Dragon Clan: Lu Mingfei Returns from Japan

Chapter 505: Living Tomb
"Yin Lizhen?"

When they heard this name, Lu Mingfei, Ling and Shude Aki all looked at each other subconsciously.

Lu Mingfei had just heard Ling's story about Liu Xiu and the King of Bronze and Fire. Jiude Aki had been studying the subject of the King of Bronze and Fire with Professor Mans, so he naturally knew who Yin Lizhen was.

He is the cousin of Empress Guanglie Yin Lihua and the patriarch of the Yin family. He is also the legendary close minister who helped Liu Xiu defeat the King of Bronze and Fire.

However, Yin Lizhen was a figure from 130 years ago. Even if the life span of a hybrid is much longer than that of an ordinary person, it is only or years old at best. Even an "S-level" hybrid like Ange would be called an old monster if he lived to years old. This shows that the average life span of a hybrid is not that high.

Even if Yin Lizhen is an S-level hybrid, how could she have lived from the end of the Western Han Dynasty to the present?
Lu Mingfei felt that if the other person wasn’t a lunatic who was keen on ancient style cosplay… then it must be a ghost.

I didn't think that the other party was Deadpool like these black shadows because the man who called himself Yin Lizhen obviously still retained human consciousness.

Lu Mingfei subconsciously looked down at the other person to see if he was floating or walking with his feet on the ground. Fortunately, the other person was not floating, and his feet were still on the ground.

No, it's not good at all! Meeting a madman in such a gloomy and bizarre place is definitely not a good thing.

The first to break the silence was Ling who was standing behind Lu Mingfei. Her beautiful eyebrows knitted coldly: "You said your name is Yin Lizhen? And you are the builder of this mausoleum? But Yin Lizhen lived more than 2,000 years ago. Are you going to say that you have lived for 2,000 years?"

"So two thousand years have passed?" The man looked up at the ceiling illuminated by the spotlight: "I only knew that a long time had passed, but I didn't expect it to be this long. But I am indeed Yin Lizhen."

"But you speak Mandarin." Jiude Aki keenly discovered the crux of the problem: "If you really were a person from more than 2,000 years ago, shouldn't you speak classical Chinese?"

"This language is called Mandarin?" the man said, "I only learned this new language in the past ten years. My language spirit 'snake' always brings back some strange sounds. Later I found out that this is a new dialect that is somewhat similar to the language of our time. After listening to it more, I slowly learned it."

The man's words seemed to be logically consistent, and he gave a reasonable answer to Aki's question. However, this still couldn't make Lu Mingfei and the other three believe that the man in front of them was Yin Lizhen.

"But there is one question that cannot be explained." Ling said, "No matter how excellent your bloodline is, you can't live for more than two thousand years. No creature except the Dragon King can survive for so long."

The man nodded approvingly: "You are right, it is impossible for a person to live for more than 2,000 years."

"then you--"

“So I’m not a human.” The man smiled and said, “I’m a living spirit.”

This statement was immediately denied by Shude Aki: "Impossible. 'Living spirit' is just an alchemical definition. In fact, every 'living spirit' is a dead thing. It is impossible for it to have any self-awareness."

"You know alchemy?"

"I've taken an alchemy biology class. Controlling the fire element with pure flames to 'kill' metal, then 'resurrecting' it into 'regenerated metal', and then using the 'regenerated metal' to imprison the soul, you can get a living spirit. The ancient Chinese believed that forging a sword with flesh would make the sword more spiritual, and this was based on this principle."

"You are right. This is how living spirits are created."

"So you can't be a living spirit." Aki shook her head.

"That's how it should be," the man said. "But have you ever thought about what would happen if the metal was not 'killed' thoroughly during the process of refining the living spirit, thus producing 'recycled metal' of insufficient purity? What would we get if we used this impure 'recycled metal' to imprison the soul?"

"Impuric 'recycled metal'?"

"Yes."

Aki frowned slightly. She was not that proficient in alchemy and had never heard of the possibility of creating 'regenerated metal' without 'completely killing' the metal.

However, the man's words sounded strange and even she felt that there was a terrifying answer hidden behind this question. Some kind of premonition in her heart stopped her from asking any more questions.

Lu Mingfei looked at Aki's slightly shaken expression and felt her emotions. He asked the man on her behalf:
"What will happen if I do this?"

The man silently raised his head and looked around the Silver Mausoleum. His voice was calm, but his tone was extremely heavy:
"Then we will be trapped under the Yangtze River for thousands of years, and will die a miserable death."

As he spoke, the man's pale fingers drew an arc in the air. Then the entire silver mausoleum emitted a low hum.

Unlike the earth-shaking roar before, this time the tremor was much lighter, like the hinges of a ship suddenly meshing. Lu Mingfei heard the click of gears meshing from all directions, and the ancient patterns on the silver wall began to flow in reverse, like a giant Rubik's Cube starting to reorganize itself.

Under Lu Mingfei's gaze, the towering metal walls on both sides began to slowly turn sideways at a ninety-degree angle.

The bearings made a metallic whine as they were running in, and each wall weighing several tons was like a domino being moved by an invisible giant hand, revealing a strange geometric array as it rotated, fully presenting the silver inner wall that was glowing with cold light.

When the last sound of metal friction fell silent, all the walls turned into cross-sections.

Only then did Lu Mingfei finally see clearly what was in the cross-section of the wall.

Embedded in the exposed inner wall...were rows of almost melted skeletons!

Aki Jude covered her mouth and widened her eyes. An expression of disbelief surged in her beautiful eyes, and she subconsciously wanted to hide behind Lu Mingfei.

She spoke in a trembling voice: "This, this is..."

"Yes, it's a human."

Yin Lizhen nodded: "To be more precise, it's us. Me, and these deadpools you saw."

There was a dead silence. There was no sound, not even the sound of breathing. Everyone held their breath. The corridor was as quiet as an empty ice field.

Aki Sakutoku shook his head violently. "You mean, this silver mausoleum... is made of living people? But that's impossible. The temperature that can melt silver is enough to melt human bones. At such a high temperature, the minerals in the bones will separate and the collagen fibers will be carbonized. How is it possible to leave such a clear bone structure in the wall?"

But she had already believed it in her heart... She had always been curious about how such a silver palace could be built underwater with 2,000 years of technology. After all, with ancient processing technology, it was beyond imagination to make such a large mold.

Now she had the answer. She didn't need a mold, she was the mold.

A strange emotion flashed across Zero's eyes, which was rare, and he said softly, "No, it's actually possible."

She raised her head and glanced at Lu Mingfei, who also turned his head and glanced at her at the same time: "Yes, it is possible... As long as the blood bursts."

"Blood-throwing?" Jiude Aki was stunned. This was another unfamiliar word she heard today. She suddenly had an illusion that in front of Lu Mingfei and Ling, she seemed to be the ignorant junior schoolmate.

"That is a technique that weakens one's own will to make the dragon genes overwhelming in the bloodline, thereby improving the purity of the bloodline in a short period of time."

Zero explained: "After the blood burst, the hybrid's bloodline will be instantly raised, the body will also take on a dragon-like state, and the bones will be strengthened to the strength of dragon bones... If the liquefied silver after the blood burst is melted into a wall, the strengthened dragon bones can indeed withstand higher temperatures and will not be carbonized."

"So you call this skill 'Blood Rage'? We call this ability 'Going Out'."

Yin Lizhen waved her hand and the surrounding walls closed again, returning to their original appearance. The group of deadpools in front also disappeared into the dark shadows in the corridor.

Lu Mingfei looked at Yin Lizhen silently. At this point, he had of course completely believed the man's identity. The scene he had just seen was too shocking... or terrifying. He had only seen a city made of living people in the anime "Attack on Titan".

"I know you still have a lot of questions you want to know." Yin Lizhen suddenly said softly: "Let's talk while we walk. I will take you to find your companions. They have already set off towards the exit."

Yaji turned to look at Lu Mingfei as if asking for advice, and Ling also looked at Lu Mingfei. In the team of these two women and one man, Lu Mingfei had become the backbone in Yaji's heart.

In addition to the strong fighting ability that Lu Mingfei had just shown, it was probably because Lu Mingfei had established a very reliable image in Yaji's mind. It seemed that no matter what problem they encountered, this boy could help them solve it.

Lu Mingfei nodded, indicating that he accepted Yin Lizhen's suggestion. The three of them followed Yin Lizhen at a distance of three to five meters. After all, Lu Mingfei was still not completely on guard against Yin Lizhen.

Yin Lizhen walked in front to lead the way, and the purple robe dragged on the ground, making a rustling sound.

"What do you want to know?" Yin Lizhen asked without turning his head.

"Why can you command these Deadpools?" Zero asked.

"This question is very simple. I am the head of the Yin family, and these people were originally our Yin family's private soldiers."

"Did Liu Xiu ask you to build this silver mausoleum with living people?"

"I wanted to reprimand you for daring to address His Majesty the Emperor by his first name, but when I think about it, more than 2,000 years have passed, and the dynasties must have changed a lot outside."

Yin Lizhen said calmly, "If our indecisive emperor knew that we were going to use living people to build the tomb, he would definitely not agree. But how can the war between humans and the Dragon King be bloodless? So my sister Yin Lihua and I hid it from the emperor and said that the Yin family has a secret method. We only need to use silver to build the tomb, which can seal the bronze city of the White Emperor, so that even if the White Emperor revives, he will not be able to harm the world."

"So you tricked these people into becoming 'living spirits' and buried them with you in this mausoleum?"

"It's not a trick. Everyone volunteered. Every skeleton in this Dragon Mausoleum is a person whose country was destroyed by the White Emperor and who hated the White Emperor to the core. Hearing that it could seal the Dragon King forever, everyone volunteered to sacrifice themselves to build this Dragon Mausoleum."

"Then why did these living spirits who hated the Dragon King so much finally degenerate into deadpools?"

Yin Lizhen was silent for a long time in the face of this question, and this silence made Lu Mingfei realize that this might be a very heavy question.

The conversation paused for a long time before Yin Lizhen sighed and spoke in a cold and self-deprecating tone:
"In the first few years after becoming living spirits, everyone had indeed not forgotten their previous ideas. They wanted to guard this Dragon Mausoleum and seal the White Emperor forever."

"But no one expected that loneliness would be so difficult to endure. Imagine being hundreds of meters underwater, without sunlight, with your soul imprisoned in this tiny mausoleum all day long. One year might be okay, two years might also be okay, but what about a longer period of time? A hundred years, two hundred years?"

"I forgot which hundred years it was when the first person finally realized that this dark and hopeless life of confinement might continue forever and would never end. The long period of loneliness finally caused his mental breakdown, and his will as a human being was completely worn away by time."

"This is almost unimaginable torture. He began to doubt whether his sacrifice was meaningful, and began to hate himself who voluntarily sacrificed himself to become a living spirit hundreds of years ago. As a result, the dragon part of his bloodline completely overshadowed the human part of him, turning him from a living spirit into a deadpool."

"If you have ever fought in a war, you will know why you can only advance and not retreat. Any deserters will be executed on the spot. Because as long as there is one deserter in the team, there will be a second and a third one immediately, and the morale of the army will collapse in an instant."

"The same thing happened to the army guarding this mausoleum. After the first person fell and became a Deadpool, more people soon wavered and became Deadpools one after another. One, two, one hundred, two hundred. Finally, one day, most of the people in the mausoleum except me fell and became Deadpools. They wandered around the mausoleum like lonely ghosts."

"Perhaps it is a good thing for them to become Deadpool. After all, Deadpool has no consciousness of his own. It is much happier than being a living spirit with thoughts."

Jiude Aki was stunned as she listened to Yin Lizhen's story, which she didn't know if it was a story or not. She had never thought that living spirits would have their own consciousness, but if living spirits really had consciousness... then it would probably be the cruelest punishment in the world.

The soul is forever trapped in a certain place, unable to leave...

Just like Yin Lizhen said, he will not die a good death.

Thinking of this, there was less vigilance and more sympathy in Aki's gaze when she looked at Yin Lizhen's back.

She couldn't imagine how Yin Lizhen had gotten through the past two thousand years, especially since he had witnessed his former companions turning into deadpools one by one right before his eyes.

At this time, Lu Mingfei asked, "Can this mausoleum really seal the Dragon King forever?"

"Is there anything in the world that lasts forever?" Yin Lizhen said calmly, "This mausoleum can only seal the entrance to Baidi City for 32 sixty years."

32 Jiazi?
Lu Mingfei counted silently in his heart. One Jiazi is 60 years, and 32 Jiazi is 1920.

"..."

Doesn't that mean it's almost reaching or has already reached its service life?
Lu Mingfei was stunned for a moment, then quickly asked, "When was this mausoleum completed?"

Yin Lizhen thought for a moment and replied, "It should be the first year of Yongyuan, the year when Emperor He Liu Zhao ascended the throne."

Lu Mingfei, whose history is not very good, turned to look at Ling: "The first year of Yongyuan is...?"

Zero immediately gave the answer: "89 AD."

89 AD.

89 plus 1920...

...equal to 2009?
……

(End of this chapter)