Dongxuan Spiritual Realm

Chapter 34: The Evil General's Tomb

Huo Yaoguang's mustard ring was very magical. It looked like a jade ring as big as the mouth of a teacup, but it felt heavier than gold or silver in his hand.

She held the jade ring in her left hand, injected true energy into it, and cast a spell.

The jade ring emitted a clear light like water, covering a poisonous dragon fruit.

The fruit swayed gently on the tree. The roots of the dragon fruit were extremely tough and could not be cut with ordinary knives or scissors.

Huo Yaoguang pointed his right hand, and purple sword energy shot out from his fingertips. With a light stroke, he cut off the root, and the fruit was sucked down. In the green light, the closer it got to the ring, the smaller it became, and finally it fell straight into the world inside the ring.

After seeing the wonders of the mustard ring, Yang Qisheng was extremely envious. There was only a foot square space in his Qiankun bag, and only one poisonous dragon fruit could be stuffed in, and it couldn't even be the biggest one.

He wanted to cut open a poisonous dragon fruit to take a look, but Huo Yaoguang stopped him hastily: "No! This thing is extremely poisonous and must be processed before it can be used. No one except a real person who has refined the golden elixir can withstand it. Its poison is sealed in the skin.
Burning it in the fire is fine, but once you cut it open, the smell of the juice will escape, which is unbearable. This fruit is formed from the blood of a poisonous dragon that has been precipitated for thousands of years. Dragons are inherently lustful, and the mere smell of it will make them want to be aroused..."

As she spoke, she blushed a little.

Yang Qisheng nodded and put aside his curiosity: "Then I will help you pick the fruit."

Huo Yaoguang used the mustard ring to emit clear light. Whichever fruit it covered, he would use the sharp sword energy to cut off the fruit stem.

The two of them cooperated well and quickly picked more than a hundred of them.

"This fruit ripens once every three years and has a large yield. There aren't many people who can prepare it to neutralize its toxicity, but it's not scarce. We only need to pick another thirty or fifty."

Yang Qisheng agreed, thinking this junior sister was quite good. He thought they could visit Zhenyue Lake someday if they had the chance. There were volcanic swamps and lakes covering over a thousand miles, and the vegetation was thriving. It was different from Longgao Mountain, and it would be a good opportunity to broaden their horizons and gain some experience. However, since all the disciples in Zhongfu's lineage were female, he wasn't sure if it would be convenient for them to go.

Just as he was thinking, a red and black sword energy suddenly flew over from the northeast, shaped like a twist of dough. It was originally flying westward, but suddenly sensed Yang Qisheng's sword energy and immediately turned around and flew over.

"This is the sword energy our sect uses to call for help!" Huo Yaoguang quickly stopped what he was doing.

Yang Qisheng also noticed it, and raised his finger to meet a sharp sword energy. When the two collided, they immediately exploded into a colorful light.

Amidst the colorful light, a young man appeared. It was Xue Yan whom I had met a few days ago.

Xue Yan said anxiously, "Which fellow disciple is nearby? I am Xue Yan, a disciple of Master Dayu of Taiyi Palace. I have strayed into danger. I beg for help!"

This sentence was repeated three times, and then the colorful light converged and turned back into a sword energy of red, black and white, and flew away to the northeast again.

"It's Senior Brother Xue Yan!" Huo Yaoguang's tone was filled with surprise, "He's in danger!"

Yang Qisheng asked, "Do you recognize him too?"

Huo Yaoguang nodded. "When I went to the Taiyi Palace's ancestral temple to enter the genealogy this year, Senior Brother Xue Yan took me on a tour of the various scenic spots and even treated me to some Small Leaf Bingxin Tea. Let's go and save him."

As she spoke, she released purple sword energy, and Yang Qisheng also released white sword energy. The two flew side by side in the direction of Xue Yan.

Although Xue Yan was impolite and spoke in an unpleasant way, he did not do anything to actually harm Yang Qisheng. As a fellow disciple, even if Huo Yaoguang was not there, Yang Qisheng would not stand idly by if they met him alone.

One of them had a special purple sword energy, and the other had the combined five elements. Their sword-controlling speed was much faster than that of cultivators of the same level. They quickly crossed the main beam of Longshu Ridge and reached the sunny side of the mountain.

Yang Qisheng sensed the sword energy he had released earlier, and took Huo Yaoguang to find the right direction and flew all the way, and soon they arrived at a valley.

There was a hole as big as a millstone on the sunny slope of the valley, and streams of eerie air gushed out from it.

"Senior Brother Xue should be in there." Yang Qisheng first ignited three flames and shot them into the room in succession. He found that there was no particular danger except for the heavy yin energy inside, so he flew in with his sword.

Inside was a very square tomb chamber with a large coffin. The outside was a carved stone coffin, and the inside was a dark iron coffin. The lid of the stone coffin had been shattered on the ground, and the lid of the iron coffin was also thrown aside. There was no corpse in the coffin, but instead there were a lot of burial objects piled up randomly, inlaid with pearls and jade, all of which were luxurious items.

"Senior Brother Xue's sword energy for help disappeared as soon as it entered here." Yang Qisheng told Huo Yaoguang.

"But where is he now?" Huo Yaoguang examined the coffin carefully. "Could it be that a zombie came back to life and ate Senior Brother Xue? And then escaped through that hole?"

"It can't be that fast, and there's no sign of a fight. Senior Brother Xue is not an ordinary person." Yang Qisheng looked around.

The walls surrounding the cave were covered in relief murals, depicting figures and scenes, as if a general was leading his troops on the battlefield. Yang Qisheng searched around but found no door leading anywhere else.

He was just about to release his Wu Earth Essence to sense the surroundings when he suddenly heard someone shouting at the entrance of the cave: "You two are courting death! How dare you enter the general's tomb! Hurry up and get out!"

Outside the cave stood a middle-aged hunter, tall and strong, wearing leather armor, with a bow and arrow slung across his body and a shiny steel knife in his hand.

Next to him was a child of about eight or nine years old, dressed like him, holding a crossbow in his left hand and a rusty dagger in his right hand.

Both the father and the son had alert expressions on their faces, not against Yang Qisheng and the other man, but against the tomb hole behind them, as if something horrible was about to jump out of it at any time.

As soon as Yang Qisheng and the other two emerged, the middle-aged hunter hurriedly pulled them away. Only after they had walked two or three miles did he breathe a sigh of relief. "Where are you two from? Why are you here treasure hunting? Don't touch the things in the general's tomb!"

Taiyi Palace has a rule that unless necessary, one cannot reveal their identity to mortals. Huo Yaoguang simply gave his name: "One of our companions is missing, and we have come all the way here."

After hearing this, the hunter's face was filled with fear again. "It's over! It's over! He disappeared in that tomb. He must have been eaten by the zombie king inside!"

He told the two of them about the situation here. It turned out that there was a Wanliu Village not far south of here. He was a villager there. His surname was Jing, and his name was Jing Lei. The child was his son, Jing Han.

This general's tomb was not revealed at first until an earthquake one year caused a landslide and a cave entrance.

After the villagers entered, they saw many burial objects, all of which were valuable treasures, so they scrambled to get some and take them home.

From then on, bad luck began to befall.

Some of the villagers who took the burial objects suffered from strange diseases, and their hands, feet, heads and faces began to rot. Some suffered unexpected misfortunes, falling into water and cliffs one after another. Some encountered poisonous snakes and ferocious beasts in the mountains... and their families, relatives, etc. also suffered the disaster.

They worshipped the willow god at the entrance of the village, but it was of no avail, so they went to the county to invite a necromancer.

Ling Po had a guardian deity at home, so she instinctively understood what was going on. However, under the ban of the Universal Ceremony, all the demons and fairies lay dormant, fearing that they would trigger heavenly punishment, and did not dare to make any response at all.

Seeing that nearly one-third of the villagers had died, the villagers were desperate and spent a lot of money to ask a witch for help. After using both soft and hard methods, the witch finally started to perform a ritual.

After much effort, they finally came to the conclusion: "The ancient tomb in the back mountain holds a former general, dead for over five hundred years. He killed countless people in his lifetime, and after being buried here, he hasn't decayed. Over time, he has become possessed by spirits and has become a demonic corpse. The villagers took his burial objects and fell under the corpse's curse. Anyone who comes into contact with the burial objects will die a miserable death!"

The villagers were terrified and hurried to send the burial objects back, but it was of no use and they continued to suffer the misfortune.

They had no choice but to go find the witch again. The witch almost exhausted half of her life before she got a solution from the immortals: they needed to prepare five people and six animals, hold a ritual in front of the tomb, and offer sacrifices for three consecutive days.

From then on, the bad luck subsided.

"Is there a demon corpse in this tomb?" Yang Qisheng looked in the direction of the cemetery again, but only saw one tomb chamber and did not find any other entrances.

"Anyway, that's what the witch said back then. I was still a kid then, and I remember her face was completely pale, her eyes bloodshot, as if they'd been washed in pig's blood. Those words were incredibly horrifying."

Thinking back to what happened back then, Jing Lei still felt a lingering fear. "Anyway, this tomb is too weird. Don't go near it. You absolutely cannot go near it. Do you hear me?"

The latter sentence was said to his son Jing Han, and while saying it, he kicked his son's butt.

The child was very stubborn. He said nothing and stood straight, letting his father kick him.

Yang Qisheng hurriedly stopped him: "Brother Jing, what are you doing? Why are you hitting the child?"

Jing Lei explained to him, "You two may not know this, but I picked this kid up. When I went hunting in the mountains, I came to this place and heard a child crying. I found the tomb and heard crying coming from inside. I bravely jumped in, took him out of the coffin, and ran all the way home.
He almost lost his soul! The villagers heard that he was found from a grave and said he was the son of a zombie, and they insisted that I burn him with fire. I saw that he was a living boy, so I couldn't bear to let him go. I risked my life to protect him. I was afraid that the villagers would take him away and burn him when I was away, so I carried him on my back when I went hunting for the past few years.

Hearing him say this, Yang Qisheng and Huo Yaoguang also became curious and looked at the child carefully.

The child has a chubby head and fair skin, with good blood circulation and full of vitality. He is indeed a living person, not a zombie.

Being stared at by strangers, the child was not shy. He stared silently with his big eyes with distinct black and white, looking at the two of them in return.

Jing Lei continued, "He's grown up over the years and has become more sensible. He's often bullied by the children in the village, who call him a 'zombie cub.' He knew how to refute it at first, but in the past two years, he's thought he might be a zombie, so he often comes here to look for his father. Once, he even fell asleep in that coffin, which scared me to death. No matter how hard I beat him, he wouldn't change. Today, he sneaked away, and I chased him, but I didn't expect you two to be in there already."

(End of this chapter)