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Led by Boss Sun, the group crouched and crawled inside.
Since it was inconvenient, none of us brought torches as we crawled in. Each of us held a flashlight, somewhat resembling the crawling drills during military training.
The cypress wood of the Huangchang Ticou was covered in dust and spiderwebs.
As we crawled, Boss Sun, who was leading the way, suddenly stopped.
"What's wrong, Boss?" asked Yi Kezhi (One Mole).
Boss Sun turned his head and shone his flashlight around. The light was blinding.
"Do you guys notice that it's getting lower? Are we going downhill?" he asked.
Surrounded by wood and tense from the situation, none of us had noticed. But now that he mentioned it, I looked down and realized it was true.
The place we had just crawled through had turned into a small slope.
This discovery left everyone puzzled.
According to common knowledge, Huangchang Ticou structures were built on flat ground, with the coffin located at the very center of the wooden mound. But what was this? Were we going underground? Was there something below?
"Don't overthink it. Let's keep going until we reach the end," Boss Sun said, continuing to crawl forward.
The further we crawled, the more alarming it became.
What had been a slight slope earlier was now becoming steeper.
Although the Sun brothers had worked on many projects before, this abnormal design was likely their first encounter.
I was at the end of the line, right behind Yi Kezhi. The space was tight, and Yi Kezhi, wearing jeans, kept wriggling her butt as she crawled, which distracted me.
After crawling for about ten minutes, the space ahead gradually widened.
"Be careful. Watch your heads. Don't bump into the wooden beams," Boss Sun warned as he tried to stand up.
It was pitch dark inside. After everyone emerged, Boss Sun used a high-powered flashlight to scan the surroundings.
His hand holding the flashlight froze mid-air. Following the beam of light, all of our pupils dilated in shock.
There were no outer coffins, only inner coffins.
Row after row of coffins... who knew how many there were.
Some of the coffins were rotten, some had collapsed into flat shapes, and others were mostly intact.
The scent of nanmu wood was now very strong, lingering in the air.
Dozens of coffins were piled together, with no obvious burial items on the ground. This completely defied the burial customs of any dynasty.
Third Brother frowned. "Big Brother, with so many coffins concentrated here, could this be a sacrificial burial pit from the Western Zhou period?"
His question made sense. Except for the Shang Dynasty and the early Western Zhou period, later eras did not practice such sacrificial burial systems unless it was voluntary. Otherwise, forcing living people to be buried with the dead was against the laws of the time.
Third Brother's face darkened as he stepped forward to one of the coffins. This coffin wasn't too badly damaged, just slightly flattened.
I swallowed hard, holding my flashlight, my eyes fixed on Third Brother.
"Big Brother, give me the crowbar," Third Brother said gravely, extending his hand.
"Here," the two of them worked in perfect sync as Big Brother tossed the small crowbar over.
Without hesitation, Third Brother prepared to pry open the coffin.
"Wait, Third Brother."
"Did you count how many coffin nails there are?" Big Brother asked, frowning.
Third Brother moved his flashlight to inspect it. "Some parts are completely rotten. It's hard to say, but it might be six nails."
"Six coffin nails?"
"Third Brother, be careful. Don't get too close. If it's six nails, that's fine. I'm just worried it might be five."
Yi Kezhi patted her chest and muttered, "Thank goodness it's not five nails."
I later learned a bit about this.
Ancient burial customs evolved over time, but some aspects remained relatively unchanged for thousands of years. For example, the tradition of burying the dead in coffins and sealing them with nails to separate the living from the dead.
When sealing a coffin, six or seven nails were normal. But fewer than six nails was considered inauspicious.
Five nails were called "soul-sealing nails," and four nails were called "soul-suppressing nails." In traditional culture, these were considered highly unlucky for both the dead and the living.
Third Brother was fearless. After years of working as a grave robber, he had seen countless coffins. I could tell he wasn't scared of these things at all.
He inserted the crowbar into the coffin seam. The sealing nails had already decayed, and with a slight effort, he pried it open.
"What's inside, Third Brother?" Yi Kezhi asked softly.
"Not much. There's a short piece of gold thread and a pile of white chocolate. Come take a look," he waved us over.
We walked over and saw that indeed, there were no burial items inside the coffin. Aside from two short pieces of gold thread, there were only scattered human bones. What he called "white chocolate" were these scattered bones.
The gold thread was just a tiny bit, certainly not remnants of a jade burial suit.
Big Brother shook his head after looking. "It seems the conditions down here are quite good. After 2,600 years, the bones are still intact. If this were in the north, you'd be lucky to find a couple of teeth left."
"Excuse me, lift your leg," Big Brother said as he picked up a leg bone and tossed it to the head of the coffin.
"Huh? What's this?"
After moving the bone, he used the crowbar to poke around, revealing a large black spherical object.
Upon closer inspection, it looked like a mud-covered round stone, with some undecayed seeds stuck to its surface.
"This... are these melon seeds?" Yi Kezhi frowned.
"They are melon seeds. Damn, what bad luck. I know what this thing is," Third Brother said, throwing the round stone away and wiping his hands on his clothes.
"This is a rear orifice bead. In ancient times, it was used to torture people. If the tomb owner really is Jiezi Hou, then he wasn't a good person. What a bastard."
Then, Big Brother pointed at the bones in the coffin and shared his theory with us.
The slave sacrifice system was actually abolished shortly after the establishment of the Western Zhou Dynasty. However, when the Zhou emperor enfeoffed the feudal lords, many of the feudal lords in remote areas still adhered to the barbaric practice of burying living people with the dead, a custom from the Shang Dynasty.
Back then, unlike today, women had low social status. Among the sacrificial victims, women made up a significant proportion. The pile of bones in this coffin likely belonged to a woman.
Third Brother reconstructed the scenario like this:
Three thousand years ago, during the Western Zhou period, it was a hot summer day. The female weavers employed by the household were on a temporary break, sitting together and chatting about daily life.
Suddenly, the master of the house, in a rare act of kindness, brought a cart of melons for everyone to eat, claiming it was to help them cool off in the scorching heat.
Unbeknownst to them, the melons had been laced with a sedative. After eating the melons, everyone passed out.
The master then took stone beads and inserted them into the women's rear orifices. Some might have woken up from the pain, but it was no use. They were sealed inside the coffins and left to die in agony.
This cruel and inhumane method of sacrificial burial actually originated from an ancient Yue custom.
Not only were the rear orifices stuffed with beads, but their mouths were also sewn shut with gold thread. The symbolism was clear: nothing in, nothing out. Serve your master in peace.
The small amount of gold thread that remained was used to sew the mouths of the female sacrificial victims shut.
After all this, a significant number of the women were still alive. But with their mouths sewn shut, they couldn't scream or even open their mouths inside the coffins.
Days later, they died in complete darkness.
It was utterly tragic.