The Complete Collection of Yellow River Ghost Coffins

Chapter 58

The two old men exchanged a glance. As fellow disciples, they immediately understood that Wang Quansheng was a resurrected Three Corpse God, and such a corpse could potentially become a fierce and extremely powerful evil spirit.

So, one took out the corpse-binding rope, and the other took out the yin-probing claw, ready to kill this guy. However, Chen Laogui was leaning against the tunnel wall when, at that moment, he suddenly felt as if a hand reached out from inside the wall and forcefully pulled him in. Chen Laogui opened his mouth to scream, but he couldn't utter a single word.

Seeing this, Old Zhang instinctively reached out to pull Old Chen away, and the two of them were pulled into the wall together.

That wall must be the water wall that I later crashed into. The two people from the same place also fell into the water and didn't know how long they struggled in the water before they got here and met us.

"You mean, you've been in the water the whole time?" I asked, puzzled. Was there another underwater passage here?

That makes sense when you think about it. After all, the passage that the girl used to enter the ancient tomb was different from ours. How could such a large ancient tomb building only have one passage?

"Can we stand up now?" Old Zhang asked Huang Zhihua pitifully.

"That issue has been explained, but there are still some questions that haven't been addressed," Huang Zhihua asked persistently.

"My little grandpa, what else do you want to ask?" Old Zhang opened his mouth wide, after all, it was quite a strenuous task for an elderly man to squat on the ground like this.

"What exactly is going on in this place?" I asked.

"All I know from the research is that this place is the eye of the Yellow River," the quality control officer interjected, unable to stand by and watch.

"What did you say?" I jumped up in surprise. Weren't we supposed to be in the Shadow Kunlun Wind Eye? How did we end up in the Yellow River Eye?

Old Chen seemed to see the doubt in my mind. He looked at the gun that Huang Zhihua was pointing at Old Zhang's head and explained in a low voice, "The Shadow Kunlun Wind Eye and the Yellow River Eye are connected. All the water in Shadow Kunlun comes from the Yellow River Eye. Otherwise, where would such a huge underground river come from?"

I looked at the dark, murky underground river in the distance and realized that he was right. Otherwise, where would there be such a vast underground river? Moreover, the water here, like the Yellow River, is half sand and half water.

"So what do we do now?" the young master asked. "Now that we've found the girl, we should focus on finding a way out."

"That's right." I nodded in agreement. What the hell is it to us what the Yellow River is burying in? As long as I'm alive, that's more important than anything else.

Those who have never hovered on the edge of death will never know the terror of death!

“I know we need to get out, but where do we get out?” Old Zhang asked us.

I glared at him fiercely. It was all his fault. If it weren't for his suggestion, I would never have come to wander along the Yellow River again in my life. I miss the neon lights of Shanghai now, and even the crowded people. Living people are always more lovable than dead people.

"Oh, right, this... take a look." Huang Zhihua hurriedly snatched the gold and silk cloth brought by the maid from the young master's hand and handed it to Old Man Zhang, saying, "Don't tell me you don't recognize it. If you don't recognize it, I'll shoot you dead. At worst, there will be another corpse here."

Huang Zhihua, this soldier, is not just ordinary ruthless if you anger him. As he himself said, he is not immune to bloodshed. I once heard old people say that a dog that has never eaten raw meat or been stained with blood is as docile as a little rabbit, but once it has eaten raw meat and accidentally come into contact with human blood, that dog will become exceptionally ferocious.

It seems that people are like that too. After killing one person, you become bolder. After killing two people, you feel that killing a person is sometimes not much different from killing a chicken... After killing three people, nothing matters anymore.

Huang Zhihua had initially tried his best to suppress his true nature because of his military uniform, but what kind of place was this? This was an ancient tomb, where death was commonplace, and killing someone could be easily absolved of all responsibility. Those who entered this place were left to fate to live or die.

Old Zhang, with a bitter face, took the gold and silk, glanced at it, and couldn't help but ask, "Where did this come from?"

"The girl found it inside the coffin," I explained.

Old Zhang sat down on the ground, and Old Chen also came over. The young master quickly turned on his flashlight and shone it. Huang Zhihua and I were also curious, so we rushed over to take a look. Only the girl, although she was standing next to me, for some reason, I always felt that she exuded a kind of indifference, as if all of this had nothing to do with her.

"Strange, why is there no record of the date?" Old Zhang looked at it and asked in confusion, as if talking to himself.

The young master hurriedly said, "People in ancient times probably didn't have the hobby of recording dates. Just keep reading and see what the contents say."

"At the summit of Kunlun, the capital of the emperor..."

"What do you mean by poisoning someone? Could it be that the younger brother poisoned his own older brother?" The young master couldn't help but shout after hearing just a few words.

I couldn't help but laugh too. Seeing Huang Zhihua's confused expression, I explained, "It's like this—it means that Kunlun Mountain is the Heavenly Emperor's capital on Earth, do you understand?"

"You should have said so earlier. Why are you pretending to be so learned?" the young master said with an embarrassed smile.

I gave a wry smile and told Old Zhang not to read it aloud in a literary style, but to just translate it directly. I understood the first two sentences, but I was afraid I wouldn't be able to understand the rest. Although I'm in the antique plate business and naturally know more about ancient culture than the average person, that's precisely why I felt even more saddened. I wondered what our ancestors were thinking, why they made Chinese characters so complicated?

Qin Shi Huang's unification of the writing system of the six kingdoms was indeed a great innovation and reform!

However, the writing system of the pre-Qin period was too chaotic. Although it was all pictographic, the six states... not just six states. At that time, the Central Plains was not as simple as just six states. The writing systems of each state were different, and their meanings were naturally different as well. I'm afraid that even if one studied it all one's life, one would not be able to study those writing systems.

Moreover, there were written characters before the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, the Shang, Xia, and Zhou dynasties, and even earlier periods, which must have had written characters. That should be the era when Chinese writing originated. If someone could completely translate the characters of that era, it would be an incredible feat for the archaeological community.

"Come and see—" Old Zhang handed the gold and silk in his hand to Old Chen next to him.

Old Chen took the letter and examined it for a while before saying, "Why are the characters written so small? Ancient people wouldn't write such small characters." As he spoke, he carefully examined the letter. I had to admire him; at his age, it was indeed difficult for him to read such tiny characters, especially in this dark underground world.

Old Chen frowned as he looked at it, and after a long while he said, "There is no specific date recorded on it, but one thing is certain: this is not a tomb from the Western Zhou Dynasty."

"Why? Why are you so sure?" I asked, puzzled. At first, when I saw the piece left on the bronze bird-shaped vessel that Wang Quansheng had salvaged from the Yellow River, I thought it was from the Western Zhou Dynasty. But now, Old Chen has very firmly rejected my guess. Whether it's a Western Zhou tomb or not doesn't matter, but—could this really be the legendary tomb of Chi You? Could there really be an immortal demon king in history?

"At the summit of Kunlun, in the capital of the emperor, gods and men coexisted, and heaven and earth were in harmony..." Old Chen read aloud in a low voice. We all understood what this meant; it probably referred to an era when gods and mortals lived together in harmony and peace.

I suspect that the so-called gods were merely people with advanced technology, not true deities. These individuals, to demonstrate their superiority, proclaimed themselves gods. The ancients were ignorant, lacking understanding of many natural phenomena, and simply worshipped blindly… They seemed never to question the explanations of those in power. Even in feudal times, many still believed that the emperor was ordained by Heaven, the Son of Heaven, and inviolable. Ironically, even amidst shouts of "Long live the emperor!", the emperor could still die. This was merely a common tactic used by the ruling class to keep the people ignorant, and it's not worth studying.

"What did they say next? Stop with the flowery language," the young master asked impatiently.

"It seems like the story starts to focus on war later on." Old Chen sighed and continued, "Large sections of the records are all about war, but I don't recognize any of the names. I only know that... it seems like one side is about to lose, while the other side keeps winning. Oh, I'm sorry, there are many words in this story that I don't recognize."

It would be strange if Old Chen claimed to recognize all the bird-script characters.

Old Chen continued, “Their war has nothing to do with us, but what we want to know is something we haven’t figured out at all—for example, the specific time period, why the war broke out, and who the two sides were. Hey, look at what’s written here. Although it’s not very clear, it seems like it wasn’t just one or two countries… no, it should be said that it was a tribal war, and a large-scale chaotic war. Today you fight me, tomorrow I fight you, and as the fighting went on, it seems like they unified. The weak ones were all eliminated, leaving only the two largest sides. In the end, the winning side captured the leader of the losing side, and they celebrated their victory with singing and dancing, and then executed the leader of the losing side with cruel torture.”

Upon hearing this, I couldn't help but gasp. The cruel execution of the leader of the losing side was a recurring theme in Chinese history, with dynastic changes unfolding one after another. It was nothing unusual. But for some reason, I suddenly felt a tearing pain, as if my body had been ripped apart by something in an instant.

"What kind of torture? Tell me quickly, is it dismemberment by five horses?" The young master was very excited and urged Old Ghost Chen.

"It should be dismemberment by five horses. Congratulations, you guessed right!" Old Chen actually had a humorous side.

Old Chen said, "It says here that five monsters dragged this leader by his limbs and head for three days and three nights before he finally stopped moving. Then, the five monsters pulled hard, tearing the leader apart. His internal organs scattered everywhere, and the rope couldn't hold his head, so it rolled a long way. The five monsters, pulling on his limbs, ran off in four different directions, leaving only his internal organs and head on the ground. Then everyone cheered and put the leader's internal organs and head into a bottle as spoils of war..."

"Ah..." I exclaimed again, immediately recalling the stone bottle we saw at the entrance of the ancient tomb that day. Huang Zhihua shattered the bottle with a single shot. As a result, one bottle contained half of an ancient seal with a broken and incomplete shape, while the other bottle contained—a human head and internal organs. I just couldn't understand how they managed to preserve the remains from thousands of years ago to this day.

Although the human head and internal organs submerged in the liquid had decomposed extensively, they were still recognizable. It was a miracle that they could be preserved so well after a thousand years. Even now, such advanced preservation technology is probably not available.

"And then what happened?" Huang Zhihua's face was pale, clearly he had also thought of the stone bottle.

"Later, the people of this victorious tribe kept slaughtering people from another tribe because they discovered that the chief they had executed did not seem to be the real person, but an imposter," Old Chen explained as he read the text.

"The other tribe is doomed!" the young master said, shaking his head.

“That’s right, that’s exactly how it is.” Old Zhang continued, “Because the victorious tribe kept slaughtering the defeated tribe, the leader who had been hiding saw that things weren’t going well, so he went alone to negotiate with the leader of the victorious tribe…”

"Isn't this like a lamb being led to the slaughter?" I couldn't help but say.

“Yes…” Young Master and Huang Zhihua quickly echoed. I looked up at the tranquil underground river in the distance, flowing slowly and rhythmically. In a flash, I saw the maid standing beside me, her pretty face coldly indifferent, which made my heart tremble. I was startled. When did the maid become so cold? Moreover, we were all concerned about the contents recorded on the gold and silk, why was she so unconcerned?

The more I thought about it, the more suspicious I became, but I couldn't quite put my finger on what was different about the girl compared to usual.

"No one knows the outcome of the negotiations between the two chiefs. All that is known is that after one night, the victorious chief emerged, but the loser never came out again. However, the victorious chief continued to harass the ordinary tribespeople who had lost. Later, it seems that due to excessive killing, the Yellow River overflowed and drowned the chief of that tribe as well... The whole story seems to end here, but—what comes after this?"

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

"What does this mean?" Old Chen asked, puzzled.

He couldn't figure out what it meant, and we certainly couldn't either. Moreover—Old Chen said that he didn't recognize at least two-thirds of the writing on the gold and silk, especially the last few characters. He could only make out a little bit from the shape of the characters. In the end, apart from the sixteen characters "Heaven is Broken and Earth is Incomplete", he didn't recognize almost any of the rest.

The young master scolded them for pretending to know what they didn't, but I shook my head. The writing before the Qin Dynasty was far too complex, and given its antiquity, even professional scholars of ancient texts probably couldn't figure it out. Otherwise, Huang Zhihua wouldn't have followed Professor Sun's advice and asked Nanpaizi to decipher the writing at the bottom of the Yellow River Dragon Coffin when he was desperate.

“China is not without capable people, but they are definitely not an old geezer like me.” As he spoke, Old Zhang handed me the gold and silk, and instructed me, “If you can get out of here, find someone who understands the bird script and translate it properly. I’m afraid the history recorded on it will completely overturn the history of Chinese civilization.”

I didn't refuse, and just as Jinbo was about to put it into his backpack, the young master suddenly called out, "Old Xu, wait a minute..."

Chapter Nine: Trapped Dragon Beach

I looked at the young master, puzzled, and asked, "What's wrong?"

"Look, what is this?" The young master held up a flashlight and shone it on the gold cloth. I was startled and quickly turned the cloth over to examine it in the light. Sure enough, one side of the cloth had tiny, fly-like characters written on it, while the other side was completely obscured in the dark. However, when I shone the flashlight on the cloth, I could clearly see a strange image...

I hurriedly held the gold and silk high, while the young master shone his flashlight from the other side. Old Zhang and Old Chen came over together, staring at the gold and silk with cross-eyed expressions. After examining it carefully, Old Chen's expression became increasingly strange, and after a long while, he said, "This looks like a map."

"Where's the map? It's just a jumble of lines." Huang Zhihua also came over to take a look and asked, puzzled.

“Not bad!” I nodded and said. From the back of the gold cloth, you can see some crisscrossing straight lines, curves, parallel lines, triangles, arcs... basically all kinds of messy lines that you learned in middle school are gathered together. At first glance, it is indeed chaotic, but if you stare at it for a long time, in the moment when your eyes are blurry, you can vaguely see a high platform in the shape of a Bagua. The layers of lines are hollowed out into a strange three-dimensional shape.

"It's a 3D model..." Huang Zhihua imitated the two old men's gaze, staring with his eyes wide open, and after looking at it for a long time, he couldn't help but exclaim in surprise.

A 3D image? Really a 3D image? My God… Even now, the ability to flatten a 3D image is a recent phenomenon, yet such a pattern has been discovered in an ancient tomb from thousands of years ago. If it were shown to the world, it would likely shock the entire world. My heart felt like a jumbled mess of emotions—sweet, sour, bitter, spicy… I couldn't distinguish what it was. Was it the pride of a civilization that once existed on the land of China, or the regret for a lost civilization? Or… perhaps, there was also an indescribable terror?

Yes, I don't know what I'm afraid of either. Amidst those chaotic lines, in the sudden blurring of my vision, I saw that eerie three-dimensional Bagua diagram, as if—a long-sealed wall of memory had been suddenly opened, and what was sealed within my inner history seemed poised to break free in an instant.

I recalled what the two old men had said. Could it be that a highly advanced civilization truly existed in ancient times? Could it be that, historically, there was a period when humanity wasn't progressing, but rather embarking on a long path of regression...?

What a shocking discovery this would be!

Of course, being in such an ancient tomb, nothing else seems to matter. If the ancients did not have a highly developed civilization, how did they build such a tomb? Such a vast and magnificent underground world is not an underground commercial building. How did it remain intact for thousands of years without collapsing? There is also the head and internal organs in the bottle, which have been perfectly preserved for thousands of years, as well as the eerie starry sky under the rain.

Thinking of the Rainy Night Starry Sky painting, I couldn't help but look at the girl. Her current appearance was almost exactly the same as the girl in the Rainy Night Starry Sky painting.

Why is this happening? Why does the girl look so strikingly similar to the owner of this tomb? Is it really just a coincidence?

I stared blankly at the Bagua diagram on the back of the gold and silk, when suddenly a thought flashed through my mind—this image seemed familiar. That's right, it was that underground tomb. However, Huang Zhihua had probably recklessly used it as explosives to destroy it. But if it hadn't completely collapsed, there should have been other ways to enter. Because from the girl's description, I realized that the path she used to enter was completely different from ours.

As I pondered this, I couldn't resist taking another look. Ah... no, this golden silk scroll, though merely a hidden two-dimensional diagram, might just be a product of coincidence. The octagonal platform it depicted seemed even larger and more imposing than the one found in the ancient tomb.

"Let's not think about that now, let's find a way out." Just as I was staring at the Bagua diagram, the girl who hadn't said a word spoke up.

“That’s right, the girl is right,” Old Zhang quickly agreed. As the girl spoke, she had already started walking briskly along the beach, and we all followed behind her without thinking.

Old Chen gently tugged at my sleeve, and after we lagged a few steps behind the others, he asked in a low, somewhat furtive voice, "How did you find the girl?"

I was puzzled. Hadn't I already told him? Why was he asking again? But I still briefly recounted the discovery of the floating coffin on the water. Old Chen's face changed color, and after a long while, he asked in a low voice, "So you found her. Has she eaten anything? Didn't you all bring dry food and water? She's been trapped underground for two or three days. An ordinary person would have starved to death long ago."

"No..." I couldn't help but be taken aback. Although Old Chen's words weren't pleasant, I knew he was telling the truth. An ordinary person trapped in such an underground world would either starve to death or be driven mad. There was no light or sound, and time seemed to stand still. The oppressive atmosphere was enough to drive a person insane. But why was the girl alright? My water bottle was on my back, but she hadn't asked us for water or food since she appeared. How could that be? She hadn't even asked once. Did she no longer need water or food? And the girl's personality seemed to have changed completely.

"I think there's something wrong with her," Old Chen said in a low voice.

"Don't talk nonsense!" I said irritably.

Old Chen said in his usual gloomy tone, "I'm talking nonsense? Think about it yourself. You saw what happened after Wang Quansheng died. If you hadn't witnessed him die with your own eyes, if... if... his body hadn't decomposed, could you tell he was a corpse?"

I couldn't help but shudder. Yes—this was definitely a problem. If Wang Quansheng had dressed properly and walked through a busy market before his body decomposed, no one would have been able to tell he was a lifeless corpse. Furthermore, Professor Wang also went to the Guangchuan King's Mausoleum after his death. The young master and the others said he faked his death before going to the mausoleum to rob it. But, were there no people at the archaeological institute? Could someone fake their death and actually die without anyone noticing?

This is an inexplicable phenomenon. I can no longer deceive myself. Those corpses that died under the curse of the Yellow River Dragon Coffin were definitely not normal.

“Wang Quansheng is the middle corpse among the Three Corpse Gods who has come back to life. He can’t be considered a fierce evil spirit. As long as his body is burned, the matter will be resolved. However—if the girl really mutates, I’m afraid the situation will be worrying,” Old Ghost Chen said in a low voice.

“But she looks just like a living person to me, we shouldn’t doubt her like this,” I said softly, my conviction wavering.

"Nonsense!" Old Chen glared at me, then lowered his voice and said, "That's how the Upper Corpse awakens. She awakens with memories of her past life, so she recognizes all of us and knows everything that happened before. In fact, this might not be considered death. My uncle—who is her master—fell because of the Upper Corpse. Otherwise, I wouldn't have suspected the girl. How about we test her?" As he spoke, he pointed to Old Zhang, who was walking alongside the girl at the front.

"How do we test this method?" I asked, puzzled. Although the girl's behavior was strange, we couldn't take any risks. I now realized that Old Zhang's master, although also a resurrected upper corpse among the Three Corpse Gods... if his appearance was also like the girl's, how did they determine that he was already dead?

“If you give her food, it means she’s fine. If she doesn’t eat, there’s definitely a problem. Because once a zombie is resurrected, it doesn’t need food; it only needs the blood of its own kind to sustain its life. You haven’t heard of zombies before, have you?” Old Ghost Chen said in a low voice.

There are many different popular versions of zombie legends, but they all have one thing in common—zombies eat human flesh and drink human blood, cannot be exposed to sunlight, and once a zombie is captured, its body must be burned. However, no matter which version is circulated, zombies seem to lack intelligence and the ability to speak. The girl just now looked no different from a living person, and she even played around with the young master for a while.

I was reluctant to doubt the girl, but her strange behavior, and the way she felt like I was holding an ice cube when I hugged her (in the past, she would have complained of being cold long ago), made me increasingly suspicious, and my conviction wavered. I pulled out a plastic-wrapped steamed bun from my backpack, quickly caught up with the girl who was walking ahead, and called out, "Girl, I forgot earlier! Look at my memory! We went out and had a good meal, and we brought back some dry food and water. You've been stuck here for a long time, eat something to fill your stomach."

The girl gave me a cold look, but didn't reach out to take my steamed bun and water bottle. She simply said indifferently, "I'm not hungry."