Chapter 24: Corpse King

  "You're talking nonsense! The body of Qianlong had long rotted away. When Sun Dianying stole from the Eastern Mausoleum, after opening Qianlong's jade coffin, inside were only burial objects and basically just a thick black braid left, where did you get the skeleton from?" I immediately retorted back, thinking about how Sun Dianying's feat had shocked the whole nation at that time. Domestic and foreign media reported on it crazily, every detail was dug out, and at that time I followed up to read a lot of materials.

  The report even vaguely mentioned that Sun Dianying's soldiers, after prying open the coffin of Empress Dowager Cixi, did some unseemly things to her corpse. The strange occurrences in the Yongzheng Mausoleum were endless, with the most famous being that the coffins of Emperor Qianlong and his empress successively moved away from their original positions, jamming the last layer of the tomb gate tightly shut. In the end, Sun Dianying had no choice but to use explosives to blast it open violently in order to enter. It was even said that Qianlong's coffin later blocked the tomb gate again. Similar strange occurrences were endless, but there has never been a version saying that Qianlong's corpse remained intact for a hundred years.

  "Believe it or not." Sherlock didn't take my skepticism seriously, but instead looked at the increasingly approaching floating corpses in the lightning and turned pale. He continued to tell me: "When we bought this thing from General Sun, we encountered some twists and turns." Sherlock briefly told us about the process of receiving the Qianlong ancient corpse in a very simple way.

  At that time, Sun Dianying's military was repeatedly defeated, the finances were in shambles, and he urgently needed a large amount of military expenses to make a comeback. However, all his valuable items had been sold or given away, leaving only a batch of unknown things that were extremely unclean. He couldn't find any buyers for them and was deeply worried. In desperation, he tried every possible means, knowing that even if he found someone in the vast China who dared to take them, they might not be able to afford it. With many debts weighing on him, he decided to ignore his conscience and secretly sent people to run around some foreign embassies, attempting to sell them to foreigners.

  In the far-off Great Britain, Sherlock's boss received the news and immediately dispatched Sherlock and Sun Dianying to contact him. They decided to buy it at a price that was quite handsome at the time. Sherlock still remembers the process of receiving the goods vividly. The bronze artifacts were first transported to a warehouse in Shanghai, where they had made sufficient preparations beforehand, although some people died, the process went smoothly. However, when transporting the remains of Qianlong and his jade coffin, something unexpected happened. As soon as Sun Dianying's men finished unloading the goods, they almost ran away without even looking back. That night, the remains of Qianlong were transported onto a military truck by the company's external personnel, who were actually a group of well-trained mercenaries. When they drove into the mountains, Sherlock lost contact with them. Three days later, when Sherlock found them in a mountain pass, the driver and the mercenaries were all dead, and the cause of death was drowning, but there wasn't a single lake within ten miles around. These people had been drowned to death in the desolate mountains. Sherlock realized that something strange was going on, and he, being afraid of death, left someone to guard the place and ran away overnight. The next day, when he looked again, the guards were all dead from drowning. He didn't believe it and sent another group of people to guard, but this time they weren't drowned, however, the previously deceased people who had been buried nearby came back to life and bit and ate the third batch of people to death.

  Sherlock was thoroughly frightened and realized he had been played by Sun Dianying. He immediately added more than double the amount of money to bribe Sun, who then reluctantly told him the reason behind it.

  According to an old eunuch's account from the Qing dynasty, Emperor Yongzheng gathered a large group of talented individuals in the Yuanmingyuan to secretly refine elixirs. It is likely that Yongzheng's short lifespan was related to his reckless consumption of "immortal pills". Yongzheng treated these pills as precious gifts and gave them to his ministers, including his son Qianlong.

  Qianlong, being a water-type person, had been taking the pills since he was young. His body had undergone strange changes, but when he took over the throne, he continued to seek out wise men to refine elixirs for him. As it turned out, Qianlong's body type was that of a water dragon, and by chance, he obtained an ice crystal from the far north, which neutralized the heavy metal components in the pills and transformed them into a spiritual medicine.

  Instead of dying prematurely, Qianlong became strong and healthy, living longer than any other emperor in history. However, after his death, he was buried in the Eastern Mausoleum of the Qing dynasty, which was not suitable for his water dragon body type. According to Feng Shui principles, a grave with accumulated water is considered a great calamity, but for Qianlong, it became an excellent place for preserving his corpse.

  At that time, no one realized this problem, and after Qianlong's burial, the soil did not settle well, causing his body to become increasingly hard and dry, leading to his mummification. The wise men who knew the truth dared not speak out due to imperial ancestral rules, so Qianlong was unable to rest in peace for over a hundred years.

  As soon as Sun Dianying pried open the jade coffin of Qianlong, the corpse suddenly changed and killed one of Sun's tomb raiders on the spot. Under the guidance of a peerless master, Sun Dianying spent a lot of hard work to subdue the ancient corpse of Qianlong, claiming that Qianlong's body had already decayed. However, Sun Dianying did not dare to keep this hot potato for too long and sold it as soon as someone dared to ask for it.

  "The body of Qianlong was the most revered in life, but after death, his resentment did not dissipate and gradually transformed into a corpse king. To suppress him, one must submerge his entire corpse underwater, only then will he be at peace!" Sherlock said word by word.

  As soon as I heard it, I immediately reacted and knew where Sherlock had hidden the ancient corpse of Qianlong.

  Wasn't on the boat at all... but under it!

  "Not bad, when the Jinhua ship was docked for repairs, we secretly fixed the coffin to the bottom of the Jinhua ship! Hehe, the whole process was undetectable, no matter how hard anyone tried, they wouldn't think to dive down and search the bottom of the ship!" Sherlock said with a pleased smile, extremely satisfied with his own cleverness. However, just for an instant, his pleasure immediately disappeared, as the floating corpses had quickly arrived at the side of the ship, with one or two tightly attached to the hull."

  "The corpse of Qianlong has been buried for too long, and the yin energy is overwhelming. As soon as it was unearthed, the yin energy spread out and covered an area of ten miles. Although he is still in his coffin and hasn't come out yet, his aura has attracted all the unclean spirits from nearby." Sherlock swallowed hard, his eyes filled with terror, and stammered: "Ah, I hope these spirits are just here to pay their respects and don't have a taste for human flesh."

  "Damn it, I've been killed by you foreign devil!" I said helplessly. If only I could, I'd love to throw this Englishman down and see if these floating corpses eat meat or vegetables.

  In the midst of intense turbulence, more and more floating corpses gathered on both sides of the ship's hull, clinging to it like leeches, slowly crawling upwards. I estimated that within a short span of time, no longer than the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, we would be in close contact with them. The thick stench of rot wafted into our nostrils on the wild wind, making us feel nauseous to the point of vomiting.

  Xu Lai and the others have already started to quickly untie the clothes tied to the deck railing, I hesitated, releasing the iron cage actually has little significance, at most it can only delay time. The most urgent problem now is how to escape from inside the cage.

  "If only that specially made lock-picking wire was still on me!" I regretted extremely, when Old Three ordered someone to take off my bulletproof vest, the wire had also fallen somewhere. If the wire was still in hand, this ordinary lock would be a piece of cake.

  But no matter how anxious you are, it's useless. When a person is unlucky, even drinking water can choke them.

  I grasped the railing of the cage, a deep sense of helplessness. At this time, Xu Lai and others had completely untied the rope made of clothes, and the iron cage was sliding back and forth on the wet deck. They were seen using their heels to control the direction of movement, seemingly pushing towards the entrance staircase of the cabin.

  "Hmph, what's the use of the past? The cage is so big that it can't even get into the cabin." I shook my head, but their commotion might be able to attract the attention of the people below.

  Just then, I lit up in front of me. Two black objects suddenly crawled out from the entrance of the cabin corridor.

  In the storm, I recognized at a glance the origin of these two things. Weren't they the two pangolins raised by Zhu?

  "Big bun! Little bun!" I shouted. Two little things looked around, heard my voice, and actually shrunk into a ball and rolled towards me.

  "What a spirited creature! It's indeed a treasure!" I couldn't help but exclaim.

  The pangolin rolled to the edge of the cage, the small hill was smaller, and it rolled under the iron bars to my feet. The big one got stuck outside, stretching out its claws and scratching the floor towards me.

  I threw my arms around Xia Qiu: "How did you guys come here, Gui Ye and Lao Taijian?"

  The little hill shook its small pointed head, squeaking and making no response to my words. Alright, if it really spoke human language, that would be even more terrifying than the ancient corpse of Qianlong.

  "Your pet?" Sherlock asked me, I shook my head: "No, its owner is dead."

  I looked hopefully towards the entrance of the cabin, the pangolins were carried by Oni no Yaiba, they appeared, could it be that Oni no Yaiba would also come?

  At this time, Xu Lai and the four Green Gang thugs finally managed to approach the entrance by brute force, miraculously reversing their direction. They shouted desperately towards the inside: "Hey, let us out quickly, something big has happened!"

  Suddenly, Xu Lai shouted with great joy: "Brother, quickly let us out! Outside is chaotic with zombies!"

  I looked into the distance, and all I saw was a dark figure with an unnatural posture, hunching its back, walking step by step up the stairs towards the corridor entrance, its gait looking very labored.

  As he approached, the smiles on Xu Lai's face disappeared instantly, and they exclaimed: "What the hell is this?!"

  "This isn't a man, get out of the way!" Nie Kun shouted loudly. The four people took advantage of the Jin Hua wheel's swaying and quickly retreated backwards. But the wave just happened to hit the back of the boat, causing the bow to surge forward, and several people returned to the corridor, with Xu Lai and others shouting for help.

  At this time, the person had already walked out of the dark part of the corridor. In the white light illuminated by lightning, I finally saw the true face of this person and couldn't believe my eyes.

  "Ghost!" I felt a chill run straight up to my head.