Chapter 233
Chapter 233
While speaking with Roundy, I had already taken a blank sheet of talisman paper from my pocket.
I bit my index finger and swiftly drew a strange sigil on it in blood.
Roundy leaned its furry head over to look and exclaimed in surprise,
“Oh! Wu boy, what kind of talisman are you drawing? Your big brother is widely experienced, so how come I’ve never seen it? It’s very strange…”
I was drawing a talisman and needed to concentrate fully, so naturally I could not be bothered to answer it.
Only after I finished and sent the talisman flying onto the grave mound did I reply,
“You’re my household familiar. If you connect your mind to mine and study carefully, you’ll eventually know every talisman and technique I know. The grave-opening method I just mentioned is the same. Who told you to be so lazy and never care about me?”
The relationship between household familiars and cultivators in the lineage Master created was somewhat like that between a gu practitioner and their lifebound gu.
Their minds and souls were closely connected, so one could say there were no secrets between them in cultivation.
But understanding the other’s techniques still required spending some effort to sense them.
The damned fat bird hated trouble and only formed this deep mental connection with me to share knowledge once a month.
For a simple comparison, it was like two computers copying the contents of each other’s hard drives once every month…
“All right, all right, enough nonsense. Hurry and explain it to me.”
Roundy stared curiously at the talisman stuck to the grave mound, looking somewhat impatient.
“It’s a special talisman from Master’s lineage. It can accept pure and turbid qi, transform them, and draw forth the corresponding power. Because I drew turbid qi into my body on its own very early, I’m relatively familiar with the earth element. I can use it to open a grave.”
As I explained, I tightly closed the Dantian Palace through which I normally used qi to perform magical techniques, while opening the Jiangyuan Palace at my heart and the Niwan Palace in my head.
Pure and turbid qi immediately flowed forth. I guided them with my thoughts into my left and right hands, and they emerged from my palms as curling streams of invisible energy.
Yet if one observed carefully, they were still faintly visible!
The pure qi from my left hand was extremely pale and whitish.
The turbid qi from my right hand was naturally murkier and yellowish.
Both streams were exceedingly fine and sparse, drifting forward like two strands of hair. But from the corner of my eye, I clearly saw Roundy’s gaze turn solemn and grave.
Clearly, even this cheeky, arrogant damned fat bird felt reverence toward pure and turbid qi, primal forces of nature.
The two streams of qi accurately entered the talisman on the grave mound.
The next moment…
Bang!
The sound was not especially loud.
As the talisman shattered, an invisible force seemed to split the grave mound down the center. Large amounts of soil rolled aside, directly exposing the thin, black coffin within.
Satisfied by the sight, I dusted off my hands, planted them on my hips, and laughed.
“Not bad. Opening a grave normally would probably require several strong young men digging with shovels for quite a while. Now I handled it with one talisman. That’s incredibly efficient. Hahahaha!”
“Wu boy, when did you become such a shameless braggart?”
Roundy was very surprised.
Uh…
In truth, I had always been rather vain. But because I worried a lot and acted cautiously, I rarely displayed such words or behavior before others.
Around people close to me, however, I still occasionally “boasted about myself.”
Of course, I could not compare with that cheeky fellow Roundy!
I walked forward and reminded it,
“All right, the grave is open. Let’s examine the coffin. I’ll lift the lid, and you keep watch. If something inside launches a surprise attack, back me up.”
Roundy impatiently waved a wing.
“All right, all right. I know. You really nag!”
That stupid bird always had a talent for infuriating others.
I rolled my eyes at it and stepped into the split pit ahead.
Using two fingers, I pulled out the coffin nails whose heads had begun to protrude, one by one. Then I forcefully heaved the coffin lid open!
At the same time, I had long since activated my sense of qi in secret, ready to counterattack the instant anything strange appeared inside.
But somewhat unexpectedly… the coffin was empty!
“Oh? An empty coffin? This grave is interesting! I wonder whether the thing inside escaped, or whether no dead person was placed in it to begin with.”
Roundy leaned its furry, round head over and chattered away.
I pushed its enormous head aside so it would not block my view, then carefully swept my flashlight back and forth inside the empty coffin. Although I possessed “night vision,” it consumed qi, so I might as well use a modern lighting tool when one was available.
After sensing carefully, I said,
“It seems no body was placed here in the first place. It’s simply an empty coffin. But what purpose does that serve? How could an empty coffin directly kill Wang Xinren and even disperse his soul? This is…”
Thud!
A round white figure landed inside the coffin.
Roundy had jumped straight inside.
“Wu boy, why think so much? Just jump down and inspect it. With our combined strength, even if a being on the level of a corpse fiend is behind this strange affair, surely we can still escape if we can’t beat it?”
Uh…
That was true!
Perhaps I was being overly cautious.
So I jumped into the coffin as well.
The coffin had probably been thin to begin with, and after lying underground for so long, it had started to rot.
The moment I jumped in, the board at the bottom cracked beneath me. One of my feet plunged through it.
Roundy froze, then planted its wings on its hips and laughed loudly.
“Wu boy, you need to lose weight.”
As I pulled my foot from the hole smashed through the coffin board, I replied in exasperation,
“The board is too thin! And… there seems to be empty space beneath the coffin. It isn’t resting on a layer of soil.”
What?
Roundy froze, then seemed to understand.
It leaned over and peered into the dark hole my foot had made, then immediately used its steel-blade beak and sharp talons to tear away more of the surrounding wood.
Wood chips flew. After only a few breaths,
an opening somewhat wider than a washbasin appeared before us.
I hurriedly shone my flashlight downward.
The opening extended into the ground, and there was a sizable space below. But because of the limited light and viewing angle, I could not see much.
I drew a sharp breath.
“There’s a space underground? Could this abandoned grave and coffin both be disguises?”
I was not afraid of this eerie grave.
I was worried because some strange, sinister thing might exist so close to the school–right on the mountain behind the boys’ dormitory.
It was like a time bomb!
The thought left me worried.
“This is getting more interesting. I never expected some secret thing to be hidden on the mountain behind Lianghe District Middle School.”
Roundy loved nothing more than chaos. Discovering something like this did not worry it at all; it only became excited. Then it urged me,
“Since you’re worried, Wu boy, why don’t we go down and look now? It doesn’t seem very deep, probably only about one zhang. Your martial arts aren’t bad now. Jumping down from this height would be easy.”
Smack!
I slapped the stupid bird on the head.
“Are you an idiot? Jumping down would be easy, but it’s still three or four meters. If there’s nowhere to grip below, how am I supposed to climb back up? Besides, if you want to know what’s there, wouldn’t it be easier for you to fly down and look?”
“That’s right! Fine, your big brother will go down first and tell you what I find.”
Without waiting for my reply, Roundy jumped into the underground passage and descended with flapping wings.
I crouched beside the opening and aimed my flashlight straight down. I saw Roundy descend two or three meters, then fly sideways and disappear from view.
I was not worried that the stupid bird would encounter danger. A demon cultivated from a Jade-Talon Gyrfalcon was no weakling!
Besides, even if the space beneath the grave was extremely dangerous, this was only the entrance. Surely there would not be a major problem here?
After only a few seconds, I heard Roundy exclaim in astonishment…
“Holy crap! Wu boy, it’s pretty big down here! At least as large as one of your classrooms. There are strange sigil marks on the surrounding walls, and several skulls have been arranged here.”
“There’s also a tunnel to the east. It’s tall enough for you to walk upright and extends east into the mountain. It looks rather sinister. Your big brother doesn’t really dare enter alone.”
Hearing its description, I was secretly alarmed.
Something sinister truly was hidden beneath this abandoned grave!
Strange sigils covered the surrounding walls, with skulls arranged among them… This was clearly some kind of formation.
Even if it was not, those objects certainly were not mere decorations. They had to serve some purpose.
As for the tunnel extending deeper into the mountain… that was even more troublesome!
It meant this abandoned grave was merely an entrance to somewhere else. Even the underground chamber that Roundy said was as large as a classroom was only part of the passage.
Who knew how far one would have to travel through the tunnel…
I frowned deeply, realizing that this matter was probably far from simple!
“Wu boy, are you coming down? We can enter the tunnel together and see where it leads.”
That damned fat bird!
I said helplessly,
“You think I don’t know you? You’re recklessly brave. If even you don’t dare fly into the tunnel, you must have sensed something wrong. What good would it do for me to come down?”
Roundy continued,
“Wu boy, you really understand me. The underground chamber itself is fine. I’m not afraid of those sigils or skulls. But the tunnel to the east gives me an uncomfortable feeling. It doesn’t exactly feel like danger. It’s just… I don’t know how to describe it. It feels similar to the pressure you give me when you use pure and turbid qi.”
What?!
I was instantly shocked when I heard that.