"Even before I could answer, my younger sister called out from behind, 'The dead look best when they’re lying down, right?' I laughed, 'Exactly, that’s what I meant. Sitting is worse than lying down. Those tomb robbers before were sloppy; after breaking into the tomb, they just left the ancient corpse sitting up. I felt tired just looking at that hermit being made to sit for so long.'"

Old Man Sun said, "It’s better to keep things as they are. Otherwise, if we damage the desiccated remains that have lasted millennia, it will be impossible to explain. Back in Henan, I saw a genuine Jiangshi unearthed from a stretch of farmland. That zombie was even better preserved than this one. But at that time, our technology and equipment were primitive, and we didn't properly secure the excavation site in our haste. A huge crowd of villagers gathered to gawk—their excitement was unshakeable, a wall of onlookers! Someone must have started it, and the whole crowd surged forward to touch the ancient corpse. By the time the transport vehicle arrived, several sections of the zombie's body had been rubbed flat, and its clothes were shredded into fragments. In the end... the responsibility for the whole incident fell on my shoulders. I couldn't even defend myself."

I knew that with Old Man Sun’s personality, as soon as the topic turned to his personal history, he could instantly launch a "Grievance Sharing Symposium." He wouldn't stop until he’d poured out every drop of bitterness inside him. In truth, most of his misfortunes were self-inflicted. We were currently stuck between the cliffs beneath the 'Golden Swallows' nest, unsure how long we'd be trapped. This wasn't the time for reminiscing. I quickly steered the conversation: "The mist and clouds here in this canyon are thick, and the location of these hanging coffins is extremely secret. This isn't the work of ordinary tomb robbers. It’s almost certainly the doing of the Guanshan Taibao."

Professor Sun, hearing my words, stood up from the black beam and peered into the rock fissure where the hanging coffins were stored. He shook his head, "Grave robbers have been as numerous as ox hair since antiquity, and countless tombs have been plundered. Here, without any concrete evidence, it's hard to say... very hard to say."

Shirley Yang, however, agreed with my assessment: "Hanging coffins usually don't contain gold, jewels, or jade. Thieves wouldn't bother with them unless they were after something else. The Guanshan Taibao are masters of ancient, strange arts. We’ve already seen the Swallow Bridge and the Jinjia Maoxian [Golden-Armored Immortal Moths] teeming in the cave; it seems the legends aren't false. These cliff-burial hanging coffins contain many ancient texts—bamboo slips, tortoise shells, all sorts of things. Perhaps the Guanshan Taibao's arcane techniques were all derived from here."

Professor Sun frowned in thought, offering no definite opinion but seeming to tacitly agree, unwilling to voice it. He merely remarked, "It is quite a coincidence, isn't it? Why is this black wooden beam stuck here, neither up nor down, precisely in this fissure among the hanging coffins?"

Shirley Yang replied, "I fear it's no simple coincidence." She swept the beam of her 'Wolf's Eye Flashlight' deep into the cliff face. As we looked, through the thin mist and smoke, we could see many other rock crevices, half-hidden and half-revealed, all containing coffins made of scaled, ancient pine wood. It turned out that beneath the Golden Swallows' nest was an enormous cluster of hanging coffin recesses.

The mist rising from the valley obscured the full scope, but we could vaguely make out numerous hanging coffins tucked into the sheer walls on both sides. The extent and sheer number were impossible to judge from this vantage point. It must be massive. The black wooden beam we slid down on had happened to jam in one specific crevice—the one containing the ancient corpse clutching the bronze sword. This was just one tomb among a vast necropolis of hanging coffins, nothing special compared to the several others visible nearby.

Everyone was filled with questions. If the occupants were truly reclusive cultivators who sought the Tao in the mountains, they should be aloof, solitary figures. There shouldn't be such a dense collection of hanging coffins. Just who were these people buried here?

I sat on the black beam, deep in thought, when a sudden inspiration struck me, giving me a thread to follow. I patted the wooden beam and told everyone, "This beam is the answer..."

Although the Sixteen-Character Yin-Yang Feng Shui Secret Art centers on 'Form, Momentum, Principle, and Energy,' the Feng Shui techniques it encompasses all derive from ancient methods. According to folk legends circulating in the Qingxi era, this mysterious 'Casket Canyon' not only contained numerous abandoned ancient mine tunnels in the mountains and valleys but was also the site of a massive ancient engineering project undertaken by the 'King Wuyang' to dredge floodwaters.

Since entering the mountains, the first thing we saw was a dense collection of hanging coffins, numbering nearly ten thousand. According to the inscription on the 'King Wuyang Stele,' those individuals were slave laborers who died during the mountain excavation. And King Wuyang, also known as the Mountain-Moving King Wuling, had his ancient tomb hidden within an old mine pit in 'Casket Canyon.'

In the Wushan region, apart from the tombs of the ancient Wu Xian and the Mountain-Moving King Wuling, there are no other known, larger mausoleums. The tomb of Wu Xian is almost entirely legendary, whereas the Mountain-Moving King Wuling, though also mysterious, left tangible ruins in the mountains. Furthermore, judging by the half-fragment of the Guanshan Zhimifu (Guiding the Mountain Mystical Rhyme) left by Commander Feng, the Guanshan Taibao's 'Immortal Village Ancient Tomb' was ninety-nine percent built within the mausoleum complex of King Wuling.

The Bashi Mountains are structured with the mountains as dragon veins, their energy flowing like clouds and rain, the dragon's qi ethereal. Since King Wuling could dredge floodwaters, he must have understood the principles of Yin-Yang orientation. Therefore, there must be arrangements nearby his tomb that use winding dragon pulses to prevent the vital qi from dissipating. The giant headless statue formed by nearly ten thousand hanging coffins suggests a posture of stepping upon mountains and rivers. The thousands of aerial bird paths chiseled into the cliffs are also a brilliant design of winding, coiling dragons. The area of the 'Shadowless Immortal Bridge' that 'hides the wind and gathers the qi' must be the central nexus of this enormous burial district.

The people buried in the hanging coffin cluster beneath the Golden Swallows' nest were not ordinary slave laborers; this appears to be a burial district for nobles or close retainers. Based on the burial rites and the accompanying arrangement in this area, the palace of King Wuling—where the 'Immortal Village Ancient Tomb' is located—should be hidden between the four valleys surrounding the 'Wind Eye,' and not outside that range.

I estimate that before the Guanshan Taibao excavated King Wuling's tomb, there must have been a hall or temple complex on the mountaintop dedicated to worshipping the dead in those hanging coffins, perhaps even a towering tombstone resting on a stone tortoise.

To a Mojin Xiaowei (Grave Robber of the Golden Tomb) knowledgeable in Feng Shui secrets, sacrificial halls honoring the deceased are divided into illuminated and dark sections. The dark areas hold little value, but the illuminated sections are known in the tomb-raiding trade as 'Tomb Eyes.' Some older dynasties had them; later dynasties knew that a Tomb Eye was a hazard and stopped setting them up, or if they did, they were merely illusory. As long as an ancient tomb has a true Tomb Eye, finding the 'Eye' means one need not worry about finding the entrance.

Although the Mojin techniques are obstructed by the mist in 'Casket Canyon,' preventing us from using 'Splitting Gold to Determine the Grave Site,' if we can locate the ancestral hall and Tomb Eye on the mountaintop, we can follow the clues to find the main palace. If that happens, the 'Immortal Village Ancient Tomb' will be halfway found.