Chapter 252 Ancient Tomb
The village where Luo Ning and others broke into has a history of nearly 800 years. The dead in this village have always been buried by trees, but there is a bluestone tomb in the center of the village.
Different from the burial in the Central Plains, this tomb is divided into a bluestone house on the ground and an underground house. At this moment, Luo Ning and others entered the stone house on the ground. The outer room of the stone house has no other characteristics except dark and damp. The rough stone surface has no murals or any other decorations, and the bare walls are like the usual residence of Tibetans.
The old village head said that this stone house is used for living people to keep filial piety. In ancient China, there were three years of tombkeeping, and the saying that their village "keeping filial piety" inherited the Central Plains culture. At this time, the "filial piety" was no longer simple. After the death of the person, he guarded the tomb for three years. And it is gradually regarded as a unique custom in the village. Every year during the Tibetan New Year, the village head and the highly valued old people in the village will come here to 'keeping filial piety' for their ancestors, placing sacrifices in the outermost stone house and burning incense. And tell the great events in the village to their ancestors. Sincerely pray for the ancestors, bless the peace of the village, and bless the health and longevity of the villagers.
As it gradually deepened, a strange sound suddenly came from the inner room. Luo Ning and others were shocked. I'm afraid that there will be organs or hidden weapons here, so I can hide in a hurry.
"Well, it scares you. That's just the sound of the earth dragon absorbing water. The old village head often comes here to clean up for his ancestors, so he knows everything here. The sound heard by Luo Ning and others was just a drainage system designed by the ancient tomb.
The reason why the ancient tomb is extremely refreshing is because of this unique drainage system. Wait until you follow the old village head through the first filial stone room. When I stepped into the second stone room, I suddenly felt a gust of wind passing through my feet, and the cold air instantly spread from the soles of my feet to the top of my head. This feeling will make people feel numb in their scalp, just like the stone room that is about to enter is very horrible.
"It's okay, it's windy. It shows that the air keeps flowing. The stubble monitor walked behind Luo Ning. Since the air circulates, it means that the air here is connected to the outside world and there will be no toxic and harmful gases.
Through the narrow stone gate and enter the second stone room, you will find that the boundary here is quite vast. Its area is five times that of the first stone chamber. When it was on the ground, it seemed that the stone house was not very big. When I found it in the second stone room, I found that it was so big that I couldn't believe that it was really in that small stone house.
Because there is no open window in the stone room, the light here is quite dim. The generation at the end of the stone room is quite dark. The stubble monitor took out a fluorescent stick from his bag, broke it and mixed it, and prepared to check the stone room with the help of light fluorescence.
At this time, who knows where the old village head moved the door of the stone room and only heard the slight explosion, the sheep head oil lamps on the wall outside the stone were lit one after another.
"Wow, this oil lamp doesn't need to be lit, just like an electric lamp. Press the switch and it will light up." By this time, Yu Xiangnan had regained calm. He saw the oil lamp that suddenly lit up, which was incredible.
With the faint light, nine bluestone coffins were placed on a slightly raised stone platform in the center of the stone room. The nine bluestone coffins are not neatly arranged, and their placement and orientation seem messy but give people a sense of mystery. It seems that such a messy arrangement has been carefully designed by masters and deliberately placed like this. Unfortunately, all the people here know too little about the feng shui of ancient tombs and don't understand why these nine coffins are placed like this.
After a hundred years, even if some moss has grown scattered on the ground, the bluestone coffin on the stage is still bright, and the reliefs on the coffin are even as novel as a hundred years ago.
Luo Ning first worshipped the nine coffins in the center, and then after the old village head acquiesced, Luo Ning boarded the table where the coffin was placed in the center.
The table is not high. In addition to the symbolic life patterns carved around the table, the table is quite clean and smooth. After climbing the stage, Luo Ning saw all nine huge bluestone coffins clearly.
"This..." Luo Ning stared at the coffins and said incredulously.
"Hmm. Those foreign tomb robbers did it. Luo Ning hasn't spoken yet, the old village head said angrily.
Luoning was also very angry after hearing this. It turns out that the lids of these nine coffins have all been pried open. All the valuable burial objects in the coffin were also swept up by tomb robbers. At this time, there were only some weathered dry corpses left in the coffin. The wind outside blew in along the dark path of the stone room wall, making the area at the stone kitchen cool and dry. According to the old village head, these mummified corpses have been around for hundreds of years. Hundreds of years are still so well preserved that we can see how smart the ancients who designed this stone tomb were.
"Why don't you seal these coffins again?" Even if the ancient tomb was stolen and the dead of the ancients were humiliated, as the old village head of the descendants, he should put the bones of his ancestors back into the coffin at the time of the crime. This is the act of filial piety. Luo Ning expressed no understanding of the village head's indifferent attitude.
"Hmm, the body is just something outside the body. The deceased abandoned his skin, and his soul has been purified and become immortal. Luo Ning knows that the tomb culture of Tibetans is very different from that of the Central Plains. So it's not surprising. He nodded and looked at the coffins one by one. There is a relief of a beast carved on the lid of each coffin.
Horses, tigers, monkeys, chickens, dogs, wolves, leopards, bears, and dragons surrounded in the center.
The dragon was regarded as the emperor in the ancient Central Plains. Now it appears in the stone tomb of a small village of the ancient Tibetans, which makes Luo Ning unconsciously think about it. Among the nine bluestone coffins on this stone platform, the eight sarcophags are engraved with horses, tigers, monkeys, chickens, dogs, wolves, leopards and bears. Only the sarcophagus carved with dragon patterns in the center is empty and nothing.
Didn't Zhao Sanshe and others also steal the dead body in this coffin? But it won't. Only funeral items were missing in the eight coffins around, and the bodies were still lying in them. If there is a dead body in the coffin in the middle, it will definitely remain.
"Look there." Just when Luo Ning failed to think. Wang Dan pointed to the opposite wall and exclaimed. With the faint oil lamp, everyone looked opposite and saw a huge mural inlaid on the stone room on the smooth wall. The mural depicts images of horseshoes, deer bodies, bear tails, carved wings, and nine snake necks. The simple relief carved the beast vividly, and the nine snake necks danced and wrapped around, and finally stretched to the top of the stone wall. The nine heads connected to the snake's neck are no longer as simple as the relief mural. They are nine different three-dimensional beast statues carved by masons, namely, horse head, tiger head, monkey head, phoenix head, mastiff head, wolf head, leopard head, bear head and the largest dragon head in the center.
These nine animal head statues are ferocious, each of which is roaring, and the fangs more than half a foot long are extremely fierce. Approaching the relief, looking up at the nine heads connected to the snake's neck, I suddenly found that there was a clear spring flowing out of the nine stone statues and flowing through the whole stone room along the artificially carved gully on the cyan stone wall.
The water drawn by the beast's head is all melted by the thousand-year-old snow on the mountain outside, so the ground of the whole stone chamber is so cold and humid, and the wind blows directly from the outside to the step where the sarcophagus is held. This is the place where the sarcophagus is placed, which is cold but not wet. Luo Ning knows that such an environment is easy to preserve corpses, and some can even keep them from decaying for a hundred years. According to the feng shui of the tomb, there is living water in the tomb, which is really good feng shui. In ancient times, the tombs of emperors were mostly selected in areas with excellent feng shui, and the flowing water in the tombs was more exquisite. Some emperors' tombs were replaced by a large amount of mercury that was difficult to evaporate because they could not attract live water.
This stone tomb drinking mechanism is made into the head of nine beasts, which is not only unique in shape, but also shows the prominent identity of the tomb owner.
"This mythical beast should be the legendary nine-striped dragon." Luo Ning looked at it for a long time before asking the old village head.
The old village head nodded. Referring to this embossed mythical beast nine-striped dragon, the village head's face showed incomparable respect and pride.
"Well, those grave robbers will be punished sooner or later." As far as the stone chamber on the ground is concerned, this tomb is also a relatively large tomb in southern Tibet. I heard from the village head that a long time ago, it was deserted here, and hundreds of miles were full of mountains. It was the arrival of several warriors buried in this tomb that made this place gradually become popular. After a generation, there was their village. Several dynasties on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau changed, and several wars also burned here, so the village built a siege and built a fortress to resist foreign aggression. In the early days of liberation, the Party-Central-Central divided the land of slave owners equally, and people began to learn advanced scientific and cultural knowledge from the outside world.
"The founder of your village is eight warriors and a prince." The coffin placed in the stone room is already very obvious. The several coffins in the center are all fierce beasts, and only the dragon in the center is the symbol of the emperor.
"I guess this prince is the downtrodden prince of the Central Plains. He failed to fight for the throne and was chased here by his brother. Otherwise, it will be the last emperor. The foundation was destroyed, and several guards hid here, and finally died on the road.
"No, I guess it's Prince Tubo. Otherwise, it will be the Xiangxiong Dynasty.
The stubble squad leader, Xiao Jinzi and Yu Xiangnan began to speculate on the identity of the owner of the tomb. In order to confirm their views, the three took out many clues they found.
Although in the end, everyone agreed that this tomb retains the Central Plains atmosphere, so these eight warriors and the prince should be from the Central Plains. But Luo Ning didn't agree: the dragon was indeed the only honorific title of the Central Plains emperor in ancient times, but this does not mean that the totems of the surrounding countries would not imagine it. Although the mythical beast on the mural of this tomb is called the nine-striped dragon, it is actually a symbolic 'combination mythical beast'. This combination of mythical beasts has been widely spread in southern Tibet and is a unique legend of Tibetans. Because the legend of Hydra is only known to the Renqin Temple that suppressed him.
"Hehe, none of them are right. The ancestors who founded the village were good princes, and the eight warriors who followed him were also good. But he is not from the Central Plains. The old village head interrupted everyone's speculation. The old village head's words surprised Luo Ning: "That's true. He is him."
So, where on earth did the prince come from?