Chapter 5: The Human-Faced Passageway

Cui Wangshu scanned each of the different twin-born daughters’ faces one by one. The candles made from whale blubber in the room served as ever-burning lamps, unextinguished even after a thousand years. Combined with the liquid Jiang Chenbi had applied to her eyes earlier, seeing the details clearly was no problem.

However, Cui Wangshu’s brows furrowed tighter and tighter. Jiang Chenbi asked, “Still haven’t found a way?”

Cui Wangshu shook her head. “Each of these twin-born daughters has an extremely small tear-shaped mole under her eyes. A few have slight differences, but with my limited field of vision, I can’t accurately pinpoint their positions.”

Jiang Chenbi frowned upon hearing this and looked around the passageway until her gaze settled on the copper coffin hanging in the air. As if struck by an idea, she turned to Cui Wangshu. “I wonder how Little Cui’s stamina is holding up?”

Though Cui Wangshu had no idea why she asked, she replied, “It’s fine.”

Jiang Chenbi curved her lips into a smile, rolled up her wide sleeve, revealing a slender, pale arm wrapped with an iron chain. She unwound the chain, seemingly searching for the right angle to hook it up.

Cui Wangshu glanced at the chain in Jiang Chenbi’s hand and said in surprise, “The Nine Dragons Profound Iron Chain is in your possession?”

Jiang Chenbi replied, “Yeah, it’s a treasure of the Jiang Clan. After the Jiang Family was wiped out, it was lost, but by a stroke of fate, it ended up back in my hands.”

The Nine Dragons Profound Iron Chain was incredibly tough and could be disassembled, with its length adjustable. The short section in Jiang Chenbi’s hand extended to nearly two meters. Legend had it that it could stretch up to nine meters at full length, about the width of a finger, yet it could bear a thousand jin of weight.

Cui Wangshu could guess what she intended from her movements and said, “Be careful not to disturb whatever’s inside.”

Jiang Chenbi laughed. “It’s already awake. The copper coffin just hasn’t touched the ground yet, so it can’t come out.”

Cui Wangshu raised an eyebrow. “Awake?”

Jiang Chenbi said, “A centuries-old monster—sharp as can be.” With that, she flung the chain forcefully. It wrapped around several times, securing firmly.

Cui Wangshu said, “You stay down there. I’ll tell you how to proceed.”

Jiang Chenbi squatted down. “Use my shoulders for leverage, but Little Cui, have some pity for the fairer sex—don’t crush me underfoot.”

Cui Wangshu didn’t bother bantering with her. She lightly borrowed the leverage and flipped upside down onto the bottom of the coffin.

Whether due to psychological suggestion from Jiang Chenbi’s words or something else, Cui Wangshu seemed to faintly hear a subtle, heavy breathing sound originating right from the copper coffin above her head.

Could that thing really have awakened the moment they entered?

Cui Wangshu looked up and discovered oracle bone script inscribed on the coffin’s underside: “Zi does not pass noon; yin does not leave yang.”

With this clue in mind, Cui Wangshu refocused her thoughts.

Whether it was awake or not, she had no time to worry about it now. The priority was cracking the pattern of those “tear moles.”

The positions of the tear moles imprinted themselves in her mind, gradually overlapping with the star mansion positions she knew all too well, like scattered stars.

Cui Wangshu thought she had found the solution.

Just as she was about to look for something to mark those positions, Jiang Chenbi below suddenly coughed violently.

Jiang Chenbi turned away, clutching a handkerchief tightly over her mouth and nose, but the sweet, metallic taste in her throat reminded her that the damned poisonous gas had triggered her hemoptysis.

Cui Wangshu unwound the chain and jumped down from the copper coffin. She gently helped Jiang Chenbi catch her breath and said softly, “Poisoned? Miss Jiang, I recall that hemoptysis flares up more easily with these intense odors. Why hide it from me?”

Jiang Chenbi wrapped the blood in her handkerchief and wiped the corner of her mouth. “Does Minister Cui understand my body better than I do? Hemoptysis is prone to flare-ups, sure, but with two types of poison interacting inside me, isn’t it normal for it to act up?”

Cui Wangshu already had her suspicions, and she would find out why Jiang Chenbi refused to admit it sooner or later.

She took the handkerchief from Jiang Chenbi’s hand, tore a strip from her own inner garment, dipped it in Jiang Chenbi’s blood to sketch the Twenty-Eight Mansions star chart, and then scattered some blood dots on the floor tiles.

Jiang Chenbi watched Cui Wangshu use her blood as paint. For some reason, even though she wasn’t coughing blood now, her chest felt even more congested.

Noticing Jiang Chenbi’s resentful gaze, Cui Wangshu kept a straight face and rarely explained, “While the blood’s still wet—don’t waste it.”

Jiang Chenbi: “…”

Soon, the star chart sketch was done. Cui Wangshu placed it on the ground over the seemingly patternless blood dots and explained, “If we view the entire passageway as a plane, the irregular tear mole positions make sense. Look at the overlapping blood dots.”

Cui Wangshu lightly tapped one blood dot. “This represents the brick on the east side of the passageway where the tear mole position is uniquely different, corresponding to the Horn Mansion on the star chart. The tear mole there is offset two millimeters southwest compared to the others, which in Qimen Dunjia corresponds to the Death Gate. So, the east side is the death zone.”

Jiang Chenbi frowned. “That’s it? There are over seven hundred bricks here.”

Cui Wangshu pointed to one corner. “The corpses are blocking it—I can’t see.”

Jiang Chenbi grinned, grinding her back teeth, knowing this was payback for her concealment. Still, she flung the Nine Dragons Profound Iron Chain and hooked a hanging corpse from the ceiling.

Cui Wangshu looked up, added some blood dots to the floor tiles, and said, “On the west side of the passageway, the third brick from the left—the copper bell around the infant’s neck is missing a corner. Copper bells belong to metal, corresponding to the Qian trigram’s Life Gate. Imperfection often signifies hope and rebirth, so the west side is actually the safe path.”

Jiang Chenbi retracted the chain and examined Cui Wangshu’s drawing. After a moment, she said oddly, “Did you draw it wrong? It’s all backwards.”

Cui Wangshu had said east was death and west was life, but the route she drew pointed toward the east side of the passageway.

Cui Wangshu glanced at the copper coffin. “The inscription on the copper coffin’s bottom reads ‘Zi does not pass noon; yang does not leave yin,’ warning descendants to follow nature and harmonize yin and yang. Those corpses killed by poison arrows followed the yin-yang line sequence—yet they all died.”

“That’s because the oracle bone script isn’t true oracle bone script. It’s an ancient script used by shamans, similar to oracle bone script but conveying the exact opposite meaning.”

“So that phrase is a trap. What it truly tells us is—do not follow the yin-yang sequence.”

In other words, the correct path reverses the life and death zones?

But the coffin’s inscription tricked them into thinking their ideas were affirmed!

Once Jiang Chenbi fully understood and reacted, Cui Wangshu continued.

“Those people were experienced and wouldn’t overlook this, but the copper bells on the ceiling have a mind-bewitching effect. With so many people, the air currents accelerated the bells’ ringing, leading them astray into wrong decisions.”

Jiang Chenbi followed Cui Wangshu’s gaze. Piles of bones lay on the tiles, one reduced to a skeleton clutching a compass in deathly refusal.

In the northwest corner of the passageway, arrowheads had pinned a female corpse firmly in place—likely someone who had taken the west side as the safe path.

The rice paper in her hand was soaked in blood, faintly showing an unfinished “death” character. It seemed they had indeed uncovered the mystery later, but all perished in the Imperial Mausoleum, so the Xuanji Strategy remained unclaimed to this day.

Cui Wangshu stood, tucked the Twenty-Eight Mansions sketch into her bosom, and grasped Jiang Chenbi’s wrist. “Let’s go.”

Though Cui Wangshu had learned from the predecessors’ mistakes, the moment she stepped forward, her nerves were taut. The bone-chilling cold surged from her foot the instant she stepped on the tile, nearly making her lose balance.

After steadying herself, she pulled Jiang Chenbi over. The tiles were small; they had to press close to both fit. Instinctively, Cui Wangshu gripped Jiang Chenbi’s waist tightly, pulling her into her embrace.

Jiang Chenbi knew she feared a misstep dooming them both and refrained from teasing her this time.

At first, they proceeded methodically. Midway, they encountered the long-dead mummies, and Jiang Chenbi couldn’t help feeling a pang of sorrow.

These people had reached here and uncovered the star chart secret—not mere tomb robbers, but elites among the masses.

Years of experience and knowledge led them this far, only to perish over one sentence on the copper coffin. It was all Mo Jiuhuan and Liu Xuan’s handiwork.

Life becomes death, death becomes life—false hope leading straight to hell.

As they neared the exit, Cui Wangshu stopped. Jiang Chenbi asked, “What’s wrong?”

Cui Wangshu frowned. “Something’s off. I overlooked the arrows already fired. Mo Jiuhuan’s mechanisms are famously unpredictable. To account for those arrows, the latter star chart pattern must have changed too.”

Jiang Chenbi surveyed the surroundings. Spotting something, her face grew icier, like a wolf arching its back in defense. She whispered, “Is that so? Then Minister Cui, stop calculating. Do you plan to draw until that old thing breaks out of the coffin?”

Hearing this, Cui Wangshu stiffly looked up at the copper coffin. The lid was already stirring—the thing inside had grown impatient.

Cui Wangshu’s expression darkened. Jiang Chenbi whispered in her ear, and without hesitation, Cui Wangshu hooked the Nine Dragons Profound Iron Chain onto the coffin, swung up hugging Jiang Chenbi, and landed atop the lid.

The impact briefly calmed the thing inside the coffin, followed by even more violent shaking. The chains on the stone walls showed signs of loosening.

If the copper coffin fell, triggering the poison arrows, they would die on the spot.

Yet Cui Wangshu and Jiang Chenbi appeared calm. Jiang Chenbi’s smile bordered on manic—likely from the prolonged ordeal fraying her patience.

Cui Wangshu silently watched her, holding her even tighter to prevent a fall.

Jiang Chenbi pricked her fingertip with a silver hairpin. Her blood dripped onto the copper coffin, instantly forming a layer of white crystals. The moment she collected them, Cui Wangshu jumped down with her, landing back on that tile.

Relieved of weight, the Coffin Fixing Nail loosened. The heavy sword on the ground hummed as if about to burst forth.

Jiang Chenbi pulled out the gunpowder she’d hidden for so long and grinned at Cui Wangshu, her dark pupils brimming with excitement. “Minister Cui, this Mo Jiuhuan is so annoying. Let’s blow this place up.”

The explosion roared just as Cui Wangshu lunged, shoving Jiang Chenbi toward the safe path. Meeting the woman’s beaming eyes full of wild glee, something in Cui Wangshu’s mind seemed to crumble. She murmured unconsciously, “Madwoman.”

The copper coffin crashed to the ground like a death knell. The poison arrows flew faster than imagined.

They were mere inches from the safe path, but Cui Wangshu’s left shoulder still took an arrow.

The thing in the coffin struggled and shrieked, shredding the lid. Detecting living scents, its eyes glowed red.

Its body wasn’t as massive as they’d imagined, but it was a monster with four arms, its corpse poison potent enough to kill them.

To the conscious corpse demon, it knew just a sliver of moonlight or human blood would elevate it to earthly immortality.

The arrows couldn’t harm it. The blue-faced, fanged fiend fixed its gaze on them and closed in at terrifying speed.

The blast had blown open the safe path. Standing amid the rubble, they stared at the hurtling monster. Though wounded in the shoulder, Cui Wangshu showed no fear in her eyes, ready for a desperate fight.

Jiang Chenbi tossed the white crystals into the side grooves. Her contemptuous laughter echoed through the collapsing passageway. “Old thing, try some of Granny’s special treat.”

Azure flames engulfed the crystals instantly, followed by a massive explosion wave that shook the entire passageway. The ground split into a vast chasm.

Jiang Chenbi yanked a dry corpse from above with the chain; it collapsed with the ceiling. The flames fused with the white crystals became pure yang energy. In that hesitant second, the ceiling smashed the thing into the fissure.

The corpse demon wailed from below, truly enraged now. Jiang Chenbi knew it wouldn’t die and the crevice wouldn’t hold it long. She led Cui Wangshu swiftly out of the passageway.