Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 108: Life or Death

The moment Cen Ling saw that face clearly, his smile faded.

He casually stepped back half a pace. “Seems he’s not one of ours.”

With that, he pointed. A flash of green light sliced through the air. “Fang Xiu’s” right arm was blown clean off in a spray of blood and shredded flesh. The imposter let out a hoarse scream and fell to his knees.

Cen Ling sniffed lightly. “Smells pretty fresh.”

He strode forward, intending to capture the man and see what he was. But just as he stepped under the dangling “hand decorations”, the dried corpses’ hands suddenly elongated and lashed out at him.

Quick as lightning, Bai Sui clapped his hands at his chest, triggering a burst of golden light around Cen Ling. The spectral hands were kept at bay, but the gusts of foul wind roared in the tight space. Cen Ling’s lantern fell, and as it rolled, its light rapidly died out.

For several seconds, the entire area was engulfed in absolute darkness.

Then crimson ghost flame ignited. This time, however, it wasn’t Fang Xiu who lit it, but Bai Shuangying. He wore a grave expression and held the limp Fang Xiu in his arms, looking deeply unsettled.

In the darkness, Fang Xiu had fainted without warning.

His body had gone completely limp, like a sack of cloth, slumped against Bai Shuangying. His breathing was so faint it was barely there. His pulse was incredibly slow, like someone in deep, unnatural sleep.

The imposter on the other side had vanished, leaving behind only a long blood trail down the damp tomb corridor, as if he had been dragged away.

Bai Shuangying carefully laid Fang Xiu flat on the ground.

The little black dog looked on in confusion, sniffing at Fang Xiu’s body helplessly.

Mei Lan rushed forward, pouring sacred dew water on Fang Xiu. His hair was soaked through, but his body didn’t react at all. It didn’t appear to be a curse.

She pressed her lips together, visibly distressed, clutching her own arms. Guan He almost called out Fang Xiu’s name but stopped himself just in time.

“I’ll take a look,” Cen Ling offered, stepping forward. Just as he was about to grab Fang Xiu’s wrist, he was stopped dead in his tracks by Bai Shuangying’s cold glare.

That glare held no ambiguity. It wasn’t just about hostility, it was contempt. Like a tiger warning off a scavenging dog. Not metaphorically, but fundamentally.

It was the look of someone viewing another as utterly beneath them.

Cen Ling hesitated, then smiled as if nothing had happened. “Well, this is our holy land, after all. I’ll just check to see if it’s one of our sect’s spells.”

“If it is, I’ll undo it. If not, that thing we saw flee might really be tied to the Grave-Sealing E, and we’ll track it.”

Only then did Bai Shuangying shift his gaze away, still watching Cen Ling’s hands intently.

Cen Ling boldly took Fang Xiu’s pulse, then lifted his eyelids. His expression grew heavier as he worked.

Bai Sui: “Cen Ge, what is it?”

“The Grave-Sealing E,” Cen Ling said bluntly. “His soul has curled up inward, unresponsive to the outside. Like a living corpse… He must’ve triggered a taboo.”

Guan He frowned deeply. “Isn’t this your sect’s doing? How come you don’t even know?”

“You don’t know the difference between an E and an Immortal E? What kind of Disaster Resolver are you?” Bai Sui snapped back. “E’s are brainless. They release taboos indiscriminately. But Immortal E’s are like magic weapons. There’s always someone behind them… How dangerous they are depends on the wielder.”

“We don’t know what we’re dealing with, so how are we supposed to explain it?”

Cen Ling raised a hand to calm him. “We should have some basic knowledge about the Grave-Sealing E, yes, but…”

He paused, a hint of sadness crossing his face.

“When our sect was taken down, most of the higher-ups were either jailed or killed. I was too young at the time and never got access to the key information.”

Guan He’s facial muscles twitched. From the way Cen Ling spoke, it sounded like they’d been tragically persecuted. But at least now he understood the situation…

The “holy land” had been sealed off by the government. The Guishan Sect had since abandoned it. No matter how powerful they once were, they couldn’t withstand the combined efforts of official cultivators and the authorities.

This site was essentially a construction project frozen for over a decade, and even the sect didn’t fully remember the details anymore.

The good news: they weren’t at an information disadvantage compared to these cultists. The bad news: without Fang Xiu, handling the Grave-Sealing E would be far harder.

Cheng Songyun caught the real issue. “You said someone’s behind it… There’s someone in the tomb?”

“Not necessarily a person. It could be an evil spirit.” Cen Ling let go of Fang Xiu’s wrist and stood up. “We need to find a base quickly. You all—”

He stopped mid-sentence. Bai Shuangying had silently lifted Fang Xiu into his arms and was walking into the darkness, without even lighting a single ghost flame.

“Brother* Bai, don’t go off alone!” Cen Ling called out.

*He’s using [Xiong] (兄). It’s a term of address men use to call their close friends or comrades. Often used in sects and between different sects.

“Going with you would be pointless,” Bai Shuangying replied without looking back.

Cheng Songyun gasped. After a brief pause, she called out, “If we stay together, we can help look after him! He can’t move on his own. What if something happens?”

Bai Shuangying paused.

Normally, he would’ve scoffed at such a comment. With him around, Fang Xiu didn’t need anyone else. These mortals weren’t worth much.

…But “not worth much” wasn’t the same as “worthless”.

After a long silence, Bai Shuangying turned around and walked back to the group with a stony expression.

Cen Ling was speaking to Mei Lan about something, but Bai Shuangying didn’t hear a word. He just looked down at Fang Xiu.

In this state, Fang Xiu’s soul was curled up, inert. There were no emotional fluctuations, no response. Even if Bai Shuangying kissed him, not a wisp of energy would escape.

But that wasn’t the main problem.

Usually, even in sleep, Fang Xiu had a faint smile on his lips, as if he was hiding some quiet satisfaction. But now, his face was blank, indistinguishable from the dead.

His body temperature had even dropped. Bai Shuangying could endure hunger, but he hated seeing Fang Xiu like this, half-dead.

He rarely felt strongly about these rituals, but now he decided: he hated the Grave-Sealing E.

……

His throat burned. It was as if sandpaper had scraped through it and his tongue felt like it was on fire.

Fang Xiu slowly opened his eyes. His vision cleared, but everything looked slightly blurry. His right arm ached dully. His mouth tasted foul, and the air reeked of blood and rot, like he’d just clawed his way out of a corpse pile.

Before he could fully process that, he hit the ground. His nose slammed into stone, adding insult to injury.

…What the hell?

He lifted his hands. Only his left arm showed up. It was dirty, and the cuff soaked in some unknown grime, the fingernails caked with mud.

…No way.

That “guy” who ran up asking for help looked exactly just like him. His right arm had been blown off by Cen Ling… and now Fang Xiu’s was missing too, blood still dripping from the wound.

Fang Xiu: “…”

He must be cursed. Out of everyone there, the weird thing targeted him.

He struggled to sit up and leaned against a wall.

He tore off a piece of cloth to bite down on, lit a ghost flame with his left hand, and seared the wound shut. He didn’t know what this body was anymore, but dying here wasn’t an option.

The flame hissed as it touched flesh. The air filled with the smell of burning meat. Pain wrung sweat from his body, but at least it meant the body was alive.

Once the bleeding slowed, he stumbled away from the scene. The stench and light might attract things he didn’t want to meet.

From waking to treating himself to hiding, the whole process took under ten minutes.

Darkness pressed in like a burial shroud. All he could hear was his own breathing.

He walked a long way without seeing any doors. The space was large, not open-air. The floor was tiled with intricate patterns, probably the outer edge of a round chamber. Please don’t be a boss room, he silently prayed.

Then the smell got worse.

Wet rot and medicinal decay thickened the air. He pushed forward anyway, hoping his sense of smell would adapt. Eventually, when his nerves were stretched to the limit, something appeared in front of him…

A stone coffin with its lid open.

A white garment lay draped over the edge, and the stench here was overwhelming.

It looked exactly like one of those horror movie scenes where a character is just asking to die, like a mousetrap waiting for an oblivious side character.

His first instinct was to retreat and ask Bai Shuangying’s opinion. Then it hit him. Bai Shuangying wasn’t here. That realization sobered his pain-clouded brain like a splash of ice water.

So that was it. It wasn’t just his sense of smell that had gone numb, his heart had too.

His actions up to this point had been instinctive. He was too used to having his ghost at his side that he hadn’t realized they’d been separated.

But he couldn’t seek Bai Shuangying out like this. Just look at Cen Ling’s attitude. Next time they meet, he might lose his head instead of just an arm.

He stood by the coffin and tasted solitude once more.

He could feel phantom pain from the missing limb. But losing Bai Shuangying… that pain had no clear source. It twisted his soul.

It was always easier to go from poverty to luxury than the other way around.

Still, he had only one option.

After a moment, he crept toward the coffin. His left hand was ready to strike with ghost flame at any sign of danger.

As he neared it, the “white garment” revealed its true form…

A pale human skin.

Half of it hung over the coffin edge; the rest was submerged in liquid. Judging from the chest and general smoothness, it had once belonged to a young man. The back had split open, but the limbs were intact.

The liquid inside the coffin was surprisingly clear, with a jade-like tint. Through it, the skin was clearly visible, and it was the only thing inside.

Fang Xiu exhaled and leaned over the stinking coffin, using the surface as a mirror.

The reflection showed his own face still smeared with some egg-white-like fluid. He grimaced. Everything else matched: hair, hand shape… aside from the right arm. If not for his memories, he might have believed this was his original body.

And then…the teeth. Fang Xiu opened his mouth to check the reflection.

And got the second cold splash of the day: his tongue was gone.

To be precise, rather than “gone”, it was replaced. Where his tongue should have been, a dark red jade cicada lay nestled. It emitted faint yin energy and had fused with his tongue root. At first glance, it looked just like a normal tongue.

…The Grave-Sealing E?!

He instinctively reached up and gently pinched the jade cicada.

The moment he pulled, darkness overwhelmed him. His heart lurched wildly. His organs felt like they were rotting on the spot. His mind went blank.

His body went ice-cold. Blood, or something like it, flowed from his nose. For a few seconds, death crushed down like a mountain.

When he let go, the cicada returned to place and everything returned to normal.

Fang Xiu: “…”

He suddenly remembered a conversation from before the ritual started.

“So you know what the Grave-Sealing E looks like, but not what it does?”

Back then, he had asked Mei Lan curiously.

“Yes. I only heard a bit of legend,” she had whispered. “With it present, no tomb raider leaves alive. It can summon powerful guardian beasts to wipe out all intruders.”

“But that’s just folklore. You can’t take it all seriously.”

Fang Xiu: “Right. If it’s really like that, it shouldn’t leave the tomb at all.”

Whoever touched it was said to die. It wasn’t like the thing had legs and walked out on its own.

As for the “summon powerful guardian beasts” part, that had seemed more plausible. A tiny item like that probably couldn’t chase tomb raiders around. But it could probably emit enough yin energy to draw in powerful spirits.

He didn’t like speculating. His guesses had been shallow. But now, it was clear… He had been very wrong.

Disaster Resolvers either recovered the Grave-Sealing E or destroyed it. And the moment it left him, he would die.

He didn’t know what had happened to his original body, but even if it was intact, reuniting with it might not be possible.

Until he found a solution, he had to protect the Grave-Sealing E at all costs.

“So it really did summon a guardian beast.” 

Fang Xiu looked at his remaining left hand and let out a bitter laugh.

“…And it actually picked me as its wielder.”

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The author has something to say:

This round’s a duel of worthy opponents (?

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