Tomb Raiders Codex

Chapter 403 The Black Coffin
The first thing I saw was a bluish object, and I couldn't see the specific shape clearly at first, but when I looked down a little bit, I suddenly discovered that it turned out to be a big cauldron.Of course, this kind of tripod is different from those square tripods that I have seen before. This tripod is round and has a lid on the top. It is not like a bronze sacrificial vessel in a tomb, but like an ancient alchemist. The medicinal cauldron used in alchemy.

This tripod is seven or eight meters high, with a diameter of more than ten meters. It looks like a colossus. The lid of the tripod is hollowed out, and the really red smoke comes out from the hollowed-out lid.

Immediately afterwards, the rope came to an end and hung tightly on the ground.

This big cauldron was placed in the very center of the tripod. When I stood still and looked at it, I realized that there was still a huge iron chain tied to the tripod, entangled the whole tripod, as if trying to trap something in the tripod.

In addition, on the ice wall, there is also a section of carved ice paintings, mainly ice carvings, with colored drawings filled in the lines. At first glance, it is a mural formed by countless colored lines.I looked carefully, and saw that the first half of the murals were some decorative murals with no practical significance, depicting the common sights of the Heavenly Tower and the gathering of immortals in ancient tombs.

In ancient times, people were called "death", also called "immortal death", and also called "going west", which shows the ancient people's expectation for the world after death. Therefore, in the murals of ancient tombs, the scene of Tianque is the most common. Of course, there are also tomb owners. For those who believed in Buddhism during their lifetime, there will be a large number of images depicting the Western Paradise in ancient tombs.

I followed these ice sculptures and murals, and the ice wall was round, forming an arc. I looked down, and about halfway through, the scene of Tianque was interrupted. In the second part, I finally found something .This part obviously depicts the situation of the tomb owner during his lifetime.

This time, the image of the owner of the tomb in the mural has changed. It is no longer the image of wearing a feather coat, but a tall man, hugging left and right, sitting on the top, looking like an overlord.Under him, there is another group of people standing, one of them is more prominently painted, the clothes worn by this person are quite different from those around him, which shows that he and this group of people should not be from the same place.

This person is holding a dark object in his hand. What is it if it is not a black lamp?
I immediately judged that the person holding the black lamp should be Puzhen without a doubt.It seems that the real owner of the tomb in this place may be the tall man on the seat?

The background of the mural is a mountain range with simple lines. The people in the mural are wearing clothes made of animal skins, showing that they are a nation living in the snow-capped mountains.I thought to myself, could it be that the people in the murals are some ethnic group that lived in Xuelong Mountain thousands of years ago?
Why did Puzhen get involved with them?
Looking down from the mural, it is a scene of construction starting. I saw Puzhen standing on a high place, berating Fang Qiu, and directing countless people to start construction.Many of these people were carrying buckets, and I didn’t know what substance was contained in the wooden buckets. Once they poured it on the black ice, the subsequent digging became as simple as cutting tofu with a knife.

Obviously, this depicts the digging of the Xuanbing Tomb.However, what makes people feel the most weird is what happened next.

Immediately afterwards, a large cauldron was put into the place where I am now, and a black coffin was put into the cauldron, and there was a person lying in the coffin!

This man was exactly the tall man who was hugging left and right before. Looking at his appearance, he was only 40 to [-] years old, with a beard, and he was in his prime, lying in a coffin.The strangest thing is that he is still alive!I even thought I was dazzled, so I blinked hard. When I looked again, the person lying in the coffin in the mural still had his eyes open and a smile on his face. Talking to him, it seems that there is something to ask for instructions.

In the last mural, the lid of the coffin was closed, and the lid of the tripod was put down. Immediately afterwards, everyone sealed the bronze tripod with iron chains.

I was shocked when I saw it, and I thought how could a living person be put in a coffin?And it seems that this person went in voluntarily. What's going on?Could it be some kind of supernatural witchcraft?
It seems that the real owner of the Xuanbing Tomb should be sealed in a cauldron not far from me. I suddenly had a strange thought: Is he still alive now?
Thinking about it this way, I couldn't help but look at the big tripod next to me. Because the tripod is too tall, from this angle, I can only see its legs and belly. Ma, because I suddenly saw a black head protruding from under the big tripod's belly, looking at me from the side, making a peeping posture, and I don't know how long it has been looking at me like this.

I suddenly faced this black head, and my blood froze for a moment, but my experience told me that I can't sit still at this time, so I endured the fear in my heart, pulled out my dagger and walked towards the big cauldron quickly. run over.

The black head was still in that position, and I ran to take a closer look, only to find out that it was a fake head.

Under the cauldron, three black ghost heads were cast, facing different positions, forming a triangle.This ghost head looks weird, like a scorched head, and even makes me feel familiar, as if I have seen it somewhere.

I pondered for a moment in my mind, and suddenly realized that the fronts of these three ghost heads were very similar to the burnt black masks I had seen in the tomb of the Earth Ghost King.

I suddenly came up with a guess: If the person who made the black lamp was Puzhen, then could the seven lamps in the hands of the Earth Ghost King also be given by Puzhen?Judging from the time point where the two are, this is very likely.

Then, why did Puzhen hand over the seven lamps to the ghost king?

What do these black ghost heads and scorched masks represent?
They all seem to be related to Puzhen, but Puzhen is also a human being. In history, he was just a great man who knew how to observe the wind and water, build mausoleums and build tombs. No matter how powerful he was, he was an ordinary person after all. How to make a black lamp?
According to Lu Su, the power brought by the black lamp is equivalent to a key to unlock the code of the human body, then how did Puzhen master the method of making this key?

What has Puzhen experienced in his life?
It seems that Lu Su has not been here yet, wondering if there will be any clues about the 'key' left here?

Thinking of this, I immediately looked at the mural again, hoping to find some clues.However, after the cauldron was sealed, there were still a bunch of women tied up with ropes around, dressed in beautiful clothes, but they looked like weeping, it seemed that they were going to be buried with them.

Sure enough, this group of weak women were bound and thrown around the cauldron, leaving them to fend for themselves.This is where the mural comes to an end.So I walked around the cauldron, but I didn't see a woman, so I couldn't help but feel strange.

Could it be that these women were all eaten by heavenly soldiers in the end?
I thought of old man Zhao, and felt something was wrong again.Now that I have descended here, I have roughly grasped the structure of this place.The whole is round, with the big cauldron in the middle, and some murals on the surrounding ice walls. Other than that, there is nothing else, and there may not be any danger.

That being the case, how did old man Zhao become that ghostly?

Is it...

I couldn't help but look at the cauldron next to me, thinking of the scene of the living being buried in the coffin with a smile on my face, I felt a chill in my heart, and said to myself: Is it possible that old man Zhao's mutation is related to this cauldron?But the tripod is tied with iron chains, so it doesn't look like it has been passive?

After thinking about it, I decided to figure it out, so I climbed up the tripod.There are protruding bird and animal cloud patterns on the tripod, and iron chains pass through it from time to time, so it is very easy to climb, and it didn't take much effort to reach the top of the tripod.

As soon as I came up, I understood what was going on. It turned out that the hollow on the top of the tripod cover was actually very large. I was far away before, so I didn’t see it. Now I’m standing on the cover. Hollow point, can allow a person to climb in.

I squatted down and looked inside along the hollow, only to see the smoke lingering inside, and I could vaguely see a black coffin at the bottom, appearing and disappearing in the smoke, and there seemed to be some talisman-like patterns on the black coffin, what did it look like? , it is not clear.

I made some calculations, gritted my teeth, and threw down the cold smoke in my hand. In an instant, the situation below became clearer. The first time I saw the situation clearly, I was shocked, but saw that there was a corpse next to the black coffin !
The corpse was tall and burly, with a purple face, a beard, and dressed in fine clothes. If it wasn't the owner of the tomb in the mural, who was it?However, this corpse did not have the smiling expression when it was buried. Instead, it had a ferocious face, and its hands and feet were bent, a bit like the feeling of suffocation. The distorted expression and ferocious posture made people feel very uncomfortable. .

How could his body be outside the coffin?

I thought to myself, could it be that old man Zhao and others went down to the end, opened the coffin, and pulled the corpse out?
The cold smoke and cold green light illuminated everything below in a gloomy manner, and the skin of the dead body also turned into a kind of miserable green, which was extremely frightening.I forced myself to look away from the corpse, and turned to look at the black coffin next to it, only to see yellow runes printed on the coffin, and the coffin lid seemed to be closed.

I find it strange.

May I ask, is there that inverted person who put the lid back on the coffin after pulling out the corpse?Isn't this taking off your pants and farting? It's superfluous. Do you still want to set up a torii after being a bitch?Based on what I know about Old Man Zhao, he is not a person who would do such a thing.

Thinking about it this way, the black coffin looked even more mysterious. It seemed to have a strange seductive power that made people want to take a peek.But my rationality played a key role at this moment, and it didn't make me jump impulsively.

(End of this chapter)