Chapter Sixty-Three: The Shaman’s Tomb, the Land of Death, and the Dragon Spring Sword

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Thinking about all this, I began to hesitate about whether I should tell Peanut everything and show him that letter.

But then, I thought better of it. Doing so might put my father in danger. No matter what, I am a member of the Yuan family; even if the plans of my grandfather and the others are unforgivable, I cannot betray them.

Thinking back, my previous thoughts truly were unreasonable. I couldn't even be honest with Peanut myself, yet I kept hounding him, wanting him to confess everything to me.

How laughable.

Now I finally understand why I’ve gotten along so well with Fatty all this way. Fatty doesn't have many secrets. Though he might be a cunning thief and merchant, whenever his fat mouth opens, it always seems to blow away some of the unnecessary doubts in my heart.

As we continued, Peanut spoke more and more. Even though what he said wasn't particularly important, I faintly noticed that his previous pretentious manner was gone. However, once that deliberately artificial smile vanished from his face, I felt he became even more mysterious.

He kept talking to me, but I felt his gaze becoming increasingly hollow. The more he spoke, the greater the distance between us seemed to grow.

Little by little, Peanut’s attitude toward me seemed to undergo some subtle change.

This vague feeling made me extremely uneasy. I kept feeling that behind this shift in his attitude, something was about to happen.

But regardless, Peanut should no longer be deliberately avoiding me.

After he told me to head out, he instructed me to take that "wine pot" to my father immediately.

I nodded. "And then?"

"You don't have to do anything else. Just tell your father what happened here. Once he sees the map inside the wine pot, he will definitely make a move. Once I have prepared some things, I will naturally meet up with him."

I didn't know where Peanut’s confidence came from, but I didn't ask further.

"Then, are we going to the 'Phantom Snow Forbidden City'?"

Peanut shook his head. "Not necessarily."

"Huh?" I thought that was how it should be; wasn't the wine pot a map of the "Phantom Snow Forbidden City"? "Then where would my father go?"

Unlike before, the explanation Peanut gave me after I asked this could be described as very detailed.

He stared at me. "What your father is looking for now is the complete set of the 'Four Directions Mountains and Rivers Map.' The 'Blue-Blooded Dragon Pattern' is already in his hands. As for the other three, even if you Yuan family members don't know the specifics, you should have a general idea of the direction. I can tell you that the antique containing another piece of the map—the 'Seven-Star Dragon Abyss'—is hidden in the Phantom Snow Forbidden City. So, he must go to the Phantom Snow Forbidden City at least once. However, I still can't fathom what he is doing. The strangest thing is that he seems to have intentionally or unintentionally let that woman get the bamboo slips. There must be a problem here. So, I suspect your father might be trying to use that woman to go to the 'Three-Day Bound Vault'."

I immediately said, "But didn't that young woman say the Three-Day Bound Vault can no longer be accessed?"

Peanut said in a low voice, "That bamboo slip can turn everything around, and it is something I must get my hands on. Your father cannot possibly be unaware of how important the slips are. He handed them to that woman, naturally wanting to obtain more things, and the only thing that woman has left now is her connection to the 'Three-Day Bound Vault'."

I felt a bit bewildered hearing all this, so I asked him, "Then which side do you think my father is more likely to go to?"

"Of course, the 'Phantom Snow Forbidden City'." Peanut gave a faint smile. "The Four Directions Mountains and Rivers Map is the most important thing to your father right now. If that woman is determined to perish with your Yuan family, she will definitely go to the Phantom Snow Forbidden City to find the 'Seven-Star Dragon Abyss.' If she gets hold of it, your father will never be able to complete the set in his lifetime. So, our next step should be the Karakoram Mountains—in other words, Kunlun."

My heart skipped a beat. I secretly thought that the Karakoram Mountains mentioned in the letter must refer to the Kunlun Mountains. The letter said that place must not be entered under any circumstances. Thinking of this, I considered that unreliable wine pot again, wondering, could we really enter and exit safely just with that thing?

So I asked, "What kind of place is the Phantom Snow Forbidden City, anyway? It’s pretty dangerous, right?"

Peanut smiled faintly. "It is a place you can get into, but can never get out of."

Hearing that, my head began to spin.

"Never get out? Then how could my father possibly go there? Isn't that suicide?" After saying this, I felt something was wrong. "Is it possible that the map can guide us out?"

Peanut shook his head. "A long time ago, someone went in with the map, but in the end, the map came out, while the person did not."

I found Peanut's words eerie, and frankly, who would believe such a thing?

Peanut continued, "However, your father won't have any concerns. I suspect he is just waiting for the map that can lead him to the 'Seven-Star Dragon Abyss'."

My father has no concerns? I didn't know why Peanut would say that and wanted to ask, but before the words left my mouth, Fatty spoke up from the side.

"Bullshit." Fatty didn't know when he had woken up, but he must have heard most of my conversation with Peanut. "I don't know what you people are planning, but dragging the 'Dragon Spring Sword' into this is just too absurd."

I glanced at Fatty, thinking, what "Dragon Spring Sword"? It felt like I was in the middle of a summit meeting with Peanut, and a primary school student had suddenly run onto the stage.

Yet, not long after, I realized the primary school student was actually myself.

"Are you not awake, or are your ears bad? What 'Dragon Spring Sword'? It's called the 'Seven-Star Dragon Abyss'." I felt that I definitely had more of a say in this matter than Fatty, so I said it quite arrogantly.

"If you're uncultured, don't stand up and make a fool of yourself," Fatty retorted.

As it turned out, the so-called "Seven-Star Dragon Abyss" is indeed the most famous sword in ancient China—the Longquan.

Legend has it that the person who forged this sword, the Seven-Star Dragon Abyss, was none other than the progenitor of ancient Chinese sword-smithing, Ou Yezi. This man was extraordinary; back in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, he was practically a god.

To forge the Seven-Star Dragon Abyss, Ou Yezi leveled Mount Ci and channeled spring water down. Beside his forge, the water formed seven small lakes in the shape of the Big Dipper. Once forged, because the sword looked like a coiled dragon, it was called the "Seven-Star Dragon Abyss." Later, during the Tang Dynasty, to avoid the naming taboo of the Emperor "Li Yuan," people renamed this famous sword Longquan.

Ou Yezi didn't just forge the Longquan sword; the five famous swords—Zhanlu, Juque, Shengxie, Yuchang, and Chunjun—were all made by his hand.

Beyond this master smith, those who made the Longquan sword world-famous were its users.

The first person in historical records to use the Longquan sword was Wu Zixu, and another was the founding emperor of the Han Dynasty, Liu Bang. When Liu Bang killed the White Serpent to start his uprising, he used the Longquan sword.

After Fatty finished telling me all this, he looked at Peanut.

"The Longquan sword is a treasure of the Central Plains. Never mind that it’s been lost for ages; even if it were still hidden somewhere, it should be in the Yangtze River basin. The Kunlun Mountains? What kind of place is that? Xinjiang, Tibet—the part of the Karakoram you're talking about is already in Kashmir. Is this reliable?"

After hearing this, I also felt Fatty made sense. You have to realize that the Longquan sword has been hidden from the world for one or two thousand years. If such a famous sword had ended up near the borders of Xinjiang and Tibet, it would have left some clues behind, right?

Peanut was completely unimpressed and just said in a low voice, "In the Phantom Snow Forbidden City, what is a Longquan sword worth?"

When Fatty heard Peanut's tone, his eyes went wide. "The Longquan sword isn't worth much? Do you mean there are quite a few treasures in that place?"

Well, I had just thought Fatty was calm enough to pick out the flaws in Peanut's words, but seeing him now, he was already impatient to go and take a look.

I saw Fatty lean in toward Peanut and start asking for details about the Phantom Snow Forbidden City. Peanut answered him nonchalantly.

A while later, he said again, "If you want to go to the Phantom Snow Forbidden City, a simple group of a few people won't work. Your father will likely use all his men. Never mind what's inside; even the road there will be very risky. So..."

At this point, Peanut looked at me. "You should handle the matters within your own Yuan family before then."

I was just about to ask what Peanut meant, when I suddenly realized.

He wasn't talking about anything else, but the mole who might be hidden in our Yuan family. But the moment I thought of the "Second Fool" of the Liu family, I hesitated.

Just as the three of us fell into a brief silence, Zhuge Xuan had unknowingly walked up behind us.

"Before you plan all these things, shouldn't you consider how to get out?" Zhuge Xuan’s face was a mix of red and white now; when she was angry and pouted, she actually looked quite pretty.

However, she was right. We were talking so much, but if we couldn't get out, it would all be in vain.

So, everyone started brainstorming, discussing what we should actually do now.

There were so many things happening at that time; I didn't have much time to think—why had Peanut’s attitude toward me suddenly changed? Why was he explaining the reason for going to the Phantom Snow Forbidden City in such detail? By the time I solved this question later, the world had already been turned upside down.

As it stood, there were only three ways out.

First, go straight up and find those seven brick chambers.

Second, what Fatty said: dig a hole out through the ceiling if one existed.

Third, ignore what the "Ming Kui" (Underworld Demon) said and climb directly through the thief tunnel.

I was more inclined to take the thief tunnel because I now felt that the Ming Kui might have been bluffing when it said the tunnel was blocked. The escape route it left for itself might still be there.

Fatty also agreed with my view, saying that even if it was blocked, we could come back and think of another way.

After saying this, we all looked at Peanut.

"Flower boy, you said earlier you could take us out. Do you already know the way?" Fatty had already come up with a nickname for Peanut at some point.

"Of course," Peanut smiled.

Hearing him speak so lightly, I felt a bit uneasy.

Zhuge Xuan didn't care about that. Once she heard Peanut knew the way out, she started packing her things. "Since you know, let's go."

This girl's attitude was terrible, but I couldn't blame her. For any reason, if a woman had something spewed out of a monster's mouth smeared all over her, she wouldn't be in a good mood either. Besides, she had been played by that young woman this time. I didn't know what kind of nonsense that woman had used to trick her, and now that she was in a hurry to leave, she definitely wanted to find the woman and settle the score.

Seeing Zhuge Xuan packing, Peanut also stood up and signaled for us to move.

I exchanged a glance with Fatty and looked back at the tomb.

"Little brother, are we really not going to try that thief tunnel?" Fatty asked again.

"Trying it wouldn't hurt, but I don't think there's much hope. The Ming Kui wouldn't be so kind as to leave an exit for us." After Peanut said this, he looked at the slope in the darkness. "Above is a Shaman's tomb, and the key to a Shaman's tomb is the 'Shaman's Eye.' A Shaman's tomb is dead, but the Shaman's Eye must leave a path of life; only then will the configuration be formed. We just need to find that Shaman's Eye."

I figured that since Peanut was so sure, and we didn't dare to walk that thief tunnel alone, listening to him was safer.

Before setting off, I took one last look at Zhuge Ke’s tomb. As the smokeless lamp went out, Fatty and the others turned on their flashlights, and the place turned into complete darkness.

Faintly, I seemed to see a weak light flash twice in the distance. My heart jumped, and just as I was about to look again, there was nothing there.

"What are you looking at? Let's go." Fatty thought I was still dwelling on those things and urged me on.

I was still shaken but didn't say anything, following Fatty up the slope.

We hadn't walked far when I remembered the bizarre scene I had seen in that tomb chamber earlier.

How did those images appear? At that time, was it because Professor Chen wasn't alone that his figure didn't appear in the image? Was that Yang Lang disguised by the young woman, or did Yang Lang not exist at all, and he was always just another identity of the young woman?

Considering these seemed meaningless, yet I suddenly noticed something we had ignored at that time.

Light.

"Hiss, that's right. In the scene I saw back then, although Wei Lin and the others had flashlights in their hands, the light we saw was extremely bright. At that time, the light in the chamber had already drowned out the light from their flashlights. Was this just an effect of that strange phenomenon, just to make it clearer for us who were exposed to it?"

I was thinking too deeply and didn't notice the situation around me.

Suddenly, someone behind me pulled me. I looked up and realized it was Fatty. I had walked to the front, and Peanut and Zhuge Xuan had stopped.

"What's wrong?" I asked, seeing the strange expressions on the three of them.

No one answered me. Everyone’s gaze followed their flashlights toward the ground.

What was on the ground?

I looked, and there was nothing. What was there to... I hadn't finished the thought when, suddenly, I caught sight of a few inconspicuous cracks appearing on the ground three or five meters in front of Peanut.

The more I looked, the more my brow furrowed.

Fatty whispered, "Damn it, Yuan Jie, aren't these cracks the same ones you found when we came down from the brick chamber?"

I nodded. "That's right, but how could they be here too?"

Zhuge Xuan added, "Maybe it's the same structure as the one above."

We didn't react to her comment.

These cracks were already puzzling enough before, and now that they appeared here again, I couldn't help but be cautious.

But when I saw Peanut's movements, I realized I had completely misjudged the direction.

Peanut held his flashlight and walked slowly to the side. Before long, the edge of the ramp began to slowly appear in his flashlight beam.

On the side of the slope was a long brick wall, and on it, surprisingly, were the same dragon-eyed phoenixes we had seen before.

The atmosphere around us suddenly became very eerie. All four of us simultaneously thought of the same possibility.

"Holy shit, how the hell is this so similar to the slope coming out of the brick chamber?" Fatty groaned.

"It's not similar," Peanut said in a deep voice. "This is that very corridor."

As soon as these words were out, I felt as if all the dragon-eyed phoenixes on the wall had turned their heads toward us. It seemed that what we were destined to encounter could not be avoided. But now, although we all felt something was wrong, we didn't even know where the danger was coming from.

I looked around; this was indeed identical to the corridor we had come down. In other words, if we continued up now, we would return to those seven brick chambers.

And if we turned back and walked down, we might return to the tomb chamber with the black tumor stone sarcophagus.

If that were the case, wouldn't we have walked into an infinitely repeating maze? Going up was a dead end, and going down would mean repeating our mistakes. I even felt that if we walked down now, maybe Zhang Yaxi, Zhang Yadong, Wei Lin, and Yang Lang would be standing down there waiting for us.

"I understand," Zhuge Xuan suddenly whispered. "The Shaman's Eye of this Shaman's tomb has eroded into Zhuge Ke’s burial site. That place has also become a part of the Shaman's tomb, and the Shaman's Eye we are looking for has completely merged into the entire tomb."

Saying this, Zhuge Xuan sat on the ground. "We... we can't get out. This place... this place has become a 'dead zone'... The Ming Kui didn't lie to us. In a place like this, people simply cannot walk out."

Although I didn't quite understand what a "dead zone" was, after Zhuge Xuan finished saying this, her sobbing tone already said it all.

Fatty became anxious. "That can't be. If this is a 'dead zone,' then how did Zhang Yaxi and the others leave last time? They..."

As he spoke, Fatty shuddered.

I also thought of the reason in my heart, thinking, "No wonder the young woman wanted to use the Ming Kui. Indeed, in a place where people can't get out, you really do need demons and evil spirits to lead the way. And coming down this time, it looks like Professor Chen never intended for us to get out."

Habitually, I looked at Peanut again.

There wasn't a trace of worry on Peanut’s face. He was looking at the dragon-eyed phoenixes on the wall as if he were admiring a famous painting, completely at ease.

Suddenly, Zhuge Xuan stopped sobbing, as if she had suddenly remembered something, and stood up abruptly to look at Peanut.