Guanzhong Tomb Robbery Notes

Chapter 269: The Demon Pestle, let's take a step forward

The first moment I saw the human skin thangka, I didn’t realize that it was made of human skin.

At that time, I was attracted by the rich colors of thangka.

The azure blue extracted from lapis lazuli and the stone green extracted from malachite constitute the main colors of the entire thangka.

Buddha images are painted amidst azure clouds and stone-green ribbons.

The Buddha's head has a green face, fangs and three eyes. Its mouth is open with fangs bared, and there are five skulls neatly arranged on the headband on its forehead.

He looked very ferocious,

My first reaction was that the painting was of an alien demon.

Continuing to look down, there is a white snake hanging on the neck of the Buddha statue, and the white snake is holding the Buddha statue's belly from head to tail.

This makes me even more puzzled.

The Buddha statues I have seen in the past all have kind faces and their hands are in mudra.

At most, the Buddhist guardians such as Wei Tuo, the Four Heavenly Kings, etc. have serious and ferocious expressions.

But even the guardian with a ferocious look would not hang a snake around his neck.

The Buddha statue has three arms growing out of each shoulder, giving it the appearance of one head and six arms.

The four hands above hold magical instruments, including a sword, a rope, a skull string, and a seal; the two hands below make hand seals.

Further down is a figure sitting cross-legged on a blue lotus seat.

There is a tiger-skin skirt between her legs, which looks like the same one that Sun Wukong wears.

Eight human-faced heads were hung on the tiger-skin skirt, each with horns and fangs.

I can't tell whether those eight heads are human heads or heads of transformed monsters.

At that time, I knew very little about Tantra.

Professor Zhang mentioned this when he was telling me about Princess Wencheng's marriage.

However, he did not know much about Tantric Buddhism. In the end, he focused on telling me about Thangka, saying that Thangka is a very unique art form.

It is not only used to depict Buddha statues, but also to depict the meaning of Buddhist scriptures...

Because of these explanations, I recognized that it was a thangka.

As for why we can be sure that it is a human skin thangka, it has something to do with Tuo Ye.

Grandpa Camel likes to tell us horror stories to scare us.

Among them are stories such as the skull wine cup, the Ajie drum, and the human skin thangka.

After confirming that it was a thangka, I thought of the story of the human skin thangka.

In fact, there are many kinds of materials used to make thangkas, such as paper, cloth, silk, cowhide, sheepskin, etc.

This thangka does not have any damage at all, which shows that the material is tough, so we rule out paper.

It is very light when it flutters in the wind, and can eliminate thick cowhide and sheepskin.

Finally I found that the thangka was very thin.

It is much thinner than silk.

After eliminating all possible materials, the remaining impossible becomes possible.

That can only be a thangka made of human skin!

It can be said that human skin thangka only exists in legends and it is rare to see the real thing.

Because the materials are so inhumane and the production is extremely difficult, the number of surviving pieces is extremely rare.

Moreover, the owner regards it as a treasure and will not show it to others.

But it is really thought-provoking that such a precious thangka was abandoned on top of a pile of rocks.

When I was about to take off the human skin thangka to study it carefully, I heard Cui Hao's shouting from below.

"Brother! How are you doing up there?"

"Hurry up and throw a rope down so I can go up too!"

"Okay!" I responded and took out the climbing rope from my backpack.

Tie the climbing rope to the black iron pick.

When I was tying the rope, I discovered that the black iron rod was actually a demon-subduing pestle.

The vajra is a commonly used ritual implement in Tantric Buddhism.

It is usually made of brass, looks bright yellow and shiny, and feels majestic when held in the hand.

However, this demon-subduing pestle inserted into the crevice of the stone is made of black iron.

The material used is completely different from the common demon-subduing pestle.

The fact that it can be tied together with a human skin thangka shows that this demon-subduing pestle is not simple.

After tying it, I threw the other end of the rope down.

Then he shouted to Cui Hao, "Put the emergency light in the bag, and come up slowly."

"The first half meter or so near the top is covered with small rocks, so you have to step firmly on it."

"I'll hold the rope up there to help you!"

When I shouted, Cui Hao had already climbed up by pulling the rope.

After climbing nearly one meter, he stopped and tied the rope around his waist tightly.

This kid is quite clever.

This way of tying it acts like a seat belt.

Even if he really didn't step firmly and fell, the rope could catch him.

Then he climbed up, and I pulled the rope and pulled him up smoothly.

Cui Hao came up and gasped for breath: "I'm so tired."

"Brother, you are still strong enough."

"You dared to jump from such a high! My heart was pounding watching you from below, so worried that something might happen to you... Bah, bah, bah, look at my bad mouth!"

"Take a break first." I walked behind Cui Hao and took out the emergency light from my backpack.

The light was dim just now, and I couldn't see the thangka and the vajra clearly.

Now that I have the emergency light, I can take a closer look.

I turned on the emergency light and walked over, then untied the thangka tied to the pestle.

Thangka feels very delicate and smooth, even more tender than a freshly peeled egg.

This kind of touch can only be found on human skin.

It has to be a girl’s...

"Brother, what are you looking at?" Cui Hao came over curiously.

"What kind of monster is this painting?"

"It looks scary, hiss!"

Cui Hao suddenly gasped and asked with fear on his face, "Who put this painting here?"

I shook my head slightly.

I also want to understand this question.

After carefully folding the thangka, I found some oil paper, carefully wrapped the thangka and stuffed it into my bag.

Although I don’t know which god is painted on it, I am sure this thing is very valuable!

Don’t miss out on anything valuable!

Then I used both hands to pull out the demon-subduing pestle.

This is a demon-subduing pestle about half a meter long, with extremely exquisite patterns carved on the pestle.

The value can be determined by the workmanship.

These two things were unexpected gains.

"Mouse, turn over the stones underneath and see if there is anything buried." I ordered.

Cui Hao started to dig the stone quickly.

Crash.

The pebbles flew left and right, and soon he dug a small hole.

There is indeed something where the demon-subduing pestle is inserted!

"It looks like wood!"

"Sure enough." I squatted down with the emergency light and carefully checked the wood buried under the stones.

Cui Hao blinked in confusion: "Brother, did you guess there was wood underneath?"

"I felt it when I pulled out the demon-subduing pestle. It felt like it was stuck in something."

"Plus, the gravel is very weak, and if I just stuck in the cracks of the gravel, I wouldn't be able to use it to climb up."

"It seems that the walls and roof were built with wood, and then covered with stones on the outside. It is not a pure pile of stones."

"We can get down by just chiseling through this layer of wood."

"However, someone must have gone down there before us many years ago."

It is quite common in the tomb-robbing industry for someone to be entered into a tomb by their predecessors.

The older the tomb, the more likely it is that it has been visited by predecessors, and may even have been visited by multiple batches of predecessors from different dynasties.

Therefore, when people in the industry find a large tomb, they will immediately look around to see if there are any remains of tomb robbers.

"Look around first to see if there are any holes dug by robbers."