Chapter 96

"Alright, open the coffin."

Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe threw the heavy iron chains aside, and he and Seeing Lan Shiwen each grabbed one side of the coffin lid and lifted it upward simultaneously.

The tightly sealed lid and coffin body were pried open, and the lacquer that had shattered into powder scattered downward. A faint scent of oil and the smell of protein-decomposing rot wafted out. The two worked together to lift the coffin lid and place it on the empty ground next to the iron chains. Inside the ghastly white lacquered coffin lay a withered old corpse wrapped in a thin Confucian robe, with a hunched figure, sagging skin, and teeth scattered in its mouth; it must have been over seventy years old when it died.

"Rosewood? Good stuff," Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe touched the wood revealed under the cracked lacquer; it was a beautiful color as translucent as amber. This was much more impressive than the thin paulownia wood coffin Ji Bochang had when he died.

This coffin was not pieced together from multiple wooden boards but carved from a single, thick log. The exterior was soaked in lacquer and painted with white lacquer, without a single gap. Even though it had been submerged at the bottom of the pond for who knows how many years, the corpse inside remained dry.

Beneath the corpse was a thick layer of neatly arranged copper coins, square-holed and round-edged, covering the bottom of the coffin and serving as a mattress for the corpse.

"Old thing, sleeping on a pillow of money even after death," Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe moved the old corpse out of the coffin and tossed it casually on the bank of the pond. The ghost in the coffin had already been taken away, so there was nothing to fear from a corpse.

"Wait, this corpse..." Seeing Lan Shiwen squatted down and lifted the Confucian robe on the old corpse's chest. A strange, branch-like pattern appeared on the withered, liver-spotted chest of the corpse.

"What's wrong?" Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe also looked at the branch pattern on the corpse's chest.

"This corpse is Ji Bochang's," Seeing Lan Shiwen wrapped the lifted Confucian robe back up: "Although the corpse itself has decayed beyond recognition, I recognize the lightning-struck wood tattoo on its chest. It is Ji Bochang."

But if the corpse in this coffin was Ji Bochang, then who was the corpse possessed by the God of Wealth wandering in Yunmeng Marsh?

Both of them felt a strange sense of urgency, as if someone in the dark was telling them that if they didn't hurry and do something, something irreversible might happen.

Seeing Lan Shiwen put the coffin lid back on, tied it up with the iron chains, and said: "Let's go, let's go out and buy our lives from the God of Wealth."

"Alright," Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe didn't say much more. The two were not archaeologists or exploration enthusiasts uncovering sealed pasts; they were just here to find Ji Bochang's legacy. Since they had found it, they should leave quickly. Staying in this haunted house for even one more minute carried a fatal danger.

With the protection of the Serpent God's rules and Seeing Lan Shiwen's ability to foresee the future to avoid danger, the journey was smooth and without incident. The two dragged the heavy coffin filled with copper coins and successfully returned to the gate where they had entered.

But the gate was closed.

"What's going on?" Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe turned to look at Seeing Lan Shiwen. He clearly remembered that when they entered, Seeing Lan Shiwen had deliberately left the gate of Gathering Immortals Garden open, and hadn't even pulled out the key stuck in the lock; they had walked right in.

Could Seeing Lan Shiwen, who could foresee the future, make such a mistake?

Of course not.

"Sure enough..." Seeing Lan Shiwen didn't look surprised at all. He stared at the locked gate in front of him and smiled: "They are here."

"They? Who?"

"A bunch of idiots who dream of a world under their family's rule," Seeing Lan Shiwen said nonchalantly: "Not many people can find this place. Tu Yu is outside, Wu Tong is already dead, and the rest are the people from the old Yin family."

"The Yin family...?" Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe frowned slightly; he had already thought of something.

He still remembered what Seeing Lan Shiwen had said earlier: Gathering Immortals Garden was once a Daoist temple in ancient times, and the official who converted the temple into a summer villa was surnamed Yin.

Had the descendants of that official returned here?

"That's right, the descendants of the Yin family, the owners of this Gathering Immortals Garden," Seeing Lan Shiwen's expression was slightly stiff as he nodded: "As soon as Ji Bochang died, they returned. They are probably here for the ghosts in Gathering Immortals Garden."

Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe noticed the strangeness in Seeing Lan Shiwen's words and asked: "Do you have a grudge against them?" "A blood feud," Seeing Lan Shiwen said without hesitation: "To be precise, I killed their whole family."

"Holy shit," Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe was shocked.

"It wasn't entirely my doing alone," Seeing Lan Shiwen walked to the gate, reached out to touch the bright red lacquered door panel, and said faintly:

"In the year 2000, the Millennium Massacre, Tu Yu, Fen Wu, Wu Tong... and I, the four of us wiped out the entire Yin family, totaling five hundred and twelve people. From the decrepit family head to the infants waiting to be fed, even the cleaners who swept the floors—we cut off their roots and left no one behind."

"... However, I was only 4 years old in 2000 and was still being held in Tu Yu's arms, so I don't remember the situation at the time very clearly."

"4 years old?" Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe was shocked again.

But on second thought, the rules Seeing Lan Shiwen mastered were terrifying even when held by a 4-year-old child.

"May I ask the reason why you killed their whole family?" Seeing Seeing Ning Zhe asked.

"Do you need a reason to kill family-clan dogs?" Seeing Lan Shiwen smiled disdainfully: "A bunch of idiots who dream of the world, they are no different from the alligator gars in a koi pond. Killing them can be considered a contribution to society."

People are destined to die, and so are the Ascenders. Even the God of Wealth, who could trade human lives like money, could not escape the fate of death.

=9+Shu_ba

Some Ascenders fall into madness before they die, venting their fear of death onto innocent mortals; Ji Bochang was such a madman.

Some Ascenders calmly accept death, telling other Ascenders the rules they have mastered and asking them to collect their bodies so that strange events do not break out in reality.

Still other Ascenders are even greedier. Such people, before they die, tell their chosen children the rules they have mastered and the ways to break them, allowing their descendants to seamlessly take over their rules after they die, keeping the controllable rules within their bloodline, remaining high and mighty for generations.

Ascenders with extraordinary powers use blood ties as a bond to stably pass on the rules they have mastered. This is what Seeing Lan Shiwen calls family-clan dogs, a group of 'idiots who dream of a world under their family's rule.'

"Relying on rules stably passed down through blood ties, these people think they can ride on the heads of ordinary people and act recklessly for generations."

Seeing Lan Shiwen said softly: "The lone Ascenders who broke the rules on their own to become Ascenders despise these idiots the most, which led to the later Millennium Massacre."

From 1999 to 2000, in just one short year, tens of thousands of people in Yunzhou alone died under the blade, and the number of people who died in other provinces and prefectures was countless.

Lone Ascenders from all over the Nine Provinces slaughtered these self-important families from top to bottom. The Millennium Massacre was just the beginning; they slaughtered them again in 2008, and again in 2012. Lone Ascenders have repeatedly treated these great families like dogs to be slaughtered, killing them year after year until now, and you can't find even one family on the land of the Nine Provinces that hasn't had its lineage broken.

However, in Seeing Lan Shiwen's view, this was far from enough.

"Fen Wu was soft-hearted back then and didn't kill all the people of the Yin family. Once Wu Tong died, a few stray dogs couldn't help but sneak back to Gathering Immortals Garden; they are probably still thinking of reviving their ancestral business."

Seeing Lan Shiwen chuckled, revealing a row of white, neat teeth:

"Daring to show their faces now, it seems these family-clan dogs are due for another slaughter."

(End of Chapter)