Chapter 244 Ascension to Immortality

The moment the words left my mouth, I felt three strange gazes lock onto me. I looked back and saw Old Qian and the others staring at me with expressions that were hard to describe.

He Yu stepped up and pulled me away from the two human skins, whispering, “When did you get so reckless? That thing is so… so hideously ugly. Who would dare carry it on their back?”

I narrowed my eyes at him, wondering if he was just chickening out.

Seeing my look, He Yu stammered out an explanation. “It’s not that I’m scared! I’m just saying the most we should do is find a spot nearby to dig a hole and bury them. Besides, how can you be sure the little ghost following us belonged to one of these skins? What if we get out, bury them, and turn out to have buried the wrong people?”

But I had a powerful premonition. That bone-chilling cold I’d felt earlier was far too real to be a hallucination, and the atmosphere here was incredibly eerie. That little ghost had already played tricks on us once, and so far we’d only fallen from the tunnel into the water. If we didn’t do something, I feared even more terrifying things were waiting for us further in.

However, I was the only one who felt we should take the skins out. He Yu cut off my rebuttal before I could speak, making a gesture to keep moving. He shouldered his rifle and led the way around the two human skins. Old Qian followed closely behind him. As Han Zhuo passed me, he didn’t miss the chance to throw a cold, mocking remark. “If you like carrying dead people so much, be my guest.”

I was about to snap back when a loud gunshot suddenly rang out from ahead. I immediately swung my flashlight over. He Yu was sprawled face-down on the ground in a pathetic heap, his muzzle pointing upward, leaving Old Qian so terrified he was nearly collapsing. I rushed forward to help them up while scanning the surroundings. There was nothing there; the gun had likely just gone off by accident.

“Hey! I think something on the ground tripped me!” He Yu had taken a nasty fall, enough to scrape up his face.

I helped him and Old Qian up, but when I looked at the ground beneath their feet, it was perfectly smooth. I couldn’t even see a stray pebble. This was truly bizarre!

Han Zhuo suddenly appeared behind me and started tugging frantically at my sleeve. When I asked what he was doing, he pointed with a pale face toward the jade alcove holding the dried corpse. I looked over and realized that He Yu’s accidental shot had caused a massive disaster!

He Yu had jerked his rifle upward the moment it went off, which was actually the best way to ensure his teammates didn’t get hurt. However, that stray bullet had struck the seated corpse inside the Ancestral Temple’s jade alcove. The corpse had been sitting there for who knows how many millennia and couldn’t withstand the impact of a bullet. The moment it was hit, the corpse tumbled down from its high perch. The four of us huddled together, eight eyes fixed on the seated corpse on the floor. If it showed any sign of movement, He Yu and I were ready to unleash a full magazine and let it taste the power of modern weaponry.

Less than a minute after hitting the ground, the dried corpse vanished. Not even a trace of dust remained.

I breathed a sigh of relief, but when I looked up, my heart leaped back into my throat.

A giant bat covered in black fur was crawling out of the alcove where the corpse had just fallen. We had assumed the spot housing the body was just an alcove meant for something like a memorial tablet, but it turned out there was a damn hole behind it. A damn bat cave. The giant bat crawled onto the jade and slightly spread its wings, making everyone freeze in place.

I can say with certainty that this was the largest bat I had ever seen. It was tall, and its wingspan must have been two meters when fully extended. It looked remarkably like a large flying fox from Southeast Asia. I wondered if it was some hybrid breed cultivated by the King of Gune. Flying foxes were herbivores, but the creature in front of us didn’t look like a vegetarian. If it swiped at me with its wing, I might lose my entire face, if not my life.

During the earthquake, He Yu had hurriedly grabbed two guns from the Gan Clan’s supply tent, but both turned out to be single-shot rifles. I had learned a lot from Chen Canghai over the past couple of days, and single-shot rifles were a terrible choice against wild animals. You could only fire once before having to reload manually. Even a good shot would think twice before using one, let alone someone like me who might not even hit one target in ten shots.

The giant bat crawled half a meter along the jade and began emitting a warning cry at us. He Yu caught my eye, and the two of us immediately moved forward in a pincer formation. As he walked, he pulled a bullet from his waist and reloaded. With a bang, he fired at the bat. To our complete surprise, the bat took flight the instant he pulled the trigger. A gust of wind rose as those two-meter wings flew at me like blades. I quickly shifted my stance and used my rifle to block, but the force of the impact knocked the gun right out of my hands.

Old Qian dodged to the side, screaming for help. The giant bat clamped its teeth onto his back collar, trying to drag him into the hole. He Yu immediately fired another shot, but it only hit the bat’s wing.

Seeing the situation turn dire, I didn’t have time to retrieve my gun. I drew my knife and jumped onto the bat’s back with a roar. Sensing it was under attack from both sides, the bat quickly turned its head, baring its fangs and dropping Old Qian to bite me. I plunged my knife into its mouth. The bat let out a sudden shriek. I pulled the knife out and stabbed at its back, but its hide was so thick that the blade couldn’t penetrate.

“He Yu! Aim for the head!” I shouted. No sooner had the words left my mouth than the bat swung a massive wing, sending me slipping off its back to slam hard onto the ground.

I had clearly enraged the creature. Blood dripped from its mouth as it lunged at me with sharp claws. A sharp pain flared in my shoulders; the claws had definitely sunk deep into my flesh. I had nothing left but my knife. The giant bat snarled at me, its fangs bared. The pain in my shoulders was so intense I nearly blacked out. I jammed my knife against its chin to keep it back.

Another gunshot rang out. The bullet pierced the bat’s head right above me. Black blood sprayed across my neck. The headless bat convulsed twice before collapsing onto me, finally silent.

Old Qian ran over to help me roll the bat corpse off me. Even in death, the damn thing refused to let go, its claws hooked deep into my flesh. The pain made my face go pale and my shoulders twitch uncontrollably as he pulled it away.

Old Qian was a mess of snot and tears. As he got close, I caught that sharp, pungent stench of urine again. He’d definitely pissed himself in terror just now. “Young Master! You’re my savior! If you hadn’t come to rescue me, I’d be sitting in that monster’s belly right now!”

He Yu shouted a curse at Han Zhuo, who was hiding far off to the side, then ran over quickly. “How are you? Are you alright? We need to get out of this hellhole, fast.”

I sat on the ground, my teeth chattering from the pain. Gritting through it, I pointed to the two human skins hanging above us. “Listen to me. Take those with us. If we don’t, whatever we let loose next time might not be bats.”

He Yu and Old Qian exchanged a look. I don’t know what they were thinking, but for once, they actually listened to me. They worked together to bundle the two skins up and stuff them into a backpack, then double-checked their rifles.

I took a moment to catch my breath before walking over to retrieve my gun. Encountering so many bizarre things just reaching the Ancestral Temple would rattle anyone. After a moment to steady our nerves, we formed a single file line and officially entered the rear hall.

The rear hall of the Ancestral Temple sat directly behind the front hall, connected by a short corridor of about three or four meters. The rear hall was even more cavernous. In the dead center sat a wooden coffin. It was just a coffin without an outer casket, making it look somewhat solitary and sparse. The surrounding jade walls were elliptical, and row upon row of seated mummies were packed tightly along the walls. There were five full tiers of these mummies, creating an atmosphere far more oppressive than any ancestral shrine’s spirit tablets.

He Yu shivered the moment he stepped inside. “These… these big brothers don’t look like they’re giving us a very warm welcome.”

I noticed a dull, greyish sphere placed at the end of the first row of mummies near the entrance of the rear hall. This was a Fire Bead. By pushing it into a pre-designed oil track in a tomb chamber, it could serve as temporary lighting. I stepped forward and gave the bead a shove. It immediately rolled into the oil track that hadn’t been lit for a thousand years. As it rolled, it struck two other beads further along. The beads collided and fell into the oil, and one by one, the oil tracks beneath the tiers of mummies ignited. After a millennium of darkness, the hall flared to life. The sight was breathtaking.

Within a minute, the firelight illuminated the entire rear hall. The four of us could instantly see what was on the jade walls: a massive, sprawling mural depicting scenes of daily mortal life.

The vaulted ceiling was magnificent, and the murals on the jade walls hadn’t faded in the slightest. The figures wore vibrant, colorful clothing. The mural was so long it was divided into several sections: the Royal Court, the Marketplace, and the Royal Hunt. People and horses moved together along stone-paved roads, a perfect recreation of the Gune Royal City in its prime. The thousands of figures were painted with startling realism. I recognized the Marketplace section almost instantly. It was the legendary Nieyao Ghost Market Mural^[1] I had seen at the Shennongjia ruins. However, the one I’d seen back then was a “pirated” version with peeling paint; this original mural on the ceiling of the Ancestral Temple in the Tomb of King Ne remained as fresh as the day it was painted a thousand years ago.

He Yu bowed several times toward the mural. “What kind of merit did I accumulate in my past life to see this legendary mural with my own eyes? I’m going vegetarian for a month when I get back, just to thank the heavens for this chance.”

I circled the central wooden coffin, carefully studying the various sections of the Nieyao Ghost Market Mural. Suddenly, I remembered some information Hou Jinshan had shared with me before I went to Shennongjia. He said that back when he was a tomb raider, he’d been recruited by the government to excavate a great tomb. From that tomb, they had unearthed the Nine-Ring Jade Casket. The owner of that tomb was said to be a king who had married nine wives, and this king was inextricably linked to the legendary Nieyao Ghost Market Mural.

At the time, I thought he was playing me. But now I thought of the decoy tomb where my Fourth Brother had been trapped. According to the workers, nine woman skins had been hanging in that decoy tomb. Was it possible that Hou Jinshan hadn’t lied to me about that part? Perhaps they had excavated the tomb of a descendant of the Gune Kingdom. Those nine skins in the decoy tomb might actually represent the nine concubines buried with the King of Gune. Since the concubines’ tombs would be closest to the King’s, he might have converted one into a decoy tomb to mislead any grave robbers who stumbled upon it.

My great-grandfather, Ye Yuzhu, had been just one step away. The Crying Forest was actually extremely close to the true entrance of the Royal Tomb.

If that was the case, was the Nine-Ring Jade Casket a treasure of the King of Gune? Was the Houtu Blood as well? This King of Gune was starting to seem unnervingly legendary.

“What are you thinking about?” He Yu asked, coming over when he saw me staring blankly at the mural.

I said, “Once you’re done looking, pack up. We need to keep moving. With all these mummies around, we shouldn’t linger.”

He Yu scratched his head. “So what, we’re not opening the coffin? I feel like ever since we entered this tomb, your nerves have been wound way too tight.”

Old Qian chimed in from the side. “You can’t blame the Young Master. I feel like something’s off here too. It’s not just the tomb; it’s the King of Gune himself. Our guesses before we came in might have been a bit off the mark.”

He Yu asked Old Qian what he meant. What was so strange about the King of Gune? Stroking his small mustache, Old Qian pointed toward the ceiling of the rear hall. The ceiling was circular, but the floor was square. It seemed the entire construction of this tomb leaned toward Daoist philosophy. The concept of “Round Heaven and Square Earth^[2]” fit Daoist doctrine perfectly. Then there was the “Two Dragons Flanking a Tomb” layout of the upper level, and the Fuxi Eight Trigrams^[3] map we saw earlier. Everything was meticulously calculated. This didn’t look like the work of some primitive, savage king who only knew how to bury people alive.

Looking at the tiers of mummies again, Old Qian noted that their meditative posture was strikingly similar to the legendary “Ascension to Immortality through Corpse Release^[4]” practiced by Daoist priests. And with that “Mural of the Human World” painted above them, it was as if the mural served as a counterpart to these bodies, which were now nothing more than empty shells.

“Did the King of Gune go through all this effort just to achieve ascension to immortality?” He Yu sucked in a sharp breath.

Hearing us discuss this, Han Zhuo edged closer from the side. “So you really know nothing about the Tomb of King Ne?”

Hearing that, I was practically certain the kid knew something. At the very least, he knew more than we did, so I asked him what he knew.

Since we had already come this far together, Han Zhuo didn’t bother hiding things anymore, being refreshingly straightforward for once. He told us that according to legend, the King of Gune had always pursued ascension to immortality, so he had dispatched many people from the Gune Kingdom everywhere to search for extraordinary individuals. Finally, when he turned fifty, he found Master Jiyun, the only person in the world who might know how to achieve ascension to immortality. Master Jiyun presented him with half a block of Houtu Blood.

“Half a block?” Old Qian reacted with sudden intensity. “You’re saying Master Jiyun presented him with half a block of Houtu Blood?”

Han Zhuo nodded.

I asked Old Qian, “What’s wrong? Is there something wrong with it being half a block?”

Old Qian explained, “Back then, it took three generations for the Corpse Country Queen to refine a single complete block of Houtu Blood, which shows just how precious it is. It’s a miraculous medicine for healing and vitalizing blood. Legend has it that swallowing even half a slice after death can bring a person back to life. But Master Jiyun didn’t give the King of Gune half a slice; he gave him half a block! If someone actually consumed half a block of Houtu Blood, what would happen? Wouldn’t they truly join the ranks of the immortals?”