Purple jade is amethyst, which is usually used as amulets and to ward off evil spirits. Few people use it to make boxes. This box seems to be dug out from a whole piece of purple jade, which is very rare. Purple jade is not easy to carve, so there is no pattern on this box. There is only a gold border at the lid. Judging from the position where it is placed, it should be used as a pillow for the corpse. Generally, jade pillows are very precious, and purple jade ones are even more valuable. I am afraid that the emperor at that time did not have such treatment.
We carefully took out the box and put it on the ground. The box was not locked. We opened it and saw a roll of silk inlaid with gold. The fibers of this thing were inlaid with gold threads and it was very well preserved. We unfolded it and saw that the line from the left read [The Book of the Underworld King], and the edges were densely packed with small characters.
The fat man was more interested in the jade figurine than the silk book. Since he couldn't understand it, he muttered a few words and ran to study the jade figurine. Men Youping pulled out the knife from the tree, lay down on the jade bed beside him, and silently stared at the body of King Lu Shang with a dazed look in his eyes.
My third uncle and I sat next to him and carefully looked through the words on the silk book. With my level of understanding, I could only understand some fragments, but by connecting these fragments, I could get a general idea. The things recorded in this book of the underworld king were simply incredible. If I hadn't experienced so many strange things, I really wouldn't believe that there were such things in the world.
Beside the line of words in the Book of the Underworld, there is a line of small words, which is the preface written by him. It is only a few lines, followed by all the major events from his birth to death. If all of them are translated, it may take more than ten days or half a month to finish. Fortunately,
I understand the two most important things.
The first thing was how King Lu Shang obtained the Ghost Seal. The silk book contained a relatively brief account of the event, so I roughly sorted it out and read it out.
He inherited his father's official position at the age of 25 and robbed ancient tombs for the army of Lu State, earning gold to raise military pay. One time, he entered a tomb of unknown age, and found a giant snake lying in the coffin, lying there motionless. King Lu Shang was very brave. He thought that the giant snake lying in the coffin must be a monster, so he chopped the snake off with one knife and forcibly ordered the snake to be gutted. As a result, a purple gold box was dug out of the snake's stomach.
I was stunned when I saw this. Could it be that the box I put in my bag was taken out from the snake's stomach? Uncle San saw that I had stopped talking and said impatiently, "Don't stop, keep talking!" I couldn't think about it, so I had to come back to my senses and continue reading.
King Lu Shang did not take the box seriously, thinking that it had been swallowed by a snake. Later, when he was sleeping at night, he dreamed 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 killed many people. He forgot about them after killing them and didn't know who this old man was. He said, "Kill if you want to!"
The old man suddenly turned into a giant snake to bite him. Who knew that King Lu Shang was so ferocious that he cut the snake with a knife in his dream, and then stepped on it to chop off the snake's head. The snake suddenly began to beg for mercy, saying that his body had been killed by him, and if his soul was killed by him again, it would never be reincarnated. If he spared him, he would pass on two treasures to him. It could make him the highest position. At that time, the tomb-robbing officers were directly under the emperor's management, but their status was very low. King Lu Shang thought highly of himself, and this condition was very attractive to him. He agreed.
The snake then told him how to open the purple gold box in his stomach, and also taught him how to use the treasures inside. After listening to it, King Lu Shang "grasped the essence of it" and thought that this matter should only be known to heaven and should not be spread to the world, so he chopped off the snake's head with a knife.
When I saw this, I couldn't help but be shocked. King Lu Shang was too cruel.
The fat man came over and asked, "That one treasure must be the Ghost Seal, so what is the other one? It's never mentioned in ancient books. Could it be this jade figurine?"
I signaled him not to worry and continued to look down.
After King Lu Shang woke up, he tried the method in his dream and indeed opened the box. However, he never wrote what treasure was inside. He just said that he found it "quite handy" after using it. He thought that this matter must not be known to others, so he killed all the followers he brought with him, as well as their families, one by one, even the one-month-old baby was not spared.
I gasped again when I saw this, thinking that King Lu Shang must have some mental problems, otherwise how could he be so cruel.
The fat man said, "How could he kill so many people by himself? He must have used that treasure. I'm so anxious. Can you see if it's written below what it is?"
I scolded, "Why the hell are you talking so much nonsense? Go pack up your jade figurines!"
He said, "Okay, okay, I won't interrupt you, you better read faster, my intestines are itching!"
I ignored him and continued reading.
In the following decades, he was invincible with the two treasures, whether in war or government affairs, and he was invincible and glorious for a time. However, in his later years, due to years of contact with corpse qi, his body developed many chronic diseases and was very inconvenient. As a result, the emperor thought he was too old, so he took away his military power and asked him to only rob tombs and not take care of military affairs. This was actually a demotion.
As his health deteriorated, he began to fear death. One day, he dreamed of the giant snake that had existed for decades. The snake told him that his death had come and that they were all waiting for him in the underworld. When he looked around, he saw that almost all of them were people he had killed before! After he woke up, he remembered the contents of his dream and was very scared. He went to ask his military advisor for advice.
His military commander was an iron-faced man who was well versed in Feng Shui. He thought for a moment and told King Lu Shang that in ancient times there was a kind of jade figurine that could make people rejuvenate and live forever when worn on the body. Unfortunately, it had long been extinct. If you want to find it, you can only go to the ancient tombs. King Lu Shang was at the end of his rope at that time. Whether the iron-faced man's words were true or not, they gave him a glimmer of hope, and tomb robbing was his strong point. So he studied ancient books all night. The literature and materials at that time were still relatively rich, and many things had not been lost. Finally, he found a large tomb that might have jade figurines in a bamboo slip.
Then, he mobilized more than 3,000 people and spent half a year digging the mountain. He found a huge Western Zhou imperial tomb in the area he estimated. At that time, the national strength of each country was not very good, so the scale of this imperial tomb was already amazing. It was built by cutting through the mountain and using natural caves. The tomb passage inside used the principles of Zhouyi Bagua and was extremely complex. If King Lu Shang had not been proficient in Qimen shield armor, there would be no way to walk in. The most peculiar thing was that in the cave that was the main tomb, there was a giant tree he called the Nine-headed Snake Nan, and a young male corpse that was almost skinny, wearing a black gold-thread jade suit, was meditating on the jade bed under the giant tree.
After looking at it, Mr. Tiemian said decisively that this was the jade figurine. The corpse of the young man looked like he was half dead. Every once in a while, the dead skin on his body would fall off and new skin would grow out from inside. He estimated that this young man must have become a withered old man when he died.
This Mr. Iron-faced was very capable. He actually knew how to restrain the blood corpse. He used a special method to take out the male corpse from the terracotta warriors, and sealed it in the sarcophagus in the secondary tomb chamber. King Lu Shang followed the entire plan set by Mr. Iron-faced. He took a fake death drug and pretended to be dead in front of the emperor. The emperor thought that he could really come and go freely between the Yin and Yang worlds and was very scared. In order to appease him, the emperor gave him burial treatment higher than that of ordinary princes. His confidants used the excuse of digging a tomb to secretly build a fan-shaped ancient tomb on top of the Western Zhou imperial tomb. Because he was familiar with various tomb-robbing techniques, he set up confusion everywhere, left 7 fake coffins, and hid himself in the thousand-year-old tree of the Western Zhou tomb.
Before he entered the coffin, he killed all the people involved in the project and pushed them into the river, then poisoned all his followers, leaving only two loyal confidants, a man and a woman, to bury him. After completing all the tasks, the two also took poison and died. I guess the majority of the ancient corpses in the corpse cave should have accumulated at this time.
At this time, I had a question, and said to Uncle San: "What was the final fate of that Iron-faced gentleman? It seems that it is not mentioned here. Did he also die as a sacrificial offering?"
Uncle San shook his head and said, "This kind of person is very smart. He should have expected that King Lu Shang would kill people to silence them. He should not be so loyal as to be buried with him."
Men You Ping said calmly: "Of course he wouldn't, because in the end, the one lying in the jade figurine was no longer King Lu Shang, but himself."