Upon seeing Liang Qian take out that bronze censer, the woman in black frowned, asking in a rare display of initiative, "What is this...?"

Liang Qian, clearly less resistant to the dark-clad girl than Da Xiong and I were, replied when she noticed the query, "Oh, this is the Qilin Furnace, handed down in my family. It wards off evil spirits, drives out pests, and is impervious to all poisons."

"The Qilin Furnace?" The girl in black furrowed her brow and said, "May I borrow it to take a look?"

Liang Qian hummed an assent and generously handed the bronze censer over to her.

I had examined this bronze censer closely during our first adventure. Its pitch-black body was carved on all four sides with a beast's head, rendered in intricate openwork craftsmanship.

The mouths of the four beast heads were all open, from which wisps of smoke would issue forth, quite miraculous to behold.

Now, with no fire lit inside, it was dull black in the hand and not particularly remarkable.

Yet, the woman in black held the bronze censer as if it were a priceless treasure, cradling it as she peered at it intently for a long time.

Then, as if recalling something vital, her eyes widened, and she declared, "You cannot use this here."

Liang Qian looked somewhat bewildered and asked, "Why not?"

Without thinking, the woman in black replied directly, "If I say no, then no. Using this will do you no good."

We exchanged glances, all feeling the woman in black's behavior was exceedingly strange.

I recalled the chanting she performed in the cabin earlier, concluding that the peculiarities surrounding her were simply too numerous to ignore.

As I pondered this, the woman in black spoke again, "Trust me. There will be time to light the censer when danger actually arises."

Seeing her earnest expression, Liang Qian hesitated briefly before saying, "Alright, we won't light it for now."

The woman in black nodded, seemingly letting out a breath of relief, and handed the bronze censer back to Liang Qian.

Whummm—another strange sound resonated before us, and that black shadow once again zipped past not far from where we stood.

However, these entities seemed uninterested in approaching us, merely swirling in the distance.

We continued to move forward, each wielding a flashlight. To our surprise, after ascending another ten meters or so, a platform, roughly thirty to forty square meters in size, suddenly opened before our eyes.

The platform was perfectly square, with a row of dilapidated structures lining all four edges. In the center of the platform sat a small dais, about half a person's height.

"This... this must be the market, right?" Da Xiong inquired.

Andre nodded and confirmed, "Indeed. This used to be a small market south of the Royal City. From here on, the paths branch out in all directions. When I was last here over thirty years ago, I was completely confused by the spiderweb of tiny streets and ultimately had to retreat because I couldn't find my way out."

I suspected Andre wasn't telling the whole truth, because I saw the dense cluster of houses and roads behind the platform. If I were alone here, with the dense fog and the unknown dangers lurking in the alleys, I certainly would have chosen to give up any further penetration.

It was highly likely that the Andre of that time retreated from this point and took the fork to the left, heading straight for the Grand Theater.

Frankly, no matter how complex a city's layout, there should be a main thoroughfare leading to the Royal City. Yet, before us were only buildings, with no clear path to the palace visible. Such a design was likely not accidental; it was probably intentional.

Of course, designing it this way was not intended to confuse us adventurers, as the king of the Durban Kingdom in those days never anticipated his nation would fall.

This layout might have stemmed from military necessity: should the Royal City ever be breached, the enemy forces could not charge directly to the Imperial Palace, their troops being stalled by the intricate terrain.

The Emperor at the time could then escape via another secret passage. I surmised this secret passage was the true main artery to the Royal City, and it was likely hidden beneath the palace grounds, probably near the lighthouse.

This confirmed two things for me. First, our decision to search near the lighthouse for the entrance to the subterranean city was a wise one. Second, the Durban Kingdom was evidently not the unchallenged hegemon of the region back then; there must have existed a threat capable of overthrowing the regime, at least when this Royal City was built, which accounted for the labyrinthine road system.

I didn't doubt Andre’s assertion that the Durban Kingdom once flourished, possessing a level of development superior to many other civilizations. However, I doubted that they were the paramount empire of the region; there had to be at least one rival power capable of threatening their sovereignty.

It couldn't have been the indigenous tribes of ancient Siberia, because when the Durban Kingdom reigned supreme, the natives of this region were still in a very primitive stage of civilization.

So, which kingdom could have been an equal power to the Durban Kingdom? I truly could not imagine.

While I was deep in thought, Da Xiong, under the pretense of searching for artifacts, thoroughly scoured the stalls surrounding the plaza, hoping to find any strongboxes that hadn't been washed away by the flood. A few gold coins, he mused, would hold immense research value.

The result was that Da Xiong did find one badly rusted iron box, but the copper coins inside had fused with the bottom of the box into an indistinguishable mass.

He sighed and muttered, "It seems the kingdom of Xiao Chuan's ancestors didn't care much for gold coins."

I snapped at him, "Are you brainless? These are clearly stalls that sold vegetables and fruit. A single gold coin in ancient times was worth thousands in modern RMB. Would you pay with a thousand-yuan bill to buy vegetables and expect change?"

Da Xiong huffed and ignored me, clearly having no comeback for being in the wrong.

"Alright, let's keep moving forward," Andre clapped his hands and announced. "There is still a long way to go. You don't know that every single road in this Royal City isn't just on the surface. As you walk, the road level drops, turning into an underground tunnel. Some tunnels are short and quickly lead back to the surface, but others twist and turn deep underground, looping around, with countless forks—it's ridiculously easy to get lost."

I knew that the underground tunnels he spoke of were conceptually different from the subterranean city. The tunnels were relatively shallow, perhaps only ten to twenty meters down, much like modern subway systems. The subterranean city, however, involved excavating the entire mountain to create a vast underground space, which in China is referred to as an Yin Cheng (Underworld City).

An Yin Cheng is the opposite of a Yang Cheng (Living City); it is generally subterranean, intended not for the living, but for spirits and demons.

Take Kaifeng in Henan, for instance. Due to the Yellow River breaching its banks, the city was buried by silt six times. Each time, yellow sand covered the entire city, and later generations built new cities on top of the ruins, resulting in six layered cities of Kaifeng beneath the current one, making modern Kaifeng lie lower than the riverbed.

The six buried cities are known as the Yin Cheng. Legend holds that the souls of those drowned in the floods reside there, living their lives as usual until a living person enters, at which point they would be instantly devoured down to the bone.

I had heard these legends before, and I had visited Kaifeng myself. While the reality wasn't quite as spectral as the stories suggested, many elders refuse to speak of it.

The Yin Cheng of the Durban Royal City was clearly quite malevolent, as it shared one characteristic with Kaifeng: a great number of deaths had occurred there.