With Li Gang, this walking dictionary, Yun Ye quickly figured out Yuan Shoucheng’s background. The old fellow was actually truly an immortal who could see the past and future, determine mountains and rivers, divide water veins, observe infants and know their quality, wander the clouds for a hundred days without knowing hunger or cold. His lifespan would reach eight hundred years, at which time there would be nationwide celebration.

“Wait, sir, hold on a moment. You’re saying he’s already lived eight hundred years?” Yun Ye hadn’t expected he’d have a day when he’d be shocked twice. Turtles only lived a thousand years, yet this old lecher had already lived eight hundred years? How many innocent good women must he have corrupted!

“That’s right. What’s the problem? The old man has already lived seven hundred twenty years. Even now his eyes aren’t deaf and his ears aren’t blurred. I hear he still has the interest to visit pleasure quarters. He’s about to reach that lifespan of eight hundred years—tsk tsk.”

When Scholar Li Gang mentioned Yuan Shoucheng visiting pleasure quarters, he got wildly excited, wishing he could take his place. He had little interest in women, but his interest in life cultivation was extremely strong.

Yun Ye’s eyes had already developed serious mosquito coil circles. Gritting his teeth, he asked one more question: “Sir, I heard Yuan Tiangang is Yuan Shoucheng’s clan nephew—is this true?”

“Absurd nonsense! Yuan Tiangang is the old sir’s biological son. As you know, Daoists don’t like saying ‘biological son,’ so they randomly assigned a title to make do. Everyone under heaven knows they’re father and son, not uncle and nephew. Why are you asking about this?” Li Gang finally noticed Yun Ye’s strange condition and couldn’t help but ask in return.

“This young man is just curious that his lifespan is so long—why would he compete with Old Scholar Yan over fate? This isn’t reasonable. At over six hundred sixty years old, he could still father a son—too miraculous!”

“What’s miraculous about it? Confucius’s father was already eighty years old when he was born. What’s strange about Elder Yuan fathering Yuan Tiangang? Oh, immortals’ lifespans are calculated differently from ours—sixty days count as one year for them. That’s how Pengzu calculated it too.”

Hearing these words, Yun Ye’s eyes immediately regained their clarity. There was a world of difference between an eight-hundred-year-old monster and a hundred-twenty-year-old elderly person.

“Calculating this way, not only has Old Scholar Yan’s lifespan long passed six hundred, but your lifespan has also passed five hundred years. Why don’t we hold a five-hundred-year birthday banquet for you at our Academy?”

Li Gang glanced sideways at Yun Ye and said slowly: “Old Scholar Yan couldn’t stand this kind of fame-seeking calculation method, which is why he disdained Elder Yuan Shoucheng’s practice. As you know, behind Elder Yuan is the enormous Daoist sect with hundreds of thousands of disciples and followers who need to eat based on his reputation. So this is unavoidable. He can do this, but this old man will pass—it’s not worth losing face over.”

Having obtained an answer about the lifespan question from Scholar Li Gang, as a persistent person, Yun Ye went to Wei Zheng’s home. If such a miraculous story about the old dragon of the Jing River was seriously distorted and dramatized, it would truly be unfair to later descendants. With an attitude of seeking truth and facts, he told this matter to Wei Zheng, who was recuperating at home.

“Complete nonsense! This old man is merely a scholar—where would I get dragon-slaying divine skills? There are dragons in the Jing River? Why doesn’t this old man know about it? Last time there were marketplace rumors that Sun Simiao treated the Dragon King of the Jing River’s illness and received twenty enormous pearls. Now this old man has slain the old dragon of the Jing River—why must I be confined to a sickbed?”

“You’ve been appointed Protector of Beiting, so you should devote all your thoughts to border affairs. How can you still have the mind to examine these tales of ghosts and spirits? From the day Zhao She received his command, he no longer concerned himself with family matters. Since you’ve already been commissioned as general, you should be loyal to the nation. How can you entrust future matters to ghosts and spirits?”

After taking a scolding, Yun Ye left Wei Zheng’s home. Yun Ye had now become perverted enough to let spittle dry on his face—this was a necessary cultivation for officials. Since someone had already raised the point, he should act like a Great General.

Xinyue led the whole family in welcoming their husband’s return from losing money. One by one they pounded shoulders and kneaded backs very attentively. When palace servants from Zhaoyang Palace delivered Yun Ye’s gold back home, Xinyue and the others’ expressions changed, thinking the Emperor wouldn’t accept the Yun family’s bribe. The whole household was covered in gloomy clouds.

“Give a smile, son. Right, just like that. Your mother and the others have gone crazy—we won’t pay them any attention. They’re still unhappy about winning gold—really!” Yun Ye picked up Yun Huan and had Yun Shou follow behind. He was getting old. In the past, he could carry a son on each shoulder, but now he could only carry one. Of course, Yun Shou was now as heavy as a weight and couldn’t be carried anymore.

The six-trigram chickens that looked like Heavenly Demonesses were not to be eaten. After raising them for four years, emotional attachment had developed. Whoever wanted to eat her chickens would have to fight her to the death. Those six chickens had solitary temperaments with very strong territorial consciousness. Last time Wang Cai wasn’t hiding from the Heavenly Demoness but from her six chickens. Only today when watching Wang Cai struggle with the six chickens did he understand what was happening.

Seeing Xiao Wu pulling rope in the room, Yun Ye thought of Di Renjie far beyond the frontier. He wondered if he and Cheng Chumo could properly complete the task the Emperor had assigned. Whether Blackstone Mountain could become a city depended on them.

Di Renjie hadn’t been idle either. The Sun Tomb had finally been opened by him. The one who actually worked to open it was Heifeng. Watching him grit his teeth and forcefully dig up his ancestors’ tomb, you could tell he now deeply hated being a Loulan person.

Since becoming tribal chief, the three words “Loulan person” had never again emerged from his mouth. Now his self-identification was as a Tang person of the Beiting Protectorate of the Great Tang. Although his eyeballs were a bit gray and his hair somewhat curly, and his appearance differed greatly from Tang people, Di Renjie was still very pleased. He told him that in ten years he could become a true Great Tang person. At that time, if he wished, he could live in Chang’an, do business—whatever he pleased.

After the last layer of timber was dragged open, an extremely large tomb chamber was revealed beneath. Black mist swirled inside, as if a demon god might truly appear. The expression on Heifeng’s face—whether joy or sorrow—was very vivid.

“Stand back a bit. This stuff is the so-called miasma gas, formed after trees and dead branches rot. If we throw a torch in, it will explode.” Di Renjie explained to Cheng Chumo and Xu Jingzong, who had come over to watch the excitement.

“Is the marsh gas we use at our Academy to cook pig feed in the same category as this stuff?” Xu Jingzong stuck out his head to look inside once, then immediately retreated.

“More or less—they’re the same nature of thing, but this stuff is more malicious.” After Di Renjie finished explaining to Xu Jingzong, he waved his hand. Four large men wearing pig snouts immediately connected a large bundle of bamboo tubes into one long one, installed a bellows backwards, and began pumping out that black fog. Before long, black mist began pouring out from the other end of the bamboo tube. A soldier nocked a fire arrow on his bowstring and shot it. The fire arrow flew over the tube’s mouth. With a thunderous sound, the bamboo tube began spouting fire—the blazing flames were a full three chi long.

Heifeng habitually started to kowtow but was pulled back by Di Renjie, who said to him quietly: “This isn’t any divine miracle. This is waste gas from the tomb burning. When the waste gas finishes burning clean, we’ll be able to get a good look at the Sun King’s true face.”

The waste gas burned for a full five days before gradually extinguishing. Soldiers then used the bellows to blow wind into the tomb. This process took another three days. Huang Shu, wearing a pig nose, was the first to go down. Half an hour later when he came up, he said just one sentence: “This damn Sun King deserves to be dug up. The situation below is too horrible to look at.”

Scholar Jinzhu and Di Renjie also donned pig snouts and prepared to go down. Heifeng earnestly requested to go down as well. Di Renjie nodded and permitted it. Huang Shu went first, Heifeng second, and Di Renjie walked last. Two strong crossbows were already strung and ready to fire at any moment.

After walking through just one tomb chamber, Scholar Jinzhu angrily wanted to go mad. Heifeng screamed miserably, turned, and ran. Di Renjie squinted his eyes and looked around. Such an environment couldn’t trouble him. Weren’t there just many dried corpses? Weren’t these dried corpses just children’s bodies? Weren’t these children just little girls? What was strange about that?

Iron chains around their necks, faces just somewhat contorted, throats torn open a bit from choking themselves due to suffocation—what was the big deal? Oh! Di Renjie finally began to feel nauseous. Under Huang Shu’s mocking gaze, he followed Scholar Jinzhu in frantic flight, running all the way outside in one breath and collapsing on a rock, vomiting until heaven and earth went dark.

Heifeng had truly gone mad, running wildly along the mountain slope with disheveled hair, able to say only one phrase: “God! God! My God!”

Di Renjie finally managed to stop vomiting and ordered soldiers to pull open all the surrounding timber. He planned to expose all the darkness of this ignorant age completely to the light of day.

As early as before the second century CE, Loulan had been a famous “walled city-state” in the Western Regions. It connected eastward to Dunhuang and northwest to Yanqi and Weili, southwest to Ruoqiang and Qiemo. The two routes of the ancient “Silk Road” diverged from Loulan, making it an important gathering place for merchants and travelers. Prosperous commerce made this country wealthy. Countless civilizations converged here, creating the unique culture of the Loulan people. But a part of it seemed to have gone astray. The King of Loulan intended to still enjoy glory and wealth after death and was incomparably attached to his subjects. So when dying, he planned to take his subjects with him. Because the tomb couldn’t be dug larger and couldn’t fit everyone, he told his remaining subjects that he would return.

“Offending the Sun King will bring the most terrible punishment. Black storms will descend from heaven and bury everyone under black sand. The Sand Demon King will devour your eyes, your hair, every inch of your flesh. He will also extract your soul and bind it to a pillar to be scorched daily. No matter how you wail or plead, it will be useless.”

This was the Sun King’s method of intimidating his descendants. Whether he wanted to conceal his crimes or truly intended to return, in any case his lies had stretched across this land for a full eight hundred years.

The Loulan people were terrified. Their ancestors’ brutality made them abandon them in the first instance. Buried with him were not just girls but also boys. The male children holding ceramic basins were all crying before they died…