The Linggong Hall is the main part of the entire mausoleum's above-ground buildings and is the largest in scale. After entering, the first thing you see is the large stone pillars on both sides of the Lingdao in the middle of the Linggong. Each pillar is about five meters long. I remembered the scene in the movies when they used "flying scissors" to hang the coffin. Presumably, everything here was hung up bit by bit in this way from the cliff that we now think is the most impossible.
In the darkness in the middle of the stone pillar, you can vaguely see a large black lamp slave, and behind it is pitch black. For some reason, when I shine the flashlight there, there is no reflection of any light, as if there is a void there, and no funerary objects can be seen.
The fat man picked up a fire stick and wanted to try to light the lamp slaves. I told him not to do so. The building is still standing and has not collapsed. The low temperature here is a very important factor. If a large number of lamp slaves are lit, the ice crystals on the roof will melt, which may cause some small collapses. So it is better not to do so.
We could only rely on flashlights to move forward in the dark. No one spoke, as if we were afraid of waking up something in the spiritual palace. It was eerily quiet all around, with only the echo of our footsteps and the heavy breathing of people around us filling the air.
Ye Cheng was the least worldly-wise among the group. After walking a few steps, he couldn't help but say, "It's so damn quiet. Why do I feel chilly all over? The quieter it is, the more panicked I get. Let's talk, don't act like thieves—"
Before he finished speaking, Menyouping made a gentle gesture to shut him up. The fat man said to Ye Cheng softly, "Don't give us such bad ideas. Aren't we thieves? This guy has very sharp ears. When you speak, we can't even hear you even if we step on a trap. Can you bear the responsibility?"
When Ye Cheng heard that there might be a trap here, he quickly covered his mouth and looked around nervously, fearing that some hidden weapon would fly over.
Monk Hua said, "Don't be so nervous. This place is used for sacrifices. The Dongxia regime will probably come here for sacrifices every year. It's unlikely that there are any agents here. Besides, this place is a bit old, so don't worry."
"Nonsense." The fat man wanted to refute Monk Hua when he heard it.
I patted him on the shoulder and told him to stop meddling. He had just told others to stop talking, but he kept talking.
The ice dome outside is so thick that once it is closed, it will be difficult to open again. The plank road outside has been burned long ago, which means that no one planned to come back after the Ling Palace was closed. Monk Hua could not have failed to think of it, but there is no need to create unnecessary panic over such things.
We continued forward and after less than five minutes we had arrived at the center of the Linggong Hall. A jade platform appeared in front of us, surrounded by several huge bronze statues with human heads and bird bodies. The statues were neither human nor Buddha. They looked like a twisted pillar covered with lichen. No one could tell what it was and it looked very strange.
The fat man asked Monk Hua, "What the hell is this? Isn't there a sitting statue of the tomb owner in the spirit hall? Does the tomb owner look like this? Isn't this... a big leech?"
Monk Hua said, "This may be the alienated 'Changshengtian' in the Dongxia religion... their main god."
"This god is so stupid." The fat man muttered. "What's the difference between this and a laundry mallet?"
I patted the fat guy again and told him to be more careful with his words. We are still in his territory, so he shouldn't be afraid of retribution.
But I know this weird black totem is not Changshengtian. Although I don't know much about shamanism, I know that Changshengtian has no image. Changshengtian represents an omnipresent and infinite power, which is a kind of cosmic worship. Monk Hua said this either to show off his guilt or to cover up his guilt.
The environment here really gave people an inexplicable sense of tension. Except for Chenpi A Si and Menyoupingzi who still had those sour faces, everyone else behaved more or less strangely.
But if the shrine was not a shrine for worship, then it should be a seated statue of the tomb owner. Could it be that, as Fatty said, the Dongxia royal family looked like this? Impossible? This - this is not in the shape of a human at all. It looks more like the evil god in Haitian fetishism. I saw it once when I was at an exhibition in Shanghai. The gods there were like this, like a pile of rice crust, like a giant mollusk.
I suddenly remembered the record in the bronze fish: the royal family of Dongxia were all monsters dug out from the ground. Could it be this thing? No, this thing can only be said to be a monster. I believe that the Dongxia people would not be so stupid as to recognize a piece of rice crust as their emperor.
It would be nice if I could see what was recorded in the other two bronze fishes. I thought to myself, I wouldn't have to guess so hard, but I don't know when I will have this opportunity again.
Just as I was daydreaming, Pan Zi called out to us, "Look here."
We turned around and found that Pan Zi had climbed onto a bronze urn and carefully took something out of the mouth of the human-faced bird.
Pan Zi is also a troublemaker. I said nervously, "Be careful of the trap."
Pan Zi nodded and picked it up very carefully. Soon, a gilded bronze monkey with a green face and fangs came out. There were countless strange patterns carved on its body, like a tattooed little devil.
We were all very curious, as we had never seen such a design before. Pan Zi jumped down and held it between us, and several people gathered around to look at it. After looking around, we only found that it was made of bronze, and we couldn't tell anything else.
This kind of thing is common in archaeology, because tombs are a mysticism with strict regulations on the one hand, and on the other hand, they are personal matters of the tomb owner. Many tombs have unspeakable burial objects. You can collect and organize those things according to established rules, and get infinitely close to the facts, but you can only guess at things about personal matters. There are many things that have only appeared once in history, and no one can know what the intention is except the victim in the tomb.
Monk Hua checked the other four bronze statues and found the same thing. He speculated that if this club was their main god, the surrounding ones should be the guardian beasts of the main god. This may be related to the local myths and legends. We are not in that dynasty and can no longer understand the real situation. But what he couldn't figure out was why it was made of bronze, when the Ming Dynasty was already a very developed Iron Age.
After checking around the totem, we found nothing. We walked back a little bit, and it was dark behind us, and we didn't know how deep it was.
What surprised me at this time was that in the main hall of the Ling Palace, there were usually huge tripods and ever-lit candles for sacrifice, warm rooms, treasure beds, thrones and shrines. Now there was no trace of these, which was a bit strange. However, the situation was more important than the form. The Dongxia Kingdom had always lived in the depths of the Changbai Mountain forest, and no one knew what kind of living conditions they had. Maybe these things were not in the Jurchen customs.
The fat man was a little annoyed at this time. He came here just to touch things. How could he not be depressed after running all the way without seeing any artifacts to take away? As we walked, he asked us if he could go behind those lamp slaves to see what was in the darkness behind.
Men You Ping waved his hand at him, meaning no. He took out a fluorescent stick and threw it over there. Mi Zhi saw a flash of green light and fell into the darkness behind the lamp slave. The green light disappeared all of a sudden, as if it was thrown into black cotton.
The fat man looked at him with astonishment and asked softly, "What's going on?"
Men Youping shook his head to indicate that he didn't know.
I said to him, "We didn't see the hall that big from outside. Our flashlights didn't reflect light. The walls must have light-absorbing paint. If you go alone, I guarantee you won't be able to come back. It's better not to act rashly."
The fat man said, "Then tie a rope around my waist. If you find anything, it'll be your share. It'll be counted as your technology investment. How about... 10%?"
I hate this kind of behavior of fat people the most, and I said angrily: "If you want to go crazy, wait until we are all out. Don't implicate us now."
Pan Zi also said, "Why are you so impatient? We have only reached this point. If you tie a rope and go in, only your thigh will be left when you are pulled out. Do you think we should go in to find you or not? Look how united Master Chen's team is. Just be at ease and don't embarrass our Third Master."
The fat man sighed and said disappointedly: "Well, you have more people, I can't win against you, I will obey the organization's arrangements, and I will never betray the organization before I find out the enemy's situation."
"Even after finding out the truth, you are not allowed to betray. You are trying to make money now. What will you do after entering the underground palace? How much can you pretend?" I said angrily.
The fat man raised his hands to show surrender, with a grin on his face. I knew his temper, and there was no point saying anything now. There was no way I could do anything to him. I had to remind myself to keep an eye on him to prevent him from getting into trouble.
Walking further in, we saw the end of the hall, where there was a jade door. It was made of four pieces of white marble. The door axis was coiled with a glazed centipede dragon, and the lintel was embossed with music and dance. There were two boys guarding the door. There was no stone behind the door either. The door was sealed with a sentry. After we pried it open, we found that behind the door was a corridor leading to the back hall of the Ling Palace, which was pitch black.
When the fat man saw the two dragons on the door, he immediately became energetic again, his eyes sparkling, and he said to us: "I have seen this kind of door at an auction. It is called a Panlong axis glazed bolt. The whole door was sold for 200 million Hong Kong dollars. Oh, this door doesn't look very heavy..."
I knew what he was trying to stir up, so I poured cold water on him and said, "Don't worry, that's just hype. In today's cash antique transactions, if it exceeds 20 million, it's a sky-high price. This door is worth at most 400,000."
"No way." The fat man didn't believe it: " 400,000 was speculated to 200 million? Is there such an outrageous thing?"
I thought to myself that the two copper fish in my pocket are worth 20 million each, but who would buy them when the time comes to sell them? Everyone knows what's going on in the auction houses nowadays. They all think that if they don't open for business for three years, they will make a living after they open it. If they meet a fool who really pays 200 million to buy a door, then his only job in the next life will be to spend money.
The fat man's worldview was immediately destroyed by me. He looked at the door with a dazed expression. We ignored him, walked into the corridor and went to the back hall.
The rear hall is usually where the entrance to the underground palace is located. Usually, a decorative coffin is placed there, with eternal candles lit all year round, or a large number of offerings are piled up and replaced regularly by the tomb keepers. Dongxia, a small secret border country in a state of war for many years, is not expected to have too many good things, but the entrance to the underground palace is usually set inside, and we must go and see it.
Entering the corridor, there are murals on both sides and the top of the head, and in front of it, the murals are covered with a layer of ice, frozen and gray. After I saw the double-layer mural through the gap, I have always been interested in this kind of narrative things, so I turned on the flashlight to look at it.
But as soon as I looked at it, I felt cold all over. The murals were almost all painted with centipede dragons coiled in the clouds, some were coiled, some were flying, and the whole wall was covered with them. At first glance, it looked like the wall was crawling with centipedes.
The murals are divided into several parts. Some of the murals depict many soldiers wearing furs, bowing to the centipede dragon in the sky.
There are two centipedes entwined together in the head, and it is unclear whether they are mating or fighting.
In every mural, the centipede dragon is the main part, while the figures around it appear very small and extremely humble. It is obvious that the Dongxia people's worship of this centipede dragon is even greater than that of the Han people's worship of the coiled dragon.
Ye Cheng took out his camera and took pictures of all the murals. This could be used when selling funerary objects. Since Dongxia was an uncertain regime, the price could be increased several times if there were pictures of the tombs.
"Who do you think is buried in this tomb? Is it Wan Nu's wife or his subordinates? Why are there only murals like this?" Ye Cheng asked while taking pictures.
I don't know either, and I feel a little strange.
Generally speaking, there are two types of tomb owners in the tomb, one is their own descendants and relatives, and the other is their favorite ministers. The contents of the murals of descendants and relatives should be mostly daily life scenes, while the contents of the favorite ministers are generally scenes of the court, such as civil officials controlling floods, military officials fighting troops, etc. If there are so many mythical dragons painted in the main tomb, it would be normal, but it is not right here. Moreover... the image of the tomb owner cannot be seen in the murals.
Even if the dragon is the main subject and these paintings highlight the dragon's majesty, there should be a leader among the people who are kowtowing devoutly below, because it is a burial tomb, and the leader must be King Wannu, and the owner of this tomb should be worshipping on the left and right of King Wannu. However, all the people in the murals are dressed as slaves or soldiers, and there is no leader.
This is simply unreasonable among the murals in the imperial mausoleum. It does not conform to the three rules and five constants. Painting it here is the same as not painting at all.
The fat man suddenly asked, "Could the murals here also be double-layered?"
I touched it and found that some of the murals here had fallen off, and I didn't find anything special. I shook my head and said no, there must be a story behind the murals in the crevice of the volcano, otherwise it would be unreasonable to have two layers of murals in such a place.
I walked about two hundred meters while thinking about all sorts of things, but the murals suddenly stopped, the corridor came to an end, and the exit of the rear hall appeared in front of me.
There is no door at the exit, but in the center there is a lampstand with bronze crane feet, half a person's height, with a very strange shape. There is a layer of white ice film on it, making the color look black.
We walked out of the corridor and came to the back hall. The fat man lit a cold firework and looked around. He found that the layout of the back hall was almost the same as that of the main hall, but it was much smaller. We could directly see the walls around the hall. There were still murals of centipede dragons on the walls. The color should have been bright red at first, but now it has frozen into gray.
The back hall was completely empty, without any burial objects, and there was no need to search for them, as they were all clear at a glance. In the middle were three black Raven-shaped dragon-shaped stone beds, and the platforms were covered with wooden scepters carved with cloud edges , which had all been cracked by the cold.
This is called a coffin platform. After the coffin is carried in, it is temporarily placed here. There are three of them. Obviously, there was not only one coffin when the body was buried. The wife and children of the deceased were also buried with him.
Being buried with the deceased sounds very unfortunate, but in that era, there was nothing that could be done.
Behind the three stone beds, there is a huge square stone slab protruding from the ground. Two strange birds with human faces are carved on the stone slab, which are arranged in a circle. In the middle of the stone slab, there is a relief of the Tai Chi Bagua diagram. This is the tomb-sealing stone, and the entrance to the underground palace must be under this stone slab.
Apart from that, there was really nothing in the back hall; it was extremely empty.
The fat man looked around and said, "Old Wannu is so stingy. He gave money to his subordinates to build houses, but he was reluctant to spend money on furniture. How can we live like this? He must have taken all the good things."
Monk Hua said, "Don't talk nonsense. If they can build such a large mausoleum, why would they be reluctant to give up a few sacrifices? There must be some special reason for this."
I also feel that it is not that simple. The situation in the back hall is a little bit wrong. Even if it is a small country on the border, as we expected, the national strength is insufficient, but after all, a broken ship still has three nails. Without gold and silver, there will always be a few ordinary bronze objects.
After searching around for a while, there was no passage leading to other places. They came to the side of the stone slab that sealed the tomb. The fat man threw his arms over and tried to lift it, but it didn't move at all. He hurriedly called for others to help.
To prevent traps such as poisonous sand and water under the stone platform, Menyouping carefully checked the blue brick floor beside the tomb-sealing stone slab. After confirming that there was no problem, Langfeng put Shunzi on the coffin platform on the side, and went up with Monk Hua, Ye Cheng and others to push the stone slab.
The strength of these burly men was really amazing. With a loud bang, the stone slab was moved a little. They continued to exert force and slowly pushed the entire stone slab to the side.
We looked under the stone platform and were surprised to find that there was no trace of the entrance to the secret passage under the stone platform (no stone slabs to seal the tomb door), but rather blue bricks like those on the edge. However, because the stone slab had been pressing on it for hundreds of years, there was a square mark on the ground. When we rubbed it with our feet, we felt a bumpy feeling. The blue bricks under the stone slab had been pressed down a few millimeters.
"What's going on?" Pan Zi was surprised: "Is this tombstone fake? Is it just for decoration?"
"Impossible, this is the most basic burial style. No matter what else you do, this is unmatched. The entrance must be here." Monk Hua said.
"Could it be sealed under this layer of blue bricks?" Ye Cheng asked.
I frowned. These bricks were not sealed with iron mortar, which seemed to be a bit problematic. But if you asked me to draw a conclusion, I didn't know how to say it.
The fat man said, "Who cares? There's no one there anyway. It's a rare opportunity to visit an imperial tomb. We can tear down the bricks and see for ourselves."
Ye Cheng immediately agreed. In fact, I think so too. We can no longer be called tomb robbers. We are now simply robbing. When we robbed tombs, we were afraid of alarming the surrounding residents and encountering patrolling police. But now the nearest police station is 800 miles away, so we don't have to be afraid of anything.
We all started to have an over-secretion of adrenaline. Digging and opening the underground palace is always an exciting moment. Sometimes, even opening a coffin is not as exciting as this moment. No one can deny this.
Men Youping squatted down, pinched a green brick with his unusually long fingers, and pulled it hard, pulling the brick up from the ground. Ye Cheng and Monk Hua were stunned and their mouths were wide open.
The fat man was very proud, with an expression on his face that said, "Did you see how powerful our brothers are?" But Menyouping didn't give him face and didn't even look at him. It would be easy to deal with it now that there was a gap. We went up to help and used a mountaineering pick to dig out the bricks.
What is strange is that there is still no trace of iron mortar on the bricks underneath. They are all staggered structures and are not difficult to dig.
My bad feeling got stronger. The entrance to the underground palace is the most heavily guarded part of the fortress. When Sun Mazi dug the tomb of Empress Dowager Cixi, if he hadn't had explosives, he couldn't even remove the stone seal of the underground palace. It must be wrong that the blue bricks could be removed so easily here. Could there be something strange going on underneath?
But Monk Oil Ping didn't say anything. Normally, if there was a problem he would be able to find it immediately. But since he didn't say anything, I felt like I had no right to speak.
In half a cigarette's time, we dug a big pit and the last layer of blue bricks was uncovered. There were only seven layers, probably because the height of the buildings here was fixed. In order to avoid hitting the top of the cave, we had to sacrifice the number of floor tiles below. At the bottom of the pit, a black stone that looked like a tortoise shell covered with patterns was revealed.
"Is it a sealing stone?" Ye Cheng became excited.
"No." Monk Hua at the bottom knocked and opened the bricks around the black stone. Under the bricks, there appeared a black two-headed stone turtle the size of an eight-immortals table. The pattern on the turtle's shell now seemed to be a woman's face.
"What's going on?" Everyone was puzzled. This should be the entrance to the underground palace, but there was a stone turtle buried there.
"Why is there no door to the tomb?" Pan Zi, who had just exerted the most effort, was panting and wondering.
"Move it out first! Let's see what's under the turtle." Monk Hua was also confused and started giving random orders.
In fact, we know there is nothing under the turtle without moving. I have already seen the black rocks under the turtle. We have dug to the bottom of the cave.
Several people hurriedly jumped into the pit, trying to lift the stone turtle out. As soon as they squatted down, the fat man made a "hmm" sound, as if he found something wrong.
I leaned over to take a look, and saw that the engineer shovel hanging on the fat man's waist was stuck to the turtle's back for some reason. The fat man tried hard to pry it off, and as soon as he let go, the engineer shovel was sucked over again.
I looked at it curiously. Could this turtle be carved from magnet?
Several people gathered around to watch, all of them were amazed. The fat man took out a coin and threw it on the turtle's back. With a "dang" sound, it was firmly attached. He said to himself: "Hey, this is fucking funny, such a big magnet, is the owner of this tomb a scrap metal collector?"
Chenpi A'si was resting upstairs. He saw what we had discovered and thought he had found the entrance. He asked what was going on and Monk Hua reported the situation to him.
Before he finished speaking, Chenpi Ah Si's face changed. He hurriedly asked Ye Cheng to help him down, walked closer to the turtle, and took out the compass from his pocket. When he took a look, his face almost turned green. He smashed the compass hard and said coldly: "Oh no, we've been fooled! This tomb is a trap, we've fallen into it!"