Big Kui turned pale. Trembling, he said, "It looks like there's something alive in here. Master Three, I think we should leave this coffin alone."

Uncle Three took a closer look at the seams of the coffin, shook his head, and said, "It's impossible. This coffin is very well sealed with no air flow. No matter if a living thing was put in there, it would have suffocated long ago. To make it even less possible, there's an exterior coffin and then an inner one, with probably several more layers inside. Let's pry into it a little and listen carefully."

I tried to estimate the approximate weight of the coffin. According to my memory, the heaviest bronze coffin ever found was a set of gigantic drum-roll coffins belonging to a n.o.ble named Zeng, which had weighed about nine tons. The shape of the coffin before us looked similar, but while the coffins in the Zeng tomb were made of both bronze and wood, our discovery was made completely of bronze. So although I a.s.sumed that this coffin weighed far more than nine tons, I could not determine the precise weight.

Big Kui and Uncle Three first used their knives to scratch off the wax that sealed the seams. Then they slid in their crowbars and, with a grunt, pressed downward with all their might. We heard a bang and saw that their efforts had crumpled the bronze coffin lid. I darted over to help open the lid, which felt as though it weighed a ton. It took a long time until half of it had been moved and by then we were all out of breath and near exhaustion. Finally, as we all pushed, the lid opened and the inner part of the coffin was exposed.

It was an exquisite jade covering coated with lacquer, with jade stones around its edges. Nestled inside this jade wrapping was a wooden coffin, its surface covered with paintings.

Panzi's eyes almost fell out of his head when he saw the jade covering. As he clutched his wounded belly, his face was a mixture of joyful greed and physical pain. "f.u.c.k," he yelped, "my share of this jade will let me do whatever I want for the rest of my life!"

"Absurd! This is jade from Manasi in Xinjiang," Uncle Three barked at him. "If you break it up into bits and sell the pieces, you will only get about a few hundred thousand dollars, which when shared with all of us isn't worth our time. We have to bring this out intact and undamaged for it to be worth anything."

Since he'd already caused enough trouble for everyone, Panzi calmed down after one look from Uncle Three. Scratching his head, he stepped away from the jade that tempted him so much.

Tapping the wooden coffin, Uncle Three observed, "Normally, the n.o.blemen of the Warring States Period were buried with two outer coffins and three inner ones. If the tree was to be counted as the first outer coffin, then the bronze one is the second. This wooden coffin should be the most precious." With his knife, he carefully removed a number of gold threads that attached the jade wrapper to the painted coffin, doing this with painstaking caution so as not to ruin the protective cover. After half an hour, he was finally able to remove the outer jade covering to reveal what it had protected.

Uncle Three delicately folded the jade coffin cover and put it in his backpack. I picked it up and found it was deadweight and would be a tough load to carry.

Once the cover was removed, I could see the paintings on the wooden coffin, which were easier to decode than the inscriptions. I turned on my lamp and looked closely.

Painted on the coffin were a few drawings. The drawing on the coffin lid showed the scene when the body was first put in the coffin and placed down in the tomb. I saw a huge tree with a crack in the middle. The bronze coffin, uncovered, was carried by skeletons, with many people respectfully kneeling as it pa.s.sed them.

Encouraged by our findings, Big Kui's spirits were high, and he began to tug at the wooden coffin. Uncle Three pulled him back and yelled, "Every time you think you see a ghost you faint. Now that you see money, you're more than willing to risk your life. There is another layer below this, so don't screw this up. Move slowly and carefully." Then he squatted down and pressed his ear against the coffin as he gestured for us to be quiet.

We all held our breath while he listened for a long time. Then he turned around, ashen and trembling. "G.o.d d.a.m.n it," my uncle said in a low voice, "it sounds like something's breathing in there."

By now, if we'd heard a ghost calling from inside the coffin, that would seem almost normal. But that something was living without oxygen inside a sealed box, breathing without air, was too incredible for us to comprehend. Big Kui was so frightened he could barely stammer, "It...it can't be a living corpse, can it?"

Uncle Three said, "Oh my a.s.s! Don't give me any of your f.u.c.king bulls.h.i.t now. We've come this far-do you want to tell me to put the lid back on the coffin?" Taking his black donkey hoof from where he kept it tucked in his shirt, he motioned toward me. I aimed my gun at the coffin while Big Kui picked up the crowbar, ready to bash the first thing that jumped out at us.

Uncle Three spat into his hands. He rolled his shoulders to relax his muscles and then inserted a crowbar into the coffin. As soon as he did this, a voice behind him cried, "Stop!"

We turned to see Fats, whom we thought was still unconscious. He waved his hand at us. "No, no. Something bad's going to happen if you open it like that. You guys with your little bit of half-a.s.sed experience, you think you can rob this grave? It's like turning on your flashlight in a latrine to look for s.h.i.t. You don't know what you're doing."

"Then how would you open it?" Uncle Three looked ready to kill.

Fats waved his hand and motioned for Uncle Three to step away. Then he reached his hand into the cracks between the bronze coffin and the wooden one, closed his eyes, and fumbled around until his hand moved with a bullet's force. We heard a loud pop and as the lid of the coffin split lengthwise in half, we heard a cry of anguish coming from somewhere inside. I was so scared my muscles turned numb, and the gun almost fell out of my hand.

Fats jumped toward us and stretched his arms wide. He screamed, "Back!"

Without thinking, I aimed my gun at the coffin as I took several hasty steps backward. The painted wooden coffin rose up from the outer bronze one like a blooming lotus. The split lid that had covered it fell away on either side, revealing a sight within that took our breath away-a man dressed in black armor sitting bolt upright.

I raised my gun, ready to fire, but Fats grabbed my arm, saying, "Don't shoot-his armor is an incredible treasure. Don't destroy it!"

At last I could see what the legendary Ruler of Dead Soldiers looked like. He was what we call a moist corpse, a body that had not rotted away, but has retained all of its flesh, which is supple and resilient to the touch. His skin had become so white it almost looked translucent, like a very fine pearl, but his face was contorted as if he had died in agony and his eyes were tightly closed. It was surprising. If he had known how to preserve the female corpse so she still looked beautiful and peaceful in death, why did his own corpse not have that same appearance?

Uncle Three walked to the coffin's edge and said, "And I thought it was a G.o.dd.a.m.n zombie. Look here. There's a piece of wood propping him up from the back. No wonder he can sit up."

We all went to look and sure enough it was a trick. Once the coffin was opened, the corpse inside was pushed up by the wood that had been braced against his back to serve as a spring.

We all sighed with relief. I thought, this Ruler had prepared for every eventuality that might occur after his death. But he of all people should have known that men who were frightened by ghosts and spirits would not rob graves and that veteran grave robbers clung to no fears of that sort. While those inexperienced at this trade might have been shocked to death by his tricks, that we dared to open his coffin in the dead of night proved our fearlessness. These picayune scare tactics that he had devised were rather demeaning to men like us.

We drew closer to the corpse and decided the armor that he was wearing served as the third inner coffin. I identified it as Gold-thread Jade Armor, but I couldn't explain why the jade had turned black.

I came closer to the body and gasped. The corpse's chest was rising up and down as though he was breathing and I could distinctly hear the sounds of respiration. I was almost certain I could see a cloud of moisture coming from his nostrils.

Big Kui's jaw dropped as he squealed, "This...this... this G.o.dd.a.m.n thing seems to be alive!"

Chapter Twenty-Five.

THE JADE BURIAL ARMOR.

"How can this corpse possibly be breathing?" I asked. "Have you ever seen anything like this before?"

"Of course not," Big Kui mumbled. "If I had to go through this sort of bulls.h.i.t often, I'd be cleaning toilets instead of robbing graves."

I glanced over at Panzi, who was still clutching his wounded belly and sweating heavily. "Never mind what it is," he growled, "just fire an ammunition clip at it. If it's not dead now, it will be then. If you wait any longer, we'll all be in trouble once he stands up."

This was a sensible argument, I decided-better to take action without thinking than to think after you're dead and buried. Do something and do it fast.

As I aimed, Uncle Three and Fats anxiously waved their hands and cried out at the same time, "Wait...wait, wait!"

As he said this, Uncle Three was already beside the corpse. He waved his hands at me again and gaped as he studied the armor. Pointing at it, he gasped, "This...isn't this jade burial armor? My G.o.d-this really exists!"

Not knowing why he was so excited, I looked at my uncle apprehensively. He was so worked up that he was close to tears as he stuttered, "Holy...Holy Mother of G.o.d! I have been robbing graves for so long, and finally...finally I found a real honest-to-G.o.d treasure. It's truly jade burial armor." He grabbed my shoulders. "He will stay alive and rejuvenated and continue to grow young as long as he is completely enveloped by this armor. It's not just something from a story. This corpse proves it's real."

In the era when this corpse walked the earth as a living man, one was considered old if he lived to be forty to fifty. Although the muscles of this corpse were a bit shrunken, the man's face indeed looked very young. It was amazing and I wondered, could there really be rejuvenation in this world?

Fats couldn't take his eyes off the armor. "I can't believe it," he said. "Not even the first Chinese emperor was able to find this armor. And it was on this guy all along. Master Three-there you are-do you know how to remove this thing from the body?"

Uncle Three shook his head. "I've heard that you can't take it off from the outside. Here's our problem-can we carry away the corpse while it is still wearing this?"

Both of them strolled back and forth as they a.n.a.lyzed the situation. They pulled the corpse's arms and legs occasionally, but it showed no signs of ill temper, nor did it seem dangerous. My heart resumed its normal pulse rate as I asked, "What would happen to the corpse inside if the armor were removed from the body?"

"Well, that I don't really know," Fats answered. "At the worst he'll completely vanish into thin air."

I said, "He was doing fine before we came along. If we do that, aren't we committing murder?"

Fats almost fell down from laughter. "Young comrade, if every grave robber had your ideals and fine conscience, then we would never achieve anything. How few of these ancient n.o.bles did not have bloodstained hands? Even if he were taken out alive and intact, he still ought to be executed for all the evil he did in his life. To worry the way you are is to ask for trouble."

He was right. It was wrong for me to stand idle, thinking and worrying while the others were so busy working. I went over to check what was in the coffin and found on the bottom a thick layer of something that looked like scales. I picked up a handful and asked, "What's this?"

Uncle Three sniffed it and replied, "That's the skin that came off his body."

Feeling my stomach somersault, I dropped the scales immediately, cursing. "Holy s.h.i.t. Did this guy have a disease that caused so much of his skin to fall off?"

"Don't talk rubbish," my uncle snapped at me. "This is the old skin that fell from his body as he rejuvenated. Every time a layer fell off, he became younger. He probably lost five or six layers, judging by this amount of skin."

I looked again. It looked absolutely disgusting, like snake skin, not human flesh. Just before I puked, Fats yelled, "There's something over here!"

We rushed to look but all we could see was a tiny bit of thread hanging under the armpit of the burial figure. "Fats, your vision is too sharp for its own good. Not even a piece of f.u.c.king lint can escape your exacting attention," I sneered.

Fats stared at me and whispered, "You southern comrades are savages who always destroy burial sites as you plunder them. Grave robbing is a meticulous art- don't you know this yet? If you didn't have me along, you guys would already have obliterated the corpse in order to remove this armor."

Uncle Three, feeling as though he was losing face, said, "f.u.c.k you. We don't even know if you're telling the truth. My nephew may be right-this may just be a piece of useless lint."

Fats laughed. "And you still don't believe me." As he began to pull on the thread, we heard a sharp noise. Something flashed before my eyes like a flare of lightning.

Uncle Three's reaction was almost that fast. He dropped Fats with a kick on the b.u.t.t as a knife whizzed into a tree trunk with a velocity that buried it deep in the wood. If not for Uncle Three's kick, that knife would have pierced right through Fats's skull.

We jumped back and saw Poker-face standing near the steps of the platform. His body was soaked with blood and his clothing was torn almost to ribbons. Plainly visible was a tattoo that his clothes had previously concealed-an image of a green unicorn, the legendary qilin, so large that it looked as though it covered the entire back of his body. His left hand was still poised in a knife-throwing position and the other held a strange object. When we looked closely, we all gasped-it was the severed head of a blood zombie.

He barely glanced at us as he limped up the stairs onto the platform, breathing heavily. Judging by his deep gashes and bruises, he had been in a hard-fought battle. He took a look at the coffin, and said very quietly, "Get out of the way."

The veins on Fats's forehead were about to explode and I really couldn't blame him for being enraged. He jumped up and screamed, "What the f.u.c.k did you just do that for?"

Poker-face turned his head and stared at him coldly, "To kill you."

Fats rolled up his sleeves and stormed over toward Poker-face but Big Kui stopped him. Uncle Three could tell this situation could scuttle our expedition and tried to smooth things over. "Don't panic. Menyouping certainly must have a reason for what he just did. Let's hear him out-and don't forget-he's already has saved your life once or twice on this journey, right? Calm down."

Fats stopped struggling for a few seconds and then agreed with my uncle. He freed himself from Big Kui's grasp and angrily plopped down on the ground, muttering, "You f.u.c.kers are sticking together and I can hardly fight all of you by myself. I give up-whatever you say."

Poker-face put his b.l.o.o.d.y trophy on the jade bed. He coughed and said, "This blood zombie is the true owner of the jade burial armor. The Ruler of Dead Soldiers stole it and the original owner turned into this monster as a result. When someone puts on this armor he will shed his skin once every five hundred years. He can safely remove it only during the time his skin is peeling; otherwise he instantly will turn into a blood zombie the minute he takes off the jade armor. The corpse that you see in the coffin before you has already lived three thousand years. If you had pulled that thread a moment ago, he would have awakened and then we would all be corpses in this place."

He coughed a few more times after he finished and blood came out of the corner of his mouth. He was badly hurt from some internal injury, that was plain to see.

Panzi, who was still in a lot of pain, stood in a corner without saying a word, but suddenly he burst out, "Listen, I'm a straightforward b.a.s.t.a.r.d, so please don't be p.i.s.sed off at what I have to say to you. You know way too much-more than any of the rest of us. If you don't mind, please explain how this is possible; there's no harm in that. I don't know what kind of G.o.d on earth you may be but I know you saved my life. If I get out of here in one piece, I will certainly come to wherever you live and thank you in a way that you deserve."

Panzi's words were quite articulate and respectful; I figured Poker-face would be unable to resist them. But he kept silent as if he had heard nothing. He walked to the Ruler's corpse and looked him up and down. Suddenly his eyes gleamed with hatred and before anyone realized what he was doing, his hand was already on the corpse's neck in a stranglehold.

A shriek came from the corpse's throat, and his body began to shake violently. Coldly Poker-face looked the dead man in the eye, saying, "You've lived long enough. Now die-h.e.l.l has been waiting for you to arrive."

As he applied more pressure, the veins protruded on his arms, and soon a bone-cracking noise echoed all around us. The corpse moaned; his legs shivered and kicked one last time, and then his skin turned completely black.

Stunned and speechless, we all stared at Poker-face as he tossed the corpse aside as if it was just worthless garbage. I grabbed his arm, shouting, "Who the h.e.l.l are you and why do you hate this corpse?"

He looked at me for a few seconds before saying, "What the f.u.c.k is it to you?"

"What have you done? We fought our way down to this grave with every sc.r.a.p of strength we have," Fats yelled. "It was tough enough just to get this d.a.m.n coffin open. Then you waltz in without saying a f.u.c.king word and strangle this living zombie to death. You at least owe us a G.o.dd.a.m.n explanation!"

Poker-face turned his head and looked at the b.l.o.o.d.y skull that he had placed on the jade bed. Somber and despondent, he pointed to a small purple jade box that was in the painted wood coffin and said, "You'll find everything you want to know inside that box."

Chapter Twenty-Six.

SECRET OF THE PURPLE JADE BOX.

Purple jade is the same stone as serpentine. It is generally used to make an amulet or an object to exorcise evil spirits-not to craft a little box. It was especially unusual that the box seemed to have been carved from a single block of serpentine and then trimmed with gold.

Since it had been placed where the corpse's head had been, it seemed to have been used as its pillow. Pillows made of ordinary jade are immensely rare; one made from serpentine was even more valuable-it was priceless. It was quite probable that not even emperors at that time had been honored in this fashion.

We placed the box on the ground with extreme caution. There was no lock and we opened it carefully. Within it was a scroll of yellow silk brocade with gold tr.i.m.m.i.n.g. The gold was woven into the fabric and was beautifully preserved. Unfolding the scroll, we saw written on the top left corner: The Book of the Ruler of Dead Soldiers.

Fats was completely uninterested in the scroll since he couldn't understand the writing on it. He muttered to himself and went over to examine the jade armor. Poker-face pulled out the knife he had hurled into the tree and lay down on one side of the jade bed. He silently stared at the corpse he had strangled, and his eyes became blurred.

Uncle Three and I sat beside him and carefully pored over the text on the silk scroll. I could only read fragments of paragraphs but when I linked the fragments together, I could figure out the gist of the text.

The records detailed in this Book of the Ruler of Dead Soldiers were simply outrageous and unthinkable. If I had not experienced so many strange occurrences already, I would never have believed such things could happen in this world.

On the edge of the scroll was a small paragraph of text that the Ruler had written himself. It was only a few lines, recounting all the important events that happened from his birth to his death. To translate all of this would take me at least half a month or more, but I could immediately understand the two most important things it said.

First came a concise account of how the Ruler obtained the devil's imperial seal, which I deciphered and then read aloud to my companions.

He had inherited his father's official status when he was twenty-five years old. He worked on the tomb excavation team for the State of Lu and paid his soldiers with the gold he found in the tombs.

One day he entered a tomb where he found a serpent lying beside the coffin.

The Ruler was very brave. He reasoned that there must be some evildoer inside the reptile so he chopped it in half with his sword. He issued an order for the snake to be disemboweled, and within its body was found a box made out of purple-enameled gold.

As I read this, my heart pounded. Could the box in my bag be the same one that was discovered inside the serpent? I paused but my uncle looked at me impatiently and said, "Don't stop. Go on!" I put my thoughts aside for the time being and continued to read aloud.

The Ruler didn't think the box was important, only an object the serpent had found and swallowed. But later when he slept, he dreamed of a white-bearded old man who asked, "Why did you kill me?"

The Ruler of Dead Soldiers was a violent man. He killed often and then forgot about it. He had no idea who this old man was, and answered, " I kill whenever I choose and whomever I choose."

The old man suddenly turned into a serpent and started to attack him, but the Ruler was as fierce in his dreams as he was in the battlefield. Taking his sword, he stabbed the serpent, kicked it several times, and was preparing to behead it, but the serpent begged for mercy, pointing out that, since its flesh had already been destroyed, it would never be able to achieve resurrection if its spirit was also killed.

Bargaining with the Ruler, it promised that if he would let it go, two treasures would be given to him, and a government ministry as well. Although he was answerable only to the emperor, as a soldier and grave robber his status was low, so the Ruler of Dead Soldiers agreed to spare the life of the snake's spirit.

The serpent told him how to open the purple-enameled gold box that had been found in its belly and how to use the treasures that were kept inside. After the Ruler had finished listening to the snake and knew all of its secrets, he picked up his sword and cut off its head.

Fats ran over to me when he heard me read this and asked, "One of the treasures must be the devil's imperial seal. What was the other one? There was no record in the ancient books. Could it be this jade burial armor?"

I gestured for him to shut up and went on with my reading.

After the Ruler of Dead Soldiers woke up the next morning, he did as the snake had told him in his dream and opened the box easily. But nothing I read told us what treasures he found within it, only that after he had used them once "quite smoothly," he felt that this must be kept an airtight secret. So he killed all the members of his entourage and everyone in their families-even a baby who was less than a month old.