Leading the way, Eldest Elder Sun and our party squeezed and crawled inward.

Due to the inconvenience, we didn't bring any torches while moving inside, each of us holding a flashlight for illumination, reminiscent of crawling exercises during field military training.

The cypress wood beams of the Yellow Intestine Assemblage were covered with a fair amount of dust and spiderwebs.

As we burrowed along, Eldest Elder Sun, who was leading, suddenly halted.

"What's the matter, Boss?" A Mole asked.

Eldest Elder Sun turned his head and shone his flashlight back at us, its beam glaring in my eyes.

Then I heard him say, "Have you noticed that it's getting increasingly cramped? Are we descending on a slope?"

Surrounded by wood, we hadn't paid attention due to the tension, but now that he mentioned it, I looked down and it indeed seemed so.

The path we had just crawled over had turned into a gentle slope.

This discovery baffled everyone.

Common sense dictated that the Yellow Intestine Assemblage was built on flat ground, with the very heart of Wood Mountain being the site of the coffin and outer coffin. But what was this? A path leading downward? Was there something below?

"Let's not jump to conclusions; we'll figure it out once we reach the end," Eldest Elder Sun left us with those words and continued to crawl forward.

The deeper we went, the more alarming it became.

The incline, mild at first, grew steeper as we progressed.

Though the Sun Family Brothers had undertaken many such tasks before, such an unusual design was probably new to them as well.

I was at the very end of the line, with A Mole just ahead. The space was cramped, and A Mole, in her jeans, had her backside arching up and down in a way that was somewhat distracting.

After what felt like more than ten minutes of crawling, the space ahead gradually opened up again.

"Be careful and watch your head. Don't bump into any wooden hands," Eldest Elder Sun attempted to stand.

It was pitch black inside, and once everyone had emerged, Eldest Elder Sun shone his high-beam flashlight around.

His hand holding the flashlight froze mid-air, and following the beam of light, all of our pupils dilated in an instant.

There were no coffin and outer coffin, only coffins themselves.

Rows upon rows of them, countless in number...

Some of the coffins were decayed, others had collapsed into flat shapes, and a few were almost intact.

The fragrance of phoebe wood was now unmistakably strong and lingering.

Dozens of coffins were stacked together, and the ground was devoid of any clear burial artifacts, which didn't align with the funeral rites of any known dynasty.

Third Brother frowned and said, "Big Brother, with so many coffins concentrated here, could this be a mass burial pit from the Western Zhou Dynasty?"

His question was a valid one, as after the early periods of the Shang Dynasty and Western Zhou, the practice of human sacrifice in burials had ceased, except for voluntary cases. Forcibly burying the living with the dead was against the laws of the time.

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Third Elder Sun's face was clouded as he walked step by step towards a coffin that wasn't too badly collapsed, just somewhat flattened.

I swallowed, holding my flashlight steady, eyes unblinking, watching Third Elder Sun's every move.

"Boss, hand me the crowbar," Third Elder Sun said gravely, extending his hand.

"Here you go," the two worked in perfect sync, and Big Brother tossed the small crowbar over.

Without a moment's hesitation, Third Elder Sun prepared to pry open the coffin as soon as he caught the crowbar.

"Hold on a moment, Third."

"Did you count them? How many coffin nails?" Big Brother asked, frowning.

Third Elder Sun moved the flashlight for a better look. "Some parts are too decayed to be sure, but it might be six."

"Six coffin nails?"

"Be careful, Third, don't get too close. Six nails might be fine, but I'm worried if it's five."

A Mole, patting his chest, also muttered, "Good, as long as it's not five."

I later came to understand this concept.

Funerary customs in ancient times were constantly evolving, but some aspects remained largely unchanged for thousands of years. For instance, the practice of 'Rest in Peace' in a coffin and the use of coffin nails to 'Seal Separating Yin and Yang.'

When sealing a coffin, using six or seven nails was normal, but anything less than six was considered inauspicious.

Five nails were called 'Soul-Sealing Nails,' and four 'Soul-Calming Nails.' In traditional culture, both were deemed unlucky for both the living and the dead.

Third Elder Sun was fearless, having worked many years as a gravedigger, and had seen more coffins than he could count. He seemed utterly unfazed by such things.

Inserting the crowbar into the coffin's seam, he found the nails had rotted away, and with a little force, he pried it open.

"What's inside, Third?" A Mole asked quietly.

"Not much, just a few inches of gold thread and a pile of white chocolate," he beckoned us over to take a look, referring to the scattered bones as white chocolate.

Upon closer inspection, the coffin indeed contained no burial artifacts, just a couple of short strands of gold thread and some scattered human bones.

The gold thread was too little to be remnants of a 'Gold-threaded Jade Robe.'

Eldest Elder Sun shook his head after looking, "It seems the conditions down here are quite good. After more than two thousand six hundred years, to still find bones intact is remarkable. If this were in the north, finding even a tooth or two would be considered lucky."

"Excuse me, lift your leg, please," said Eldest Elder Sun as he picked up a human leg bone and tossed it to the head of the coffin.

"Huh? What's this?"

He pushed aside the bones and used a small crowbar to scrape away, revealing a large black spherical object.

Upon closer inspection, it appeared to be a mud-caked round stone, its surface still smeared with some seeds that had not rotted away.

"Could this... could this be melon seeds?" A Mole frowned.

"Indeed, melon seeds. Damn it, this is ominous. I know what this thing is," Third Elder Sun exclaimed, tossing away the round stone ball and vigorously wiping his hands on his clothes.

"This is a Back Orifice Bead, a torture device from ancient times. If the tomb owner really is the Mustard Seed Marquis, then he was no good person, a detestable creature."

Following this, Eldest Elder Sun pointed to the skeleton in the coffin and shared his speculation with us.

The Slave Burial System was abolished at the very beginning of the Western Zhou dynasty, yet the Zhou Emperor enfeoffed many princely kings in remote areas. Some stubbornly unenlightened vassal states continued the inhumane practice of human sacrifice from the Shang Dynasty.

Back then, unlike today, women held low social status, and within those sacrificed, women made up a significant proportion. The pile of bones in the coffin before us likely belonged to a woman.

This was Third Brother's reconstruction and conjecture.

In the three thousand years of the Western Zhou Period, on a summer day when the heat was oppressive, the female weavers employed at home had temporarily ceased their work. Everyone sat together, chatting about household matters.

Suddenly, the master of the house, in a moment of benevolence, brought in a cartload of fragrant melons for everyone to enjoy and cool off, deceiving the female workers to partake.

Unbeknownst to them, the melons were laced with knockout drops, and after consuming them, everyone collapsed.

At this point, the master brought forth stone balls, which were forcibly inserted into the women's rear orifices. Some may have awoken from the pain, but it was to no avail; they were nailed into the coffin lid and left to die in agony.

This barbaric method of sacrifice, where victims died in excruciating pain, actually originated from the customs of the ancient Yue Kingdom.

Not only were beads inserted into the rear orifice, but the lips were also sewn shut with gold thread, symbolizing a state of neither intake nor outflow, a peaceful servitude to the master.

The scant remnants of gold thread were used to sew shut the mouths of the female retainer sacrifices.

After all this, a considerable number of women were still alive. However, with their mouths sewn shut by the gold thread, they could not cry out from within the coffins, unable to even open their mouths.

Days later, they perished in the darkness, unseen by the world.

An utterly tragic fate. (To be continued)

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I have also posted the following more chapters [All free]: https://www.readgates.com/article/7b136c