This tomb chamber was nearly ten times taller and wider than the wine burial chamber we had just seen. Four giant columns covered with reliefs stood in the four corners of the tomb chamber. There were many things piled everywhere on the floor of the tomb chamber. When the cold fireworks lit up, we found that they were hills of gold and silver vessels, gems, glass, pearls and jade. When we shone our flashlights on them, they were so colorful that it was impossible to look directly at them.
"My grandpa——" The fat man's eyes were bigger than a cow's and his face was distorted.
I was also so shocked that I could hardly stand. Pan Zi muttered, "What did I say? The Jurchen treasury and the annual tribute of the Southern Song Dynasty. I didn't say it wrong, did I?"
Having been involved in this business for so long, all I have seen are scrap metal. I thought I could not escape my fate this time, but I did not expect that there would be so many treasures in the imperial tomb of this small and weak border country. Could it be true as Pan Zi said that all the treasures after the fall of the Jin Dynasty were stored here? Then it is not a matter of getting rich. If you take out a few of the things here, you can eat for a lifetime.
The fat man wanted to roll into the pile of gold and silver objects. I also had the urge to roll up there, but I still had a trace of rationality in my heart. I held the fat man and told him not to get carried away. Many of the gold objects in tombs were emitting highly toxic substances. It would be stupid to roll into them and be poisoned to death. It is better not to touch these things.
But I grabbed the fat man, but not Pan Zi, who had already rushed into the pile of gold objects and grabbed a handful of them. He stared at them in amazement, and the reflected golden light made his face golden, and his whole body was shaking. Then he loosened his hands, and those things fell from his fingers, making a sound of metal collision.
I saw Pan Zi was fine after grabbing a few handfuls, so I knew the gold was not poisonous, and I felt relieved. I couldn't help but grab a handful as well. The heavy feeling almost made me burst into laughter. I don't know who said that human's love for gold has been written into genes, and has become an innate and irresistible instinct. He was damn right.
Even someone like me, who appears to be righteous on the surface, the excitement I feel when I see gold comes from my heart. I can't deceive myself even if I want to. I like these things.
A few of us forgot everything at once, and we ran to this pile, picked up a bunch of things, and then ran to that pile , took out a headband inlaid with gems and looked at it carefully. These things are truly top-notch, and if there is only one of them, it will be the treasure of the museum. But now there are so many here, we can take them at will, step on them at will, and it doesn't feel regretful.
The fat man had already started packing things into his bag. He poured out all his equipment and didn't want anything else. He stuffed the bag with force. When it was full, he felt something was wrong, so he poured everything out and started stuffing other things in, making meaningless noises as he did so.
But we soon discovered that no matter how we loaded the treasure, we could not take away even a fraction of it. After loading these, we would immediately find better and more precious things underneath. After loading the more precious things, we would find treasures we had never seen before. Suddenly we did not know where to start.
We went crazy for a long time, until we were exhausted and calmed down from the extreme excitement. Then I felt something was wrong. Why didn't I hear Shunzi's voice after I came in?
I wiped the sweat from my head, stood up from the pile of jewelry, shone the flashlight around, and saw Shunzi standing on a pile of gold objects, looking at something.
I walked over and asked him what he was doing, wasn't he excited to see all that gold?
He didn't say anything, but pointed downwards. I shone my flashlight in the direction of his flashlight and found that in the middle of several piles of gold objects, surrounded by countless treasures, there were several people curled up, motionless, and seemed to be dead.
I was immediately startled, the excitement I had just felt suddenly disappeared, and I got goose bumps all over my body.
Fatty and Panzi saw Shunzi and I standing there in a daze, and thought we had found some treasure again. They ran over to take a look, but they were actually a few rice dumplings. They were quite surprised.
We walked down the depression in the gold heap, held the flashlight in our backhand, and shone it carefully. We found that they were indeed dead, and had been dead for some time. The skin of the corpses was frozen and dehydrated into the shape of orange peels. But the strange thing was that these people were wearing rotten woolen coats, which were modern clothes, and there were also a few old-fashioned marching bags around them that were in a state of disrepair.
The fat man asked curiously, "What's going on? Who are these people? Are they our colleagues?"
I shook my head, put on gloves and looked through the backpacks and clothes of those people. This kind of dress should have been popular in the 1980s and 1990s. Nowadays, people in their 40s and 50s in rural areas of Northeast China also wear it. We have seen many middle-aged men like this in Yingshan Village. Judging from the degree of decay, these people should have died here for 5-20 years.
Pan Zi asked: "Could it be that a herbalist or hunter from Changbai Mountain accidentally came here and died because he couldn't get out ?"
"Unlikely." I ripped off the clothes of a corpse. It was a female corpse. I looked at her ears. There were old-fashioned earrings hanging on them. There was also a watch on her wrist, which had long been rusted. "Look, this is a Plum watch, an old model. Even a mayor-level person might not be able to get one at that time. This woman is from a prominent family. She doesn't look like someone from the countryside."
"Could it be the lost tourists from the 1980s?" Pan Zi asked again, "Were the marks we followed all the way here carved by them?"
I shook my head. It was impossible that they carved the mark, because I had seen that mark in the underwater tomb. It must have been carved by someone related to the tomb, either Aning or Menyouping. It was possible that they were lost tourists, but how could they really get lost in a place like this? Ordinary people would not dare to go down the underground tomb passage without considerable courage.
However, if this woman had some background, such as being the child of a leader, or having some connection with local bureaucrats, her disappearance might have had a great impact in the local area. Shunzi was not young anymore, and he might have heard about it at the time, so he wanted to turn around and ask him if there had been any sensational disappearances in their area in the past 5-20 years.
When we turned around, we saw that Shunzi did not run down with us. He was still staying on the pile of gold items with a very stiff expression.
I thought it was strange. Could it be that Shunzi was also hit by the corpse's tongue like Fatty? I didn't see anything on his neck. I saw that he was actually shaking a little, so I felt something was wrong.
The fat man said to him, "What's wrong? Are you afraid of death? Why didn't I see you afraid just now?"
Shunzi ignored the fat man and walked down step by step with heavy steps. He came to one of the corpses and squatted down. I found that he was so nervous that he almost fell down.
Suddenly I figured out what was going on.
Fatty wanted to take a picture of him, but I stopped him and waved my hand at him. Fatty asked me softly, "What's wrong with him? Is he possessed?"
I shook my head. If I guessed correctly, these corpses might be the ones Shunzi mentioned to me, the team his father brought into Changbai Mountain ten years ago. And the corpse Shunzi was looking at now might be his father, so he was so nervous.
Unexpectedly, his prediction came true. Following us, he could really find his father's body...
But is this a coincidence or something else? Did the team that has been here for ten years get lost? Or is there something else we don't know?