“Is this easy?”
Feng Miaojun stroked the carving with her hand. “Ordinary people naturally wouldn’t notice anything unusual, but in the eyes of experts, this set of carvings is highly problematic. Someone like Zhao Yun, who did thorough research, could eventually open the stone platform.” She paused, then continued, “You see how we were able to open it by tapping the bloodstained positions in a certain sequence, though we had Zhao Yun’s hints. But if what the King of Yan wanted was right here, obtaining it seems too easy.”
Yu Haizhen remained silent for a moment, then said, “Regardless, you’ve obtained what you wanted most.”
Feng Miaojun’s lips curved slightly. “Including this one, we now have three marks to research.” As she said this, she suddenly recalled something Yun Ya had once told her.
Although he couldn’t identify the true meaning of the Ao Fish inscription, he had firmly asserted that it was neither a curse nor a seal.
Now she knew that Yun Ya had already seen this mark on the stone wall.
So, was this mark a curse or a seal? If so, why did the Celestial Deity place it here? What was it meant to curse or seal?
As she pondered this, Yu Haizhen’s toe traced a couple of lines on the ground, pushing aside some fallen leaves. “There’s a hole here.”
Feng Miaojun looked down and indeed saw a round hole in the ground, about the width of a small wine cup’s bottom, with edges polished extremely smooth. They hadn’t noticed it earlier because the hole was tightly plugged with a circular stone, and thick leaves covered the ground. Had it not been for Yu Haizhen’s excellent eyesight, probably no one would have noticed it.
Feng Miaojun carefully removed the stone plug and discovered that the hole was less than two inches deep before reaching the bottom, with a tiny bit of accumulated water.
“Purpose unknown,” she looked at the round hole, then at the deity statue. It was located thirteen feet directly in front of the stone platform. There didn’t seem to be anything special about it.
The night passed uneventfully.
The next morning, the local official personally led a team of several hundred people to receive the Queen. Feng Miaojun ordered him to carefully make a rubbing of the mark on the wall, then began searching the library in the palace city.
The area was too vast, so they could only complete this task using a massive number of people.
Two months later, the search of the Haoli library was finally completed. There were still one or two mechanisms in the library that treasure hunters hadn’t discovered, which were now brought to light. As a result, New Xia still collected quite a few materials from the previous dynasty, including ancient secret histories.
Feng Miaojun was somewhat troubled that there were no clues about the Celestial Deity’s mark among them. However, her search unexpectedly yielded some fragmented records from the pile of old papers.
These were snippets about the Celestial Demons.
The Haoli Empire had people specifically compiling internal histories, recording court secrets unknown to the public, called the Taboo Records. This book was edited and compiled once every ten years, accumulating a substantial volume over a thousand years. Unfortunately, after Yingshui City fell, these books, like others, were either looted or burned. Today, only a few scattered volumes remained, riddled with wormholes and in terrible condition, having lost their value for theft, which is why they were left behind.
After this search, specialists collected them and presented them to Feng Miaojun.
The contents were chaotic, but several entries mentioned that during the reigns of successive emperors, although the Celestial Demons had been sealed, they had many followers in the human world. Many humans, even cultivators, and demon beasts were bewitched by them, standing up to oppose the royal authority, seeking the location of the Celestial Demons’ seal, and researching ways to free them.
The Haoli Empire naturally had zero tolerance for such behavior, eradicating them whenever they were discovered. From the remnant pages of the Taboo Records, Feng Miaojun learned that in just one year—the 579th year of the Haoli calendar—the empire captured and eliminated followers of the Celestial Demons, beheading over seven thousand people. Their leader was even given the treatment of having his head hung in Yingshui City for three days.
If the followers of the Celestial Demons hadn’t become a malignant tumor, the Haoli Empire wouldn’t have treated them as such a great threat, even employing such high-profile methods to deter them.
The Taboo Records clearly stated that although the Celestial Demons were sealed in a location unknown to anyone, they had always been restlessly plotting, even bewitching people through various means to release them. Despite employing multiple methods, the Haoli Empire could never completely eradicate this problem.
The Taboo Records also documented that some emperors had explicitly pointed out that as the world’s spiritual energy declined, the seals placed on the Celestial Demons grew increasingly weak. This was one of the important reasons why the number of Celestial Demon followers increased during the later period of the Haoli Empire’s rule.
Only by finding new methods could they continue to suppress the Celestial Demons. Otherwise, once they broke through their seals, in a world without deities, no one could stand against them.
Perhaps this was the prelude to the Celestial Demon invasion in later generations.
The materials were incomplete after all. Feng Miaojun ordered people to continue collecting them, but they were merely a few ripples in the vast sea of history.
She had a premonition that deeper darkness lurked within history.
Just like her final glance back as she left Yingshui City, she always felt that a huge secret remained buried in this ancient and decayed city, one she couldn’t uncover.
Good days always pass quickly. In the blink of an eye, three years had gone by.
The Northern and Southern Continents were peaceful, not only free from war, but even the heavens were kind—not a single large-scale natural disaster occurred.
But then came news that shook all nations—the ruler of Pu Kingdom had passed away.
The Pu Kingdom was located in the north-central part of the Southern Continent, bordering both the Taoyuan Territory and Yan Kingdom. The King of Yan had marched west, conquering many small nations along the way, finally annexing Xi Kingdom, but had never moved against Pu Kingdom.
Those in the know, like Feng Miaojun, understood that Pu Kingdom’s Ji vessel wasn’t a fragment of the Realm Deity’s altar, so the King of Yan didn’t want to expend effort attacking it.
But now, the situation has changed.
The ruler had no heir; his last son had died in the capital of Yan. In his final years, he had failed to leave behind any royal bloodline. Thus, even before the funeral ended, the entire nation had already fallen apart.
Various forces, big and small, refused to submit to one another, immediately engaging in combat, marking the beginning of a civil war.
Pu Kingdom had originally been one of the strongest nations on the continent, performing impressively in its battle against Yan Kingdom. Its wealth was also considerable, especially with several spirit stone mines within its borders, containing abundant reserves.
Of course, watching Pu Kingdom continue to fragment meant leaving an unstable factor in his rear, so the King of Yan took action.
His strategy was simple: select the most obedient faction, provide financial and military support, and once it eliminated other forces, Yan would appoint its leader as a vassal king.
Yan Kingdom didn’t directly deploy troops, still wary of the Wei Kingdom in the Northern Continent, fearing it might exploit the situation. But Wei Kingdom clearly understood his intentions and wouldn’t stand idly by. Xiao Yan followed suit, also choosing to strongly support two warlords within Pu Kingdom’s borders.
Following Xi’s Kingdom, the two great powers once again used someone else’s territory as a chessboard to determine superiority.
Due to external interference, the Pu Kingdom’s civil war went into overtime, lasting a full three years before finally ending according to the King of Yan’s intentions.