Chapter 248: The Trump Card

Tian Xiao circled the area and returned, his expression grave as he spoke to me. “There is no Houtu Blood here. Could the legends be false?”

Lu Ayao had guessed correctly; their true objective was indeed to find the legendary elixir of immortality. Our current position should have been the deepest part of the tomb. The stone coffin in the center of the Underworld Hall was undoubtedly the sarcophagus of the King of Gune. If the legends of the Houtu Blood were true, he should have consumed it and risen from the dead long ago.

“Old man, people call them legends for a reason. We don’t even know if Master Jiyun actually existed yet, so why are you so obsessed with this Houtu Blood? I say we settle our business here as soon as possible, grab some valuables, and head home.” He Yu brushed the mud off his pant legs and rubbed his hands together as he eyed the bronze coffin.

I gave him a slap and scolded him with a look. He sheepishly pulled his hands back and stuffed them into his pockets.

I walked over to Tian Xiao’s side and asked, “Old man, how about we open the coffin and take a look? Maybe the Houtu Blood was placed inside the sarcophagus as a funerary object.”

Tian Xiao frowned. When I mentioned opening the coffin, he seemed to suddenly realize something. He burst into a sudden laugh, though it was more of a cold, mocking sneer. Ignoring me entirely, he strode over to the bronze coffin and pulled several sections of threaded steel pipe from his pack.

He Yu and Old Qian, one a miser and the other a money-grubber, saw that the old man truly intended to open the coffin. They immediately scurried over to help him screw the steel pipes together. Seeing this, I went over to assist as well.

I pulled out my Horse-Head Blade and pried off the coffin nails from the four corners. Then, the group of us huddled together, using the assembled steel pipes to heave against one corner of the bronze coffin. The lid was exceptionally heavy. We grunted and heaved, exhausting ourselves for a long time before we finally managed to pry open one corner.

The three of us relaxed our grip, intending to rest for a moment before continuing. But when we looked back, we saw that Tian Xiao had already reached a hand into the narrow gap we had pried open.

We were all startled by his recklessness. We watched as he leaned over, groping around inside the coffin for a long time, before he finally slumped against the lid and began to laugh hysterically.

He Yu whispered to me, “The old man didn’t find the Houtu Blood. He’s gone mad, hasn’t he?”

I glanced at Old Qian. He was equally baffled by Tian Xiao’s sudden fit of insanity. Hearing a man’s laughter echoing through such a gloomy and eerie environment was bone-chilling for those of us who didn’t understand what was happening. The three of us instinctively kept our distance from Tian Xiao.

Eventually, Tian Xiao seemed to run out of strength and slid down to the floor. He remained motionless for a long time.

I said to He Yu and Old Qian, “Someone go pull the old man up. The ground is freezing. If it’s not there, it’s not there, but we can’t let him freeze to death.”

“If you’ve got the guts, go help him yourself,” He Yu said, glancing at me.

Old Qian shook his head vigorously, clearly determined not to go anywhere near him.

I sighed inwardly. Tian Xiao’s current state was indeed bizarre, and looking at him made my own heart beat with anxiety. Steeling my nerves and calling upon my sense of respect for my elders, I shuffled over a few steps. I cautiously patted Tian Xiao’s back and squatted down beside him.

“Old man, don’t sit on the floor. If we didn’t find it, we’ll just keep looking. Let me help you up and we’ll head back, alright?”

I couldn’t tell if Tian Xiao was laughing or crying. Resting both hands on the coffin lid, he raised his head slightly. His clouded eyes focused on me, and his voice suddenly turned extremely raspy. “Child, I’m not sad. There being no Houtu Blood here proves that our efforts were not in vain.”

I was already baffled, but now my mind was swarming with questions. Wasn’t this old man looking for the Houtu Blood? Why was he saying it was great that he hadn’t found it? Had the blow been so severe that it had driven him out of his mind?

“What do you mean?”

Tian Xiao wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes and felt along the bronze coffin beneath him. “This coffin was probably prepared for Master Jiyun, but I just checked inside. There is no body.”

I was shocked. I immediately pulled out my flashlight, leaned over the edge of the coffin, and peered inside. In the narrow beam of light, I saw that the bronze coffin indeed held only a few small burial objects. There was no body.

“How could this be?”

Hearing my shout, He Yu and Old Qian both came over to look. The three of us crowded over the gap to peer down inside. When they saw it, they looked at me in confusion, and I looked back in equal confusion at Tian Xiao sitting beside us.

Tian Xiao said, “Legend has it that the King of Gune slaughtered countless people searching for the elixir of immortality from the Kingdom of the Corpse. Master Jiyun, traveling far and wide, passed through the Gune Kingdom and saw the misery of its people. So he feigned allegiance to the King of Gune and presented him with the last half-piece of Houtu Blood in existence. Overjoyed, the King immediately appointed Master Jiyun as the State Preceptor^[1] and commanded him to construct his tomb.”

Hearing this, I could already infer the rest of the story.

Based on the clues we had gathered earlier, Houtu Blood only worked if consumed when a person was on the brink of death. Thus, after entering his coffin, the King of Gune had instructed Master Jiyun to feed him the medicine. But Master Jiyun hadn’t done it. As a result, the King of Gune, who had intended to rise from the dead to rule as an immortal, was sealed inside his stone coffin forever. The sanctuary built to aid his Ascension to Immortality became his tomb.

The Gune Kingdom collapsed after that, and Master Jiyun likely used some trick to escape like a cicada shedding its shell^[2]. But if Master Jiyun was buried in the underwater Overlapping Tomb we explored last time, I remembered there being no Houtu Blood there either. Could it be that Master Jiyun hadn’t kept the elixir of immortality for himself to be buried with him?

Tian Xiao didn’t get up from the ground, so I simply sat down beside him. I asked, “Old man, since the Houtu Blood isn’t here, let’s talk about something else. The person who went to Gansu with us wasn’t you. Who was that imposter? And what about that frozen, dismembered corpse we saw on the boat, did you kill him?”

Tian Xiao looked at me deeply and shook his head. “He came to die in my place. At a lumberyard in Northwest Outdoor, he found a hemp rope and hanged himself from a tree. He had to do it for them to see, because they know that only if Liu Sanshui, Gan Rukui, and Tian Xiao are all dead will the lifeblood of the Five Masters finally be severed.”

“They? You mean those people from just now?” I asked urgently. “If Liu Sanshui is missing, then… if you put it that way, was there more to my grandfather’s death back then?”

Tian Xiao sighed. “Sanshui was too clever. He was the first one to realize what was happening. He’s likely already waded through every place you’ve visited. But back then, your grandfather had a whole family to look after. He wasn’t like Sanshui; he couldn’t just run away. That’s probably why your Fourth Brother didn’t want you getting mixed up in this.”

I didn’t understand. “Why are those people trying to wipe us out? Did the Five Masters ever do something to wrong them, or did we just steal their business? Did neither side ever think about having an open and honest talk?”

Tian Xiao gave a dry chuckle. “If grudges were that easy to resolve, none of this would have happened. Settling these scores is no longer something our generation is capable of doing.”

Old Qian, who had remained silent until now, suddenly spoke up. “Old Master,” he asked, “you just said regarding the old master of the Liu Family that ‘he’s likely already waded through every place you’ve visited.’ Does that mean Liu Sanshui had already been to several of the locations marked on the Nine-Ring Jade Casket back then?”

Tian Xiao didn’t answer.

Those words were like a wake-up call to me. If Liu Sanshui really had been to that Warring States tomb in Gansu, then the “Looking Up to See All Living Beings” code was undoubtedly written by him. That phrase corresponded to the Nieyao Ghost Market Mural, and that mural was right there in the Ancestral Temple of the Tomb of King Ne. If Liu Sanshui and Tian Xiao shared the same goal, why hadn’t Tian Xiao considered the possibility that Liu Sanshui had already entered the tomb and taken the Houtu Blood?

Old Qian had mentioned that the layout of the Dragon-Trapping Marsh, which could only be entered during an earthquake, was something my great-grandfather had deduced by aligning the stars with the Burial Bone Testament. Old Qian had only told a few of us about this. Logically, Tian Xiao shouldn’t have known.

Yet, the fact that Tian Xiao hadn’t even raised the possibility of Liu Sanshui entering the Tomb of King Ne ahead of time proved he already knew about the layout. How did he find out? So far, there was only one possibility: my great-grandfather told my grandfather, and my grandfather told him.

But why would my grandfather tell him that? Decades ago, the Nine-Ring Jade Casket hadn’t been in the public eye for long; it was just a flash in the pan. Yet we had found traces of Liu Sanshui in almost every place we visited. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say his route was identical to ours. How did he predict our path so far in advance?

I realized then that Tian Xiao was still hiding things from us, and those things were exactly the most critical pieces of the puzzle.

I didn’t plan on asking him directly. Since Tian Xiao had chosen to be secretive, he wouldn’t give me a straight answer anyway. He’d just deflect with something completely irrelevant.

Instead, I tried a different angle. “So, did you and my grandfather plan to fight those people back then? Tian Yuqing knows about this, and my Fourth Brother definitely knows too. But those people are clearly much more professional than the Five Masters. I don’t think the odds are in our favor. What was your plan?”

Tian Xiao, who hadn’t shown a trace of a smile until now, suddenly gave a relaxed grin. He turned to look at me, then glanced up at He Yu beside him. “I can see how the situation stands,” he said. “Of course I have a trump card. It’s just not time yet.”

Old Qian crouched nearby and asked, “Those people are fierce, though. As long as Young Master Tian stays hidden, he and Master Si are resourceful enough that there’s bound to be a turning point once they regroup. Our Five Masters have been around for so many years; those others are just a bunch of nobodies.”

Tian Xiao gave a calm smile. “Those people have serious backing. We can’t afford to underestimate them. I wonder if Yuqing has managed to escape yet.”

I wanted to palm my forehead, thinking to myself, this old man has really gone senile. If Tian Yuqing’s role was so important, why would you just let him go out and get into a firefight with them? He’s just one man; how is he supposed to take on a dozen of them?