Luo Danqing had lost contact since New Year’s Eve.
Counting from the start of winter break, it had been less than two months, and the spell required eighty-one days to complete, so there was still a chance.
Zhang Xianyu whispered, “Do you know how to break it?”
“I’ll give it a try.”
The black mist coiling around Zhang Xianyu’s shoulders slowly seeped into the room.
As the mist fully entered, the ghostly figures on the scroll looked terrified, but none dared to move freely.
On the ceiling, the Old Crone’s lips parted and closed continuously, still maintaining composure, while the candle flame inside the skull she held flickered wildly.
Lin Wushui dashed straight toward the ceiling painting.
First, a streak of black appeared on the scroll, like an accidental ink stain.
The stain grew darker and wider until it completely blackened one corner.
The ink spread slowly across the image, advancing toward the Old Crone in the center.
The skull in her hands tilted slightly, and the wax inside poured down from the eye sockets, igniting a blue flame where it flowed.
The blue flames and the black ink battled each other.
At first, they were evenly matched, but after a few minutes, the blue flames began to fade, and if one looked carefully, they would see the flames being swallowed bit by bit by the ink.
The Old Crone, calm and still in the center, suddenly stood up, no longer chanting.
She raised the skull before her with both hands, and the entire skull burst into flames—blue flames intertwined with faint white ones.
The black mist hesitated, avoiding a direct confrontation with her.
Instead, it fragmented and dispersed, surrounding the Old Crone from all sides.
The Old Crone’s face twisted with fury as the flames from the skull spread across her body, yet still, they could not repel the encroaching black mist.
The entire scroll showed the Old Crone slowly being swallowed, until only a dense patch of ink remained.
After devouring the Old Crone, Lin Wushui emerged from the painting.
He crept along the wall, moving slowly from the ceiling down to the surrounding wall scrolls.
The ghosts painted on the walls were frightened, but only briefly, before the black mist swallowed them one by one.
Soon, the hanging scrolls were left completely blank.
Only then did Zhang Xianyu slip inside to check on Luo Danqing.
Since the Old Crone had been swallowed, Luo Danqing’s eyes were closed.
Zhang Xianyu examined him—his soul was extremely weak, probably because the spell had been interrupted midway.
Even though he had slipped into a deep sleep, his expression was uneasy, his brows furrowed, and his eyes darted rapidly beneath thin eyelids, but he never woke.
She placed a folded triangular Soul-Calming Talisman under his pillow.
After a brief whispered discussion with Lin Wushui, they decided to find whoever had attacked Luo Danqing.
Since Luo Danqing could not awaken for now, after leaving, Zhang Xianyu sealed the door with a talisman so no one could intrude from outside.
There were only three bedrooms on the first floor.
Besides the one Luo Danqing occupied, the other two were empty.
They searched separately and eventually found a hidden door inside the wardrobe of the master bedroom.
The back wall of the wardrobe had been hollowed out and fitted with a secret door, covered with clothes. Without Lin Wushui crawling inch by inch along the wall, it would have been nearly impossible to find.
Zhang Xianyu opened the hidden door.
Inside, the passage was pitch dark and sloped downward, but it was unclear where it led.
The passage was barely over half a person’s height and very narrow.
Zhang Xianyu lowered herself and felt her way forward.
After almost half an hour, the path finally widened.
Ahead was a flight of steps going down, with faint light visible.
The black mist slid down Zhang Xianyu’s arm, clinging to the shadowed wall to scout ahead.
About five minutes later, it returned and whispered in her ear, “There are quite a few people up ahead.”
Zhang Xianyu carefully suppressed her aura, secured the Concealment Talisman, and cautiously descended the stairs.
At the bottom was another corridor, this one much wider—nearly wide enough for a small cart to pass through.
At the end, voices were clearly audible, and there was more than one person.
The corridor led to a spacious square stone chamber.
One side held bunk beds and a table, while the opposite side stored various excavation tools.
Five men of different ages sat drinking around the table.
Zhang Xianyu concealed herself at the corridor entrance, listening to their conversation.
“Is there really treasure behind that door?”
“Old Third Luo said there is. We’ll know once it’s opened.”
One man was cautious.
“But whose tomb is it? What if there’s something dangerous inside?”
“We agreed with Old Third Luo that his men will go in first once the door opens.”
They all seemed to be working together.
After this suggestion, they nodded in agreement and planned to visit Old Third Luo tomorrow.
Zhang Xianyu listened a little longer and gathered that these men had been invited by Old Third Luo to open the tomb.
According to him, the underground chamber was the Rogue’s Grave, the secret treasure site of the Luo Family ancestors.
The message had been lost during earlier wars, but Old Third Luo had uncovered the secret and recruited them to open the tomb and retrieve the treasure.
These five were experienced tomb raiders, skilled in their trade, but the Luo Family’s tomb was filled with strange anomalies.
They suspected Old Third Luo might be deceiving them, which explained their earlier hesitation.
Zhang Xianyu touched the black mist at her waist and silently mouthed a few words.
Lin Wushui immediately understood and quietly slipped above the corridor.
The five drinking men remained completely unaware.
Crossing the stone chamber and another corridor, they came to a large copper door covered in verdigris.
The door bore relief carvings of a hundred fierce ghosts, each with a terrifying visage.
Just approaching it sent chills down one’s spine.
The copper door and the surrounding wall showed marks of excavation and chiseling—presumably made by those five men.
Unable to open the main door, they were trying to breach it from the side.
Zhang Xianyu stared at the reliefs, narrowing her eyes as a strange feeling settled in her heart.
Before she could analyze it further, the black mist coiling around Lin Wushui’s waist stirred restlessly, streaming toward the door’s crevice as if trying to slip inside.
“There’s… something in there,” Lin Wushui’s voice was restless.
The dispersed black mist slipped through the door crack and soon vanished beyond.
“I’ll go in and have a look.”
Before Zhang Xianyu could reply, Lin Wushui had already slipped through the gap.
Frowning, Zhang Xianyu found a concealed corner to wait.
Time passed, yet Lin Wushui did not reappear.
Worry crept in, but she held her breath and waited patiently.
Her gaze flicked across the copper door reliefs again and again.
Suddenly, her eyes sharpened.
She stepped out from hiding and studied the carvings carefully.
After some time, she recognized the reliefs for what they were—an intricate formation.
She had seen a similar, obscure array in the Master’s Book, a formation using Immortal’s Blood as Yang, hundreds of fierce ghosts as Yin, arranged in a Five Elements Yin-Yang Formation combined with the Eight Trigrams, capable of sealing away the most evil beings in the world.
The book recorded the formation briefly, and its method of breaking it: disrupting the balance of the Five Elements and Yin-Yang.
The rest—what exactly Immortal’s Blood was, where to obtain it, and how to set the formation—were not explained.
Back then, Zhang Xianyu had only been curious whether Immortal’s Blood referred to a certain material or the actual blood of an immortal.
She hadn’t expected to encounter a similar formation here.
Hiding again within the recessed stone wall, Zhang Xianyu pondered the meaning of disrupting the Five Elements Yin-Yang balance.
After a long time with no answers, she glanced at the time.
Over two hours had passed since Lin Wushui entered.
It was already past ten at night.
Her worry deepened.
Just as she considered using the Lightning Technique to break the door, the five men, having eaten and rested, arrived at the door with tools.
They abandoned attempts to chisel through the copper door itself and instead began chiseling the stone wall beside it, hoping to tunnel in.
The sound of chiseling rang late into the night.
Exhausted, the five returned to the stone chamber to rest. Zhang Xianyu slipped down from her hiding spot and looked up at the towering copper door.
She now had a rough idea how to disrupt the door’s balance.
Searching among the reliefs, she finally found the largest and fiercest ghost.
Its eyes were wide open, mouth agape in a bloodthirsty snarl—truly terrifying at first glance.
She ran her hand over the relief until she felt a groove inside the giant mouth.
Her heart leapt.
Biting her index finger, she let a bead of blood well up, then pressed the bloody fingertip into the groove.
The door quickly absorbed the blood, and the once motionless relief suddenly came alive, its eyes rolling.
The ghost nearest her fixed a malevolent gaze on Zhang Xianyu.
She squinted and stared back at it.
After a moment, a thought struck her—this had to be enough.
She immediately withdrew her hand and stepped back quickly.
At the same time, the ghost that had been fed blood snapped its huge jaws shut with a snap.
Had Zhang Xianyu been slower, her hand might have been bitten off.
The ghost glared resentfully at her before turning and lunging at the other ghosts.
The reliefs on the copper door erupted into fierce combat.
Like a venomous insect breeding ground, the hundred ghosts trapped in the door began devouring each other.
This was the meaning behind the breaking method recorded in the book.
By making the sealed ghosts consume one another until only one remained, the formation’s balance would be broken, and the seal would collapse without force.