Chapter 654

The cramped, sealed space between the ancestral tomb and the underground burial makes it hard for anyone to survive there for long.

Without prior study, merely looking at that Bronze Tomb Door, even a very skilled mechanism artisan cannot devise a strategy to open the door in a short time.

What's more, in a state of oxygen deprivation, the mind falls into Chaos.

In fact, the reason my great-uncle could pull off the Tomb-suppressing Beast ruse was that he also borrowed the insight of those mechanism artisans who had seen the Bronze Tomb Door.

So Jin Wuya means that he stood on the shoulders of those earlier mechanism artisans, drawing from their experience to find the answer in advance, which allowed him to escape alive.

Now the only question is, why did Grandmaster Xuan keep secret the mechanism for opening the Bronze Tomb Door, not even telling his own descendants?

Jin Wuya also said, 'Actually, even now I still have a question I haven't figured out.'

I asked, 'What?'

'I asked your grandfather to his face,' Jin Wuya said, 'what exactly is sealed in that small coffin—is it an infant corpse?'

I frowned, 'Didn't Grandfather answer your question back then? It's not an infant corpse; it's an earth fetus.'

'What is an earth fetus?' Jin Wuya narrowed his eyes and said, 'According to the old man, an earth fetus forms when Earth Vein Spiritual Energy condenses within the body of a female corpse that has not decayed for a thousand years; it has no Soul Body, right?'

I nodded: 'Yes.'

'Why then are talismans placed at both ends of the small coffin to suppress it?' Jin Wuya said, 'That is a Black Talisman, far more powerful than ordinary soul‑suppressing talismans, plus the yin‑evil qi seeping from the coffin, including the ink‑line markings and cinnabar symbols on its surface… all of this shows that what is sealed in the small coffin is far more than just a clump of Spiritual Qi.'

Exactly, such an obvious question—why hadn't I noticed it before?

Perhaps Grandfather's answer to Jin Wuya was too brief, and because I trusted him completely, I subconsciously overlooked those details.

Jin Wuya opened the Bronze Tomb Door, which means that Grandfather had never actually seen that small coffin before; all his experience came from the oral accounts of Grandmaster Xuan and Great‑Grandmaster Xuan.

Thus, from the start, Grandfather's understanding of that small coffin was also wrong.

Grandmaster Xuan hid away far too many secrets.

I fell silent, not knowing for a moment how to continue the conversation with Jin Wuya.

Jin Wuya grabbed my shoulders with both hands and said solemnly, 'Shi Rou, I have a premonition that this small coffin could stir up a bloody storm in Lingnan, a storm we cannot withstand. Come with me, let's leave this place of right and wrong—that was also our grandfather's dying wish, wasn't it?'

I shook my head. 'Wuya, you also said that Grandfather's understanding of what's in the small coffin is biased, so his decisions have loopholes. Do you think going with you to Jiangcheng would let me completely remove myself from this? Impossible. Besides, as we analyzed before, Grandfather left a backup plan.'

Grandfather's backup plan is Shi Yin, together with the dead warriors under his command.

Shi Yin and those dead warriors can be said to be the continuation of the Red Armor Army.

'I have a feeling that things will eventually come full circle and return to me; I cannot escape.'

Jin Wuya sighed and said, 'Being able to dodge for a day is still a day; let's catch our breath and think about our next response, okay?'

If you don't make a clean break, you will surely suffer chaos.

The attitude of my elder cousin's family toward Jin Wuya made me realize that staying in Lingnan means we truly have not a single day of peace.

Being inside it, I cannot see the full picture; instead, I sink deeper and deeper, unable to resolve the problem.

Thinking this through, I gritted my teeth and agreed, 'All right, let's go to Jiangcheng.'

Looking back later, I realized how correct our decision had been.

Because Jin Wuya and I landed in Jiangcheng and returned to his home that day, I received a call from my second cousin.

On the phone, my second cousin was panicked; he said my elder cousin had died.

The manner of death was exactly the same as that of my second uncle.

Almost back‑to‑back, I also received information from my spy left in Lingnan: my second uncle's childhood friend had died, and the manner of death was exactly the same as my second uncle's.

Putting everything together, it's not hard to guess that after my second uncle died, his childhood friend took advantage of the chaos to steal the small coffin and suffered its backlash.

But why did my elder cousin die of the same cause?

Jin Wuya said, 'The backlash of the small coffin is collective; once contaminated, the entire direct line cannot escape calamity. The Shi Family main branch has remained safe all these years only because the underground tomb's Spiritual Qi suppresses it.'

When the Spiritual Qi of the underground tomb is exhausted, whatever is inside the small coffin goes on a killing spree.

Whoever touches it dies.

Not only does the toucher die, but every descendant of the direct line cannot escape either.

My second cousin obviously also grasped the seriousness of the matter, and over the phone he kept cursing me: 'Shi Rou, you just brushed off your pants and walked away, dumping this mess on us—you'll come to no good end! You deserve to harm your husband and children, to cut off your lineage…'

I listened calmly, without saying a word.

After he finished his tirade, I calmly said, 'Second Cousin, ask yourself honestly—did I dump this mess into your hands?'

My second cousin was left speechless.

I continued to retort, 'Second Uncle clearly has coveted the earth fetus for a long time; digging up Grandfather's grave after his death is itself an act of disloyalty, injustice, and filial impiety, isn't it?'

My second cousin felt guilty and was also afraid; he finally softened: 'A Rou, we are close kin—you can't just stand by and let someone die. Let me beg you, okay?'

'Second Cousin, the only solution I can think of is to find another place rich in Spiritual Qi, then use Grandmaster Xuan's old method to reseal the small coffin there.' I said.

My second cousin immediately rejected my idea: 'You think a place abundant in Spiritual Qi is just something you can go out and find? Besides, how would I know how Grandmaster Xuan sealed that small coffin back then? And with so many people coveting the Earth Vein, who knows where the coffin has ended up now…'

'You also know it's full of difficulties,' I teased. 'If you can't do it, what makes you think I can?'

My second cousin was momentarily speechless.

I continued, 'I'll think of something, but none of us can stay out of this, after all it concerns your descendants, while I… am a lone soul with no family…'

My second cousin angrily hung up the phone.

I may have sounded harsh, but I didn't feel any better inside.

Second Uncle wasn't innocent; perhaps Elder Cousin and Second Cousin were also aware and harbored disloyal intentions, but what about their children?

The children are innocent.

I believe my second cousin will spare no effort to find the small coffin and a place rich in Spiritual Qi; the difficulty lies in figuring out how Grandmaster Xuan sealed the coffin back then.

And the only person who actually saw Grandmaster Xuan's sealing method is Jin Wuya.

So I asked him, 'Wuya, if you were to replicate Grandmaster Xuan's sealing technique, could you do it?'

'I can give it a try, but are you sure you want to do this?' Jin Wuya said. 'Shi Rou, not everyone has the resolve that your Grandmaster Xuan had back then—to sacrifice the prosperity of his own descendants in order to seal that small coffin…'