Guanzhong Tomb Robbery Notes

Chapter 418: Secret Passage, Buried Beetle

Why did Zheng Erbo hang his brother's body in the house?

And according to his story.

The four brothers dug a Western Zhou tomb outside the village during the Republic of China period.

When did he dig out the body of a man who died in a tomb during the Republic of China period?

Where is the other body that died in the tomb?

The more I thought about it, the more questions popped up in my mind.

There are no answers to these questions.

I shook my head vigorously.

Stop thinking about these unclear questions.

"Here." Huang Ziran handed me the oil lamp.

I took the oil lamp and held it directly above the corpse to shine on it.

He took up his dagger and cut open the clothes on the body.

Chila!

The clothing was cut in the middle.

Then he used the tip of the dagger to separate the clothes to the left and right, exposing the chest and abdomen of the corpse.

The corpse's shriveled flesh tightly wrapped around the bones.

Each rib is clearly visible.

The dull, dry skin is dark brown, a bit like the skin of dried bacon.

This color is a bit too dark!

The color of naturally formed mummified skin is usually between light yellow and yellowish brown.

Darker colors are basically the result of artificial embalming, not the natural color of the corpse.

I think the mummy in front of me should have been embalmed.

So he said, "The skin color of the corpse is too dark."

"It's possible it was embalmed."

Embalming corpses has been around since ancient times.

The ancients believed that if the corpse did not decay, it could be reborn.

Therefore, when high-ranking officials and nobles were buried, their bodies would be embalmed.

However, most anti-corrosion methods cannot withstand the ravages of time.

This is because anti-corrosion requires very high sealing of the tomb chamber.

Once the sealing of the tomb chamber is compromised, the influx of groundwater or outside air will destroy the biological environment inside the tomb, rapidly breeding bacteria and other microorganisms that will destroy the corpse.

This is like Pasteur's retort flask experiment.

Fill open bottles and retorts with the cooked broth.

After three days, microorganisms grew in the broth in the open bottle and it began to deteriorate and mold.

The broth in the retort remained clear and transparent after several years, with no signs of spoilage or mold.

This is because bacteria and other microorganisms will fall into the open bottle with the air and then multiply in the broth.

But the retort is different.

Bacteria and other microorganisms carried by the air can only fall on the mouth of the retort and cannot pass through the curved neck of the bottle into the broth.

The broth is free from bacterial and microbial growth, so it remains fresh and stale.

The same is true for the anti-corrosion measures inside the tomb.

For example, the tomb of Lady Xin Zhui.

From the plaster layer to the charcoal layer and the lime layer, they are all made very solid.

For thousands of years, the tomb has not been exposed to water or air, and has not been disturbed by thieves, which has ensured that Lady Xin Zhui's body has not decayed.

The old tomb of Lady Xin Zhui and her son's tomb, which are buried nearby, have both been looted and flooded.

Therefore, the bodies were not preserved.

Compared to the difficulty of keeping a corpse from decaying in a tomb, it is much easier to keep a mummified corpse from decaying.

The mummies themselves are dehydrated.

Dehydration reduces the chance of spoilage.

Therefore, 80% of the incorrupt corpses we see today are mummies.

For example, the pharaoh's mummy.

Monks, Taoists, etc. whose bodies do not decay after being placed in a jar.

They are all mummies.

However, ordinary people would not embalm corpses.

The embalmed corpse in front of me makes me feel out of place.

It's like seeing a banquet on the table of a poor family.

It's very awkward.

Huang Ziran raised his brows slightly.

He muttered, "Embalding?"

He scraped the skin of the corpse several times with the blade of the dagger.

The dark brown powder was scraped off.

Revealing the light yellow-brown skin color.

Huang Ziran picked up some powder with his fingers and put it under his nose to sniff.

"It smells faintly of paint."

"It should be coated with raw lacquer for anti-corrosion."

He looked back at me and said with a smile, "You are good, kid."

"It turns out the body has been embalmed."

After saying this, he looked up at the beams.

The ropes tied to the beams swayed in the wind.

As if telling something silently.

Huang Ziran stroked his chin and thought, "Hang the body up."

"To dry the lacquer applied to the body?"

I shook my head.

I don't think it will be that simple.

Even if you want to air dry the body, you can just hang it in another room.

Why hang it in the room where you usually live?

How creepy it must be to get up in the middle of the night and see a hanging corpse.

Unless... Uncle Zheng doesn't sleep in this room.

and many more!

Isn’t Uncle Zheng sleeping in this room?

This is entirely possible!

If everything that happened after we entered the village was a pre-planned plot, then all the abnormalities would make sense!

My eyes lit up and I asked, "Is there a secret passage in the room?"

"Otherwise, how could Uncle Zheng disappear so quickly..."

The reason why I didn't think of letting Uncle Zheng jump out of the window was because this house was quite unique.

There are no windows at the rear or on the left and right sides.

There are only two large windows on the wall where the door opens.

We were poor at that time, so we tried to save as much as possible when building a house.

Having fewer windows saves money and keeps you warmer in the winter.

Huang Ziran nodded slightly: "Look for the secret passage."

"I'll study this body again."

He is fascinated by mummies.

He held the dagger and stabbed it into the corpse's chest below the ribs.

Judging from his posture, he was going to dissect the corpse on the spot.

Thinking of the scene where my heart, liver, spleen, lungs, kidneys, intestines and stomach were all over the floor, I couldn't help but look away.

The scene makes me sick just thinking about it.

Let’s find the secret passage quickly!

"Then I'll go find the secret passage. I've put the oil lamp on the ground for you."

I put down the oil lamp and glanced around the room.

I found a stick in the corner, held it in my hand and poked the ground everywhere.

The dull sound of "dong dong dong" continued to be heard.

This shows that there is no cavity underground, and therefore no secret passage.

Poke the ground carefully.

But there was no hollow sound.

I frowned. Was my guess wrong?

It shouldn’t be!

Every inch of the house was checked, and nothing was left out.

Just when I was in trouble, I suddenly looked at the kang.

There are generally two types of kangs.

One is connected to the stove and kang, and the kang and the stove's flue are connected.

The heat generated by the fire in the stove enters the kang, achieving the effect of heating.

It is convenient to connect the stove and kang, and the fire is lit on the kitchen stove, avoiding the risk of gas poisoning from lighting a fire in the house.

The other is the ordinary kang.

There is a stove under the kang, and firewood is added through the fire door left on the side of the kang.

The room of Uncle Zheng Er had an ordinary kang.

The fire door next to the kang is quite large.

It is big enough to accommodate a small adult.

If the secret passage is built in the kang...

I immediately walked over and pushed the fire door with a wooden stick.

Click.

The fire door opened with a sound.

I squatted down and looked inside the kang.

It was pitch black in the depths and I couldn't see clearly.

But there were traces of hands and feet on the dust at the edge of the fire door.

I was about to call Huang Ziran to come and see excitedly when I heard the dense chirping of insects behind me.

This was followed by Huang Ziran's shrill cry at the top of his lungs.

"Burial beetle!"

"There are thousands of burial beetles living in the mummy!"

“I’m going to die!!!”