From the fake emperor to the concubine

"It was in such a hurry to block the outlet just now, wasn't it because it didn't want the water to continue flowing? The more it didn't want it to, the more it wanted to let it out."

Zheng Yi looked at her, his eyes showing more approval.

Wu Chen wiped a drop of blood from his mouth and said in a deep voice, "But this wound won't last long. If there's another impact like that, the throat will collapse."

Yan'ao squatted down, grabbed a handful of soaked, grayish-black soil, and rubbed it: "The soil crust has softened. It needs to be patched with stone, otherwise it will crack on its own tomorrow after freezing and erosion tonight."

Following his lead, Zheng Yi immediately said, "Yes, change the earth and wood on both sides of the throat to stone wedges and ice seal. Seal it once tonight, leaving the waterway in the middle to prevent it from gnawing at the edges."

The old woman said, "Even a rubble pit can be divided into layers."

"Layering?"

“These bones,” the Bone Granny pointed with her staff at the churning remains in the pit, “can’t be left to soak in one place. You saw it just now, the salt and ash can hold them down for a while. If there are any more, they’ll cause trouble sooner or later.”

Zheng Yi's brow furrowed: "How many sections do you want to divide the pit into?"

The old woman nodded: "The front pit collects water, and the back pit presses down the bones. Leave a sieve in the middle so that the coarse bones can be blocked at the front, and the fine bones can go further back."

Upon hearing this, Yan'ao chuckled and said, "That old woman has a hard head."

The old woman looked at him coldly: "It's stiffer than your red hair."

Yan Ao snorted but didn't say anything more.

Zheng Yi squatted down and quickly drew new changes on the ground with the tip of his knife.

"Tonight, we will reinforce both sides of the throat with stone wedges and pour water on the outside to seal the ice. In the middle of the guide ditch, we will dig another shallow barrier to reduce erosion. We will divide the gravel pit in two, with the front pit for water and the back pit for piled bones, and we will use nets and wooden sieves to separate them."

Upon hearing the word "net," Chi Ya suddenly remembered that the words he had just sent back had been useful, and immediately interjected, "Bone Granny said the great net is already on its way!"

This time, the old woman didn't scold him. She just said, "You'll take some people to hang the net later."

Chiya immediately perked up: "Alright!"

Wu Chen looked at Zheng Yi: "We hurt it."

"Ah."

"But it wasn't completely broken."

"Almost," Zheng Yi said.

He recalled the last moment of that missed strike and still felt a pang of regret. He had been only half an inch away from hitting the very center of that gray-blue mist core.

It can be a difference of half an inch, just a difference of half an inch.

There's no point in chasing it now.

Now that thing has retreated underwater, it will never give the same chance again.

Flame Mastiff glanced at Blackwater and spat a mouthful of bloody saliva into the snow: "It lost half of its breastplate today, so it won't be charging out like this again anytime soon. It's afraid of being hit again."

Zheng Yi said, "It's afraid, but it won't stop."

The Bone Woman continued, "We won't stop either."

The wind picked up again.

The black water behind the throat was rippled by the wind, as if nothing had happened. But the shattered bone fragments on the ice edge, the snow stained black by the gray mist, the broken bone spear, and the wounds on the hunters all reminded everyone that what was in the lake was not just a rumor.

It really will come out.

And they really were disturbing its water.

The old woman, leaning on her cane, turned and glanced at the people still standing.

"Listen up. Those who can move, keep going. Those who can't, bandage your wounds and go to the back to move stones and nets. Before sunset today, the first layer of the throat must be filled, and the gravel pit must be divided into front and back sections. Keep the fire burning at night and take turns keeping watch. If anyone sees anything bright in the water or hears bones crawling in the ditch, they are not allowed to go in themselves; they must call for help first."

She paused, then added.

"No matter how scared you are, don't stop."

No one responded.

No one is backing out.

Wu Chen bent down first, picked up the bone spear that had been discarded earlier but had drifted back to the edge of the ditch, broke off the damaged part, and held the remaining usable part in his hand again.

Yan'ao slung the heavy chisel over his shoulder and nodded to his men: "Get to work."

The Firemane tribe immediately went to move a larger stone.

The people of the Black Rock tribe began to haul nets, erect wooden fences, and repair the edges of the drainage ditches.

Chiya ran incredibly fast, sometimes going ahead to hang nets, sometimes running back to hand bandages to the wounded, he was as busy as a ball of fire.

Bone Granny walked to Zheng Yi's side and glanced at the white mark on his wrist where the bone threads had grazed him.

"You can still use a knife?"

"can."

Is it still speaking in my ear?

Zheng Yi looked at the White Bone Lake and remained silent for a while.

"There was a sentence he said before he stepped down."

"say what?"

"Again."

The Bone Woman gave a cold laugh.

"Then let it wait."

Zheng Yi didn't laugh; he just gripped the hilt of the knife tighter.

The black water is still flowing out.

It slowed down a bit compared to when I first started speaking, but I didn't stop.

The southwestern shoreline has been exposed a bit more than before, revealing the dark, damp frozen soil and half-buried old bones.

This short stretch of road was something they painstakingly carved out of the mouth of the lake today.

Not big.

But they actually managed to pry it open.

Zheng Yi watched for a while, then turned to Wu Chen and Yan Ao and said, "Let's hold this pass for now. Tomorrow, when the water recedes a bit more, I'll go down and check the exposed bottom of the bank."

Wu Chen nodded: "I'll go with you."

Yan'ao also said, "I'll go too."

Hearing this from afar, Chi Ya immediately shouted at the top of his lungs, "Me too!"

The old woman didn't even turn her head; she just raised her hand and swung her staff.

"You need to hang the net properly first!"

The fire by White Bone Lake never went out that night.

The newly added stone wedges on both sides of the throat were doused with water three times, turning bluish-green and shiny from the cold, like two rows of teeth biting the ground. The rubble pit was also divided into two sections overnight: the front section for collecting water, and the back section for pressing bones, with three layers of coarse netting and a row of sharpened wooden fences in between. The bone bells rang twice during the night, each time indicating that something underwater had gently bumped against the edge of the throat, but it did not rush to the surface as it had during the day.

It's like he's holding back.

It's like they're waiting.

But the next morning, everyone saw "retreat" first.

The lake shore on the southwest side really does extend downwards.

It wasn't much, only about two or three zhang wide, but for the lakeside that was completely covered by black water and broken ice just yesterday, it was enough to make one's heart tremble. The newly exposed shoreline wasn't ordinary mud or a flat pebble beach, but a layer of something mixed together with gray-black, gray-white, and dark blue. It looked like frozen soil, or a shell made of bone meal and silt. Stepping on it would produce a very light "crunch," as if many tiny bones were buried under one's feet.

The wind blowing from the lake was colder than yesterday.

Zheng Yi stood on the shore, looking at the exposed shallows, and remained silent for a long time.

Wu Chen stood beside him, carrying a newly sharpened short spear. The wound on his shoulder had been re-bandaged, and although his movements were still slightly stiff, it did not affect his strength.

"Shall we go down?"

“Go down,” Zheng Yi said, “but don’t go too deep.”

The Flame Hound had already jumped onto the hard shell at the front, squatted down, scooped up a handful of wet, black silt, rubbed it in its palm, and immediately frowned.

"It's full of bone fragments."

Chiya stood at the back, initially eager to try, but when he actually saw the bottom of the shore, he felt a little uneasy.

"This place doesn't look like a shore, it looks like... like someone flattened a huge mass grave."

The old woman said coldly, "You're right." She didn't follow too closely today, but stood by the newly built windbreak, still holding the bone cane in her hand, her eyes fixed on the exposed section of the shoreline.

“Remember, you can only try, but you can’t rush,” she said. “If there are empty spaces below, and you collapse, no one will be there to rescue you.”

Zheng Yi nodded, then first drove three bone nails into the snow beneath his feet, and then stuck a thin wooden stick a few steps apart along the edge of the bank. This wasn't just for show, but to give himself an escape route and to observe changes in the terrain.

Wu Chen understood and asked, "Are you afraid it will move on its own?"

"I'm afraid this shore isn't dead," Zheng Yi said.

After saying that, he was the first to go down.

The moment his foot touched the ground, the gray-black shell did indeed sink slightly, but it didn't collapse. Zheng Yi probed downwards with his divine sense and found that it wasn't straight down, but rather there was a thick layer of sediment, like a mixture of bone powder, bone fragments, frozen mud, and old ice.

It can still stand.

He raised his hand to signal the two people behind him.

"Follow up. Red Fang stays on the side."

Just as Red Fang was about to protest, Bone Granny slowly said from behind, "If you dare to take another step, you won't get any food today."

Red Tooth's mouth deflated, and it had no choice but to obediently stay on the shore.

Zheng Yi, Wu Chen, and Yan Ao explored forward along the exposed bottom of the shore.

The further they went, the louder the creaking sound underfoot became. Yan'ao tried several times to smash open a section with a large chisel to take a look, but Zheng Yi stopped him each time. They were too close to the water, and smashing it would easily disturb the underlying structure.

After walking about twenty steps, Wu Chen suddenly whispered, "Look over there."

Not far ahead, there was a patch of water on the exposed shallows that was a distinctly different color.

It's not grayish-black, but rather off-white.

As the three approached, they could see clearly that it was a ring of large bones half-buried in the silt, forming an almost perfectly regular semicircle. The bones were extremely thick, unlike human bones, and more like the ribs of some giant beast, but their arrangement was too neat, so neat that it didn't seem like they were naturally scattered, but rather as if they had been deliberately placed there.

Yan'ao squatted down and patted it, his expression changing slightly.

"Not new bone."

Zheng Yi said, "It's been at least many years."

What's even stranger is that the center of this ring of large bones isn't empty; instead, it's pressed down by a slightly raised black stone slab. Only the upper half of the slab is visible, its surface covered with a layer of grayish-white hard shell, obscuring its original appearance, but traces of polishing are faintly visible along its edges.

Wu Chen's eyes narrowed: "Artificial."

Zheng Yi didn't act immediately, but instead walked around the stone slab first.

The stone slab wasn't large, about a person's height and half a person's width. It was embedded in this bone-mud, surrounded by a ring of large bones that seemed to protect it, or perhaps seal it off. More importantly—it was very quiet here.

It wasn't quiet in the ordinary sense.

Instead, from the moment I stepped into this semicircle, the faint underwater whispers in my ears faded considerably, and even the cold, fishy smell blowing from the direction of White Bone Lake lessened.

It's as if something separates this place from the lifelessness of the lake.

Zheng Yi's eyes flickered slightly. He slowly squatted down and reached out to wipe away the layer of gray crust on the surface of the stone slab.

Once the gray shell fell off, several very shallow lines were revealed underneath.

It wasn't the animal patterns commonly seen in the wilderness tribes, nor was it the talisman he was familiar with. Instead, it resembled some kind of ancient and crude engraving, with extremely straight lines that conveyed a sense of being forcefully "pressed down."

Yan Ao also saw it and frowned, saying, "This doesn't seem like the craftsmanship of people today."

Wu Chen asked, "Can it be opened?"

"Let's try it first," Zheng Yi said.

Instead of lifting the stone slab directly, he raised his hand and gently pressed it in the center, sending a wisp of spiritual energy into it.

The stone slab trembled very slightly the next instant.

It was very light, but it really responded.

Zheng Yi's expression immediately changed.

Wu Chen sensed something was wrong: "What?"

“There’s something down there,” Zheng Yi said. “It’s not inanimate.”

Yan'ao gripped the large chisel in his hand tightly: "Alive?"

“It’s not a living thing.” Zheng Yi shook his head. “It’s like… the lingering energy.”

He thought for a moment, then added, "It's pure body-cultivation energy."

Wu Chen and Yan Ao didn't fully understand, but they understood that it "wasn't the kind of thing in the lake".

The Flame Hound immediately took half a step back, making way for him.

"Then you do it."

Zheng Yi nodded, then changed his palm to his fingers, pressing down along the vertical lines engraved on the stone slab. The first line had no effect, the second line lit up slightly, and the third line sent a powerful, heavy shockwave that made his fingertips go numb.

This doesn't feel like a government office.

It's more like a test.

Zheng Yi's heart stirred. He stopped using his spiritual power to strike the vein and instead slowly exhaled, sinking the bone strength he had just cultivated into his shoulders and back. He then pressed his finger on the third line again.

This time, the stone slab did not react.

Click.

It's like a leak that's been stuck for years, finally being easily opened.

The entire black stone slab slowly sank half an inch.

Chiya watched from afar on the shore, his eyes wide with disbelief: "Is there really a chance?"

The old woman didn't speak, but her grip on the staff tightened slightly.

After the stone slab sank, a narrow gap was revealed between the slab and the bone mud. No black water gushed out, nor did any gray smoke escape; instead, a very faint, dry, old stone scent emanated from within.

Zheng Yi finally breathed a sigh of relief.

“It’s not the entrance to a cave at the bottom of a lake,” he said. “It looks like a sealed box.”

The Flame Hound couldn't wait any longer and inserted the large chisel into the crevice to pry it open.

Wu Chen wanted to stop him, but seeing that Zheng Yi didn't say anything, he didn't move.

With the brute force of the Flame Hound, the stone slab was finally lifted off, revealing a long, rectangular stone box underneath. The box was entirely black, made of an unknown material, and had no rust on its surface. Instead, it looked as if it had been hammered many times with a fist, and it had a layer of extremely dark light on its surface.

The most conspicuous thing is a bone-colored short plaque pressed down in the center of the stone box.

The short plaque was neither gold nor jade, no longer than a palm's length, with rough edges, and only one character engraved on the front—

"town".

The words were extremely simple, yet they made one's heart inexplicably sink, as if standing at the foot of a mountain wall and looking up to see a giant rock about to crush one down.

The Flame Hound's breathing became heavy for a moment.

"This word..."

Wu Chen narrowed his eyes slightly: "Looking at it for too long makes my head feel a little stuffy."

Zheng Yi didn't touch the short card, but instead looked at the four corners of the stone box.

Each of the four corners was inlaid with a small bone nail, the nails being a darker color than the short plaque, with a faint reddish tinge. Looking further into the box, there were no gold, silver, or jade artifacts, nor any exaggerated brilliance; only three items.

An old scroll made of some kind of animal hide.

A string of grayish-white bone beads.

And a dark, heavy arm guard.

There was only one arm guard, with a very simple design, no carvings, no gemstones, and it was not particularly eye-catching. However, when it was placed in the stone box, it had a heavy feeling that could hold the scene, as if it was not an arm guard, but a small section of a mountain.

Zheng Yi's gaze first fell on the arm guard, and his heart skipped a beat.

This thing is useful to him now.

Moreover, it is of great use.

Yan Ao stared at the arm guard, his voice lowering slightly: "Is this a weapon?"

“It’s not a weapon,” Zheng Yi said. “It’s an arm guard for body cultivators.”

Wu Chen didn't understand the specific details of "body cultivation," and only asked, "Can you fight?"

"Yes," Zheng Yi said, "and very well." (End of Chapter)