Chapter 54
Chapter 54
Before I could answer, Old Cao chuckled.
“Brother Yuan, the Immortal Lady isn’t someone we can meet whenever we please. Stay on good terms with Xiao Wu, though, and perhaps you’ll get the chance. A few pointers from her would be the honor of a lifetime!”
To me, Master’s beauty and profound arts made her nearly perfect, but even I found Old Cao’s praise embarrassing. In modern terms, he was her most fanatical admirer.
Yuan Fei chuckled and nodded without entirely committing himself. He pointed down the slope. “Let’s inspect it first. If this truly is a Yin-Gathering Corpse-Nurturing Formation, we’re in trouble.”
Such a formation would prove that someone skilled in the esoteric arts was doing evil near Lianghe Town. No righteous practitioner would create one.
Even if it was another formation, whoever hid in the shadows and manipulated so many graves could be no good.
We followed the trail downhill to the center of the graveyard–the Life Gate of the formation covering the hill.
The folk Taoist masters of the southwest studied many disciplines, with feng shui nearly indispensable. Beyond locating auspicious sites and selecting graves, the subject included formations.
The Eight Gates Formation comprised the Gates of Opening, Rest, Life, Injury, Obstruction, Scenery, Alarm, and Death, each with different effects and uses.
I was not proficient enough to build one, but I could already understand formations made by others. Shortly after Yuan Fei, I therefore identified the Life Gate as the eye of this yin-gathering formation–an arrangement that made no sense.
Its position was occupied by a small, decrepit grave. Only half its tombstone remained, toppled amid weeds. No offerings lay before it, suggesting that its descendants no longer tended it.
That was not unusual. Lianghe Town had a long history and had served as a vital land-and-water route between Sichuan and Chongqing since at least the mid-Ming dynasty. Old graves filled the surrounding hills.
Over the centuries, some families moved away and others died without descendants, leaving ownerless graves like this one.
Old Cao crouched, scooped up dirt beside the mound, rubbed it between his fingers, then smelled it.
“An old grave, certainly. At least two or three centuries.”
His ability to date earth by smell was remarkable.
Yuan Fei joked, “Master Cao, you’re better at that than most tomb raiders.”
Old Cao snorted. “Tomb raiders learned it from coffin bearers. Either a bearer changed professions or a raider stole the technique.”
Only then did Yuan Fei and I learn that connection. It made sense: no one knew coffin-related taboos and uncanny phenomena better than coffin bearers. Their work was even more dangerous than tomb robbery and paid less. Some who tired of poverty naturally became grave robbers.
Yuan Fei frowned at the small grave. “If an old corpse lies inside, gathering yin energy to nurture it would make sense. But this is the Life Gate. Can the occupant be brought back to life?”
“Impossible,” I said.
The dead could not return to life. Master had emphasized that long ago.
An esoteric practitioner could use certain sinister arts to make a corpse appear to revive, but that was only a common description. Such methods used the death qi and corpse qi gathered by the Death Gate to turn a body into an evil entity.
The Life Gate could not connect with the dead.
“Then this is strange. Could an incompetent evil cultivator have made a mistake while trying to nurture a corpse?” Yuan Fei suggested weakly, not believing it himself.
Old Cao smoked in thought. I circled the grave and discovered something new.
“Old Cao, Uncle Yuan, come look.”
They joined me behind the mound but appeared puzzled.
“There’s nothing unusual here, Xiao Wu.”
I crouched and carefully touched a long blade of grass. Something black smeared my fingertip. I held it before them.
“Look. Ash from talisman arts, without question. That’s what I know best, so I’m particularly sensitive to it.”
Old Cao understood. “Someone cast a spell on this grave. Can you tell which spell?”
I shook my head vigorously. “How could I? Perhaps Master could. I’ve heard of a retrospective talisman that can recreate spells cast within a certain area, but I’m nowhere close to that level.”
“As expected of the Immortal Lady! I only asked casually, yet such a heaven-defying art truly exists.”
Old Cao was praising Master again. I stopped him. Understanding the situation came first.
After considering our options, Yuan Fei recommended opening the coffin.
As the old grave occupied the Life Gate, it should pose little danger. It had no owner and no descendants tending it; the dead person’s soul had likely long since entered the underworld and reincarnated. Digging it up should cause little harm.
Besides, a professional coffin bearer was with us. If the coffin proved dangerous, we could deal with it then.
The three of us started digging. Fortunately, Old Cao had brought a shovel, saving us a trip to buy one from the store across Lianghe Bridge.
The mound was small and ancient, its soil loose. Taking turns, we opened it in twenty minutes.
A thin, unfinished wooden coffin appeared beneath us.
The instant he saw it, Old Cao’s eyes widened.
“What? This coffin radiates immense vitality! It can’t contain a corpse. What is inside?”
Vitality?
I was astonished too. How could a coffin radiate life?
Understanding dawned on Yuan Fei. “I see! This isn’t a Yin-Gathering Corpse-Nurturing Formation, but a Qi-Gathering Formation. Energy scatters when it rides the wind and stops at the boundary of water. Feng shui is the art of gathering it so it does not disperse and guiding it to a place where it will stop. The Life Gate concentrates all the terrain’s energy from this grave hill to nourish the coffin.”
A phrase appeared in my mind: gathering the energy of a hundred graves to nurture one coffin.
It was an ambitious undertaking, and the surrounding graves would suffer. By drawing away the energy of their feng shui and earth currents, the formation stole the benefits that rightfully belonged to them. Graves meant to bless descendants with rank and wealth might lose that fortune.
Fortunately, gathering qi would merely reduce an auspicious site to mediocrity, not bring any major life tribulation. That was the one mercy.
Old Cao nodded at Yuan Fei’s conclusion, then shook his head.
“You’re both right and wrong, Brother Yuan. Someone may indeed have gathered the entire graveyard’s yin energy at the Life Gate, but it wasn’t to nourish this coffin. It’s only cheap, thin wood–neither precious timber nor specially prepared. The thing itself is worthless.”
He was right.
“Then is it nourishing the corpse inside?” Yuan Fei asked, before immediately shaking his head. Old Cao and I had already insisted that the Life Gate could never nourish the dead.
I stared at the coffin, my expression changing.
“Could something alive be inside? Was the energy of a hundred graves gathered to nourish a living creature in this coffin?”