Within the vast ancestral hall, only the few members of the Qing family remained; even the handymen who had accompanied them initially were nowhere to be found. As Qing Congnan and the others recalled it later, a chill settled deep into their bones. They realized they hadn’t noticed that the handymen had stopped speaking altogether while still in the carriage, and upon disembarking and entering the ancestral hall, those servants had vanished entirely without a trace.
Unable to touch Qing Ling, yet unwilling to sit around awaiting death, they ventured back outside in an attempt to secure a carriage and flee. Upon reaching the gates of the ancestral hall, however, they discovered that even the carriages were gone, leaving only dense, billowing fog surrounding the compound until the ancestral hall courtyard felt like an isolated island adrift on a vast sea.
The four of them resolutely plunged straight into the thick fog. Though Qing Ling was no longer accompanying them this time, no matter how they circled and wandered, they invariably ended right back before the doors of the ancestral hall.
After exhausting themselves through repeated, futile attempts, the four had no choice but to trudge back into the ancestral hall, where they happened to run into Qing Ling inside the main house.
Qing Ling also caught sight of the female ghost lingering persistently behind Qing Congnan. His gaze paused briefly before he turned away, acting as though nothing was amiss as he prepared to walk away with the book he was holding.
Unable to hold back any longer, Qing Congnan blurted out, “Wait.”
With a calm, indifferent expression, Qing Ling turned back.
“You…” Swallowing hard, Qing Congnan asked, “What is that in your hand?”
He actually wanted to ask what Qing Ling had been reading just now, but perhaps dreading the answer himself, the words twisted mid-sentence.
“Genealogy records,” Qing Ling raised the booklet in his hand slightly. “You went to such painstaking lengths to concoct a corpse-born child whose eight characters and ten gods are aligned with yin energy, specifically to present him as an offering to the evil spirit beneath Dragon-Slaying Mountain. I simply had to investigate the reason behind it.”
Days in Dragon-Slaying Mountain had been long and tedious, which had fostered in Qing Ling a genuine fondness for reading, whether orthodox histories, unofficial biographies, miscellaneous notes, or short tales. Though he couldn’t boast a photographic memory, reading was vastly superior to merely passing the time. Just moments prior, it had suddenly occurred to him that since the Qing family possessed ancestral genealogies and clan records, and their ancestors had once known periods of prominence, there ought to exist a historical chronicle detailing the family’s fluctuations and changes. Sure enough, he discovered one stored away inside the ancestral hall.
Upon hearing this, however, Qing Congnan’s expression shifted drastically. “You… how do you know about that?”
“It wasn’t difficult to guess,” Qing Ling replied in a tone that remained nearly apathetic. “Kill a pregnant woman at a precise moment, then extract the child. If the child survives, it becomes a corpse-born infant delivered at a meticulously calculated hour. Following that, you arranged a betrothal between myself and the evil spirit of the ancient tomb, bringing me back the moment that marriage contract successfully took hold. You undoubtedly harbored your own calculations, perhaps to benefit that living corpse buried beneath the earth? Yet you likely never anticipated that the female ghost whose womb was carved open could return, nor that she would reach the state she is in today. If no one had assisted her, a soul lingering in the mortal realm should have had its essence scattered to the winds ages ago; how could she possibly have waited this many years before finally commencing her revenge?”
At this, Qing Conglan’s tone softened somewhat as he interjected, “Yet these things truly have nothing to do with us! Your mother was also a woman of yin destiny; back then, your grandfather declared that whichever of us, myself or him, could first father a child with a woman possessing an yin destiny would inherit the entire Qing estate. I hid your mother away for a long time, but he ultimately discovered her and forcibly took her as a concubine. After that, I never interfered with this scheme again. Qing Ling, a debt has its debtor and a grievance has its master!”
Silence hung in the air for a brief moment. Though the truth closely mirrored what Qing Ling had already surmised, after a few breaths, he calmly remarked, “Perhaps. But fierce ghosts do not reason when they kill. She has already slain those outside the direct karmic chain; as for you just a moment ago, you were attempting to murder her biological son right before her eyes.”
In truth, the female ghost retained very little sanity remaining, operating entirely on a relentless surge of sheer resentment. Qing Ling was merely using this as a small retaliation against the couple who had plotted to kill him just moments earlier.
“We were also… forced by circumstances,” Zhao Yunrou sighed with a helpless air, once again assuming her veneer of gentleness and benevolence as she spoke softly. “You don’t understand, Qing Ling. Back then, our business ran into a crisis, and the household had no funds whatsoever for social maneuvering. Your grandfather thought of the ancient tomb beneath Dragon-Slaying Mountain. Our Qing family has guarded that tomb generation after generation, so we originally thought to hire a few men to borrow a few items out; once our financial situation recovered, we intended to redeem them and return them properly. Yet that expedition resulted in only your grandfather returning alone, failing to retrieve any items and securing merely a single ritual artifact. Worse still… it awakened the entity resting beneath Dragon-Slaying Mountain. Every painstaking measure your grandfather took to safeguard the Qing family’s livelihood, was it not all for the sake of you descendants?”
“Oh,” Qing Ling uttered flatly, cutting straight to the point. “So you prepared a supreme medicine for the evil spirit beneath Dragon-Slaying Mountain, hoping to appease his wrath?”
“Naturally not!” Qing Congnan suddenly interrupted. “Once the marriage contract was sealed, he was effectively bound to your side. If he wished to walk openly in the mortal realm, he had to rely upon you! Just like those fangshi capable of controlling and commanding ghosts, with a husband of such caliber, let alone this tiny Lincang city, propelling the Qing family to even greater heights was entirely within the realm of possibility!”
Qing Ling sneered.
No wonder Shang Zhangheng had been so infuriated the moment he emerged from beneath Dragon-Slaying Mountain: a group of people had broken into his tomb, plundered his burial goods, and forcefully saddled him with a human male bride carrying Qing family blood. Qing Congnan had even harbored the delusional ambition of utilizing the marriage contract to command a ghost, utterly laughable.
Even Shang Zhangheng couldn’t resist materializing beside Qing Ling at that moment, letting out a sharp, mocking laugh. “Truly lacking in proper mastery. Attempting to command a ghost using a marriage contract, what an absolute joke. If anyone else had been in your shoes, the night you stepped out from beneath Dragon-Slaying Mountain would have been your day of execution.”
“Third Brother,” Qing Wenlin added in a low voice, “things have reached this point; we are still bound by blood.”
Qing Ling sneered. Now they remembered they were bound by blood. Unwilling to waste any further breath on them, he dropped a single parting line.”Pray for your own good fortune” and strolled away unbothered.
After all, the one hunting them down wasn’t just the female ghost Qiulian; there was also the far more terrifying Shang Zhangheng. Even he himself was currently a clay bodhisattva crossing a river, barely able to guarantee his own survival, did they seriously expect him to rescue others?
Carrying the clan chronicle back to his small room, Qing Ling felt he was finally closing in on the full truth of his own origins. Yet the precise nature of the karmic entanglement between Shang Zhangheng and the Qing family, who had guarded the ancient tomb for generations—remained entirely unclear. If someone was appointed as a tomb-keeper, it was either out of fear that the tomb would be pillaged, or because loyal retainers of a noble lord had willingly and faithfully sworn to guard their master’s resting place for eternity.
If the Qing family genuinely harbored bitter enmity toward Shang Zhangheng, why would they bother guarding his tomb at all? They should have long since dug up his remains and exposed his corpse to the wilderness.
Guardians of a tomb who shared a deep, hostile grievance with the occupant, no matter how one reasoned it, it made no sense.
Opening the clan chronicle, the very opening page featured an explanatory note left by an early ancestor: the Qing family’s forebears had once served as officials at court and belonged to a lineage of sorcerers. However, due to repeated dynastic changes and multiple military upheavals, the original clan records and genealogies had been lost on several occasions. The copy he held in his hands was a repeatedly transcribed edition where much of the earlier content had been lost to time, and oral traditions passed down through generations could no longer be verified.
The one detail emphasized above all else was that under no circumstances were they ever permitted to leave this small town, and they were strictly obligated to properly guard the millennium-old ancient tomb situated beneath Shanglong Ridge.
“Shanglong Ridge, Dragon-Slaying Mountain,” Qing Ling muttered to himself.
Dragon-Slaying Mountain derived its name from its topography, resembling a colossal decapitated dragon where Dragon-Slaying Mountain formed the severed dragon’s head, separated from the rest of the mountain range by a bottomless abyssal chasm. It seemed that with the passage of time and shifting geographical trends, the landscape had acquired a new designation.
This clan chronicle dated back three hundred years, the current dynasty had enjoyed peace and stability for barely over a century. Yet according to subsequent entries in the chronicle, even during times of chaotic warfare, the Qing family had never once abandoned this small town, and successive heads of the Qing family had all possessed a rudimentary grasp of divination and numerology. It wasn’t until later generations that the Qing family’s capabilities visibly deteriorated; by Qing Congnan’s generation, they had completely lost even the innate talent required to practice sorcery.
Ever since the family head who had newly compiled the chronicle made his entries, the Qing family had never known true prominence, subsisting entirely as ordinary merchants. Forget about holding official posts; not a single member had ever enlisted in the military.
Leaning close to Qing Ling’s ear, Shang Zhangheng asked, “Did you make out anything of interest?”
Shaking his head, Qing Ling closed the clan chronicle and pushed it aside, gently nudging Shang Zhangheng to move further away.
How could he converse properly when sitting this close? They certainly weren’t in a relationship where they could openly indulge in tender intimacy or sit side by side in harmonious devotion.
“I didn’t figure it out, but there’s something I don’t understand,” Qing Ling asked. “You mentioned having karmic ties with the Qing family, and you clearly wish nothing more than to slaughter every single one of them out of hatred. Yet the Qing family faithfully guarded your tomb for so many years, well, your mausoleum. Why on earth would you go this far?”
Seating himself on the edge of the couch with his characteristic rigid posture, Shang Zhangheng looked toward Qing Ling with a half-amused, half-mocking expression.
“Why do you suppose the Qing family never dared to step foot outside this city?”
Qing Ling shook his head.
Reaching out, Shang Zhangheng summoned the arrow-like spike resting upon the table into his palm. As he toyed with the seemingly ancient artifact, he spoke in a soft voice: “It’s called the Dunsheng Awl (Severing-Life Awl). While it appears designed to cut short a living person’s path, its true purpose is to sever a dead person’s path to reincarnation. Only someone as poorly trained as your grandfather would treat such a thing as a precious treasure.”
Severing the path to reincarnation?
A shiver of cold dread crept up Qing Ling’s spine.
Yet what Shang Zhangheng uttered next proved even more bone-chilling.
“Drive it straight into the Baihui acupoint, and the soul is forcibly prevented from leaving the physical vessel. Inscribed with Daoist scriptures, it subjects the soul to endless, scorching torture and destruction day after night.” Shang Zhangheng’s voice turned frigid, charged with a towering wave of resentment and reluctance, before dissolving into a bitter, cold scoff. “Pity that living corpse only utilized it to anchor his soul in place. If he had ever dared to drive it into his own body, he would have instantly regretted pulling this item out of my tomb.”
“Then you…” No matter how aloof his temperament, Qing Ling could scarcely fathom how anyone could endure the agony of a burning soul for hundreds, let alone thousands of years. Hesitating for a moment, he finally asked, “Why were you subjected to this thing?”
Tossing the Severing-Life Awl back onto the table, Shang Zhangheng cast a deep, profound gaze toward Qing Ling and remained silent for a moment.
And within that prolonged silence, Qing Ling suddenly deduced an alternative far more terrifying possibility.
What if Shang Zhangheng hadn’t chosen to remain behind of his own free will?
This object had been driven into his skeletal remains by someone else, forcibly trapping him within the ancient tomb!
And judging by his intense hatred toward the Qing family, the ones who had committed this atrocity were undoubtedly the ancestors of the Qing clan!
If that truly was the case,
Covering his face with his hands, Qing Ling collapsed backward onto the couch in a state of utter despair.
It was over. The magnitude of this blood feud was truly astronomical.