The higher one climbed the mountain path, the more inscrutable it became, especially at the mist-shrouded peaks of Changbai Mountain, where two bandits tumbled into a bottomless abyss after slipping on mud dampened by the fog. Big Beard naturally felt no nostalgia for the loss of such worthless lives; he merely lamented that the men died still burdened with their rations.

“Boss, look at that opening ahead!” The Shorty, walking at the very front, suddenly exclaimed with excitement to those behind him. “Did you see that cave? There’s a cave inside the forest!”

Big Beard was naturally even more thrilled by the news than Shorty. He snatched up his broadsword and leaped swiftly past tangles of vines. Amidst the dense woodland, a massive stone door stood revealed—it was indeed a cave, sealed by a stone door. To this band of outlaws, whatever lay behind that stone door must surely be treasure.

“Brothers, quickly, let’s push this door open.” Pretty Boy shouted for the remaining bandits to gather before the stone slab. A dozen or so of them positioned themselves on either side, straining to budge the door. It was hopeless; the door appeared to be carved from a single block of ten-thousand-ton granite, far beyond their collective strength.

Old Liu, seeing such a monumental stone door, was stunned into silence. He gently lowered E Qian, whom he had been carrying on his back. “Is your leg better? Can you run?”

E Qian clearly understood his meaning. She playfully swung her leg. “Don't worry. I know the woods and environment around this great mountain better than you do. They probably won't kill me right away.”

“Not necessarily!” Old Liu looked ahead with grave apprehension. A huge cavern entrance was hidden in the thicket, yet it was fronted by a stone door, and the carvings upon it were utterly bizarre. “Is this the Jade Blood Palace?”

E Qian shook her head. “This place is forbidden ground. I heard our clansmen dare not enter unless specially assigned by a Priest.”

The door was covered in typical stone carvings, seemingly depicting many snakes... and a monster with a human head and a serpent’s body! As Old Liu saw this, a chill shot down his spine. He instantly recalled the snake-bodied, human-headed creature from the Nine Poisons Fierce Formation. Did the clans of Changbai Mountain also descend from Fuxi? No! Was this lineage the descendant of the Queen Mother of the West, whom Jade Nine Fox had mentioned? Why were they all human-headed serpents?

“Old Liu, what are you spacing out for? Pull that woman over here!” Big Beard, having exerted himself fruitlessly at the base of the door, demanded, “Ask her how this door opens!”

Old Liu glanced at E Qian, reluctantly shifting her onto his back. He needed to conceal the fact that her leg had recovered. At a critical moment like this, these bandits were capable of anything; he was just an ordinary man, Liu Yunzong, utterly powerless against so many ruffians.

“Quickly, see how to open this door!” Big Beard violently yanked Old Liu forward. He glared maliciously at E Qian. “If you can open the door, I’ll let you go. If you can’t…”

“Alright, alright, don’t frighten her. Let her look!” Old Liu was growing impatient. When he stepped beneath the stone door, he finally grasped its immense size—easily five or six men high. Yet, strangely, despite being called a door, it possessed no handle, groove, or mechanism whatsoever; it was clearly just a single, colossal slab covering the entrance.

E Qian tilted her head up at the stone door, equally at a loss. “I’ve never been here either. What can I possibly do about such a huge rock?”

Big Beard became exceedingly impatient upon hearing this. “Didn’t your native people build this yourselves? Isn’t your Empress Buxian inside? How can you not know the mechanism? Must I draw my blade?”

E Qian nudged Old Liu, signaling him to move closer to the stone door. She extended her palm and gently traced the exact center of the slab. It was this careless touch that caused the entire mountain body to tremble violently.

“I knew there was a mechanism! Hahaha.” Big Beard was knocked sprawling by the sudden tremor, but instead of anger, he laughed joyously and began dancing along with the shaking ground. “Treasure, here I come!”

“Wahaha ha ha, yahaha ha ha!” The surrounding bandits began to jump along with Big Beard, completely oblivious to the movements coming from all directions.

“Swish, swish, swish!” At that moment, thick vines lashed out from around the cave entrance. They whipped through the crowd like long lashes, and a few men standing on one side were unlucky enough to be severed instantly.

“Watch out!” Seeing a vine arc toward him, Old Liu immediately dropped to the ground, pressing E Qian beneath him. The vine missed its mark, but its long thorns deeply pierced Old Liu’s skin. “What is this thing!”

“Damn it, quickly get inside the door!” Big Beard’s eyes were sharp. As the mountain shifted, the stone door had actually risen slightly. He plunged into the gap between the door and the ground first, then remembered to shout back to his brothers. “Hurry inside, hurry inside!”

“Ah!” Shorty, small in stature, managed to roll through the opening in one go. But poor Pretty Boy, just as he was about to follow, was riddled with holes by vines descending from above and impaled like a pincushion.

“Go, go! We need to get in too.” Old Liu, fighting through the sharp pain, shoved E Qian into the stone door’s crevice. He slowly crawled in after her. Once safe, he turned back to survey the scene outside.

Countless vines thrashed in the air, their target clearly focused on shredding anyone left outside. Yet, the appearance of those vines was unnervingly familiar to Old Liu; he recognized them distinctly as the long tendrils surrounding the Corpse Flower King from that day. Could it be that Mo Shu’s Corpse Flower originated here? Did Changbai Mountain have a connection to Mo Shu and Mo Xi?

“Why is it so empty in here!” Big Beard ignored the loss of several men, swinging his sword against the inner walls of the cavern, which felt solid stone all around. “Is this the Jade Blood Palace?”

It turned out the space inside the cave was merely a small, confined chamber. Apart from a pool resembling an altar in the center, there were no other paths.

“Could the water in this pool be the Jade Pool that makes those women conceive?” Big Beard walked toward E Qian with a degree of uncertainty, grabbing her arm roughly. “You had better tell us why this place is like this, and what other mechanisms you need to activate for us.”

E Qian proudly threw her head back, looking across the Jade Pool from her position on the ground. The water inside was crystal clear. In the center of the pool stood a long, serpentine pillar. The snake coiled upwards around the pillar, its mouth constantly spitting water from the pool.

A fountain? In a situation like this? Old Liu crouched by the pool, carefully examining the central column. The snake was indeed coiled around the pillar, but the pillar’s apex was sharply pointed like a sword, rising far above the snake’s head. At a quick glance, it looked less like a snake at all, and more like a sword impaling the serpent firmly in place.