Chapter 1021: Tomb Exploration

To Chen Jianchou, Xu Jiaorong’s words were an immense encouragement. He needed no explanation of what it meant to become Second Deputy Qi’s secretary. Xu Jiaorong herself was the secretary to Great Sage Lan. Though she was only a third-rank Youyi Daoist, she was influential. Many Sages gave her deferential respect because she represented Great Sage Lan.

Though Second Deputy Qi was not as lofty as Great Sage Lan, the former had the advantage of his young age, and with it, boundless potential.

Beyond that, Chen Jianchou already possessed the status of a Daoist attendant, which was a prerequisite for entering the Daoist Order. In essence, he was considered half a Daoist official.

Thus, if he achieved merit, he would not merely be granted the same recognition as a Daoist Priest Kindred. Instead, he would be placed on a fast track to advancement, a path far more promising than being directly appointed as a seventh-rank Daoist.

More crucially, if he could become Second Deputy Qi’s secretary, he would then match Chen Jianqiu in status.

Of course, that was only if he could uncover the truth.

After leaving the tavern, Chen Jianchou returned to his quarters. He did not sleep all night and reorganized every known clue from the beginning, piece by piece.

His godmother Xu Jiaorong’s responses had overturned many of his previous assumptions, such as the notion that the Daoist Order had wanted to secretly assassinate the Yu King or that they had allowed Chen Shuhua to carry out such a plot unchecked.

However, her words had also opened another line of thought.

His godmother had stated clearly that those eunuchs who had died suddenly were not killed by the Daoist Order. Then, who had killed them? More importantly, why?

The motive was not hard to guess. It was clearly an attempt to frame the Daoist Order, muddy the waters, and conceal another hidden agenda.

The key question was, who was behind those deaths?

Chen Jianchou, being a member of the Green Phoenix Guard, had the duty to protect the royal court. Thus, the Green Phoenix Guard Office should have archived records concerning these eunuchs.

Early the next morning, Chen Jianchou used the convenience of his position to access the relevant files.

As expected, the files contained no mention of the true causes of death. All of them were officially recorded as having died of sudden illness. But that was not what Chen sought. He wanted to know where those eunuchs had been buried.

Since they were listed as dying of natural causes, they could not be treated as criminals and would have had proper funeral rites.

These eunuchs, having been personal attendants of the Yu King, held considerable status. Many even had adopted sons, nephews, or families of their own. Thus, their burials were grand affairs, not something that could be casually dismissed.

Moreover, the Yu Kingdom was deeply influenced by Central Plains traditions. Both Daoists and Confucians emphasized burial in the earth, while only the Buddhists practiced cremation.

To dispel any suspicion that these eunuchs were secretly Buddhist followers, they could not be cremated and had to be buried.

That gave Chen Jianchou his first breakthrough.

Following the details recorded in the archives, Chen Jianchou arrived at a graveyard about 15 kilometers outside Thanglong Prefecture.

The last of the eunuchs who had died suddenly was named Wu Fu, and he had been buried here.

These eunuchs were the so-called Grand Eunuchs who had immense wealth and influence. They owned private estates and businesses, and their tombs were built on auspicious fengshui sites. Some even had gravekeepers, so there was no way to approach it openly during the day without being noticed.

Thus, Chen Jianchou waited until nightfall. Under a moonless, windy night, he slipped quietly into the graveyard.

He intended to open the coffin and examine the body.

The graves here were not mere mounds of earth. They were tombs with underground chambers.

During his years in the Green Phoenix Guard, Chen Jianchou had been exposed to a wide variety of methods. He would not call himself a master of qi-sensing, but he knew enough to make use of it. Before long, he had discerned the layout of the burial chamber and the position of the tomb entrance. Then, he began to dig a thief’s tunnel.

Though the eunuchs’ tombs contained burial chambers, they were not the labyrinthine palaces of imperial mausoleums. At most, each was about the size of a common kiln, divided into a main chamber and two side cells. The smaller one was barely larger than a single room. Having been taught by Xu Jiaorong, Chen Jianchou was a Xiantian Being. Thus, it took little effort for him to dig through and enter.

Inside, the chamber was frigid and utterly dark. At its center stood a jet-black coffin.

This coffin consisted of two layers—the outer shell and the inner shell, which held the corpse.

Chen Jianchou stepped forward and pressed his palms against the lid. A piercing chill ran through his hands. The entire coffin felt like a block of ice. He pulled back instinctively. Looking down, he saw that a thin frost had already formed on his palm.

He could not help but mutter inwardly,

What terrifying cold qi... These eunuchs’ deaths are indeed suspicious.

Chen Jianchou was a Qi Refiner. He immediately circulated his innate qi to resist the cold, then exerted his strength to push open the lid, revealing the inner shell within.

Each of the coffin’s four corners was sealed shut with metal nails. Though the chamber was completely dark, the nails still gleamed with a faint, eerie luster.

He lit a firestick and peered closer. Above each nail where the hammer had struck, there was a carved word in seal script that read, “Slay.”

His expression changed instantly. “Isn’t this the Daoist Corpse-Slaying Nail?”

The Daoist Order designed the Corpse-Slaying Nail to suppress corpses. These were driven into the coffin to prevent corpse transformation.

These eunuchs had been buried in grounds with excellent feng shui, where corpse transformation should never occur in the first place. If there was no risk of corpse transformation, then why go to the trouble of sealing the coffin with Corpse-Slaying Nails?

That earlier chill also hinted at something deeply unnatural.

Chen Jianchou found himself caught in a dilemma. After a long internal struggle, he finally steeled his resolve. With the tools he had prepared in advance, he pried out the Corpse-Slaying Nails from the four corners of the coffin.

The moment he pushed open the lid of the coffin, he found it filled with green liquid that was dense with yin energy and tainted by a faint killing aura.

Chen Jianchou’s expression turned grim.

He lifted the coffin upright to pour out the green liquid, revealing a shrunken corpse that was all skin and bone. Its burial robes had long since disintegrated, and its ribcage stood out starkly beneath the grayish-white skin. Its face was sunken, its eyes were open, and its mouth was frozen in terror.

Chen Jianchou’s brows knitted sharply. He coated his palm with innate qi and touched the corpse lightly. Its chest instantly caved in like brittle paper.

This was the last of the eunuchs who had died suddenly. He had been dead for less than a year, yet he was already reduced to such a state.

At that very moment, the corpse lunged forward with its jaws wide open. It had become a living corpse.

Chen Jianchou had been prepared for an attack, so he struck out instantly, catching the corpse’s jaw in his palm and forcing it shut with a snap.

What in the world is going on?

Chen Jianchou thought.

This corpse transformation resembled the signs of someone killed by the Ghost Curse, which was a forbidden Daoist spell. Once afflicted by it, the victim could still be saved if it was discovered early. But if the body began to decay, it would be too late. By then, the curse would have sunk deep into the marrow, and even Immortals could not undo it.

Worse still, those who perished under the Ghost Curse would have their bodies reanimated as living corpses. It was no wonder Chen Jianqiu had claimed that these eunuchs died by Daoist hands.

Fortunately, this eunuch’s corpse had only been recently reanimated. Though ghastly in appearance, it was not powerful.

With a burst of overwhelming qi, Chen Jianchou crushed it, reducing the corpse to a heap of mangled flesh.

Chen Jianchou searched the tomb further. He noticed marks on the ground, signs that the coffin had been moved. When he pushed it aside, he discovered a tunnel beneath it.

Why would there be a tunnel beneath a eunuch’s coffin? Where did that green liquid come from? What was the mastermind trying to accomplish?

Chen Jianchou’s mind was racing with questions.

After some deliberation, he decided to enter the tunnel and investigate.

The passage sloped steadily downward. After walking about 300 meters, Chen Jianchou paused. The walls around him had turned damp. Water dripped from the ceiling, forming pools at the corners, and the stone surfaces were now slick with moss.

Yin and yang opposed one another, just as fire and water could not coexist. At its peak, yang gave rise to fire, while yin condensed into water. The presence of dripping water here was proof of how intense the yin energy had become.

Seeing this scene, Chen Jianchou was not exactly afraid, but a sense of caution crept deeper into his heart. Thus, he continued forward without hurrying. He merely walked at a normal pace.

After about an hour, he noticed a change in the walls, as if he had entered a vast underground tomb.

In addition, Chen Jianchou found several corpses reduced nearly to bone. Judging by their state of decay, they had been dead for many years, not recently. Their clothing was tattered and disintegrated.

He spotted a strange, short-bladed, serrated tool hanging from one man’s belt and immediately realized their identity. They must have been tomb raiders who had somehow entered this ancient tomb but never made it out alive, their bodies left here forever.

Just as Chen Jianchou leaned down to examine the corpses, one of them suddenly opened its eyes and lunged with its bony hands outstretched toward his throat.

Ordinary living corpses posed little threat to Chen Jianchou, as they moved slowly and had brittle bodies. Anyone with the slightest knowledge of corpse-banishing arts could destroy them.

Thus, Chen Jianchou stayed perfectly calm as he sidestepped the corpse’s grasp and shattered its skull with a single palm strike.

With its head destroyed, the corpse collapsed to the ground.

Chen Jianchou glanced around and saw murals on the walls. They were paintings of a standing female bodhisattva, strikingly similar to the one Chen Jianqiu had described from the King’s dream. But aside from the bodhisattva, there was also a Buddha seated atop a lotus throne.

He wondered if he had guessed it wrong. Perhaps the blood-red Bodhisattva was not tied to the Lingshan Witch Cult but instead to a branch of the Buddhist Sect?

Entertaining that thought, Chen Jianchou pressed onward.

After traveling another 300 meters, a tiny point of light appeared in the far distance. As he continued forward, the light point grew larger. It was an exit, faintly glowing from beyond.

Chen Jianchou’s heart stirred. He drew the concealment talisman given by Xu Jiaorong from his sleeve and pinched it between his index and middle fingers. With a light flick, the talisman ignited, and Chen Jianchou vanished without a trace.

Now that he was invisible, Chen Jianchou drifted forward like a wisp of formless smoke toward the tomb’s exit, silent and unseen.