Having tempered his body for years, the Nine Yang True Qi stored in his muscles surged.
Zhang Kuang’s face turned red, and his arms trembled.
“What are you looking at? Go help him!”
Xi Bing noticed the disciples of the Nine Yang Orthodox Sect watching the show.
His face darkened, and his anger flared.
Those disciples wearing the slanted robes heard themselves called out.
They scratched their heads blankly and quickly climbed the high platform to assist Zhang Kuang.
The elder had never asked for their help on ordinary days, so it took them a moment to react.
A few strong loose cultivators also followed, but most chose to play it safe.
If they didn’t go up, they’d only be talked about behind their backs.
When trouble came, they could cut their losses and run.
If they really charged in, they probably didn’t know how the word “death” was written.
The ancient immortal tomb was fraught with danger.
Opening the coffin so rashly without waiting for the scouts to return and report their findings—if this were any other forbidden ground, nine lives wouldn’t be enough!
Not to mention this ancient immortal tomb whose origins no one knew.
Creak…
The grating, teeth-grinding sound of tearing filled the hall.
Under their unflagging efforts, the thick, distinct chains finally burst open a gap.
After a short rest, they gathered their strength and pushed again.
The chains began to snap link by link, like a procession of elephants jumping off a cliff, unleashing a tremendous shockwave.
Since techniques were prohibited here, everyone lost their footing and began to fall, along with the chain debris, crushing several unlucky souls in Zhao Jiahao’s team.
The means of sealing the coffin were undone.
Xi Bing once again confirmed that the Omen Compass’s guidance was correct.
He walked up to the loosened coffin lid and stared at it for a long time without speaking.
That fierce being, imprisoned by an ancient true immortal with great divine power, was about to emerge.
No one dared to guess the attitude of the thing inside the coffin, for judging from the earlier shouts, even though the language was incomprehensible, Xi Bing could feel the intense resentment.
True Man Zhang shook his arms as he returned.
He also looked at the rising and falling coffin lid, spat, and questioned, “I helped you break the chains. Can’t it open the lid itself?”
Hearing this, Xi Bing stroked his beard and thought of a possibility.
That fierce being had been imprisoned here for many years, weathered by time.
Could it be that it had grown old and weak, losing its former supernatural power?
If so, there was still a glimmer of hope.
“Damn, this is so heavy! Kind people out there helping, please see it through to the end? Saving a life is better than building a seven-story pagoda, big brother! I, Liancheng, will surely repay you handsomely in the future!”
Sure enough, weighing the tone of the person in the coffin from heavy to light, Xi Bing became even more convinced of his guess.
“Zhang Kuang, go up again and open the coffin lid. Whatever’s inside has been worn down by countless years and probably doesn’t have the strength to come out on its own.”
“After helping it out, then what? Are we saved?”
“This thing appeared together with the immortal tomb. It must know some mysteries unknown to us. If we negotiate with it based on the favor of saving its life, we might be able to leave here. Perhaps, in gratitude for our life-saving grace, it might even bestow an opportunity.”
“Will things really be as you say?”
Zhang Kuang was half-convinced.
No matter how you put it, it was too far-fetched.
“True Man Zhang, go quickly,” Xi Bing smiled and made a bow to the heavens.
Such was the confidence from the sect’s foundation.
“The Ancestral Master’s Omen Compass has protected the Taixu Sect for centuries and has never failed. If you can’t trust me, can’t you trust the Ancestral Master who ascended to the upper realm?”
“Then I’ll trust you one more time. Old ghost Xi, regarding that matter in Gloomy Valley back then, I no longer owe you.”
Zhang Kuang’s face was solemn, but he jumped onto the high platform again.
Without the thick chains in the way, he grabbed the head of the coffin lid and pried it open, rescuing whatever was inside.
Everyone below stared intently at the high platform.
There was neither immortal light spewing forth nor demonic light heralding anything.
A woman crawled out, her black hair disheveled, her upper body leaning over the edge of the coffin, gasping for breath.
The steady sound of breathing signified life.
Her skin, white as congealed fat, showed no trace of age.
And hanging down along the coffin edge was a snow-white brocade robe she wore.
On the cuffs, auspicious clouds and auspicious beasts embroidered with gold and silver threads could faintly be seen.
Even under the dim light of the hall, one could still discern its former splendor.
At this, Zhang Kuang scratched his chin in confusion.
Had he opened it the wrong way?
“Hehe, the owner of this immortal tomb has an interesting taste, choosing this woman as a burial companion.”
“Maybe she is the tomb owner?”
“Don’t say that.”
“Such a grand immortal tomb, not a single rare treasure, just a woman. What good is that? My spirit stones!”
“…”
Xi Bing reversed the compass, his mind returning to normal.
Wu Yu and the other disciples slowly stood up.
“Elder, what is that?”
Wu Yu asked, brushing the dust off his clothes.
“The thing inside the coffin.”
Every immortal tomb’s history was at least an era ago.
Thousands of years had flowed like a river, countless changes of the world.
And yet the woman in the coffin was as beautiful as if it were still the beginning.
Such divine ability made Wu Yu swallow several times to suppress the overwhelming shock in his heart.
“Old ghost Xi, didn’t you say opening the coffin would let us leave? Now what? How are we going to handle this?!”
Zhang Kuang scratched his chin for a long time, his head aching and feverish.
He gave up thinking and shouted to Xi Bing across the space, passing the matter to him.
“Come down first.”
Zhang Kuang acknowledged and turned to jump off the high platform.
Liancheng, who was leaning against the coffin edge, saw this and her mouth twitched.
She estimated it was at least two stories high, big brother.
He just jumped down without stairs or elevator.
What kind of world had she transmigrated into?
‘Oh my god, there are so many people down there!’
The thud of Zhang Kuang hitting the ground snapped Liancheng back to reality.
She then noticed the vast crowd below, especially the old man with white hair but a youthful face.
It was him who had ordered the burly man to jump down.
Inquisitive gazes never ceased, and the chattering was in a language she couldn’t understand.
Liancheng leaned against the stone coffin and silently shrank back again.
Looking at the coffin lid at her feet, Liancheng thought to himself, ‘Maybe I should just put the lid back on. Perhaps there’s still hope.’
As a social animal with perfectly normal moral values, transmigration was wonderful, but how did he transmigrate into a woman and appear in a coffin?
‘Oh right, the coffin. I climbed out of a coffin. Doesn’t that mean I’m a corpse reanimating? No wonder everyone outside is staring at me.’
Liancheng understood in his heart.
He got up again, grabbed the coffin lid, and only exposed his eyes to observe.
‘The clothes look ancient, but they are definitely not from any dynasty I know. So, did I transmigrate into a fictional world? Xuanhuan? Fantasy? Primordial?’
His past life’s novel experience spun in his mind.
Liancheng looked again at the spirited old man.
‘Mm, maybe it leans more toward cultivation. Cultivation…’
He fantasized about flying freely.
Liancheng blinked.
It didn’t seem too bad.
“Fairy Senior,” Xi Bing saluted with cupped hands, “we had no intention of disturbing your rest, Lord of the Tomb. We only accidentally entered this place and are trapped by restrictions. We hope the Senior will forgive us and let us go.”
‘Oh my, this old man called me senior! Wait, I understood him! He called me fairy. So this really is a cultivation world… Stalling isn’t a solution. Maybe I should try to negotiate? No, that’s not good either. Talking might reveal too much. I’m not some warrior who can fight a thousand alone. Better not risk it. This is a cultivation world. Before I get to experience the thrill of riding clouds and mist, I can’t die. As for work, whoever wants it can have it. I was an orphan anyway. But if I let the situation freeze, the people below will grow more suspicious, and the final outcome won’t be good either.’
Liancheng pondered back and forth, then decided to clear his throat, support himself on the coffin edge, and stand up.
“You, come forward.”
Pointing his finger at the old man who was clearly the spokesperson, Liancheng said in a deep voice.
Unfortunately, this body’s voice was naturally alluring.
In some stories, it could sweet-talk for ten pages.
As soon as those words left his mouth, it was more like a tease than a summons.
Ignoring the knowing looks from some loose cultivators, Xi Bing’s expression remained normal.
With his hands behind his back, he climbed the high platform with quick steps, stopping steadily like an old pine.
“Fairy, I, this old man, greet you.”
He made a bow.
“What year and month is it now? Who are all of you?”
With a cold face, Liancheng stared directly into the old man’s eyes without fear.
After all, she had crawled out of a coffin; it was others who should be afraid of her.
“Reporting to the Fairy, I am Xi Bing. This is the Shengfa Era. Those below not wearing white robes are loose cultivators; those wearing slanted robes are from the Nine Yang Orthodox Sect. We are members of the Taixu Sect.”
“Never heard of it.”
‘Didn’t seem like a lie. Taixu Sect was founded at the beginning of the Shengfa Era. This woman’s era might be even more distant, or she might have lost contact after being imprisoned in the immortal tomb. But the latter possibility, he dared not gamble on.’
Xi Bing’s brow furrowed, and he gained a bit more respect for Liancheng.
Knowing that Xi Bing was wildly overestimating her, Liancheng did not continue.
She retreated to advance, taking control of the initiative.
Everyone below was watching.
Xi Bing knew he bore great responsibility and quickly added, “Fairy, we all accidentally entered this place and are trapped by restrictions. We hope the Fairy will be lenient and let us go.”
“Well, if I could get out, I wouldn’t be standing here.”
Perhaps due to muscle memory, Liancheng resisted the awkward urge to touch the back of her neck and tried to behave as much like a lady as possible.
‘The old man is too formal. In the end, I’m just bluffing. I can’t keep up the act much longer.’
Seeing this performance, the old man furrowed his brow.
Pretending to stroke his beard, while Liancheng wasn’t paying attention, he suddenly struck.
Actually, even if she had noticed, she couldn’t have dodged.
Puff.
With a dull sound, Xi Bing’s hand knife thrust forward without obstruction, straight through Liancheng’s abdomen.
Blood gushed out.
Xi Bing angrily flung her broken body off the high platform, smashing it heavily into pieces.
His stress peaked the moment he struck, then plummeted to the bottom when he confirmed the hit.
After doing this, Xi Bing gasped like a broken bellows.
All of this happened so fast.
By the time the crowd below realized Liancheng was dead, they were all gasping in shock at Xi Bing’s decisive ruthlessness.
“Elder Xi is truly a brave warrior!”
Praise rang out endlessly.
Some with keen insight even remarked, “In cultivation, one must first cultivate the heart. Elder Xi overcame his pressure and succeeded this time. He will surely make a breakthrough.”
“Old ghost Xi, why did you kill this woman?”
Having expended effort opening the coffin, Zhang Kuang was gnawing on a food pill.
He didn’t pay much attention and asked after coming back to his senses.
“This woman is indeed an ancient existence,” Xi Bing said as he floated down from the platform.
“But her words were weak, her steps unsteady. When I sensed her with my divine consciousness, she had not a trace of spiritual energy. Therefore, I, Xi, concluded that her cultivation and dao body had long dissolved in the merciless years. Inviting me onto the platform was merely a delaying tactic. Then, when I tested my attack on her abdomen, she not only failed to block, she couldn’t even react. At best, she was just an outwardly strong but inwardly weak person.”
“But old ghost Xi, didn’t your compass point to her? If you killed her, how do we leave this immortal tomb?”
“No, no,” Xi Bing smiled calmly and flew up again, calling out, “Fellow Daoists, is anyone willing to come with me to explore inside the coffin?”
So that was it.
The compass was pointing to the stone coffin itself.
Zhang Kuang suddenly understood.
But was it really as Xi Bing thought?
He scratched his face, feeling like he had missed some detail.
But his already limited intelligence was now even worse.
Zhang Kuang was easygoing and open-minded, so after thinking for a while, he gave up.
“Elder Xi, come look!”
A loose cultivator felt the coffin wall and discovered something.
He shouted.
Xi Bing went over to look.
At the bottom of the coffin, there was a protrusion with what seemed to be a rotatable switch.
“This is the mechanism controlling the exit of the immortal tomb. That woman’s identity is beyond doubt—she was the guardian of the switch.”
Rumble.
Zhao Jiahao, who had been struggling, broke free.
The tomb shook, dust rose.
Xi Bing withdrew his hand from turning the switch.
The spatial rift reopened.
Many loose cultivators already couldn’t wait to escape.
“Haha, old ghost Xi, I’ll take my leave first!”
True Man Zhang, his gloom dispelled, took a sip of wine.
The rainbow divine light reappeared, and the Nine Yang disciples were swept away in a whirl.
Huge rocks fell from the sky.
After dodging, Wu Yu bowed and said, “Elder…”
“Retreat back to the sect. In this trip to the immortal tomb, your efforts in helping activate the compass are meritorious. Each of you go to the Pill Hall and take a bottle of Consolidating Spirit Powder.”
“Thank you for the reward, Elder.”
The Taixu disciples said in unison, then began to leave the tomb in an orderly manner.
The suppression of the restrictions had already disappeared.
Xi Bing used a technique to cleanse the filth from his hands.
Watching the last disciple leave, he took one step—shrinking the ground to an inch—and crossed through the rift from the platform.
Black mist filled the sky, eerie winds rose, and streams of cold, gloomy air came.
This place was… Gloomy Valley?
For a scene of a death ground he was all too familiar with, Xi Bing’s first thought upon realizing was of his disciples who had also passed through the spatial rift.
Exploring the immortal tomb required those with exceptional talent and intelligence.
It was an opportunity and a trial.
If they too had been teleported to this Gloomy Valley, with a single misstep, the Taixu Sect would suffer a devastating blow.
‘I was too rash. That woman—she’s not dead at all. And there is another terrifying possibility.’
His withered wrist trembled slightly.
Elder Xi’s fly whisk fell to the ground with a pat.
That switch inside the coffin was indeed the exit mechanism for the tomb, but that immortal tomb itself might have been used to suppress that woman.
He had released a demon, an ancient demon!
He had to report this to the sect.
He had to hurry…
Xi Bing stood there frozen, muttering to himself, completely unaware that several black mist tendrils were hanging onto his body.
His steps moved bit by bit toward the crevice of Gloomy Valley.