Teng Bi led the way. With eyes closed, one hand on the wall and the other holding the shirt of the person ahead, they carefully descended the staircase step by step.
Once they stepped onto flat ground, the three of them had avoided the Soul-Hanging Staircase’s effects.
Beyond the staircase, the space suddenly opened up. The mud walls turned to stone, and a wide, circular chamber lay ahead.
Old furniture and numerous obviously valuable antiques filled the space. Arranged in a traditional hall setup, each item here was worth a fortune. At the back of the hall was a stone door, with a couplet carved on each side. The left read: “If your deeds are unjust, death is your verdict.” The right read: “Yet step inside, and perhaps you may still survive.”
After reading the lines, Jiang Luo murmured thoughtfully, “The Hall of Yama.”
Teng Bi turned to look at him in confusion.
Jiang Luo explained, “Those two lines are a couplet from the late Ming dynasty. A scholar wrote them for the Hall of Yama. It means that if someone dies but manages to pull some strings in the underworld and meets someone capable, they might return to life before their body rots.”
Teng Bi took note of the meaning of the couplet and said, “I’ve never heard that before.”
Jiang Luo replied, “That’s because you probably died before the late Ming dynasty.”
Teng Bi gave a small nod.
Jiang Luo walked up to the stone door. “Large ancient tombs like this are generally divided into three sections: the first part is the Hall of the Underworld, the middle part is the burial chamber for the coffin, and the rear is where the burial goods are placed. Judging by the look of this place, the tomb owner didn’t die too long ago—maybe during the Qing dynasty, or possibly the Republican era.”
He studied the bodhisattva carvings on the stone door. “Buddhist Sanskrit… I don’t know much about ancient tombs, but the tomb owner must’ve been a devout Buddhist. Honestly, I’m really curious who this tomb belongs to. Just the fact that someone could build a tomb within the Dragon’s Eye is already hard to believe.”
Teng Bi pondered aloud, “Could it be someone from the trade?”
Jiang Luo nodded. “Even if not a geomancer or feng shui Master, they must have been deeply involved in these circles.”
There was no point in speculating any further. Teng Bi used brute strength to push open the stone door, but behind it wasn’t a burial chamber—it was a long corridor.
Jiang Luo walked forward side by side with Teng Bi. Compared to the anxiety he felt before finding the Dragon’s Eye, Jiang Luo was much calmer now. With the dragon vein suppressing the tomb, no malicious ghosts would appear. They just needed to be cautious of any traps.
The corridor was long. Suddenly, Teng Bi asked, “Did you know I’d regained my memories a long time ago?”
Jiang Luo gave a charming smile. “Not that early. I realized when you started calling me by my name instead of just ‘friend’ back in the trainee dorm. That’s when I knew you were no longer Dead Ghost.”
Teng Bi hadn’t expected he’d exposed himself so soon. He didn’t know what to say for a moment. After a long pause, he said in a low voice, “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to say sorry to me,” Jiang Luo put away his smile. “Teng Bi, I’ve never fully trusted you. Your deception didn’t hurt me much. But there’s someone else—it’s them you should apologize to. Not me.”
It felt like a heavy stone pressed down on Teng Bi’s heart, getting heavier and heavier until it was hard to breathe. Hoarsely, he said, “He…”
There was no need to say “his” name—both Jiang Luo and Teng Bi knew who he meant.
A sense of irritation suddenly welled up in Jiang Luo. Like with him and Chi You, or Teng Bi and Lu Youyi—just thinking about it left him stifled with no way to vent. He had the urge to smoke again.
“He saw you as a true friend,” Jiang Luo said, suppressing his frustration. “This was his first time being stabbed in the back by someone he trusted. I guess you’ve added a meaningful life lesson to his list.”
Seeing Teng Bi’s face turn grim, Jiang Luo finally added, “After you left, he was upset for a long time.”
It was only a few words, but they made Teng Bi press his lips into a tight line. The living dead’s brows furrowed, his hands unconsciously clenched into fists, his face full of indescribable pain.
Jiang Luo looked at him for a few seconds, and muttered to himself, “Even the living dead can feel sadness?”
Teng Bi opened his mouth. “…Yes.”
A strong urge suddenly surged in Jiang Luo—he wanted to ask another question: could that malicious ghost feel sadness too?
But his reason held him back. Jiang Luo pursed his lips and continued walking in silence alongside Teng Bi.
Behind them, the skipping Lisa suddenly halted in her steps. It seemed like she had heard something.
She tilted her head to listen. A few seconds later, the lively spark in her eyes slowly dulled. After a few more seconds, Lisa stood straight and continued following behind Jiang Luo and Teng Bi.
The little girl appeared normal—but her eyes had lost all their light.
***
After exiting the corridor, they entered the burial chamber.
At the center of the spacious chamber was a stone coffin. It was massive—at least twice the size of a normal coffin. Jiang Luo approached it and noticed the twenty-eight constellations engraved on the lid.
Teng Bi set aside his emotions and asked, “What are we looking for in the Dragon’s Eye?”
Jiang Luo traced from the constellation carvings on the lid to the Sanskrit cloud patterns at the base. “The most precious thing in the Dragon’s Eye is, naturally, the dragon’s tears—what Daoist Elder Wei He called the Dragon Spring. The Dragon Spring can temper the body, but its power is too pure. Overuse can backfire. If we find it, we only need to take one bottle’s worth.”
Teng Bi glanced at the water bottle attached to his backpack and nodded. He looked around, listened carefully, and sniffed the air.
His senses were sharp, but with so many thick stone walls in the tomb, sounds and scents were heavily blocked. Teng Bi neither heard water nor smelled moisture.
He shook his head at Jiang Luo.
Jiang Luo clicked his tongue and looked around the burial chamber, his gaze eventually falling on the coffin. The tomb owner was so mysterious it made him want to open the coffin just to satisfy his curiosity—but even he wouldn’t go so far as to lift someone’s lid out of sheer curiosity.
Just as he was about to check if there were any drainage channels in the chamber, he saw Lisa walking straight up to the coffin and placing her hand on it.
The next moment, with one forceful push, Lisa lifted the lid.
With a deafening crash, the heavy stone lid slammed to the ground, raising a cloud of dust. Inside the stone coffin was another inner coffin. Lisa didn’t even blink—she put her hand on the second coffin, ready to repeat the process. But Teng Bi quickly grabbed her and threw her back, shouting warily, “Lisa, what are you doing?!”
Lisa steadied herself and looked at Teng Bi with lifeless eyes. Then, she suddenly raised her hand.
The small, soft hand of a little girl opened—and between her fingers, webbing appeared like that of a fish. Thin membranes wrapped each finger. Her fingers lengthened, thinning to look almost skeletal. Her nails sharpened and curled—within moments, they had become claws.
A heavy, fishy stench spread through the burial chamber.
Teng Bi drew the large blade strapped to his back and said in a low voice, “Jiang Luo, get to the side.”
As soon as he spoke, Lisa charged at him expressionlessly.
Her claws clashed violently with Teng Bi’s blade, sending out a burst of dazzling sparks. Lisa’s combat power wasn’t on par with Teng Bi’s—she quickly fell into a disadvantage. But it was as if she didn’t feel pain. No matter how badly she was injured, she charged forward recklessly again and again. Teng Bi dodged her heart-piercing claw and landed a fierce blow to the back of her knee with the flat of his blade. Lisa’s legs gave out and she fell to her knees. But in the next second, she raised her head and spat out a stream of tiny fish from her mouth.
The fish fry shot toward Teng Bi, swiftly wriggling under his clothes. They bit into his skin, trying to burrow into his flesh. Teng Bi had to stop attacking to crush the fry crawling over him. Taking advantage of this, Lisa suddenly sprang up and lunged at the coffin, sinking her claws into the lid of the inner coffin and, with a violent heave, flipped it off.
The heavy lid crashed down beside Jiang Luo with a deafening boom, raising a cloud of dust. The curved surface of the coffin lid landed upside down like a flipped turtle, and the inside wobbled as it pointed toward Jiang Luo.
Inside, the lining was scratched with countless claw marks.
Jiang Luo froze. He crouched down, shone his flashlight at the scratches, and reached out to touch them. The uneven marks layered over each other in chaotic patterns.
These were claw marks made from inside the coffin… meaning the person inside had still been alive when they were sealed in.
Jiang Luo’s expression turned grim. But soon he noticed something even more disturbing.
The scratches were clearly layered in age—some old, some new. What made his scalp prickle was that the freshest scratches looked as if they had been made just today.
He scratched the inside of the coffin lid himself. Comparing the marks, there was no way to tell his apart from the newest ones already on it.
That was deeply unsettling.
This wasn’t something a human could do.
Could it be that the tomb’s occupant had never actually died, trapped in the coffin for hundreds of years? Or perhaps they died and revived over and over, suffocating again and again in the coffin, leaving behind countless layers of claw marks each time?
Either possibility was terrifying. Jiang Luo looked up at the coffin. Lisa had already moved on after opening it and was now fighting Teng Bi again.
Lisa was clearly not herself. She was being controlled.
And aside from the three of them, there was only one other “person” here—the tomb’s Master. If Lisa was being controlled, it could only be by him.
Jiang Luo’s expression darkened. He carefully stood up and slowly approached the coffin.
Inside laid a man dressed in a long gown and mandarin jacket.
The man’s face was pale, lips purple, and chest still—clearly a corpse. Judging by his clothes, he was likely from the Republican era. And yet, his body showed no signs of decay. Except for the absence of breath, he looked as if he were simply sleeping.
His appearance was also distinct. On his face were flame-like markings, similar to those that appeared on Lian Xue and Lian Bing when they were possessed by shikigami.
Jiang Luo covered his nose and mouth and reached out toward the man’s nostrils. No breath.
If there was no breath, then how did those fresh scratch marks come to be?
He frowned and looked toward Teng Bi and Lisa, still locked in fierce combat.
Lisa’s other hand had grown webbing as well. With her sticky, clawed hands, she clung to walls and the curved ceiling like a gecko. She repeatedly darted at Teng Bi from tricky angles, biting into his shoulder before retreating. After several rounds, Teng Bi began to look a bit haggard.
His power was clearly being suppressed by the dragon vein; the most noticeable effect was his slower healing speed. Jiang Luo wanted to help, but he couldn’t use his own power, or his body would collapse again. Just as he was wondering how to strike from the shadows, the corpse in the coffin suddenly started to breathe.
Jiang Luo noticed the change just in time. He immediately drew his dagger and held it to the corpse’s throat, eyes locked on him.
The breathing grew stronger, as if the man were coming back to life. Two minutes later, his eyes opened—they were the color of blazing flames. When he saw Jiang Luo, he froze for a second, then asked excitedly, “Who are you? Were you sent by the Fated One?!”
The Fated One.
Jiang Luo’s eyes darkened.
He curled his lips into a smile. “Yeah, I was sent by the Fated One. Got anything you want to say to me?”
The corpse nearly burst into tears of joy. He reached out toward the air, oblivious to the dagger at his neck. The coffin lid was gone—he was finally free. Driven mad from centuries of torment, he had no idea of the danger he was in. He rambled, “The coffin’s been opened. It’s finally open… I’m free… I don’t have to keep dying and reviving, don’t have to keep absorbing the power of the dragon vein… The Fated One, did he succeed? Has he become a god?!”
Every word he said was like a thunderclap.
Jiang Luo gave a cold chuckle. “Yeah, the Fated One—”
The corpse suddenly lost consciousness.
Jiang Luo cut off his words and watched the man warily.
A few seconds later, the corpse opened his eyes again.
Though the face was exactly the same, the look in his eyes was instantly familiar to Jiang Luo.
Compassionate, tolerant—that look unique to the Fated One.
It wasn’t the gaze of a human, but a god’s. Yet when he looked at Jiang Luo, the divine detachment in his expression wavered just slightly.
Then, the Fated One smiled and said, “Long time no see, Jiang Luo.”
Without hesitation, Jiang Luo drove the dagger into his neck.
The blade pierced the god’s throat, but the so-called false god still smiled, though now there was a hint of resignation in his expression. Suddenly, he reached out, grabbed Jiang Luo’s hand, and dragged him down into the coffin.
Two figures vanished into the mechanism beneath the coffin.
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