Book 1: Chapter 59

Book 1: Chapter 59

The giant coffin was half a foot high and one and a half feet long. It was made from a polished boulder that had been taken from the rocks in the underground river (some details are filled in using my imagination). This incident was regarded as a miracle and eventually presented to the Han Emperor. The emperor sent a minister to Minyue to follow the South Sea nobleman into the underground river. The minister saw a lot of post stations in the underground river, where the Xu people lived and fished. The cooking fires in this cave village revealed a thriving scene, and he could even see that chimney holes had been dug into the ground everywhere. He sighed with emotion, as if he were witnessing an earthly marvel. Since many underground rivers had dense fog all year round that formed into rolling clouds, this minister called the underground basin in this South Sea country "Falling Cloud Country".

He went deep into the underground river with the South Sea nobleman and found that the underground cave was endless. When he reached the area where the sarcophagus was located, he found that there were many strange words on it that no one could understand.

The minister copied the words down and ordered the people to open the giant stone sarcophagus. When they did, they found that there was a coffin filled with golden liquid inside.

This golden liquid was very strange, but according to the legends, the corpse fluid of immortals was also golden. The minister marveled at what he was seeing and said that the golden liquid was what had been left after the person shed his earthly skin and became immortal.The source of this content nov(el)bi((n))

Other than the lone sarcophagus, there was nothing else further inside the cave. There weren't even any traces of human activity.

After returning home, the minister told the Han Emperor everything he had seen. In the middle of his journey through the wild lands of southern China, there was a mysterious entrance to an underground river that led to a place called Falling Cloud Country. This secluded place was just like a wonderland, where magical people lived and practiced alchemy (1). Once these people became immortals, the earthly bodies that they had shed would turn into a mass of golden liquid.

This description shocked the imperial court and the masses. The emperor was also obsessed with alchemy, so he asked the minister to find someone who could read the mysterious words on the sarcophagus. At that time, the nation was strong and prosperous, so information was easily accessible. It didnt take him long to find someone who happened to be an alchemist. This person recognized that this kind of writing was called hao wen, which was a writing style that alchemists in the Shang Dynasty had used.

I realized that there was a hidden message in the mural. I didnt know why it was expressed in a such an obscure way, but the message basically said: the South Sea King always thought that this unknown sea he had discovered was underground.

He had followed the dark underground river behind the sarcophagus for more than a month before he saw the exit. But he didn't actually think it was an exit. Instead, he thought that it was the land of immortals and that was why he saw the immortal boat.

The things after that were related to thunder, which was what I had photographed with my phone earlier.

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TN Notes:

(1) It didnt blatantly say alchemist but its kind of close. You can think of it as supernatural arts like healing, divination, horoscope, etc. Note that Chinese alchemists research elixirs on how to attain immortality (not like Western alchemists who are known for trying to change stuff to gold). More info on the supernatural arts here

(1) Fun fact: Will of Heaven can also be called Providence, which is probably why the drama is called Sound of the Providence.