Chapter 282

In the massive tomb chamber, two dim blue eternal lamps burned with a gloomy glow.

The coffin contained no ancient corpse, only a poisonous "yang qi" trapped inside.

Xu Yuan scanned the surroundings once more.

The tomb's structure differed slightly from those in Zhengzhou.

The walls surrounding the main tomb chamber were carved with murals in the style of Southern Jiaozhi.

On the left wall, subjects of an ancient dynasty bowed before their king and Wang Fei in front of the palace.

Xu Yuan walked beneath the mural and soon noticed anomalies from shifting light and shadow.

The palace gate in the mural was, in fact, a small stone door!

It was cleverly concealed within the mural.

Xu Yuan transformed Pi Dan into gloves and, wearing them, pushed hard against the stone door.

The stone door stood only four chi tall; with a push, it groaned as stone scraped stone and slid backward, revealing a low, narrow passage.

Xu Yuan carefully concentrated a wisp of Fu Zhong Huo at one end of the beast-tendon rope.

He slowly extended it into the passage.

The faint firelight illuminated everything, and Xu Yuan quickly saw clearly.

The passage was only five zhang long, ending in a side chamber.

He could see what appeared to be grave goods.

Xu Yuan waited a moment longer, then crouched and crawled into the passage.

He soon reached the entrance to the side chamber and peered inside:

In the center of the chamber stood three stone-carved divine beasts—single-horned, four-eared, bulging-eyed, scaled all over, four paws pressed to the ground as they roared upward.

Xu Yuan glanced around again and his scalp prickled with dread!

Aside from the three stone beasts, all four corners of the chamber were piled high with white bones!

These bones bore horrific deaths—some decapitated, some bisected at the waist, some ribs severed clean, some limbs hacked off…

He estimated roughly a hundred bodies.

No one knew if they were grave goods or the craftsmen who built the tomb.

Xu Yuan carefully inspected everything but still found no trace of the so-called "ancient corpse Wang Fei."

Just as he stepped back out, he heard the wild boar's impatient roar from the tomb corridor: "Still not ready?"

"Almost! Almost!" Xu Yuan hurriedly replied: "Groom, don't come in now! My bride is shy—she won't step out until she's perfectly adorned."

The wild boar grumbled a few curses and vented his fury on the rat wedding party.

Several high-pitched "squeaks" echoed through the passage.

They must've been beaten.

A cold sweat broke on Xu Yuan's forehead.

The wild boar blocked the rear exit, and the ancient corpse Wang Fei was nowhere to be found… how could he break this deadlock?

If the ancient corpse Wang Fei was still in the tomb, Xu Yuan still had a sliver of hope—he could use his silver tongue to convince her to accept him as family.

He might even save Miao Yu and the others.

After all, Xu the Lord had cultivated the "Shang Fa"; with enough payment, he could strike a "deal" with the ancient corpse Wang Fei.

But if the ancient corpse Wang Fei had truly fled—abandoned the wedding—it would only make things worse.

The wild boar was already volatile; if he discovered the bride was gone, he'd fly into a rage—not just Xu Yuan, but even that entire nest of giant rats might become his next meal!

The wild boar's power was unfathomable—he had subdued and commanded even today's Fu Daxiong wedding party. Xu Yuan dared not risk his "Shang Fa."

He calmed the impatient groom behind him once more, then continued searching the tomb and found two more small doors on the mural.

One was on the right, leading to another side chamber.

It was the same size as the left one, and this one had been arranged as a "bedchamber."

It contained a large bed, a dressing table, a concubine's couch, and other furnishings.

Moreover, Xu Yuan noticed these items appeared frequently used—no dust had settled on them.

Xu Yuan muttered to himself: Could the ancient corpse Wang Fei truly not sleep in the coffin, but live here all along?

The final small door lay behind the main tomb chamber, hidden between the two eternal lamps, directly opposite the coffin.

The passage beyond the small door sloped downward and was polished to a smooth finish.

It felt as if anything pushed in would slide effortlessly down.

Given Southern Jiaozhi's damp heat and the tomb's subterranean location, moss or fungi should have grown inside this passage.

But the passage also showed signs of frequent use, with visible friction marks.

The passage was long—Xu Yuan unspooled the beast-tendon rope, and after extending it dozens of zhang, it still hadn't reached the end.

Xu Yuan hesitated whether to enter, when suddenly his ears twitched—he heard a faint sound from within the passage.

"Water?"

Xu Yuan frowned in confusion, listened again, and realized there was likely an underground river below.

Xu Yuan flicked his wrist, tied the other end of the beast-tendon rope to the stone coffin, then pulled himself into the passage and slid down fifteen zhang with a hiss.

A wave of damp air rushed at him; he immediately held his breath.

What if it was another kind of "yang qi"?

Here, the sound of flowing water grew louder.

Xu Yuan slowly slid down the rope, and after another thirty zhang, the passage still hadn't ended.

The beast-tendon rope had stretched to the thickness of a goose feather quill.

A steady breeze of damp air blew against him; the longer he remained in the narrow passage, the more a fear of confinement rose in his heart:

Could it be that I slid all the way down and ended up right in the darkness, inside the gaping maw of a giant monster?

This fear made Xu Yuan even more cautious, slowing his descent a bit further.

Finally, after nearly two hundred zhang, the beast-tendon rope had thinned to just slightly thicker than a hair strand—Xu Yuan saw the end.

Ahead lay a massive underground cavern.

At the other end of the beast-tendon rope, a faint "Fu Zhong Huo" was utterly incapable of illuminating the cavern's edges.

The exit was on a sheer cliff, with water droplets gathering and dripping from above, pitter-pattering as if it were raining lightly all the time.

Xu Yuan looked down from the cave mouth while gradually increasing that faint Fu Zhong Huo.

In the firelight, he finally saw clearly that there was indeed a river beneath the cavern.

But the firelight also startled something unknown in the river.

With a loud, chaotic, and dense splashing sound, those things darted swiftly beneath the water.

On both banks of the river were wet stalactites.

The things that had been clinging there originally also frantically leaped into the river.

Judging by their forms, these things were clearly human, with heads and four limbs.

But their entire bodies were deathly pale and slimy, with hands and feet transformed into webbed flippers.

They had no eyes on their heads, only two nostrils and a grotesque mouth split open to the ears.

The grotesque mouths were filled with sharp teeth; in the scramble to jump into the river, large numbers of these strange creatures crowded together and began furiously tearing at each other.

Xu Yuan's firelight grew brighter and brighter, gradually able to illuminate the entire cavern.

The cavern was several hundred zhang high, shaped like a date pit, roughly a thousand zhang long from front to back.

The underground river flowed in through a huge cave mouth at one end of the "date pit" and disappeared through the cave mouth at the other end.

At these two cave mouths, there were actually two iron fences blocking the way!

The river water could flow in and out, but these strange creatures inside the cave could not get out.

"Are these things... specially raised here by the ancient corpse Wang Fei?" Xu Yuan guessed silently.

Suddenly, Xu Yuan felt the beast-tendon rope in his hand move, and he was jerked upward several feet.

"Not good! Someone is pulling the rope upward."

"That wild boar probably couldn't wait any longer, entered the tomb chamber, and discovered the so-called 'bride' was simply not at home!"

Xu Yuan acted decisively, and the beast-tendon rope instantly transformed back into a "Jin Dan" with a swoosh.

Xu Yuan slid downward as well, plummeting out of the exit with a swoosh.

(End of this chapter)