People in Zong Tomb, Jieling Pirates

Chapter 222 The information in the relief

As the coffin cover moved slowly, everyone subconsciously held their breath and focused all their attention on the stone coffin, ready to take action at any time.

After all, this stone coffin was something from the Ghost Tomb. No one knew what was inside, so their vigilance was naturally raised to the highest level.

But until the entire coffin cover was completely pushed open, the scene they imagined did not occur.

When the coffin lid was pushed halfway, Chen Ziyan could already clearly see the situation inside the stone coffin.

There is no coffin in this stone coffin. It is filled with a light yellow transparent substance that looks a bit like amber, but in terms of transparency, it is more like crystal.

And inside this substance that looked like amber, lay quietly a lifelike female corpse.

After putting the coffin cover aside, Chen Ziyan greeted the people behind him: "Come here."

And his eyes have always stayed in the stone coffin, never leaving for a moment.

Chen Ziyan is now very curious as to why there is no coffin in the conventional sense in this stone coffin, but this unknown substance is used instead.

He could see that this substance was probably the main reason why the female corpse did not decay, but this was not the explanation for the lack of a coffin.

Those who can use this inner treasure, no matter which dynasty or generation they belong to, must be people with extremely prominent status.

For this kind of person, it is definitely not difficult to do this in this unknown material, so there must be some special purpose for doing this.

While Chen Ziyan was thinking about this problem, the others had already arrived beside him, and they all saw the strange situation in the stone coffin.

They all knew more or less about this aspect, so they quickly came to the same inference as Chen Ziyan.

That is - there must be something wrong with the stone coffin in front of you.

After all, in a place like tombs that pays great attention to the situation and rules, all unconventional existences must have their reasons for existence.

Hu Bayi glanced at the female corpse for a few times and said doubtfully: "Looking at the craftsmanship and details of this costume, it should be a product of the Western Zhou Dynasty, but the style does not look like a uniform."

"Looking at it this way, it looks more like a crown gown." Chen Ziyan said.

He had discovered this before, but he didn't have time to pay attention to it. He was more concerned about what the unknown substance represented than the clothes.

Chen Ziyan actually suspected that it was a corpse cocoon at first, but after thinking about it, he couldn't be sure.

The characteristics of the corpse cocoon are quite obvious. There are many naturally formed lines on the surface, and they appear to be clear but are actually blurry.

If this is a corpse cocoon, then the naked eye can only barely see the outline of the corpse inside, but it won't be as clear as this.

But if it is not a corpse cocoon, both the texture and color are really close to each other.

Feeling unable to distinguish accurately, he asked his question: "Do you think this looks like a corpse cocoon?"

"Corpse cocoon?" Hu Bayi squinted his eyes slightly, also a little unsure: "They look somewhat similar."

He had some knowledge of Corpse Cocoon, but probably not as much as Chen Ziyan, so he couldn't make a judgment.

Ding Sitian had never heard of corpse cocoon, so she curiously asked: "Bayi, what is corpse cocoon?"

Hu Bayi explained to her: "There are two theories about this corpse cocoon. The first theory is that it was created by alchemists in the pre-Qin Dynasty. It was originally used to make elixirs. The raw materials were made from the placenta of pregnant women and the amniotic fluid inside.

The second theory is that this is a corpse embalming technology, using a special mixture of Chinese medicine to wrap the corpse, and the corpse cocoon will slowly form."

Then, he looked at the female corpse in the stone coffin: "If there is really a corpse cocoon here, then the second theory should be more true."

Hu Bayi did not completely deny the first theory. After all, those alchemists were quite crazy, and they might actually develop this method.

When Ding Sitian heard the previous words, she immediately glanced at the unknown substance in the coffin with disgust. It was not until she heard Hu Bayi's next words that she felt better.

Chen Ziyan waited for Hu Bayi's class to end and then asked him to look at the inner wall of the stone coffin: "Old Hu, look at these reliefs."

Hu Bayi quickly looked over, followed the direction pointed by Chen Ziyan, and found some reliefs on the inner wall blocked by an unknown substance.

Because of the material blocking it, he didn't notice it right away.

You must know that in ancient times, the most common way to record information was not books, but murals and the like that were more resistant to the erosion of time.

As for the reliefs that appear here, it is no surprise that they record important life events of the owner of this coffin, which should be able to answer some questions for them.

Although these reliefs appear to be a whole, if you look closely, you will find that they are actually composed of individual scenes.

Soon, they found the first scene and began to interpret the content of the relief from the beginning.

This first scene depicts a man and a woman meeting each other for the first time.

Shirley Yang looked at the vivid image of the relief, frowned and said: "Looking at what this means, it should be the first meeting between lovers, but isn't this man a bit old?"

Although the image depicted on it is very heroic, it can also be seen that this is not a young man.

"The love between an uncle and a girl was a very common thing in ancient times." Chen Ziyan explained casually.

He didn't pay too much attention to this, because as he said, this was nothing unusual in the ancient land.

Little did he know that a pear tree could overwhelm a crabapple. Compared with the allusion about the eighty-year-old’s bridal chamber, there is really nothing new about it.

And although the age of the man on this relief is a bit older, it is still within an acceptable range.

But then Chen Ziyan realized something was wrong, and that was the life story of the tomb owner. Why should this incident be used as the starting point?

Logically speaking, a space with limited space like this would usually record important moments for the tomb owner.

Things like the first meeting of lovers can be replaced by other things, especially when there is a grand wedding scene at the end. The two overlap to a certain extent.

Is it possible that there is something wrong with this man's identity?

When Chen Ziyan expressed his idea, he immediately received Hu Bayi's approval.

Just listen to him say: "I also think it's a bit weird. It stands to reason that the scene that can be specially recorded should have special meaning to the tomb owner, and this specialness is either the scene or the person, but I am more inclined to the latter."

He has a basis for saying this, because there is nothing outstanding about the scene in the first picture.

But this was just the first picture, so after a brief period of doubt, they put away their thoughts for the time being and continued to look at the content behind it.

Although the body of the female corpse partially blocked it, it did not affect their knowledge of the contents of the relief. The blocked contents could also be inferred from the surrounding reliefs.

The protagonists of the subsequent relief are still the man and the woman. First, they got married, and then the child was born. After the common crystallization, the man even built a magnificent pavilion for his beloved woman.

Seeing this, it can be regarded as verifying Chen Ziyan's previous guesses that this man's identity is not simple.

After all, the magnificent pavilion in the relief was not built by just anyone.

Later, during a cruise by the two of them, they accidentally discovered a giant bronze door hidden underground.

Seeing the appearance of the giant bronze door, Chen Ziyan and the others looked at each other, but did not say anything and continued to look at it.

In the relief scene, two people looked like they were having a discussion after discovering the giant bronze door. Not long after, the woman became seriously ill and eventually died.

But in fact, she faked her death and escaped with the help of a man, and used her serious illness as an excuse to collect a batch of important things, and since then she has become the guardian of the giant bronze door.

After reading the final content of this relief, everyone already knew that the woman buried in this stone coffin should be the noble who built the temple.

This means that their previous speculation was correct. The original body of the Ghost Tomb and the temple were indeed built by the same person.

But there are some differences, that is, no man appears in the temple's murals from beginning to end.

Judging from the relief carvings on the inside of the stone coffin, it is very likely that everything that happened here was led by that man.

"If the people who do this are all men in the relief, then what is his identity and what is the purpose of doing this?"

Facing new doubts, Chen Ziyan felt a little headache.

He felt that his trip to Longling was far from as easy as he imagined, and there were really puzzling questions one after another.

The more you learn about something, the more you can feel the depth of the secrets hidden here.

"Huh..." Hu Bayi let out a light breath, trying to relax his brain.

Not only Chen Ziyan felt this way, but everyone else felt the same. They all now felt that they might be approaching a huge secret.

Shirley Yang flicked her wrist, collected her thoughts, and said, "What we should do now is to find a way to deduce the identity of this woman through these reliefs. Only in this way can we deduce the identity of the man."

The key point now is very clear, that is, the identities of these two people must be known first, otherwise all their subsequent speculations may be biased.

Others also agreed with Shirley Yang's proposal, and the top priority now is to find out the identities of these two people.

Hu Bayi touched his chin and said: "The information we know so far is only the murals in the temple and the reliefs here. There is not much that can be used."

There are basically no murals on the temple side, and the only ones that are useful are a few recognizable images in the reliefs.

Chen Ziyan pointed to the several scenes at the back of the relief and said: "I think we should use these as the starting point. I think such buildings were rare at the time, and they must leave some clues in history."

First of all, what they could determine was that the time period these two people lived was the Western Zhou Dynasty, which gave them a rough range.

"And there are fewer records about women, which makes it easier for us to filter." Ding Sitian added.

Hu Ba said half-jokingly: "If there weren't some key points that didn't match up, I would have thought this female corpse was Bao Si."

But this was just a joke, because he himself knew it was impossible.

The final ending alone does not correspond. The Bao Si recorded in history did not die of illness.

(End of chapter)