Dou Sprout shouted for us to come over, as if he had made some extraordinary discovery.
I went over and took a look, and it turned out to be a mural.
This mural was painted on the wall of the corridor. The previous mineral pigments were used, and most of them have peeled off. Especially the faces of the characters in the mural are all chapped.
What is this painting?
I panned the flashlight and looked over inch by inch.
The entire mural gives people the feeling of being mysterious, ancient, old and dilapidated.
Dozens of characters were painted, all with the same hairstyle as the bald man, with only long braids on both sides of the temples.
They were wearing pleated coats made of animal skins and woolen waistcoats over their shoulders. This group of strange-looking people held swords in their hands and drove a carriage, acting as if they were on the road in winter.
I touched it lightly with my hand, and one person's face fell off. It was not because I used excessive force, but because the environment was humid.
He raised his head and murmured: "These people are Tang Wute who escaped from Xingqing Mansion. This mural shows that it was winter when they fled here."
"That's not right. Turn your head..."
I frowned and asked, "It is written in the history books that it was July when the Mongols besieged Xingfu, and it was also July when Genghis Khan died. Could it be that Tang Wute walked for more than half a year before arriving in Sichuan?"
He thought about it for a moment, held up the flashlight and said, "There's nothing wrong. It's nearly two thousand kilometers from Ningxia to Kangding. So many people are fleeing. In ancient times, it was normal to walk for several months."
Xiaoxuan suddenly said: "Look at this man, his paintings are different from others!"
Xiaoxuan pointed her hand and I saw that there was indeed a special character on the painted mural.
This is a man wearing a felt hat. He lowers his head and cannot see his face clearly. This man is a little hunched over. There is a servant beside him to support him. Another thing is that this character is deliberately painted very large, larger than all the others.
He looks a lot bigger in person.
This is definitely not a mistake by the artist, it should be what the artist wanted to express!
For example, I wanted to express the special status of the person wearing the hat, so I deliberately made him one size larger.
"It can't be wrong...it can't be wrong..."
His calm tone was filled with excitement. His fingers trembled slightly as he pointed at the man wearing a felt hat on the mural and said categorically: "He is the last emperor of the Western Xia Dynasty, Li Xian."
Dou Sprout scratched his head and said: "Hang your head, you can't do it? Fengzi, look at how the Xixia Emperor is dressed like a beggar."
I ignored Dou Sprout, held up the flashlight, and stared at this person.
Once I saw it, I was fascinated.
I felt like I had entered the mural, with the north wind blowing in my ears. Hundreds of Tangwut were rushing in the wind and snow. Their carriages were pulling boxes of treasures. Due to the heavy load, ruts were left on the snow.
Deep imprint.
Under the heavy snow, a tall and thin young man wearing a felt hat slowly raised his head with the help of a servant.
He and I looked at each other.
This man's eyes seemed calm, but they seemed to contain too many complex emotions. The moment he looked at me, I felt like I wanted to kneel down. This was the aura of a king of a country.
"Yunfeng! Yunfeng!"
Douyazai patted me and said, "Why are you so stunned! You didn't even respond when we called you!"
Cold sweat broke out on my forehead, I rubbed my eyes and looked.
A mural is still a mural, there is nothing unusual about it.
"No...it's nothing, I was distracted just now."
If this painted mural is taken out, it will definitely sell for a lot of money!
We didn't prepare anything, but I knew how to make it.
There is a tomb robber named Zhou in China, and his team specializes in uncovering murals and selling them. The specific method is to wipe off the floating dust and dry mud on the surface with clean water, then apply a layer of clear tung oil, dry it with fire, and then apply a layer of natural
Peach gum.
Peach gum is the "super-grade gum vitriol" sold on Taobao. It is then spread with rice paper layer by layer and baked over fire. After the three layers of rice paper are dry, they are covered with wooden boards, hammered firmly with a hammer, and finally with a sharp
Use a small knife to cut along the edge of the board, or you can use an electric saw.
After taking it off, sprinkle a layer of floating soil on the back, then take a piece of wood and clamp it together, steal it out and leave it for a week, and then separate the boards after the peach gum inside is completely solidified.
Therefore, the ancient tomb murals we see in the museum are all regular rectangular shapes, because the wooden boards used at that time were rectangular.
The murals in ancient tombs all start at the lowest level, and the consequences for being caught are very serious. Selling a bronze round tripod will result in a maximum sentence of five years, and selling this one will result in a sentence of ten years.
It's a thankless job, so the average tomb robbers don't uncover murals. If you don't believe it, look at those large empty tombs. Most of what's left are murals and rotten bricks.
Dou Sprout took a crowbar to the mural wall and knocked it twice. The sound was solid.
Strange, where is the entrance to the tomb?
Or was it built like this back then?
I thought it was incredible, so they asked me to walk along the corridor to the end and go to the ear room to have a look.
The ear chamber is not big, about three meters high, with a total area of more than ten square meters. It is very dusty and there are many funerary objects scattered on the ground.
There are a large number of daily necessities such as copper flat kettles, gourd-shaped charcoal stoves, oil-saving lamps, iron spoons, etc. Most of them are made of iron and are very rotten.
These are rags to me, I don’t want them for free.
"Alas! Mineko, look! What is this??"
"Where did you pick up this good thing?"
"It was right under that rotten iron pot. I saw it as soon as I came in."
Dou Yazai was holding a two-headed bird sculpture, with only a head and neck and no body. The whole body was painted with green color. I could tell at a glance that it was made by the Lingwu kiln in Ningxia, and it came from the same place as the Tearing Buddha.
This two-headed green bird is also a sacred bird in Buddhism, but its quality is not as high as that of the Saraswati.
How can I sell a bare bird head for money? I asked Dou Sprout to quickly find the bird body. If he found it, he could stick it together and sell it when he got out.
"Body, body, where did the body go?"
"Damn! I have no body!"
I searched over and over and couldn't find it!
Dou Yazi kicked the rotten charcoal basin away in anger, and the iron charcoal basin fell to the wall in the corner! It fell again.
Um?
Wrong... the sound is wrong...
I quickly walked to the corner and knocked.
I hit it hard with the crowbar. Brother Yu and Tou heard the sound and ran over.
Dust and broken bricks kept falling.
Soon a black hole appeared. I covered my nose, probed into it, shined a light on it and came out immediately.
"Head! It's the entrance to the tomb! It turns out that the main tomb chamber is hidden behind the ear chamber!"
We got in one after another.
The entire tomb passage was very dark, with almost no light. It was really hard to see without turning on the flashlight.
At the end of the tomb passage is a short stone door that looks extremely heavy. On the left and right sides of the stone door are carved a pie-faced man.
"Pan-faced man" is a slang term in the industry, referring to ancient stone carvings of strong men, because they all have a pancake-shaped face with staring eyes.
In fact, all these strong men are female. The one on the door on the left is called "Makui" and the one on the door on the right is called "Zhai Fu". Ancient people believed that these two women with cake faces were the daughters of dominatrixes who specialized in eating evil spirits.
"You guys give way, I'll try to push it down."
Brother Yu put his hands on the stone door, pulled his legs back, bowed slightly, and took a deep breath.
Brother Yu groaned and started to exert force.
"What are you still doing? Help me!"
Dou Sprouts and I held up the stone door at the same time and pushed hard.
"no!"
Douyazai let go of his hand and said: "There's no fucking reaction at all! It must be locked inside!"
In ancient tombs, any stone door cannot be completely closed, and it may be wide or narrow, leaving a gap. This is a limitation of ancient craftsmanship.
The gap between the stone doors was very narrow. I lay on the door and tried to look inside, but I vaguely saw something blocking it.
"Boss, I'm sorry, it seems like it's stuck with a tap stone."
"Are you sure?" He frowned slightly.
I nodded.
The three big men couldn't move even when they pushed it. It must have been supported by the tap stone.
This is the most annoying thing, we are in trouble.
There are two ways to solve it, either use explosives or use a crutch needle.
The Guaizi Needle must first use a chisel to carve out a groove for the cow's nose on the stone door, and then a rope can be put on to pull the stone aside. This is very time-consuming and may take two days.
After checking his head, he said: "Add the explosive directly, use a detonator, and control the amount."
The detonator boxes were all in Xiaoxuan's bag. They were left over from the last trip to Guizailing. Xiaoxuan carefully took them out, opened the wooden box, and asked me how many I needed.
I thought about it and said five.
The leader said: "Three sticks are enough. Five sticks are too powerful and may blow up the entire tomb passage."
I immediately said: "Then take three."
I just made a wild guess. I don't know how to calculate. Only professional gunners like Master Ji and Xiao Qinglong can calculate accurately. Master Ji used a nitroglycerin suit to crack the gold steel door before, and that was a powerful trick.
After fixing the detonator under the stone door, I handed the lighter to Douyazai and said, "Remember, the fuse can burn for four seconds. You can light it when we run away."
Dou Sprout stared and said, "You want me to order it?"
"Nonsense! Do you want me to order it? I'm not a gunner!"
"I'm not a gunner either!"
"How can you two grown men be so miserable at work?"
Ah Chun took the lighter from my hand and lit it without saying a word. She didn't even notice. She lit the fuse and turned away.
Bean sprouts and I looked at each other.
"run!"
As soon as I ran to the corner, very quickly, I heard a boom!
It felt like the entire tomb passage was shaking!
Dust spread everywhere, and a few pieces of gravel flew to my feet. Xiaoxuan was choked by the dust and kept coughing.
After waiting for a few minutes, I was the first to run over and take a look.
The stone door on the left was blown apart from the middle, and the female Maguires originally carved on the stone door was also blown into two halves. You can imagine the power of this earthen detonator.
If I hadn't listened just now and used five sticks to blow up the door, the tomb passage would have been blown down, and we would all have been buried alive.
Next, I got in and used a flashlight to enter the main tomb chamber. Everyone was dumbfounded.
Has anyone seen a coffin hanging vertically from the roof?
In the dark tomb, only a large black lacquered coffin about four meters long could be seen, with the big head facing up and the small head rushing down. It was tightly tied with more than a dozen iron chains as thick as a child's arm and hung on the roof.
!
When he saw the coffin, his face turned pale and he said anxiously: "How could it be! The hanging rope has fallen to the pivot! The dead will not fall to the ground! Buried with a hanging coffin! This can't be Li Xian's main tomb!"
Xiaoxuan shivered, tightened her clothes and said, "Look, it's suddenly so cold here."
I also felt cold and the temperature dropped.
"We're looking in the wrong place!"
"Not here!"
I asked anxiously: "Boss! What's going on!"
Turning pale, he looked up at the black coffin hanging on the roof and gasped: "When I was young, I always told you that bones were scattered everywhere and ants were crawling all over the ground. If you look up at the hanging coffin, people will die in the future.
"
My face turned pale and I looked back and forth with my flashlight.
Because it was made of nanmu painted with black paint, the coffin was not rotten. Suddenly, I saw two golden words written on the bottom of the coffin.
"Bo General".
I didn’t know what it meant, and neither did I. Dou Yazai said: “Head! Even if the coffin is hung! But it’s just a coffin! What are we afraid of? Maybe there are valuable funerary objects in the coffin!”
"Look! What is that!"
Xiaoxuan suddenly said in horror: "Ants! So many ants!"
When I saw it, my scalp went numb immediately. I saw countless termites crawling around on the iron lock, as if they had made a nest in the coffin!
Dou Sprout couldn't help it anymore. He suddenly raised his shotgun, pointed it at the coffin and shot twice!
Instantly! Thick black liquid continued to flow downward from the hanging coffin, like black snot, thick and sticky, accompanied by a strange fragrance.
Seeing this, his head and eyes showed a rare look of fear.
He slowly turned his head and shouted to us: "Run!"