I couldn't spare a moment for closer inspection, hastily summoning Fatty and Shirley Yang to get out of this place immediately; there might be saltpeter in the bronze cauldron, ready to ignite the moment the lid shifted. It was originally meant for the King of Xian to burn during the sky-worship ceremony on the Que Terrace, but it had started burning inside the hall, and the fire was spreading rapidly. The main structure of the "Lingyun Heavenly Palace" was made of nanmu wood, brick, and tile, built atop the "Dragon Whorl," meaning it was extremely dry. In the short time since the six-legged black cauldron ignited it, the wood in the hall was already crackling under the heat flow. It seemed this Heavenly Palace was about to become a Palace of Fire.

Four or five ferocious Zhong people still remained in the hall, with Fatty and Shirley Yang grappling with them in a corner, circling a stone tablet. Startled by the sudden, immense flare of light, their faces instantly changed color. They immediately followed behind me, sprinting toward the short corridor connecting to the front hall. If they had lingered even a moment longer, they likely would have been reduced to roast meat.

Who knew that before we even stepped out of the rear hall, the roof of that short corridor suddenly collapsed like a landslide, crashing down and sealing the exit completely. At that moment, I didn't know whether to feel fortunate or cursed. If we had been a few steps faster, we would have been crushed into a pulp by those massive boulders in the corridor. But now, trapped in the rear hall with no escape, we would soon meet our end by fire.

Given our current gear, trying to extinguish that fire was tantamount to a fool's errand. The heatwave from the hall blasted us in the face; I could practically feel my eyebrows being singed by the great flames. Fatty was spinning around in desperation, but I grabbed him, pulling him to a halt, and told him and Shirley Yang, "Don't panic. First, wet your hair with the water from the canteens."

Fatty retorted, "Wouldn't that be ignoring the bigger problem? Besides, this little bit of water won't do anything... What is that sound?"

As Fatty was speaking, we suddenly heard a loud boom from the hall walls. We spun around to look and saw a large hole blasted open in the wall. The mercury dragon, whose head had plunged into the "King of Xian's Ascension Pavilion" in the main hall, had its head actually pierce through the partition wall of the rear hall.

From the hole in the rear hall, the dragon head immediately spewed out a massive stream of mercury from its mouth. The floor was instantly splashed with spherical objects, large and small. I felt a rush of anxiety surge to my head, urgently shouting to Fatty and Shirley Yang, "We can't get out through the door. The ceiling above is nanmu dragon-bone supporting glazed tiles. Quickly, let's get onto the stone tablet! We’ll blast through the roof from above!"

Fatty even forgot his acrophobia, pointing frantically at the stone tablet in the corner of the room. "Only this tablet is tall enough. Let's quickly form a human ladder and climb up, hurry, hurry! If we waste any more time, we’ll end up covered in the mercury stains that ruin the funerary artifacts!" Saying that, he was already rushing over. Shirley Yang and I dared not delay, sidestepping the mercury pooling at our feet, and scrambled beneath the tall stone tablet in the corner of the hall. The three of us formed a human ladder and climbed onto the tablet.

Peering down, the flowing mercury was already more than half a meter deep and still rising rapidly. The flames from the six-legged black cauldron burning in the hall had dimmed. The firelight reflected countless flowing ripples on the surface, causing the light and shadow in the hall to constantly shift—beautifully mesmerizing yet twelve parts eerie.

Because the Zhong people control their tracheal system contraction via muscle movement around their mouthparts to aid oxygen diffusion into their tissue cells, they are overly dependent on oxygen concentration. Due to the intense burning of the flames, the air in the hall had become much thinner than normal. As a result, the few remaining Zhong people were writhing on the ground, half-submerged in mercury. Seeing their desperate struggle, it seemed they wouldn't survive much longer even without our intervention.

The large volume of mercury in the hall, heated by the flames, emitted a pungent, hot mercury vapor. The odor was intensely foul, containing certain toxins, but fortunately, it wasn't immediately fatal. As soon as Fatty scrambled onto a wooden beam, I dared not hesitate; I quickly hooked onto a climbing rope and used the pulley system to haul myself up.

Only once I reached the wooden beam did I remember the shamanic robes hanging from the ceiling. Turning back from the main beam, I saw that crimson woman's shamanic robe silently hanging from a crossbeam just a meter behind me. In the reflection of the light, the garment seemed almost alive, swaying slightly.

Shirley Yang had mentioned earlier that this looked like the shamanic attire worn by the Yi people’s "Shining Wives." I had never seen such clothing before, but I knew that if it were related to the King of Xian's sacrificial activities, it would certainly bear the mark of eyeballs. This red robe lacked any eyeball decorations. If it was indeed shamanic attire, it must belong to a key figure among the Yi people massacred by the King of Xian.

Like the other empty robes hanging in the hall, their bodies were in the six-legged fire cauldron, boiled down into grease. Ancient legends say that a person who dies wearing red clothing, specifically at the precise moment of an Yin year, Yin month, and Yin hour, transforms into a fierce ghost (Li Gui). This is because red is Yang, but the time is Yin. Such fierce ghosts have almost no weaknesses in dark places and are extremely difficult to deal with. This is why, during a wholly Yin hour, or even a semi-Yin cycle, relatives often dress the deceased in white, ominous garments and dare not use red, out of fear they might turn into such a Li Gui.

At this moment, the three of us were perched high up on the main beams supporting the cauldron. Below us, the mercury level kept rising. The wooden structures of the hall, just scorched by the intense fire, were now producing creaking sounds and splitting noises due to thermal expansion, even though the fire was out. On this narrow bridge that felt like it could snap at any moment, all three of us simultaneously recalled the rumor about the shamanic robe having a human head attached.

We had been so preoccupied with avoiding the mercury below and fighting off that wave of ferocious Zhong people—every second demanding a fight for our lives as we frantically escaped upward—that we had momentarily forgotten the woman's head emitting that sinister, cold laugh. It was only then we remembered that the upper section of this set of "shamanic robes" was meant to contain something.

I wanted to confirm whether there was a corpse inside the red robe, but the firelight inside the hall had gone out, and the space between the ceiling beams had turned pitch black. Shining the light from my helmet onto the rows of strange garments hanging there made them seem indistinct, like a throng of vengeful, thousand-year-old spirits lingering overhead.

The closest one was that blood-red woman’s "shamanic robe." In the darkness, its outline suggested something within the upper half, but the head area was obscured by a short crossbeam, making it invisible from our position on the main beam.

I gestured to Fatty and Shirley Yang behind me, signaling them to stay put. Before the rear hall filled completely with mercury, we still had a little time to spare. I needed to move across the wooden beams to get a closer look and determine whether the "shamanic robe" harbored the Li Gui of an Yi Shining Wife.

A "Shining Wife" was a sorceress who could communicate with the gods when in a state of extreme mental frenzy induced by ingesting certain drugs. Though called a "Shining Wife," she wasn't necessarily an elderly woman; young ones could also hold the title. Such female shamans held extremely high status among the Yi people, commanding all authority in the name of the gods.

I asked Fatty for his climbing axe, glanced at the mercury on the floor, held my breath, and crawled a bit closer along the wooden beam toward the "shamanic robe," just enough to see its head. It was a blood-soaked woman's head. Her face was covered by loose, long hair, revealing only a narrow slit in the center. Her head hung low, perfectly still.

I couldn't figure out how that chilling, terrifying laugh had been produced. Since there was a body, it might not be a Li Gui, but perhaps a zombie. Legends say that zombies also emit mournful cries, like night cats, when burned. But then I reconsidered: the laugh we heard was a cold, insidious, high-pitched sound—a sound no zombie could possibly make. Damn it, I had to see clearly. If it was a ghost, then blasting open the palace's glazed roof with sunlight might destroy its soul. Even if I couldn't ascertain anything, I would burn this bizarre garment with a lighter to prevent future trouble.

Although the hall was dark, it was daytime outside. Thinking this bolstered my courage, and I shuffled another half-meter forward on the main beam. This angle allowed me a full view of the "shamanic robe" woman corpse's drooping face. Her face was eerily pale—not the pallor of lost blood, but the look of heavy makeup, layered thickly with powder. Two large patches of rouge colored her cheeks, and her red lips were tightly closed. A rope hung from the back of the "shamanic robe," attached strangely to a wooden beam at the top, just like the other empty robes.

However, from my vantage point, the corpse's head was angled too low; I couldn't see her eyes. Just as I was about to poke the corpse's head with my climbing axe, intending to make it lift up so I could see clearly before setting it on fire, the corpse suddenly let out a burst of sinister laughter directed at me: "Hee hee hee, hmph hmph hmph, giggle, giggle, giggle..." In the profound silence and darkness, the sound made my blood run cold.

Though I was prepared, I was still startled and lurched backward, losing my balance. I slipped from the main beam, but luckily, the rope around my body saved me from falling directly into the mercury-filled hall below.

But in the instant I dropped from above, watching the light flicker on the surface of the mercury, a thought suddenly struck me: the rear hall of the Lingyun Heavenly Palace was filled with oddities, especially this sudden mercury mechanism. Although the exit was blocked, the upper structure of this palace could be escaped easily even without explosives. So what was the purpose of this mechanism? Was it not meant to deal with intruders, but rather to use the vast amount of mercury to bury a secret hidden in this rear hall—a secret that absolutely could not see the light of day?