Notes From Buried Times Chapter 9

After observing Leopard's expression, Daniel Xia said to Aaron Chu: "Report to the commander-in-chief, this guy is strong on the outside but weak on the inside."

The commander-in-chief instructed: "Continue popularizing science."

Leopard got angry: "You lied to me?!"

"He didn't lie to you," Aaron Chu said, smiling, "He was just playing tricks. There is a basis for saying that."

Leopard's face turned pale and blue. Aaron Chu said, "Come on, open the coffin. All the chisels have been driven in."

Leopard paused, gritted his teeth, and stepped forward to push the coffin lid.

The uncle said, "Where are you going to push it? Push it vertically! There might be some tenon stuck horizontally, and you will never be able to push it open. Really, there is not even a rod."

Daniel Xia also stepped forward to lend a hand, pushing while muttering that it was a mistake and a violation of discipline.

The uncle was very understanding and whispered to his nephew, "Saving your life is the most important thing."

The upper and lower parts of the sarcophagus were carved from huge stones and weighed several tons. Fortunately, the lid was lighter, and after great efforts, they finally pushed it more than ten centimeters, and there was a tiny gap through which one could see inside the coffin.

Aaron Chu and the uncle suddenly stopped pushing and took off their wet clothes and wrapped them around their mouths and noses. Daniel Xia covered them with a handkerchief. The thin guy reacted quickly and did the same, but Leopard stood there with a confused look on his face.

Aaron Chu looked at him unhappily, but Daniel Xia was kind enough to remind him, "Gases will be produced during the decomposition and expansion of the corpse, and it has been trapped inside for thousands of years. Even if it has been stolen, it will not be completely dissipated..."

The leopard was so scared that he took off his clothes in a hurry.

"Are you ready? One! Two! Three!" Five people exerted force at the same time. After a rumbling sound, the coffin lid was finally pushed open. One third of the coffin chamber was in the air. The uncle gestured: Everyone get out and let the air out.

Just as Daniel Xia and Aaron Chu were about to take a step forward, the thin man turned around and aimed at them.

They had no choice but to stand there and communicate with each other through eye contact: Is he trying to silence him?

Um...

The thin man held the sarcophagus with one hand, slowly retreated to the side, looked inside with a flashlight, and shouted in disbelief: "Empty?!!"

"What?!" Leopard opened his eyes and jumped over: "... He, damn it!!"

He raised his hand and fired a volley of bullets at the stone wall, which made Aaron Chu and Daniel Xia heartbroken. Note: cultural relics.

"Why is it empty?!" he yelled at the uncle.

The uncle was very surprised and said: "Huh? How would I know!"

He turned and yelled at Aaron Chu again, and Aaron Chu yelled back impatiently: "Keep your voice down so I can hear you. It can't be empty. The body must be inside."

The leopard roared with all his might, shaking the stone wall: "Why do I need these broken bones?! I want gold! I want treasures!!"

The uncle said with disdain: "Tsk."

Daniel Xia: "Tsk..."

The thin man suddenly punched the uncle in the stomach. The uncle groaned, bent over and squatted for a long time, then raised his head to wipe the blood from his mouth and smiled at Daniel Xia: "I told you they are dangerous."

The thin man was about to speak when Aaron Chu kicked him away. He hit the wall and bounced back to the ground, curled up and twitching. Leopard went to pull him and found that he had fainted.

Archaeologists like Aaron Chu, in order to study ancient residents, all know some human anatomy and of course understand which parts of the body are weak.

The bullet flew right past Aaron Chu's scalp. When Leopard was about to shoot, he realized he had to change the magazine. He lowered his head and felt a pain in his neck. He reached out to touch his hand and found it was covered in blood. He looked up in horror and found Aaron Chu was right in front of him: "It's half a centimeter away from the carotid artery. Don't be nervous."

The next second, he lost consciousness.

The uncle praised Aaron Chu: "Neat!"

Aaron Chu said: "My uncle is very good, he can also throw knives."

Daniel Xia asked the uncle: "Are you okay?"

The uncle said: "How can that be possible! Isn't it just like scratching an itch if you hit that thin arm? He just bit his tongue. How long can these two people be unconscious?"

"More than ten minutes," Aaron Chu said, "The thin one might take even longer."

"Carry it out and throw it away." said the uncle.

Daniel Xia waved his hand and said it was a waste of time, I still want to study the sarcophagus. He stripped the two men down to their underwear, tied their hands and feet behind their backs, tied them back to back, and finally covered their heads with pants, leaving only four nostrils for breathing.

The uncle said: "How professional."

Aaron Chu said: "No, no, he can't stand praise, he gets cocky when he's praised."

Daniel Xia laughed up to the sky and hung all the equipment of the two men on himself: "Go and say hello to the queen."

He took one look and was stunned: "Ugh!"

Aaron Chu raised his flashlight and shone it into the sarcophagus: "Hey?"

The two looked at each other because the scene before them was weird. The dry bones appeared as expected, but they were red.

"It's well preserved. The soil in Yunnan is acidic. If it was buried in the ground, it would turn into powder. Thanks to the sarcophagus. Is this... cinnabar?" Daniel Xia was uncertain: "You can see there is also a layer at the bottom."

"Perhaps, the level of cinnabar refining in the Han Dynasty was already very high, and there was cinnabar in Mawangdui." Aaron Chu said: "Try it and see if it is true."

Daniel Xia said fiercely: "I won't eat it."

"Mercury sulfide can cure sore throats." Aaron Chu squatted on the edge of the coffin: "I have heard of sprinkling cinnabar on the bottom of the coffin. This custom still exists in Xiangxi. In addition to sprinkling cinnabar, they also light the five hearts and seven orifices. It is said that it can seal the soul. Using cinnabar to dye bones... This is the first time I have seen it."

Daniel Xia squatted beside him and was about to reach out but was stopped by Aaron Chu: "Don't, you have a wound on your hand."

"If you want to ward off evil spirits with cinnabar, then dyeing the bones is more thorough than using acupuncture points." Daniel Xia said, "How wonderful! Thank you, my lady. Since you started this, we have a title for our article this year: 'A Preliminary Investigation Report on the Unique Burial System in the Yongcui Mountain Area of   Yunnan'."

The uncle poked his head in and asked repeatedly: "Is there anything? Is there anything?"

"Uncle," Aaron Chu said, "In my heart, you must be a person of high level."

"That's it, that's it," the uncle nodded, and said closer: "Ah, it's really empty, someone got there first. Well, it's good to keep a piece of jade, a broken piece of pottery is not worth much."

"It was robbed in the Han Dynasty. It was precisely because of tomb robbing, ghosts and bad luck that officials took measures to suppress the tomb," said Daniel Xia.

The uncle asked: "What's the evil spirit? Is it eating people? Is it pretending to be a corpse?"

Daniel Xia laughed in a particularly annoying way: "Maybe he'll grow white hair."

"Hmm?" Aaron Chu suddenly pushed the coffin lid and said, "Hmm? Hmm?"

"What's wrong?"

Aaron Chu opened his mouth and bit the flashlight, then stuck his head into the sarcophagus, looked for a long time, and then looked up with a puzzled look.

The uncle asked, "What's wrong?"

"Daniel Xia, please confirm," Aaron Chu said, "Be careful, don't touch the bones."

Daniel Xia also leaned over to look down, and Aaron Chu put his arm around his waist: "Is that so?"

Daniel Xia responded with a muffled sound, raised his head and gasped: "Huh~~~~ It smells like a coffin, I think so."

The uncle said: "Ah?"

Aaron Chu asked: "Uncle, are you sure this is the tomb of the empress?"

The uncle said as a matter of course: "Yes, the local legend has been around for hundreds of years. My master once found the entrance in the 1930s and came back saying that he had found the tomb of the goddess."

The two men looked at each other, and Aaron Chu said, "But this person is a man."

The uncle's eyes widened: "Male!! Who said that?!"

"Pelvis." Aaron Chu patted Daniel Xia on the waist and said, "Uncle, everyone has their own expertise. Among the human skeleton, the pelvis has the most obvious gender differences between men and women. The rest of the skeleton - such as the thickness of the bones - is sometimes difficult to distinguish. For example, Daniel Xia, who has not grown up yet, has bone characteristics that are within the range of gender variation and are difficult to identify."

"So you have to look at his pelvis, like the pubic arch. If it's smaller, it's a man; if it's larger, almost at a right angle, it's a woman."

"So I am an anatomically male," Daniel Xia said.

"Nonsense," the uncle shouted anxiously, "I'm coming to see it, I'm coming to see it."

As he said this, he was about to squeeze in. Aaron Chu smiled and pushed him away, saying, "How can you tell? Don't you think about how long we have been drawing a skeleton in the laboratory?"

Daniel Xia said to Aaron Chu with a glowing face, "This is a big discovery. The wife of the leader of a certain ethnic minority in the southwest is actually a man. We'll go back and check the information. If it matches with the known ethnic group, we'll publish it in "Archaeology"; if it doesn't match, oh, we've accomplished something, and it must be published in "People's Daily".

The uncle suddenly fell off the edge of the coffin with a thud, and sat on the ground rubbing his eyes. He calmed down for a few seconds and muttered: "What the hell..."

Daniel Xia asked: "What's wrong?"

"What the hell," the uncle pointed at the sarcophagus and said, "This bone... this is neither male nor female... it is growing white hair..."

Aaron Chu laughed loudly. Daniel Xia shook his arm desperately, so he raised the flashlight and looked inside again: "Why are you almost like Xiao Chen, talking about ghosts all the time? The so-called ghosts are all hallucinations, atmospheric discharge phenomena... violent atmospheric discharge phenomena."

He grabbed Daniel Xia and said, "Uncle! Get out!"

The uncle had already retreated to the entrance of the tomb, stamping his feet and shouting: "You're not the one who should tell me! This is too weird!!"

The two men ran wildly in the tomb passage, the flashlight beam shaking with the bumps under their feet. Daniel Xia's baggage was too heavy, and he became so angry that he wanted to curse after running a few steps. But the uncle suddenly turned around and ran back "howling".

Aaron Chu was almost knocked down by him, and the uncle pushed him: "Go back! Go back!"

"There are hairy ones over there too?!"

"Damn it!" the uncle was furious: "It's better to have hair! Water is pouring in!!"