Daomu Biji: The Mystic Nine

The Zhang family obviously had some experience with things like this. As a soldier pried open the corpse’s throat with a bayonet, Qi Tiezui came forward to observe. He saw that there really was a dense cluster of needles in the throat, and all the tips were pointing directly into the throat. If anything tried to come out of the corpse’s throat, it would get stuck on these needles.

He adjusted his glasses, asked one of the soldiers to bring pliers, pulled out the outermost needle, and put it under the gas lamp to examine it carefully.

The needle was made of red iron, and although there were rust spots on it, the tip was still very sharp. The part of the needle that wasn’t rusty was blue and should be highly toxic.

There wasn’t a high degree of decay on the tail end of the needle. Qi Tiezui pondered over it for a moment and then bowed his head to get a closer look at the corpse’s neck. Sure enough, there were many tiny needle marks, which showed that the needles had been stabbed into the corpse from the outside by someone later. The stab marks looked very rough, as if they hadn’t been done during the burial process, but by a grave robber desecrating the corpse.

It was possible that the first grave robbers who made this whistle coffin were the ones who had done it. If so, it showed that they had found something inside the body at that time, but had no way to deal with it, so they had to trap it with needles.

This could also explain why there was nothing in the corpse's mouth even though it was such a large coffin. Whatever was inside the corpse's mouth had probably been taken at that time.

A soldier brought an iron grate from the kitchen, placed it over the corpse’s head, and then repeatedly hit the corpse's chest, throat, and abdomen with the butt of his gun. They all stared at the corpse’s throat, but nothing came out, nor were there any fluctuations in its chest or abdomen.

"Open it." Zhang Qishan glanced at Lieutenant Zhang, who nodded, jumped up, placed both feet on either side of the coffin, pulled out a short dagger, and started cutting the ancient corpse’s back open. The corpse looked like it had dried up, but Lieutenant could feel that there was still some moisture in it when he dug further in with his dagger.

Lieutenant was very careful as he sliced the corpse open from shoulder to waist, and found that it was filled with asphalt-like things. There was only a little moisture, just like porridge that had partially dried. Zhang Qishan’s brows furrowed when he found that all the body’s organs were full of hollowed out holes. Although the body appeared normal on the surface, it was as riddled with holes as the bodies of the Japanese agents they had seen on the train. It looked just like a piece of wood that had been eaten by termites.

"Fo Ye, there’s nothing alive." Lieutenant used his dagger to explore the ancient corpse's innards.

Zhang Qishan and Qi Tiezui looked at each other. If there were no living creatures, then the soldier who had his arm amputated might have been too frightened and mistook the needles for an insect bite. But the existence of the iron needles showed that there must have been something inside the body. Plus, this ancient corpse was so similar to the bodies of those Japanese spies. Maybe the bumpy train ride forced the creature out of the coffin during transport and it killed all the people on the train, causing the train to lose control and crash into Changsha. Based on the ancient corpse’s state and how the Japanese had died, the living creature may be a kind of insect that could spin silk.

There were many ancient parasites on the corpses in ancient tombs that had become extinct, and many grave robbers came to terrible ends because they were infected with ancient diseases or parasites. These extinct things’ natural enemies had also become extinct, so it would turn into an utter catastrophe if they saw the light of day again.

"Find someone to go over the inside of the train again with a flamethrower. Pay attention to the hospital near the train station and put up notices. If any deceased have this disease, report it immediately.” Zhang Qishan patted the coffin. "Clear the coffin for me. Everything—including the coffin—is to be buried in stone alkali. Fill the body with alkali, let it marinate for a while, and then examine it again.”

War was fast approaching, but there would be no need to fight a battle if a plague broke out in the city. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why the Japanese had been moving around in an ancient tomb with strange insects.

“Fo Ye.” This time, Lieutenant didn’t immediately come down to start handling things, but squatted down as if he had found something. "Fo Ye, look at this."

Just as he finished speaking, Lieutenant used his dagger to pick up something from the corpse that was covered in the black asphalt-like substance. A soldier standing nearby brought over a basin to wash the dirt from it and handed it to Zhang Qishan. Lieutenant got down from the coffin and came over to look at it carefully.

Qi Tiezui thought it was a blackened ring at first, but found that it actually wasn't a ring at all. Nor was it an ornament. It was something more practical—a "thimble".

When needlework was done in ancient times, the thimble was put on the middle finger for protection so that the embroidery needle would pierce the thick cloth instead of the body when too much force was used. Wealthy families had silver thimbles, which would blacken with age. This thimble had a strange shape, which meant it had obviously not been made by an unskilled hand. The thick black spots on the silver formed a lot of pits, and they could see that a "rhododendron" had been engraved on it.

Qi Tiezui felt that this item wasn’t very ancient. Although he couldn’t tell the specific year based on the style and materials alone, he had a keen sense that this thing wasn’t that old, maybe 50 years at most. Qi Tiezui compared the thimble with the iron needle he had taken out just now, and knew that they went together. They both belonged to the grave robbers who had first melted the iron to make this whistle coffin.

The thing that really made him break out in a sweat was the engraved rhododendron. Thimbles were common, but rhododendrons had an unusual position in Changsha’s Mystic Nine.

"January flowers bloom February red, February red blooms orphans. Rhododendrons are also called February red. This is something from Er Ye's family (1). How could it be in an ancient corpse?” Qi Tiezui felt something in his chest tighten.

Er Yuehong was ranked second among the nine families. This ballad showed how fierce his family was in their early years when it came to killing people and destroying their homes. In recent generations, however, they had kept a low profile for a long time, so there wasn’t any news about them. But it was because of this reputation that people in the industry were reluctant to offend them. If their thimble appeared in this coffin, then it meant that they were the first ones to seal the coffin with molten iron.

There were nine gates in nine directions in Changsha. The geographical positions were clearly divided and hadn’t changed for decades. If they touched the coffin on Er Ye's turf, a small matter could turn into a big one.

"Fo Ye, Er Ye's family is well versed in the Northern and Southern Dynasties. Considering this coffin is from the Southern Dynasty and this thimble appeared in it, the iron needles in the corpse may be one of Er Ye's family’s ancestral crafts. I think Er Ye would know a little bit about this."

The flowers that represented Er Yuehong's family were originally red daffodils, but were later changed to rhododendrons because they were too unusual and ostentatious. For hundreds of years, Er Yuehong's family had their inner courtyard planted with red daffodils, while the outer courtyard had rhododendron trees. They were very beautiful when they blossomed. Based on this custom, it was clear to see that the family's character was very sophisticated. The whistle coffin was a lost art, but Er Yuehong's family were real old-school grave robbers who had many ancestral crafts that were unknown to outsiders.

Zhang Qishan frowned. This whole situation was full of doubts and becoming more and more mysterious. He thought for a moment and then asked Qi Tiezui: "Where is Er Ye today? Do you know?"

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TN Notes:

(1) Er Yuehong translates to “February Red” so it’s a play on Er Ye’s name.