The coffin was very large, and the dark black surface of the coffin exuded a strange light under the light. Judging from the material, it should be made of some kind of animal skin, or it might be a human skin coffin.
I still know a little bit about human skin coffins, because many years ago, our Yiyuanzhai actually encountered one, but compared with this human skin coffin, that one was slightly smaller by two circles.
I remember that a Taoist priest sent it to our Yiyuanzhai. From the Taoist priest’s mouth, I learned that human skin coffins are also called nailed human skins. Legend has it that in ancient times, many rich and noble people would prepare various kinds of things for themselves after their death. Various grave goods, including objects, livestock, or people and servants, are buried with the deceased in the tomb to ensure that the soul of the deceased can live a good life in the underworld and be served by others.
It is said that after the death of the ancient emperor, the concubines who were close to him were buried in a festive ceremony. According to legend, after the concubines fell asleep, the eunuchs cut a piece of their heads. The executor held a copper spoon and poured water into the cut part. Mercury, after pouring a certain amount of mercury, then sew the head with a needle and thread. After everything is done, you only need to wait for an hour, and the person will choose to crawl out of the breach because of the extreme itchiness. The concubines who were buried with them were not completely dead when they crawled out. Their skins were used to make coffins, while their flesh and blood were soaked in hundreds of herbs and dried to make living servants and buried with them in the tombs so that they could serve their masters for generations.
Probably in the early Han Dynasty, for some reason, a trend of human skin started. According to unofficial records, after the death of a wealthy family, six or seven out of ten people would choose to nail a layer of human skin into the coffin of the deceased. In other words, human skin is a blessing, as is the care of the family. At that time, everyone believed that human skin was the essence of the human body, and the older the person, the more precious his skin was. According to the saying at the time, people had to go through various hardships throughout their lives and ultimately had to rely on their own bodies. To overcome it, the more tempered the human skin is, the more blessings it can bring.
But where did so many human skins come from at that time, so the first people to suffer were the homeless beggars. First of all, beggars have been begging all their lives, and they have gone through a lot of hardships. In addition, most of them eat the food of hundreds of families, and some of them are on the high school. The old beggar has become a gluttonous treasure in the eyes of these wealthy people.
It is precisely because of the preciousness of human skin that many beggars are unlucky enough to meet some wealthy people. In all likelihood, they will not escape bad luck. Most of them will be skinned alive by these people and used to nail human skin coffins.
It is said that at that time, Liu Bang saw that it was okay. Although a beggar had a low life and only knew how to beg, he still had a life no matter what. If he was killed by these rich people, the whole country would still be in chaos, so he summoned his ministers to discuss a countermeasure.
At that time, Zhang Liang, the founding hero of the Han Dynasty, came up with a clever plan called "killing to stop killing." This killing does not mean killing people, but refers to killing the saying that "human skin is a blessing". Zhang Liang's countermeasure at that time was to focus on the disadvantages of human skin. The general content is as follows: People live a lifetime and experience various things. After suffering, the body will eventually be riddled with diseases, and human skin is the manifestation of these diseases, which is an extremely unlucky thing. If you continue to nail the human skin in the coffin, not only will it not bring good luck, but it will attract wandering ghosts due to its own bad luck. It will make the deceased have no peace after death.
It is said that Zhang Liang is really a genius. As soon as this statement came out, some wealthy people did give up the idea of continuing to use human skin coffins. However, there are still some people who don't believe it. After all, this statement was very coincidental, so some people are still secretly looking for some. The old beggar poisoned him and then skinned him.
This situation of indiscriminate killing continued for several more years, until something happened later that made people no longer dare to use human skin coffins.
The cause of the incident was that there was a minister named Guan Yue of the Ministry of Industry in the imperial court at that time. He was always corrupt and bending the law. He often took advantage of his power and robbed a lot of money from the people. As a result, his family was relatively wealthy. However, he happened to have an old father who died soon. , it seems that Guan Yue firstly wanted to show his filial piety, and secondly, he also wanted to use Feng Shui to benefit himself through alchemy. At present, the trend of human skin coffins is also popular among wealthy people, so he came up with the idea of finding a good human skin for his father. , but considering the pressure from the court, the housekeeper could only be ordered to do it secretly.
The steward quietly went around to find high-quality human skins for Guan Yue. As the saying goes, money can make the world go round. In less than three days, someone sent a human skin. After rewarding the person, the steward ordered the person to be rewarded. A piece of human skin was nailed into the old man's coffin.
The old man died a few days later, and Guan Yue held a grand funeral for his old father. At first, nothing happened, but starting from the seventh day after the old man was buried, Guan Yue had nightmares every night, dreaming about himself. My old father was beaten every day in the underworld.
He thought about whether there was something wrong with the funeral because he kept having such nightmares for no reason. He thought that there must be a reason for everything. The next day, he invited a very famous Taoist priest at the time to come and check.
The Taoist priest came over and divined a hexagram, and the hexagram revealed, which surprised everyone. It turned out that the problem lay in the human skin coffin.
Guan Yue was a relatively accomplished person in the court. He also knew what Liu Bang had said and thought that the Taoist priest was talking nonsense. In a rage, he ordered the Taoist priest to be killed. After that, he ordered the monk Zhan to be invited to the Central Plains area. After a hexagram, the hexagram showed the same as that of the Taoist priest, and there was something wrong with the human skin coffin. Guan Yue still didn't believe it, so he killed the monk again, so he visited the experts and visited seven or eight people. The answer was that there was something wrong with the human skin coffin.
Guan Yue was usually lawless, but now he actually had murderous intentions towards these people. He was afraid that these people would leak the news and make Liu Bang aware that he was breaking the law, so he ordered people to skin all these people alive and sell their skins at a low price. Those wealthy families. This made many Taoist priests very angry. In order to retaliate against Guan Yue, they established a Guan Yue Alliance and vowed to kill Guan Yue.
Guan Yue didn't care about these Taoist priests, but he still visited these masters. Once the other party said that it was a problem with the human skin coffin, he would skin him alive, take the skin and sell it at a low price. After about a year like this, he killed more than a hundred people.
But there is no airtight wall in the world. This incident reached Liu Bang's ears. Liu Bang was furious and ordered Guan to be cut into pieces by leaping five horses.
The story is not over yet. It was a hereditary system at that time. After Guan Yue's death, his son replaced him. On the third day after Guan Yue's death, his son had a dream that Guan Yue was beaten severely in the underworld.
The same dream frightened Guan Yue's son, so he followed Guan Yue's path and asked monks everywhere. If the problem turned out to be a human skin coffin, he would kill these people without saying a word.
Not long after, Liu Bang found out about this again, and ordered Guan Yue's son to be quartered on five horses.
Then, Guan Yue's grandson named Guan An succeeded him. Guan An was only thirteen years old at the time and had always been known as a talented man. Fortunately, he was also considered a figure and did not follow the path of his father and grandfather. He went around He searched and tried to find a solution, but Guan Yue had done too many evil things before and there was no Taoist priest or monk to advise him. In this way, every time when he was young, he would have the same nightmare, dreaming that his ancestors were beaten severely in the underworld.
With no other choice, Guan An ordered his people to conduct a thorough investigation into the matter of the human skin coffin. The truth was hard to accept. It turned out that the human skin that Guan Yue bought at that time belonged to the father of the person who had given it to him for money. Skinning his biological father caused quite a stir at the time.
Then the Taoist priests thought that Guan An had a trace of filial piety and gathered all the wisdom of the world. They invented a formation and practiced it for seventy-seven forty-nine days. After that, no one dared to nail human skin into a coffin. It was said that they would get curse.
So, when I saw clearly that there was such a huge human skin coffin in front of me, I couldn't help but take a breath. What's even more terrible is that this human skin coffin is not simply a piece of human skin sewn into the coffin, but is made of more than a dozen complete human skins.
There was a person standing upright in front of the coffin. It was none other than Xiong Ming.
After I saw Xiong Ming, I couldn't help but shout loudly: "Dili Xiong...!"
But after he heard my cry, Xiong Ming turned his head and smiled strangely at me. Then he took out a knife and stabbed himself in the neck.
