Book 3: Chapter 27: Ancient Python Corpse

Book 3: Chapter 27: Ancient Python Corpse

We pulled the skeleton out, put it next to the mound of dirt we had dug up, and then looked at it.

This skeleton was very strange. First of all, it must have been wearing armor before. It was probably a soldier, but based on the remaining fragments that had become iron lumps on its body, this piece of armor was very small. In other words, this corpse was very thin during its lifetime.

In fact, after nearly a thousand years of decay, only some fragments could be identified. But the ring-shaped arm guard formed by these fragments seemed to indicate that this persons arm had only been half as thick as my arm. They had definitely been pretty thin.

The strangest thing, however, was its skull. I couldnt describe it at first glance, so I asked Fatty, "Do you feel like this was a human?"

Fatty touched his chin, "This is a monster."

"What makes you say that?

"This head is at least half the size of a normal persons head," Fatty said. "Look at its cervical vertebrae again."

When I squatted down and looked at it carefully, I found that this corpses cervical vertebrae seemed to have hyperplasia (1). A lot of bifurcations had grown from its cervical vertebrae, much like horns.

"This person mustve had a very strong neck. There are nine cervical vertebrae (2)," I said.

"This man used to have nine heads," Fatty said. "But all of them were chopped off so he was left with only one head. His head was very small so that all nine of them could grow around his neck at the same time."

Fatty pointed to a "horn" and added, "Look. Its obvious that there was something on this bone spur that was cut off."

I touched it. Indeed, it was just as Fatty had said, but it wasnt necessarily a head. I thought about it some more and suddenly remembered what it was called.

"An ancient python corpse?" I asked Fatty. "You mean to say that this is the corpse of an ancient python?"

On the Mongolian grasslands, there was a kind of monster engraved on the ethnic groups markers here that was called an ancient python corpse. It appeared in a large number of myths and legends from various tribes in Mongolia, but no one really knew what it looked like. Only one characteristic was very clear: it had many heads.

Fatty nodded. "This is the ancient corpse of a tamed python. Didnt you say that the things you saw had fins around their ears?"

When I nodded, Fatty pointed to the corpses cervical spine, where the largest hyperplastic bone spurs could be seen on the left and right sides. "If there were still heads on these two bones, wouldnt it look like someone has fins?"

After looking at them, I suddenly felt a chill. "You mean, I didnt see fins, but two extra faces?" I asked him.

"The other bone spurs are very small, so even if heads had grown on them, they would only be the size of a newborn baby. But if heads had grown on these two, then theyd be about the same size as the main head."

I glanced at Poker-Facehe didn't say anythingand then carefully looked at the bone spurs again. They definitely werent normal cervical vertebrae, but more like hyperplasia. It was impossible for a human head to be on a bone spur, but I could tell that there had to be something else on it which had been cut off.

But this actually wasnt the case. The Turkic, Khitan, and Mongolian ethnic groups had three types of tombs. One was the ancient tombs of the nobles, which were built very deep in the no-mans lands of the mountains. That was why, when you went off the beaten track, youd feel as if you were the first human being in three thousand years to arrive there. But in reality, there might be a Khitan king's tomb under the mountain rock beneath your feet.

The second type of tomb was the ancient tombs in the ravines. Although they were all earthen pit tombs, most of the burial objects consisted of gilded horse harnesses, ornaments, and a lot of gold. As a result, Mongolia's earthen tombs were seriously damaged by grave robbers in the 1980s, and a large number of them were robbed.

In fact, the horse graveyard in this ravine belonged to this second type of tomb.

The third type of tomb was imperial tombs, which had been leveled by ten thousand horses. In fact, these tombs were more of a legend since no one had ever actually excavated one. Modern remote sensing technology had swept the grassland several times, but nothing had ever been found. The only possibility was that this kind of imperial tomb was buried much deeper than people thought.

When it comes to the first type of tomb, its necessary to talk about feng shui. In fact, the two cultures were mutually compatible, and ethnic groups that had some relations with the Central Plains would incorporate some feng shui into their customs.

The second type of tomb was relatively simple. The earthen pit tombs were all tombs that were clustered together in what seemed to be a customary practice. But the selection of these locations also had very detailed rules that needed to be abided by.

The last type of tombwell, I had actually heard a master I wasnt quite familiar with say it before, so I didnt know whether it was right or not. This master said that the Mongolian nomads and other wanderers werent involved with feng shui, but their natural instincts conformed with feng shuis principles. Their logic was actually very simple in that they followed the grasss growth and the river trends.

But once death was fixed, the Mongolians actually talked about "ground wind. This so-called wind was underground wind. Some local legends believed that the changes aboveground actually came from the underground wind, and the direction of this wind came from the stars in the sky. It was basically the same logic as that of the Central Plains feng shui.

I didnt know how to look at the feng shui of ground wind, but when I looked at the horse graveyard below, I could tell that the shape of this ravine was very similar to a lotus petal.

Shen Qianjue had said before that the underground palace was in the shape of a lotus flower, which meant that these two areas had to be related. This was clearly a burial pit, so what did that make the strange banquet in the underground palace where they had gone down? Was it another kind of burial pit, or did it serve some other purpose? I didnt know, but both of these places mustve had something to do with the worlds second most valuable tomb.

The huge setting of an imperial tomb was clearly used to tell a "story", so what story was the architect at that time telling us?

There was a strange banquet, a bone pit where horses had been buried, and a lotus flower. We had come to this grassland in a hurry and still hadnt figured out the theme, but we were already very exhausted.

I glanced at Poker-Face, who suddenly looked at me as if he had understood something. "You have to be mentally prepared," he said to me.

That sounded pretty ominous to me, but at this time, the satellite phone rang.

****

TN Notes:

(1) Hyperplasia is an increase in the amount of organic tissue that results from cell proliferation. In this case, more bone grew.

(2) FYI: Humans have 7 cervical vertebrae.

(1) Per Tiffany: Tengri is one of the names for the primary chief deity of the early Turkic and Mongolic peoples. Wiki link here.