Dragon Boat Festival Coffin Seal

My name is Tao Zhi'an, the last heir of the Earth Gate. Ten years ago on Dragon Boat Festival, my master Zhongli left a note and never returned. It read: 'Dragon Boat Festival again and again, nine coffins seal nine gates. If you see a bronze tree, don't look back, run.' For ten years, I went to Lüliang Mountain every Dragon Boat Festival, but the wormwood on the hillside was impenetrable, blocking a cave I couldn't enter. This year is the Jiazi year, when five noon days converge, and the wormwood withered overnight. Two people stood outside the cave—Bai Ye, a century-old southern master, and Miao Qi, a descendant of Miao corpse drivers. The three of us entered the underground palace together. But the deeper I went, the more uneasy I felt. The Earth Gate had passed down grave-robbing skills for generations, but the traces left by my master, the severed finger handed out from a coffin, and the bronze plates engraved with 'forbidden' all told me—the Earth Gate had always been sealing tombs. Nine bronze coffins, nine keys, not all can be opened; opening them all means death. But my master was waiting for me under the last coffin. Deep in the Kunlun Mountains, the bronze tree bloomed with flowers, each petal a human face. My master sat under the tree and opened his eyes. Dragon Boat Festival, the ultimate yang day. Some gates are not meant for humans to open.