Daomu Biji Volume 8 Chapter 52

After reading a few lines, I knew what was going on because I saw two key words: chosen as.

This person was chosen as “Zhang Qilin” at the age of 19.  I paused and realized that Zhang Qilin was not a simple name, but a title.

However, this title obviously became this person's name, just like Genghis Khan— he was originally named Temüjin.

“Damn it!”  Fatty said, “Then this Zhang Qilin is still an official title!”

“Qiling, if seen alone, is indeed a word with other meanings.  It means to remove the dead and transport the coffin to be interred.  The Zhang family was a family of tomb robbers, and this Zhang Qilin may just be another name for a very important position.” I said.

“If the coffin was transported to be buried, it shouldn't be the work of grave robbers, but the work of a funeral procession.  The post of Zhang Qilin may be the person who was in charge of the funerals of Zhang Jialou."

I nodded.  This was a great discovery, and judging from the size of the tomb, Zhang Qilin was indeed a very important position.  That was why this place was so luxurious and huge.

We looked into the coffin.  Since the bones inside were exposed to the air outside the coffin, many parts had become powder.  There was still some cotton wadding and Fatty set it aside so we could see the sacrificial objects in the coffin.

They were under the body, and the quilt the body lay on looked very neat with only one corner turned over.  We put the corpse's broken bones aside, lifted the decaying quilt, and saw a dozen sacrificial objects neatly arranged there. There were various kinds of jade pendants, two pieces of leather products that had rotted beyond recognition, and so on. In three other places, we saw the traces of where things had been placed, but they had already been taken away.

“It was really a tomb robbery.” I said, picking up a string of beeswax bracelets. The gold-rimmed beeswax was old and blackened. As soon as I looked at it, I knew it was from Tibet and was worth a fortune. “But, why only take some of it? This string of old beeswax was at least worth a state-of-the-art SUV!”

Fatty took it, looked at it, and put it directly on his wrist: “I don't know the chant!” With a kiss he said, “Ah lovely, leave your grievances! Those people don't know what's good. This Fat Master won't hurt you."

“Can you be any more disgusting?” I said.

I picked out another agate necklace from the neat sacrificial objects. Every three agates in the necklace were separated by an old coral, which was also something from Tibet. It seemed that this Zhang Qilin had exchanged gifts with some people from there before—these were all quite valuable gifts at that time.

Fatty took it as usual. I said, “This string of beads, depending on the quantity and quality of agate on it, is also quite valuable. And you see, these corals are inscribed in Tibetan, which indicates that the beads probably have a history, and the actual value may be even higher! If these things weren't taken away, what did they take?"

“As I said, there must not have been many people who knew the value of these goods like our buddies. Or, the value of the three things they took was much higher than these things, and they could eat for a few lifetimes by taking them." Fatty said.

I saw the marks left on the quilt by the three sacrificial objects that had been taken away. Two of them, I noticed, were from two rings.

One was big and the other one was small. The big one was the size of a dish, and the small one was like an ashtray. Fatty compared the two: “Is it jade?”

I shook my head: “I don't know, but the jade ring is definitely not too valuable unless it was of extremely good color. This was especially true at the time when Ghost and his people came here. Because there was too much ancient jade in the market, the price of jade at that time may only be 1/10,000 of what it is now. Therefore, if we infer from money alone, I think it shouldn't be ancient jade, but something very valuable at that time."

“Apart from a jade ring, what else could it be?” Fatty said, “Was it porcelain?”

I sighed and looked at the long mark of the third missing object. Fatty, like me, looked at it and suddenly said, “Mr. Naive, do you think this long indention looks familiar?”

I touched my chin, thinking it looked familiar like he said but I really couldn't figure out what it was.

“What do you think it looks like?” After staring for half a day, I asked him.

He seemed to have an idea, but couldn't quite grasp the details, and gave an “Uhhhhhh…” for a long time. Suddenly, he snapped his fingers and I looked up. He compared the marks and said, “Sword, sword, the black gold ancient sword!”

I also thought about it, incessantly imagining that unlucky soldier's mysterious figure. Slowly, I began to sweat.

“It was indeed a black gold ancient sword, and its length and width are quite close.” I said, “Shit! Was this stuff mass produced? The entire Zhang household has one?"

In my mind, I saw a large row of Poker-Faces marching out with black gold ancient swords—it was really terrifying, but powerful enough.

“There absolutely would never be so many black gold ancient swords. If there had been such forging technology in ancient times, China would have conquered the world long ago." Fatty said, “Little Brother's sword was very fine and perfectly forged. As I mentioned before, it's hard to lift even with both hands. This kind of blade must have been forged by the greatest sword maker in ancient times. Not to mention the difficult materials, the blade must be forged perfectly, and the weight must be made so heavy. It was definitely not a traditional process. It would only be possible to be successful after several hundred times. So there are probably no more than three black gold ancient swords on the market."

After a pause, I suddenly thought of a possibility, and said to Fatty: “Suppose, at that time, Ghost and his team entered Zhang Jialou—we can almost rule out the possibility of small grave robbers or other experts entering, because entering here requires too much information. Small organizations can't do it. So, the theft of this tomb was basically the result of Ghost and the people on his team."

That was to say, it was this group of people who took away the two ring objects and the black gold ancient sword.

In the end, many people in Ghost's team died because the ancient building's “fumigation” mechanism was activated. But the items must have been taken out.

So, was the black gold ancient sword that appeared in Uncle Three's store at that time (which was later sold to Poker-Face) the same one that was stolen from here?

I had a strong intuition: it must be, otherwise it didn't make sense!

Then, why did the sword brought out of the ancient building by the archaeological team/funeral procession fall into Uncle Three's hands? At the same time, why did they enter the building, open the coffin, and only take out the black gold ancient sword and the two mysterious rings? What were the two mysterious rings?

It seemed that many things had been started before I received the text message of “Huanghsa Chicken-Eye” from Uncle Three, but I just didn't know. The game had already turned white-hot.

“Look at this.” As I was thinking, Fatty called me again and I walked over. He squatted on the open coffin lid and pointed to the genealogy carved on the inside.

At the center of this genealogy was the name of the coffin owner, inscribed: Zhang Ruitong.

Was he from another generation? I thought to myself, "There was actually a man named Zhang Ruishan in front of me."

The two words “Zhang Qilin” on the edge were one size smaller and if you didn't look carefully, you'd think Zhang Ruitong and Zhang Qilin were husband and wife.

This Zhang Ruitong had six children, two of whom had offspring. Fatty pointed to one of them and said, “Look at this name.”

I saw that one of Zhang Ruitong's two grandchildren was named Zhang Qishan.

Master Zhang Fo Ye.

I scratched my head and smiled with interest. Son of a bitch, I finally found some real evidence.

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Chapter end