Chapter 101: Seeing the Qilin Deep in the Underground Palace

"Xinzhan, you also tell us about what you found. We have heard roughly, but we don't know the details."

Feng Jihu said.

Cheng Xinzhan nodded, told the reason and the whole story of coming here, and then said: "Now we have to go to the source to see where the problem is, whether it is a natural disaster or man-made."

Everyone found a stone to sit on. Jihu said again: "Jianmo, you tell us about this Central Ducheng."

Zhu Jianmo nodded, cleared his throat, and said,

"The Central Ducheng was ordered to be built by the Taizu Emperor after he won the world and entered Jin Ling. The scale was all according to the imperial capital. It was said at the time that the capital would be moved to Fengyang after it was built."

"At that time, many civil and military officials, imperial clansmen, and nobles did not understand and submitted memorials to persuade him. If you want to stabilize the south, then set the capital in Jin Ling. If you want to guard against the north, then set the capital in Yan-Zhao. There was no need to focus on the Fengyang area of Qingzhou. However, Taizu did not listen to persuasion and personally ordered the Prime Minister to supervise the construction."

"At that time, the Central Ducheng drew five thousand acres of land and gathered a million laborers. Six years after construction began, the foundation was completely completed, and the city walls were erected. Taizu personally arrived at the Central Ducheng to verify the work and reward the laborers. After inspecting it, he returned to Jin Ling, and that day, on the grounds of labor and expense, he ordered the work to stop. Everyone was puzzled, and throughout the Hongwu reign, the Central Ducheng was never continued."

"Later, Emperor Yongle moved the capital to Yan-Zhao, ten thousand miles away from Fengyang, and moving the capital to Fengyang was even more impossible. However, Emperor Yongle did not want to waste the foundation built by a million people with countless materials and countless efforts over six years, so he ordered construction to continue on the original basis, but only on the scale of a prefecture. After the large city was built, it could also be used to guard the imperial tombs."

"Later, after hundreds of years, the Central Ducheng city expanded again and again, even wrapping the imperial tombs inside. However, the later emperors and empresses and imperial clans were all buried in Jin Ling and Yan-Zhao, so this place was left alone, and it became what it is now."

Zhu Jianmo finished speaking.

Everyone frowned, truly puzzled.

"It is the capital city. A million laborers were raised. It was built just like that, and stopped just like that. It doesn't sound like the Ming Taizu who loved the people like a son in the legends."

Wang Miaoyuan said.

"What mountain is that?"

Xu Jishen pointed to a mountain behind the city and asked.

"Longevity Mountain, also called Dragon Mountain."

Zhu Jianmo said.

"What about that one?"

"Phoenix Mountain, also called Phoenix Mountain."

"Dragon and Phoenix guarding, Purple Star position, it is indeed the palace of the emperor!"

Xu Jishen sighed.

Cheng Xinzhan looked at the city from afar, but couldn't see any reason, so he asked Zhu Jianmo,

"Are there blueprints for the construction of the Central Ducheng and the imperial tombs at the beginning?"

"Yes."

Zhu Jianmo responded and took out a blueprint, which was the original planning blueprint.

He took the blueprint, faced the capital city, looked at the capital city for a while, looked at the blueprint for a while, and his brows furrowed tighter and tighter.

Seeing that he seemed to have a discovery, everyone dared not disturb him.

After about half an hour, Cheng Xinzhan put the blueprint on the ground, and everyone gathered around.

He took out a talisman pen with residual cinnabar ink and began to circle points on the blueprint.

"This is the imperial tomb, and it is also the head."

He circled the imperial tomb.

"This is Phoenix Beak, seen as the neck connecting the imperial tomb. The Bell Tower and Drum Tower are the two protruding front limbs. This is Phoenix Mountain and Longevity Mountain, the two crouching hind limbs. This is the Golden Water River, the auspicious cloud ribbon. And this is the foundation outline of the capital city, which is also the body. You see, what does this look like when connected?"

He outlined a shape on the paper with a cinnabar pen.

"Bai Hu? Or Qilin?"

Xu Jishen asked.

Cheng Xinzhan replied, "Bai Hu rides the gale, Qilin steps on auspicious clouds. This is a Qilin. And this imperial tomb, which serves as the Qilin head, is square and located in the west. 'Huang' (Imperial) also sounds like 'Huang' (Yellow), belonging to metal. This is a 'Qilin Swallowing Gold' formation!"

He muttered to himself, "'Qilin Gazing at the Moon' points out the way, and the earth vein stops at 'Qilin Swallowing Gold.' Is there really a Qilin buried underground?"

After thinking, he asked again, "What is the virtue of the Ming Dynasty?"

Zhu Jianmo replied: "The former Yuan was Metal Virtue. The Ming Dynasty destroyed Yuan and inherited Fire Virtue."

"So that's it."

Cheng Xinzhan nodded. This "Qilin Swallowing Gold" seemed to make a little sense, but something was still wrong. The Qilin swallowed the Metal Virtue of the former Yuan and gathered it here. It was both the lingering charm of the former country and the aura of killing. It was not suitable for people to live in. Why build a capital city?

Could it be that such a large posture was just to set up the formation? Did they stop after the formation was set up?

Still not right. Later, Emperor Yongle changed the capital city to a prefecture city, and so many mortal people lived there. According to reason, these people were restrained by the metal evil and could not have multiplied for hundreds of years, and the city expanded again and again.

And using the imperial tomb as the entrance for swallowing gold, was Ming Taizu not afraid that his ancestors would not sleep peacefully?

Cheng Xinzhan seemed to have some thoughts, pointed to the imperial tomb, and asked more, "Before Ming Taizu became emperor, were his ancestors' graves always here?"

Zhu Jianmo shook his head and said, "Initially not here. When Taizu became a general, he returned home in glory and moved the graves of his parents, brothers, and sisters-in-law here. Later, it was expanded many times."

Cheng Xinzhan's eyes lit up and asked, "The imperial tombs and the capital city were not built at the same time?"

Zhu Jianmo replied again, "Naturally. At that time, Taizu raised an army to oppose Yuan. When he had some success, he began to repair the graves of his relatives. Before he ascended the throne, there were three expansions. After he ascended the throne, he expanded it again and again. In the second year of Hongwu, the imperial tombs were basically finalized, and then the Central Capital began to be built."

Cheng Xinzhan went to look at the map again upon hearing this. It seemed he understood something and said, "So that's it."

Hearing this, everyone asked what he had discovered.

Cheng Xinzhan said, "If you look at this imperial tomb and the capital city separately, the formation is different.

"The whole thing still looks like 'Qilin Swallowing Gold,' absorbing the metal Qi of the world and gathering it to the imperial tomb.

"But if you remove the imperial tomb and only look at the capital city, it still uses the Bell Tower, Drum Tower, Phoenix Mountain, and Longevity Mountain as limbs, but this Phoenix Beak facing the imperial tomb is not seen as the Qilin neck, but as a big mouth. In this way, the capital city is not the Qilin body, but a big-bellied fire pig!

"Thus, the imperial tomb absorbs metal Qi, which is a gold bead, but this gold bead is continuously absorbed by this big-bellied fire pig to strengthen the capital city and strengthen the Zhu Ming dragon vein. I dare to conclude that the imperial tomb is a facade, and what is buried inside is definitely not the Zhu ancestors."

Everyone nodded, but only Xu Jishen and Sun Miaoshu showed expressions of thought, surprise, and agreement, while others only had expressions of agreement.

"Then according to reason, this capital city dragon vein absorbs the metal nature of the old Yuan and uses fire to restrain metal, so it should be flourishing day by day. Why would it breed yin objects?"

Xu Jishen asked.

Cheng Xinzhan said upon hearing this,

"I am not sure about this yet. It may be that the capital city dragon vein itself has gone wrong, or it may be that there has been a change under the imperial tomb, and this change has been swallowed by the fire pig.

"Let's wait a while, wait until sunset. As the sun sets, the yin Qi gradually rises, and the afterglow of the great sun turns into golden light to sweep the earth. We should be able to see some clues."

Everyone had no opinion and waited on the spot.

Fortunately, the weather was beautiful, and there were no clouds for ten thousand miles. At sunset, golden light spilled from the west, illuminating half the sky.

Cheng Xinzhan saw it clearly with the Qi observation method. The imperial tomb had no golden Qi to shine with the sunlight at all. Instead, there was a yin Qi rising from the imperial tomb and being absorbed by the capital city.

"It is the imperial tomb."

Cheng Xinzhan and Xu Jishen said simultaneously.

Xu Jishen glanced at Cheng Xinzhan. He knew the Qi observation method, but he hadn't thought of observing the golden Qi and yin Qi by borrowing the afterglow of the sunset, and it had never been written in books.

"Then we have to go to the imperial tomb."

Cheng Xinzhan said.

"Go, otherwise we would have come in vain."

Sun Miaoshu said with a smile.

Although the imperial tomb was now surrounded by scattered residential houses, there was still no one inside. Everyone took advantage of the night, flew into the sky, and landed inside.

Trapped in the red dust, everyone felt a little strange, but they couldn't say where they were uncomfortable. That feeling was like being inexplicably irritable, but for no reason.

Several people landed, and Zhu Jianmo took the lead. The entrance to the imperial tomb was clearly marked on the construction blueprint.

Several people walked along the wide and straight sacred path. The stone figures and stone horses on both sides were slightly gloomy. However, several people were practitioners of the Dao, so naturally, they wouldn't care about this. They walked to the end of the sacred path, and below was the entrance to the underground palace. However, there was a thousand-jin heavy 'Dragon-Breaking Stone' at the entrance of the underground palace.

But still the same sentence, several people were practitioners of the Dao, so naturally, they wouldn't rack their brains to find any mechanisms. Sun Miaoshu pinched the spell, and his mouth chanted, "Supreme Edict, transcend your lonely souls, ghosts and demons, all four births receive grace... Escape!"

A flash of brilliant light passed, and the six people disappeared from the spot, only seeing the soil on the side flowing like water.

Soon, everyone's feet stepped on solid ground again. The long-burning lamps, one every ten steps underground, were still lit, presenting a magnificent underground palace to everyone. Looking around, it was even larger than the one on the ground.

After everyone came in, they also felt some yin evil Qi, but they should all be the residual souls of the tomb builders or funeral victims buried in this ground for hundreds of years and turned into little ghosts, not any great evil that could pollute the earth veins.

"Supreme Edict, transcend your lonely souls, ghosts and demons, all four births receive grace..."

The six people chanted the "Supreme Dao Lord's Scripture on Resolving Grievances and Removing Sins for Rebirth" together. After chanting four or five times, the little ghosts underground all turned into clear light and dissipated.

"Xinzhan, you look again, where is the source of this yin evil?"

Cheng Xinzhan couldn't see any reason. He said: "Let's go to the main coffin first to see and corroborate it."

Everyone naturally had no opinion.

Zhu Jianmo released a dozen puppet spiders to walk in front. These spiders crawled on the top, bottom, left, and right walls of the tunnel to explore the way. However, nothing happened, and several people reached the main tomb very smoothly.

=9+Book_Bar

"In the past, the golden Qi was rich here. Mortals would cough up blood and die if they stayed for a long time, so no mechanisms or poisons should be used."

Cheng Xinzhan said.

Zhu Jianmo came to the main tomb and said, "Ancestors, do not blame," and then lifted the coffin of Ming Taizu's parents.

Sure enough, it was empty. There were neither corpses nor mechanisms in the coffin.

Cheng Xinzhan thought for a while, stepped on the ground with his feet, and asked Sun Miaoshu again,

"Fellow Daoist Miaoshu, how many li can your escape technique go down?"

"Forty li. If it is a round trip, it is twenty li."

"Shall we continue to look down?"

Cheng Xinzhan felt that there should be nothing in this underground palace. If there were any yin evil that could disturb the earth veins, they would have sensed it long ago.

Sun Miaoshu looked at Xu Jishen.

Xu Jishen understood, took out a handful of grass stalks, and held them in his left and right hands. Cheng Xinzhan watched him pour from left to right for a while, then from right to left, and then clip them between his fingers, but he didn't understand what he was doing.

"That is yarrow, Jishen is calculating the six-line hexagram."

Feng Jihu explained in a low voice.

It didn't take long for Xu Jishen to put away the yarrow and say,

"The hexagram says there is no danger, and we will return safely."

Sun Miaoshu said good, so he performed the escape technique and took several people down further.

"Eh?"

In the darkness, a light 'eh' came from Sun Miaoshu.

"What's wrong?"

Everyone was in the darkness and didn't know what had happened.

"After going down five or six li, there is a restriction blocking the way."

Sun Miaoshu replied.

"Try walking horizontally."

Wang Miaoyuan reminded.

"Which direction?"

"Any direction is fine. This restriction must be protecting or sealing something below, but this restriction cannot be stuffed out of thin air. There must be a hollow space somewhere to stand. Just bump into luck."

"Good."

Everyone's luck was okay. Not long after, they felt a light in front of them and bumped into a deeper underground palace. However, this layer of the underground palace was very narrow, with only a long tunnel. In the niches on the side walls of the tunnel were some strange beasts. There were no long-burning lamps here, and fluorescent stones and night-shining pearls were used for lighting.

Cheng Xinzhan looked around and found that several people were just at the entrance of the tunnel. There were stairs chiseled out here, which seemed to lead directly to a certain place in the underground palace above.

"So cold!"

However, different from the second layer, as soon as several people entered, they felt a bone-chilling cold, as if falling into an ice cellar, as if it were cold to the bones, freezing their thoughts.

"Zhao!"

Cheng Xinzhan chanted an incantation.

He cast a paper talisman, and the transparent and slightly ginger-warm flame on the talisman burned. The light emitted by the flame dispelled the darkness and also dispelled some of the cold.

Everyone felt better.

"The golden Qi seems to be much richer." Zhu Jianmo said.

Everyone felt it, and sure enough, it was.

"This is the 'Agarwood Hundred-Supplement Pill,' which benefits the liver and spleen and is good for relieving the invasion of yin Qi and golden Qi into the flesh."

Feng Jihu took out a pill bottle and let everyone take one.

The pill bottle passed through everyone's hands. After taking the pill, they felt a warmth flowing through their whole body, feeling much more comfortable.

Zhu Jianmo still walked in front and released a group of puppets to explore the way.

After walking for about half a quarter of an hour, Cheng Xinzhan saw light coming from the front of the tunnel, which seemed to be the end.

Zhu Jianmo also slowed down his pace. Everyone approached cautiously, watching from afar. This end seemed to be a huge karst cave.

Cheng Xinzhan didn't know what was in this karst cave, emitting inexplicable light. The dark gold mixed with bright green, and also carried black Qi, making the karst cave look a bit gloomy.

When approaching the cave entrance, Zhu Jianmo's pace slowed down a lot. He walked slowly and slowly poked his head out to look.

With just one glance, everyone saw Zhu Jianmo shrink his head back like a frightened rabbit. The expression on his face was extremely complex, extremely terrified, and could even be said to be sluggish.

He pressed his fingers tightly against his lips, signaling everyone not to make a sound, and pointed his finger outside, letting everyone go and see for themselves.

Sun Miaoshu followed closely behind Zhu Jianmo and poked his head out to look.

However, after waiting for several breaths, everyone saw him turn his head back, his face full of confusion. He shrugged, signaling that he hadn't seen anything.

Seeing this, Zhu Jianmo was even more confused than him and signaled for the rest of the people to go and see.

So the rest of the people slowly leaned forward.

Cheng Xinzhan was also among them. He slowly poked his head out and looked down. He saw:

The strange dark gold and bright green light became richer the further down it went, and black smoke was mixed in it, rising up, carrying a rich death Qi.

And not far below the tunnel, he saw a fire-red net. The dark gold and bright green light was emitted through the meshes of the net.

Below the fire net, the dark gold and bright green light almost condensed into substance, like water.

His line of sight moved down, and his pupils contracted sharply. But the thing under the surging light water was clearly reflected in his pupils.

The source of the light was actually a blue-scaled, golden-horned Qilin lying on its side, as huge as a mountain!

Written during a break from a business trip, my head is splitting.

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(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 102 =====