Chapter 29: The Book of the Ruler of Dead Soldiers

Chapter 29: The Book of the Ruler of Dead Soldiers

About the text written in The Book of the Ruler of Dead Soldiers (1), I transcribed the parts that I could understand. Some of the writing was unclear, and some of the characters were too warped for the computer to display them, but I converted what I could to modern Chinese.

When King Shang was twenty-five years old, his father passed away and he inherited the position of Grand Sima (2). He led the army and robbed graves. The treasures obtained were used to pay the army and help fund conquests.

One day, King Shang and his men found an ancient tomb, but they couldnt determine what dynasty it was from. When they opened the coffin, there was a giant snake inside, which sprang up and tried to kill the king.

But King Shang was courageous and strong, and he lifted his sword and cut the snake. He thought that there must be something evil afoot since the giant snake was lying inside the coffin, so he cut the snakes stomach open. There he found a purple-enameled box, but he couldnt open it no matter how hard he tried.

That night, a white-bearded man appeared in the King Shangs dream, and asked him angrily, Why did you kill me?

The king was a violent man by nature and had killed lots of people, so he said in a reproachful tone, I killed you because I wanted to! Theres no other reason!

The white-bearded man got even angrier and turned into the giant snake the king had seen earlier that day. It opened its mouth and tried to eat the king, but he wielded his sword and wounded the snake. He then stepped on its head and said, You didnt die when I cut your stomach open earlier, so now Im going to cut off your head. Can you survive that?

The snake spoke in the human tongue and begged, Im willing to give you two treasures in exchange for my life. The king agreed, so the snake told him how to open the purple-enameled box and taught him how to use the treasures that were inside.

After the king memorized it by heart, he had the thought that no one should know about this secret except for himself, so he beheaded the snake.

The king woke up in a pool of blood and realized that it hadnt just been a dream. He did as the snake had told him and opened the purple-enameled box successfully, finding that the treasures inside were just as the snake had described. The king didnt want his men to know about it, so he not only killed all of them, but their family members too. He spared no one, not even those in their infancy.

The other parts were either difficult or almost impossible to read because after Qin Shi Huang (5) burned books and killed scholars, many things from the Shang dynasty, Zhou dynasty, and Spring and Autumn Period were lost. There were a lot of especially rare words that were lost as well. Even if we had people from the Chinese Academy of Sciences look into the text, it may take them decades to completely understand the words.

At that time, I couldnt understand what was weird about it until Uncle Three mentioned that the above paragraphs were different from the other parts of the text. To be honest, this could have been avoided if we had a master of Chinese Studies with us. For people like us, we could only admit that we fell into the trap. (6)

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TN Notes:

(1) Could also be called The Book of King Shang. This chapter is basically a summary of Vol 1 Chapter 26 Cavern of Blood Zombies.

(2) Even though the text said King, his position was probably somewhere between marquess and earl. During the Eastern Han dynasty, the term Grand Sima came to mean Minister of War. More information here

(3) The emperor here referred to the emperor mentioned back in Sand Sea Chapter 133. It was established that he was really just a duke at that time.

(4) Shang here can mean someone who has died young, or someone who has died at war. (Also pulled from Sand Sea Chapter 133)

(5) Qin Shi Huang became China's first emperor when he was 38 after the Qin had conquered all of the other Warring States and unified all of China in 221 BC. Wiki link

(6) Since the ancient text was supposed to be difficult to read, there was no way Wu Xie could have understood even parts of the text. Someone deliberately made this part of the text easy to read. It was a scheme.