Chapter 57: The Yin-Yang Tomb

After a brief exchange of pleasantries, Zhang Yulin’s smile faded as he approached the rain curtain that seemed to form a barrier. Feeling the waves of evil energy emanating from the rain, his expression grew increasingly grave.

“Master Zhang?” someone from the Special Investigation Division finally asked in a hushed voice, unable to contain his anxiety any longer.

Zhang Yulin withdrew his hand. “I understand the situation. I must trouble you all to seal off everything within a ten-kilometer radius of this rain curtain. If my guess is correct, there is a demon hidden inside.”

The agents exchanged glances, their faces turning ashen.

“Master Zhang, please set up your altar and subdue this demon.”

“If our sect’s Celestial Master were present, we might still have a chance—laying out the Supreme Celestial Rite and invoking the Thunder Department’s righteous deities. But I do not possess the strength.”

Were this demon to appear in ancient times, it would be powerful enough to overturn mountains and seas, destroy nations, and massacre cities. And now that it has emerged, even the Supreme Celestial Rite may be too late.

Zhang Yulin shook his head with a bitter smile. “I’m afraid the only recourse now is to request ‘East Wind’s’ intervention.”

East Wind?

This matter was more dire than they’d imagined. But since it was Master Zhang Yulin himself who spoke, there could be no deception.

“Thank you, Master Zhang. I understand.” One of the agents immediately took out a satellite phone and began contacting the military district.

“But there are dozens of villagers in Old Grave Village, together with an archaeological team and one Special Investigation Division auxiliary.”

At these words, Zhang Yulin called softly, “Yunfeng.”

The black-robed Taoist, Zhang Yunfeng, stepped forward. “Uncle Master.”

“Take the Demon-Slaying Sword and investigate.”

“Yes.”

“We will accompany Daoist Zhang as well,” said the two agents who had arrived first, doffing their jackets.

Zhang Yunfeng slung the long sword across his back, gathered his energy, and transformed into a shadowy figure, shooting into the rain curtain.

The two agents exchanged a glance and also activated their techniques to follow.

After a few swift movements, the three vanished from sight.

…

The torrential rain showed no sign of relenting. Instead, after falling for a day and a night, it only grew more intense.

On the hillside, the entrance to the ancient tomb gaped open in the rain, like a monstrous maw leading to hell, suddenly emerging halfway up the slope as if waiting to devour the unwary.

At a certain moment, two figures dashed through the downpour and into the tomb.

Removing their raincoats, they revealed themselves as Bai Xian and Meng Dejun.

An hour earlier, the group in the small building had discussed their options and decided that Gu Xiaohan would stay behind to care for Professor Guan and the two patients, while Meng Dejun and Bai Xian would search for the others in the tomb.

Passing through the narrow entrance—barely wide enough for one person—they found water pooled on the stone corridor’s floor and a torn raincoat discarded nearby.

Meng Dejun’s face lit up. “Professor Ma really is here!”

Bai Xian shot him a glance, and he immediately fell silent. Her original plan was to come alone, but Gu Xiaohan, worried about her braving the rain by herself, insisted her boyfriend accompany her.

“If you’re coming, then keep quiet and stay behind me,” she said. With a slight motion of her hand, a two-meter-long iron spear appeared as if from nowhere.

Meng Dejun’s eyes widened, his mouth forming an “O.” Remembering Bai Xian’s words, he quickly covered his mouth with his hand.

“Let’s go.”

The two entered the burial chamber, one after the other.

Inside, the coffin had already been opened. The massive blackened lid of yellow cypress had been smashed open, leaving a gap half the width of a person.

Below, a charred, pitch-black corpse clad in gold and silver lay toppled on its back—presumably the tomb’s original owner.

“Who threw him out?” Meng Dejun whispered.

“Who else?” Bai Xian replied.

“P-Professor Ma!” Meng Dejun’s disbelief was plain on his face. Archaeologists, after all, came to protect relics, not to toss ancient corpses from their coffins.

Bai Xian offered no further explanation. Lightly, she leapt onto the coffin. Peering inside, she discovered a hidden passage, as tall as a person, beneath the coffin’s floor.

This must be where the “Wish Realm Jade” appeared in the sixth mural.

Fresh scraping marks lined the edge of the tunnel—it was clear someone had just descended.

Without hesitation, Bai Xian crouched and slipped into the passage.

Meng Dejun, seeing this, switched on his flashlight and followed, gritting his teeth.

The tunnel’s space wasn’t as cramped as he’d feared; they could move forward, half-bent at the waist.

“If only we were monkeys, this passage would be the perfect height,” Bai Xian thought suddenly.

After several hundred steps, the passage opened wide before them.

Beneath the tomb, a vast natural cavern stretched out, easily over ten meters high, three or four meters wide, and with no end in sight.

Meng Dejun, entering just behind, stared in astonishment. “What is this place?”

Bai Xian gave a cold laugh. “If I’m not mistaken, this is the real burial chamber of the tomb’s true master.”

“You mean the corpse above isn’t the king of the ancient kingdom?”

“We’ll know soon enough.”

They pressed onward. Signs of human excavation began to appear within the natural cave.

A stone stele and a half-open stone door came into view.

“This is... the Twin Gates, a Yin-Yang Tomb!” This time it was Meng Dejun, the archaeology graduate student, who spoke.

Seeing the confusion in Bai Xian’s eyes, he explained, “A Yin-Yang Tomb, also called a false or true tomb, has a ‘Yang’ tomb above and a ‘Yin’ tomb below. The doors, chambers, and coffins are aligned vertically, with the Yang energy covering the Yin, making it impossible for tomb robbers to find. The Guozhuang Chu Tomb in Guozhuang Village, Shangcai County, Henan, excavated years ago, is a real-life example.”

Bai Xian hadn’t expected such tombs to have real-world precedents. She approached the stone stele with graceful steps.

Perhaps because it had been protected underground, this stele was even more intact than the one above, its inscription remarkably clear. Yet the poem carved here was utterly different from the one on the surface.

Bai Xian’s lips parted as she recited:

“In the abyss of the Wish Realm, the demon jade lies concealed,
Its cold, ghostly light chills to the bone.
A thousand tormented souls wail upon it,
Ten thousand thoughts sunk in its depths.
A gentle touch brings not warmth but despair,
A careful ear hears not speech but lament.
To covet this jade, to seek to change one’s fate,
Is to fall into darkness, never to see the sky.
Within the jade is ghostly power,
Tempting mortals to abandon hope of return.
The heart is beset by demons with no way back;
Beneath the Wish Realm Jade, only the abyss remains.”

Though the two poems were structurally identical, their meanings stood in stark contrast. One claimed, “Within the jade is the power of heaven and earth, able to resolve all worldly hardships,” while the other warned, “Within the jade is ghostly power, luring mortals into endless depravity.” Which, then, told the true story of the Wish Realm Jade?

“Miss Bai, look—there are murals here, too!” Meng Dejun cried out from the stone doorway.

Bai Xian strode over. As above, there were six murals.

Painted in broad strokes of red pigment, they depicted a different story, picking up where the fifth mural above had ended.

In the first, refugees fleeing disaster unearthed a round jade disc from a jade bed. The disc could grant any dream—food, riches, beauty, all were theirs. With the jade, the refugees lived in happiness.

Had the story ended there, it would have been a true utopia, like that described in the “Peach Blossom Spring.”

But what followed grew increasingly bizarre.