“How is this possible — there’s one extra person!”
“Who… who is it?”
The voices of those who spoke trembled as they asked.
Every phone screen lit up, as everyone looked around with fearful eyes, dreading the sight of an unfamiliar face appearing before them.
People who recognized each other pressed close together, scanning the surroundings with trembling caution.
Just then, the group finally confirmed there was indeed one extra person — leaning in the corner not far from them.
“You… who are you?”
“Are you a person or a ghost?”
Trapped inside the mysterious Ancient Bronze Coffin, anything strange and sinister felt possible. Every person present was gripped with extreme unease.
A heavy, rough coughing sound came from that pitch-black corner. The shadowy figure shifted, then let out a low, hoarse voice:
“Ghost… ghost…”
The hoarse voice echoed within the bronze coffin. In that instant, everyone felt cold from head to toe, every hair on their bodies standing on end, as a bone-deep chill spread through the air.
Everyone felt as though they had been plunged into an ice cellar. Many hearts trembled with dread. Several of the female students let out piercing shrieks and burst into loud sobbing, nearly collapsing to the ground.
“Ghost… place…” The voice was slightly weak, and one could sense the shadowy figure was utterly exhausted. The figure swayed, attempting to stand.
“What a… ghost of a place. Are we… inside a bronze coffin?” The shadowy figure in the corner slowly rose, letting out this slightly bewildered question, its voice gradually gaining strength.
Seeing the tall, dark figure rise to its feet, many people instinctively stepped back.
The figure moved in their direction and continued to speak: “It’s me — Pang Bo.”
“Stop — don’t come any closer!” Everyone held up their phones, straining their eyes forward in the faint light.
Ye Fan parted through the crowd and walked forward slowly: “Are you really Pang Bo?”
“You can’t even recognize my voice?” In the darkness, the light of a phone screen came on — a familiar figure held a phone and appeared before them: thick brows, wide eyes, and a powerfully built frame.
Pang Bo was Ye Fan’s closest friend from university. He had been unable to attend the reunion gathering due to some private matters, and his sudden appearance now made everyone’s hearts fill with doubt.
“I don’t believe it. Pang Bo never came to the reunion at all. You… who exactly are you?” A trembling voice came from behind.
A person who had no business being here was now standing inside the bronze coffin. It made the scalps of many people present tingle uncomfortably.
“I am Pang Bo, naturally. Does anyone have water? I’m dying of thirst.” The shadowy figure continued to approach.
“Stop!” The crowd still could not bring themselves to believe it.
Pang Bo had no choice but to stop. To prove his identity, he did his best to explain, recounting many memories from their university days.
“I believe he is Pang Bo.” Ye Fan spoke in a firm and certain tone — then strode over to Pang Bo’s side. The two had not seen each other for some time, and even in such circumstances, they embraced one another heartily.
“At first, because of certain matters at home, I couldn’t make it to the reunion in time. But then I heard everyone was coming to Mount Tai, so after handling the situation at home, I naturally set off to come here…”
Pang Bo took the bottle of mineral water Ye Fan handed him and drank several deep, continuous gulps before recounting how he had come to be inside the bronze coffin.
By the time he arrived, the group had long since headed up the mountain — he had come up by cable car via the ropeway.
All in all, he was quite fortunate. Before the nine Dragon Corpses and the Ancient Bronze Coffin came crashing down onto Mount Tai, he had safely arrived at the Jade Emperor Summit via the ropeway. Rather than fleeing down the mountain with the crowd, he had clung tightly to a large tree and waited until Mount Tai had grown calm — and he had not been injured.
Afterward, he watched from a distance as Ye Fan and the others tumbled into the great crater. By the time he ran over, the ancient characters were already blazing up into midair. He had been fixed in place outside the crater, unable to move a single step. Not until the Ancient Bronze Coffin shook and its lid shifted out of position did he follow after everyone else and get drawn inside.
It may have been because he had been standing outside the five-colored altar — when Pang Bo tumbled into the bronze coffin, he had been knocked directly unconscious from the impact.
Only now did everyone’s doubts gradually begin to dissolve. The tightly wound chord in every heart at last began to relax.
“We must find a way to save ourselves. Being inside this bronze coffin leaves the heart deeply unsettled. I keep having a feeling of foreboding…” Li Xiaoman’s face had gone slightly pale, her beautiful eyes fixed on that patch of absolute blackness deep within the bronze coffin. Compared to the other female students, both she and Lin Jia were displaying remarkable composure.
Hearing these words, many people felt a chill spread through their bodies.
“Everyone stay together — do not separate.” Zhou Yi made this suggestion.
The group gathered closely together, using the faint light of their phones to observe the surroundings. Pressed against one wall of the bronze outer coffin, they could make out faint bronze engravings: a ferocious nine-headed divine bird spreading its wings in high flight, and a colossal fearsome beast covered all over in one-foot-long hard spines, howling at the heavens…
The bronze engravings, mottled with green oxidation and rust, depicted in some cases the savage ancient beasts recorded in the Classic of Mountains and Seas — such as the Taotie, the Qiong Qi, and the Tao Wu — enormous in form, hideous in appearance, and rendered so vividly as to strike fear into any who beheld them.
Moving along the interior wall of the bronze outer coffin for some distance, the group also discovered numerous engravings of human figures — the ancient forebears of high antiquity, as well as various deities from the primordial age. Thereafter, they found a large expanse of unusual patterns: dense and numerous, dotted throughout like points of light, resembling nothing so much as a star chart.
The Ancient Bronze Coffin stretched twenty meters in length, over eight meters in width — and what they had seen was no more than a fragment. They did not continue examining it, for at that moment the group sensed that deep within the bronze coffin, there seemed to be some other object.
All phones were raised together. Summoning their courage, the group stepped forward a few paces. Deep within the pitch-black interior of the Ancient Bronze Coffin, they could vaguely make out a blurred rectangular shape.
It was clearly not a corpse or remains — and it did not look like anything alive. This put everyone slightly more at ease, and they stepped forward a few more paces.
“A coffin within a coffin — there is another bronze coffin inside!” When they truly saw what lay before them, many people drew a sharp breath.
In the very center of the outer coffin rested another bronze coffin: less than four meters long, less than two meters wide, ancient and dim, inscribed with ancient engravings, encrusted with green oxidation, and carved over every surface with the frost of countless ages. It sent a chill through the heart of any who looked upon it, and none could bring themselves to approach.
“It is not a coffin within a coffin. This inner one is the true coffin — the vessel for housing the body. The outer bronze structure is called the ‘guo,’ which is the outer casing. Together, the two are known as the ‘guan guo.'” Pang Bo explained for those few who were not entirely clear on the distinction.
Upon hearing that the inner coffin before them was the true vessel for housing a body, quite a number of people immediately took several steps back, their hearts overcome with dread.
What kind of figure lay buried in such a mysterious Ancient Bronze Coffin? Every heart held both astonishment and terror.
All the archaeological secrets and tales of imperial tombs and ancient mausoleums they had ever heard — compared to this bronze coffin before them now, they were utterly insignificant, not worthy of any comparison whatsoever!
Who had ever seen a bronze outer coffin twenty meters in length? Who had ever seen a mysterious great coffin descending from the heavens? Who had ever seen nine Dragon Corpses pulling a coffin? One could not help but question whether what lay buried inside was truly a single human body. The imagination simply could not conceive what might be entombed within.