After the tomb chamber returned to calm, the four people came to the stone tablet.

The stone tablet was engraved with several lines of strange characters, which resembled the structure of Chinese characters but were not Chinese characters. Xie Shuci did not recognize a single one of them.

Chu Guiyi looked at the characters above, pondered for a moment, and said, "They are neither fully formed nor fully formed, with the left side longer than the right, the mouth opening at the bottom and the sun opening at the top. They should be the script of the Banxia tribe."

"Banxia?"

Chu Guiyi explained: "The Banxia tribe was born alongside water, and took the Frightened Feather Bird as their tribal totem. They feared fire and light, and were skilled in using water control techniques to cure droughts. They prayed for rain, and were later called the 'Water God Clan.' According to the book, the Banxia tribe and the Frightened Feather Bird were both auspicious omens in the human world. One was water, and the other was fire, representing a balance of yin and yang."

"Is this the tomb of the Xia people?" Xie Shuci asked.

Chu Guiyi nodded and said, "That should be it. The Banxia clan fears fire and light, so it makes sense for them to place the tomb ten feet below the snow."

"What does it say on this?" Chu Wenfeng asked curiously.

Chu Guiyi shook his head: "After the Banxia clan disappeared, later generations only wrote a few words about them."

Upon hearing this, Xie Shuci couldn't help but sigh. Perhaps there were some important clues on the stone tablet.

Silence fell over the tomb. Just then, Xie An suddenly stepped forward.

"Young Master Xie?" Chu Guiyi exclaimed in surprise.

In the dim candlelight, Xie An, dressed in white, stood before the monument. The dim candlelight cast shadows on one side of his face, his long eyelashes obscuring the emotions in his eyes. A cold wind rustled the hem of his clothes, and half of his body was hidden in darkness. The scene looked strangely eerie.

He stood before the monument, motionless for a long time, as if blending into the background, his silhouette lofty and distant.

For some reason, seeing this scene made Xie Shuci's heart leap into his throat.

Suddenly, in that instant, he felt an insurmountable distance between himself and Xie An. A chill crept up his back and up to his head, filling him with an indescribable fear.

After a long while, Xie An bent down and placed his slender fingers on the characters carved on the stone tablet. Although Chu Guiyi and the other two were puzzled, they did not make a sound to disturb him.

After all, Xie An's sense of smell and hearing were more sensitive than the average person's, so perhaps he noticed some clues.

Sure enough, after some searching, Xie An immediately discovered something amiss.

When his finger touched a character in the lower right corner, a wisp of lime suddenly rolled down. Xie An immediately stopped what he was doing, turned around to look at the three of them, and his lips moved slightly as if he were saying something.

Chu Guiyi turned to Xie Shuci and asked, "What did Young Master Xie say?"

Xie Shuci's face turned pale. When he looked over, she avoided his gaze and said, "He said that these characters can be moved."

Chu Guiyi nodded, "I understand."

After doing all this, Xie An returned to Xie Shuci's side and resumed his peaceful and unassuming demeanor.

Xie Shuci glanced at him with a complicated expression, but said nothing.

Chu Guiyi returned to the stone tablet and placed his hand on the character in the lower right corner, which, in Chu Guiyi's words, was an open-ended "日" (sun) character. He pondered for a moment, then pushed the character upwards with force. The stone tablet made a "boom" sound, and a clump of lime fell down. Chu Guiyi quickly took half a step back, frowned, and dusted off the dust that had settled on him.

As the stone tablet made a sound, the characters on it seemed to come alive, moving left and right on the tablet. Finally, a "click" was heard, as if all the gears had meshed together, and the stone tablet finally returned to calm.

As soon as it stopped, Xie Shuci and the others immediately surrounded it.

When they saw what was written on the stone tablet, all three of them except Xie An changed their expressions drastically.

Above the stone tablet, all the characters were pieced together, and the twelve side chambers were connected to form a circle, encircling the open "sun" in the middle, which is the so-called main tomb chamber. In each side chamber, there was a character that looked like a flying bird, which formed a strange pattern. Xie Shuci and the others had seen this pattern before!

“This tomb is a huge magic array…” Xie Shuci murmured, his face pale.

If nothing unexpected happens, the pattern on the stone tablet is a structural diagram of the entire tomb, and it is also the formation that Xie Shuci had seen twice before, appearing before the dog demon and Helian Zhu died!

The twelve side chambers correspond to the twelve startled birds, while the central main burial chamber corresponds to the dog demon and Helian Zhu...

A scene suddenly flashed through Xie Shuci's mind, and he froze on the spot.

He clearly remembered that when the formation appeared on the dog demon, no startled bird appeared, but when Helian Zhu died, a startled bird appeared out of thin air... What did this mean?

If the dog demon was the first to make a deal with the formation, then was the first startled bird also a dog demon?!

The person who sets up the formation needs twelve offerings corresponding to the twelve startled birds!

Chu Guiyi, quick-witted, immediately noticed the oddity and her expression became extremely solemn. "This formation is very similar to the one that appeared when Helian Zhu died, plus the sudden appearance of the startled birds... The twelve side chambers correspond to twelve startled birds... The main tomb chamber corresponds to Helian Zhu. When Helian Zhu died, one startled bird appeared, and there are eleven left. People like Helian Zhu, there will be eleven more!"

“Ten.” Xie Shuci took a deep breath. “There will be ten more sacrifices like Helian Zhu. Before Xie An and I arrived in Luofang City, a spirit beast also died in the formation. They… made a deal with a person named Bixie.”

With things having progressed to this point, Chu Guiyi and Xie Shuci were clearly already involved, so there was no point in hiding it any longer. They decided to tell the whole story.

"The first to die in the formation was a dog demon that had cultivated for two hundred years. Before it died, it said that it had made a deal with someone, exchanging its own life for the chance for its clan of dogs to be reincarnated as humans. Helian Zhu also made a deal with someone. I don't know the details of the deal, but he told me that the person he made the deal with was Bixie."

Chu Guiyi and the other man were shocked, their eyes filled with disbelief.

Chu Wenfeng asked, "What is his purpose in making a deal with someone who is about to die and will be banished by the laws of heaven and earth without any hope of return?"

Chu Guiyi also seemed to be shocked, muttering absentmindedly, "Twelve startled birds... people who are not tolerated by heaven and earth... the former symbolize the way of heaven, the latter are abandoned by the way of heaven, using the abandoned child as a sacrifice to bring the twelve startled birds to the world..."

No! It wasn't "summoning the twelve startled birds"! It was "severely injuring the twelve startled birds"!

As she finished speaking, Chu Guiyi's voice trembled slightly.

In contrast to the shock felt by the three, Xie An remained an outsider, his gaze vacant, his head bowed to the ground.

Chu Guiyi did not continue speaking, and Xie Shuci and Chu Wenfeng also fell silent. Their intuition told them that they could not delve deeper into the details of this matter.

A monster born from the evil of the world may be doing something shocking, and these few mortals who get involved are probably just courting death.

If others saw the pattern on the stone tablet, they would probably think it was just the internal structure of the immortal's tomb. But the four of them got together and pieced together various pieces of information, arriving at an unimaginable conjecture!

After a moment of silence, Chu Guiyi spoke first: "Shu Ci, whatever the inside story, it has nothing to do with the four of us. Our purpose in coming here is for the Qiankun Mirror."

Xie Shuci opened his mouth, a wave of helplessness washing over him. Perhaps this matter was related to him, perhaps he harbored some secret even he himself didn't know, which was why the dog demon had asked him to seek help from Bixie. But this matter was too complicated for Xie Shuci. He only wanted to help Xie An restore his spiritual power, then refine pills to support himself and Xie An, and live a good life.

He didn't want to get involved in other things, nor did he have the ability to.

"I know, can you tell where the Eastern Void Chamber is from the diagram?"

Chu Guiyi shook his head, "We can't determine the direction just by looking at the patterns. We need to find the main burial chamber first."

"Shall we go check out the tomb next door?"

As the group was talking, a fairy butterfly flew in through the passageway. It silently landed on Xie An's sleeve, but before it could do anything, Xie An crushed it into dust, and the dust scattered in the air.

After discussing it, the four decided to go to the tomb chamber on the other side of the passageway to check the situation.

After they left the tomb, the inscription on the stone tablet began to move and returned to its previous arrangement.

Walking back to the middle of the passage, Xie Shuci looked up and saw that the entrance to the tunnel they had come down from had been blocked by heavy snow.

"Buzz—"

A tremendous tremor suddenly struck the four of them, as if the entire tomb had tilted backward. The originally straight passageway suddenly curved upward, and dust from the cracks in the bricks rushed down, unexpectedly entering their noses and blurring their vision.

Xie Shuci covered his mouth and nose and coughed violently. Xie An steadied himself and gently patted his back to help him catch his breath.

"Shuci, are you alright?" Chu Guiyi and Chu Wenfeng leaned against the other side of the passageway, and after the shaking of the tomb stopped and the dust settled, they walked over to Xie Shuci.

Xie Shuci waved his hand, indicating that he was fine.

Chu Guiyi looked at the side chamber at the end of the passage, which was slightly higher than their current level, and said in a deep voice, "The Dragon Fang Illustrated Manual doesn't contain much information about the Immortal's Tomb, but this is, after all, the tomb of the Banxia Water God Clan. The dangers within are probably beyond our imagination. Everyone must be careful."

Xie Shuci nodded and said, "If anything unexpected happens, I will activate the Dragon-Subduing Artifact."

"Um."

The incline of the passageway was not high, and the four continued to approach the side chamber at the end.

Upon reaching the tomb chamber, Chu Wenfeng went in first to scout ahead. After confirming there were no traps, he nodded to the three of them.

Squeezed between Chu Guiyi and Xie An, Xie Shuci entered the tomb chamber. By the light of the candles on the walls, he could see that the chamber was empty, yet it was more than twice the size of the other tomb chamber.

As Xie An entered the tomb chamber, a stone door suddenly descended behind him. The four of them turned around at the same time and found that the only exit in the tomb chamber had been blocked.

Xie Shuci tensed up. Suddenly, a cold wind blew up the tomb chamber, which was surrounded by stone walls, and the ever-burning lamp on the wall was blown out!

What kind of ever-burning light is this? Thumbs down!

"Holy crap..." Xie Shuci exclaimed softly, the sudden darkness making his nerves tense to the extreme.

Although he firmly stated that he believed in science, the very existence of this world is unscientific!

A wind, carrying the stench of blood, seemed to blow from an unknown source, as if a pair of eyes were hidden in the pitch-black tomb, silently watching the four of them.

Xie Shuci got goosebumps all over his body. He took a half step back and grabbed Xie An's hand.

"Um... shall we... shall we turn on a lamp first?"

"hiss--"

As soon as Xie Shuci finished speaking, a strange gasp suddenly rang out around them. Xie Shuci was absolutely certain that the sound did not belong to any of the four of them!

"A ghost... Waaah!"

Xie Shuci completely lost his mind in an instant. He had only shouted two words when a hand reached out from behind and firmly covered his mouth and nose.

Xie Shuci broke out in a cold sweat and instinctively tried to struggle, but his other hand quickly wrapped around Xie An's waist. Xie Shuci fell into an embrace from behind, and after the initial shock, he realized it was Xie An and breathed a sigh of relief.

Seeing that he had stopped struggling, Xie An released his hand from his chest.

Before Xie Shuci could catch his breath, he suddenly felt a chill on his ear. At the same time, several icy fingers touched his shoulder, and a strange, faint fragrance lingered around his nose.

"Waaah!"

Xie Shuci opened her eyes wide in terror, her whole body stiff as stone, all her senses focused on the cold finger beneath her. Xie Shuci began to sob wildly, hoping the other three would notice the strange thing about her.

Science, science, science!

Hallucination, hallucination, hallucination!

Believe in science! It's all an illusion!

Despite Xie Shuci's constant mental reassurances, the hand remained as cold as ice, moving from his right shoulder to his collarbone. He even sensed a soft, boneless body draped over his shoulder, gently blowing a breath into his ear.

Help! Little blind man, please help me!

Xie Shuci roared inwardly, but unfortunately he couldn't make a sound. The other three seemed not to notice anything unusual about him and made no move. Xie An was just standing behind him and didn't notice the thing on his body that he didn't know what it was.

"Oh……"

In the silent tomb, Xie Shuci suddenly heard a clear, ethereal laugh ring in his ears.

At the same time, a cold hand touched Xie Shuci's cheek, and a chilling breath traveled from his right ear to the tip of his nose. Xie Shuci straightened his neck, afraid that he might accidentally have some intimate contact with the thing in the darkness.

"Would you like to stay here with me?"

Suddenly, a face appeared before Xie Shuci. The face had delicate features and tender eyes. It was very close to Xie Shuci. When it spoke, the face raised the corners of its lips, revealing two shallow dimples on its cheeks.

Although Xie Shuci's body was unable to move, his mind was very clear. Based on his years of experience watching horror movies, he knew that something unusual must be amiss. The appearance of such a stunning woman in a place like a tomb could only mean two things: first, she was a ghost; second, it was an illusion.

Realizing this, and to avoid being misled, Xie Shuci closed his eyes tightly and silently recited the core socialist values ​​in his heart.

I love my motherland, and my motherland loves me! Demons and monsters, leave quickly!

I'm begging you, just get the hell out of here!

The woman's soft arm draped over his shoulder, and she gently breathed on Xie Shuci, "Young master, open your eyes and look at me..."

Xie Shuci felt the woman approaching him. He pursed his lips. Even though it was his imagination, he didn't want to give his first kiss to an imaginary woman. It wasn't romantic at all!

As the woman drew closer, Xie Shuci suddenly felt a hand reach out from behind. The next moment, the woman screamed in terror as the hand from behind forcefully pulled her off Xie Shuci.

It was at this moment that Xie Shuci discovered that he had regained control of his body.

He opened his eyes, panting, to find the room dimly lit by candlelight. Xie An, for some reason, had moved in front of him, his right hand clutching a dark, shadow-like object in his palm. Chu Guiyi, like Xie Shuci, seemed to be trapped in some kind of illusion. When he opened his eyes, a look of disarray crossed his face. Looking at Chu Wenfeng, he saw that Chu Wenfeng had ripped away the black shadow clinging to him, his face as black as the bottom of a pot.

What's going on?

Xie Shuci looked at the several dark figures on the ground and said, still shaken.

Chu Guiyi, leaning on his wooden stick, took a breath and explained, "Earthly Yin Ghosts. According to the Dragon Fang Illustrated Manual, the living can freely enter and exit the Immortal's Tomb, but the dead will be trapped in the tomb forever, buried with the tomb's owner. There is only one way for them to leave this place, and that is to seize the bodies of the living."

Xie Shuci felt a chill run down his spine. "It just told me to stay here with her. If I agree, will I be possessed?"

Chu Guiyi nodded, "Yes, once you are possessed, you will take its place as the Earthly Ghost and guard the underground palace."

"Luckily I didn't agree to it," Xie Shuci said, looking terrified.

Chu Wenfeng lashed out with his whip, scattering the Earth Yin Ghosts on the ground, and said coldly, "If Xie An hadn't helped you catch it and break the illusion they had set up, the outcome would have been hard to say."

Xie An's expression was somewhat gloomy. He picked up the Earthly Ghost. Although the Earthly Ghost was not in human form, it was still clear that it was struggling and roaring wildly in Xie An's palm. The sound it made was sharp and terrifying, completely different from the gentle voice Xie Shuci had just heard.

Xie An suddenly threw it in front of Chu Wenfeng, who raised his whip and lashed it out, causing it to dissipate into smoke and disappear into the air.

"Are you alright?" Xie Shuci walked over to the little blind man and looked him up and down.

Xie An shook his head with a sullen face, indicating that he was fine.

Xie Shuci breathed a sigh of relief, then asked Chu Guiyi, "If we die here, will our souls never be able to leave?"

"good."

Xie Shuci choked up. "Why didn't you say so earlier? If I had known sooner, I would never have come to this godforsaken place."

After dealing with the Earth Ghost, the three returned to the stone gate for a careful examination. Confirming that it could not be opened easily, they began searching for other clues inside the tomb.

There's something here!

Xie Shuci and Xie An stood at the southwest corner of the wall and noticed a large mural painted on the stone wall. They immediately called Chu Guiyi and Xie An over.

Chu Guiyi came to the relief and wiped away the dust with his hand, revealing the original appearance of the mural.

The mural depicts many small figures sitting around a dry riverbed, their hands clasped together and their eyes closed, as if they were making a devout prayer.

Soon after, a torrential rain began to fall around them. The little people stood up with great joy and played various musical instruments to celebrate. The great river was gradually filled with rainwater.

The land of the little people is no longer dry, the crops are plentiful, and during the busy farming season, the adults gather together to celebrate while the children play on their own.

The children came to play by the river. One of them accidentally fell into the river and was quickly swept away by the rapids. The other children tried to pull him up, but they all fell in as well.

The adults were heartbroken after the child died and knelt by the river begging for justice. At this time, a shaman passed by. After the adults talked with the shaman, a group of little people came to a tribe with the startled bird as their totem by lighting torches. They threw the torches into the tribe.

The totem of the startled bird was burned, and the tribe behind it became ruins.

The mural ends here.

"The Banxia clan did not suddenly disappear into the torrent of time."

After a long silence, Chu Guiyi sighed softly.

Xie Shuci understood the mural on the wall: a group of people prayed for rain, the Banxia tribe sent rain, and in the end, a child drowned in the river. After talking with a person who looked like a shaman, they blamed everything on the Banxia tribe and used the flames that the Banxia tribe feared most to burn down their tribe.

Chu Wenfeng said, "No wonder there are only a few words recorded about the Banxia clan. These people are really shameless."

Xie Shuci felt a profound sense of powerlessness. The story recorded on the mural took place tens of thousands of years ago, and it had long since become an unchangeable fact.

However, Xie Shuci had one question.

"If humans burned the Banxia clan to death, why would they build tombs for them?" Xie Shuci asked, puzzled.

Chu Guiyi pondered for a moment, "Perhaps their purpose is not to hold a memorial service, but to trap the souls of the Banxia people."

Living people can freely enter and exit the tomb, but souls cannot take a single step out. Perhaps the reason why there are earth ghosts is not to be buried with the owner of the tomb, but to become victims by mistake.

Xie Shuci was shocked upon hearing this. "You mean, the souls of the Banxia people might still be in the tomb?"

Chu Guiyi shook his head, "The Dragon Fang Secret Realm has existed for tens of thousands of years; perhaps they have already successfully possessed other beings and left. Most importantly—"

Chu Guiyi paused at this point.

"What?" Xie Shuci asked in confusion.

"The Dragon Fang Secret Realm has been opened more than once, and we are not the only cultivators who have entered the Immortal Tomb, but no one in the cultivation world knows the truth. Furthermore, there is no record of the mural in the Dragon Fang Illustrated Manual, which means that before this, no one who saw this mural was able to leave the Immortal Tomb."

Upon hearing this, Xie Shuci and the others immediately became serious.

Xie Shuci turned around and looked around the tomb chamber, then suddenly bowed deeply in front of him. "Lord Water God, actually, the four of us are all blind. We didn't see the murals on the walls. No... are there murals on the walls? We didn't see anything at all! We just took the wrong path. Please, in your greatness, forgive us!"

The other three: "..."

Despite the serious atmosphere, the three of them couldn't help but chuckle.

Chu Wenfeng suppressed a laugh and said, "Xie Shuci, are you scared out of your wits? The Water God is eager for you to go out and reveal the truth to the public. You've worshipped the wrong person."

Xie Shuci: "..."

That makes sense!

"Lord Water God, this is your territory. Please bless us so we can leave safely. Once we return to the cultivation world, we will definitely post flyers everywhere to tell the world what you and your people have gone through!"

Chu Guiyi chuckled helplessly: "The ones who didn't want the truth about the extermination of the Banxia clan to be revealed were the people who built the tomb back then. Now, tens of thousands of years have passed, and they are probably long gone. What will stop us from leaving is only the Qimen Dunjia and ghosts in the tomb. I have some understanding of its mysteries, and this tomb should not be able to trap us."

"That's good, that's good." Xie Shuci breathed a sigh of relief. "The most urgent thing is to find the main tomb chamber as soon as possible."

Before long, the four of them found the passageway leading to the next side chamber in the tomb.

As the four entered the passageway, the tomb tilted once again.

This time the incline was much greater than the previous one, with the entire passageway tilting vertically backward. Xie Shuci shouted and grabbed a protruding rock on the stone wall to steady himself before looking at the other three.

Chu Wenfeng gripped an outer brick, his back pressed against the wall, his right hand holding the Flying Bird Nine-Section Whip. Chu Guiyi grabbed the end of the whip, dangling in mid-air.

Seeing that the two were unharmed, Xie Shuci adjusted his posture and turned to look at Xie An's location.

However, the long, dark passageway behind him was completely deserted.

The dark abyss beneath their feet was like the throat of a giant beast, waiting to devour them at any moment.

"Xie An..."

Xie Shuci's face turned pale, and his hands and feet suddenly went weak, almost causing him to lose his grip on the rock.

Chu Guiyi and the other person also noticed something was wrong. When they turned around and saw that Xie Shuci was the only one behind them, their expressions changed.

Xie Shuci's lips trembled uncontrollably, and his eyes immediately reddened.

"Xie An fell down..."