"It shouldn't be!"
Song Siyuan lowered her head and looked at the corpse in the Jinnan coffin. It was not surprising that it was so lifelike. After all, nobles had methods of embalming corpses, which could allow the corpse to maintain its original appearance as much as possible, or delay decomposition and preserve the whole corpse as much as possible.
What surprised her was that the corpse looked like a sleeping palace concubine, not a dead person. If coupled with the faint blush on the face, it was closer to a deep sleep than death.
"Shouldn't what?"
Yue Guanchao looked at the corpse and asked.
"We have indeed seen incorruptible corpses before, but most of them used the art of feeding to parasitize the body. This makes the body incorruptible. However, the outside is definitely completely different from living people. In fact, the corpse has been changed due to the art of feeding. Certain features of the body actually make the corpse appear more terrifying."
"Look at this thousand-year-old corpse."
She changed the topic: "For noble corpses like this, mercury cinnabar is often used to embalm them. Without the use of nectar, the limit of keeping the corpse from rotting is already the limit. Even if the body is not rotten, the outer skin has become pale and pale. Green and covered with mercury stains, these are indeed the price the ancients paid for the corpse not to decay."
Song Siyuan paused and continued to explain her curiosity: "This corpse has been buried since the late Northern Song Dynasty until now. It can be said to be between 800 and nearly a thousand years. Even if mercury is used for embalming, it will probably appear like corpse spots. Mercury spots, the current situation is definitely not normal."
"Could it be that this body was never dead?"
When Sun Tianqi mentioned this, everyone couldn't help but feel the hair on their backs stand up, and they all looked at the female corpse that was so bright and lifelike.
Yue Guanchao pulled out the silk thread from his clothes and placed it near the corpse's nostrils. He asked everyone to hold their breath and tested the corpse's snoring reaction. After a long time, he did not see any fluttering and trembling in the silk thread. Only then did he confirm that the corpse was no longer snoring and was not sleeping. people.
"call!"
Everyone exhaled in unison and felt temporarily relieved when they saw that the thread did not flutter.
"Could it be that some kind of beauty-preserving pill or corpse-fixing jade was used to fix the appearance of the corpse?"
Sun Tianqi traveled around the world and heard the stories of Zhuyan Danhe and Dingshi Jade.
Let’s talk about Zhuyan Dan first!
According to classic records, this beauty-preserving elixir is made from a stone from heaven, which looks red like pigeon blood and translucent like jade. It first appeared in the unofficial histories of the Han Dynasty.
Rumor has it that after Mrs. Li of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty passed away, in order to keep Mrs. Li's appearance immortal, Emperor Wu asked scholars all over the world to search for a magic elixir that could bring the dead back to life. He promised that as long as Mrs. Li could be resurrected, he would reward her with tens of thousands of gold and make her a thousand nobles.
With this benefit, practitioners all over the world are eager to find a panacea that will help them reach heaven and become rich and wealthy. For them, instead of pursuing the ethereal path to immortality, it is more important to enjoy the ultimate happiness and wealth in the world. At that time, there were countless folk refiners of medicine.
However, treasures are easy to come by, but elixirs are hard to find. No one has ever seen this medicine that brings the dead back to life. Of course, no one can take the imperial list. Even if some alchemists really enter the palace with the elixir, they can only think about it. If you try your luck with ordinary pills, you will often be kicked out by Emperor Wu's followers, or even beheaded by Emperor Wu for bragging too much.
Among the countless fake elixirs, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty could not find anything truly effective. However, the extraterrestrial stone presented by one of the alchemists helped him to a certain extent. Although this extraterrestrial stone could not Resurrection can make Mrs. Li's corpse look beautiful forever, even more beautiful than when she was alive.
After Emperor Wu's wish to bring Mrs. Li back to life was shattered, he began to accept the reality and decided to use this extraterrestrial stone to maintain Mrs. Li's appearance as before she was alive.
With the help of skilled craftsmen, the craftsmen used extraterrestrial stones to create eye-sized red beads and put them into Mrs. Li's mouth, which was called mouth-holding in the coffin.
After this red bead was put into Mrs. Li's mouth, her appearance, which had originally died of illness, began to gradually return to normal under the influence of the bead. Not only did she not look as weak as she had died of illness, but she looked more round and round.
Later, Emperor Wu named the bead Dingshi Dan and buried it with Mrs. Li's coffin.
Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty wanted to maintain Mrs. Li's appearance. In addition to commemorating his beloved concubine, he also had his own selfish motives. Mrs. Li was his favorite concubine. When he was about to be laid to rest a hundred years later, he also wanted to renew his relationship with Mrs. Li. Let her be buried with him along with many concubines. In order to prevent Mrs. Li's body from decaying, she could only embalm it in advance.
As a result, the Beauty Pill was taken into the coffin by Mrs. Li and could not be found again.
After Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty died of old age, the new emperor Liu Fuling decided to move Mrs. Li's coffin out of the underground palace for Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. He didn't believe that the Zhuyan Pill could really make the body look like life after death, so he just thought it was. Those alchemists lied to Emperor Wu, but it was not until he saw the coffin opened and Mrs. Li's face really lifelike that he believed that the Zhuyan Pill really had such miraculous effects.
However, Liu Fulin had selfish motives. He took the beads out of the mouth of Mrs. Li's corpse and transferred the beads to the dead Mrs. Gou Yi. In this way, he showed his filial piety to his dead biological mother, which made Mrs. Gou Yi's body more beautiful. The body returns to normal.
This story was later recorded in unofficial history and became a legend through the ages, and the name of Zhuyan Pill was passed down.
As for the other corpse-fixing jade, we have to start from the Western Regions.
The full name of Dingshi Jade is Kunlun Dingshi Jade. It is a rare jade native to the Kunlun Mountains. It is said that this jade is shaped like amber, the gold is translucent, and it has very weird and strange natural lines, just like a tiger and a The patterns on the leopard's body are complex and bright.
It first appeared in the records of Queen Mother of the West.
It is said that the Queen Mother of the West lives on the Kunlun Mountains, and the jade sheng she wears on her head is made of this kind of jade with strange patterns. It is also because of this thing that the Queen Mother of the West has always maintained her beautiful appearance, and her appearance has not changed for thousands of years.
Later, after King Mu of Zhou went west to Kunlun, the Queen Mother of the West once gave a piece of this jade to King Mu of Zhou. This left the legend of King Mu of Zhou and the Queen Mother of the West, which was recorded in the "Biography of the Emperor Zhou's Journey to the West".
The role of corpse-fixing jade is not limited to the dead, but also includes living people. As long as the corpse-fixing jade is carved into a bead and held in the mouth, the appearance will remain still and no longer change, just like a person's age and appearance are determined by the corpse-fixing bead. Settled.
However, such things are just legends in the biography of Emperor Zhou's Journey to the West. No one from the Zhou Dynasty has actually discovered the Kunlun jade sent by the Queen Mother of the West. It is also unknown whether the Emperor Zhou actually went to Kunlun Mountain to see the Queen Mother of the West.
"You'll know if you take a look."
Yue Guanchao took out his cotton gloves and opened the chin of the female corpse. His white teeth were slightly closed, and a red bead appeared in the mouth. If you use a fire stick to light it up, you can see that the bead is slightly transparent and reflects red light.
"Could it be that the thing in the old concubine's mouth is really the Zhuyan Pill? Isn't this thing in Mrs. Gou Yi's mouth?" 33
Song Siyuan took advantage of Sun Tianqi's curiosity and began to observe Mrs. Hu's body. There was obviously something in her nose. She picked up a cotton cloth and wiped it near her nose. It could be seen that the silver liquid slowly stayed on the cotton cloth.
"Is this mercury?"
This silvery liquid was obviously mercury. Yue Guanchao nodded: "Could it be that if there was really mercury in the body, there would probably be mercury markings. The corpse was clean, and there was no mercury in the nose." What corpse spots."
Thinking about it now, it was probably the mercury in the corpse that was thrown out of the nose by centrifugal force when the coffin was rotated just now, which is why they noticed the abnormality.
Song Siyuan walked to the golden nanmu coffin lid and carefully touched the material inside the coffin lid. When she stretched out her gloves, she could clearly feel that there was a layer of translucent white grease on the gloves. After the light shined, the cover was visible. It was also reflecting light, and her eyes became obviously brighter: "I understand, this is a three-layer coffin. The golden nanmu we saw is not the inner coffin of the sarcophagus, but just another layer of outer coffin."
"There is still an ice jade coffin in the real golden nanmu coffin."
After she said that, she opened the quilt that was wrapped around it. It could be seen that there was indeed a smaller, translucent coffin under the quilt. It looked like an ice coffin made close to the width of a person. It was exquisite and clear, and ice cracked water could be seen in the translucent coffin. The pattern looks like a coffin made of water.
"Is there such a coffin in the world?"
Yue Guanchao looked at the ice jade coffin carefully and his tone became confused.
"The ice jade coffin is actually a coffin made of colored glaze."
Sun Tianqi explained: "In the Northern Song Dynasty, after the brick-burning technology improved, the technology of firing colored glaze also became increasingly mature. Otherwise, they would not have made the colored glaze cover of the golden rainbow lamp. Things made of glass are also called ice jade. Utensils, such as glass cups are called ice jade cups, glass bowls are called ice jade bowls, and glass teapots are called ice jade teapots.”
"In ancient times, the technology for producing glass raw materials was underdeveloped, so the transparency of the glass produced was far from that of today's glass. It was a bit closer to a frosted texture, and even had water patterns, which looked like water condensing. Such things were worth more than gold in ancient times. I heard that a piece of colored glaze is worth an inch of gold, so it is very valuable."
"The coffin they made of ice glaze is of course called the ice jade coffin."
After Sun Tianqi finished speaking, Song Siyuan continued to explain: "Glass is an airtight material. Just now I saw that when you opened the lid of the golden nanmu coffin, there was yellow mud sealing wax. It was probably after closing the lid that the ice jade coffin was sealed. Even the gaps that allow air to penetrate are sealed with wax clay.”
"These practices, to a certain extent, create an inner and outer coffin, which isolates air from entering the coffin and creates a completely isolated environment from the outside world, which greatly delays the decay of the body caused by contact with the air."
After that, she showed off the translucent high fat on her white gloves: "I smell something similar to alcohol. This kind of grease is largely animal fat mixed with alcohol. Although the alcohol concentration is not high, it is in a certain place." It can also play a role in sterilization and disinfection to some extent.”
"The alcohol ointment slowly melts and absorbs heat, which also provides convenience for preserving the body."
She coughed a few times and concluded: "In general, the two layers of the inner coffin are able to isolate the air, and at the same time, the alcohol-covered grease slowly releases the alcohol, which plays a role in disinfection and sterilization. This is how the body has been maintained for nearly a thousand years, creating a A unique thousand-year-old fresh corpse is produced.”
"As for the lack of mercury spots on the corpse, it is largely because there is less air. When the air inside becomes thinner and the activity of some microorganisms slows down, it is less likely to produce mercury spots. At the same time, the tomb itself is cold enough. , which can be regarded as extending the preservation period of the corpse.”
"This situation will be fine for another thousand years."
Some people died, but not completely...
