Chapter 702: The Dragon Vein Secret Realm

Li Yan’s sense of smell never fails.

Kong Hui’s aura is utterly unique—the scent of a sealed study crammed with mildewed ancient texts, mingled with a faint trace of blood.

Once smelled, it etches itself into the bone.

The soul ledger showed no reaction, further confirming his judgment:

The target had merely “been here,” and was now gone.

Yet from deep within the cellar came clear incantations, spoken in obscure southwestern dialect, rustling and steeped in malevolence.

“Take him alive,” Li Yan muttered with a glance.

The order fell silently; the team shifted like a precision mechanism, instantly in motion.

Sha Li flew up the low wall like a monkey, his Divine Fire rifle already steady on his shoulder; Wang Daoxuan pinched a talisman between his fingers, murmuring incantations under his breath; Long Yan raised her slender fingers, and several faint glows shot from her sleeves; Lu San swung his arm, and the falcon “Li Dong” soared skyward, clutching the demonic gourd…

As for Wu Ba, he twisted his neck, tightened his iron-studded gauntlets, and followed closely behind Li Yan.

Luo Mingzi watched silently, heart pounding.

Though the Twelve Zodiacs’ movements appeared chaotic, they had instantly sealed every inch of space—offense and defense perfectly balanced. No wonder they’d earned such a fearsome reputation.

The two darted to the shop’s entrance.

Thud!

Wu Ba drew back his fist, unleashed a powerful blow, and the thick brick wall shattered open with a muffled crash.

In the instant dust and debris exploded into the air, Li Yan’s figure blurred like a ghost, crashing through the wooden door and forcing his way inside!

Instantly, a thick odor slammed into his nostrils:

The bitter sharpness of fresh wood, the pungent stench of tung oil, and the rich, sweet tang of fresh blood…

Seeing the interior, Li Yan’s pupils contracted sharply.

The shop was now a ruin.

Wood shavings littered the floor; several malformed, half-finished wooden puppets lay overturned.

One resembled the dragon-bone waterwheels common in fields, but its design had been ingeniously altered—each segment reconfigured into a clawed, dragon-serpent hybrid puppet, its protrusions tipped with blades, some twisted, others still dripping blood.

Blood stained the ground everywhere; several mangled corpses lay sprawled among it.

The small door to the backyard had been smashed. Inside, Li Yan saw shelves toppled, timber scattered haphazardly, and signs of violent struggle everywhere.

Most horrifying was the wooden statue of Lei Gong inside the niche on the right-hand wall.

The base’s trapdoor gaped wide; between the dense rows of spring-loaded crossbow barrels, several untriggered bone-piercing nails remained lodged.

Below, seven black-clad men had been pinned like hedgehogs, their bodies riddled with bloodied holes.

In the center of the courtyard, the ground had collapsed into a dark, square opening.

Beside it leaned a heavy basalt slab, pockmarked with honeycomb-like holes, upon which a dozen triangular poison darts glowed with eerie blue cold.

Beside the tunnel crouched an old man dressed in foreign garb.

He wore a white headwrap, deep-blue cotton robes, and large silver earrings that swayed in the shadows; several glossy gourds hung at his waist as he muttered incantations over one gourd sealed with red cloth—countless thin, emerald-green centipedes poured endlessly from its mouth, writhing into the tunnel.

A southwestern poison master!

The moment Li Yan burst in, the poison master sensed him—his cloudy eyes flickered with panic.

He twisted aside and blew a sharp whistle.

Sssss!

Several slender venomous snakes shot out like shadowy arrows from beneath his robes, striking straight for Li Yan’s face!

But as the snake shadows flashed, Li Yan was no longer where he had been.

The poison master felt a rush of wind behind his head, saw darkness, and collapsed, knocked unconscious by Li Yan’s palm.

Without his control, the snakes and centipedes went berserk, scurrying wildly through the room.

Outside the door, Long Yan’s longer whistle echoed clearly.

Her spirit Gu , the “Qin Chong,” streaked in as a red thread; wherever it passed, the venomous creatures withered and died instantly.

Li Yan had no time to explain—he leapt into the gloomy tunnel.

Since ancient times, every great city of Shenzhou has had underground tunnels.

Like this capital, once “Yan Du,” later “Youzhou,” and still later the Jin Khanate’s “Dadu.”

Wars and merchant smuggling had carved out countless tunnels.

This one was clearly an ancient military passage—large in scale, but all outward exits had been blocked.

Rows of blackwood coffins stood aligned; above them, paper puppets hung suspended by oil-soaked ropes.

White paper for skin, cinnabar for eyes, joints connected by tiny wooden axles—these were puppets crafted by the Kuai family’s secret “Wooden Bones, Paper Skin” technique.

Some puppets had been torn open, revealing their intricate wooden skeletons inside.

Now, they swayed slightly in the cold wind, joints creaking “click… click…” with hollow eyes seeming to gaze down at the intruders.

Before the coffins lay several black-clad men, dead in varied poses—clearly killed by traps within the coffins or puppets.

Li Yan’s sharp eyes scanned the floor and halted abruptly.

In the dim light, several nearly transparent metal threads stretched taut, shimmering with barely perceptible glimmers.

Li Yan shook his head slightly, his gaze locking onto the far end of the tunnel.

There stood a small tower built of dark, heavy wood, seemingly connected to the surface above—its style strange and heavy, with only one narrow, cramped high window.

Inside the window, a pale teenager’s face—pale from blood loss—flashed briefly before vanishing into shadow!

“Oh? Another one shows up.” A lazy, mocking curse rang out.

“No matter how many come, this ‘Hundred Crafts Tower’ is your grave!”

As he spoke, the clattering of machinery inside the tower intensified; the coffins around them rattled violently, sending chills down the spine.

“Are you Master Kuai? Don’t move!”

Li Yan called out immediately, bowing his fists, “I am Li Yan, here to track down a demon.”

“Li Yan?”

The teenager inside clearly recognized the name, but sounded skeptical, “What proof?”

Then a weak, aged voice echoed from within: “No need to doubt… he is Li Yan…”

Li Yan’s eyes brightened: “Uncle Wu? Is that you?”

Clatter-clatter-clatter~

From within the tower, the sound of locking mechanisms rang out; the side wall of the solid blackwood tower slowly lowered a narrow, basket-like wooden compartment.

Inside sat two men.

One wore tattered clothes, his hair white and withered—it was Wu the Old Man of the Ghost Market, the “Living Yin Officer.”

His face bore a cyan tint of poisoning; a black vein crept down his neck; his breath was shallow.

The other was a teenager in a neat black short-sleeved robe, pale-skinned, with coarse features: a large nose, wide mouth, plainly unattractive—but a white headband bound his messy hair, and his eyes burned with startling intensity, now blazing with pain and fury.

His abdomen gaped open with a gruesome wound, crudely bound with blood-soaked cloth—Kuai Dayou, the prodigy of the Craftsmen’s Gate.

At that moment, Wang Daoxuan and the others had also jumped down.

“Save them first!” Li Yan barked.

No words needed; everyone moved instantly.

Wang Daoxuan examined the wounds; Lu San pulled out herbs and pressed them onto the injuries.

But the true expert was Long Yan—she swiftly cleaned the wounds, applied ointment, and re-bandaged with swift, graceful motions like a butterfly dancing through flowers.

Soon, Kuai Dayou’s pale face regained a trace of color; Wu the Old Man’s cyan tinge faded noticeably.

“Both of you—what happened?” Li Yan asked as soon as their breathing steadied.

“We’re screwed… totally screwed!”

Kuai Dayou spoke one sentence, then clenched his molars, grimacing in pain.

Wu the Old Man gasped in reply, voice hoarse: “Not long after I left my hideout in the Ghost Market, I felt something trailing me—I took refuge in Kuai’s coffin shop… thought the underground chamber might offer some cover. But somehow, the Yin Invader found us. Luckily, I scared him off with my Gangling .”

“Bullshit!”

Kuai Dayou spat, still shaken and furious, “I was sound asleep when that coffin-faced scholar suddenly popped up like a ghost! If I hadn’t reacted fast and rolled into the ‘Hundred Crafts Tower’ with a ‘Lazy Donkey Flip,’ I’d be dead meat by now!”

“That guy’s skill and methods… are utterly unnatural! No ordinary man could’ve bested me.”

Wu Lao Tou was also investigating the Jianmu, so Li Yan revealed his identity and asked curiously, “He possesses the Earth Official’s Scripture of Pardon and Absolution—he should be able to ignore one pursuit from the Netherworld. Elder Wu, how did you drive him away?”

Wu the Old Man was also hunting Jianmu; Li Yan revealed his purpose, then asked, “He carries the ‘Earth Official’s Pardon Scripture’—he should be able to ignore one Yin Bureau pursuit. Uncle Wu, how did you scare him off?”

This was Li Yan’s greatest puzzle.

“Because the cost was too high.”

Beside him, Luo Mingzi shook his head, glancing at the corpses. “His men’s lives aren’t worth as much as that trump card.”

Wu the Old Man nodded weakly, his sunken eyes filled with unease: “Yes… yes, that’s true. But… I still can’t understand… how did they find me so quickly?”

This question, like a shadow, loomed over his mind.

“They may not be hunting only you,” Li Yan said, his gaze shifting to Kuai Dayou, who was grimacing as he inspected his puppet’s wounds. “Have you crafted and controlled the ‘Mao Hou Yin Bing’ to secretly aid the Rabbit Lord?”

Kuai Dayou raised an eyebrow. “What’s it to you?”

“Kid, watch your tongue!” Sha Li snapped. “We just saved your life.”

Kuai rolled his eyes. “One thing at a time. I’ll repay you for saving me—but don’t ask what you shouldn’t.”

Li Yan frowned slightly.

Kuai Dayou was a teenage prodigy, but his temperament was that of a street brat.

No doubt his unruly nature contributed to the Xiangshan Society’s attempt to oust him.

Thinking of this, Li Yan cut straight to the point: “At Zi Shi, I was inside the ‘Nine Gates Yin Ruins.’”

“It’s you.”

Kuai Dayou grinned and gave a thumbs-up. “Daring to disturb the Dragon Vein? You’ve got guts!”

Saying this, he could no longer hold on and fainted.

Everyone exchanged glances, all somewhat speechless.

But now that things had come to this, they could only take the man back to “Rouyuan Yi” to treat his wounds…

…………

On the other side, outside the Imperial Ancestral Temple.

The sky had just begun to lighten, yet the light grew dimmer still.

On the Liuli roof of the temple, the ridge beasts of the eaves were visible only as silhouettes, appearing sinister and solemn.

The morning wind swept up dust, swirling in the cracks of the white marble steps.

At the end of the imperial road, beneath the nine-dragon canopy, Emperor Xiao Qixuan of Da Xuan stood with his hands behind his back, his face as cold as frost.

He sat quietly on his couch, his deep gaze fixed on the tightly closed doors of the Ancestral Temple; the hot tea beside him had long gone cold.

The intelligence brought back by Pei Zongti had sent a chill down his spine.

The “Peach Banquet” had merely been a sacrifice—the followers of Jianmu had already tampered deep within the “Nine Gates Yin Xu.”

Without a moment’s delay, he ordered a full investigation into the Dragon Vein’s anomalies and personally stood guard outside.

Inside the Ancestral Temple’s main hall, candles burned brightly.

The rich scent of camphor wood mingled with the smoke of incense, filling the entire hall.

Within the temple, the spirit tablets of past emperors of Da Xuan and their lawful empresses were enshrined, arranged according to the principle of “one hall, separate chambers,” with the left side for ancestors of the elder line and the right for those of the younger line.

In addition, civil and military ministers granted the honor of enshrinement in the temple were also honored here.

The offerings were of the highest rank: besides ritual vessels and music, one ox, one pig, and one sheep were placed on the sacrificial altars.

This was the “Tai Lao” rite; the civil and military ministers received lesser offerings on their own altars—the “Shao Lao” rite.

Directly before the hall, thirty-six royal clan sorcerers from the Zongrenfu held ritual implements, forming a circle around the central space in the Heavenly Gang formation.

At the center of the array, Pei Zongti, Bai Chenshan of the Imperial Astronomical Bureau, and an elderly man in a python robe sat cross-legged.

Both Pei Zongti and Bai Chenshan felt uneasy and excited.

Though one was a master of Confucianism and the other a Grand Master of Earth Divination, both held exalted positions in the Mystic Gate, this was their first time ever encountering the Dragon Vein.

This was a dynastic secret—never before had outsiders entered, except during the founding era under the state masters.

The faces of the Zongrenfu sorcerers, however, were grim.

The emperor sending outsiders to investigate was clearly a sign of distrust toward them—but now that trouble had arisen, and with elite palace guards watching from behind, no one dared object.

The man in the python robe was Lu Chuan Wang, Left President of the Zongrenfu , and a trusted confidant of the emperor.

Shunyang Wang’s position as Head of the Zongrenfu would surely be stripped; he was the emperor’s appointed successor.

“Gentlemen.”

Lu Chuan Wang looked at the two and spoke in a hoarse voice: “Once inside, follow me closely.”

Saying this, he gave a subtle signal to the side.

The Zongrenfu sorcerers immediately clutched their ritual implements and began chanting the “Great Xuan Prayer to Heaven and Earth.”

“We humbly beseech the vastness of Heaven and Earth, the primordial division of Yin and Yang—Da Xuan has received its mandate from Heaven, inheriting the destiny of Shenzhou…”

As the grand chant rose, the incense scent in the hall grew even thicker.

The three within the array felt their bodies grow light, as if rising into the air, plunging into the swirling smoke.

The barrier between illusion and reality now seemed blurred.

Their yin souls wandered, passed through the mist, and at last beheld the “Nine Gates Yin Xu.”

Unlike Li Yan, they, aided by the Ancestral Temple’s array, viewed it from above—their perspective was far clearer.

What they saw was bizarre and surreal.

What they beheld was no longer merely the reflection of the ruined capital.

They saw white marble foundations supporting weathered Tang-era rammed-earth walls;

Tibetan-style stupa towers of the Golden Tent Khanate half-buried beneath the shattered Liuli tiles of Da Xuan’s imperial palace;

And the faint afterimages of the Khanate’s “Ordos” (palaces), flickering in and out beside a river carrying the ghostly shadows of Song-era canal boats…

The dust of history did not settle in chronological order.

It was like a shuffled deck of cards, layered, twisted, and crushed together.

Every slight tremor in space brought dizziness and a tearing sensation in their perception.

Pei Zongti and Bai Chenshan tried to see more clearly, but only felt a wave of vertigo.

“Gentlemen, do not stare.”

Lu Chuan Wang said gravely: “Mystic realms contain the mysteries of Heaven and Earth. We are all mortals. To glimpse them through the temple’s state ritual is perilous—if we become entranced, our yin souls will be damaged and cannot endure it.”

Hearing this, Pei Zongti and Bai Chenshan dared not gaze any longer.

They looked toward the distance and saw the Nine Gates—but they were unlike what Li Yan had seen.

The nine great gates of the capital hovered and rotated, not merely spinning, but advancing and retreating in complex interlacing patterns.

They resembled a slowly beating colossal heart.

What the gates swallowed and expelled were solidified hatred, lingering imperial incense, and fragmented shards of space.

Within Chongwen Gate, the rigid spirits of merchants still marched in endless queues, repeating their old tax payments, silent in their lament…

Within Zhengyang Gate, fleeting glimpses of Golden Tent cavalry charges flashed—arrows raining through the air, their whistling shrieks tearing through the silence…

Within Chaoyang Gate, a winding line of canal workers, shoulders bent, carried invisible sacks of rice, trudging forward in silence…

Within Xuanwu Gate, the guillotine’s blade was rusted, countless headless corpses standing stiffly in pools of blood…

Each gate seemed a separate temporal trap.

A single historical moment was frozen within, endlessly repeating…

(End of Chapter)