Author: 哔哔 (Bi Bi) / Jin Gang Quan
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 90
It was like ghost hands reaching up from hell. The moment Feng Tianzong felt someone tug on the rope, several more hands shot out from nearby coffins, grabbed the rope, and yanked downward.
Everyone on the stone platform sensed something was wrong. Huo Fenghua shouted, “Pull him up!”
Shao Feijie and Su Zeyang seized the rope and heaved together, trying to haul Feng Tianzong back up. But by then seven or eight hands had already latched onto the rope. Beneath those pale hands and arms were bodies swollen from soaking in the liquid. Their flesh still hadn’t rotted away. The dead that had crawled out of the coffins all gripped the rope and dragged it down, and some even hung directly from it.
The force nearly pulled Shao Feijie and Su Zeyang off the platform. Before Huo Fenghua and Wen Heyi could rush over to help, Shao Feijie made a snap decision and yelled, “Let go!”
He released the rope. Only Su Zeyang kept hold. At the same time, the tremendous force tore the rope free from the stone it was tied to and dragged it toward the bottom of the cavern.
Su Zeyang still didn’t let go. Gripping the rope, he followed that force and jumped down into the cavern, which was dozens of zhang deep.
“Senior Brother!” Huo Fenghua instinctively reached for him, but Su Zeyang was already gone. He landed lightly by stepping on top of a corpse’s head, rolled, and came down behind Feng Tianzong. With one slash, he cut apart an arm reaching for Feng Tianzong from behind.
Feng Tianzong drew his whip. He looked at the corpses crawling out of the coffins beside them, struggling to climb onto the lid of the central coffin, and he hesitated. He knew they were dead, with no sensation and no pain. But they all bore the Feng surname. They were ancestors of the Feng clan. He couldn’t bring himself to lash them without thought and desecrate his forebears.
Su Zeyang moved in front of him, struck a corpse on the forehead with his scabbard to knock it back, and told Feng Tianzong, “Open the coffin.”
Feng Tianzong nodded. The two of them jumped onto the lid of a nearby coffin at the same time, pressing the emerging corpse back down. Feng Tianzong kicked the heavy lid but only managed to knock it open by a narrow slit.
Then the lid began to slide open on its own, inch by inch.
On the stone platform above, Shao Feijie was sweating. His face was full of disbelief. “What is going on?”
Huo Fenghua’s breathing quickened. “It has to be Bai Huan messing with us!” He crouched at the edge of the platform, straining to look down, trying to find where Bai Huan was hiding. But the center was packed with coffins, and the liquid had risen all the way up to the level of the coffin lids. Where could anyone hide?
Then it hit him. He looked toward the edge of the coffin cluster. Many stone figures stood there. Their footing was slightly higher, and their feet weren’t soaked in the liquid. Bai Huan was very likely hiding among them!
Once he understood the situation, Huo Fenghua sprang up, ready to jump down without hesitation, but suddenly someone grabbed his arm from behind.
He thought it was Shao Feijie. He turned, about to speak, and realized it was Wen Heyi.
Wen Heyi looked at him and shook his head.
Huo Fenghua blurted out, “Yi’er, let go of me.”
Wen Heyi didn’t get angry. He only said, “It’s too dangerous.”
Huo Fenghua said, “You know it. If they die, I can’t live on either.”
Wen Heyi looked at him, sighed heavily, and released his arm. Huo Fenghua didn’t hesitate anymore. He jumped down.
But the cavern was even deeper than he’d imagined. After he leapt, he felt like he couldn’t stop falling, and he yelled, “Ah—”
Feng Tianzong looked up at him and shoved Su Zeyang beside him. Su Zeyang shot upward, caught Huo Fenghua in midair, and as they fell, the two of them rolled on a coffin lid to absorb the impact. Huo Fenghua almost tumbled into the liquid, but Su Zeyang hooked an arm across his waist with the flat of his sword and shoved him back onto the lid so he could stand.
No one blamed him for jumping down, because the largest coffin lid at the very bottom had already opened. A tall figure sprang out and lunged straight at Feng Tianzong.
Only after Huo Fenghua steadied himself did he realize how horrifying the scene below was, like hell on earth. The blue, glowing liquid gave off a sharp, irritating stench that made his nose and eyes burn. A faint mist shimmered everywhere, blocking most of their vision. And inside that blue fog, a swollen, pale face would suddenly appear, its throat making a ghastly “heh heh” sound as it pounced at him.
Huo Fenghua kicked the charging dead man’s face away and shouted, “This is a zombie siege!”
Su Zeyang said calmly, “A corpse-driving formation.”
They returned to Feng Tianzong’s side and saw he was already locked in combat with that towering corpse. It had crawled out of the central coffin. It was abnormally tall, dressed in armor. Hair and beard still grew on its face, and its body reeked of the strange mix of liquid and corpse.
It moved with startling agility, and it held a long spear. Every strike was vicious and powerful as it attacked Feng Tianzong.
Feng Tianzong, though, fought with obvious restraint. This person’s status within the clan was clearly extraordinary, perhaps a clan head from long ago, the strongest man the Feng family had ever produced.
If they’d met anywhere else, Feng Tianzong would probably have knelt and kowtowed three times to this ancestor.
Under the harsh irritation, Huo Fenghua’s vision blurred into a haze. He believed Feng Tianzong and Su Zeyang were the same. Within what they could see, more and more coffin lids were being thrown open and pale, swollen corpses were crawling out, surging toward them.
They could hack off arms and legs, but the corpses would still crawl back up and keep attacking. The coffin lid they stood on was quickly surrounded.
There was no point in endless fighting with the dead. Huo Fenghua hadn’t forgotten why he’d jumped down. He told Su Zeyang, “Senior Brother, stay here and help the General. I’ll go find Bai Huan!”
With that, he vaulted over the packed corpses, stepping on the edges of opened coffins as he stumbled and weaved toward the outside of the coffin cluster.
He ran all the way out beyond the coffins and finally escaped the immediate swarm. Only a few corpses on the outer edge seemed to notice him and chased after him in that direction.
He couldn’t spare the attention. He searched among the stone figures for where Bai Huan might be hiding. His eyes hurt more and more, his vision growing blurrier, and he had to close his eyes from time to time to ease the pain. He didn’t find Bai Huan, but he was certain Bai Huan was down here. He lifted his foot and kicked the stone figure in front of him.
The intact statue split with a crack into two complete halves, front and back, revealing a hollow interior. Inside was a skeleton already rotted away.
Huo Fenghua understood. These stone figures had never been carved as single solid pieces. They were made to hold the bones of the Bai family. Each one had to be two halves joined together, pinning a body in the middle. Maybe the seam had been glued long ago, and weathering over the years had dried and cracked it. A simple push was enough to split it apart.
He glanced left and right, wondering if Bai Huan might be hiding inside one of them.
Suddenly, Huo Fenghua heard Shao Feijie shout from the platform above, “Watch out!” Immediately afterward came the sound of an arrow sinking into flesh. Huo Fenghua turned and saw a corpse creeping up behind him. Shao Feijie’s arrow had pierced its skull. It staggered back a few steps and toppled over.
Huo Fenghua didn’t have time to thank him. He started using both hands and feet to shove apart all the stone figures in front of him, exposing skeleton after skeleton inside.
Time dragged on. Huo Fenghua’s eyes were nothing but shimmering blue. He heard Feng Tianzong let out a muffled groan, as if he’d been injured, but Huo Fenghua still hadn’t found Bai Huan.
He began to doubt whether Bai Huan was hiding inside these stone figures at all. He was terrified that in the end he still wouldn’t find him, that they’d waste all their strength down here until they could no longer see anything, and then they’d all die here.
Anxiety surged through him. He shook his head hard, trying to throw off the blur in front of his eyes. He turned, intending to find Feng Tianzong and Su Zeyang and tell them to stop and leave first, but before he could speak, a voice rang down from above.
“Good Disciple, don’t panic!”
It was Gu Guangji’s voice. Huo Fenghua judged the direction and realized it wasn’t coming from the platform Wen Heyi was on.
Gu Guangji was on the stone platform opposite them, though Huo Fenghua had no idea how he’d made his way here. Gu Guangji shouted, “This corpse-driving formation isn’t that terrifying. The one who set it up has to be near the corpses, and the cost is huge. He’ll be weak!”
Huo Fenghua couldn’t help shouting back, “Master, stop wasting words! Where is he?!”
Gu Guangji called down, “The dead don’t breathe, you idiot!”
Huo Fenghua froze. In that instant, he realized what it meant. He stood still and closed his burning eyes.
Shao Feijie fired another arrow at a corpse lunging at him.
With the blurred vision no longer interfering, Huo Fenghua’s senses sharpened in an instant. His deep inner energy flowed through his meridians. He heard Feng Tianzong and Su Zeyang’s heavier breathing as they fought the corpse swarm. He heard his own breathing too, gradually settling as his agitation eased.
Down here, besides the three of them, there was another breath, thin and hurried. The person tried hard to hide it, but the strain was too great. His body couldn’t bear it anymore, and Huo Fenghua caught that ragged, urgent breathing.
Huo Fenghua opened his eyes and shot toward the right edge of the cavern, shouting, “Senior Brother! Bai Huan’s here!”
Su Zeyang’s snow-white hem was spattered with flecks of blue glow as he leapt up. He landed at the cavern’s edge almost at the same time as Huo Fenghua. Following Huo Fenghua’s pointing finger, he drove his sword into a stone figure, smashing it into two halves.
Inside was a face nearly as pale as any corpse’s.
Huo Fenghua grabbed Bai Huan by the throat and hurled him toward the center of the cavern, throwing him right into the middle of the corpse swarm. Bai Huan slammed into the back of that towering armored corpse.
Feng Tianzong’s whip snapped out, coiling around Bai Huan’s neck and jerking him up into the air.
In that instant, every frenzied corpse stopped, their grasping arms freezing in place. Even the clan head’s spear halted, fixed toward Feng Tianzong, utterly motionless.
Feng Tianzong looked at Bai Huan. “Why go this far?”
Blood ran from Bai Huan’s nose. His voice came in broken bursts. “What a shame… still… fell short at the last step…”
Huo Fenghua wiped his eyes with his sleeve and said, “Fell short? You did more than that. You thought this corpse-driving formation could kill our General? That’s laughably naive!”
Bai Huan shook his head as if he still wanted to say something, but Feng Tianzong tightened the whip around his neck. “Generations of grudges and debts. No one can carry them all.”
Gu Guangji leaned over from the platform above and shouted, “Wait! Don’t kill him!”
But Bai Huan was already vomiting blood nonstop. His eyes bulged wide, and he went limp, dying in Feng Tianzong’s grip.
The moment he died, all the corpses that had been standing rigid collapsed at once, splashing the glowing liquid up around Feng Tianzong’s legs. Feng Tianzong tilted his head up toward Gu Guangji and said, “He spent too much. Even if I didn’t kill him, he wouldn’t have lived.”
“Ah,” Gu Guangji sighed. “He really was formidable. Too bad those vicious formations backfired on him. This day was bound to come.”
Feng Tianzong reeled the whip back from Bai Huan’s neck and jumped to the edge of the largest coffin in the center. He lowered his head to look inside. He’d been the first down here, and his eyes burned the worst. His sight was nothing but a hazy blur. With effort, he found a wooden tube floating on the surface. He hooked it up with his whip, then, using his sleeve as a barrier, opened it and pulled out a scroll wrapped in oilcloth. He unwrapped it and saw neat, elegant handwriting on the cover: Flying Phoenix Stratagem.
He stuffed the book into his clothes. Then he used his whip to coil around that towering corpse and send it back into the coffin, closing the lid afterward.
There were far too many other bodies. He couldn’t return them one by one, and he didn’t even know which coffin each had crawled out of. All he could do was leap to the cavern’s edge, kneel outside the coffin cluster, press his forehead to the ground, and kowtow three times.
Gu Guangji tossed down a rope for them to climb. Huo Fenghua and Su Zeyang stood by the rope, waiting for Feng Tianzong. The three of them, one after another, grabbed the rope and climbed back up.
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