MidReal Story
The Dragon's Curse: Unearthing Ancient Secrets
Scenario: "The nine dragon corpses are all 100 meters long. At the end, the thick black iron cable of the bowl is tied to the dark space behind the nine dragon corpses, where there is a 20-meter-long bronze coffin quietly hanging."
Create my version of this story
My name is Scarlett Jones and I’m an archaeologist.
I’m on my way to a dig in the heart of China to uncover the secrets of an ancient civilization lost to time.
The forest was alive with the sounds of nature.
Crickets chirped, frogs croaked, and birds sang in the trees.
But above all, the rushing waters of the nearby river thundered in my ears as we walked along the narrow, barely there path.
Trees with broad crowns and evergreen needles grew tall and straight, blocking out the sun.
Vines twisted around their trunks, and moss covered the ground, giving the forest a damp smell.
I inhaled deeply, letting the crisp air fill my lungs.
It was cool and clean, and it made me feel alive.
The forest was a world unto itself.
It had its own life, its own rhythm, and its own heartbeat.
All around us, plants and animals went about their day, completely unaware of our presence.
Or maybe they were aware of us.
Maybe they simply didn’t care.
We were intruders in their home, but we meant no harm.
We were just passing through, on our way to the real prize hidden in the heart of the forest—a site that promised to uncover the secrets of an ancient civilization that had long since been forgotten.
Our guide, who happened to be an expert on the area, led the way.
Alex walked beside him, his tall form hunched over so he wouldn’t hit his head on a low branch.
He had his nose buried in a notebook as he jotted down observations.
Alex was a historian and he never left home without his trusty notebook.
It didn’t matter if he was going to work or on vacation.
He always had his notebook tucked into his back pocket along with a pen so he could write down new information as it came to him.
Liam walked behind them, his camera slung over his shoulder.
He snapped pictures as he went along, calling out to Alex and me when he saw something interesting or unusual.
Liam was a photographer and he never left home without his camera because you never knew when you’d see something worth taking a picture of.
I brought up the rear, my backpack strapped over my shoulder.
I didn’t have anything to take notes with or anything to take pictures with because I was an archaeologist and I had everything I needed tucked inside my backpack.
We’d been hiking for hours and I was eager to reach the end of our journey so I could see for myself what treasures lay in wait for us.
Unfortunately for me, the end wasn’t anywhere close in sight.
The path wound around trees and rocks, making it hard to see anything beyond the forest around us.
Tall shrubs grew on either side of the path, making it seem like we were walking through a tunnel instead of making our way through a stand of trees.
Our guide said something in Chinese that I didn’t understand but Alex did.
“He wants us to follow him.”
“Where are we going?”
I asked, following him anyway.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the nine dragon corpses that lay before us, their massive bodies stretching out into the clearing, their scales as large as shields and their claws like scimitars, digging deep into the earth.
They were both awe inspiring and eerie at the same time, a testament to the power and majesty these creatures once held over this landscape.
I could see how people might have been both fascinated and terrified by them, especially if they’d ever caught sight of one up close or worse yet, been preyed upon by one of them.
It was no wonder then that they were considered gods and their remains were revered, even in death.
I shivered and shook my head, trying not to think about it too much as I followed our guide down the path that led away from them, toward a steep cliff that lay beyond them.
“The path is over there,” he said, pointing to it.
“We have to walk through the dragon corpses to get to it.
That’s why we have to go this way.”
“Why do we have to go to that path?”
Liam asked him.
“Because it’s where the bowl is,” he replied.
Alex translated for him before he pointed to it.
“See that thick black iron cable running from it to that dark space behind the dragon corpses?”
He asked.
“That’s where it is.”
“I don’t see anything,” I replied, squinting my eyes.
“No, I do see it now,” Liam said, pointing to something.
It was so long that I could barely make out what it was but I knew that it had to be there since everyone seemed to be able to see it, except for me.
“You do?”
I asked him.
“Yes,” he replied.
“I see that there’s something there but I can’t tell what.”
“It’s a 20 meter long bronze coffin,” Alex replied.
“It’s been suspended there for over 2000 years now.”
“Now you tell me,” Liam said, frowning at him.
He looked irritated and Alex laughed.
“I’m sorry,” he said after a moment.
“I thought you knew.”
“Knew what?”
I asked him.
“Nothing,” Liam said before he started walking down the path.
“There he goes again,” Alex said after him.
We followed behind him but we hadn’t gone very far before we were stopped by the enormous bronze coffin that lay before us.
It was so big that I couldn’t see where it ended and where it began.
It was at least three meters tall and five meters wide with decorations on all four sides—suns, moons, stars, and planets—and ancient characters carved into its surface that shimmered like jewels, even though they were made from bronze.
I felt as if they were staring at me and my flesh grew cold as goosebumps rose on my skin.
“Wow,” I said after a moment, my voice filled with awe and wonder.
“Wow is right,” Alex said after a moment.
We stood there in silence as we stared down at the ancient burial site that lay before us.
It was so ancient and mysterious that I couldn’t help but feel that we were in the presence of something very powerful and magical—something that defied logic and imagination—and I wondered if that was how the people who had made it had felt when they had first created it so many centuries ago.
It was like nothing I had ever encountered before in all my years of study and exploration; I felt as if I was standing on the threshold of something truly extraordinary and it made my heart pound with excitement and wonder as I took it all in.
Nine dragon corpses lay before me—each one was 100 meters long and had been meticulously arranged in a formation that stretched across the clearing as far as the eye could see—looking so lifelike and realistic that they took my breath away.
They were all facing the east, with their heads lifted high and their wings spread out behind them like they were ready to take flight.
It was both eerie and beautiful to see and I couldn’t help but wonder if it was on purpose or if it was just a coincidence.
They had been dead for so long that they had turned grey and their scales were falling off in places but if you looked closely at them you could still see all of the intricate details and features—their eyes like red and orange orbs and their teeth like sharp white fangs.
It was like they were sleeping and I half expected to see one of them open its eye and look at me.
I shivered and shook my head.
“Do you think they died here?”
I asked Alex after a moment.
“We don’t know,” he replied.
“It’s possible that they did but we’ll need to do some testing to be sure.”
“How do you think they died?”
Liam asked him.
“We don’t know that either but we’ll need to do some more testing to be sure.”
“Do you think they were killed?”
I asked him.
“We don’t know that either,” he replied.
“We’ll need to do some more testing to be sure.”
“I’m starting to sense a pattern here,” Liam said to me, looking annoyed.
I laughed and Alex grinned at him before he walked up to the dragon corpses and started examining them more closely, taking notes and pictures as he went along.
I joined him for a moment, taking a few pictures of my own before I got distracted by something else—the way that they were all lying in a line, like they had been arranged in a certain way and it made me wonder if it was on purpose or if it was just a coincidence since there were so many of them and they were all so big and heavy that it would have taken a lot of effort and manpower to move them around like that.
I took a few more pictures before I realized that I had wandered off from the group and hurried back to them as fast as I could, feeling excited and curious as I did so, wondering if it was on purpose or if it was just a coincidence.
They were all facing the east, with their heads lifted high and their tails curled around their bodies like they were being hugged by something.
“This is amazing,” I said to Alex as we walked up to them.
He nodded in agreement before he stopped and started examining one of the corpses more closely, taking notes and pictures as he went along while Liam stood next to him, snapping away with his camera.
The first thing that struck me about the corpses was how big and long they were—several dozen feet each, at least, with their tails stretching out behind them in a long line like they were all holding hands or something, which was weird to think about but also kind of cute in a way, like a family or something—or, at least, that’s what I thought since there were so many of them and they were all lying in a row, like they were being arranged in a certain way or something since there was no way that they would have died like this on their own and it made me wonder who or what had done it and why or what it meant and if it was on purpose or if it was just a coincidence, which was weird to think about but also kind of fun, too.
The second thing that struck me about them was how much they stank like decay—the stench of rotting meat and blubber filling the air and making me gag in disgust.
Like all living things, even mythical ones, dragons eventually died and their bodies began to decompose just like everything else and it made me wonder if it was on purpose or if it was just a coincidence or if there was some other explanation for it that we hadn’t thought of yet but for now it didn’t matter because we were here to study them and that’s exactly what we were going to do—whether we wanted to or not—and that’s exactly what we did, taking note of everything we saw and taking pictures of everything we saw to document it and make sure we didn’t miss anything important along the way.
忽然天空一声巨响，条龙拉着青铜棺材腾空飞起！
We followed Scarlett, moving closer to the corpses of the dragons.
The ground beneath us was uneven, littered with fallen leaves, branches, and a few rocks.
I nearly tripped a few times, but I managed to catch myself before I fell flat on my face.
Although we were all excited to be here, I don’t think any of us wanted to embarrass ourselves and get off on the wrong foot, so we kept our excitement in check and tried to maintain a level head while we walked.
It wasn’t easy, though.
The sight of the dragon corpses alone was enough to make my pulse quicken and set my heart racing.
I’d never seen anything like this before in all my years as an archaeologist and I didn’t think I ever would again.
The sheer scale of them—the length of them, even in death—was awe-inspiring, and as we moved closer to them I felt a little intimidated by their size even though they were no longer alive.
It was hard to believe that all these creatures, which had once been so big and so powerful, were now lying dead before us, their bodies rotting away into nothing.
Even though I knew that they were long gone, I couldn’t help but feel a little scared by their presence, especially since they were all staring at us with their empty eye sockets, as if they were still alive and still capable of doing us harm.
As we got closer to the first one, I could see that it had an open mouth with sharp teeth that were larger than tree trunks and could easily have bitten my head off if it had still been alive—or even if it had just woken up from a long sleep or something—and I was glad that it hadn’t even though it probably wouldn’t have woken up anyway since it was already dead and it wasn’t going to come back to life anytime soon, especially since it had already started to decay and would be nothing but bones within a few years, if not sooner.
I glanced around at the others, trying to get a sense of what they were like as individuals before we began our work.
They all looked more or less the same, although a few of them had different markings on their bodies that set them apart from the rest.
The one on our right, for example, had two small horns growing out of its forehead, while the one on our left had a long, thin tail like a snake.
The one in front of us, on the other hand, had two small wings growing out of its back that looked like they could have been used for flying at one point or another in its life, although they probably weren’t big or strong enough to have actually gotten it off the ground.
I made a mental note of everything I saw, knowing that it would be important later on, after we’d sketched them and photographed them from every angle, so we could figure out why they were lying here in this specific formation, instead of just scattered around like a pile of rocks or something.
I couldn’t help but feel like there was more to this burial than met the eye.
It was too big and too important for it to have been done on a whim or just because, so I knew there had to be a reason for it—even if we hadn’t figured out yet what it was.
