Chapter 60: Shifting the Blame to the East

The black coffin was massive, standing about one meter six in height and nearly four meters in width. It was a standard rectangle, hewn from a single giant boulder.

This stone was exceedingly rare, of an unknown material, pitch-black and gleaming with a smooth, mirror-like surface.

An aura of ancient vicissitudes and solemn weight washed over us like a wave.

Catching sight of the mottled inscriptions on the coffin body only strengthened my conviction.

This was without a doubt a Warring States tomb!

Inscriptions from the Western Zhou dynasty were bronze scripts—thick in stroke and symmetrical in structure, still retaining many pictographic traces.

The Warring States period, however, was a typical era of script divergence; the characters and styles varied among the different vassal states, yet they already bore traces of the lesser seal script, laying the foundation for the unification of writing promoted later by the First Emperor of Qin.

The carvings on the outer surface of the black stone coffin exhibited the classic structure of the divergent scripts of the Warring States.

However, weathered by the passage of time, they were far too blurred. Moreover, I was no epigrapher, and many characters were completely unrecognizable to me. After attempting to decipher them several times, I realized it was impossible to glean any information about the tomb's occupant from them.

"Damn it! The coffin lid seems to have been opened!"

Fatty Dong shouted from the side.

Standing up and looking over, I saw that the coffin lid was made of double-layered stone slabs, resembling a sliding door wedged into the grooves along the coffin's rim. Yet it was not entirely hermetically sealed; a gap had been pushed open at the top.

My heart sank by half.

It seemed my earlier hunch was correct—someone had indeed beaten us to it.

Who could this person possibly be?

Could it be An Yishou?

After all, not only did he bear a silkworm cocoon upon his body like the coffin-guarders, but he also possessed a jade pendant carved with interwoven human and dragon motifs.

If it truly was him, how on earth had this fellow gotten in?

Regardless of who it was, the secrets of the tomb's master and the Golden Silkworm Molting had to be uncovered!

I turned my head and glanced at Xiao Yao.

Xiao Yao gave me a slight nod.

I said to them, "Open the coffin!"

Upon hearing this, Fatty Dong immediately spat into his palm, rubbed his hands together, and prepared to pry open the stone coffin lid.

I pulled him back.

"This heavy labor isn't for you!"

Old Jiang Sheng's face flushed a deep crimson, his emotions agitated and his voice trembling, as he ordered Mantis Luo and Scarface.

"A-Zhi, A-Long, do it!"

At the command, the two fellows placed their hands into the stone seams, exerted all their strength, and pushed the coffin lid backward.

"Screeeech!"

An ear-piercing frictional sound issued from the stone slab dating back to the distant Warring States.

The surroundings fell into a dead silence, as if one could hear a pin drop.

The first layer of the coffin lid had been opened.

To our surprise, there was yet another sliding-door-style coffin lid beneath it.

However, due to the stepped, inwardly descending structure of the stone coffin's inner walls, this layer of the lid was considerably smaller than the one just pushed aside, and it similarly left a tiny gap at the top.

Jiang Sheng's breathing grew rapid.

"Keep going!!!"

The two bodyguards continued to push.

Layer upon layer.

A total of nine layers.

When the final layer of the coffin lid was pushed aside, only a space the size of a shoebox remained at the bottom.

This was a multi-tiered treasure chest.

It was not meant for burying a corpse, but for concealing treasures!

Everyone shone their flashlights downward.

Jiang Sheng's body shuddered as if struck by lightning, his face turning pale. Swaying unsteadily, he almost collapsed to the ground.

It was completely empty!

Someone had taken the treasure!

Seeing this, Mantis Luo and Scarface hurriedly rushed forward to support him.

Fatty Dong and I were also dumbfounded, frozen in place.

Once Fatty Dong recovered his wits, his plump body actually scrambled right into the stone coffin, leaning down and blindly rummaging around with his hands.

How could this be?! This is impossible..."

Seasoned as Jiang Sheng was in the Jianghu, having plotted a single scheme for fifteen years and braving nine deaths to enter the tomb, only to end up with nothing after all that effort, he instantly snapped. His old face was horribly twisted, his cheeks puffed out, and his eyes flashed with viciousness as he grabbed me by the collar.

"Tell me! Was it taken by Liao Xiaoqin?!"

"You damned senile bastard, my sister-in-law is already dead!"

"Dead?! Where is her corpse?!"

I grabbed Jiang Sheng by the collar in return, roaring fiercely at him.

"You're asking me?! The bones of my brother and sister-in-law are gone, and it's all thanks to you!"

"This grudge—let's settle it right now!!!"

Seeing this, Mantis Luo and Scarface raised their hands and shoved me away, stepping in front of Jiang Sheng and staring at me with murderous intensity.

Fatty Dong's mood had soured to the absolute extreme. Standing atop the stone coffin, he had already picked up a large stone, ready to smash it down upon them at any moment.

The atmosphere between the two sides was taut like a drawn bow!

Settling grudges right now was out of the question.

Earlier, I hadn't heard Xiao Yao's cough, which meant she hadn't managed to retrieve the ox-horn blade; something must have gone wrong.

And the opposing party couldn't afford to deal with me immediately either, as they still needed me to lead them out of the tomb.

Jiang Sheng closed his eyes briefly, and upon opening them, threw his head back and laughed wildly.

"Xiao Meng, don't feel lucky that you failed to find the Golden Silkworm Molting. The moment we leave this tomb will be your time of death!"

I pointed my finger at the three of them.

"Then let's see if you can make it out of the tomb alive!"

At that very moment, Xiao Yao, who had been keeping her eyes fixed on the array of coffin-guarders below, suddenly spoke up.

"Brother, something's wrong..."

"One of the coffin-guarders is riding a bird."

As soon as those words were uttered, no one had the mind for a standoff anymore; everyone whipped their heads around to look down.

Only seventeen coffin-guarders remained in the array, still standing tall and motionless.

Yet the missing one had, at some unknown point, seated itself atop a Mohist mysterious-bird statue. Its entire body was covered in silkworm cocoons, its back facing us, and it even had Scarface's bundle perched upon its head.

No wonder Xiao Yao hadn't coughed earlier; presumably, by the time she reached out to touch Scarface's bundle, it had already been taken away by this creature sitting upon the mysterious-bird statue.

The realization that we had been entirely focused on opening the coffin while a cocoon-man had taken the bundle right behind our backs without us noticing sent a sudden wash of cold sweat down my spine!

Suddenly!

The creature turned its head back.

A heaven-shattering, earth-splitting howl erupted from its mouth.

Following the howl, the fireflies that had been lingering all around the black stone coffin were startled into chaotic flight, instantly swarming outward in droves. The previously brightly lit environment darkened abruptly, leaving only the dim, yellowish glow of a few searchlights.

The coffin-guarder violently tossed aside the bundle, leaped down from the Mohist mysterious-bird, and sprinted madly toward the black stone coffin platform.

"Fatty!!!"

"Here!"

"Here your sister! Where's the erhu?!"

"The erhu was smashed to pieces ages ago, damn it!"

"What do we do?!"

"Run!"

Everyone scattered like startled birds, bolting toward the rear of the black stone coffin.

The back of the black stone coffin was backed by a patch of dark, gloomy jungle. If one could dive into it, there might just be a sliver of a chance of survival.

Yet when we ran over and looked, it felt like a direct lightning strike.

It looked like a jungle from a distance, but in reality, it was a low hill, covered entirely in shrubs and weeds that, under the shadows, resembled a forest.

More crucially, though it stood only twenty-something meters tall, it was extraordinarily steep, making even climbing impossible.

"Second Master!"

The scar-faced bodyguard cried out in alarm.

Jiang Sheng had been running too hastily and had tripped, falling to the ground.

The coffin-guarder had already arrived, its cocoon-wrapped face devoid of any expression, looking much like it had spotted a fallen prey as it reached out to grab the old man's leg.

Out of fierce loyalty to his master, Scarface whipped out his dagger with a sudden flash and slashed viciously at the creature.

What happened next utterly exceeded my expectations!

To save his own leg, Jiang Sheng violently yanked the back of Scarface's collar, thrusting him squarely between himself and the coffin-guarder as a human shield.

Blood splattered everywhere!

One of Scarface's arms was cleanly ripped off by the creature, and he passed out instantly from the excruciating pain, not even having time to let out a scream.

Coincidentally, that was the arm tied to the mandarin-duck rope.

Fatty Dong was instantly freed.

Simultaneously.

We were freed as well.

"Swish! Swish!"

Following two sharp sounds, Jiang Sheng and Mantis Luo simultaneously flicked the hidden ox-horn blades from their wrists, instantly slicing through the mandarin-duck rope.

Without a moment's hesitation, Mantis Luo swept his leg horizontally in a fierce kick toward us, bent down to haul Jiang Sheng up, and the two of them bolted wildly into the shadows on the right side of the black stone coffin.

Xiao Yao and I were struck squarely by that bastard's kick, tumbling over several times before sliding right to the feet of the coffin-guarder.

What a brilliant execution of deflecting misfortune onto others!

The two of us were completely done for!