Gentlemen, it's time to enter the Banner of Ten Thousand Souls.

Chapter 210 The Mystery of the Underground Palace
Lan Yu seemed to be venting all the sadness she had kept hidden in her heart for more than a year, and she cried loudly until she had no strength left.

Later, her crying attracted the attention of the soldiers guarding the imperial tomb, who thought it was some noble person from the palace crying at her grave.

Chen Ye had to use illusion magic to conceal the two men's figures, which frightened them so much that they thought the imperial tomb was haunted.

Chen Ye shook his head helplessly and had no choice but to take Lan Yu, who was already crying so hard that her body was weak, away from the imperial mausoleum.

However, Lan Yu had not gone far before she recovered and said gratefully to Chen Ye, "Thank you so much, benefactor. I don't know how to repay you... I can only wish you and your master a long and happy marriage."

Chen Ye laughed heartily. If Lan Yu could joke around, then it meant that Lan Yu was truly alright.

Chen Ye asked, "So, are you still going to look for the princess's cenotaph?"

Lan Yu shook her head and said, "In the end, it's just a fake grave. It doesn't matter where it is anymore. When I return to Qinghe, I can set up a memorial tablet for her myself."

"If you've made up your mind, then come with me to find the cinnabar mine. I have a map here. You're more familiar with the imperial city; see if you can find the entrance."

Chen Ye took out the map recording the cinnabar mine and handed it to Lan Yu.

This was the first time Lan Yu had ever seen such a condensed illusion, a three-dimensional map that could be flipped over and viewed repeatedly. She exclaimed in surprise, "The magic of the Yellow Spring Sect is truly amazing. I have never seen such exquisite illusions in the Qinghe Sword Sect."

Chen Ye laughed and said, "That's right, my Yellow Springs Sect is certainly powerful. If your master ever expels you from the sect, you can come to my Yellow Springs Sect and I'll reserve a position for you as a sweeping maid."

Lan Yu quickly said, "My master would never send me away. I am the most talented disciple she has ever seen."

"She only has one apprentice."

"Hmph! I'm not talking to you anymore!"

Lan Yu glared at the map in her hand, thinking to herself, "If my master marries him in the future, I'll be bullied by him every day. Maybe I shouldn't rush them into marriage; let them take their own time."

Chen Ye felt he should take on an apprentice soon; teasing children is really fun.

Despite her anger, Lan Yu still studied the map in her hand very carefully. Having grown up in the capital, she frequently visited the palace and wandered around, so she was very familiar with the area and quickly found the corresponding location on the map.

But Lan Yu immediately said, "Strange, the entrance to this cinnabar mine looks like it's inside the Imperial City's underground palace."

"The underground palace of the imperial city? Was it used by the emperor to escape?"

Chen Ye had read many works in his previous life, all of which said that there were various secret passages in the imperial palace, and that when the country was destroyed, there were always loyal eunuchs who would lead the emperor to escape through these secret passages.

But Lan Yu shook her head and said, "It's not about escaping for your life. This underground palace existed in the previous dynasty and was used for imprisonment and killing. I don't know when the rule was passed down, but those concubines, eunuchs, or other palace people who committed crimes would be imprisoned in the underground palace, and most of them would never come out."

Chen Ye asked doubtfully, "Aren't you afraid of the plague?"

It's fine to bury the dead in the ground, but burying them under the palace, especially after so many years, means the corpses are piling up in the dark. Won't the poisonous gas flood the entire palace?

"I've heard a legend that deep inside the underground palace is a bottomless abyss where dead people are thrown in, and you can wait for two days without hearing them hit the ground. But now it seems that place is the entrance to the cinnabar mine."

After hearing Lan Yu's description, Chen Ye actually found it reasonable.

According to Chen Guang's description, although the cinnabar mine has a huge reserve, it is located deep underground, making mining here extremely dangerous.

If the cinnabar mine was exposed due to changes in the earth's veins, then the crack would indeed be very deep. The imperial palace doesn't hold massacres every day, so it wouldn't be surprising if the crack couldn't be filled.

With so many corpses thrown in, Chen Ye didn't know how long it would take to clear them all.

"Regardless of these legends, let's go explore this cinnabar mine first."

First determine the location, then determine the reserves and extraction methods; only then is it worth discussing with ordinary people.

Lan Yu said proudly, "I know a secret passage that leads directly into the underground palace. I used to escape from the palace through this passage often." Then, Lan Yu said sadly, "The princess always nags me to be careful and not to get caught by the evil spirits in the underground palace."

Chen Ye comforted her, saying, "Now that you are a sword immortal who is not afraid of fierce ghosts, the princess will be happy for you when she finds out."

Lan Yu smiled with relief and said to Chen Ye, "Let's go and see if the secret passage I explored earlier has been sealed off. If it has, I'll dig a way out."

Lan Yu led Chen Ye to the west side of the imperial city, where a faint stench could be smelled, causing Chen Ye to frown.

Lan Yu pinched her nose early on and said to Chen Ye, "This is the path used for emptying chamber pots. Nobody usually wants to come here. The entrance to the secret passage is right here."

Lan Yu skillfully turned to a corner, moved aside an inconspicuous rock from the artificial hill, and revealed a hole.

"Going down from here leads to the underground palace of the imperial city."

After saying that, Lan Yu skillfully crawled inside.

Chen Ye pinched his nose and jumped in, already prepared to face a stinking underground passage. But once inside, he found that the place was just cold and damp, and didn't smell at all.

Lan Yu had already crouched down and walked ahead. When she turned back and saw Chen Ye, she stretched out her little hand to wave at him, like a little fox stealing a chicken. Chen Ye smiled and followed, and then walked a long way through this maze-like underground.

The further you go in, the stronger the chilling feeling becomes.

Even without activating his spiritual eyes, Chen Ye could feel the dense aura of death with every breath.

Many people have indeed died in this underground palace. Because it is never exposed to the light of day, the deathly aura accumulates and has nowhere to dissipate. If an ordinary person stays here for a long time, they will definitely suffer from all sorts of ailments.

However, Chen Ye was somewhat surprised that he didn't see many ghosts along the way.

Could it be that all the corpses were thrown into the endless abyss, so that even the spirits couldn't escape?
After turning a few more corners, one could vaguely hear painful wails, but it was impossible to tell whether they came from the living or the dead.

Chen Ye couldn't help but sigh, "The wretched place that mortals use to torture people is almost the same as the methods of demons."

Lan Yu turned around and asked, "What you said doesn't seem wrong, benefactor. Should we intervene? But I heard my master say that the Qinghe Sword Sect generally only kills demons. Mortals follow their own rules, and cultivators shouldn't interfere."

“Your master is right. If high-ranking cultivators interfere with mortals at will, it will only cause more trouble. Either they don’t care, or they are like the people on both sides of the Qinghe River, who are under the protection of the Qinghe Sword Sect from birth to death. Mortals in other places mostly have their own rules. Today you broke the rules because you saw injustice, but the consequences will be borne by other mortals.”

It is difficult to follow the right path because ordinary people are like ants.

This is not meant in a derogatory sense, but rather to indicate that ordinary people are too fragile.

There's a story about someone who casually tossed a piece of candy near ants. When the ants swarmed out to eat it, they found it had already been swept away by someone else as trash. Having wasted their energy without getting any food, the ant colony eventually declined and died.

Those who cultivate themselves are human beings, while ordinary people are like ants.

A single thought of kindness or evil can affect millions of people.

If one acts impulsively without careful consideration, the consequences could kill even more people.

There are certainly wronged people in the underground palace, but how can we distinguish them?

Without distinguishing right from wrong, they released everyone but killed all the jailers?
Chen Ye had no intention of overthrowing this feudal imperial system. Today, he smashed the cage and was determined to save these people and their entire families. Otherwise, it would be a moment of mercy that would implicate them.

One small change can have far-reaching consequences, and there will be many problems to follow.

You can't just kill everyone in and out of the court with one sword; that would throw the country into chaos and kill hundreds of thousands more.

Of course, one could become emperor, but that would bring even more trouble. How many years would it take to govern the country?
Overthrowing a corrupt order without rebuilding one will inevitably lead to predictable consequences.

However, this requirement is too high. Most righteous cultivators act on a whim, and only the Qinghe Sword Sect would be so restrained and cautious.

The cultivators of the Qinghe Sword Sect were also exhausted, so since Zhang Qi, the Qinghe Sword Sect had been thinking about how to achieve a permanent solution so that they wouldn't have to exorcise demons every day.

Chen Ye's establishment of the Yellow Springs Sect gave Zhang Qi a glimmer of hope. If the Six Paths of Reincarnation could be established, even if it wasn't perfect, it would be much better than it is now.

This is also why the Qinghe Sword Sect values ​​Chen Ye so highly.

Hearing Chen Ye's advice, Lan Yu did not turn back to the prison to rescue the people, but instead led Chen Ye to the depths of the underground palace.

No one knew how many years it took to build this underground space. The space was really huge. Chen Ye almost thought he was about to leave the imperial city when Lan Yu stopped and said to Chen Ye, "The place where the corpses were dumped should be ahead, but I have never been here before."

Chen Ye activated his spiritual eyes and looked ahead. He saw that the death aura was dense, which was indeed the result of a large number of corpses piled up. He then said to Lan Yu, "I will clear the way. Be careful."

Several crimson fire snakes appeared, illuminating the dim underground palace considerably.

Chen Ye walked ahead and soon saw a deep crevice.

The ground, which was originally paved with bricks and stones, has cracked open into a large hole several meters in diameter. The sound of wind can be faintly heard coming from inside, along with strange noises like ghosts howling and wolves wailing.

Chen Ye controlled a fire snake to jump into it, and after falling for quite a while, he didn't actually hit the bottom.

Chen Ye remarked with emotion, "This cave is indeed very deep, probably several miles deep. No wonder it can't be filled even if you throw corpses in."

The cave entrance was only a few feet wide, but the further the red-banded snake fell, the wider the surroundings became. It was unknown how long it fell before it finally landed in the water with a splash.

After the red-banded snake swam around in the water, Chen Ye noticed something was wrong.

This is not an underground river, but a stagnant pool, not connected to anything else.

What Chen Ye found even more strange was that there was no corpse in the stagnant pool.

Even if no one has been killed in the underground palace recently, shouldn't it be littered with corpses after so many years? How come it's so clean?

Unless, something underground comes to clean up those corpses.

(End of this chapter)