Exploring the Hidden Treasure Through the Secret Path

Yuwen Yuanqi...

Chen Chuan recalled that when he was little, the storytelling broadcasts on the radio often mentioned this man. In those tales, he was an unparalleled fierce general, charging into battle, crushing armies and beheading generals. After hundreds of battles great and small, he had never suffered a defeat, earning immense merit in founding the New Dynasty.

But looking at him now, he was undoubtedly a "Zheng Country General." The specific records concerning him were limited. The history books merely noted that he conquered some place in a certain year and month, or fought someone in a certain year and month and defeated them, with no details whatsoever.

The records after his rebellion, on the other hand, were comparatively detailed. They said General Yuwen's body was indestructible. Once he was put on the execution platform, blades could not cut him, axes could not harm him, and neither water nor fire could affect him. In the end, they had used Five Dragons Dismemberment to kill him, scattering his remains across six locations.

It was said that even then, his remains continued to writhe on the ground, occasionally bursting out of the earth and terrifying the local officials and common people. Later, the Emperor Ying built temples over them to suppress him, then invited masters of the state religion to recite scriptures day and night. After that, there was no further movement.

Yet the history books also said that after the Emperor Ying grew old, he remembered the brotherly bond they had once shared and was overcome with sorrow. He then ordered Yuwen Yuanqi's body exhumed and sewn back together, restored his title, and had him sealed in an underground palace alongside the Hidden Treasure with imperial rites, to guard the ancestral residence forever.

Of course, that was the official history.