Just as the thought of suicide flashed through Feng Huan’s mind, he suddenly noticed that footsteps were sounding again.
This time the footsteps were different from before—no longer intermittent, but heavy and loud, as if they were right overhead.
The moment this thought crossed his mind, the next second came a thunderous crash, as if the entire sky was collapsing.
Feng Huan looked up in amazement to see the dome above, magnificent as a palace’s coffered ceiling, beginning to crack from the center. The fissures spread like lightning in all directions. From one crack squeezed countless black, densely packed rats, surging out in ever-increasing numbers—far more spectacular than the earlier insect coffin. Another fissure was filled with countless small snakes coiling and writhing, tumbling and seething like a boiling pot. Feng Huan felt his skin crawl at one glance and quickly looked away. Another crack was relatively clean, revealing a section of pale belly that twisted and turned, with faintly visible colorful patterns. Yet another crack showed only a massive steel-like tail, whip-like, lashing against the crack’s edges. Under the pressure of these snakes, insects, rats, and ants, the dome’s fissures widened further, and dust and rubble showered down. Feng Huan stared dumbfounded, momentarily forgetting to dodge, when suddenly a hand reached over, grabbed him, and swept him toward a corner, avoiding a large stone that suddenly fell. When Feng Huan turned back, he was even more shocked than when the dome had cracked—the one who had grabbed him was Mu Si, whom he thought had long been poisoned to death.
Not only Mu Si, but the black-clothed men and guards who had entered the tomb together were also getting up and retreating to the wall corners to take shelter. Feng Huan stared at them in stupefaction, then turned to look at Li Yuncheng, who had dodged to the opposite side. Li Yuncheng lightly pursed his lips through the dust and said, “This is the second point I didn’t mention earlier.”
Second, he felt these guards and tomb-robbing experts had died too easily.
He didn’t believe they were completely unprepared… didn’t believe that since the Imperial Crown Princess had sent them to rob graves and dig up corpses, she would have given no consideration at all to the possible poisons and traps in the Prince of Yannan’s tomb.
So this was indeed one of the reasons he hadn’t stopped Feng Huan, though he wasn’t completely without anxiety. It was just that following the Imperial Crown Princess all this way, he had seen clearly through many things and might as well gamble boldly. Now the facts proved he had bet correctly.
Feng Huan looked up at the overhead cracks being constantly enlarged by these venomous creatures, but how had the fissures started in the first place?
Until another thunderous crash came from above.
As if celestial beings were stamping their feet overhead, the entire mausoleum was trembling.
Indeed, someone was stamping their feet.
With a crack, the center of the dome suddenly shattered completely. The entire tomb chamber shook, and the connected deep cracks also split wide open. In the center of the crumbling dome, a pair of hemp shoes briefly flashed.
Then those snakes, insects, rats, and ants came tumbling down. Even worse, this foot-stamping had the power of heaven and earth—half the tomb chamber’s floor also collapsed. One collapse happened to be right under Feng Huan’s feet. The ground suddenly gave way beneath him, and at this moment Mu Si was looking up calling for everyone to take advantage of the overhead collapse to exit the tomb chamber, not paying attention to him. Feng Huan slid down with a whoosh. Originally he hadn’t thought much of it—below the tomb chamber would just be ground, right? But from the corner of his eye, he discovered there was actually another layer beneath the tomb chamber—a huge pool with half-black, half-white thick liquid flowing in it, glowing with an eerie blue light. Vaguely there were also many white objects floating in it. Even though he couldn’t see clearly in that instant, it instinctively made one feel uneasy and disturbed.
Feng Huan’s heart went cold as he desperately clawed at anything he could grab on the ground, thinking: could it be that he was fated to be connected with this royal tomb? Having escaped being suffocated to death, would he still end up sleeping here forever with the old Prince of Yannan?
The next moment he suddenly grabbed onto something.
Not very soft, but somewhat warm.
Feng Huan froze, his body hanging in mid-air, but his fingers inexplicably rubbed against what he had grabbed. It was a bit rough, and this momentary sensation struck like lightning.
He suddenly remembered a dewy morning in the Mei clan’s deep valley, when he was sleeping shirtless and snoring, and a pair of hands picked up a blanket to cover him. The hard calluses on the fingers brushed against his chin. He turned over and pulled those slightly rough hands into his embrace, lazily saying, “A’Ji, keep me company and sleep a bit more.”
Or perhaps it was a night when the moon was bright and stars sparse, when he was bathing in a small stream and that woman sat by the stream mending clothes, with two pig-dragons squatting on either side like door gods. He would point to his back and say, “A’Ji, come scrub my back. Your hands are rough—they’re most comfortable for scratching itches.” That woman would put down her sewing and come over to slap his back with her palm.
These trivial matters from the past that he had never taken to heart, thinking he had long forgotten—yet today in this tomb, with just that light touch, he knew whose hand it was. He even knew that the callus at the base of the index finger was thinner than those under the other fingers.
These thoughts flashed by in an instant. That hand exerted slight force and pulled Feng Huan up. Someone took over from that hand and tossed Feng Huan upward. He felt dizzy and disoriented, then the next moment fell into a pile of soft things. The sensation was incredibly familiar—in the past he would have screamed and fainted, but after the training with the Mei clan, his tolerance had improved considerably. He quickly rolled away from that pile of snakes, insects, rats, and ants, and someone else pulled him up with a sneer: “Useless trash belonging to A’Ji!”
Then he was thrown out again, tossed to another person, who pushed him away with a tender but irritated voice: “Stinking man who betrayed Sister A’Ji, what are you doing here!”
Poor Feng Huan, dizzy and confused, staggered from the push and bumped into someone else. This person grabbed his collar and unceremoniously hurled him away: “Get lost! Ungrateful wretch!”
Feng Huan whooshed out again like a balloon being pushed and thrown around by this group of people. Li Yuncheng, who had climbed up nearby, watched in amazement. When had Feng Huan offended so many people?
Someone pushed Feng Huan again, and this time he fell into an embrace with a familiar scent—unclear whether it was floral or herbal fragrance, very clean. Feng Huan had often wondered how someone who dealt with venomous creatures all day long never carried those fishy, foul odors. He didn’t know that every night after finishing with those foul-smelling poisonous herbs and insects, that girl would soak in medicinal herbs for a full hour until her skin wrinkled and her whole body shivered.
Feng Huan prepared to be pushed out faster and more ruthlessly.
He was indeed pushed out, but this time he quickly steadied himself—someone supported him. He looked up to see Mu Si, then turned back to see A’Ji had already turned and walked into the crowd.
From behind, she seemed much thinner.
Only now did Feng Huan have time to observe his surroundings, and he was shocked to discover this was actually the mountaintop where they had descended. Now the mountaintop was completely transformed—on the ground was a pit several times larger than the hole they had dug before, with broken trees and scattered grass flying about. The entire mountaintop had been almost leveled. Around the perimeter stood many Mei clan members, men, women, old and young, each calmly tending to the venomous pets on their shoulders. In the distance stood that uncle of the entire Mei clan with his clear, beautiful features that were somewhat androgynous, still holding a comb to groom his water-like long hair, with a mantis like an orchid on his snow-white fingers resembling an exquisite ring.
Feng Huan’s gaze fell on the hemp shoes beneath his wide robes, with some dust on the shoe uppers.
It was these shoes that had just stepped through the mountaintop with one foot, forcibly shattering the dome of the royal tomb’s main chamber, allowing them to break through the top and escape even after the dragon-breaking stone had fallen.
Only now did Feng Huan and Li Yuncheng understand where the Imperial Crown Princess’s backup plan lay.
The suffering with the Mei clan couldn’t be endured for nothing—having come, they naturally had to do business. Few people knew that the Mei clan had participated in the design of the Prince of Yannan’s tomb. The poisonous rivers and insect coffins inside were all crafted by Mei clan members, so this trap wasn’t surprising. For the Mei clan people, a royal tomb full of venomous creatures everywhere wasn’t a difficult matter. Tie Ci had heard before that the construction of the Prince of Yannan’s tomb not only involved skilled craftsmen but also incorporated some poison and curse techniques that only local Yannan people excelled at. Later, seeing that the Mei clan had an alliance with the You father and son, she could naturally guess that the Mei clan had participated in the tomb’s construction, so this was also one of her cooperation projects with Duanmu.
The cooperation between the You father and son and the Mei clan was secret, but they hadn’t eliminated all traces. On one hand, the Mei clan’s poison skills were powerful and their dwelling was hidden and difficult to access, making them hard to deal with completely. On the other hand, the You father and son deeply understood Duanmu’s power and his solemn oaths. The You father and son had once done Duanmu a favor and believed this former number one person in the world would not betray his oath.
But who could know where Duanmu’s inner obsession lay, strong enough to make him break his oath for it.
Mu Si looked at that hemp-clothed man, his eyes full of wariness. He had seen this person’s miraculous abilities to freeze rivers and boil seas, walking on ice rivers. When he had previously gone to contact this person in the Mei clan according to Tie Ci’s instructions, he hadn’t dared hope to summon this seemingly gentle but actually temperamental master with just a call. But Tie Ci had casually handed him a letter at the time, saying lightly that he should just take the letter.
Mu Si glanced at the letter envelope and wanted to spit at her. Against that monster, even the Imperial Crown Princess’s personal letter might not be useful—what use could a family letter written by that little Pingzong girl have?
Not to mention Pingzong’s handwriting was extremely ugly, the kind that made one feel irritated just looking at it. Was Tie Ci really sure that Duanmu wouldn’t fly into a rage upon seeing it and kill the messenger first?
But Mu Si didn’t dare spit. If this matter got back to Liaodong, it would probably shock those subordinates speechless—was there really something Mu Si didn’t dare do? Didn’t he even dare bully the heir apparent?
Honestly, Mu Si really dared spit at Murong Yi, but absolutely didn’t dare spit at Tie Ci.
Spitting at Murong Yi would just mean being bullied back next time, but spitting at Tie Ci—Mu Si was certain that would be the end of his and Murong Yi’s brotherly bond for life.
He had no choice but to take the letter to the Mei clan. On the way, he had secretly read the letter. That so-called great master Pingzong wrote letters worse than a three-year-old child, rambling incoherently from “Grandfather has been going to the back more often recently” to “Grandmother’s rouge smells so nice” to “the strange person in the old monster’s room fought with me and taught me how to harmonize ice and fire energy” to “discovered that Little Bug seems to have caught the eye of some sister in Little Aunt’s room”… It made Mu Si dizzy and confused, not understanding a word.
He read it over and over, really not understanding why such a rambling family letter should be shown to Duanmu. What point could possibly move this old monster that no one could defeat?
But since the master had given the order, it had to be done. Mu Si went to the valley bottom with a death wish to request an audience. Following Murong Yi’s instructions, he placed the letter before the stone wall, and following Tie Ci’s instructions, he shouted at the stone wall: “Uncle, you didn’t believe the previous words, but now the proof has come. Since I can provide proof, you should fulfill your promise.”
After saying this inexplicable sentence, he left to continue his journey.
Actually, Mu Si hadn’t dared hope he could invite anyone, but in fact the Mei clan came, and that mysterious master came personally too.
Mu Si was here pondering and speculating whether the letter had hidden layers or secret codes. He would never have imagined that the letter was just a letter. Pingzong, following Tie Ci’s requirements, would discreetly report on palace conditions every so often, and the free-writing Pingzong always loved to write about that guy living in the Empress Dowager’s palace, always wrapped in black robes, afraid of light but actually loving sunshine.
Writing about him was enough.
At the foot of the mountain, whistling arrows sounded. The stationed troops below were startled by this earth-shaking commotion and came rushing up the mountain from all directions.
But obviously, the Mei clan didn’t like fighting and quickly retreated deep into the mountains—those riding snakes, riding pigs, riding wolves fled in a chaotic stampede like demons dancing wildly.
Duanmu’s figure flickered and disappeared. Feng Huan was swept along in the crowd, stumbling and climbing the mountain path. From time to time he turned back to look at the figure walking at the rear. A’Ji never looked at him. Under daylight, facing each other directly, Feng Huan discovered A’Ji had indeed become much thinner—even her cheekbones protruded prominently, with heavy dark shadows under her eyes like two smears of ink.
Feng Huan’s footsteps completely stopped moving.
Author’s Note:
Happy New Year to everyone.
This is my last saved chapter, coinciding perfectly with New Year’s Eve. I’ve been very busy during this period with a series of matters—long-distance travel, celebrating New Year away from home, receiving a new house and handling various utilities procedures, taking care of children during the holidays, and other matters to handle. After the New Year I still need to travel back, attend meetings, and the newly bought school district house’s fine decoration turned out terrible and needs redoing… Calculating everything from mid-January to the end of February, I don’t have much time to write, and I can’t guarantee stable updates. So I’m asking for leave here in advance. I’ll definitely stop updating during the New Year period. How long the hiatus will be afterward and when updates will resume, I don’t know myself right now. It depends on my time and energy—I’ll update when I can write. So everyone please be understanding during this period. Check in when you have time—if there’s an update, enjoy reading it; if not, please don’t scold me.
In my dozen-plus years of serialization, I’ve almost never had large-scale hiatuses, especially this year when this book originally had unprecedentedly thick saved chapters. This situation shouldn’t have happened, but plans can’t keep up with changes. Various troubles at the end of last year left me in a disturbed state of mind, and I didn’t write for over twenty days, exhausting my last reserves.
Middle-aged people with elderly parents and young children have too many matters to attend to. Writing has gradually become a very luxurious thing.
Thank you all for your understanding. Bowing. Once again, I wish everyone a happy New Year and good fortune in the Year of the Tiger.