A comprehensive overview of tombs: starting with the Yellow Weasel's Tomb

The group mustered their courage and walked forward for a while, and could vaguely see neat houses, which seemed to be a village.

This left everyone somewhat confused.

Where did this underground village come from?

But I still mustered up my courage and kept going.

As everyone entered a house, they discovered that the furnishings inside were not very old, appearing to be from the 1920s or 30s.

They then visited several more houses, but found no useful information.

But everyone noticed that the portrait of the Gray Immortal hanging on the wall of the house was still intact, indicating that the village must have been inhabited at least forty or fifty years ago.

Fatty and White Flag stood around a skeleton, looking at it with some confusion.

Bai Qi asked in bewilderment, "How do you think this person died?"

The fat man guessed, "I think this village must have collapsed from the ground. The village is sunk underground. People would have died from falling from such a height. How could these people have survived?"

Bai Jing shook his head and said, "No, you see, the entire village and the rock formation below are almost intact. The furnishings in the houses are not damaged either, so the villagers did not die after sinking into the ground."

Chapter 104 The Past of the Jin Bandits

After hearing Bai Jing's words, the fat man hesitated for a moment before saying, "Could it be that these people died of thirst and starvation?"

At this moment, Jian Guo spoke up: "No, if they died of thirst or starvation, even if the bodies had decomposed after so many years, their clothes should still have some traces left. But look, there's nothing here except for the bones."

After hearing Jian Guo's words, Bai Qi seemed to have thought of a possibility and said uncertainly, "Could it be that it was eaten up by something?"

Bai Jing's gaze involuntarily drifted towards the roof.

After a moment of thought, he said, "Think back to the houses we visited before. All of them had their doors bolted, but the houses were generally well-preserved, and the roofs were all thatched. It's likely that anything that came in came in through the roof, and the villagers were eaten by those things!"

Upon hearing this, everyone else felt a jolt in their hearts.

What on earth could have eaten everyone in the village so clean?

For a moment, a shadow fell over everyone's hearts.

Fearing that the man-eating creature would reappear, the group dared not separate and gathered together to search the village.

Suddenly, the fat man seemed to have spotted something and excitedly shouted, "Come and see what this is!"

When everyone gathered around to take a look, they noticed that it was a large vat, which originally had a lid on it, but the fat man had opened it.

Inside the vat were more than a dozen bottles of wax-sealed glass lamp oil. Bai Jing opened one of the bottles and discovered that it contained top-quality whale oil, which was actually made by boiling whale fat.

This 'whale oil' can be used as lamp oil and can burn for a long time. Most importantly, this lamp oil is different from ordinary lamp oil and does not sting the eyes.

The only downside is that it's extremely expensive. Bai Jing looked at the text on the bottle and realized it was a Japanese product from the Manchukuo period. In this desolate wilderness, probably only gold bandits who made money by stealing gold could afford it.

Jian Guo found several tattered scrolls in the trunk, but most of them were damp and stuck together, making them impossible to open. The few that could be opened contained records of how much gold had been dug up in the village, how many guns had been purchased, and even how many people had been bought.

In addition to these, there are family genealogies, which record the names of each family member.

Bai Jing also came over and searched around, hoping to find a map of the surrounding area.

Unfortunately, those who dig for gold value the location of gold veins more than their own lives, and they will never leave any clues.

Bai Jing was not discouraged and wanted to search through the books to see if there was any useful information.

It turns out that back then, some bandits were digging for gold in the mountains when they accidentally discovered a gold vein. So they moved their entire clan here and dug for gold below the village year after year. In this way, the gold mine was dug deeper and deeper, and naturally, more and more gold was found. Over time, they became very wealthy.

On one occasion, the bandit leader suddenly saw a white light flashing deep within the gold cave, and he was with him at the time...

The brother-in-law was very good at flattering him, telling him that this was an auspicious omen, and that the glittering thing was likely the legendary "Golden King's Corpse Cloth".

Speaking of the Golden King's Corpse Cloth, we must mention another legend.

Legend has it that long ago, in the deep mountains and forests of Northeast China, there lived a “Gold King”. This man was exceptionally gifted and had a natural talent for spotting gold veins. No matter where there was gold, it could not escape his eyes. As a result, his wealth was comparable to that of a country.

In order to ascend to heaven after his death, he used all the rarest treasures in the world to make a precious robe as his burial garment, and instructed his descendants to bury him on a gold vein.

Legend has it that if one obtains this treasure, one can not only enjoy a life of wealth and honor, but also be granted the power to establish a kingdom and even become a regional emperor.

The bandit leader believed this legend wholeheartedly, so he ordered his men to continue digging up the body of the King of Gold. From then on, he began to act as if he were the only ruler, even proclaiming himself the emperor. He also appointed his wife as empress, his brother-in-law who could tell fortunes as the national advisor, the elders of his clan as left and right prime ministers, those who could read as civil officials, and the supervisors of the gold mine as military generals.

As the saying goes, nothing can be accomplished without rules. After the Jin bandit leader became king, he made the clan rules even stricter.

If anyone dares to hoard the gold they've dug up, or to reveal information about the gold vein to outsiders, they will be forced to swallow burning coals, rendering them speechless.

That's not all. They'll break the man's legs, then slash his body countless times, and finally skin him in a bloody wolf pelt, letting the pelt grow into his body. After that, they'll lock him in a cellar and bring him up every few days to whip him as a warning to others.

Upon seeing this, Bai Qi and the others paused for a moment, as if they had realized something.

However, Bai Qi and the others clearly had no intention of explaining for the time being, and Bai Jing did not delve into it further.

Continuing on, the bandits, while panning for gold in the mountains, accidentally unearthed a rat's nest deep inside, causing the gold mine to become infested with rats. These rats were not only numerous and large, but they also dared to bite people.

According to historical records, since the late Qing Dynasty, the Northeast region has experienced several outbreaks of plague. This plague is different from other diseases. In addition to its extremely high mortality rate, it is also highly contagious. Often, one death would kill an entire family. In order to prevent the plague from spreading further, the people here could only cremate the dead, and sometimes not even a corpse could be left behind.

Therefore, folk rat poison is very effective, and the secret recipes are also unique. Almost all rat poisons in the Guanzhong region kill rats after eating them.

But this rat poison is quite different. You only need to put it in the corner of the wall, and rats that crawl through walls and beams will die instantly just from the smell. In this case, you can even kill a whole sack of rats in one night. It can be said that as many as you have, they will all die, and none of them will escape.

However, because these bandits always worshipped the Gray Immortal, who was said to be the God of Wealth, they all thought that this would offend the immortal. Therefore, they dared not use rat poison, but instead bought many young women, dressed them in red jackets and red pants, and then tied them up and threw them into rat holes, calling it "marrying wives for the Great Immortal".

They also built many small coffins for this purpose. Since it was inevitable to use explosives when digging holes in the mountains, the villagers would collect all the rats that were accidentally killed by the explosions into the small coffins and light eternal lamps to worship them together with the ancestral tablets.

Chapter 105 The Rat Swarm Attack

PS: This chapter is a bonus chapter for reaching 200 monthly votes. I only realized after updating that I hadn't written a note in the chapter title.

You must understand that in this chaotic world, even human life is the cheapest thing. A young woman in her late teens or early twenties could only be exchanged for two hundred catties of millet after being marked with a straw tag.

Two hundred catties of millet were exchanged for a living person who was thrown into the burrow to be eaten by rats. Once thrown in, the person would be gnawed to the bone in the blink of an eye. But this did not appease the Gray Immortal; instead, it attracted even more rats.

Although the record ends here without any further details, Bai Jing and the others could still guess what happened next.

It was probably still the bandits digging for gold and treasures that dug open the large crack below, and then the entire village collapsed, and all the villagers were gnawed to the bone by rats!

The villagers initially offered living people to the Gray Immortal in an attempt to appease his anger, but they didn't know that once any animal has eaten a human, it will start to enjoy attacking people.

The reason why tigers, leopards, lions, and other animals in zoos are killed without exception if they have a record of injuring people is because of this.

However, this village ended up like this, ultimately being devoured by thousands of rats, which can be considered retribution.

These people fed the rats with human flesh, and in the end, they were all eaten by the rats. It can be said that karma is a karmic cycle and retribution is inevitable.

Then, everyone continued their search.

But at that moment, a sharp scream suddenly rang out.

Everyone quickly ran in the direction from which the screams came.

That was a side room of the main house. When everyone entered the room, they saw a female corpse wearing a red coat.

What is noteworthy is that the woman's body was relatively well-preserved, unlike the others in the village who had been completely eaten by rats.

For a moment, everyone was puzzled as to why the corpse was so well preserved.

The fat man couldn't help but say, "Could it be that this corpse was poisoned before it died, which is why it wasn't eaten by the rats?"

Bai Jing shook his head and said, "Look, this corpse has become a mummified body, but you can still see that neither the skin nor the bones show any signs of poisoning before death. But to say what the difference is between this person and the previous one..."

Bai Jing paused for a moment, sniffed the room, and then said with some uncertainty, "This person, or rather this room, seems to be missing a certain scent from the rooms we've been to before."

Upon hearing Bai Jing's words, the others were somewhat confused, as if something was missing.

What does it taste like?

Bai Jing seemed to have thought of something. He walked to the room he had just left, took out a bottle of 'whale ointment' from the jar that the fat man had found, smelled it, and then said in a deep voice, "I understand, this is the smell!"

Bai Jing then put the whale ointment back in the distance, returned to the room where he found the female corpse, and looked at the rope on the female corpse, saying, "I think I've figured out the cause and effect of this matter."

This woman was likely bought by the villagers to feed the rats in their holes, but the village suddenly collapsed.

The trap was set, and then rats came into the village and attacked the villagers. The villagers didn't have time to throw the man into the rat hole, which is why he was able to leave with a complete corpse.

Lu Jun asked, puzzled, "But why were all the other villagers eaten by rats, while this person was the only one unharmed?"

Bai Jing pointed to the jar outside the room and said, "I think it's all because of that whale oil. I don't know if you've noticed, but this room is missing a certain scent."

Upon hearing this, everyone sniffed the air, but the smell was too faint to detect anything.

But Hazel, being a hunter by birth and having hunted since childhood, was more sensitive to smells. She immediately frowned and said uncertainly, "I don't know if I'm right, but I feel like this room is missing a certain fragrance compared to the other rooms!"

Upon hearing this, Bai Jing smiled and snapped his fingers, saying, "You're right, there is indeed something missing, and that smell is the smell of burning whale fat."

Whale oil is very precious, and it produces a pleasant fragrance when burned. I think these rats started attacking people because of this smell. Before, because the village was on the ground, the rats didn't smell it, so it was fine.

Since the village collapsed underground, the rats have been able to detect the smell, and as a result, they have begun to attack the villagers without any apparent reason.

Because the woman had just entered the village, she carried almost no scent of whale oil, so she was naturally forgotten by the rats.

Upon hearing this, everyone present breathed a sigh of relief. It was fortunate that they hadn't lit the lamp oil as soon as they entered the room; otherwise, they might have ended up like the skeletons in the village.

However, no one dared to let their guard down.

Just then, Bai Qi seemed to notice something and made a gesture. Everyone's eyes immediately turned to Bai Qi, and then they noticed that there was a rat about the size of a fist lying on Bai Qi's foot, seemingly gnawing on Bai Qi's military boots.

After killing the rat, Bai Qi noticed that a few drops of whale oil had somehow gotten on his shoes.

This further confirmed Bai Jing's guess.