Daomu Biji Volume 8 Chapter 60

Although the body was completely soaked, we recognized the tattoo as being that of a Qilin. But a simple glance showed that this couldn't be Little Brother because even though the tattoos were very similar, this one was much rougher and darker. Most importantly, this man had a lot of white hair on his head.

We put the body back into the water because the smell was so bad. At the moment it entered the water, however, I realized that the corpse was Father Pan Ma.

He should have followed Poker-Face's team in here but I didn't know why he died.

The last time I saw him, he was in a crazed state. I didn't know whether he was really mad or simply pretending to be, but he hadn't appeared since then, and I had no interest in his affairs. Someone like him, who had been able to kill so many people for several bags of grain and kept in close contact with Ghost, must've been a small profit-oriented person. No matter for what purpose he was following Poker-Face's team, I wasn't interested in guessing.

The body slowly sank again, looking swollen and terrible. Father Pan Ma was a very old man, and now the water had soaked his body so that you couldn't see any of his wrinkles. If Poker-Face wasn't in that other chamber, I would've really thought it was his body.

Pan Ma's life was a tragedy, but he also deserved it. Everyone must pay the price for what they've done, and this was the result. In fact, it was quite cost-effective.

We turned around, walked up the steps to the platform, and entered the curtain. After going through so much before opening it, I had already steeled myself and no longer had any hesitation or curiosity. (TN note: not really sure where the curtain came from but it's def not a translation error, I totally checked.)

Inside the curtains was a big bed made of jade. There was nothing on it and it was completely empty.

Fatty asked, “Why is there nothing? For such a big battle, there's nothing in the largest tomb."

I asked Fatty, “You've been to many ancient tombs, do you think this was a coffin bed?”

“From this point of view, it's quite possible.” Fatty said.

I said, “Look at it, there are deep marks showing something was pressed here for a long time. Obviously, a very heavy coffin was once pressed on this jade bed; however, the coffin is now missing." I touched the mark—it must not be the mark made by a wooden coffin. No matter how heavy the wood was, it was impossible to make a mark like this because this kind of jade was especially hard. Either it was a metal coffin or there were a lot of metal fittings on the outer edge of a wood coffin.

I think the latter was more likely because the coffins we saw above were almost all wood. Moreover, the bodies inside were basically all bones. Complete metal coffins could be cast here if there was ore, but in this room, I didn't see any traces of a smelting stove being used for many years. In ancient times, if one really wanted to smelt metal wares, it wouldn't require the usual extravagance. At the same time, smelting also required a large amount of coal. Since the Zhang family had designed such a far-sighted plan for planting trees here, it shows that timber must be their first choice. This can be inferred from the fact that the wooden coffin we saw above was exactly the same as the wood used in the ancient building.

The process of constructing such a building in the remote mountains was already very amazing, and the details would have few discrepancies.

“Gone. Did the coffin grow legs and leave by itself?" Fatty asked. “These days, the coffins in the Zhang family's ancient building can also be refined, like some kind of Transformer coffin! Damn it, this grave robbery has already been a hard fucking battle!”

“I think this coffin was moved. They freed this place up, presumably to store another body." I said, looking at the traces on the jade bed—they weren't left when the coffin was placed, but when it was carried out. However, the year in which these marks were left couldn't be determined.

I looked around the coffin bed and found that there were several holes on each side of the steps I came up on.

In ancient times, it was a very clever technique to drill holes in stones and many of them were polished very fine. However, these holes weren't drilled vertically, and clear traces of spirals could be found inside. They were drilled very deep, which was impossible with ancient technology. I figured it was done by a modern drilling machine—I just didn't know whether it was manual or gas. Obviously, simple hoisting equipment had been installed here. It looks like my theory was right.

Fatty nodded, “I see. You're saying that the body they originally wanted to bring in was intended to be placed here, so they first removed the original coffin that was here, using the so-called turtledove-occupies-the-magpie-nest method. However, why is there nothing on it now? Where is the body they brought in?"

No one knows whether the body was successfully brought in and I was a little regretful that I didn't question Ghost more closely at that time. Did they succeed in bringing the body in? I figured it was a success, however, because in this business, if you couldn't do it once, you'd have to do it again. There was only one archaeological event in Banai, and judging from Agui's account, it seemed that the departing team was very normal and could be said to be triumphant.

“What now?” I looked around and found there was nowhere to go. In addition, I knew that we were basically surrounded by quicksand, and now we were in the middle of that quicksand layer that we previously walked through. If my calculation was correct, that layer should be right above our heads.

At that time, I had wondered why it was shallow enough for both feet to touch the bottom. But now that I thought about it, it was because the quicksand was wrapped entirely around the tomb, and my feet were touching the top of the tomb. If you didn't know how the secret passage could be opened and wanted to dig from other places, it was completely impossible. The fine sand must have been specially treated, and you couldn't carry out any project on it.

I asked Fatty what to do since it turned out to be a dead end here. Judging from all the clues we had now, the most likely situation was that Poker-Face came up from the coffin bed at that time, went out from here, and reached the first floor of the ancient building through the secret passage.

But there was no exit around the coffin bed, so Fatty and I began to explore separately in the tomb, hoping to find useful clues as soon as possible. You know, with so many people coming out of here, it was impossible to leave nothing behind. I believed there must be some clues that could help us.

Sure enough, Fatty found a cigarette butt near the foot of a wall.

“Yes! Mr. Naive, they came out from here. This is a Yuxi, I saw this brand on a dead buddy just now." Fatty said, “This man was carrying one of these cigarettes. He must be a heavy smoker and smoked this cigarette here."

I went to Fatty's side and looked around the cigarette butts. I found several of them were still stuffed in the gap on the tomb wall.

The cigarette butts were in scattered locations—this situation was either a very bored person stuffing them into the cracks while smoking, or it was caused by a lot of people smoking here.

I guess it was basically the latter, but it was strange why they all gathered under this wall to smoke. This wasn't the bottom of the old wall—everyone smoking and chatting together, watching the sun rise and fall, living in poverty and boredom. There were too many places to smoke here but so many of them gathered here, was the entrance of the cave behind this wall?

But it didn't make sense either! Who fucking stipulated that where you entered must be where you smoked? Moreover, according to Fatty, the process of their entering was extremely tense. Many people were poisoned so there was no reason to smoke after entering.

I said to Fatty, “Let's do a scene reconstruction. If you were a person who had been poisoned, what would you do if you came here after all kinds of hardships?"

Fatty said, “I'm sure I'd be panting and lying wherever I can. If it weren't for the boss kicking my ass, or if there was any danger behind me, I would lie down until I could recover."

“Do you smoke when you lay down?”

“Shit, it depends on what time it is! If it's seven at night, I wouldn't only smoke, I'd have to get some bowls of bullwhip soup to make up for it. But if you get poisoned here, can hardly breathe, and still smoke… isn't that a death wish?"

I nodded, just as I thought. Fatty continued, “Why are you asking this?”

I told Fatty what I thought and he said: “Well, I'll tell you, looking at all the places here, the best place to smoke should be the steps over there. There's a wide view and you can sit and smoke. But here, you're either squatting at the base of the wall or just standing, how tiring! So there must be something special about this position. I'm telling you, it's a lot like a situation… like… waiting for a woman to go to the bathroom!”

“Why the bathroom?” I wondered. Fatty said, “Haven't you been in love? I'm telling you, women are especially troublesome. They take enough time in the bathroom for men to play mahjong three times. Therefore, if several friends go shopping together and the women go to the bathroom, then the men must immediately find a place to smoke, usually by the wall of the toilet. You can imagine a scene in which several men smoke, shrug their shoulders, smile at each other, and talk about what they really want to talk about. When they leave, the scene there will be exactly the same as here."

I scratched my head, unable to understand, and said: “Do you mean that it was because Granny Huo and the girls in the team suddenly wanted to go to the bathroom, so all the men had to avoid them?”

“I think the number of cigarette butts here wasn't quite right. Granny Huo doesn't have to go to the bathroom to take care of her makeup, right?" Fatty said, “I think it was similar to going to the bathroom, but it took much longer than that. As far as I'm concerned, it shouldn't be like taking off your clothes to rescue someone who was injured. If you want to save them, you can't do it if you're worried about etiquette, and men don't need to avoid it at all. So I think the biggest possibility is—the women changed their clothes."

“Changed their clothes? Why would they have to change clothes suddenly? It's not a dinner party where there's a difference between front court and back court dress."

Fatty thought for a moment and suddenly looked at the river: “Wet… their clothes were wet! They came out of the water!”

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Chapter end