The secret passage was utterly black, a place where you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. Through the beam of the flashlight, everyone could clearly see countless particles of dust suspended in the air.

Young Master Liu looked around as he walked. The passage was meticulously constructed, a perfect rectangular tunnel, like a straight, horizontal column of smoke through which they were picking their way. The floor was paved with bluestone flagstones, large, square slabs stretching forward until they vanished into the darkness ahead. It was hard to imagine that ancient people could have cut and polished such hard bluestone so precisely and smoothly.

After walking perhaps ten meters forward, faint bas-reliefs began to appear on the stone walls lining the passage. These carvings were executed with simple lines, yet the sculptor was clearly a master artist. Though only sketched with a few strokes, the reliefs were instantly comprehensible; the moment you saw one, you understood the narrative it conveyed.

As the group proceeded, the subject matter of the reliefs mostly concerned sacrifices—sacrifices to the Celestial Emperor, to Yama the King of Hell, and to the Bull Head Guardian. One relief depicted the sacrifice to a Serpent God, and its background seemed to mirror the scene in the cave they had just left. In that cave, numerous figures were prostrating themselves on the ground. A Taoist priest knelt humbly before the altar, his upper body almost flat against the floor. Since the priest faced away from the viewers, only the back of his figure was visible. Coiled at the top of this cave scene was a massive serpent, its scales sharply defined.

Young Master Liu was utterly captivated by the carvings on the walls of the tunnel and walked forward with his head down. Suddenly, Tian Guoqiang, who was trailing behind, grabbed him sharply, raising his arm and pointing insistently ahead.

Liu raised his flashlight and followed the direction of Tian Guoqiang’s pointing finger. There, drifting softly along both walls of the passage, were two clusters of eerie, faint blue ghost fires. These clusters hung in the air like lanterns on either side, emitting a pale, spectral blue light that sent a chill down their spines.

Bai Er Laizi, a quintessential victim of feudal superstition, trembled violently at the sight of the ghost fires, convinced they were the work of spirits. In reality, everyone knew ghost fires were merely phosphorescence, a very common natural phenomenon. This occurs because human bones contain a significant amount of calcium phosphate. After death, as the body decomposes underground, chemical reactions convert the phosphorus in the bones into phosphine gas. Phosphine has a very low ignition point and will combust upon contact with air at normal temperatures. As the phosphine rises through underground fissures or holes, it burns in the air, emitting a blue light—this is the ‘ghost fire.’ However, a cluster of fire this large was something they had never witnessed before.

Everyone stopped, staring silently at the two plumes of fire. None knew where they originated; it seemed they had materialized out of thin air in an instant.

Tian Guoqiang raised his double-barreled shotgun, signaling Liu to step back. Just as Liu was about to object, the younger man fired. A muffled boom echoed, accompanied by a flash of fire and smoke. The dull shot lingered in the tunnel, vibrating so intensely that everyone had to clap their hands over their ears. Simultaneously, there was a sharp pop, and the cluster of fire on the right disintegrated, drifting down slowly, still faintly twinkling with its blue luminescence, not extinguished.

Tian Guoqiang proudly gave a thumbs-up, boasting about his marksmanship.

Liu glared at him, pointing first at Tian's head, then at the shotgun, his gesture conveying: This place is full of unknown dangers, don't be so reckless, lest you stir up something unclean!

Tian nodded repeatedly. The moment the younger man looked up, Liu noticed something wrong with his eyes; Tian was staring directly above Liu’s head. Without a word, Tian raised the shotgun and fired again—bang! The second cluster of fire exploded directly over Liu's head in a burst of blue light. Everyone quickly retreated to avoid contact with the glowing embers on their skin.

Liu thought to himself, Those fires moved fast. They drifted right above my head in the blink of an eye.

As he turned, he saw Tian Guoqiang poking the scattered, glowing residue on the floor with the barrel of his gun. Liu was curious why the young man was provoking the ghost fires.

Under the faint blue glow, Liu looked closely, and a wave of icy dread washed over him, making his scalp tingle as if thousands of ants were biting his skin, leaving him covered in goosebumps.

On a piece of skin barely the size of a palm, countless insects, each as small as an ant, were crawling. These creatures were translucent, shaped like spindles—somewhat resembling grains of Northeastern rice. They were packed densely together, a writhing mass, utterly repulsive to look at. The faint blue light was emanating directly from their bodies. This meant they hadn't encountered ghost fires at all, but these strange bugs.

While Liu was focused on the disgusting insects, numerous other ghost fires suddenly appeared in the passage. They were all shaped exactly like lanterns, and their numbers increased rapidly. In moments, dozens of clusters materialized, all drifting slowly toward the spot where the group stood.

Having never faced anything so bizarre, everyone froze, mesmerized. It was Zhang Enpu who reacted first; he grabbed several people and pulled them forward. The rest snapped out of their stupor, realizing these fires were not to be trifled with, and they scrambled like rabbits, following Zhang Enpu in a desperate run.

Liu brought up the rear. As he ran, he glanced back and saw a cluster of ghost fire right behind him, its blue light flickering incessantly. He could vaguely make out the strange insects inside writhing and tumbling, which terrified him so much he soiled himself and dared not look back again.

A wind carrying the stench of decay whistled past their ears. They sprinted for perhaps a hundred or two hundred meters before the space suddenly opened up. They burst out of the dark, eerie tunnel onto a small platform. Strangely, the terrifying ghost fires stopped pursuing them at the tunnel's end. After lingering briefly at the threshold, they slowly faded into the darkness. The passage returned to its previous murky blackness, as if nothing had ever happened.

Only then did everyone let out a long, ragged breath.

Liu patted his chest. "Master, you run fast!"

Zhang Enpu panted, his face pale. "Do... do you know what those ghost fires were?"

Seeing the unusual expression on Zhang Enpu’s face, the others knew that whatever they had encountered was certainly no benign entity.

Zhang Enpu let out a deep sigh. "It's recorded in the handwritten notes of successive Heavenly Masters. If I remember correctly, what we just saw was likely the legendary Youming Denglong (Lanterns of the Netherworld)."

Youming Denglong?! The name sounded utterly absurd to everyone.

Zhang Enpu continued, "When the twenty-sixth Patriarch entered a certain ancient tomb, he encountered these Youming Denglong. According to the notes, these lanterns are made from the skin of living beasts. They would take this warm, blood-soaked hide and place it inside a jar containing these strange insects. The bugs, drawn by the scent of blood, would drill into the hide until they were a dense, matted layer. Then, they would remove the hide, now covered in the creatures, and stitch it into the shape of a lantern. How they managed to float remains unknown. Because their construction is so esoteric, these Youming Denglong are extremely rare."

Finishing his thought, Zhang Enpu stroked his beard. "Since Youming Denglong appeared here, it seems we have entered an ancient tomb."

"Ah?!" Everyone exchanged wide-eyed glances, their hearts sinking instantly. They had hoped this passage led outside, only to find themselves trapped in a tomb. This truly felt like a situation with no way out.

Liu asked Zhang Enpu, "Why did the Youming Denglong chase us so relentlessly?"

Zhang Enpu replied, "Perhaps because we attacked them. These Youming Denglong normally should not actively attack humans. I believe they represent the lanterns of the underworld, serving the same purpose as lanterns in the living world—illumination. The passage we just traversed must be the tomb road leading into the main burial chamber."