I addressed the group, "Let's head deeper into the Earth Immortal's tomb first, and we'll play it by ear as we go." With that, I swept the beam of my spotlight around, trying to gauge the scale and layout of the tomb before deciding on our next move.

Beyond the Língxīng Gate, the tomb passage was constructed entirely of dark bricks, capped with a rounded vault overhead. Within the Coffin Mountain, there were two categories of ancient tombs: one belonging to the era of primitive shamanistic culture, and the other being architecture from the Earth Immortal Village of the late Ming Dynasty. The Língxīng Hall, it turned out, was a subterranean palace built in the late Ming period, though its scale was nowhere near as magnificent or vast as the Tomb of King Wūyáng. In the narrow passage, a man could touch the ceiling just by raising his hand.

Set into the turning walls on either side of the passage were rows of candle holders, their wax long since depleted. In the corner behind the tomb door, several pieces of pottery lay scattered. I realized that in our current predicament, there was no turning back. The passage offered no place to take cover or maneuver; it was impossible to hold ground here. A mounting anxiety tightened in my chest, and I resolved to steel myself and proceed.

Just as I was about to urge everyone deeper into the ancient tomb, I noticed Old Man Sun standing by the wall, strangely attempting to pluck a candle holder free. My heart immediately sank. This Old Man Sun had endured decades of humiliation and held schemes too deep to fathom; he was certainly no friend. Pulling a lamp holder from the wall wasn't some act of charity; was he trying to trigger a mechanism to wipe us all out?

Considering this, a surge of irrational anger welled up in me. I strode forward, grabbed him by the collar, and demanded, "What fresh trouble are you stirring up now?" Fatty, standing behind me, chimed in, "That old fox is definitely trying to use our distraction to secretly turn a mechanism and spirit away the artifacts! Tell us where the village's treasures are hidden!"

Shirley Yang restrained my hand on Sun Jiuye and asked him, "Professor, what are you trying to do?" Sun Jiuye, his face etched with panic, explained, "The residue in these tomb lamps is the paste left after Yáng Suì evaporates. This stuff, like Black Dog Blood or Tiān Kuí, is considered purifying. Smearing it on the cracks of the door might just block the Corpse Immortal." As he spoke, he dug out the black grease from the lamp holder and began rubbing it onto the Língxīng Gate.

Yāomèi'er exclaimed in shock, "Professor Jiuye, you absolutely shouldn't touch that! They say if a man touches Tiān Kuí, or a woman touches Black Dog Blood, they have to jump over a brazier to cleanse the bad luck."

Sun Jiuye retorted, "The fire is already on our eyebrows; we can't worry about trifles now. Hurry up and give me a hand!"

I hadn't paid much mind to the superstitious ramblings of this mountain girl, Yāomèi'er, and held my belief in Sun Jiuye's words cautiously. Though I had heard that Tiān Kuí referred to a woman's menstrual flow, which, like Black Dog Blood, was something that could break demonic magic, I never knew the rancid oil left by Yáng Suì possessed the power to ward off evil.

Grave robbing and tomb exploration has always involved respecting the gods and ghosts from a distance; no one truly understands the mysteries of the netherworld, and running into ghosts in a haunted place is hardly surprising. But we had never heard of encountering an immortal while robbing a tomb. Could this rotten, foul sludge really be effective? Given our previous lessons, I couldn't afford to let my guard down around him.

A sudden murderous intent flared within me; I genuinely considered slaying Professor Sun right there. This Earth Immortal's tomb was fraught with peril, and having a man who wielded strange arts constantly at our side was too dangerous. Based on my experience, the things Professor Sun had told us before were probably somewhat trustworthy. But then again, his claim that he died before entering the tomb, and now this insistence that the lamp residue could stop the Corpse Immortal—these contradictions made him impossible to decipher. I couldn't guess what game he was truly playing. If he threatened the lives of my companions, I wouldn't hesitate to act against him.

Yet, I immediately suppressed that thought. After all, a head isn't like chives; cut them down once, and they regrow. Sun Jiuye had lived a hard life; I couldn't decide the fate of another based solely on my own momentary suspicion. What we needed now was reason and composure. Furthermore, Sun Jiuye came from a scholarly lineage, likely having learned some ancestral skills through oral tradition. Perhaps I was just a frog in a well, marveling at something ordinary.

Professor Sun remained oblivious to the fierce internal battle that had raged within me in that split second, focused only on urging the others to help. Shirley Yang and Yāomèi'er both drew their Emei thorns and began scraping the stale oil from the wall-mounted holders, smearing it onto the door of the Língxīng Chamber.

Sun Jiuye worked furiously. Seeing the door sufficiently sealed, and noting the runic charms carved into the bricks, he seemed relieved that they wouldn't be able to breach the walls. He then scraped up a final lump of the dry, earth-like residue, stuffed it into a canteen to deal with the Earth Immortal Feng Shigu, and relaxed. Seeing that Fatty and I remained on the sidelines, he expressed his displeasure, "Are you two still not trusting me? These techniques are recorded in the Guān Shān Jué Cáng Lù—look it up yourselves if you don't believe me."

I only relaxed slightly when I confirmed there was no more movement outside the door. Outwardly, however, I retorted, "Trust is a currency, Professor Sun, and you've long since overdrawn your account with me. You owe me a mountain of debt."

Sun Jiuye let out a cold snort. "Even if I dragged you into this mess, do you Mojin Xiaowei dare claim you have no selfish motives?"

That comment truly silenced me. At the very least, Fatty and I, besides seeking elixirs to save someone, had certainly entertained thoughts of finding rare artifacts in the Earth Immortal Village. I didn't want to dwell on this; finding excuses was pointless. I told him, "Right now, we're all grasshoppers tied to the same rope. Talking more is useless. We can settle any scores between us after we've dealt with the Earth Immortal Feng Shigu."

Professor Sun nodded. "You know what matters. Use a man you trust, don't use a man you doubt. I've laid all my secrets bare; it would be wrong of you not to believe me now. Feng Shigu's actions are unpredictable, and we must be doubly vigilant when fighting him."

I knew that despite his words, our small group was outnumbered and outmatched—how could we possibly be vigilant? The Earth Immortal Tomb in Coffin Mountain was unbelievably tricky: the Nine-Death Shocking Armor that wrapped the mountain in layers, the tens of thousands of coffin worms, and the Corpse Immortal that flickered in and out of view in the Jade Grotto—any one of these threats was enough to cause severe distress. Right now, we could barely ensure our own safety, let alone the grand claim of taking down Feng Shigu, which was likely just our wishful thinking.

But the current situation was like rowing upstream: stop advancing, and you fall back. Both internal and external factors forced us to press on toward the deepest part of the Língxīng Chamber, with almost no chance to catch our breath along the way. Everyone had to forcefully suppress their inner turmoil and pass through the long, low tomb passage. At the end lay an arched side door. Beyond it was a natural Jade Grotto sunk deep into the belly of the Pangu Vein mountain; the air was thick with moisture and carried a faint, foul smell of blood. Behind the door rose an extremely wide and long stairway made of fossilized ancient fir wood, stark white like a waterfall, standing erect. Looking up, it resembled a ladder to heaven. Although the darkness hid the hall above, the sheer scale of the steps before us suggested something monumental.

I told the group, "Judging by this setup, the highest point of the stone steps is most likely the Língxīng Hall. Get your gear ready, but no one acts rashly—follow my orders precisely." Having said that, I pulled out the Guixu Ancient Mirror from my pack, tied it across my chest like a heart guard using a cross knot, and sealed the remaining can of lamp oil in my bag.

Fatty carried a Repeating Crossbow and a military shovel, plus a corpse-binding rope fashioned from mountaineering rope. The other three also armed themselves with their respective tools and began ascending the steps. In the beam of the spotlight, we could see that the fossilized ancient fir was as translucent and lustrous as jade, its grain strikingly bizarre. When the light hit it, it looked like the cold moon casting its gaze, silver waves rolling over the surface.

Fatty was awestruck and asked us, "We've seen a lot over the years, exploring plenty of grand tombs and mausoleums, but only now do I understand what it means to have my eyes opened. How powerful could Feng Shigu, just some old village headman, really be? Could he construct such a magnificent and vast Língxīng Treasure Hall? Just looking at these steps, chipping off a piece might be enough to trade for a color TV."

I, too, was amazed, and I said to Fatty, "Fossilized Jiàn Shān wood exists in the Kunlun Mountains, but the largest piece of bark I ever saw was palm-sized. Yet the Língxīng Gate itself is small, like a small local shrine, comparable to the tombs of ordinary Ming Dynasty princes and nobles. Why is the inner hall so magnificent?"

Shirley Yang offered, "These ancient fossils are inscribed with many Star Fish Ancient Scripts; they might be relics from the time of King Wūyáng, not constructions of the Guanshan Taibao."

At this moment, Sun Jiuye also noticed the ancient symbols on the stone steps. He stopped, read a few lines, seeming to grasp some profound meaning, nodding repeatedly. Then he climbed another step to examine the ancient script on the surface of the next tier.

I asked him what those scribbles meant, wondering if they were some form of the Dragon Bone Celestial Text. Sun Jiuye replied, "You're always obsessed with the Grand Trigram diagrams, chasing after the branches while neglecting the root. Ancient writing holds secrets far deeper than numerical patterns. Isn't the very continuity of our civilization based entirely on the characters created by our ancestors? Whether you're preaching doctrines or governing a nation, which one doesn't rely on them? Leaders used to constantly criticize my work on ancient scripts as meaningless—truly short-sighted."

I grew impatient. What time was this for lecturing on old scholarship? I urged him to hurry up and enter the hall to loot. Sun Jiuye, however, insisted, "Don't rush. These Star Fish Traces on the fossilized ancient fir are extraordinary; they are indeed ancient remnants from the time of King Wūyáng. The true identity of the Mountain-Moving Witch King might even be recorded here."

Sun Jiuye surmised that the steps made of fossilized ancient fir must have existed long ago. Based on the content recorded in the ancient scripts, they seemed to be an invocation tablet buried deep within the Pangu Divine Vein of Coffin Mountain. The so-called King Wūyáng, the Mountain-Moving Witch King, and the legends of Wūyáng diverting rivers were all ancient tales passed down among the populace, not necessarily factual. In reality, the true identity of that headless king was likely a paramount shaman from the Wūchǔ culture. The Bashu region, deeply influenced by Wūchǔ culture while developing its own distinct character, did not use royal titles; the Great Shaman was equivalent to a ruler holding supreme military and political power, and King Kaiming of Shu during the late Zhou was his descendant.

The Jade Grotto within the Pangu Corpse Vein was the birthplace of shamanistic, astrological, and funerary cultures. The mountain formation resembled bones, the dark springs flowed like blood—it was a uniquely auspicious Feng Shui vein. However, the terrestrial vital energy of Coffin Mountain had already withered since the time of the Witch King, leaving behind only the suspension coffins and jade bi discs covering the slopes, along with the thousand-year-old relics like the invocation tablet and sacrificial hall within the Jade Grotto.

Due to the immense size of the invocation tablet formed by the fossilized ancient fir, the number of Star Fish Ancient Scripts was too vast for the common farmers and herders to decipher. Professor Sun could only examine a tiny fraction. Combining this with what he had already seen and heard, he pieced together this information. Perhaps Feng Shigu, the last of the Guanshan Taibao, exhausted his knowledge creating the Yin and Yang residences of the Earth Immortal Village in an attempt to revive this divine vein, remodeling the ancient relics in the Pangu Vein Jade Grotto into the transformed Língxīng Hall. Sun Jiuye asserted that if more clues could be gathered, the secret of Feng Shigu's ascension to immortality might be uncovered, as he noticed the invocation texts repeatedly mentioned a "Spiritual Object" appearing in the netherworld within the Pangu Vein—very likely the Corpse Immortal that Feng Shigu first discovered.

However, our light sources were limited and wouldn't last much longer. The tomb was no place for leisurely exploration, not allowing time to study the inscriptions. We abandoned the dazzling ancient scripts on the tablets and headed toward the end of the long staircase to find the Earth Immortal's sarcophagus. To our surprise, upon reaching the heights and looking up, everyone gasped. Our hearts plummeted once more. No one could have imagined that the so-called Língxīng Hall would be like this; even the gods couldn't figure out where Feng Shigu had hidden himself.