A colossal cloth-wrapped rectangular object plummeted from the ceiling, and Long Sheng kept glancing around. Seeing Zhou Huan staring intently at the object and moving toward it, believing it must be something left by his grandfather, Long Sheng sprang swiftly onto the edge of the fire-heated brick bed that hadn't collapsed. He rapidly tore open the large cloth wrapping. The moment he saw what lay inside, he plopped down right into the demolished smoke vent, landing hard amidst the embers.

"Master Zhou... a coffin!" Tears were practically streaming from Long Sheng's eyes; his pupils trembled as he stared fixedly at the stone coffin, his entire body shaking.

This wasn't the same Long Sheng who had previously been consumed by a desire for wealth. This time, he probably lacked the courage even to look at the gold strewn on the floor. If it had been someone else, they might have snatched some gold and bolted. But this was Long Sheng's grandfather's ancestral home, and the coffin had crashed down from the roof, smashing heavily onto the kang.

The lid of the stone coffin, which had landed at the head of the kang, slowly slid away. A sharp, dusty odor drifted out, forcing Zhou Huan and Long Sheng to recall the terrifying scenes they had witnessed in the tomb chamber.

Zhou Huan's expression remained utterly calm. He smiled faintly at Long Sheng before looking down into the coffin again. A potent stench of dried corpse emanated from within. "Well now, what a powerful smell. Seems the house is damp. Thank heavens the body is dry; if it were fresh, who knows what would happen!"

"Master Zhou, there's... there's a body in here too!" Long Sheng was already terrified just hearing Zhou Huan speak. He didn't dare stand up to peek. A body in a tomb chamber was one thing, but this one had appeared in a dwelling meant for the living, especially dropped from the ceiling—what kind of decorum was that?

Zhou Huan meticulously examined the coffin's interior fittings from the side. The corpse inside was curled up, its skeletal structure clearly visible, though the face was obscured. The body was tightly gripping a wine flask in its hand. The flask shimmered with a brilliant golden light and was intricately etched with Persian script and patterns. Zhou Huan instantly recognized the object; it was clearly one of the burial accompaniments from the tomb chamber. How had it ended up here? And how had those iron tools suddenly transformed into a pile of gold? Where did this gold originate?

"Long Sheng, give me a pair of the gloves you use for work." Zhou Huan was intentionally trying to make Long Sheng stand up; after all, how could an archaeologist be afraid of a dried corpse?

Long Sheng nervously fumbled in his bag and pulled out a pair of gloves, intending for Zhou Huan to take them himself. But Zhou Huan snapped, "You're a grown man. Everyone dies eventually. What's there to fear? Get up, hand me the gloves, or I’ll give you a proper lesson today." As he spoke, Zhou Huan leaped into the stone coffin.

The stone coffin was quite large; it seemed a bit small for just one person. But strangely, the interior of the coffin had numerous grooves, each shaped to match the tools they had just disassembled. Now Zhou Huan understood. Long the Translator must have made arrangements long ago; he must have intended to place all those finished implements into this stone coffin. However, some unexpected event must have occurred, preventing him from storing everything inside.

Long Sheng timidly stood up, and only when he saw the desiccated corpse inside the coffin did he slowly start to adapt. He handed the gloves to Zhou Huan, who began a rudimentary examination of the body. First, he tried to move the corpse, but oddly, the body seemed nailed to the bottom of the coffin. The golden flask clutched in its hand appeared to still hold wine that hadn't oxidized or evaporated.

Zhou Huan turned to see Long Sheng watching him work and feigned seriousness. "Long Sheng, there's a cup of wine here. Drink it, and you'll never be afraid of corpses again."

"Master Zhou, don't joke with me. What does drinking have to do with fear? Besides, who knows what kind of wine is in there?"

"It must be good wine. Think about it: wine held in a flask made of gold—how could it taste bad? This must have been a wealthy man." As Zhou Huan spoke, he tried to lift the flask, but unexpectedly, he couldn't budge it. This took Zhou Huan completely by surprise. How could this dry skeleton and what looked like a lightweight flask grip so tightly, as if welded to the stone?

Seeing Zhou Huan struggling, Long Sheng put on his own gloves and jumped into the coffin. "Master Zhou, I'm actually not afraid of corpses, especially desiccated skeletons. Just now, it was because this was my grandfather's house, and a coffin suddenly dropped from the ceiling; I just couldn't process it immediately."

"Heh, looks like you were nervous. Come on, help me pull, let's see if the corpse shifts!" After speaking, both men summoned all their strength and pulled violently, but it wouldn't move. The coffin must have weighed several hundred pounds, and combined with the bones and the golden flask, it seemed fused with the stone. No matter how hard they pulled, there was no reaction.

They pulled until they were sweating. Zhou Huan finally stopped. "Well, is it loosened up? Next, we start working down below."

"Working? What other work is there to do?" Long Sheng was completely bewildered by Zhou Huan's words.

Zhou Huan narrowed his eyes and smiled. "Plenty of work. A stone coffin is meant to hold a corpse, a dead person. Placing it right at the head of the kang clearly means someone didn't want your grandfather to live. I wonder if your family ever told you anything about this—did your grandfather die right after completing some specific task?"

"Now that you mention it, there is something. My father said Grandpa died less than a month after visiting Old Man Qian down the mountain to commission a stone coffin for one of his friends who was buried up here. He died very strangely—no illness, no warning signs. They said he died of old age, but Grandpa's body was much younger than most old men. During previous health checks, they even said he had the best physical condition ever recorded at the military hospital, better than many young men."

"That's strange, then!" Zhou Huan seemed to have prior knowledge of these matters. He now had a working theory, and piecing the whole incident together seemed quite logical; all that remained was to find evidence to prove it.

Long Sheng was also perplexed. While he was pondering, Zhou Huan barked again, "Stop thinking! Hurry up and bring in all that gold from outside. I need it. If you want to know what really happened to your grandfather, hurry up and help!"

As soon as he finished speaking, Zhou Huan preemptively climbed out of the coffin, picked up the two gold artifacts from the floor, and then jumped back in. He began searching beneath the coffin for matching grooves, placing the gold items inside.

Long Sheng imitated Zhou Huan, carrying all the gold goods into the stone coffin. Following Zhou Huan's method, they carefully placed the items in their respective slots. After a flurry of activity, only one groove remained empty—the one corresponding to the object held in the corpse's hand.

Zhou Huan looked, then tried again to take the golden flask from the corpse's grip. Strangely, the stone coffin truly did have a mechanism. Once all the other gold items were placed, the flask was easily removed from the corpse's hand by Zhou Huan. Zhou Huan casually placed the wine flask into the last remaining groove.

"Master Zhou, watch out!" Long Sheng suddenly shouted, having seen something outside the coffin.

When Zhou Huan looked back at the corpse, all its joints were audibly cracking. As the entire body turned over, Zhou Huan realized the skeleton was now lying on its back at the bottom of the coffin. There was a deep hole in its chest, where a section of bone was completely shattered and driven inward by a heavy impact. Looking further down, Zhou Huan saw the corpse's leg bones were broken. Suddenly, he remembered the body he had been searching for relentlessly but couldn't find—Old Cripple Huang.

Now Zhou Huan was truly energized. He had found the person he needed to see. Even though the man was dead, Zhou Huan knew with certainty that finding Old Cripple Huang meant he would surely find the whereabouts of the ring.

"Long Sheng, help me set up an altar for summoning spirits!" Zhou Huan immediately called out to Long Sheng.

But Long Sheng knew nothing of such rituals. Zhou Huan was truly overly excited; after so many days of searching, he had finally found the key. He then quickly scribbled out some talismans.