From Under One Person: Sincere Journey Through the Heavens

It is clear that he is unwilling to lose to Jiang Liu in any aspect. Even if he cannot reach Jiang Liu's level, he will still try to create an effect comparable to that created by Jiang Liu.

In no time, the three of them had dismantled all the puppets on the four walls.

Of those still alive in the barbican, only eleven remained.

Ten of them hid inside the eight coffins—after seeing Jiang Liu and the others begin to sabotage the mechanisms, they calmed down a bit and realized that the crossbow bolts they were firing wouldn't be aimed at the coffins, so they hid inside.

Luo Laowai, unwilling to hide in a coffin with his men, and seeing that the main coffin in the middle, which was suspended, was also unaffected by crossbow bolts, took advantage of the fact that the mechanical puppets on one of the city walls had been destroyed by Jiang Liu and the others. He stepped on the edge of the secondary coffin, leaped towards the main coffin, grabbed the edge of the main coffin with both hands, and climbed onto the coffin lid, which resembled an eave. He finally breathed a sigh of relief.

"call--"

Luo Laowai was panting heavily, his heart burning with anger and hatred towards Jiang Liu and the others. He cursed inwardly, "Damn brats, just you wait, I'll make sure you all suffer later!"

After all the arrows stopped, before Chen Yulou could even breathe a sigh of relief, his ears twitched as he heard the sound of gears turning again.

"It seems there's a hidden mechanism."

Jiang Liu, with his keen senses, also noticed the commotion.

"This is the barbican!"

Seeing the Red Girl and three or five other lucky bandits who had run to the edge of the city wall and climbed up the pre-set centipede-shaped ladder, along with the soldiers of the engineering battalion, Chen Yulou felt heavy-hearted. "The traps are layered upon layer, one after another. The people who built this walled city never intended for us to get out alive!"

But don't worry, you should be safe on this city wall for the time being.

The brothers outside, seeing the huge rock falling into the tomb passage, will surely use explosives to blast it open; we just need to hold out for a while.

"Then they'd better hurry."

Li Muxuan gazed at the gradually receding sea of ​​fire below, recalling the knowledge that Master Dongshan had explained in class, and said quietly, "The burning of flames requires a certain component in the air, and this component is also essential for our breathing. If it burns out, even a superhuman who has opened up all the acupoints in his body cannot last long."

If one can cultivate Qi and open up all the acupoints in the body, one will have reached an extremely high level. At that time, the body will feel as if it is connected to heaven and earth, and breathing will no longer be restricted to the mouth and nose.

but!

Breathing without being confined to the mouth and nose is still breathing, and it is still about interacting with the outside world!

Matter and energy...

If the external world lacks the elements that sustain life, even reaching the profound state of "fetal breathing" would lead to suffocation!

Hiss!

Just then, dozens of thick spears shot out from below the spearheads on all four sides of the city wall, piercing through the eight piercings below, and then accurately piercing into the fist-sized hole, fixing the person hiding inside under the crossed spears.

The coffin containing two people was being concealed when the person on the upper side was pierced by the spear and pinned above the person on the lower side, causing the person lying on the lower side to scream in terror.

"This long spear... is a crossbow!"

The so-called bed crossbow, also known as the "eight-ox crossbow," has arrows with a hard wooden shaft and an iron fletching, and is known as "one spear and three sword arrows."

This crossbow consists of a front bow, a main bow, and a rear bow, mounted on a wooden frame. It cannot be used by an ordinary person alone. It is extremely powerful, and the arrows it shoots can penetrate city walls and become embedded in them.

In ancient times, when attacking cities and seizing territory, these bed crossbows were used to shoot at the city walls, helping soldiers to climb the walls more quickly and thus capture the city swiftly.

Chen Yulou was surprised to find such a mechanism installed inside the city wall. Ignoring everything else, he led the survivors, including Hong Guniang, to the main building to find and destroy the mechanism.

"The crossbow seems to be positioned in a fixed direction, so that it can be aimed at the holes on the left and right sides of the eight coffins, thus fixing the people hiding in the coffins in place."

Lu Jin, who remained near the wall, realized something and said in surprise, "If what Chen Yulou said is true, this barbican is meant to lure people into a trap and there is no intention to let them go back alive, then the crossbow could have been lowered a little and shot through the person hiding in the coffin. There was no need to do this."

"Indeed, if it were just for killing, there would be no need to go through all this trouble, and to arrange the coffins in a Bagua formation."

Li Muxuan agreed, then pointed to the twenty-four bronze animal models, "They might be some kind of formation or array, what do you think?"

Seeing Li Muxuan ask him a question, Jiang Liu shifted his attention from Luo Laowai, who was patting his chest in relief that he hadn't hidden in one of the eight coffins below, to the twenty-four animal models and the hazy patterns revealed by the gradually fading firelight. After a moment's thought, he didn't answer Li Muxuan's question, but instead asked Lu Jin:

"Lu Jin, you come from a family with a rich academic background. Do you know what those twenty-four animal models correspond to?"

The Twenty-Four Solar Terms.

Lu Jin carefully examined the models of the twenty-four animals and gave his answer, "The patterns reflected by the firelight, or rather, the runes-like shapes, should be the seventy-two pentads, a visual summary of climate and phenology."

Five days make up a pentad, three pentads make up a solar term, six solar terms make up a season, and four seasons make up a year, for a total of seventy-two pentads.

# Chapter 144 Resurrection?

"Twenty-four solar terms? Seventy-two pentads?"

Li Muxuan scratched his head, looking at the twenty-four animal models below and the patterns revealed after the firelight dimmed. "So, there's something like an array set up underneath?"

"I don't know."

Formation —

Jiang Liu had never encountered anything like this before, especially since it was a fake tomb with a formation based on the Eight Trigrams and the Twenty-Four Solar Terms and Seventy-Two Pentads. He had no idea what the tomb owner was up to. It couldn't possibly be just for "bondage play," could it?

"Speaking of which, it seems that the attacks from all around won't be able to touch the main coffin suspended in the middle no matter what." Lu Jin noticed this.

Ding.

The four chains trembled slightly, and the main coffin emitted a strange sound that only Jiang Liu could hear. Its lid suddenly fell downwards and to the sides, causing Luo Laowai to cry out in surprise as he fell into the main coffin. Then the lid quickly closed, sealing him inside.

"Wow! This mechanism is amazing!" Seeing that Luo Laowai had fallen for it, Li Muxuan was overjoyed and even praised the designer of the main coffin.

"what!"

However, the eight people who were bound to the coffin by the arrows shot from the crossbow suddenly howled, blood spilling from the corners of their mouths, and their Qi was being extracted from their bodies—ordinary people also have Qi in their bodies, but they cannot actively control it and can only let it participate in ordinary life activities.

"This is bad! Their Qi is being extracted and flowing in a specific direction, similar to... Qimen Dunjia techniques?"

Lu Jin also exclaimed in surprise.

Jiang Liu had already made his move, not intending to activate this strange and unorthodox formation. However, the magnetic field bound the sixty-four crossbow bolts, and when he tried to pull them out, they wouldn't budge.

The barbs on the crossbow bolts were perfectly integrated with the grooves in the sixty-four holes, forming an integral part of the entire barbican site.

If you don't have the ability to overturn the entire barbican, don't even think about pulling it out!

Damaging the site?

As soon as the thought came to mind, Jiang Liu rejected it. Based on his magnetic perception, he knew that there were many rotating gears and mechanisms under the barbican. If he were to destroy it rashly, it might cause the entire barbican to collapse. In that case, even if he had extraordinary abilities, he would be buried alive!

After all, he hadn't learned the skills of the Earth Immortal, so he couldn't use his Qi to process the surrounding soil and rocks, softening them so that he and the others could "swim" out of the ground.

In that instant of hesitation, the eight people bound by the crossbow bolts to the Bagua position were instantly drained of their Qi and fell silent.

rumble!

Immediately, the ground shook, and the ground where the twenty-four bronze animal models stood rose slightly and began to slowly rotate.

The outermost paving stones gradually rise, becoming uneven and dividing the area into seventy-two different small zones.

Click! Click-click! Click...click-click!

As the animal models representing the twenty-four solar terms began to rotate, the seventy-two regions representing the seventy-two pentads also undulated and fluctuated, forming an extremely peculiar magic array. Using the Qi of the eight people as a source, a ball of black Qi was drawn from the Bagua pattern carved above the barbican and injected into the main coffin.

"Is that some kind of ghost or spirit?"

The moment the black energy ball appeared, Lu Jin felt a strange chill, shivered, and couldn't help but ask.

Li Muxuan rubbed his arms, but two sharp glints flashed in his eyes: "Interesting!"

"It is indeed a spirit!"

Jiang Liu confirmed Lu Jin's guess, his eyes solemn. "This walled city is not a fake tomb. The tomb owner is buried here, but unlike ordinary kings and generals, what is buried here is not a corpse, but a spirit... The other party is an extraordinary person!"

"So he wants to be resurrected in another's body?"

Lu Jin was dumbfounded. "Can an extraordinary person really do that?"

"If the obsession is deep enough, it should be possible to possess a spirit."

Jiang Liu was unsure whether possession by another body was feasible, but it should be possible to forcibly control a living person for a period of time through possession.

For example: Hirumaru the Demon Sword.

This knife can control the wielder's mind, making them bloodthirsty, belligerent, and even uncontrollably prone to killing...

But this is not actually a curse.

Jiang Liu knew the origin of the demon sword Hirumaru:

The son of a swordsmith, in pursuit of the pinnacle of swordsmanship, constantly challenged various martial arts schools, but due to his youthful arrogance and lack of social skills, he was beaten and killed.

His unwavering desire to reach the pinnacle of swordsmanship led his spirit to attach itself to Hirumaru, becoming the sword spirit and thus forging the legendary reputation of the demon sword.

Unlike other confused and broken spirits, the demon sword's spirit still retains the complete wisdom it possessed in life, and even its soul itself is quite intact.

The sword spirit's obsession wasn't actually about revenge, but rather a pure pursuit of swordsmanship and a thirst for battle. That's why it ultimately used Feng Baobao's body to fight Utada Ringo. After being defeated, the demon sword was broken, and it was finally freed.

Of course, Jiang Liu guessed that if a supernatural being capable of controlling spirits were sent, they should be able to solve the problem...

at the moment--

If the tomb's occupant could truly be resurrected through possession, then he must have been an extremely pure person in life, and only in this way could his obsession endure in the world!

Moreover, judging from the operation of the formation representing the twenty-four solar terms and seventy-two pentads, the tomb owner's skills were far superior to those of the demon sword Hirumaru.

If a spirit has no support, it will simply disperse into nature and cease to exist.

Therefore, after the blacksmith's son died, his spirit needed to be carried by a leech.

But the current function of this formation seems to be to re-condense the long-dissipated spiritual entities in the mortal world by controlling the changes in the climate and phenology of the universe, and—

It actually worked!?

wrong!

It probably wasn't completely successful!

Jiang Liu dismissed his guess, because the black qi body was too broken and didn't even have a rough human shape, so it didn't seem like it had any intelligence.

Is it because some details of the formation have been damaged after being set up for many years?

This is what it says——

Because of the wind and rain erosion and earth upheaval that have occurred over the years, the bottle's shoulder has cracked and its mouth has tilted to the north, which has caused changes in the external energy field.

The latter is the most likely!

Perhaps the tomb owner, despite all his scheming, never anticipated that not only would the climate and phenology change, but the earth and mountains would also change.