? There's nothing there..."

Nothing at all? How could that be? Is there something wrong with the young master's eyes? As I thought this, I hurriedly climbed up again to look, but this time, the translucent stone was completely empty; there was absolutely nothing there. A chill ran down my spine. Just now, Huang Zhihua and I clearly saw what seemed like someone inside the stone platform, so how come they're gone now?

Could it be glowing? I wondered as I leaned over to look again, but it was still empty; there was nothing there.

It was as if the people inside the stone platform had vanished in an instant, leaving us with only an empty shell.

A sudden chill ran through me. This scene was too bizarre, and we couldn't stay here any longer. I immediately said, "Don't say any more. We need to get out of here and find the girl. This stone platform doesn't even have a crack. How are we going to open it?"

"Old Xu, what do you suggest we do?" Huang Zhihua asked me.

I looked at the spiral slide that resembled a slide and frowned. "Let's go down and take a look!" To get back up, we'd have to go through that whirlpool again. Faced with such natural forces, human strength seemed insignificant. We couldn't run through the whirlpool; the only way was to find a new way out within this underground tomb. God help us, let's hope we can find a way out here.

I slung the bag back over my shoulder and strapped the bronze sword to it as well. The miner's lamp overhead was no longer reliable, so I had to rely on the flashlight. Fortunately, we were well-prepared this time and even brought a spare flashlight; otherwise, we would have had a really hard time moving around in this pitch-black underground tomb.

Since that spiral slide looked like a children's slide, I didn't hesitate and sat on it, then slid down as hard as I could.

The white jade slide was indeed polished to a very smooth finish. Wearing thick water vests, I couldn't feel any friction at all. Soon, my body was rapidly sliding down the spiral slide...

To be honest, I had no idea where this spiral slide was going to lead, how long it was, or how long I had been sliding down it. Just when I was feeling dizzy, I suddenly jolted and fell heavily to the ground. At the same time, I heard the young master shouting behind me, telling me to get out of the way or he wouldn't care if I got hurt.

Damn it, I wanted to move aside too. Did I want to be a human cushion? But the problem was, before I could even move, the young master had already pounced on me with the force of a thunderbolt and a gust of wind. So I simply lay flat on the ground and let him use me as a human cushion.

It's true what they say, what goes around comes around. Just now on the high platform, I pressed down on him, and karma came so quickly. I felt like all the bones in my body were almost crushed by him.

Huang Zhihua was in a slightly better situation than the two of us. At the end of the spiral slide, he abruptly stopped and asked, "Where is this place?"

I had the same question: Where is this place? I pushed the young master aside, got up from the ground, and looked around... This should be considered an underground tomb? Because below the spiral stone steps, there was a flat surface paved with the same pure white stone, and below that were several rows of stone steps, not many. I glanced at them and saw exactly nine steps. Below the stone steps was a huge white jade gate, with two huge stone bottle-like objects placed at the entrance, also made of pure white stone.

I have never seen any ancient tombs with stone vases as decorations at the entrance. Generally speaking, the entrance to the tomb chamber is decorated with stone carvings of mythical beasts such as Pixiu, Bixi, dragons, Qilin, and Tianlu as treasures to guard the tomb, or guardian beasts. Placing two stone vases is considered a kind of thing.

I told the young master to be careful, and then I held up a flashlight and started walking down, while keeping an eye out for the traps. This tomb was too large, and there were traps everywhere. One wrong move and you could lose your life inside.

However, after descending the nine stone steps, I was covered in a cold sweat. The surroundings were as quiet as death. There were no mechanical corpse worms, eerie tomb guardian beasts, or even a single ordinary insect.

My young master, driven by intense curiosity and utterly fearless, had already rushed to the entrance of the white jade door. Only then did I notice that on the smooth, jade-like white jade door, there were faint lines drawn, purely carved with knife work, without any coloring or other decorations—the content drawn on the stone door was none other than that of a girl who looked like a maid, leaning casually against the back of a mythical Qilin beast, her large, blinking eyes seemingly looking at us three intruders.

I calmed myself down and continued looking at the image on the stone gate. The more I looked, the more I felt that the girl in the portrait looked almost exactly like the maid. Could it really be a coincidence?

Once upon a time... thousands of years ago, there was a person who looked just like that girl? I remember my teacher saying in class when I was a child that there are absolutely no two faces that are exactly the same in this world, not even identical twins...

There are many people who look alike, it's not surprising, I comforted myself, but my heart was pounding involuntarily, and I had a vague feeling that something was wrong.

"Old Xu, come quick and take a look. There seems to be something in this bottle," the young master called out to me from the side.

I was startled. Was the bottle not empty? Was there something inside?

"What is that?" I leaned closer too.

The bottle was made of translucent white jade. When I shone a flashlight on it, I could vaguely see something. Huang Zhihua said it looked like water. I looked closely and indeed it seemed to be a liquid like water. Although the bottle opening was sealed with a large stone stopper, it wasn't full; it was only about half full. Under the flashlight, I could clearly see a distinct line running through it.

What baffled us even more was that something was submerged in the liquid inside this enormous bottle, just a circular shadow that was impossible to see clearly. After all, the bottle wasn't transparent glass, and what was inside certainly couldn't be ornamental goldfish.

"What exactly is this thing?" the young master asked curiously.

"How should I know!" I moved closer to the bottle to observe it, and after a while I was surprised to find that the thing inside the bottle was not completely still, but seemed to be moving... Could it be that the thing inside the bottle actually has life?

What can live for such a long time?

"How about we open it and take a look?" Huang Zhihua suggested a terrible idea.

Opening this bottle wouldn't be difficult for us; we could easily open it by simply removing the stone stopper. But—who knows if it contains a devil?

I thought about it for a moment, and although I was curious, I still said, "No, it's better to avoid trouble. Let it go."

The young master looked somewhat dejected upon hearing this. I looked up at the massive stone door of the tomb chamber, staring at the stone carving that was almost identical to the girl's, and after a long while said, "Finding the girl is our priority, and we also need to find a way out quickly, otherwise... we'll all die here sooner or later."

"Old Xu, what do you think we should do?" Huang Zhihua completely agreed with my opinion, since no one knew what was inside that stone bottle.

"Let's find a way to open the stone door first." I thought for a moment and said, "This should be considered the burial chamber."

"What is that?" Before I could finish speaking, the young master suddenly cried out. I quickly turned around and saw a faint shadow running away, disappearing from my sight in an instant...

"What's wrong?" I gasped and asked anxiously.

"Just now... someone touched me from behind..." The young master, pale with fright, pointed behind him and said, "I turned around and saw a child in green clothes standing behind me, smiling at me. I knew it was definitely not human, so I asked it a question, and then it ran away..."

The child in green! I suddenly remembered that when we were on the platform above, we saw the body of a child in green floating on the water. Could it be that the child the young master saw was that child in green... It really was...

I can't even bear to think about that word. This is an ancient tomb that's thousands of years old. It's only natural that there might be something unclean here.

Moreover, in the instant I turned around, I saw a faint green shadow flash by, proving that the young master was not lying.

Suddenly, I lost my balance, as if I had been shoved hard. I staggered back three or four steps before regaining my footing. Still shaken, I asked reproachfully, "Mr. Huang, why did you push me?"

"Did I push you?" Huang Zhihua looked at me, puzzled.

"No...it's that child in green..." The young master's face grew even paler as he pointed to a stone bottle on the right side of the stone gate, "He ran inside...I saw him..."

I shivered, and the hairs on my body stood on end. Could it be that the person who pushed me just now really wasn't Huang Zhihua, that troublemaking brat?

Could that little devil be inside this stone bottle?

Using a bottle to hold a ghost? What kind of funerary practice is this? Huang Zhihua had already taken out his gun, pulled the trigger, and stared intently at the stone bottle.

But at that moment, I noticed that behind the bottle, a pale face emerged, bearing a grotesque and twisted smile that was completely out of character for a child…

"Hit him!" I shouted uncontrollably.

With a bang, Huang Zhihua didn't know if he had seen the thing, but upon hearing this, he still fired the gun. The bullet hit the stone bottle squarely.

To my surprise, the seemingly sturdy bottle shattered like glass with a bang from the bullet, and immediately, a stream of clear liquid flowed out. Fearing that the liquid was poisonous, we hurriedly took several steps back.

That was definitely not clear water. The liquid solidified shortly after it flowed out, becoming sticky like glue, but it was a colorless and transparent substance.

After a moment, there was no movement from inside the broken bottle. I looked at Huang Zhihua, who was also looking at me. I nodded, and the two of us, emboldened, took a few steps forward…

The bottle was broken, and the liquid had spilled all over the floor. What was soaking inside was also clearly visible to us…

"What is this?" the young master stammered.

“It’s that ancient seal!” Huang Zhihua said, trembling.

At this moment, I could clearly see that what was soaking in the bottle was not a corpse, nor the ghost of the green-clad child, but an ancient seal. I had seen a picture of this thing in Huang Zhihua's office before. It was said that after the Yellow River Dragon Coffin was blown open with explosives, there were no remains inside, but this ancient seal appeared. However, it was incomplete, as if it had been forcibly split in half. The four human faces that originally marked the four sides of the seal were naturally also split in half, but the faces on the two intact halves all had terrifying, grotesque, and laughing expressions.

What was unclear in the photo before is now crystal clear…

Huang Zhihua put on plastic protective gloves and carefully took out the ancient seal, examining it closely as if searching for something.

I also went over and flipped the ancient seal over to take a look. Sure enough, there were four big characters carved on the back of the seal: "Heavenly Flaws and Earthly Incompleteness"! Although it was incomplete and I didn't understand bird seal script, these four characters appeared so frequently that even if I were stupid, I would have memorized them.

"Is this exactly the same as the one we found?" I asked curiously. After all, I had only seen a photo. They say they want to protect national cultural relics, so naturally they wouldn't let me even look at such an important item as an antique plate.

“They look exactly the same on the surface!” Huang Zhihua replied.

I understand what he means. Why is there only a broken half here, while the one inside the dragon coffin is complete? More importantly, if this ancient seal really represents some special meaning, how could there be two of them?

Who has ever seen a country with two imperial seals? Wouldn't that lead to chaos? Ancient seals were symbols of power and authority. I examined the cut of that half of the ancient seal closely; it was remarkably smooth and even, as if it had been chopped off with a single stroke. I couldn't understand it. There were no stone-cutting machines in ancient times. Who had the skill to slice a hard stone in half with such a clean, new-looking cut?

"I wonder if the other half is in that bottle. Should we open it and take a look?" The young master asked for my opinion, looking at the other bottle.

"Open it!" I said almost without thinking. I was very curious. If it was a broken ancient seal, why was it still preserved? And why would such a thing be kept in a bottle at the entrance of the tomb... Ah... no, this bottle is wide at the bottom and narrow at the top, with a long and thin neck. Although the ancient seal had been cut in half, it was still quite large. How was this thing put in there?

Huang Zhihua seemed to have noticed this as well. At first, we were all surprised that the bottle contained an ancient seal. But at this moment, this completely illogical phenomenon made us shudder.

The young master clumsily reached for the other bottle, but I suddenly sensed something was wrong and quickly pulled him away. Huang Zhihua, holding a gun, fired a shot at the stone bottle. Just like before, the stone bottle shattered instantly under the impact of the bullet, and countless viscous liquids oozed out…