The reading room of the British Museum originally belonged to the British Library, but the library’s reading area has since been relocated to the library building, and now the museum uses the space as its own reading room. The British Museum is currently divided into ten departments: Ancient Near East, Coins and Medals, Egypt, Ethnography, Greece and Rome, Japan, Medieval and Modern Europe, the Orient, Prehistory and Early Europe, Prints and Drawings, and Ancient Western Asia.
Mu Lin came here in search of the source of a sinister energy. Following the fluctuations in its strength, he eventually arrived at the Egyptian department. This section of the museum houses historical relics from ancient Egypt, most notably the mummies dating back to 5000–3000 BCE, along with related artifacts.
The closer he approached the mummies, the more he felt a thick, malevolent energy radiating outward. When he finally reached the vicinity of the mummies, he discovered that they were wrapped in a fine layer of energy, invisible to the naked eye. Because it was a rainy day, the museum was nearly empty, with only a few visitors present, making it inconvenient for Mu Lin to act openly during daylight hours. Furthermore, unless he was certain of the situation, he would not recklessly employ his spiritual awareness. While his telepathic abilities could scan the surrounding environment, they could not yet penetrate the mummies’ interiors.
In front of an artifact labeled “Mummy Lid,” Mu Lin paused and carefully read the accompanying description. This lid was discovered in 1889, and it was said that the discoverer, sellers, and collectors of the lid had all suddenly died or suffered misfortunes. Therefore, it was also known as the “Unlucky Mummy” lid.
Through careful observation, Mu Lin noticed that the intricate patterns on the lid were actually arranged in a specific order. Additionally, there was a faint layer of energy on the lid’s surface. This only increased his growing interest in these ancient Egyptian relics.
Mu Lin had long heard of the famous Egyptian mummies. These ancient Egyptian artifacts are now mostly housed in major museums and private collections worldwide. In fact, there are hardly any mummy collections left in Egypt itself. The pyramids that once housed these mummies are too massive to be moved; otherwise, Western collectors would have dismantled and taken them long ago.
Among these mummies, the most famous is the curse of Pharaoh Tutankhamun. According to legend, nearly everyone who touched or entered Tutankhamun’s tomb died in mysterious accidents. However, since this pyramid is located far away in Egypt, Mu Lin currently had no time to investigate it.
In fact, another rumor circulating among Western elites was what truly sparked Mu Lin’s interest in mummies. It was a tale connected to the supposedly unsinkable RMS Titanic.
Over 3000 years ago, in Egypt, there lived a princess named Amen-Ra. After her death, she was mummified according to ancient Egyptian customs and buried in a tomb near the Nile River.
At the end of 1890, four young British men traveled to Egypt and purchased an ancient Egyptian coffin from local smugglers. Inside was the mummy of Princess Amen-Ra. From that moment on, this once-obscure Egyptian princess brought a series of terrifying disasters upon Western society.
First, one of the four young men was shot and killed on the streets of Egypt. Another suddenly left a restaurant while his companions were still present and walked into the nearby desert, never to be seen again.
Of the remaining two, one returned home and mysteriously went bankrupt, eventually committing suicide by gunshot. The other suffered from continuous illnesses and eventually ended up selling matches on the street.
After the mummy arrived in Britain, a wealthy businessman purchased it. Soon afterward, several of the businessman’s family members died from unexplained disasters. His luxurious mansion was also destroyed in a fire. Helpless, the businessman consulted someone knowledgeable, who informed him that the mummy was the source of all the misfortunes. With no other choice, the businessman donated the mummy to the British Museum, thereby escaping the calamities.
However, after accepting the mummy, the museum itself began experiencing a series of misfortunes. During transportation, two workers carrying the coffin suddenly dropped it, injuring one of them and leaving him permanently disabled. Another worker, in perfect health, died suddenly at home five days later.
Since the mummy’s arrival at the museum, strange occurrences became frequent. Every night, sounds of a woman crying and knocking were heard around the coffin. Soon afterward, the curator in charge of the mummy was found dead in his office for no apparent reason, followed by a guard who died mysteriously during his shift. This terrified the other guards, who collectively demanded to resign.
Helpless, the museum had no choice but to give the mummy to a private collector. To celebrate acquiring this precious artifact, the collector invited reporters to cover the event. However, when the developed photos were examined, a terrifying human face was found in the images.
Later, no one knew exactly what happened, but within less than a year, all the reporters involved died in mysterious circumstances—some were hit by cars, and others committed suicide at home. Investigations revealed no sudden changes in their financial or physical conditions, yet the causes of their deaths remained unexplained.
Eventually, the collector had to summon many famous witches and shamans from Egypt and Europe to exorcise the mummy. However, after the exorcism ritual, all of them hurriedly fled the collector’s house without even collecting their payment, and they too died mysteriously soon afterward. At this point, the collector finally panicked, realizing that within less than a decade, over 100 people had died under suspicious circumstances related to this mummy.
Although he wanted to get rid of the mummy as soon as possible, its ominous reputation had already spread among European elites, and no one dared to accept it.
Eventually, an American archaeologist who refused to believe in superstition paid only a symbolic sum and took possession of the mummy. Together with several other archaeologists, he personally escorted the artifact onto a supposedly unsinkable ocean liner—the RMS Titanic. Eventually, the massive ship, along with thousands of passengers and the mummy itself, vanished into the vast ocean.
Since then, the mummy of Princess Amen-Ra has become a taboo topic among the upper classes of Western nations. Most people believe that these mummies are ominous objects cursed with evil powers. Therefore, many private collectors have donated their mummies to museums. If not for this, Mu Lin would have liked to acquire a few mummies for his own research.
Since it was still early, Mu Lin decided to browse the museum. He discovered many artifacts dating back to 5000 BCE. The Greek and Roman section displayed busts of successive Roman emperors, sculptures unearthed from the Acropolis of Athens, clay tablets, ceramic vases, gold artifacts, and a group of Parthenon sculptures from the Elgin Marbles collection. The Parthenon sculptures were among the museum’s finest exhibits. Originally part of the main temple of the Acropolis in ancient Greece, they are a model of European classicism. In the early 19th century, the museum purchased these sculptures for 35,000 pounds.
The Ancient Western Asian Art section displayed golden artifacts from the Royal Tombs of Ur, harps, Assyrian reliefs, city gates from Nimrud Palace, winged human-headed bulls, and other crafts.
The Oriental Art section, aside from a few artifacts from Central Asia, South Asia, and Japan, mostly contained rare Chinese treasures, amounting to over 20,000 items. Murals and sutras looted by Stein from Dunhuang, China, were also preserved here, dating from the 0th to the 10th centuries. The sutras included Buddhist scriptures, as well as texts from Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, and Nestorian Christianity.
In the Chinese antiquities gallery, exhibits included Neolithic stone tools, jade cong, jade knives, jade axes, painted pottery from the Yangshao culture, bronze ritual vessels from the Shang and Zhou dynasties, bronze mirrors from the Qin and Han dynasties, lacquerware from the Han dynasty, Buddhist statues from the Northern Dynasties, celadon porcelain from the Southern Dynasties, Tang tri-colored ceramics, sutras, silk fabrics, and paintings. The Song dynasty displayed porcelain from the official kilns, Ge kilns, Ding kilns, and Jun kilns. The Yuan dynasty had blue-and-white vases and underglaze red porcelain, while the Ming dynasty showcased cloisonné enamel. A Tang (or Song) dynasty copy of Gu Kaizhi’s “Illustrations to the Admonitions of the Instructress to the Court Ladies” from the Eastern Jin dynasty was also displayed here.
As Mu Lin carefully examined these items, his inner anger gradually dissipated. He thought to himself that in the past, due to China’s weak national strength, many treasures had been taken by foreign invaders. Now, retrieving them was only natural and justified.
While here, he also selected some artifacts from other countries, planning to take them later that night. This would help avoid suspicion when he eventually retrieved all the major Chinese cultural relics.
Wishing everyone a joyful Christmas Eve!
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