Volume Two - The General’s Tomb Chapter Thirty-Eight - Innocent Boy and Girl

We both covered our mouths and noses, but the stench inside the stone coffin was truly indescribable. Even with our clothes wrapped tightly around our faces, the nauseating odor still seeped through, making us want to vomit.

Li Kun said to me, “Old Liu, the stink in this stone coffin is unbearable. What on earth is this smell? Even corpse rot shouldn’t be this bad.”

I nodded. “The smell is indeed overwhelming. My guess is that something was injected into the body before death, and since the stone coffin is perfectly sealed, the stench from the decaying corpse has lingered and fermented in this tomb for ages. It’s so bad that not even scavengers could stand it, let alone people.”

After speaking, I slowly approached the stone coffin and shone my flashlight inside. What I saw left me deeply shaken.

Within the coffin lay two mummified corpses, each less than a meter tall, stretched out side by side. Their bodies had decomposed beyond recognition, with not a trace of clothing on them, suggesting they had been laid to rest naked.

Li Kun came to my side and peered into the coffin, but the moment he saw the two bodies, he erupted in anger. “Damn it, this tomb owner really was a monster. All those people buried outside as companions weren’t enough—he even had two children buried with him. Unbelievable.”

He strode to the edge of the platform, tossed his backpack down, and sat heavily.

I walked over, patted his shoulder, and tried to console him. “The dead can’t return, Kun. In that era, companion burials like this were common. It’s a pity these two didn’t live in peaceful times like ours, or their fate might have been different.”

Li Kun turned to me. “Old Liu, why did he need two children buried with him? Weren’t all those adults outside enough?”

I sighed. “That’s actually related to the geomancy practices of the time. Back then, the arts of feng shui were chaotic and mixed with other mystical methods. Many self-proclaimed masters who barely understood the basics set up tombs and predicted fortunes, so the burial practices became quite disordered.”

“Some even combined geomancy with other occult arts to design tombs. Burying boys and girls as companions became popular. In feng shui, there’s a principle of harmonizing yin and yang. Look at the pattern on this platform.”

I pointed to the floor beneath us. Li Kun looked down and saw that the platform was shaped like a Taiji symbol—one half dark, one half light—with the stone coffin placed at the juncture of the two sides.

I explained, “The positions of the buried boy and girl are deliberate. The boy, representing yang, is placed on the black (yin) side, and the girl, representing yin, is placed on the white (yang) side. This forms the auspicious configuration of yin-yang harmony.”

Li Kun nodded, half-understanding. “So, it was just a chaotic time, and that’s how things were, right?”

His confusion made me smile wryly. I glanced back at the stone coffin. “If the tomb’s feng shui hadn’t been disturbed, we might have reburied these children elsewhere to let them rest in peace. But now, the layout has changed entirely. If we took them out, the feng shui would shift, and we’d be doomed.”

Li Kun sighed. “So they have to stay here? We can’t take them out for a proper burial?”

I nodded. “That’s right. But I have an idea. If we alter the structure of this stone chamber, we could reverse the flow of yin and yang, severing this room from the general’s tomb. That way, those two children could finally rest here in peace.”

Li Kun’s eyes lit up. “You can do that? Amazing, Old Liu! So what do we need to do?”

I turned to examine the base of the stone coffin and noticed it rested on a round platform, with two deep grooves on either side, each secured with an iron hook.

I said, “Li, look under the stone coffin.”

He followed my flashlight beam and frowned. “What am I supposed to be looking at, Liu?”

“Come with me,” I said. I moved to the front of the coffin and squatted to inspect the two grooves, about twenty centimeters apart.

“These grooves are on both sides. If we remove the iron hooks and rotate the coffin, we can reverse the flow of yin and yang in this chamber.”

Li Kun looked skeptical. “You’re saying we can rotate the coffin? You’re not pulling my leg?”

I shot him a look. “Why would I joke about this? Get the crowbar and pry out the hooks.”

He nodded, fetched the crowbar from his backpack, and returned. Squatting down, he slid the flat end under the iron hook and gave it a strong push upward.

To my surprise, the hook snapped with a sharp crack, breaking free at once. The sudden force startled Li Kun, and he nearly toppled over, but I grabbed his arm. “You alright?”

He nodded. “Gave me a fright, almost fell backwards.”

He waved it off, then went to the other side and pried out the second hook.

When both hooks were out, I said, “Let’s rotate the coffin to the right—your end should come over to me.”

Li Kun nodded. Together, we pushed. To his amazement, the coffin began to turn, the round base smoothly rotating beneath it.

As soon as we had shifted the coffin into its new alignment, a deep rumble echoed through the chamber, and suddenly a swirl of white mist rose from the coffin.

In that instant, the foul stench vanished completely, replaced by a sweet floral fragrance that wafted through the air. Our stomachs rumbled at the scent.

Li Kun sniffed and exclaimed, “Old Liu, what is this smell? It’s amazing!”

I glanced at the mist rising from the stone coffin. “It must be coming from inside the coffin.”

We hurried over and looked in.

To our astonishment, the decayed corpses had vanished. In their place was a gigantic white flower.

The flower was at least two meters across, its base broad and flat, the top slender and pointed. The lower stalk was deep green and hairless, the midrib thick, with old stems bearing aerial roots. The receptacle was green and slightly angular, with short triangular bracts, and the petals were creamy white, obovate-lanceolate to obovate in shape.

The bloom was stunningly beautiful, and the more I looked at it, the more familiar it seemed, as if I’d seen it somewhere before. Li Kun pointed at the flower and said, “Old Liu, isn’t that a night-blooming cereus?”

At his words, it came to me. He was right—this was a night-blooming cereus, and the fragrance was its intoxicating scent.

But how had such a huge cereus suddenly appeared in the stone coffin?

Li Kun puzzled, “Old Liu, do you think those two kids conjured this flower to thank us for freeing them? After all, a night-blooming cereus only blooms once a year for a couple of hours. Maybe they wanted to show us something beautiful.”

His words made me realize something. I turned to him, serious. “Li, how long does a cereus bloom last?”

He shrank back, startled by my tone. “About two hours, I think. Why?”

I looked at the enormous white flower in the coffin. “You’re right, the flower is a sign—a warning. If I’m not mistaken, this tomb will collapse in about two hours, and only this stone chamber will be safe.”