Records of the Cattle and Horses of Chang'an

Chapter 606 Human and Animal Gu

Zhao Shan, who had witnessed Jiang Shangxian's unstoppable nosebleed, barely gave it a second thought. He grabbed Jiang Shangxian's arm and dragged her back a few steps. "Why is your nose bleeding again? Is there something dirty here? What do you smell?"

The last time Jiang Shangxian was like this was because of the poison in Cui Bianxu.

"I don't know...it's just the smell of cinnabar, earth, minerals...and..." Jiang Shangxian lowered his head slightly and sniffed back and forth.

Last time she smelled too many bad smells, but this time she didn’t smell any special smell?

Suddenly, a faint smell passed quickly across her nose and disappeared in the next moment.

In an environment with complex smells, if a certain smell is not pungent enough or the quantity is not large enough, it will cause this intermittent appearance. This is not the first time Jiang Shangxian has encountered this. As long as he is patient enough, this smell will definitely appear again.

She simply took off the handkerchief and let the blood from her nose flow to her lips. After a long while, she finally uttered two words with a serious expression: "Human oil."

It was the smell of human oil, exactly the same as what she smelled that time in the Dali Temple!

"Human oil?" Jiubai looked at the lit lights on the walls on both sides in disbelief. Could it be that these were all human oil?

In an instant, everyone turned their eyes to the lamp.

Zhao Shan's face wasn't looking good, but his mind was still working, so he immediately rejected the suggestion. "Impossible! This lamp should be filled with mermaid cream. Liuzhou is close to the South China Sea. I've read in ancient books that Emperor Qin Shi Huang used mermaids from the South China Sea to make candles out of mermaid cream. If this is truly Zhao Tuo's tomb, he would have done the same."

Which emperor in this world doesn’t want to achieve great achievements like Ying Zheng?

I just can't create anything new, so I might as well just learn some random things to satisfy my curiosity.

It's almost equivalent to the star effect.

Jiang Shangxian understood what he meant. Lingnan was located close to the South China Sea, so Zhao Tuo had perfect access to the water and could do this easily.

It’s just a matter of convenience!

As for human oil....

It may sound a bit immoral, but the fact is, to those in power, the lives of ordinary people and slaves are like ants and are worthless. If they are used for the same purpose in their own mausoleums, how can human oil be better than mermaid cream?

"But I really smell the smell of human oil." Jiang Shangxian, who blocked her nostrils with a handkerchief again, spoke in a muffled voice. She felt that it was not certain whether Qin Shihuang could get something as illusive as mermaid cream, let alone Zhao Tuo.

She had smelled human oil before and the memory was still fresh, so she couldn't be wrong.

The affirmative voice echoed in the corridor, and everyone felt a chill rising from the soles of their feet. If there weren't so many people, even a middle-aged man would feel scared when entering such a place for the first time.

Unexpectedly, Yingzi spoke again: "Madam, there seems to be something in that jar. Is it an oil jar?"

Being short has its advantages. Yingzi pays more attention to things that are low.

Her words drew everyone's attention back to the bronze jar, where a little oily substance was seen flowing out very slowly from the mouth of the jar.

Zhao Shan was also a little unsure: "Why put an oil can there?"

What kind of good person would put something like this in a tomb?

The oil lamp in the tomb, also called the eternal lamp, often serves a symbolic purpose of guiding souls.

The emperor's tomb has an extra layer of anti-corrosion function. Sufficient oil lamps burn out all the oxygen in the tomb, making the tomb more airtight.

Jiang Shangxian had heard that some mausoleums would use double-layer lamps, with the outer layer filled with water to cool it down, and the inner layer storing oil, with wicks containing white phosphorus. If someone entered the tomb again after it was sealed, the lamp would spontaneously combust.

All the lights lit up in an instant was naturally a very spectacular sight. If it were a tomb robber who had not received modern education, he would probably be scared away by such a scene.

But no one would put oil jars in a tomb!

Could it be that they expected the tomb owner to get up from his lying position to refill the lamps?

hiss...

Jiang Shangxian thought this was a bit funny, but just as the corners of his mouth curled up a little, he caught a glimpse of the bronze jar from the corner of his eye and got goose bumps: "What is that?"

I saw that the oil flowing out of the bronze jar was mixed with small black balls the size of a fingernail. Due to the dim light in that place, the people who were distracted by the human oil that Jiang Shangxian mentioned did not notice it at the first time.

This didn't include Qiqige. Her attention had been on the bronze jar, and her expression changed at this moment. She hesitated and was shocked. "This... should be a human sacrifice Gu. It likes to feed on human fat. Each one represents a sacrificed person."

"represent?"

Jiang Shangxian and others did not understand the meaning of this sentence.

What is a representative?

Although burying people alive with the dead has been officially abolished long ago, this ancient tradition is still common among the ancient aristocracy who valued the dead as the living.

Could it be that Zhao Tuo was quite environmentally friendly and used black beads instead of human sacrifice?

Before Qi Qi Ge could answer, the black balls that were rolling more and more suddenly started moving.

To be precise, it should be stretched.

Just when Jiang Shangxian suspected that there was something wrong with his eyes, those spheres slowly grew three pairs of thin legs in full view of everyone.

As the thin legs fully unfolded, the black beads soaked in oil seemed to come alive, like creatures that had been silent for a whole winter and revived when the temperature rose, slowly at first, and then seemed a little sluggish.

This kind of dullness was frightening - all the human sacrifice Gu were facing the direction of the intruder.

Jiang Shangxian felt very strange that these things, which she couldn't even tell the beginning from the end, actually made her feel like she was being watched.

"Does this bug bite people?" Zhao Shan's legs felt weak. No matter how many books he had read, he had never seen such a thing.

Qi Qi Ge felt that the people in the Central Plains might really have something wrong with their brains. This is what they asked: If it doesn't bite people, why put it here?

"Is there any way to kill them?" Jiang Shangxian also thought Zhao Shan was stupid. Putting such things in the tomb was obviously to prevent tomb robbers. Why put such things in there if they don't bite people?

Qi Qi Ge seemed a little unsure: "I've only heard about this thing from the previous generation of Gu Po. I can only give it a try."

As professionals were so unsure, Jiang Shangxian was naturally insecure: "Why not use fire?"

Anyway, they all had torches with them, so at worst they could just knock down the lamps on the wall to provide some support.

But Qiqige said, "This thing cannot be killed by fire."

It is no longer possible to verify when the Xiou tribe's Gu Po tradition began. Since they do not have their own writing system, their tradition has become very difficult.

The specific methods of refining most Gu have been lost over the years because they require extremely high talent or a large number of human lives to refine.

For example, the human sacrifice Gu in front of you, each round bead represents a human life.