Chapter 237: The Master Has Arrived…

The moment the black qi poured out, the temperature in the stone corridor felt as if someone had violently yanked it down a notch.

This was not ordinary cold. It was the kind that seeps up from deep grave earth, from the blackest water at the bottom of a well, from an age-old coffin slowly exhaling chill.

It crawled along the seams of bones and into the air, and everyone felt their breathing grow heavier.

The smell in their nostrils — a foul mix of paper ash, rouge, candle wax, and damp wood — thickened until it made them sick.

The shrunken coffin rested on the ruined red sedan chair frame, its lid slightly ajar. Black qi oozed out from the seams in thin strands, probing outward like a living thing feeling for the path.

“Don’t look at the coffin seam!”

Lu Yuan suddenly barked.

“That is the soul-luring eye!”

Zhou Heng had already raised his sword to strike, but at the shout he immediately averted his gaze, sweat already beading at his temple.

Lu Yuan didn’t answer right away. He held his short blade across his chest.

His left-hand fingers pinched into a half-clasp, the thumb pressing the base of the ring finger, forming a steady “lock-altar seal.”

He murmured the incantation under his breath:

“The heavens hold the Three Pure Ones, the earth holds the Nine Netherworlds!”

“One line in the altar, yin and yang diverge!”

“Now I borrow the seal to bind your head!”

“Urgently, urgently, as by the law’s command!”

At the last four words, the clear qi in his palm — which had been thinned and driven weak by lightning and fire — forcibly coalesced another half inch.

But the shrunken coffin was clearly no ordinary yin object.

With a creak along the coffin lid edge, it inched up another fraction, as if a hand inside was pushing and slowly burrowing outward.

Lin Zhaoxuan’s face was solemn, the Thunderclap Token across his chest. He spoke softly:

“Lu Daoist, the yin qi in that coffin is too thick. It’s like... like the household, paper, incense ash being fed layer by layer.”

Lu Yuan said coldly:

“It’s not like it.”

“It is it.”

“In the malevolent methods from beyond the Wall, the worst kind doesn’t raise corpses directly. They mix the household offerings, paper, malefic qi, incense faith, and earth’s energy into one yin furnace, first nourishing the mouth, then the heart, then the gate.”

“The shrunken coffin we saw a moment ago is the mouth of such a yin furnace.”

“It’s going to open its mouth now.”

As he spoke, Lu Yuan pivoted on his feet. He suddenly reversed his grip on the short blade, the spine of the blade resting against his wrist, tip pointed outward.

He stepped left first, then slid his right foot, and somehow produced a very short yet extremely stable Yu Step.

One step down, another up, a third pressed. The steps weren’t fast, but each was like hammering a stake into the ground; every footfall carried the flavor of suppressing earth veins.

While moving he chanted:

“Left step stamps the Azure Dragon position, right step presses the White Tiger gate!”

“Front calms the Vermilion Bird mouth, rear seals the Black Tortoise coil!”

“One step, one hidden mystery; one step severs a road!”

“With my mortal body I walk the altar, borrowing three feet of earth to form a heavenly net!”

“Evil retreat, a hundred malefactors subdued, the yin gate closed!”

As the formula fell from his lips, the black ash circle on the ground actually brightened bit by bit under his feet.

The ash didn’t glow, but his step talisman forced up “earth qi.”

A faint yellow-white mist rose from the ash line, like a thin ring of living soil, pushing ambient aura outward.

Song Qinghe’s chest tightened, and she whispered:

“This is... step talisman forming a Big Dipper?”

“Not the full set,” Lu Yuan said without taking his eyes off the shrunken coffin.

“This space is too narrow to set the full Dipper array. I can only borrow a short talisman array — pin it down a bit.”

“You all listen carefully. From now on, whatever you see, do not move forward even half a step.”

“Zhou Heng, guard left.” “Song Qinghe, guard center.”

“Lin Zhaoxuan, keep your Thunder Token unbroken, compress with me.”

“Cheng’an, Erxiao, watch that paper child. Don’t let it touch the coffin foot.”

Xu Erxiao’s throat tightened.

“That paper child can still move?”

No sooner had he spoken than the paper child, its body blackened by lightning and fire, gave a sharp little laugh and slowly turned its body at the cracked edge of the black soil.

The yellow cord at its neck had been half-burned through, the rotten talisman on its forehead singed at a corner.

Yet the character “lure” on it glowed redder, as if someone had retraced it in blood.

Strangest of all, from under its charred paper hand white threads began to ooze out again.

Thin as hairs lost while a woman combs her hair, they fell and became crawling soul-threads, probing the rim of the black ash circle strand by strand.

“It’s mending the gate!”

Song Qinghe gasped.

Lu Yuan’s gaze chilled. He flicked his short blade toward the paper child.

“It’s ‘restitching the road.’”

“This thing is originally used to guide living qi to the furnace heart. Now the sedan is broken, and it must stitch the road itself.”

“If it connects the paper threads to the coffin foot, the breath in that coffin can crawl out along the yin vein.”

Hearing this, Lin Zhaoxuan immediately pressed two fingers to the face of his token and intoned in a deep voice:

“Nine Heavens Prime Responder Universal Thunder Transformation Celestial Master above!”

“Thunder section truth, lend me one thread!”

“Earthly Malevolence as lock, heavenly thunder as cord!”

“By decree!”

The Thunderclap Token flared blue-white again. This time the arc wasn’t just a fine curve; a short ring of thunder ripples rolled out along the token’s body.

Lin Zhaoxuan formed the Pressure Demon Seal with his left hand and pressed the token’s tail with his right. The thunder ring seemed to be led, sinking down to press.

The thunder did not immediately burst forth; it hovered half a foot in front of the token, crackling softly with a low, heavy hum.

Lu Yuan glanced at him and said softly:

“Good, hold it down.”

“I’ll put up the second seal.”

Then Lu Yuan suddenly fished a small copper box from his bosom.

The box was palm-sized, its corners worn bright. The lid was etched with bagua patterns.

Inside was not cinnabar but a powder so fine it was almost white salt.

“This is an old beyond-the-Wall trick: ‘earth salt’ frozen out in the depths of winter.”

“Salt can neutralize malefic qi and also force yin to retreat.”

“But it needs fire.”

Lu Yuan produced a splinter of tinder from his sleeve, placed it between his fingers, and blew gently. A tiny spark jumped.

“Wang Cheng’an, take the pine resin from your clothes.”

“Erxiao, give me that half-inch of candle you have.”

“Quick.”

Wang Cheng’an hurriedly dug a small packet of pine resin from his collar, and Xu Erxiao promptly handed over the stub of yellow candle no more than half an inch long.

Lu Yuan took them, crushed the pine resin, mixed it with the earth salt, and rolled the mixture into an extremely fine pellet in his palm.

He then cut the yellow candle into three pieces and positioned them according to Heaven-Earth-Man directions along the edge of the black ash circle: one left, one center, one right.

Pulling three sheets of yellow paper from his breast, all small and stamped with cinnabar on the edges, their corners deeply creased — clearly prepared earlier — Lu Yuan drew a talisman quickly on the first sheet while murmuring:

“Heaven fire above, earth fire below!”

“Yin flame into the abyss, yang flame to expel malefic qi!”

“Salt for bone, wax for skin!”

“Pine resin as the spark; lend me three parts true yang qi!”

“Where this talisman lands, the malefic gate will shut!”

On the second sheet he dipped a finger into the salt-resin paste in his palm and drew a vertical broken line with two horizontal slashes, quietly barking:

“Sever your soul bridge, cut off your yin road!”

“Yin return to yin place, yang to yang house!”

“Urgently, urgently, as by the law’s command!”

On the third talisman he pricked three tiny dots with the tip of his short blade, using a trace of blood from his fingertip, careful and deliberate, like drawing a little lock.

“This one is called the ‘Three-Dot Mouth-Seal Talisman,’” Lu Yuan said coldly.

“I’ll stick it on the coffin seam later to seal its ‘tongue.’”

Song Qinghe’s heart tightened.

“The coffin has a tongue?”

Lu Yuan didn’t look at her. He said:

“If a coffin becomes a furnace, it has a mouth.”

“A mouth has an entrance and an exit, and it has a tongue.”

“If this truly is a yin furnace mouth, beneath it aren’t just a single breath — there will be the three apertures of turning, vomiting malefic qi, and soul sucking.”

“Sealing one aperture won’t be enough. We must suppress all three together.”

As he spoke, the shrunken coffin lid rose again.

This time it wasn’t a slow lift but a thud, as if someone inside had suddenly sat bolt upright and shoved the lid up an inch.

A breath blasted out, carrying the faint metallic tang of copper.

“It has awakened.”

Lin Zhaoxuan said in a low voice.

Lu Yuan divided the three talismans among them.

“Song Qinghe, place the first talisman on the coffin lid’s left corner.”

“Zhou Heng, nail the second on the right corner.”

“I’ll affix the mouth talisman.”

Zhou Heng took the talisman, biting his lip and nodding.

“Wait!”

Wang Cheng’an suddenly realized something amiss and pointed to the area behind the coffin in a low voice:

“The paper-faced figure... is gone!”

Everyone’s alarm spiked and they turned as one.

Sure enough, the paper-masked figure whose chest Lu Yuan had cut open earlier had by some time been reduced to an empty white paper face, floppy and hanging by a red cloth stake.

Its wooden skeleton and paper shell were gone.

As if someone had silently emptied the shell and carried off the “main actor” within.

Lu Yuan’s gaze swept the area and he barked immediately:

“No — it didn’t escape. It went down!”

“It burrowed back into the gate!”

At that, everyone’s hearts dropped.

At that exact moment, the earth under them thudded again.

This time it was not distant; it sounded as if something had struck the soil directly beneath their feet.

“Dong—”

The black earth trembled gently.

Nine black iron nails circling the soul-binding stone seeped even deeper dark red along their grooves, like blood running out along nail slots.

“It’s using the nails to pry the gate open!”

Lu Yuan’s face changed completely.

“Hurry, don’t let it topple the Nine-Nail Formation!”

Lin Zhaoxuan didn’t wait for instruction. He raised the Thunderclap Token high. Blue-white arcs jumped along its body again.

Gritting his teeth, he intoned rapidly:

“Ancestor of Thunder above, the Five Thunders calm the earth!”

“East azure, west white, south crimson, north black!”

“Central hall binds malice, the four corners unmoved!”

“Lend me three inches of thunderlight to press your nine yin nails!”

“Help, help, help!”

Calling for aid three times, a small thunder ring formed around the token, humming half a foot away.

But at the instant the thunder ring was about to descend, a sudden roar — and the shrunken coffin flipped its lid wide on its own.

Not slowly opening, but as if someone inside snapped upright and forcibly tossed the cover aside.

With a clatter, seven red cords were ripped; two snapped clean, copper coins jingled and scattered.

A thick, ink-black malefic qi billowed out of the coffin and shot upward.

Embedded in that qi were countless tiny white specks, like paper ash or bone dust not yet dissolved. They drifted outward and coalesced into a semicircular ghost-face in the air.

The ghost-face had no nose or ears, only a vast open mouth like a black hole.

“Back!”

Lu Yuan shouted, pushing his right palm forward. His hand seals shifted and in an instant he altered the formation’s orientation.

His left fingers closed together, the thumb pressing the little finger, while his right hand held the short blade reversed, tip pointed down. He crouched forward and chanted:

“Heaven gate open, earth gate slight close!”

“Yin malefic out of coffin, yang returns to the body!”

“I hold one seal to lock your mouth and nose!”

“Lock your eyes and ears, lock your heart and spleen!”

“The golden blade stands here, urgently, as by the law’s command!”

At the final word, the blade’s tip slammed into the ground.

Clang—

The blade sounded as if it had been driven into a stone crevice, ringing with a high, sharp note.

Immediately he slapped the small pellet of salt-resin on his palm toward the coffin seam.

Boom!

The tiny sparks exploded into a burst, forming a bright white flame.

Small but intense, the white flame felt like dormant true yang qi trapped under the earth for years cracking out of its shell; it struck directly at the coffin seam.

The black malefic qi that tried to surge out was hit and emitted an unbearable hissing, like metal scraping bone or paper soaked in water being ripped apart.

“Good!”

Lin Zhaoxuan’s eyes lit.

“The true yang fire has risen!”

Lu Yuan did not relax. He hissed under his breath:

“Don’t be glad too soon; this only peeled one layer.”

Sure enough, under the white flame the coffin lid revealed an even blacker substance.

It was not wood nor lacquer but layers upon layers of densely pasted paper faces.

Each paper face had closed eyes and upturned lips, like someone asleep, or like household paper forcibly pasted onto a living corpse’s face.

The paper faces stacked so tightly there were no seams, yet when the white flame shone upon them they collectively opened a single eye.

In that instant hundreds, maybe thousands, of abyssal black eyes opened under the coffin lid at once.

“Ah—!”

Xu Erxiao’s legs went weak and he nearly sat down.

Zhou Heng turned ashen at the sight, his sword hand trembling.

“How many people did they use to paste these out?”

Song Qinghe’s voice shook.

“Not people, soul-skins,” she managed.

Lu Yuan’s gaze turned grim. He explained slowly:

“It’s yin-warren sealing skins.”

“Someone took those souls at the bottom of Wildman Ditch — the ones who wouldn’t disperse or leave and were ground down by the yin gate repeatedly — and pasted them layer by layer at the bottom of the coffin.”

“Paper faces as skin, household breath as bone, yin fire as heart.”

“Once these recognize a gate, they will find living people to replace the skin themselves.”

As he said this he abruptly looked toward the deep end of the stone path outside the red sedan frame and said low:

“Also, the true gate guardian has come out.”

No sooner had he spoken than a slow footstep sounded from the far end of the stone path.

Click, click, click.

Each step sounded as if one trod on broken porcelain.

They all looked that way and saw the previously vanished paper-masked figure reemerge from behind the red-and-white procession.

But this time it was no mere empty shell.

A very long black shadow dragged behind it. The shadow looked like a cloak or a mat thoroughly soaked and rotting, slapping the ground with a wet sound.

The paper-masked figure still wore its white paper mask, but three cracks now scored it.

What those cracks revealed was not wood but black-and-white paper layers.

It still carried the ledger book, but the book’s cover had been flipped open and the pages inside fluttered in the malefic wind.

It stopped beyond the light barrier, raised its hand, and flipped the ledger so the pages faced down.

There were no characters inside.

Only an extremely thin red line trickled down along the spine, like blood running out of the book.

“Registration recorded.”

“Crossing incomplete.”

“The nuptial coffin already open.”

Its voice remained monotonous but now had a rasp like wood scraping.

“Please, master, come and take your seat.”

Lu Yuan’s gaze turned instantaneously ice-cold.

“It intends to seat the master.”

“When the spellwork has proceeded to this stage, it’s no longer a matter of one or two malefactors.”

“It intends to complete the seating, to fill the people, then only will it ignite the furnace.”

Lin Zhaoxuan slowly raised his head, the Thunderclap Token in his palm emitting a faint tremble. His face was solemn.

“You mean what’s missing in this scheme is not the malefactors, but the people to sit in the seats?”

Lu Yuan glanced at him and said in a low voice:

“Yes.”

“Someone arranged three tiers of seating in this plot.”

“The outside is a wedding table, inside a funeral table, and sandwiched between them a yin table.”

“The red-and-white procession only escorts the guests; the real tables are below.”

“Now it calls us to register. It’s not asking for names, it wants to fill the living fates into the seats.”

After speaking, Lu Yuan slowly lifted the short blade, its tip slanted toward the ground.

“Then we can’t let it take the seats.”

“If it wants to replace heads, we’ll overturn the table first.”

With that he formed a hand seal in his left hand and gripped the blade in his right, reciting a rarely-heard seat-breaking curse before them all.

The incantation was not long or ethereal; each line fell with weight, like hammering nails:

“There are three layers of seats; the table has four legs!”

“Souls offered above, earth souls pressed below!”

“Ask not the master first, ask the path guest!”

“If the path guest does not answer, the seat fails its color!”

“Now I borrow the blade to sever your table legs!”

“Now I borrow thunder to cleave your table veins!”

“Table legs break, table veins split, split the table, disperse the seats!”

“Urgently, urgently, as by the law’s command!”

“Zhou Heng!”

Lu Yuan suddenly shouted. “Take the sword and sever that red cloth stake!”

“Song Qinghe, point the Tai Chi Seal-to-Suppress-Evil Plate at the coffin seam!”

“Lin Zhaoxuan, keep the thunder on the left; do not cross the midline!”

“Cheng’an, Erxiao, scatter black ash to the ground to make a broken-seat road!”

They obeyed at once.

Zhou Heng stepped out, the long sword flashing half a foot from its scabbard, blade striking toward the left red cloth stake.

Wang Cheng’an and Xu Erxiao hurriedly scattered the remaining black ash across the ground, following Lu Yuan’s steps and laying down a crooked line of ash.

Song Qinghe held her plate with both hands. The Tai Chi Seal-to-Suppress-Evil’s black-and-white jade pieces spun, the yin-yang fish within glimmering faintly as she trained it steadfastly on the coffin seam.

On Lin Zhaoxuan’s side the Thunderclap Token circled in his hand three times; the blue-white thunder pattern pressed heavier and heavier. He set two fingers against the token’s back and declaimed:

“Thunder rise a half inch, borrow the method to not fall!”

“Natural lead of yin, earth severs the bridge!”

“Descend!”

A thin but steady bolt of thunder finally shaved past the left red cloth stake.

Ssshhh—

The red cloth stake split as if struck, and the black wooden frame it had supported collapsed at once.

At that moment the entire red-and-white procession seemed to have its Three Souls and Seven Po all pulled out: all paper faces, paper hands, paper banners froze.

Simultaneously the shrunken coffin emitted an unprecedented dull sound.

Dong!!

That impact sounded like something inside the coffin had slammed outward.

The coffin lid popped open three inches.

A plume of black qi spurted out like a fountain, jolting Song Qinghe’s suppress-evil plate to the point that its black-and-white jade pieces spun wildly, nearly losing balance.

“Hold it down!”

Lu Yuan’s temple vein twitched. His hand seals shifted.

His left thumb hooked the middle finger while his right hand’s five fingers pressed downward and he shouted:

“Earth gate close, heaven gate collect, yin souls scatter, yang fire remain!”

“I borrow the true meaning of the Three Pure Ones to press your hundred malefactors back to the mound!”

“Save!!”

At that final cry he seemed to be pushed by unseen qi.

The black ash line underfoot suddenly sank and then spread a faint ring of gray-white qi outward.

The ring was small yet steady, like a thin iron net pressed onto the ground, stretching in all directions.

“Done!”

Zhou Heng whispered.

But the next moment they heard the paper-masked figure release a tiny, very faint laugh.

The laugh was not loud, yet it chilled limbs from head to toe.

It slowly reopened the ledger and lightly brushed that bloodlike red line with its hand.

Then it called softly toward the deepest part of the stone path:

“Master...”

At that single utterance the whole stone corridor seemed to tremble as if something massive had lightly shaken it.

Immediately from the earth below the familiar “dong” sounded again.

But this time it was not one thud.

Two thuds.

Three thuds.

Four thuds.

As if something deep under the ground was waking up one mouthful at a time.