False evidence

Chapter 187 Heavenly Official's Wall

At this point in Lu Zelin's speech, at least Shen San and I roughly understood what he meant.

In ancient times, let alone emperors and generals, even powerful local tyrants and bullies would often dig up their luxurious tombs after building them, fearing that the tomb builders would covet the funerary items and bury them with the dead. Afterwards, they would usually kill the tomb builders to cover their tracks.

The tombs of emperors and generals were heavily fortified with traps, which were built by the tomb builders themselves. How could they not have any scruples? Therefore, building a tomb for a king or noble was essentially a death sentence.

Lu Zelin suddenly said, "Jiang Baohan's ancestors must have built large mausoleums, and it's even possible that they built tombs for some emperor or prince."

"How do you know?" Xiao Shen asked three times.

"The 'dead man furnace' proves this point. Would someone who doesn't truly understand tomb mechanisms build such a furnace? And the tomb snakes are something only a true family of tomb mechanics would know how to train."

Xiao Shen nodded repeatedly.

Lu Zelin scratched his bald head: "I'm slow-witted, so try not to interrupt me, or I won't remember what to say. For example, Jiang Baohan's ancestors must have built a large tomb with internal mechanisms."

He must have realized long ago that he was building tombs for others, but would ultimately become a funerary offering for the tomb's occupant. So he secretly left behind a "worm passage"—in our jargon, a worm passage is an escape route that the tomb builder secretly prepares for himself.

Just as he expected, he and his companions were eventually buried alive in the tomb. Afterwards, he escaped through a wormhole. He must have hated the people who buried him alive; when he got out, he would have taken some funerary objects with him.

It was when he climbed out that a passerby saw him and assumed he was a tomb raider! Do you all understand now?

We all nodded in agreement.

The monkey asked, "That's not right. If there's a passage, it's impossible that only one person escaped, right?"

Xiao Shen rolled his eyes: "Who told you only one escaped?"

“Just one!” Lu Zelin said confidently.

"Why?"

"Because of the land of dark sweetness!"

When Lu Zelin mentioned the "Land of Black Sweets" again, my heart tightened once more.

Unlike Shen San, Lu Zelin, who clearly couldn't read many characters, always liked to spout fancy words.

He was very straightforward:

The practice of burying the living with the dead has existed for a long time. However, there is a rule that blood must not be drawn, otherwise it will ruin the feng shui.

Therefore, concubines and eunuchs who were buried with the emperor either took poison or hanged themselves.

Building a large tomb, especially an imperial mausoleum, requires more workers than building a palace.

It's unrealistic to strangle them one by one afterward; as for poisoning, many tomb builders are on guard, so if I don't eat this last meal, there will be more than one or two who escaped.

They might still be buried alive, but what if they damage the tomb's interior facilities or even the body of the tomb's occupant before the air completely dissipates?
Therefore, the most common method used by ancient craftsmen to build imperial tombs was to dig a separate burial pit outside the main tomb.

The so-called "Underworld Workers' Cave" is a mass grave completely disconnected from the main tomb. The craftsmen were forced into it and then buried alive.

At this point in Lu Zelin's speech, Xiao Shensan couldn't help but interject again: "If it were me, I wouldn't need to go through all that trouble. I could just use sleeping incense to knock them out."

"Not safe!"

This time, it was the monkey who refuted him, saying, "Everyone's constitution is different, and their reaction to drugs is also different. For example, two people of the same age and build, who go on the operating table and are injected with the same dose of anesthesia, one can have the surgery successfully, while the other will cry out in pain halfway through."

This is why I said using sleeping incense wasn't reliable. Even if it doesn't work on some people, and even if someone is initially knocked unconscious, they'll wake up before the air dissipates after the grave is filled in, so it still won't achieve the desired effect for the deceased.

“There’s a kind of incense that can achieve that effect!” Lu Zelin said.

Xiao Shen was the first to react, "It's that... Dark Fragrance you were talking about?" "It's the Land of Dark Sweetness." Lu Zelin's expression became somewhat solemn. "Master said that the Land of Dark Sweetness was invented by a sorcerer in the Later Zhou Dynasty. Anyone who smells the fragrance in any environment will immediately fall asleep, and will sleep for a very, very long time."

"Just like Fang Cheng back then?" Shen San looked at me.

I gestured to him not to interrupt Lu Zelin.

Lu Zelin scratched his head again: "Actually, people who have smelled the land of black sweetness aren't necessarily unable to wake up, they just don't want to."

"What do you mean by not wanting to wake up?" This time it was my turn to ask.

Lu Zelin's next words left everyone speechless.

He learned about the Land of Dark Sweetness through his master, Zang Zhiqiang, who was the last true disciple of the Cangyin lineage.

Zang Zhiqiang had not simply heard his master mention this special kind of aphrodisiac incense; he had experienced it firsthand…

At that time, Zang Zhiqiang had only recently completed his apprenticeship. According to the rules of the Cangyin lineage, once the Canghun Coffin is handed over to the next generation, the previous generation will retire.

Zang Zhiqiang began his solo adventure full of confidence, but little did he know that his first tomb raid would end in an accident.

That time, he used the secret technique of exploring the tomb to first find out the situation inside, then dug a tunnel and went down into the tomb, where he indeed made a considerable gain.

However, an unexpected discovery before he left nearly cost him his life.

After collecting many funerary objects from the tomb, Zang Zhiqiang was about to return to the entrance of the tomb raider's tunnel when he saw a wall in a tomb chamber filled with offerings to the Heavenly Officials (who were the porters that Lu Zelin had mentioned earlier).

He remembered clearly that he had passed through this tomb chamber when he came in, but he did not see this 'Heavenly Official Wall'.

There's a saying in the tomb raiding world: "If you believe in ghosts and gods, you won't go down into the tomb." Tomb raiding cannot be based on superstition.

But there's an old saying: "When you meet a Buddha, burn incense; when you meet a thief, draw your gun."

Although Zang Zhiqiang had received instruction from his master, he still felt that the appearance of this 'Heavenly Official Wall' could not be explained by mechanical principles.

He was still young then, and in a moment of panic, he broke a taboo. He quickly put down his bundle and knelt down to worship the wall full of celestial officials.

He kowtowed three times and was about to get up.

Suddenly, laughter broke out in the previously silent tomb.

Even more horrifying was that Zang Zhiqiang followed the sound and realized that the laughter was coming from one of the Heavenly Officials on the Heavenly Official Wall!

Whether the Heavenly Officials exist or not is unknown to the world, but the Heavenly Officials in front of us are all made of clay. How can clay figures laugh?
After a brief moment of shock, Zang Zhiqiang quickly calmed down.

It should be noted that the mechanisms in each tomb are different. This suddenly appearing Heavenly Official Wall is definitely not a divine manifestation; it should be a mechanism that our sect has never encountered before.

Since he had determined it to be a trap, as a tomb raider, he had to investigate.

That's like saying that expanding territory is the greatest achievement of a monarch.

With this thought in mind, Zang Zhiqiang put aside all thoughts of heavenly officials and gods, flipped his right hand, and unleashed his unique digging claw, walking step by step to the wall in front of the heavenly official.

His first focus was naturally on the celestial official in the very center who was emitting laughter.

However, just as he was intently examining the clay sculpture of the Heavenly Official, he inadvertently caught a glimpse of a terrifying scene out of the corner of his eye.

The nearly one hundred celestial officials placed in the recesses on both sides of the wall were now all facing him.

Their faces, which were originally solemn or compassionate, now became as ferocious as ghosts, and their eyes stared at him with the menacing look of living people!

(End of this chapter)