adminZiyu refers to amethyst, which is generally used to make talismans and objects for warding off evil. It is rare for anyone to use it to make a box. This box appears to have been carved from a solid piece of amethyst, making it extremely rare. Amethyst is not easy to carve, so the box has no patterns on it, except for a gold rim at the joint. Judging by its placement, it seems to have been used as a pillow for the corpse. Generally, jade pillows are already quite precious, and a purple jade one is even more valuable; it’s likely that even the emperor of that time would not have enjoyed such treatment.
We carefully lifted the box and placed it on the ground. The box was not locked, so we opened it to find a roll of silk embroidered with golden threads. The fibers of this silk were interwoven with gold, and it was very well preserved. When we unfolded it, the first line on the left read “The Record of the King of the Underworld, Wang Shang,” and densely packed next to it were small characters.
Compared to the silk book, the fat man was more interested in the jade figurine. After looking at it and not understanding, he mumbled a few words and went off to study the jade figurine. The silent oil bottle pulled out a knife from a tree and lay down beside the jade bed, silently staring at the corpse of King Lu Shang, his eyes becoming dreamy.
My uncle and I sat down beside him and carefully examined the text on the silk book. With my level of understanding, I could only comprehend a few fragments, but piecing these fragments together revealed a rough outline of the content. The records in the “Record of the King of the Underworld, Wang Shang” were simply unbelievable. If it weren’t for the strange events we had already experienced, I really wouldn’t have believed that such things existed in the world.
Next to the line of text in the “Record of the King of the Underworld, Wang Shang,” there was a line of small characters, which was his own preface. It was only a few lines long, and afterward, it detailed all the significant events from his birth to his death. If I were to translate it all, it would probably take ten days to half a month. Fortunately, I could understand the two most important events.
The first event was the story of how King Lu Shang obtained the Ghost Seal. The silk book described it rather briefly, so I summarized it and read it aloud. At the age of twenty-five, he inherited his father’s position and led the army of the Lu State to excavate ancient tombs, using the gold unearthed to pay the military. One time, he entered a tomb of unknown era, and inside the coffin lay a giant snake, motionless. King Lu Shang was very bold; he thought to himself that a giant snake lying in a coffin must be an evil creature, so he immediately chopped it up with a knife, ordering it to be opened up. As a result, from the snake’s belly, they extracted a purple gold box.
Upon reading this, I couldn’t help but be stunned. Could it be that the box I had in my bag was the one taken from the snake’s belly? My uncle, seeing that I had stopped speaking, impatiently urged, “Don’t pause, continue!” I had no choice but to shake off my thoughts and continue reading.
King Lu Shang didn’t think much of the box either; he just assumed it had been swallowed by the snake. Later that night, while he was sleeping, he dreamt of an old man with a white beard who asked him, “Why do you want to kill me?” King Lu Shang was usually very violent and had killed many people; he would forget after killing, not even knowing who this old man was, and replied, “If you want to kill, then kill!”
The old man suddenly transformed into a giant snake to bite him. Who knew that the King of Lu Shang was incredibly fierce; in the dream, he struck the snake with a sword, injuring it. Then, he stepped on it, intending to cut off its head. The snake suddenly begged for mercy, saying that its physical body had already been killed by him, and if its soul was killed as well, it would never be reborn. If he let it go, it would grant him two treasures that could elevate him to a position of great power. At that time, the tomb-raiding officer, although directly managed by the emperor, held a very low status. The King of Lu Shang had a very high opinion of himself, so this condition was extremely appealing to him. He agreed.
The snake then revealed how to open the purple-gold box in its belly and taught him how to use the treasures inside. After hearing this, the King of Lu Shang felt he had grasped its essence and believed that this matter should only be known to heaven and not spread to the world. With a single stroke, he chopped off the snake’s head.
At this point, I couldn’t help but be astonished; the King of Lu Shang was truly ruthless.
The胖子 (fat man) ran over and asked, “One of the treasures must be the Ghost Seal; what about the other one? It’s never mentioned in ancient texts. Could it be this jade figurine?”
I gestured for him to be patient and continued reading.
After waking up, the King of Lu Shang tried the method from his dream, and indeed, he opened the box. However, it never specified what treasures were inside, only that he found them “quite handy.” He felt that this matter could not be known to others, so he brutally killed all his attendants and their families, sparing not even the infants who had just turned a month old.
I gasped at this point, thinking that the King of Lu Shang must have some psychological issues; otherwise, how could he be so cruel?
The胖子 said, “How could he possibly kill so many people by himself? He must have used that treasure. I’m dying to know; hurry up and see if it says what it is!”
I cursed, “Why do you have so much nonsense? Go take care of your jade figurine!”
He grimaced, “Alright, alright, I won’t interrupt. Just read faster; I’m itching to know!”
I ignored him and continued reading.
In the following decades, he achieved victory in everything he did with the help of those two treasures, whether in battle or in court politics, winning every conflict and enjoying a moment of glory. However, in his later years, due to prolonged exposure to the energy of corpses, he developed many chronic ailments, making him very inconvenient. As a result, the emperor deemed him too old and stripped him of his military power, relegating him to merely tomb raiding without the need to manage military affairs, which was essentially a demotion.
As his health continued to decline, he began to fear death. One day, he dreamt of the giant snake from decades ago. The snake told him that his time had come and that they were all waiting for him in the underworld. When he looked, he saw many of the people he had unjustly killed! After waking up and recalling the dream, he was filled with fear and sought counsel from his military advisor.
His military advisor was a man with an iron face, well-versed in destiny and feng shui. After a moment of contemplation, he said to King Lu Shang, “In ancient times, there was a type of jade figurine that, when worn, could make a person return to their youth and achieve immortality. Unfortunately, it has long been extinct. To find one, you can only search in ancient tombs.” By that time, King Lu Shang was already at the end of his rope. Whether the iron-faced man’s words were true or not, they gave him a glimmer of hope, and tomb raiding was his specialty. Thus, he spent the entire night studying ancient texts. At that time, the literature and materials were relatively abundant, and many things had not been lost. Eventually, he discovered a significant tomb that might contain the jade figurine in a simple manuscript.
Next, he mobilized over three thousand people and spent half a year excavating the mountains. In the area he estimated, they found a massive royal tomb from the Western Zhou Dynasty. At that time, the national powers of various states were not very strong, so the scale of this royal tomb was already astonishing. It was built into the mountain, utilizing natural caves, and the burial passage was extremely complex, based on the principles of the I Ching and the Eight Trigrams. If it weren’t for King Lu Shang’s mastery of the mystical arts, he would have had no way to enter. The most peculiar thing was that in the main burial cave, there was a giant tree he referred to as the Nine-Headed Serpent Nan, and beneath that giant tree sat a nearly skeletal young male corpse, dressed in a black silk and jade robe, meditating on a jade bed.
After seeing this, the iron-faced man decisively stated, “This is the jade figurine. This young male corpse is in a state of being neither fully dead nor alive. Every so often, the dead skin on his body sheds, and new skin grows underneath. I estimate that when this young man died, he must have been a withered old man.”
This iron-faced man was quite remarkable; he even knew how to restrain blood corpses. Using a special method, he extracted the male corpse from the figurine and sealed it in a stone coffin in a secondary burial chamber. Following the entire plan laid out by the iron-faced man, King Lu Shang took a fake death potion and pretended to die in front of the emperor. The emperor believed he could move freely between the realms of yin and yang and was very afraid. To appease him, the emperor granted him burial rights that exceeded those of ordinary feudal lords. His confidants, under the pretext of excavating a tomb, secretly constructed a fan-shaped ancient tomb above this Western Zhou royal tomb. Because he was familiar with various tomb-raiding techniques, he set up numerous deceptive traps and left seven fake coffins, hiding himself in the thousand-year-old tree of the Western Zhou tomb.
Before he entered the coffin himself, he killed all the people involved in the project and pushed them into the river. He then poisoned all his attendants, leaving only a loyal man and woman to assist in his burial. After completing all the tasks, those two also committed suicide by poison. I estimate that the majority of the ancient corpses in the corpse cave accumulated during this time.
At this point, I had a question and asked my third uncle, “What ultimately happened to the iron-faced man? It seems there’s no mention of him here. Did he also die in the burial?”
My third uncle shook his head and said, “Someone like him is very clever. He should have anticipated that King Lu Shang would kill to silence him and would not foolishly remain loyal to be buried with him.”
The mute oil bottle said lightly, “Of course he wouldn’t, because in the end, the one lying in the jade figurine was no longer King Lu Shang, but himself.”
