Neither Cheng Qingshuai nor I directly revealed the truth, because our minds were not focused on this matter at the moment. Seeing that neither of us had the desire to continue, Jietou couldn't help but frown and said: "According to this situation, King Wu Helu did not send Gan Jiang Mo Ye to Mount Modu to forge a sword back then. Instead, he sent them there to dig and build his tomb, right? So King Wu Helu was planning to bury himself in Mount Modu?"
"Um," Cheng Qingshuai nodded and said: "But it's not a tomb, it's a mausoleum. The scale of the mausoleum is much larger than that of a tomb. If our speculation is correct, Gan Jiang was probably the chief supervisor and designer of King Wu's mausoleum back then. He knew everything about the mausoleum. King Wu was afraid that he would leak these secrets out so he killed him."
"You're right," I also nodded and said: "Forging swords was just a cover-up; building the mausoleum was what really mattered. We can imagine that even if forging swords were difficult, it wouldn't take three years' time. Gan Jiang was a top-notch master blacksmith who should have been familiar with how to smelt evil gold long ago. Since he already knew how but still delayed for three years, there is only one explanation left - during those three years he actually did something else which was building the mausoleum."
At this point, I couldn't help but sigh as I looked at Cheng Qingshuai and Jietou: "If my guess is correct, this matter is far more bloody than we imagined; Gan Jiang Mo Ye may not necessarily be a good person."
"What do you mean?" Jietou asked curiously.
"Building the mausoleum requires a lot of manpower and material resources. King Wu must have sent many craftsmen to Gan Jiang, but in the end only Gan Jiang survived. Why do you think that is?" I shook my head and sighed: "If nothing unexpected happened, Gan Jiang had already killed those craftsmen beforehand because he knew too much. If this explanation is true, then the whole story will make sense."
"If that's really the case, there are even more problems," Jietou said curiously. "First of all, according to legend, King Wu Helu was buried in Sanwang Tomb at last which does not match with our speculation about building a mausoleum. Secondly, after killing Gan Jiang Mo Ye, it seems that King Wu Helu also sent people to Mount Modu to forge hooks; what was he trying to do? Besides, as you both mentioned earlier, Mount Modu is an underworld place; before building his mausoleum there how could King Wu Helu not seek out feng shui masters or dragon vein experts? If so why did he bury himself in such an underworld place? What benefits would it bring him?"
Jietou's curiosity was piqued and she looked at us for answers.
Upon hearing Jietou's questions I turned to Cheng Qingshuai and said: "Firstly,the first question can be easily answered - ancient emperors liked spreading rumors about their tombs; for example Cao Cao has 72 suspected tombs which no one has been able to find till now so-called Sanwang Tomb may also be just a rumor used by people as deception without being an actual tomb.Secondly,the second question can be explained better- those who went up the mountain later were actually responsible for guarding the tomb and construction work around it while forging hooks was just a cover-up.As for the third question, we need to ask Master Cheng."
I handed the problem back to Cheng Qingshuai.
Chi Qingshuai took a sip of wine and smiled, "The third question is the key. Let me tell you this, inside Mo Du Mountain is hollow and it's a gloomy place. There are legends that there is a Nine Yin Yellow Springs that leads directly to the underworld. In theory, this is an absolute evil place where ordinary people would never bury themselves here. But why did King Wu Helu insist on being buried here? What was his purpose? Why did he do it?"
"Yes, why did he do it?" Jietou and I asked with wide eyes.
"Hehe," Chi Qingshuai said at this point, starting to tease us. He took another sip of wine before looking at us and saying: "I'll give you a hint. For example, in the heavenly realm above our heads, there is a powerful immortal emperor who discovered a passage leading directly to the human world. He then built his tomb at the entrance of this passage. So I ask you, what was his purpose?"
This made both Jietou and me ponder for quite some time.
After a while, I subconsciously said: "He wanted to rule over humanity and become a true god?"
"That's somewhat plausible but only one aspect of the reason." Chi Qingshuai nodded before continuing: "If my guess isn't wrong back then when King Wu Helu was alive; there were many feng shui masters and Taoist experts around him whose common goal should have been helping him defy fate so that he could achieve eternal life."
"What does any of this have to do with building tombs?" I furrowed my brows asking.
This is to modify the cycle of reincarnation," said Chi Qingshuai with a smile. "As we all know, after human beings die, their souls enter the ghost realm for reincarnation. According to the normal law of reincarnation, once the soul enters the ghost realm, it will forget its past memories and be reborn. Obviously, this is not what King Wu wanted to see, so he wanted to use the Nine Yin Yellow Springs to change the law of reincarnation. We can imagine that the Nine Yin Yellow Springs lead directly to the ghost realm. After King Wu dies and enters into reincarnation in the ghost realm through normal channels, if he uses a special passage to enter into it early and symbolically completes his cycle of reincarnation but does not actually go through rebirth but instead returns back to human world after circling around once in there - what would happen then?"
"I understand now," I said. "You mean that King Wu avoided using normal channels for his cycle of reincarnation by going through Nine Yin Yellow Springs because within those channels he had no way of struggling or resisting against them? But by entering into Ghost Realm via Nine Yin Yellow Springs instead, those feng shui masters and Taoist experts around him could cast spells on him as an escort which made him still like a god-like existence even when he entered into Ghost Realm; thus making him immune from being affected by laws governing cycles of life and death while also allowing him become king or even god in Ghost Realm itself? Of course these are all secondary goals; his ultimate goal was returning back permanently alive among humans again thanks to becoming true ghosts after symbolically wandering around one circle inside Ghost Realm since ghosts can survive on yin energy within it while constantly strengthening themselves with more power."
I looked at Chi Qingshuai and asked.
Upon hearing my words, Chi Qingshuai nodded approvingly at me before sighing and saying, "You're right about most of it, but you still oversimplified things. King Wu didn't just want his soul to live forever; he wanted his physical body to be immortal too, even wanting to ascend into the heavenly realm and become a true god.