Chapter 28: The Coffin Ship

  The two of us were dazzled by the treasure in front of us, each squatting on one side to search and see if we could find anything that could identify the life of the tomb owner.

  As soon as I crouched down, my eyes were dazzled by the treasures in front of me. Normally, each one would be a rare and precious item worth studying for years, but now I didn't have the mind to do so. After carefully removing the top layer of treasures, I saw at the bottom of the pile of priceless treasures a box with a shape similar to the coffin in the tomb. On the box were written four words: "Tongtian Tongyu".

  "Come over and take a look," I called out to Ma Si Zhe on the other side. But after half a day, there was no response, so I turned my head to take a look, and this guy had almost buried his head in it, flipping through it while making "tsk tsk" sounds of amazement. I shook my head speechlessly and raised my voice to call out again.

  "What's wrong, what's wrong?" Ma Si Zhe hurried over with a small wine jug of peculiar shape in his hands.

  I handed the box in my hand over to Ma Si Zhe, and Ma Si Zhe put the wine jug in his hand into his backpack, carefully examining the box in my hand.

  "This is a cedar wood, now most of the building materials are made of cedar wood, nothing special." Ma Si Zhe looked at it with disdain. "However, the shape of this thing is quite peculiar, not like other coffins."

  "Haven't you noticed that this box and that coffin are both in the shape of a boat?"

  Ma Si Zhe listened to me and turned his head to look at the coffin, then looked at the box in his hand. 'That's even less surprising, ancient shipbuilding generally used Chinese fir, especially in southern regions.'

  "The material isn't the point, the point is the words on top." I pointed at the four characters on the box.

  "What does 'Tong Tian Tong Yu' mean?"

  "It's precisely because you don't know that it's yours. There's nothing else written on this except for these four characters." I shook my head.

  Ma Si Zhe put the box on the ground, ready to open it and take a look. Just as Ma Si Zhe was about to act, I shouted for him to wait a moment. He turned his head back to me with a puzzled expression. I took a step back, avoiding whatever hidden weapon might rush out of the box.

  "Alright," I nodded and said to him. Marx Zhe looked at me with disdain, I chose to ignore it.

  Ma Si Zhe gently opened the buckle on the box, and with a snap, the lid opened a small gap. Ma Si Zhe leaned to one side, holding his breath for a moment before flipping open the box.

  Nothing happened and we both let out a sigh of relief. As we walked closer, we saw that there were four stone pieces in the box, with dense writing carved on them.

  After reading it with great effort for half a day, I found that what was described above is a person's strange experience.

  His name was Yong Bo, and he was a man of Wei State in the Warring States period.

  One day, Yong Bo was walking on the road when he saw an old man with a white beard. The old man grabbed Yong Bo and said that he had lost his treasure in the Yellow River and asked Yong Bo to help him find it.

  Always filled with doubts and questions 'Why me?'

  "Because You Are Me"

  The old man's words left Yong Bo bewildered. 'If you were me, then who would I be?'

  "You are still you, and I am you 500 years later."

  "Nonsense!" Yong Bo brushed off his sleeves and was about to leave.

  The old man saw Yongbo was about to leave, and suddenly his eyes gleamed with a fierce light, his whiskers instantly turned blood red. Yongbo was so frightened that he fell to the ground. Then the old man opened his bloody big mouth and pounced on Yongbo.

  At the sound of a rooster crowing, sunlight spilled onto the bed. Yong Bo wiped the sweat from his forehead and struggled to sit up, realizing it was just a dream.

  Yong Bo thought it was just an absurd dream and didn't think much of it. However, that night, Yong Bo dreamed of the old man with a white beard again.

  Before Yong Bo could say anything, the old man spoke up: 'You are Yong Bo, already thirty-six years old. You are the Feng Chang of Wei State, in charge of ancestral temple rituals and ceremonies. Do I need to say more for you to believe this is not a dream?'

  Yong Bo remembered that the person in his dream had no pain, just as he was about to speak. The old man lightly waved his sleeve, and Yong Bo flew out several meters away, heavily hitting the cliff behind him.

  "What's this? Are you serious this time?"

  Yong Bo covered his chest cavity and coughed up a mouthful of fresh blood. 'Do you know what I'm thinking?'

  The old man stroked his beard. "That's natural, I've said it before. I am you. So I won't hurt you, but you must listen to me."

  Yong Bo could only nod his head.

  "Listen, I left something very important on the banks of the Yellow River. Your task is to help me find it and bury it in my tomb. That way, I won't bother you again."

  Yong Bo followed the old man's words and arrived at the Yellow River near Daliang, a city. After patrolling around for several days, he didn't find anything unusual. Just as Yong Bo was about to give up, a silver turtle the size of a palm was washed ashore by the river water to his feet.

  Yongbo picked it up and weighed it a few times, thinking that this must be the thing. Yongbo put on the silver turtle and hurried to the old man's grave.

  The story ends here, with no more records. I flipped through a few stone tablets and found that there were only four in total.

  "Is it gone?" Ma Si Zhe asked me.

  "Ah, nothing more."

  "I found that the people in this tomb like to tell stories, but they always stop halfway, leaving you hanging. This forced me to directly lift his coffin. Ma Si's thoughts were still lingering."

  Silver turtle, this is the second time I've heard of it. A similar story has unfolded again. Previously, it was that Hani ethnic group's diviner called Nuo, and this time it's Feng Changyongbo from the Warring States period.

  In terms of time, Yong Bo's story happened early, and it was more than 500 years ago. What kind of connection will there be between two stories that are separated by more than 500 years?

  "Five hundred years, if it's as the old man with a white beard said, he is Yong Bo five hundred years later, then his time should be in the Eastern Han Dynasty." Ma Si Zhe said.

  Got it, and turned back again. The two of us circled around and returned to the Eastern Han Dynasty.

  "My head is a bit muddled now," Ma Si Zhe looked at me.

  Don't look at me, I'm also confused

  The story of that witch took place in the Western Han, but this story before us happened during the Warring States period. However, that white-haired old man who claimed to be from a past life came from the Eastern Han, which was more than 200 years later than the Western Han.

  It's like a puzzle now with one piece missing so we can't put it together smoothly.

  Ma Si Zhe took out four stone pieces from the box and felt around the empty box. 'There shouldn't be any hidden compartment, right?' Suddenly Ma Si Zhe's face changed color, I heard a "click" sound coming from the bottom of the box.

  The box's two sides, similar to a ship's bow, contracted inward. On the bottom of the box was a piece that rose upwards. It kept rising until it was level with the edges of the box, and the lid on top slowly opened, revealing a silver turtle being lifted up.

  This is a cleverly designed process, the whole thing unfolding like a lotus flower blooming in an instant. It left both me and Ma Si-zhe speechless with our mouths agape.

  Ma Si Zhe pinched the turtle's shell and gently lifted it out of the box.

  The tortoise was only half the size of Ma Si's palm, and its craftsmanship was so exquisite that it made people gasp in amazement. Ma Si turned over the tortoise in his hand, revealing four characters on its belly: "Tong Tian Tong Yu".

  What does this four-character phrase actually mean, is it some kind of spell? A moment later I walked to the gate of reincarnation and shouted "Tongtian Tongyu" and someone inside would answer me "Ganmao Kelin".

  "Don't worry about so much for now, just look at the workmanship and you'll know it's not a simple object." Ma Si Zhe said as he put the silver tortoise into his backpack.

  The two of us were talking when we suddenly heard the sound of water flowing from behind. To be exact, it should be waves, one after another, like pounding against the coast.

  "My god, if this crypt leaks water, it's a water tank and we'll drown to death soon." Ma Si Zhe carefully checked the top of the tomb for any signs of leakage.

  "It doesn't sound like it's going to leak water, and it's different from what we heard in the tomb before. That was the sound of running water, this is the sound of waves."

  What's the difference?

  Anyway, it's just different, more like...it was more like the sound that came from the coffin when Grandpa was buried.

  I turned around and saw that bright red coffin-shaped boat. The voice seemed to be coming from inside it.

  I slowly approached and found that the sound became clearer. The tomb was very quiet, and even a very faint sound could be heard clearly.

  We moved step by step to the front of the coffin, and two people put their ears on the coffin.

  "It's true what they say about this place," said Ma Si-zhe.

  Ma Si Zhe touched the joint of the boat coffin and said, "Lime, tung oil, indeed a good way to build a boat."

  "Why make such a good coffin using shipbuilding methods?"

  Ma Si Zhe shook his head 'I don't know, but there must be something in this coffin. We need to be careful when we open it later, or else it'll be bad if it's poisonous'

  "How did you know there's ** inside? What if it was just made in the shape of a boat?"

  "I don't understand, what's the point of using lime and tung oil? It's for sealing the cabin, isn't it? To prevent water from leaking out. If so, why bother using two things to seal it?"

  "That coffin is all sealed up, how can it be opened?"

  Ma thought for a moment and smiled, 'Master Ma is professional'

  Ma Si Zhe touched the structure of the coffin with his hand, took out a crowbar from his bag, and inserted it into the gap along the coffin. With a forceful press, the wood of the coffin creaked, and a small gap was pried open.

  He made another effort and moved it a little further. I saw the situation and hurried over to help, picking up a small stone from the ground and placing it under Marx's coffin lid.

  Two people pushed and pulled for a while, and the outer layer of the coffin was finally opened. The middle of the coffin was filled with quicklime, and after we removed the lid, we started to deal with the inner coffin's lid again.

  With the previous experience, it became much easier this time. The two of them took turns, and before long, the coffin lid was opened.

  The moment the coffin lid opened, a burst of green smoke emerged from inside. Ma Si-ze and I hastily covered our mouths, fearing that the smoke might contain toxic gases.

  After waiting for the blue smoke to slowly disperse, we cautiously moved forward and only then did we see clearly what was inside the coffin.

  It was actually countless snakes tangled together.

  It was densely packed, with five colors and six colors inside the coffin, rolling around. I felt extremely uncomfortable in my stomach, and I almost threw up after dry vomiting.

  Ma Si Zhe wasn't particularly afraid of snakes, but whenever he saw one, he would vomit. I don't know what kind of stress reaction this is, maybe it's ophidiophobia? Anyway, Ma Si Zhe had already gone to one side and thrown up a long time ago.