Daomu Biji: The Mystic Nine

Zhang Qishan looked at Qi Tiezui. Everyone in the industry said that he was a coward, but there were some people in the world who usually looked stupid and cowardly, but became a whole other person when they were in a field they were familiar with and liked. Zhang Qishan smiled without saying a word. He wanted to see what Qi Tiezui had to say.

Lieutenant Zhang was a little uneasy at this time and looked to Zhang Qishan as if he wanted to say something, but stopped himself. Zhang Qishan was a little confused and asked him, "What are you nervous about?"

"Fo Ye, I’m a snake." Lieutenant whispered. Zhang Qishan almost wanted to laugh, but he sneered instead: "All the Zhang family members whose birthdates weren’t auspicious died in the northeast. If you’ve stayed with me this long and I haven’t killed you, no one can."

“Fo Ye!” Lieutenant immediately saluted, as if to say he was willing to die by Fo Ye’s hands. Qi Tiezui shook his head and squatted down, stroking the nails on the ground.

They weren’t ordinary nails. The heads were engraved with various complicated characters, and there were three layers of them nailed to the floor around the inner and outer coffin. The nails had been driven deeply into the wood. Qi Tiezui ran his hand across a circle of them, and found that his hand was covered in toner. It appeared these nails had originally been stored in ink.

The ancients didn't use nails for their burials, but used leather straps to tie the coffins. Three long and two short leather straps tightly crisscrossed the coffin, which was why the phrase “unexpected misfortune” was used to describe others' affairs (1). After iron became popular in later periods, coffin nails—known as zhen or zisun nails (2)— replaced leather straps, and a total of seven nails was considered auspicious.

There was an old custom in Guangxi, Guangdong where they would pick up the bones from the coffin ten or twenty years after the deceased's burial. They would pull out the coffin nails, open the coffin cover, and place the bones in another coffin to be re-buried. Those extracted coffin nails that were well preserved would be collected and made into bracelets.

This kind of bracelet made with the nails from their ancestors' coffins could ward off evil spirits. For feng shui masters in Guangdong, this kind of coffin nail was very useful. Collecting them could calm the wind and trap the water, and might even save their life in a critical moment.

There were three layers of these water trapping nails, which were used to seal the coffin's evil spirit inside the circle. The nails were of varying sizes, which showed that the master must have either been acquiring them for decades or received them from his ancestors. It must have truly been some hard-earned capital this time.

Qi Tiezui didn’t know if the other party had done anything else to the nails, but ancient people would use one of the nails to kill and pin a rooster to the coffin’s surroundings before using it on the coffin itself. He looked around but didn't see any roosters, nor could he tell if something else had been nailed to the wood instead.

A vague idea was taking shape in Qi Tiezui's mind: the dilapidated train entering Changsha Station at night, the cars sealed by iron sheets, the bronze mirror on the front of the train, the outer coffin chamber sealed in iron, and the outer coffin room full of nails.

Qi Tiezui turned to Zhang Qishan: "This master is coming for you and me, Fo Ye."

"Why do you say that?" Zhang Qishan asked as he also squatted down.

"The bronze mirror is a tradition of the Qi family, which is a family that’s traveled all over the world and is widely known. Everyone has also heard of Zhang Da Fo Ye in Changsha. There isn’t anyone who doesn’t know your reputation. The Zhang family's two-fingered probing technique is a unique skill of the Northern School and the rules on how to deal with whistle coffins were also decided by the Zhang family’s ancestors. This whistle coffin was sealed in an outer coffin chamber that was sealed with iron sheets, and dozens of coffin nails were placed outside of it. It means the contents are to be taken very seriously. The master locked up the qi, sealed the coffin, and sent it to Changsha, knowing you were here. This bronze mirror was to get me, a descendant of the Qi family, to tell you how serious the matter is."

Zhang Qishan looked at the huge coffin and asked, "Why didn't the Qi family descendant come in person?"

Qi Tiezui felt aggrieved as he told himself that when he saw the train earlier, he should have thought of the Qi family’s motto—a feng shui master who possessed special skills was the same as a demigod. When they saw ferocious graves in the mountains in the old days, they had to seal the mountain and level the land in order to save the locals from suffering. Because they were sealing the mountain, the items in the graves were taken out. They often couldn't bear to discard them, however, so they started exchanging them in the market for travel expenses, which was how they slowly entered the shady business of grave robbing. Many of the Qi family’s ancestors who died in the wilderness were regarded as grave robbers and didn’t have any bones left.

As a result of all of this, the Qi family was different from the rest of the nine families. Apart from Old Dog Wu, who was still young and didn’t know how big the world was, all the other families were bitter and full of hate. It was very stressful to chat and have dinner with them.

The Qi family was a family that had been handed down from generation to generation and was very happy to know its fate. The feng shui masters had insights into the heavenly secrets, didn’t suffer mortal exhaustion, knew their blessings, and weren’t afraid of dying. Qi Tiezui only felt ashamed because his timid appearance made him feel as if he was letting the Qi family down.

He looked at Zhang Qishan and said, "This coffin is no small matter. The Qi family’s descendant wouldn’t dare not come here, but if I’ve guessed correctly, the one who died in the engine car is a descendant of the Qi family."

When Zhang Qishan looked up and frowned, Qi Tiezui continued: "Now that war is imminent and the military is keeping in close contact with each of its branches, this coffin can't remain in the station the whole time. But it can’t be moved until we know there’s nothing dangerous in there. Fo Ye, it’s going to take your Zhang family's skills."

Zhang Qishan's childhood was different from most people's. He had seen too many deaths after joining the army, so now he was actually numb to life and death. If he had met a random grave robber, he would say that he didn’t know what this coffin was, but throwing a grenade into it—whether there was a corpse or zombie inside— wouldn’t make much of a difference. But Zhang Qishan knew that it wouldn’t be so simple this time.

Lieutenant whispered in his ear, reminding him that this was a trap set up by the Japanese. They might have created a situation where the coffin was filled with explosives that would be triggered when someone reached in, and the whole railway station would blow up, just to kill him.

Zhang Qishan motioned with his hand. The so-called "two-fingered probing" skill was designed to break through all kinds of subtle mechanisms. Even if it was a bomb, the Zhang family's skills meant they could also directly dismantle it with their two fingers, and the explosives could be directly returned to the front line when the war started. Logically speaking, if the whistle coffin was really dangerous, they would simply roast it directly on the spot. The coffins were really only dangerous to those looking for personal gain. The Qi family had specially sent this to him in Changsha and called him out, but it was a pity the strangeness wasn’t that simple.

After leaving the iron coffin room, the three of them took off their gas masks. Zhang Qishan looked at the sun, and saw that it was still early. He sighed and asked Lieutenant, "How long has it been since our family touched the shears?"

"Three years and four months, Fo Ye." Lieutenant answered. He then whispered: "There are four military trains passing through the station this afternoon. This train has to be moved."

"Then don't wait." Zhang Qishan glanced at Qi Tiezui. "Fortune teller, help me hold the gong."

****

TN Notes:

(1) This is a play on words. The characters are 三长两短 which mean “three long, two short” by themselves. Stick them all together and you get one of these phrases “unexpected misfortune/unexpected accident/sudden death”

(2) Zhen= to calm/to subdue/to suppress. Zisun=posterity