First Chapter 37: The largest coffin in the world?
Qin Yiheng closed the door and told me to spit out the sheep dung ball. He said that he asked me to hold it in my mouth before entering the house because he was afraid that I would attract something to follow me in. After that, he scattered a lot of grains by the door and told me to be careful not to step on it. This was exactly what I wanted. I was originally worried that if I kept holding such a disgusting thing in my mouth, I might bump into something and scare me, and then I accidentally swallowed it... I spit out the sheep dung ball and rinsed my mouth with water several times before the strange taste in my mouth was a little lighter. I walked to the millstone and took a look at it, thinking: 'Why is there such a thing in this place? Needless to say, the weight of this millstone must be heavy. If it was specially transported here, it would take a lot of time. But it is here now, so even if Qin Yiheng doesn't explain to me why, I can guess that this thing is very important to this house.'
Thinking of this, I asked Qin Yiheng, what is going on with this millstone?
Qin Yiheng said, "Don't worry about this for now, there's something even more surprising for you." He then pulled away the rainproof cloth. I was surprised to find that it was covered by several large wardrobes that I had seen in the house before. Each wardrobe was painted red and tightly sealed with wide tape. I subconsciously took a step back, thinking, "Last time, that wardrobe almost left Qin Yiheng in that house. How could there be so many in here?"
I saw Qin Yiheng pacing back and forth in front of the closet and he didn't seem to want to answer, so I asked him if there was anything locked in the closet.
He shook his head. I got a little anxious and asked, "Does your shaking your head mean you don't know or you mean you don't have it?" I'm so scared here, just give me a straight answer.
He then said, I don’t know, but we have to find a way to move these wardrobes.
Now I was even more confused. Transport them? Let's not talk about how valuable these wardrobes are. They don't look like antiques to me. But even if they are antiques, there is no good means of transportation in this remote area. Even if we two try our best, we may not be able to move one. I roughly counted them and there should be six wardrobes.
I asked Qin Yiheng what these wardrobes were used for and what they were being transported back for.
After listening to me, he walked to a wardrobe, knocked gently with his hand, and told me that he didn't know what these wardrobes were used for, but he guessed that there was something written inside each wardrobe, and most of them were addresses of houses.
After he said that, I understood. So he suspected that these wardrobes were "address books". This was a joke! He had said before that address books should be easy to carry, so the lighter and simpler the better. Now he suddenly told me that Wan Jinrong liked to be different and made a few of these huge things as address books? Was he eager for others to find them or something? And then again, if these were address books, then who took the previous one out? And how did it get to someone else's house? There were more and more things I couldn't understand, and I felt like there was a thread tangled in my head. I looked at Qin Yiheng in confusion and asked him how he knew it was an address book.
He shook his head again and said he was just guessing they were address books, but he would have to wait until every closet was opened to know for sure.
I saw that Qin Yiheng wanted to open it, and I immediately felt my legs go weak. I definitely didn't agree, but it was impossible to open it after taking it back. I advised him, is it necessary to open it? After all, you are just guessing, what if you guess wrong? And we don't know what is locked inside.
Qin Yiheng nodded slightly, indicating his agreement, but he also told me that even if he guessed wrong, if these things could not be taken back, they still had to be opened. After that, he looked at me and pointed at the wardrobe, saying that he had seen the one in that house before, because he did not pay much attention to it at that time, so he just looked at it carefully again, and he found that these wardrobes were remodeled with the old materials of coffins, and now it seems that this is probably made from a batch of coffins, and it is even possible that it is made from a coffin.
I was even more puzzled after hearing this. Made from coffins? This was indeed surprising. Did the people who made these wardrobes have nowhere else to find wood, or did they just fancy the wood from coffins? I saw that the wood used in the wardrobes was just ordinary wood. Although I couldn't identify the specific species of wood, at least I could tell that it was not made of valuable wood.
I quickly lit a cigarette, took a deep puff, and looked at the cabinets again. Each cabinet was the same size and style as the ones I had seen in the house before, but in terms of size, if I used the wood of the coffin to modify them, it would definitely not be enough.
First of all, the shapes of this wardrobe and the coffin are very different. I walked forward and bravely compared them. Each side of the wardrobe was made of a whole piece of wood. This made me more certain that it is impossible to convert a coffin into such a large wardrobe, because there is no room for such a large area of wood on a coffin.
Thinking of this, I told Qin Yiheng about my doubts. He nodded and said that this was why he guessed that all the wardrobes were probably made of coffins. Although this guess was even more outrageous, it made sense in theory.
After saying that, he threw away the cigarette butt and lit another one casually, still with a puzzled look on his face. I took a deep breath and thought about it in my mind. I felt that his guess was still untenable. Such a large wardrobe is made of the wood of a coffin? Then how big must this coffin be? Not to mention putting people in it, it can be used to live in it. Who can use such a coffin? Moreover, even if all these are true, where did this coffin come from? Could it be that someone suddenly wanted to make the largest coffin in the world, and then regretted it and felt that the wood was a pity, so he changed it into a wardrobe? Before I could finish my words, I realized something else. How did he conclude that these wardrobes were made of coffins? In theory, it is impossible to tell just by looking at the wardrobe, unless there is a reference, for example, he has seen the coffin!
Thinking of this, I was also shocked. I looked at Qin Yiheng, his eyes seemed quite determined, so I asked him, have you seen that coffin?
After hearing this, he was stunned for a moment, shook his head first, then nodded, and said that he had not seen the coffin, but had seen part of it.
After saying that, he reminded me that he found a coffin board with my name and birth date written on it in the Zhenlong house in Jiuzi Town.
Before he finished speaking, I recalled it, because the impression of that night was too deep. That six-fingered man used this board to lead the two of us to break the trap of the Nine Sons Town True Dragon. Although I was very scared at the time, nothing big happened, so I didn't pay too much attention to it. Now after Qin Yiheng said this, I felt my hands and feet began to cool, because his meaning was obvious. The wood of the board was probably exactly the same as that of the wardrobe.
Now, I was speechless. Both of us were lost in thought, but I didn't have any ideas in my head. I just needed some time to calm down. Ten minutes later, Qin Yiheng seemed to wake up from a dream and said, "We were just talking about the wardrobe, but this thing is not small. Then, he pointed to the stone millstone, and then walked to the side of the millstone and told me that he had just taken a rough look and found that these bamboo pipes could lead the water out. It was not clear where they were led to , but from the analysis of the millstone, I was afraid that I could determine it."
I followed his finger and noticed that there were things carved on the millstone. They were actually patterns of birds and animals. The patterns were very abstract and looked a bit like children's sketches. I simply identified them, but couldn't tell what animals they were. However, these patterns were carved so densely that they almost covered the entire surface of the millstone.
While I was looking at the pattern, Qin Yiheng had already half-crouched down, pointing to the black part of the lower layer of the millstone and continued to say that this millstone has a special name in the art of alchemy, called "grinding hell", which is said to be a kind of torture in hell. However, no one has ever seen what hell looks like. There are some imitations in reality, but they are much smaller than this one. They are also used to drive away ghosts, crush evil ghosts, and beat them to never reincarnate. It is said that masters can even use this thing to change their fortunes. This one here is not used to drive away ghosts at all. This mill is used to grind human bones and flesh. After grinding, dead water will be poured on the millstone, that is, water from small ponds or lakes that have no living water source and can only rely on rain to accumulate water. Presumably, this pond or lake is also in a place with heavy yin energy. In the end, these dead water mixed with human bones and blood will flow out of this duct and eventually surround the entire ancestral hall.
At this point, Qin Yiheng paused, thought for a few seconds, and continued: "There is only one purpose for doing this, which is to use these resentments and Yin energy to trap the souls on all the spirit tablets in the ancestral hall and prevent them from reincarnating!"
His words shocked me beyond words. If all this was true, could it be that the purpose of building this ancestral hall was not to worship the ancestors, but to detain them? I thought of the densely packed memorial tablets, at least hundreds of people, this was too creepy, could it be that this was not built by the descendants of the Wan family? But if it was not the descendants of this family, how did he know the details of this family? The earliest ancestors on those memorial tablets probably dated back to several dynasties ago, and all the members of the Wan family died on the same day of the year, is there any connection between them? What is this person's purpose?
I looked at Qin Yiheng, but he was also pursing his lips, and it seemed that he didn't know what all this was all about.