In an ice chamber within the tomb of the demonic monk, I looked at the horse carcasses covered in frost and couldn't help but wonder: "It's not uncommon for ancient tombs to bury the deceased's beloved horses with the deceased, but it's quite rare to bury a horse after slaughtering it. This horse's neck is almost severed, and there's no saddle or stirrups around it. It's very strange!"
The monkey scratched its head: "Isn't this evil monk a Buddhist monk? Why is he using killing to commit suicide?"
“This is just the slaughter of one horse. Have you forgotten the hundreds of laborers in that cave outside? And Shenxing just said that the mass grave outside the tomb was used to kill countless young girls as traps.”
Song Laosan looked at the horse and thought for a moment: "I think this is not the horse that the evil monk rode in his previous life, but the horse sacrifice in the Soma ritual."
The monkey turned its head: "What Ma Si Ma Wu?"
"The horse sacrifice, also known as the horse ritual, is the most important sacrifice in Brahmanism. During the sacrifice, the priest selects a strong stallion through certain rituals and lets it roam around for a year. While the horse is roaming, it is accompanied by the king or an army led by the king's representative. When the horse enters the territory of another country, it forces that country to submit, otherwise it will be conquered by force."
Having spent so many years in India, Song Laosan had some understanding of the local culture: "Once a conquest is won, the defeated king must join the victor's procession as an attendant, or he will be ridiculed. After the victors return home with their horses, a grand ceremony is held by the priests, with the chanting of Vedas and the slaughter of the horses. This ritual is lengthy and extremely expensive. If this horse was indeed used for a horse sacrifice, then this wicked monk's status back then wouldn't have been low; he was probably at the level of a royal advisor, and..."
Seeing Song Laosan hesitate, I pressed him for more information: "And what else?"
Song Laosan remained tight-lipped: "It's nothing. Let's keep going. I hope my guess is wrong."
Seeing Song Laosan's rambling appearance, I wanted to ask him something, but worry stopped my curiosity. After all, there was only one path ahead, and I could witness it myself. Perhaps he was keeping quiet to prevent us from overthinking.
We passed through Ma Si's room and continued along the corridor built of ice blocks, only to be blocked by an ice door.
The monkey stood in front and shone its flashlight on the edge of the ice door: "There's not a single gap in this door. It must have been watered and frozen solid."
"Knock it open!"
I gestured to the long stone in my hand: "The temperature here is so low, I feel like my body is about to freeze. Let's smash a hole in this door as a warm-up."
We couldn't get past the stone gate, but an ice gate was no problem for us.
The ice door wasn't very thick; the three of them worked for about half an hour and managed to dig a hole big enough for a person to crawl through.
The advantage of the ice palace is that you can tell at a glance whether there are any traps or mechanisms in the walls. The monkey was always thinking about finding the treasure, so after I confirmed that there was no danger at the entrance, he went in first.
"Bang! Crash!"
The monkey had just crawled inside when a sound like shattering glass came from inside, followed by his scream: "Holy shit!"
I immediately tensed up: "Monkey! What's wrong?!"
Whether frightened or cold, the monkey's voice trembled slightly: "Young Master Duan, come and see for yourself."
Worried that something might be wrong with the monkey, I quickly darted to the other side.
Shining a flashlight on it, I saw a pile of corpses in front of the monkey.
It's described as a puddle because the body had been smashed to pieces, and the body parts remained frozen, revealing the internal organs.
Besides the corpses he knocked over, there was a large group ahead that blocked our view.
The corpses, both male and female, were completely naked, sitting cross-legged in the same spot, facing our direction.
The low temperature of the ice room preserved them exactly as they looked in life.
The three corpses in front of me were a young girl, a bald middle-aged man, and a disabled person with a twisted leg.
They all died from slit throats, their chests covered in frozen blood.
Even more terrifying is that most of the corpses had their eyes open, their狰狞 expressions at the moment of death frozen in time.
The look in those dead people's eyes sent chills down my spine.
"One, two, three, four, five..."
The monkey counted the corpses in front of it: "There must be at least several dozen people here, right? Were they all human sacrifices buried with the dead?"
"No need to count, one hundred and eighty-four. They were not human sacrifices, but human offerings. Although the essence of human sacrifice, human offering, and human burial is the same—killing a living person—the meaning is different."
Song Laosan's voice behind me startled me, and he continued, "This is a human sacrifice in Brahmanism. The purpose of the sacrifice is to pray for what is not obtained in the horse sacrifice. The earliest Indian text, the Vairochana Veda, lists 184 types of people who can be sacrificed. The objects of these sacrifices are different. For example, a stone woman is used to sacrifice to Yama, a farmer to Marata, a bald old man to the gods, a lame man to the earth gods, and a blind man to the sleepers, and so on!"
Seeing that Song Laosan knew everything, I recalled his previous actions: "When you were in Ma Si's room before, you said you hoped your guess was wrong. Was that what you were referring to?"
“Yes! Logically speaking, the horse sacrifice is a sacrificial method used only by kings, and it shouldn’t appear in the tomb of the evil monk! But as you said, he even used the three main gods of Brahmanism as tomb guardians, so it’s not surprising that he did something like this.”
Song Laosan continued, "This evil monk must have begged for something through the horse sacrifice, but failed, so he held a large-scale human sacrifice... But this is also beneficial to us!"
The monkey scoffed, "What good does it do us if he kills people?"
"Brahmanic sacrifices are divided into family sacrifices and divine revelation sacrifices. Divine revelation sacrifices are further divided into offering sacrifices and Soma sacrifices. Offering sacrifices are relatively peaceful, while Soma sacrifices are relatively bloody! Indian texts mention many types of Soma sacrifices, which are called 'seven assemblies', but according to scholars, there are usually six types of this sacrifice, one of which is called the total sacrifice, which refers to the sacrifices performed by Brahmins before they renounce worldly life, in which they dedicate all their property and family to the gods!"
Old Song held up two fingers: "We've already found two offerings, which means there must be treasures that the evil monk offered to the gods in the four rooms ahead!"
Upon hearing this, the monkey scurried forward, saying, "What are we waiting for! Let's go! What are we doing staring at a bunch of dead people here!"
As I walked among the corpses, I muttered to myself, "We were just passing through and had no intention of disturbing you. Please forgive us!"
The first few rooms looked much more normal, but there were only three rooms, not four as Song Laosan had said.
The monkey stood in the last room and questioned him, "Song Laosan, didn't you say all the evil monk's treasure was here? Where is it?"
"Strange, judging from the furnishings of these rooms, this is clearly a Soma Festival! How come the full festival is missing?"
Looking down the corridor ahead, Song Laosan said, "Isn't there still a path? Perhaps Quan Ji's room is ahead! Let's go take a look!"
Although there were tables in these rooms, and some wine glasses and the like, they weren't what we were looking for, so I didn't linger there.
After walking along the corridor for about ten meters, the space outside suddenly turned into a platform.
This platform, surprisingly, juts out from the cliff face and is made of solid ice.
I stood on the cliff, shining my flashlight down, stunned for almost a minute before I could speak: "So... this is the true meaning of the Blissful Floating Pagoda!"
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