Inside Qu Ruilin's tent, I looked at the marked hills and felt like my head was about to explode: "These two hills, combined with all the surrounding hills, cannot form any feng shui arrangement. What did you mean when you said I was too attached to appearances?"

Qu Ruilin looked up at me and said, "You always believed that these two mountains could not be suitable burial sites. The presence of human traces here indicates that they are either burial sites or decoy tombs."

"Otherwise what?"

I countered Qu Ruilin's question: "Deep in the mountains and forests, an ancient site dating back more than two thousand years has appeared more than ten meters underground, and the blue clay underneath is still flowing. If this is not the construction of a mausoleum or a false tomb, what is its purpose?"

Qu Ruilin smiled and said, "Do you know that in Feng Shui, there is a method called 'stealing the sky and changing the sun,' which reverses Yin and Yang?"

After hearing what Qu Ruilin said, I pondered for a moment and then shook my head: "I have never heard of this method before."

“That’s right. This method belongs to the secret arts of feng shui, and it is also one of the unique skills of my Qu family. We all come from the same school, and we all have our own secret skills. Naturally, this kind of thing will not be recorded in your Duan family’s judge’s record.”

Qu Ruilin pointed to the sand table in front of him and said to me, "I told you, the Miao Jiang Immortal Palace is in this area. The reason you can't find it is because the feng shui of this place is reversed."

"The opposite?"

I looked at the sand table on the ground: "You mean, the feng shui masters here did the opposite of what is expected, abandoning good feng shui and burying the graves in places with bad feng shui? But that doesn't make sense in theory. Let's not even talk about the impact of burying someone in such a place on their fortune. Even just from the perspective of terrain, the designer of the grave should have chosen a safer place."

“You misunderstood. I’m not talking about the opposite in theory, but the opposite in terms of terrain.”

Qu Ruilin reached out and took away the mountain ranges on the ground one by one: "In Feng Shui, there is a way of looking at the Feng Shui underground, rather than the surface terrain. This is what I just mentioned as reversing Yin and Yang. It is a very special method of geomancy that allows Feng Shui masters to see through the mountains and rivers on the surface and see the dragons lurking beneath the surface."

"A dormant dragon?"

This was the first time I'd ever heard of such a dragon vein, and I felt a growing sense of apprehension towards Qu Ruilin: "Is this the true meaning of your Qu family's title of 'Earth-Seeing Eye'?"

“That’s right! The Hidden Dragon is the most peculiar of all dragon veins in the world. One of its difficulties is that it is impossible to find. Even though my Qu family is known for being able to excavate tombs from flat ground, we cannot determine the location of the Hidden Dragon without a precise location. If you hadn’t told me this morning that the Miao Jiang Immortal Palace was right at the foot of Ping’an Town, I wouldn’t have made this bold guess.”

As Qu Ruilin spoke, he moved the models on the ground one by one, creating a gap.

I then discovered that there were many patterns carved on the ground beneath these models, and one of the grooves, about the thickness of a thumb, was located right under the models that Qu Ruilin had removed.

At this point, I understood what Qu Ruilin was trying to express. Looking at the winding ditch on the ground, I stepped forward and asked, "Is this ditch on the ground a simulated tomb passage?"

Qu Ruilin smiled and said, "I said you were attached to appearances before because you didn't understand the feng shui arrangement that reverses yin and yang. Now I have solved the mystery for you. With your abilities, you shouldn't be like this."

Hearing Qu Ruilin's words, I suddenly felt as if I had been enlightened.

I fell for their trap!

The previous alterations to the feng shui on the ground, as well as the Five Star Sha, were all fabricated by the tomb keepers of Ping'an Village to create doubt.

Their goal was to make tomb raiders believe that everything on the ground was a decoy tomb set up to hide the real Miao Jiang Immortal Palace, thus leading them to other places. However, they could not find anything in any of the suspected locations nearby.

All these doubts are meant to conceal the lurking dragon beneath the earth.

If I hadn't collaborated with Qu Ruilin, I would never have been able to figure this out, no matter how hard I tried.

It's not because I'm stupid, but because in my understanding, there is no such concept as a dragon vein like the Hidden Dragon.

Qu Ruilin told me to think about it myself, which was actually for my own good, to help me gain more experience about these underground dragon veins.

Although he didn't tell me how to identify a hibernating dragon, I am, after all, from a family with a long tradition of cultivation, and I guessed that everything on the ground was an illusion. I asked Qu Ruilin, "Is this hibernating dragon an ascending dragon or a lurking dragon?"

Qu Ruilin uttered two words: "Hidden Dragon".

The term "rising dragon" literally means that the dragon's head is pointing upwards, as if it is about to emerge, which means that the tomb is located beneath the surface of the earth.

The "hidden dragon" signifies that the dragon vein is deeply hidden. Therefore, the ravine drawn by Qu Ruilin is either a natural karst cave or an underground river.

In short, the terrain of Zhelong is like a two-story building. We are currently on the second floor, with an open first floor beneath our feet. The tomb we are looking for is in the basement below the first floor.

As for where the basement entrance is, you'll only find out once you go up to the first floor.

"So-called feng shui must be a place that is backed by mountains and near water, a place that can gather wind and energy, but we are surrounded by mountains, but there is no water!"

My thoughts gradually became clearer: "The blue clay in the tomb passage we saw last night has not dried up after thousands of years, so it must be moistened by moisture. Therefore, this ditch is an underground river, and the legendary Miao fairy palace is a water cave!"

"I knew it, you're someone who gets things right away."

Qu Ruilin nodded: "According to my analysis, the three keys we obtained are not for one-time use. One of them opens the door to the mountain, and the second is the door to the passageway."

Qu Ruilin said, drawing a circle with a twig around the location of the two mountains where we dug the tunnel last night: "The two mountains you surveyed yesterday, although they don't form a feng shui formation on the surface, are both located above this underground river. The two mountains that Shengnan surveyed today are not within this range! So the two mountains you investigated yesterday are not suspected tombs, but rather the locations of mechanisms chosen above the river, which is the location required for the second key."

When I heard Qu Ruilin say that, I felt a chill run down my spine.

Imagine walking through an underground riverbed. Due to improper operation, a mechanism above your head is triggered, causing countless streams of mud to pour down, along with a foul-smelling mixture of bacteria and poisonous gases that has been soaking in pottery.

Wei Shengnan then chimed in, "Then the third key should be located somewhere along the river, used to open the true gate to the Miao Jiang Immortal Palace... What we need to do now is find the entrance to the underground river."

As we were talking, Jiang Man strode into the tent and said to me, "The people we left behind at the Qinggaoni tunnel have sent word that they heard a huge explosion. Someone used explosives in the mountains!"