Chapter 112 One Hundred and Twelve
Chapter Summary: [Wei Wuxian said, "Huh?"]
He then realized that he had actually said the last sentence again...
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Wei Wuxian said, "Huh?"
He then realized that he had said the last sentence again, and immediately said seriously, "I said, Little Apple is missing a friend."
Little Apple turned its head and spat forcefully. Wei Wuxian slapped its donkey head, grabbed its two long ears, laughed twice, but suddenly couldn't laugh anymore.
Not for any other reason than that he remembered. Back then, he really did have a little kid with him. If he were still alive today, he would be a teenager.
The mass burial site is located deep in the mountains of Yiling.
People say that the mass burial ground is a mountain of corpses, covering the entire area. You can dig anywhere with a shovel and find a dead body. This is true. The mass burial ground was originally an ancient battlefield. Over the years, people got into the habit of throwing unidentified corpses here, which caused the yin energy and resentment to linger for years, eventually becoming a nightmare for everyone in the Yiling area.
As if deeply tainted by resentment, the trees on this hill were all pitch black. A wall over ten feet high rose from the foot of the hill, its surface covered with densely packed incantations to prevent human or non-human beings from entering. This incantation wall, encircling the entire Burial Mound, was originally built by the third-generation head of the Qishan Wen Clan. Unable to purify the overwhelming vengeful spirits of this place, they had no choice but to settle for the method of enclosure and isolation. This wall had been torn down once by Wei Wuxian; this new wall was rebuilt and reinforced by the Lanling Jin Clan.
However, when they arrived, they found that a long section of the high wall had been knocked down again.
The mass grave, once a dark and infamous place in the eyes of the world, is now nothing more than an abandoned hilltop in Yiling.
It's strange, to this day no one can understand why the old, weak and disabled of the Wen family dared to build houses, farm and work on this mountain. Wouldn't the vengeful spirits and fierce corpses all over the mountain tear them to shreds?
Xiao Niangui, hidden in the shadows, clearly saw the fear in everyone's eyes regarding this place, and his gaze involuntarily turned mocking.
Yes, of course you don't understand. But you'll understand once you experience it.
Removing the golden elixir is just the beginning; the pain you have temporarily forgotten will soon return many times over.
The suffering that Young Master Wei has endured far exceeds your imagination.
Wei Wuxian left his donkey at the foot of the mountain, stepped over the crumbling stone wall, and followed the mountain path upwards. Before long, he saw a headless stone beast. This beast weighed over a thousand pounds, had guarded the mountain path for many years, its body covered in vines and moss in its hollows. Its head had been cleaved off with a heavy axe and thrown a short distance away, smashed to pieces in a defiant manner. The broken surface was pristine, revealing its snow-white stone core. A little further on, he encountered another beast, also cleaved in two from head to toe.
Wei Wuxian immediately guessed that these must be the guardian stone beasts placed at the feng shui vantage points of the Burial Mound by various families after his death. These stone beasts possess the power to suppress evil spirits and ward off evil, requiring extremely high craftsmanship and being very expensive to make. Now, they have probably all been destroyed, truly a waste of precious resources.
Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji walked a few steps side by side, and when they turned around unintentionally, they saw that Wen Ning had already appeared.
He stood beside the stone beast, head bowed, and asked, "Wen Ning? What are you looking at?"
Wen Ning pointed to the base of the stone beast.
The stone beast rests on a thick, round, short tree stump. Beside it are three smaller, shorter stumps, all charred black, as if burned by a fire.
Wen Ning knelt down, his five fingers digging deep into the earth, and grabbed a handful of dark soil. He held it in his palm and whispered, "...Sister."
Wei Wuxian didn't know what to say, so he walked over and patted his shoulder hard.
In Wei Wuxian's life, there were two extremely agonizing periods, both of which he spent in this place. He originally had no intention of returning.
For Wen Ning, the mass grave was an unforgettable place.
“Ah Ning…”
Wen Qing looked at her younger brother beside her. Because he had become a fierce corpse, Wen Ning would not grow up and would remain forever as a boy more than ten years ago. Similarly, he would neither cry nor laugh.
At this moment, in the shadowy sky, he knelt on the ground, seemingly heartless and emotionless, but Wen Qing could sense all of Wen Ning's emotions, including his grief and self-blame.
So, the moment Wenqing stepped out of the water curtain, she sincerely thanked Xiao Niangui.
So that after her short life had passed by so quickly, she would have another chance to see Aning and accompany her to do what they wanted to do.
A cold wind swept through, rustling the trees like a thousand tiny voices whispering secrets. Wei Wuxian listened intently, then knelt on one knee, leaned down, and softly murmured something to the ground beneath him. Suddenly, a patch of earth bulged slightly.
Like a pale flower blooming from black soil, a skeletal arm slowly emerged from the earth.
The severed skeletal arm swayed weakly, and Wei Wuxian reached out and grasped it, lowering his body even further, his long hair slipping down his shoulder and obscuring half of his face.
He brought his lips to the skeletal hand and whispered something, then fell silent, as if listening to something. After a while, he nodded slightly, and the hand shrank back into a bud and disappeared back into the ground.
Wei Wuxian stood up, brushed the dirt off himself, and said, "Over the past few days, we've captured more than a hundred people and brought them up to the summit. They're all still alive. However, the people who captured them have already gone down the mountain. We don't know what they're planning to do, so let's be careful."
The three continued uphill and came upon some dilapidated shacks standing beside the mountain path.
Everyone: ...What kind of gibberish is this?
The ghostly language was sharp and noisy, and since it was completely incomprehensible, everyone's heads started to ache again after just having a chance to rest.
Of course, this excludes Xue Yang, who suddenly became excited upon hearing the sound.
However, after a few sentences, he realized that he couldn't understand it either.
Xue Yang gritted his teeth, stared at Wei Wuxian's back, and lay down again indignantly.
Once I get out of here, I must make the Yiling Patriarch publish me a complete collection of ghost stories!
Most of these houses are small, with simple, even rudimentary, structures, clearly hastily built. Some have been burned down to just a frame, while others have collapsed entirely to one side. Even the best-preserved ones are half-ruined. Exposed to wind and rain for over a decade, and neglected, they resemble ragged, barely surviving ghosts, silently overlooking the people descending the mountain.
Since going up the mountain, Wen Ning's steps had been unusually heavy. Now, standing in front of a house, he couldn't take another step.
This is a house he built with his own hands. Before he left, the house was still intact. Although simple, it was a good shelter from the wind and rain, where people he knew and cherished lived.
The saying goes, "Things remain the same, but people are not." At least "things remain the same," but in this situation, even seeing things makes it impossible to think of people.
Wei Wuxian said, "Stop looking."
Wen Ning said, "...I had already expected this. I just wanted to see if there was anything left..."
Before the words were finished, a human figure suddenly stood up unsteadily in the dilapidated house.
The humanoid figure staggered towards the outside, its half-rotted face exposed to the dim sunlight. Wei Wuxian clapped his hands, but the walking corpse remained oblivious and continued walking towards them. Wei Wuxian calmly took two steps back and said, "It's been controlled by the Yin Tiger Seal."
The corpse puppets that have already submitted to him will no longer be controlled by the Yin Tiger Seal. Similarly, the corpse puppets manipulated by the Yin Tiger Seal will no longer obey his commands. The rule is simple and brutal: first come, first served.
The Yin Tiger Seal!!
The important part has finally arrived.
However, this time they realized that Wei Wuxian's control over the puppet corpses was now unparalleled, and even with the Yin Tiger Seal, they could only contend with them.
Wen Ning stepped forward, roaring as he ripped off its head. Then, low growls echoed from all directions, and forty or fifty walking corpses slowly emerged from the black forest. These walking corpses were of varying ages and genders, most of them quite fresh, dressed in burial clothes, likely the corpses that had recently gone missing from various places. Lan Wangji took out his guqin, casually plucked a string, and the music rippled outwards, causing the horde of corpses that had just surrounded them to kneel in a circle. Wen Ning lifted an exceptionally tall male corpse with both hands and threw it several feet away. A sharp branch pierced its chest, and the corpse was wedged into the branch, struggling desperately. Wei Wuxian said, "Don't get entangled with them, let's go straight up the mountain!"
It was unclear how many walking corpses Jin Guangyao had frantically summoned with the Yin Tiger Seal these past few days; wave after wave, the three retreated up the mountain while pushing back the corpses. The closer they got to the top of the mass grave, the denser the horde of corpses became. Above the towering black forest, the sound of a zither soared into the sky, and crows flew about in disarray. Nearly an hour later, they finally got a brief respite.
Wei Wuxian sat atop a damaged stone beast that guarded the mountain, sighed, and said self-deprecatingly, "I used to use this thing against others, but today it's finally their turn to use it against me. Now I know how despicable the Yin Tiger Seal is. If I were in that situation, I'd want to kill the person who made this monstrosity."
Everyone: ...
Then... thank you for empathizing with us?
Jiang Cheng couldn't help but roll his eyes upon hearing this: Does this guy even know what he's saying? He's insulting himself! He should have experienced this kind of pain sooner, otherwise…
He paused halfway through his thought. What else could it be?
Lan Wangji put away his zither, drew a long sword from his sleeve, handed it to him, and said, "For self-defense."
Wei Wuxian took it and saw that it was indeed Suibian. That day, after cutting the melon, he had casually tossed the sword aside, and Lan Wangji had put it away. He drew the sword, gazed at its snow-white blade for a moment, then decisively sheathed it again, smiling and saying, "Thank you." He casually fastened it to his waist, showing no intention of using it. Seeing Lan Wangji staring at him, Wei Wuxian scratched his head and explained, "It's been so many years since I've used a sword; I'm not used to it anymore." He sighed and said, "Well, the real reason is that my current body has weak spiritual power, so even with a high-grade sword, I can't unleash its full power. Therefore, I'll have to trouble Hanguang-jun to protect this weak man."
Lan Wangji: "..."
The frail man sat for a while before finally standing up, supporting himself on his knees. The three of them walked uphill for a while longer, and finally, at the end of the mountain path, they saw a dark cave with a gloomy entrance.
The cave entrance was over five zhang high and wide. Even before getting close, gusts of cold wind could be felt from afar, and one could almost hear faint human voices and groans.
The legendary lair of the Yiling Patriarch, who killed people and refined corpses, committing heinous acts—the Demon-Subduing Cave.
The Demon-Subduing Cave had a high, wide dome. The three of them held their breath and crept into the cave. No one made a sound, but the voices coming from the depths of the cave grew louder and more chaotic.
Wei Wuxian knew the cave's terrain like the back of his hand. He walked in front and made a stop gesture at a certain spot.
The main cave was separated from them by only one wall. Through a hole in the stone wall, they could see a cave that could hold a thousand people. In the center sat more than a hundred people, their hands and feet tightly bound by the Immortal-Binding Ropes. These hundred-odd people were all extremely young, and judging from their clothing and swords, they were either high-ranking disciples or direct descendants of aristocratic families.
The crowd's complicated gazes shifted from casually to the group of teenagers.
It was clearly a top-grade sword, and it even possessed spiritual power, yet it was used by someone to cut melons.
How can the world record this sword: the personal sword of the Yiling Patriarch, not used to kill ghosts and monsters, but as a kitchen knife?
Later generations would think they were crazy.
And these younger guys, why are they here again?
Wasn't exploring Yicheng enough? Now they're at the mass grave?
Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji exchanged a glance, but before they could speak in hushed tones, a young man sitting on the ground suddenly said, "If you ask me, you shouldn't have only stabbed him once. Why didn't you just slit his throat?"
His voice wasn't actually loud, but the Demon-Subduing Cave was quite spacious, and his voice echoed loudly, so there was no need to eavesdrop to hear him clearly. As soon as the boy spoke, Wei Wuxian felt that the boy looked and sounded slightly familiar, and it took him a while to remember that this was Jin Chan, the one who fought with Jin Ling that day.
Upon closer inspection, the cold-faced young man beside this young master was none other than Jin Ling.
Jin Ling didn't even glance at him, remaining silent. A loud rumbling came from the stomach of a boy beside him. "They've been gone for days," he said. "What do they want? Kill me or torture me, just give me a quick death. I'd rather be bitten to death by monsters while night hunting than starve to death here!"
The young man, rambling on and on, was none other than Lan Jingyi. Jin Chan said, "What else could he be thinking? He's probably planning to do what he did to the Wen dogs during the Sunshot Campaign—to turn us into his corpse puppets, and then... then use us against our families, making them unable to do it, forcing the enemies to kill each other." He gritted his teeth and said, "Despicable Wei dogs, utterly inhuman!"
Suddenly, Jin Ling said coldly, "Shut up."
Jin Chan was taken aback: "You're telling me to shut up? What do you mean?"
Jin Ling said, "What do you mean? Are you deaf or stupid? Can't you understand human language? Shut up, I'm telling you to stop making noise!"
Having been tied up for so long, Jin Chan was already extremely irritable and roared, "Why should I shut up?!"
Jin Ling said, "What's the point of your nonsense? Will arguing a few more times break the rope? It's annoying to listen to."
"you!!!"
Another young voice said, "We're trapped here, and with so many walking corpses on the mountain, we don't know when they might rush in. Are you going to argue at a time like this?"
The calmest voice belonged to Lan Sizhui. Jin Chan said, "He went crazy first! What, you can curse, but others aren't allowed to?! Jin Ling, hey, who do you think you are? You think Lianfang-zun is the Immortal Supervisor, and you will be too? I'm not shutting up, I'll see what you're made of..."
With a loud thud, Jin Ling's head suddenly slammed into him. Jin Chan cried out in pain and cursed, "If you want to fight, then I'm ready! I'm already furious. You motherless bastard!"
Hearing this, Jin Ling was even more enraged. Bound and unable to fight easily, he used both elbows and knees, striking repeatedly until his opponent howled in pain. But he was alone, while Jin Chan was usually surrounded by several young men. Seeing him at a disadvantage, they immediately shouted, "I'll help you!" and swarmed around him. Lan Sizhui, sitting nearby, was involuntarily drawn into the brawl. At first, he managed to try and calm everyone down, but after taking several elbow strikes, he winced in pain, his face growing increasingly dark. Finally, he yelled and joined the fray.
The younger generation, seeing themselves bound like maggots and forced to fight, felt a surge of shame, their faces turning bright red.
Jiang Cheng flicked Jin Ling on the forehead: "Look at the state you're in! You ran away when I didn't see you for a second, and to make matters worse, you got kidnapped and held hostage! Aren't you ashamed of yourself?!"
Seeing Jiang Cheng start glaring and berating himself again, Jin Ling quickly threw himself into Jiang Yanli's arms, crying, "Mother, look at Uncle..."
Jiang Yanli quickly patted his head. Although Jin Ling had become more composed as the head of the Jin Clan, he still showed some of the spoiled nature unique to young people.
Jiang Cheng watched his nephew seek help with amusement: "Hmph, with your parents around, you don't need to listen to my lectures."
But as he spoke, his eyes were filled with a smile.
They have uncles and younger uncles, but they are not their parents.
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