028. Ancient Tomb
Miao Yuan truly felt that Shang Changheng was very dangerous.
It is unknown how many years the things under the cliff have been accumulating. Fortunately, they only harm people in the mountains and cannot leave this place. Otherwise, I don’t know how much headaches the practitioners in the outside world would have. But Shang Changheng was just like he saw a wild fruit on a tree while walking, and he just reached out to pick it and eat it, so easily and effortlessly, it was really scary.
After Shang Changheng had completely devoured the evil spirit, he continued to lead the way.
It took a day and a night to get out of the city, and then we walked in the mountains for nearly a day. When it was getting dark, we finally arrived at Qingling's former courtyard.
The Zhanlong Mountain has overlapping peaks, and the small courtyard is at the foot of a peak. The vegetables in the yard have already grown, but the dried meat was completely ruined by the rain, and it was no different from when Qingling left.
"Let's take a break first." Shang Changheng said, "We'll go again tomorrow."
Miaoyuan was not tired, as he was originally a martial monk. However, Qingling had only been practicing for a few days, and no matter how talented he was, he was still a mortal. After walking to the courtyard, he could no longer move his legs.
The mountain road was rugged, winding and uneven. After Qingling washed himself with cold water, he lay listlessly on the couch, not moving.
But he couldn't fall asleep for a while, and his ill-fated relationship with Shang Changheng began.
The candles in his bridal chamber were pure white with dragon and phoenix patterns, and on his wedding day even the word "囍" was white. His wedding dress was a set of funeral clothes, and even the person he married was a thousand-year-old evil spirit.
After Qingling lay down, Shang Changheng, who had returned to the Huanlong Pendant, suddenly appeared. He was wearing the wide-sleeved robe he wore during the day, and his hair crown was tied meticulously. When he looked calm, he actually had some of the elegance of a romantic scholar.
He sat down beside the couch and waved his hand, and a palm-sized piece of paper-cut clothing floated over.
Qing Ling turned sideways and saw that it was the wedding dress they wore on their wedding day. He asked in confusion, "Is this... made of paper?"
"Hmm." Shang Changheng pinched the clothes casually, and they turned into ashes.
Qing Ling asked again: "That day... those dragon and phoenix candles, as well as the wedding sedan chair, were they all made of paper?"
"Yes, those were burned by the Qing family when the marriage contract was finalized." Shang Changheng turned his head, his eyes dark and his expression hidden in the dimness, so it was hard to see clearly. He whispered, "Evil spirits are different from humans after all. On the wedding day, these things did not seem unusual to me, but to living people, they were eerie and strange."
Shang Changheng was unconscious at that time, having just crawled out of the grave. He only remembered that he had unfinished karma in the mortal world, so he naturally regarded his wife, who was engaged but not married, as the karma.
He came to marry him, but also wanted to kill him.
All of this seemed natural to him, including the bizarre wedding procession, which was normal in the eyes of evil spirits.
Now that Shang Changheng was more sober, he could barely distinguish that the wedding dress was made of paper ashes, and his unfinished karma was definitely not with Qingling, who was only eighteen years old.
Miao Yuan did not deliberately hide what he said during the day. Shang Changheng even felt that it was a test from Miao Yuan. This monk had never let down his guard against him, but he had to admit that what Miao Yuan said was not wrong.
He is evil, resentful, and unwilling. No matter who he was in his lifetime or what kind of person he was, Shang Changheng is now nothing more than a demon filled with evil spirits and hatred. He wants to remember the past just to know who to take revenge on, but Shang Changheng is inevitably confused, starting from the time when the people of the Qing family died one by one in front of him.
Although the cause and effect have been resolved, the hatred has not diminished in the slightest.
"Are you afraid of me?" Shang Changheng suddenly asked without any context. He turned around and looked down at Qingling.
"Afraid." Qing Ling's tone was like a sigh, and he added: "In terms of emotion and reason, I am just a chess piece created by the Qing family. Whether you hate me or resent me, it has nothing to do with me. But it is this flesh and blood given by the Qing family that has put me in a dead end. Shang Changheng, your resentment is hard to let go, but don't I hate it all?"
Shang Changheng said nothing, but reached out and gently stroked Qingling's eyebrows.
Then just hate it, he thought to himself, and felt a mean sense of satisfaction. Why should he be the only one living in the torment of resentment? And why...was he the one who died?
There must always be someone to accompany him in his pain.
.
After dawn, Shang Changheng appeared again to lead the way.
His grave was not far from Shang Changheng's courtyard, on a mountain wall. Shang Changheng just waved his hand and pushed away the twisted plants on the mountain wall, revealing a hole that was big enough for a person to lean over and crawl into. The edge of the hole was very smooth and did not look like it appeared naturally at all.
"They used this hole to break into my tomb."
Shang Changheng explained.
Qingling and Miaoyuan looked at each other and could only squeeze in one by one. Shang Changheng led the way in front, followed by Qingling, and Miaoyuan followed behind. The tunnel was narrow, but it became spacious as they went forward into the tomb passage.
The destroyed tomb passage was in great disrepair, and had grown a layer of moss due to not seeing the light for a long time. When Qingling was young, he had read about tomb robbing, one of the 72 trades, and how it was common to dig up large tombs and find countless rare treasures. He thought that Shang Changheng must have been a member of the royal family from a thousand years ago, and his tomb must also be a large tomb, and there might be some treasures that he had never seen before.
This illusion vanished as the tomb passage suddenly disappeared.
The tomb passage was very short and led directly into the tomb chamber, which was so simple and old that it was beyond description. The coffin placed in the middle had been weathered and decayed, and the entire tomb chamber was bare without any funerary objects. There was no other tomb passage leading to the side chamber. There was just a square tomb and four corpses whose clothes had turned into white bones and rotted away.
Qing Ling's eyes widened in disbelief, and he turned to look at Shang Changheng and asked, "Is this... your tomb? A thousand-year-old tomb?"
Shang Changheng nodded.
"Donor Qing, look." Miao Yuan suddenly spoke.
Qing Ling then realized that he had walked to the wall of the tomb without knowing when. He wiped off the old dust to reveal the tomb bricks. Qing Ling walked closer and found that every brick and stone of the tomb was engraved with runes. He had also seen these runes in the pile of books left by the Qing family. Among the densely packed runes, there were some that sealed the soul, some that changed the fortune, and there were even spells that suppressed evil spirits. This entire tomb looked like a large formation to suppress some extremely evil ghosts.
Qing Ling walked to the coffin that was so rotten that it would fall apart at the touch, and found some faint remaining patterns on the wood chips. He felt that they were definitely not the paintings on the coffin, but more like... runes and spells whose shapes could no longer be seen.
Shang Changheng waved his hand again, and the coffin was completely turned into wooden debris. When Qingling saw the corpse inside, his eyes widened again.
A thousand years had passed, and even the coffin had rotted into that state. The burial clothes had naturally turned to ashes. A few rusty coffin nails fell to the ground with crackling sounds, but the corpse in the coffin contained only a skull. From the cervical spine downwards, the body was actually made of bronze, covered with blue-green rust. Remaining runes could be vaguely seen, and where the cervical spine was connected, there was a sharp bronze thorn.
Someone once stabbed a sharp bronze into the neck of the head, and then placed it in a coffin covered with spells and sealed it with coffin nails, and then buried it in the tomb chamber covered with talismans. The entire tomb chamber was not even as big as that of an ordinary official, not to mention any burial objects - if the four corpses lying on the ground were counted.
"You..." Qing Ling asked in confusion, "Shang Changheng, you should be a member of the royal family of the Zhou Dynasty. Even if the Zhou Dynasty was about to fall, you shouldn't... shouldn't... those bones be buried with you?"
"No, it was the tomb robbers hired by your grandfather back then." Shang Changheng said calmly.
Qing Ling lowered his head again and found a pitch-black hole on the top of the skull. He remembered that Shang Changheng had been pierced in the head by a life-breaking spike, and he couldn't help but think about some things carefully.
Even though Qing Ling never cared much about what Shang Changheng had experienced, he felt depressed when he walked into this cramped and dilapidated ancient tomb. No one knew what Shang Changheng had experienced in his lifetime. He died without a complete body and was buried in this remote place. The room was full of runes and spells. He suffered the pain of the life-breaking cone day and night, and his soul was forced to remain in the corpse with only a head left.
He watched himself decay day after day, year after year, sealed in the dark and lightless tomb for a thousand years.
Qing Ling felt a little chest tightness and was in a trance and unable to speak. It was as if he was also trapped in a coffin engraved with spells, and it was pitch dark all around.
Suddenly——
The scene around him twisted and changed. Countless fragments like scrolls spun past him. Qing Ling seemed to be caught in the torrent. He stretched out his hands randomly to grab something, but seemed to be pulled into another picture by an invisible suction force.
In the indescribable bizarreness, Qingling felt light and floating in the air, or perhaps somewhere else. In short, this feeling was very mysterious and strange.
He heard some sound, as if someone was talking. It seemed to come from a very far away place, vague and then gradually became clearer.
"Junior brother, would you like some water? You have been practicing for a long time, don't tire yourself out."
It was a man's voice, and it sounded quite bold.
As the voices became more real, everything in front of Qing Ling's eyes seemed to clear up like a mist. He seemed to be overlooking an unknown place, but he could see their faces clearly. He saw that this was in a very exquisitely renovated courtyard. Some people were practicing boxing in the courtyard. They were dressed quite luxuriously, with arrow sleeves and embroidered patterns. There was a sturdy young man standing on the side with his upper body naked.
"Yes, Junior Brother." The girl in short clothes came out of the house with her hair swaying. She held a kettle in her hand and said, "Take a break. It's noon. Dad is calling us to eat."
The young man paused briefly, raised his head breathlessly, revealing a young boy's tender face, about thirteen or fourteen years old. He wore a dark purple headband that was soaked with sweat, had a firm expression, and handsome features.
Qingling was suddenly stunned.
That was... Shang Changheng's face, or rather, Shang Changheng when he was young.
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