Perhaps seeing what I was thinking, Uncle San smiled and said, "Do you think I shouldn't agree to her request?"

"Well... to be honest, Third Uncle, I think Miss Lin is a bit too cruel. In China, we believe that the dead are the greatest. Niu Lin is already dead, so why do they have to destroy his body ? They say that a husband and wife are bound by a hundred days of grace after a day. After all, they have three children. Do they have to fight to the death?"

"This is a matter between them and their husband and wife. We have no right to interfere."

"Uncle San, is it really okay to take this job?"

Uncle San put down his chopsticks, rested his hands on the table and said, "Xiao Zhen, you have to understand one thing. We are earthworkers, not moral judges. My goal is to achieve the employer's wishes, not to judge whether his behavior is right or wrong. To put it bluntly, even if it is wrong, as long as he pays, as long as he has a need, we have to meet it. Don't treat a gravedigger as a saint. I am no different from those businessmen. Everything I do is to make money. Otherwise, I might as well lie down at home."

It really subverted my worldview. I didn't expect that Uncle San was just a vulgar and materialistic commoner. I suddenly felt disappointed.

Unexpectedly, my uncle noticed this again. He smiled and asked me, "Are you disappointed with what I said?"

"No, really not." I evaded the question.

"Don't lie to me, your expression says it better than what you say," he said.

"Actually, I understand what you're thinking. You think everyone in your family is quite capable, so with great ability comes great responsibility. Otherwise, learning all these skills just to make a little money doesn't seem like the right thing for a master to do."

Uncle San has a very clear understanding of people's hearts. He expressed my thoughts clearly, and I could only nod and say yes.

Uncle San shook his head slightly and said, "I don't have any profound teachings to tell you. I just hope you don't overestimate me or the people living in Longhua Village. We are not some otherworldly masters. We are just a group of ordinary Yong'an earthworkers."

After that, he stood up and said, "Rest early today and get up early to work tomorrow. We have to be worthy of the extra 100,000 yuan."

This is called the return of ideals to reality. Go to sleep and get up tomorrow to make money. I can get a fee of 28,000 yuan for this job, which is a lot of money for me. Thinking of this, my gloomy mood is immediately swept away.

We spent the night in silence. The next morning after breakfast we drove to Niu Lin's cemetery. The third daughter of Lin should have had a considerable status in this family. Today, all the people from the Niu family came to dig up the coffin. There were probably about a hundred people in total.

So a few of us built a simple mourning shed on the left side of the cemetery . Uncle San calculated the lunar calendar for today, and after confirming that the coffin could be opened, he burned incense and candles and prayed to heaven and earth. Then he began a ritual with singing and walking . When everything was ready, he held up the token in his hand and said, "Sir, please don't be alarmed when the ground is opened. We are going to open the coffin." This sentence sounded a bit like Peking Opera, with a singing tone.

Then it was my, Chu Sen's and Luo Tianbao's turn. We each took a shovel and dug up the burial mound, revealing a large black lacquered wooden coffin .

Two small holes, about the thickness of a little finger, could be clearly seen drilled on one end of the coffin. It was through these tiny holes, which were almost cracks, that Uncle Qi saw everything going on inside the coffin.

The next step was to build a pulley bracket for lifting the coffin. After everything was ready, Chu Sen jumped down and tied the rope loops at both ends of the bracket to the two ends of the coffin. Then he pulled the rope on the pulley, and a large coffin was slowly lifted up. After it was completely out of the tomb, he used a hook to pull the rope over the coffin to the ground and then untied the rope loop. The entire coffin-lifting ceremony was successfully completed.

The next step is the most difficult part: opening the coffin.

How to open a coffin is a great skill for any earthworker. It is not as simple as splitting the coffin with an axe.

There are two main difficulties in this matter. The first is how to open the coffin without damaging it, and the second is how to deal with any strange situations after opening the coffin.

First of all, you should know that better coffins are made of thick wooden boards, especially the coffin lid. Apart from the moisture in the wood itself and after being painted, it is almost like a piece of steel plate. The coffin lid is fixed with longevity nails, which are big black nails that are as thick as a thumb and nearly 30 centimeters long. You can imagine how strong the tight bite force is when they are hammered into the hardwood. And when opening the coffin, it is important that "the coffin cannot be broken". The more complete the coffin is after opening, the safer it is for the dead person lying in it to be buried. Otherwise, moving the grave and picking up the bones will not only be of no benefit, but will also bring trouble into the house.

But how to completely open the coffin while the nails are firmly fastened is not an easy task. If one is not a geotechnical engineer, there is no other way except to break the coffin. However, Yong'an Geotechnical has a set of "equipment" specifically for opening coffins. This thing is not the high-tech used by modern people, but the "rough-edged mouth" invented by the famous Jinyiwei more than 500 years ago.

You might be saying I'm kidding, seeing as the Jinyiwei were the most famous secret agents in Ming Dynasty history. So how could they have been using tools used by the Yong'an earthworks? The two groups couldn't be more different.

In fact, apart from people in the geotechnical industry, few outsiders know about this history. In fact, the one who really elevated tomb construction to a technical level was none other than the notorious Jinyiwei.

The Jinyiwei were directly responsible to the emperor and were specifically responsible for dealing with ministers, a group of state civil servants. Since their target was the ministers, they had to give the ministers face when a case had not yet been completely concluded. It was impossible for them to beat or scold them at will like they did to ordinary people. However, some ministers particularly liked to make a fuss about coffins, so the Jinyiwei created a bunch of tools for opening and sealing coffins. The Earth Spirit Stick mentioned earlier was also invented by the Jinyiwei.

The origin of the Mao-bianzui is said to be that during the reign of Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang, a major corruption case was investigated. The governor of a certain place was secretly reported to have embezzled 764 kilograms of silver and 92 kilograms of gold. Zhu Yuanzhang, the emperor who hated corrupt officials the most in history, was shocked and immediately appointed the Jinyiwei to investigate the matter. So, seven Jinyiwei rushed to the area where the governor was located overnight and immediately launched an investigation after arriving.

But the strange thing is that they searched this person's house from inside to outside, and even opened the hidden warehouse in the basement for them to search, but they didn't find even half a tael of silver.

Seeing that the mission was about to fail, one of the Jinyiwei accidentally heard that the man's third uncle had just held a funeral not long ago . The Jinyiwei suddenly had an idea and asked to open the coffin for an autopsy.

But unfortunately, this man's uncle happened to be a high-ranking official and had served as the Minister of Personnel. It was really unrealistic for someone with such a prominent identity to break into the coffin and inspect the body. Even Zhu Yuanzhang would not openly order them to break into the coffin of an important official of the dynasty.

After that, the two sides fell into a stalemate. Finally, one of the Jinyiwei who was born as a carpenter came up with an idea. He improved and made a hand saw, a small saw made of the alloy material of the Embroidered Spring Sword. Therefore, although the rough edge is as thin as a piece of paper, it is very hard and durable. The hand saw is made into a crescent shape, about two fingers wide and thirty centimeters in diameter. The convex side is made into a fine gear like a wolf's tooth, which is called a "raw edge".

This hand saw is extremely thin, and the gap created by hammering it into the coffin lid is almost invisible. The saw teeth are then used to cut off the nails, so that the coffin lid can be opened without damaging the coffin body. After the Shangshu's coffin was opened, there was indeed no corpse inside , but only gold and silver ingots.

Today, Uncle San used a rough-edged saw. Although this thing is exquisite, it is very time-consuming. It takes at least half a day to saw off a longevity nail with it.

This job requires no effort and relies entirely on strength, so several of us took turns sawing. We were busy until the sun went down and almost everyone was gone before we finally sawed off all five longevity nails.

Uncle San didn't open the coffin immediately. He said to Lin Sannu, "Although working this way is slow, it has one advantage: it gives us an excuse to let irrelevant people leave."

Lin Sannu smiled bitterly and said, "You've done everything well. I'm still thinking about how to deal with him under the eyes of my family."

"Sister Lin, I'm going to open the coffin soon. Even if you are extremely dissatisfied with him, please don't complain at this time, otherwise it will affect my work."

"Don't worry, I will cooperate with you."

Uncle San nodded to her, then said to Chu Sen: "We'll need you now. It depends on whether you are brave enough."