Xue Xian gritted his teeth and grunted reluctantly. “Yeah, yeah. Just say yes or no.”
“Why?”
“Your bones are special.”
Xuanmin shook his head, apparently unable to find a response. After some thought, he reached into the pouch and took out Xue Xian’s golden marble. He twirled his index finger, and a cut opened itself in his skin, from which a bright red drop of blood oozed. Using the drop of blood as ink, he raised his hand and sketched out a spell on the marble. Xue Xian recognized the spell’s design—he’d drawn the same on the paper doll back when he’d first anchored himself to it. As Xuanmin finished the final stroke, the marble glowed faintly before dimming once more.
Xuanmin reached out to grab at the air where Xue Xian was drifting and tapped the golden marble.
Just like that, Xue Xian was pulled inside. He hadn’t truly returned to his body; he’d only been anchored to the marble the way he would be to any other ordinary object. It was a temporary dwelling. Even so, he was elated. He had to admit that when Xuanmin wasn’t trying to drive him crazy, he was quite tolerable. This single action was the one that mattered to Xue Xian the most, blotting out all else.
“Going to crawl around still?” Xuanmin asked while putting the golden marble back into his pouch.
My venerable self is round and smooth as glass, with nary a limb in sight. How the hell am I supposed to crawl?! Xue Xian thought.
However, he’d just accepted a favor from Xuanmin, so having a go at him right away wouldn’t be a good look. Instead, he gave a proper answer. “No more crawling.”
“What about blowing everything up with your antics?”
An angry retort bubbled in Xue Xian’s throat, but he ultimately forced it back down. “I won’t cause more trouble.”
Seeing that he’d truly become compliant this time, Xuanmin pushed the marble into the bottom of the pouch.
With this, Xue Xian really settled down somewhat. After all, he’d promised Xuanmin to behave. He couldn’t just go back on his word right away—he had to at least pretend to comply! Plus, Xuanmin really had chosen the best object to subdue him. In the form of a round marble, he couldn’t jump even if he wanted to. The most he could do was roll around in the pouch with Xuanmin’s movements.
Jiang Shining hadn’t heard Xue Xian bargain, but he’d observed Xuanmin’s actions and understood the general situation. He pointed at the pouch. “Is he injured?”
Jiang Shining relaxed when Xuanmin shook his head.
Now that he’d dealt with Xue Xian’s unfortunate marble form, Xuanmin finally had time to observe their surroundings. Using a pinch of fire held between his fingers, he partially illuminated the area, revealing an underground stone chamber of unknown origins with a gently sloping floor. Xuanmin turned the paper flame to light up the lower area of the chamber.
Two massive shadows were sitting there. Jiang Shining and Lu Nianqi both shuddered in terror.
“What are those?!” Jiang Shining gasped, retreating two steps.
“Tomb guardians,” said Xuanmin.
The sloping ground was about thirty yards in length. At the end was a half-open stone door, with a massive beast carved from stone standing on either side. Each was over ten feet tall, with fierce eyes and stout faces that exuded intimidation. Their glares were directed downward, silently scrutinizing the intruders from above. Fearsome stone beasts of such scale were usually only seen in royal mausoleums.
“Tomb guardians?!” Jiang Shining had no reason to doubt Xuanmin. A chill ran down his spine, and he rubbed his arms. “Could this Fentou Island really be a giant graveyard, as its name suggests?”
Lu Nianqi turned pale. “But I’ve never heard anyone say that. It’s only called Fentou Island because it resembles a burial mound. If it really were one, the pharmacists wouldn’t dare come here.”
Xuanmin raised the flame to highlight the faces and feet of the tomb guardians. “They’re new.”
“How new?” asked Jiang Shining.
“Erected within the last three to five years.”
If they’d been carved three to five years ago, the construction of the tomb must have also happened then. But that was bizarre. Whom had it been built for?
Xuanmin swept the light over the area they’d fallen into, then shone it into the fathomless tunnel above. He shook his head. There was no chance of leaving the way they came. Their only choice was to continue forward in search of another exit.
After another sweep of the light, Xuanmin began to walk.
Jiang Shining and Lu Nianqi were both shivering with fear, but they dared not stray too far from Xuanmin. After hesitating for a moment, they hurriedly caught up, closely following him from behind.
“Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid, I’m a ghost too,” Jiang Shining mumbled to himself. He felt a bit better.
Xuanmin passed between the two gigantic tomb guardians and pushed open the half-closed stone door.
Even the oldest, most neglected wooden door would only creak softly when opened, but a stone door was different. As it was pushed open, the hefty stone base ground against the stone floor, causing it to rumble. That sound echoed in the vast and silent tomb, bouncing back and forth until Lu Nianqi’s and Jiang Shining’s hackles were bristling in fear.
Lu Nianqi clamped his legs together, feeling like he might wet himself. However, his mulish personality wouldn’t let him show weakness. He squared his shoulders and took two brave steps forward. In an eerie place like this one, he couldn’t know if it was safer to walk in the front or stay in the back.
Right as Xuanmin was about to push the stone door all the way open, it knocked into something with a muffled thud. It seemed to be stuck.
“There’s something behind the door!” Lu Nianqi cried in surprise. Despite his best attempts to quash it, there was a tremor in his voice.
Xuanmin did not hurry to investigate what was behind the door. Instead, he used the fire to scan the general area ahead.
Lu Nianqi couldn’t help screaming at what he saw. “What the hell?!”
The flames revealed another connecting hall similar to the chamber they’d been in, just a little narrower. What had frightened Lu Nianqi were the walls on either side of the hall covered in paintings of beasts even more terrifying than the tomb guardians. The murals were painted in neither black nor full color, but in crimson.
“W-w-were they painted with blood?!” Lu Nianqi shrieked. Ultimately, he was the youngest and most prone to panic. The murals were enormous. Just how much blood would they have taken to create?
The timid Jiang Shining also shuddered, but he quickly came to his senses. “No, I don’t think so. Take a sniff. If they’d been painted with blood, the entire chamber would stink.”
“That’s true. It doesn’t smell like blood.” Lu Nianqi calmed down as he inhaled. After that, other details became apparent. For example, the way the murals’ ink shone a bright red. Blood dried on the walls would have turned brown by now.
Xuanmin regarded the two walls. “Cinnabar.”
Painting a tomb with blood and animal parts could be easily explained, but the choice of cinnabar was a strange one because the pigment was known for its protective qualities against evil spirits. By painting the murals with cinnabar, the builder hadn’t aimed to bring peace to the interred or assist them in passing on. Instead, they had trapped them in eternal unrest, never to reincarnate.
It was an act of terrible malice.
Jiang Shining had never set foot in a mausoleum like this, nor was he familiar with local customs. However, he was knowledgeable about cinnabar. Back in the clinic, he’d grown up surrounded by medicine and medical practices. Even without going out of his way to study medicinal ingredients, he’d committed many of the effects to memory. And he enjoyed browsing through related texts during his spare time, which naturally touched on cinnabar.
“Using cinnabar to paint beasts…” Jiang Shining muttered. “How much did they hate the interred to do this to them?”
But Xuanmin only waved a hand. “Perhaps the evil spirits inside were up to no good.” If whoever was buried here refused to rest, then the builder might have had no choice but to use cinnabar to secure some peace.
Rash remarks were always unwise, so Jiang Shining and Lu Nianqi ceased speculating. They noticed that Xuanmin had shifted his attention from the murals to behind the stone door, and they rushed to follow him.
The moment he saw what was there, Lu Nianqi’s face paled.
There was indeed something behind the stone door preventing it from fully opening, but it wasn’t an object. It was people.
Two people: one old, the other young.
The elderly man lay curled on the ground, one hand clutching his shoulder. His clothes were muddy and torn in several places, while dark bruises mottled the back of his hand. He might have hit it while falling. Meanwhile, the young man was slumped against the wall, his eyes squeezed shut and his lips pallid. He looked frail, perhaps even more so than Jiang Shining: dreadfully thin, cheekbones gaunt and jutting. In one hand he clutched a bundle of tangled twigs, fastened together using red string.
If Xue Xian had peered out of the pouch, he would have recognized the twigs fastened with string, as well as the slumped youth. It was none other Lu Shijiu, the person they were searching for.
“Shijiu?!” Lu Nianqi was momentarily stunned, then threw himself in front of his brother. Not knowing if he should touch Lu Shijiu, Lu Nianqi hesitated. He examined his brother closely. When he determined that there were no serious injuries visible, he could hold back no longer and began to shake Lu Shijiu’s shoulder.
“Shijiu? Lu Shijiu?! Wake up!” Lu Nianqi shouted. When Lu Shijiu still remained unresponsive, he switched to shoving the old man on the ground. “Old Man Liu, Old Man Liu, wake up!”
Jiang Shining stepped forward. “Let me take a look.”