False evidence

Chapter 186 The Man Who Climbed Out of the Grave

After tidying up Uncle Cheng's clothes, I returned home and called Shen San and Lu Zelin together, then handed them Uncle Cheng's first letter.

Xiao Shen turned his head to one side. Lu Zelin took the letter, glanced at it, and said with a flushed face, "My literacy is limited, and it's mostly in traditional characters, I..."

Then I remembered that he had been abducted when he was young and was also semi-illiterate.

Once I released the first letter of faith, the monkey naturally had many questions.

Xiao Shen San said, "I knew that house was no ordinary place; it turns out it was where the Chang Family Immortal was enshrined."

I noticed Lu Zelin secretly shaking his head and asked, "What's your opinion?"

Lu Zelin said, "Did you notice a detail? Uncle Cheng had tuberculosis before, but after waking up, he seemed to be fine."

A gleam of wonder appeared in the monkey's eyes: "Could it be that the inner core of that snake on the beam can cure people's illnesses?"

Instead of answering, Lu Zelin asked, "Uncle Cheng said he had a dream while he was sound asleep?"

I nodded: "Yeah, he actually dreamed that he became Liu Bang's attendant, that's pretty amazing."

“That’s a dream, yet it’s not a dream,” Lu Zelin suddenly said.

"What do you mean by 'it's a dream but not a dream'?" I didn't understand.

Is this not a dream? Could I have really traveled through time?
Lu Zelin then said something strange: "For him, it wasn't a dream; and thankfully, it was just a dream for him."

Xiao Shen couldn't help but say, "Little bald guy, we were having a good chat before, why can't you speak like a human being now?"

Lu Zelin seemed to organize his thoughts before saying, "After he was bitten by the tomb snake, what he ate wasn't some kind of inner core; it should have been the Land of Black Sweetness."

"The Land of Dark Sweetness?" the monkey said. "I know that. The Land of Dark Sweetness refers to a person's deep, intoxicated sleep. Su Dongpo has a poem that goes, 'After three cups of soft food, a pillow of dark sweetness remains.' That's what it's talking about."

The monkey seemed to be showing off, but I could at least hear two suspicious points in Lu Zelin's words.

"A tomb snake?" Little Shen San also sensed something amiss.

Lu Zelin nodded: "That red snake isn't some kind of guardian spirit; it should be a tomb snake that guards the burial site."

Lu Zelin is really not good at organizing his thoughts, and when he does communicate, his reactions are somewhat slow.

I had a feeling that if this continued, it would be difficult to get to the point, so I simply took out the second letter and read it aloud.

To make it easier for Lu Zelin to understand, I read slowly and provided explanations for some less common words.

During this time, Pidan kept Xiao Shensan and Monkey from interrupting.

After the whole letter... let's just say the whole letter is finished. Seeing Lu Zelin deep in thought, I first asked Xiao Shen San for his opinion.

Xiao Shen San could tell that I was eager to get rid of my confusion, so he spoke very concisely:
"First, Fang Cheng was bitten by a snake on the roof beam of the new house. Thinking it was a good idea, he ate one of the eggs and ended up sleeping for a whole year. When he woke up, his tuberculosis was cured, and he was in excellent health. Otherwise, he wouldn't have gotten out of bed so quickly. Second, it's conceivable that after Fang Cheng's parents passed away, the short-haired woman in the white coat took care of him. You could say she was kind to Fang Cheng. And for the next ten years or so, Fang Cheng took excellent care of the house. The guardian spirit of the Chang family greatly appreciated this. Therefore, before achieving true immortality and departing, to repay him, it instructed him to do those things."

Third, while Western medicine existed at that time, it was still rare in rural areas. That female doctor likely came to the countryside with her parents because of her family background. Following Chang Xian's instructions, Fang Cheng destroyed the "bad" things associated with the elderly couple and the female doctor overnight, drugged the elderly couple into a deep sleep, and even made the female doctor behave immorally. This wasn't harming them, but rather helping them escape a great calamity.

Fourth, the female doctor initially didn't understand Fang Cheng, but later she did. However, she was definitely still dissatisfied with his actions at the time; it's common for women to hold grudges against men for years. But in the end, the female doctor and Fang Cheng still became a couple!

At this point, Xiao Shen's eyes lit up. "The letter said that Fang Cheng burned everything he could and sank everything he couldn't into the well. Gold, silver, and porcelain remain gold, silver, and porcelain no matter how long they're soaked in water. Times have changed, and he and his wife retrieved the things from the well... Do you think his shops now are the result of exchanging those things?"

I must say that Shen San is very clever. Although he is not very educated, his summary is more concise and clear than mine, and it is also very detailed.

He insisted that the red snake was a guardian spirit, but that was because he was from Northeast China.

After exchanging a few more words with Monkey and the others, I turned my gaze to Lu Zelin.

“I was right,” Lu Zelin said.

I finally couldn't help but frown.

After thinking about it for so long, I still haven't figured it out?
At this moment, Lu Zelin said:

"The person who built the house, who was also the original owner of the house, Jiang Baohan, was not a tomb raider, but someone who specialized in building tombs for others."

Xiao Shen and I both nodded in agreement, only then realizing that he had made a similar assessment when he discovered the secret of the "special treatment".

Lu Zelin said, "It is said that when Jiang Baohan was a child, he snatched two clay dolls from a child and kowtowed to them, which further proves this point. Because those were not ordinary clay figures, but funerary objects for the dead. Usually, they were made to resemble celestial officials standing upright, so they were also called 'stick figures'."

The items in the tomb were already tainted with the stench of death; how could a child withstand that? Moreover, many tomb owners, to prevent robbing, would add poisons, or even insect-like concoctions, to the burial goods. Unsuspecting living people who came into contact with these things for too long would be killed. Although Jiang Baohan was young at the time, he was likely from a prominent family, so he knew these things and saved the child.”

"He's clearly a grave repairman, so how did he get accused of grave robbing and even thrown in jail?" the monkey asked, puzzled.

Xiao Shen snorted coldly: "Human hearts are treacherous. Wasn't it said that his wife was incredibly beautiful? They framed him as a thief, arrested him, and then his beautiful wife..."

Lu Zelin shook his head: "What you said is a possibility, but the most likely possibility is that someone really has seen Jiang Baohan... no, it should be said that they have seen his ancestors 'robbed tombs'."

Xiao Shen Sanyi pouted: "Then I didn't wrong him."

Lu Zelin shook his head again: "He's still being wronged. I believe that if someone says Jiang Baohan is a tomb raider, it must be because someone saw his ancestor crawl out of the tomb. And that ancestor must have brought a lot of gold and silver with him, which is why he was considered a tomb raider."

Xiao Shen slapped his forehead hard: "Talking to you is such a hassle."

Lu Zelin said very seriously, "Building tombs and robbing tombs are not contradictory. We are all poor people. Who doesn't want to live a better life? The whole family is starving to death, but those gold and silver are left to the dead. That is against the principles of heaven."

However, those who repair tombs rarely engage in grave robbing. It's not that they don't want to, but rather that they rarely have the opportunity. Repairing tombs for ordinary people is considered a good deed, but it doesn't earn them much money. Repairing tombs for high-ranking officials, especially government officials, comes with promised high rewards from their families, but they might not live to receive them.

(End of this chapter)