I became Hokage in Tokyo

Chapters 145-147: The Archaeological Immortal

After several officers took action, the abbot noticed that the middle-aged officer from before had a serious expression, his eyes were fixed on the front, his body was tense, and he had one hand on his lower back.

The abbot's expression was strange. Why did this police officer have such an expression? It was as if he was afraid of digging up a corpse from a grave—no, a demon or monster.

After excavating Professor Kurokawa's grave, several police officers carefully dug through the soil and quickly unearthed an urn containing ashes.

"Found it!"

A police officer, holding an urn of ashes, turned around and saw the middle-aged police officer looking as if facing a formidable enemy, and was somewhat puzzled.

The middle-aged police officer was on guard for a while, and when he found that nothing strange had happened, he breathed a sigh of relief.

He glanced at the abbot and the ordinary police officers who were kept in the dark, and shook his head.

If you knew that the owner of this grave had been resurrected for several days in a row, you wouldn't dare to dig up the tomb, would you?

Of all the police officers at Genjukuji Temple, only he knew the inside story.

"Put Professor Kurokawa's urn away carefully, and be sure to handle it with care."

An officer took out a prepared locker with a padded interior and placed the urn inside; it was the perfect size.

Then they took out an identical urn and placed it in the original pit. Several police officers then used shovels to backfill the grave with soil, restoring it to its original state.

The Metropolitan Police Department contacted the funeral home that cremated Professor Kurokawa overnight and obtained an urn of the same design to substitute for him.

The ashes inside belonged to an unclaimed homeless man.

"Amitabha."

Digging up graves is truly immoral. The middle-aged police officer looked ashamed and somewhat afraid, and murmured a Buddhist chant.

If Professor Kurokawa is truly watching from above, don't come looking for me. I had no choice. If you want to find someone, go find the big shots up there. They've ordered your ashes to be exhumed for research!

"Abbot, please keep your mouth shut. Especially when dealing with this man named Satomi, you must not reveal a single word."

The middle-aged police officer handed a photograph to the abbot, his tone grave:

"If this is leaked, Abbot, you'll be in big trouble. Really big trouble. You don't want to go more than ten years without seeing your wife and children, do you?"

"This humble monk understands! Understands!"

The abbot, whose professional skills were top-notch, understood that the police officer meant he would face imprisonment. Sweat immediately rolled down his bald head, and he nodded repeatedly.

The Metropolitan Police Department's inexplicable and bizarre tomb raiding, the replacement of ashes, and the subsequent stern warning—could he have been caught up in a shady conspiracy?

"There's one more thing, Abbot, does your Yuanjue Temple enshrine Yama, the King of Hell?" the middle-aged police officer asked.

"Yes, that's right. To be precise, it's Konjac Enma."

The abbot quickly said.

The middle-aged police officer nodded thoughtfully.

"Abbot, your Yuanjue Temple is truly a blessed place! Do you have any burial plots left? Can you accept reservations?"

"what?"

The abbot scratched his shiny bald head, somewhat puzzled.

Does this police officer have someone in his family who is about to die?

But booking a cemetery plot in advance is too unlucky, isn't it?

While the middle-aged police officer and the abbot of Genkakuji Temple were discussing the prospects of real estate in the underworld, a team of experts from the Metropolitan Police Department was analyzing the situation at a secret base in Chiyoda Ward.

After the Metropolitan Police Department was invaded by a superhuman named Itachi, the department moved important data and expert teams to this secret base.

The area is heavily guarded, with armed Self-Defense Force members and U.S. soldiers everywhere. Every corridor, every main road, and even the ventilation ducts are covered with surveillance cameras.

After the stone bowl in front of the Buddha and Dr. Satomi were brought here, they began to conduct intensive research.

"Yuanjue Temple enshrines Yama, the King of Hell, and it's even related to healing. What a coincidence!" a folklorist exclaimed.

The statue of Yama, enshrined at Genkaku-ji Temple, originates from an anecdote related to Yama, the Great King of Hell.

Legend has it that more than 250 years ago, during the Baoli era, a seriously ill old woman prayed devoutly to Yama, the King of Hell, day and night at Yuanjue Temple.

Yama, the King of Hell, gouged out his right eye to make medicine and cured the old woman's illness. To express her gratitude, the old woman stopped eating her favorite konjac and instead offered it to Yama, the King of Hell.

In Japanese legend, Enma Daioh's favorite food is konjac.

Konjac is also known as devil's tongue.

Yuanjue Temple became famous from then on, and people flocked to it to pray to Yama for a cure.

Upon hearing this anecdote, everyone's expressions became somewhat subtle.

King Yama...

Treating illness...

Professor Kurokawa was buried at Genkaku-ji Temple. Not only did his spirit return to the world, but he also gained extraordinary abilities related to healing.

Although the extraordinary ability came from the stone bowl in front of the Buddha, according to the extraordinary person Afei, it was all too coincidental and simply unbelievable.

"Does that mean that if one is buried in the cemetery of Genkaku-ji Temple, one can go straight to the underworld after death and face King Yama directly?" One of the Metropolitan Police Department bureaucrats listening in was suddenly intrigued.

"This is nothing more than a conjecture that doesn't even qualify as a hypothesis; it's not valid," the folklorist said shrewdly.

That's what they said, but judging from their expressions, some people had already started to have their own ideas.

"Let me tell you something: Yama is not an easy god to talk to. He is the lord of hell. Even if you want to see him, you should consider whether you have accumulated enough merit."

Immediately, some people felt embarrassed, knowing their own worth and that if they really encountered the King of Hell, their fate would probably not be good.

However, some people are preparing to offer a large sum of incense to Yama, the King of Hell, and have secretly decided to buy a plot of land in Yuanjue Temple for future use.

In any case, the price of cemetery plots at Genkakuji Temple is bound to rise sharply.

"And what about that stone bowl in front of the Buddha? Have the test results come out yet? Do you know what era it's from?" an official asked curiously.

"We can't determine what era it's from," the archaeologist said, shaking his head.

"Hey, isn't there that carbon-13 or carbon-14 dating thing, which is supposedly used to determine the age of antiques?" the bureaucrat said, trying to sound clever. "You don't even know that?"

What an ignorant and incompetent person!

A hint of disdain flashed in the archaeologist's eyes.

Stones were formed tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of years ago, so even carbon-14 dating cannot determine the year in which ancient stone tools were made.

Archaeologists primarily determine the age of Stone Age artifacts by examining the strata in which they were buried.

In Japan, there is a well-known "Paleolithic forgery case" in which an amateur archaeology enthusiast named Shinichi Fujimura secretly buried his polished stone tools in ancient strata, pretended to dig a few times, and then staged a scene to claim that he had discovered ancient stone tools.

He single-handedly pushed back the history of human activity in Japan from 30,000 years ago to 700,000 years ago!

The whole country was in an uproar, cheering and applause, and even the archaeological community believed it to be true.

Shinichi Fujimura was touted by the media as an archaeological genius and a god of stone tools, but twenty years later, a shocking hoax was exposed, leaving the entire nation of Japan humiliated.

(End of this chapter)