Daomu Biji: Restart

"Let’s take a vote," I whispered. "There’s skin up here. Do you want me to take it down so you can have a look?"

"Is there a note on it that says: don’t take it off?" Fatty asked me.

When I said of course not, Fatty asked, "Are there any kinds of precious stones, gold, or silver jewelry on that skin?" When I said no, Fatty said, "Then it depends. If you like it, you can even use it as an apron."

"But this skin looks like it doesn’t want me to take it." It was covered in a layer of fine, moldy hair and looked very delicate to the touch. There were a lot of holes in it and I couldn’t figure out where the face was. It was almost like the whole thing was covered in faces, and the expressions were very creepy. I didn’t know if it was from the pain of death or from being skinned.

I reached out for my Kukri, wanting Fatty to pass it to me so that I could poke the skin a few times. Fatty gave me a high five instead and I realized that my favorite knife had been sacrificed earlier. I poked the skin with my cell phone and found that it was as dry as dried tofu. Fatty lifted up the equipment belt at this time, so I threw it up, hooked a protrusion on the piece of skin, and pulled it out of the boat bit by bit.

After moving the skin, I saw that there were a lot of ceramic little people under it, which must have been used as decorations for the boat.

Human skin couldn’t be preserved as well as stone, so there were many moth-eaten holes and traces of artificial damage to it. Despite all this, I could see that this human skin boat was very exquisite and must have been a relatively large boat at the time. Many places on it were decorated with shells, and there were clusters of gold thread, light pearls, corals, cinnabar sandstone, and fragments of blue ocean rocks. There were carvings on the boat's railing and scull, and the ceramic little people appeared to be sailors.

The keel of the ship under the skin was probably bronze, and there was a total of six bronze chains on both sides. At that time, this thing was definitely regarded as top-grade craftsmanship. It might have lacked precious gems such as tourmaline, ruby, and jadeite, but it was priceless among the local Xu people’s culture.

I climbed down and pulled the piece of human skin from above. As soon as it fell to the ground, we all took a step back. It was heavier than I had expected and broke apart when it landed.

"You can't make an apron now," Fatty said as he looked at my lower body.

I ignored him as I took a closer look at the piece of skin. This man's clothes must have been from the 1980s. "The biggest secret of the South Sea King’s tomb is here," I said to Fatty.

"That's right." Fatty touched his chin. "This South Sea King skinned people and turned them into these figurines before burying them. But what I don’t understand is if your Uncle Three came in at that time, how could this person be skinned? Was the South Sea skinner still living in the tomb?"

This man died on a human skin boat in mid-air, so he had to be hiding from something. Did the leather paper dolls do it? Did they resent their own deaths and skin those who came to rob the tomb?

"No, it's impossible for these leather figurines to move. But I did see a leather figurine and thunder god statue move earlier, so there must be something inside of them. There must be things in the South Sea King’s tomb that can move in all kinds of skins. This is clearly the skin of someone in your Uncle Three’s team, but its presence here is so baffling. The coffin was taken out of here and there aren’t any traces of fierce fighting, which shows that your Uncle Three succeeded. So, how could this person die alone here?" Fatty sounded horrified as he continued, “Don’t tell me…"

He then looked at me with a very solemn expression on his face, "Mr. Naïve, have you ever thought that these leather figurines may not actually be leather figurines?"

"If they’re not leather figurines, what are they? Your second uncle?" I asked him.

"They’re not my second uncle, but maybe… clothes? Maybe there’s a monster in this tomb that doesn’t have any skin, so it has to wear these human skins before it can move around. And there’s more than one of them. After someone in your Uncle Three’s team entered the tomb, it got into his skin, followed your Uncle Three out, and left the old skin here. No, wait. Maybe it did it to your Uncle Three and that’s why he couldn’t tell you the truth. In fact, he’s actually a zombie."

"Go fuck yourself!" I was furious when I heard him spouting such crap. The logic didn’t even make any sense. This lump of skin was wearing clothes from the 1980s, so the person it belonged to was obviously the one who had died. The skin was all here, so it was impossible to mix in with the team again.

Fatty let out an exclamation as if he had also discovered this.

Poker-Face said from off to the side, "This isn’t human skin, it’s a shuikao (1). It was probably up there because the tomb was flooded before. When they came in, this human skin boat was the only thing above the water. If the water level was high that year, maybe the entire drainage system and tomb chamber were filled with water."

I thought about it and knew he was right. This was the only way they could have transported such a large stone coffin out. But that also meant they had been blasting underwater. Such remarkable workmanship really needed to be recorded.

Fatty stepped forward and took a closer look, "But there’s a face on it. Are you trying to tell me shuikao also cover the face? Little Brother, you’re bullying me because I’m younger, right?"

"Look carefully, it's not like that," Poker-Face said. "Some of what you said just now may be correct." I looked carefully and saw that it really was a shuikao. It only looked like skin because white spots had appeared where the rubber had faded and rotted. But there really did seem to be something dead inside the shuikao.

****

TN Notes:

(1) Mentioned in the Snake Ancestor extra ("Fantasy" Extra 2). It’s a one-piece diving suit made by the ancients with fish skin, sea scorpion skin, or shark skin.