From Under One Person: Sincere Journey Through the Heavens

"Could it be a cenotaph?" Duanmu Ying guessed.

“A cenotaph wouldn’t have a bronze figure placed inside. At the very least, it would be like Qin Shi Huang’s tomb, where terracotta warriors would be placed. Clay sculptures are much more sturdy than bronze figures,” Jiang Liu said, looking towards the center of the coral iron tree. There was a protruding bronze stake there, which he figured could be used to place the bronze figure.

Do it when you think of it.

Jiang Liu was a man of action. He lifted the bronze figure and placed it on the bronze stake, where it corresponded perfectly. Moreover, the jade pillar beneath the jade plate was connected to the groove on the bronze stake.

"This is the mechanism!" Duanmu Ying exclaimed excitedly, but also puzzled. "But what hexagrams do we need to manipulate to activate it?"

"Naturally, it is the Zhen hexagram, with Zhen above and Zhen below, which can shock a hundred miles away."

Jiang Liu began to manipulate the divination plate.

The Guixu Qi formation implicitly contains all sixteen hexagrams of the heavens.

What are the sixteen hexagrams of the day?

The combination of the Pre-Heaven Bagua and the Post-Heaven Bagua, when thoroughly investigating the changes in heaven and earth, yields the sixteen hexagrams of the entire universe.

Fuxi created the Pre-Heaven Bagua by observing the Hetu diagram, while King Wen of Zhou created the Post-Heaven Bagua by observing the numbers of the nine palaces in the Luoshu diagram.

What is the difference between these two?

To put it simply, the difference lies in the order of arrangement. The Eight Trigrams of the Earlier Heaven are Qian 1, Dui 2, Li 3, Zhen 4, Xun 5, Kan 6, Gen 7, and Kun 8.

The Later Heaven Bagua consists of Kan (1), Kun (2), Zhen (3), Xun (4), Qian (6), Dui (7), Gen (8), and Li (9).

Where did Wu go?

The central palace is located at the fifth position.

The combination of the acquired and the innate forms the sixteen hexagrams of the heavens, which also correspond to the sixteen hexagrams of the human body.

Jiang Liu manipulated the jade pillar on the jade plate, causing it to form the Zhen trigram.

The number of yang is nine, and the number of yin is eight.

The innate governs the acquired; therefore, when manipulating this jade disc, one must calculate according to the arrangement of the Zhen (震) trigram of the innate Bagua, taking the number "four".

The Zhen trigram consists of one yang and two yin.

Since the number of yang is nine, one yang equals four times nine, which is thirty-six.

Since the number of yin is eight, one yin equals four times eight equals thirty-two, and two yin equals sixty-four.

When the numbers of Yin and Yang are added together, the Zhen trigram arrives at the number "hundred," which perfectly confirms the "hundred" that shocked the entire region!

# Chapter 492 Corpse-like Hair, Pearl Matchmaker

When Jiang Liu had completely manipulated the Zhen trigram, the holes and openings on the jade plate were moved to the right positions, and some of the openings even overlapped, allowing air to flow through them, forming small vortices, which was incredibly mysterious.

Whizzing.

The sea sand sprayed out from the hundreds of orifices all over the bronze figure, and then popped out heads that looked like mermaids, with pearls in their mouths, but there were no pearls in their mouths.

"What's going on here?"

Duanmu Ying was puzzled.

"It seems that we need other keys to activate the mechanism."

Jiang Liu observed the mouths of these fish heads and expressed his guess: "Judging from the fact that Jonathan and the old captain obtained a large number of Moon Pills, the mechanism below may be able to extract the essence of the moon from the Moon Pills to provide further energy for the 'ascension' of the Jianmu."

At present, Jiang Liu and his group have no Moon Pills, so they can only leave this place first and persuade Jonathan, the old captain and others to "contribute" the pearls.

After all, wealth is never as important as life, is it?

However, before leaving, Jiang Liu went to the ravine in the Stone Cauldron Coral Reef to observe the writhing giant creature. He took out a jade bottle from his storage ring, poured out a Drunken Fish Pill, and threw it in.

The fish-drunken pill spread instantly upon entering the water, where it was absorbed by the enormous wriggling creature.

A moment later, Jiang Liu probed with his mental energy and discovered that the Mermaid's mental energy had been scattered for about three seconds before returning to normal.

Three seconds?

Jiang Liu seemed to be deep in thought.

"What did you throw in?" Duanmu Ying asked.

"The Drunken Fish Pill was found on the Mary Senu. It can make fish drowsy. Now it seems to be effective on the Mermaid as well, but the effect of one pill only lasts for three seconds." Jiang Liu originally intended to take this opportunity to kill the Mermaid, but within those three seconds, Jiang Liu failed to locate the Mermaid's heart.

By the way, do these creatures that resemble sponges, sea cucumbers, and sea anemones have hearts?

Jiang Liu wasn't a biology expert in his previous life; he only remembered that sea cucumbers could live without their internal organs... He figured that this sea cucumber-like shark mother must also have extremely strong vitality, and it would probably be impossible to truly kill it without destroying it completely.

"How many Drunken Fish Pills do you have left?" Duanmu Ying asked.

"Eleven."

"So, you mean you can make the Mermaid drunk for thirty-three seconds?" Duanmu Ying asked.

“Theoretically, that’s true, but considering the Mermaid’s enormous body and the fact that it’s a being that has obtained Qi, its resistance to drugs should be quite strong. I estimate that it would be difficult to even get it drunk for twenty seconds.” Jiang Liu was not optimistic, and then asked doubtfully, “By the way, why is the Mermaid under this crack in the giant cauldron? With its enormous body, it can’t possibly squeeze in, right?”

"In the stories of the Dragon Otter People, there is one that goes like this: An otter family member used himself as bait, crawled into a cave, lured the Mermaid into the cave, and then covered it with a large rock..."

As Gu Qian spoke, he looked at the crack on the stone cauldron and suddenly understood, “It’s not that the Mermaid is huge and moves slowly! It’s that before our ancestors escaped from the Ruins of Return, they tried to use a mechanism to trap the Mermaid in the cave under the stone cauldron. But the stone cauldron cracked open, and the Mermaids born from the Mermaid were still able to swim outside.”

"So, the storms and vortexes on the sea were also caused by the Mermaid Manipulating the Mermaids to influence the local atmosphere?" Duanmu Ying almost said. "The Mermaids' strength is more than what they've shown before! They might be trying to use our power to release the Mermaid Man's true form!"

"The power of the Mermaid lies in its enormous body and formidable spiritual strength, but it certainly does not possess the power to stir up the South China Sea." Jiang Liu knew perfectly well that this Guixu Qi formation, which "connects to the heavens," was essentially an amplifier of power for the Mermaid.

However, given that they have also entered the Ruins of Return, the possibility of the Mermaid Granny stirring up storms and creating upheavals within the Ruins of Return, as she had done outside, is extremely slim...

Leave the water.

We got ashore.

Jiang Liu heard Jonathan's panicked shouts coming from inside the bronze hall. Following the sound, he found Jonathan sitting on the ground.

Before him was a black coffin shaped like a conch shell, which Jonathan had already opened, revealing the contents inside.

The two bronze short swords were identical to the Dragon Arc Dagger held by Gu Qian. The hilts and blades were one piece, as if they had been nurtured by Qi for many years. They were not magical artifacts, but divine weapons.

There was also a tortoise shell with the Hetu pattern on it, which was probably used by the Hentian clan for divination and star observation, but it was already broken.

In addition, there were some jade bottles and candles, which seemed to be props used in conjunction with the tortoise shell for divination.

The last item was a female corpse.

The female corpse wore a fish-tail crown and a robe adorned with thousands of beads. Her skin was soft, white, and jade-like, making her appear as if she were still alive, incredibly lifelike.

But the female corpse seemed to have no bones; it was just a fleshy sac.

"Could this be the remains left behind after ascending to immortality?" Duanmu Ying was bold and approached the female corpse. She raised her hand to touch it and found it to be exceptionally soft, as delicate as a newborn baby. Through the surrounding dragon fire light, she could vaguely see the internal organs, primordial spirit, and brain inside.

In addition, there was a peculiar flow of Qi within the female corpse's meridian circulation.

Primordial Qi?

it's not true.

Jiang Liu clearly sensed that it was the sea energy connected to this Ruins of Return! It was connected to this strange female corpse with sinews but no bones, which was why she had not decayed for thousands of years, and her body was no different from that of a living person, except that she had no intelligence!

Looking at it this way, it really does resemble the remains left behind by a legendary person who ascended to immortality.

"This is a corpse-like creature, also known as a pearl-like creature."

Seeing Duanmu Ying pick up the dagger, Gu Qian hurriedly stopped her and revealed the origin of the boneless female corpse with tendons: "In ancient times, there were many large clams in the sea, known as the ancestor of clams or the mother of clams. They lived for thousands of years and were almost one with the seabed rock layers."

The process of extracting pearls from the bodies of these oysters is called "stealing the elixir".

However, the Clam Ancestor lives in the deep sea and will never open its shell unless illuminated by the full moon. Therefore, in ancient times, the Dragon Otter Man had to deceive the Clam Ancestor with the help of a pearl to obtain the elixir.

The Corpse Demon is made from a woman's corpse. The corpse is soaked in a special drug to soften the bones into large tendons. It is then placed in the Sea of ​​Return to the Void by a secret method. The sea energy permeates the body from top to bottom, allowing it to draw in dragon fire, causing the body to radiate a silvery glow, like the brilliance of a full moon.

If the ancestor of deep-sea clams senses something, it will open its shell to perform the function of swallowing and spitting out.

Then we can seize the opportunity to cut off our flesh and steal the core!

"Isn't this a bit cruel?" Duanmu Ying raised an eyebrow. As a doctor, she was somewhat disgusted by the ancient Hentian clan's practice of turning their own kind into corpses to act as pearl mediums, in order to lure deep-sea clam mothers and steal their elixir.

It's not that I sympathize with the ancestor and mother of the clam, but the act of making corpse-shaped hair ornaments is suspected of being an insult to "corpses".

of course.

This is the tradition of the Dragon Otter People and the Hatred Sky Clan—

So let's pretend she never said that.

"The method of making corpse hair ornaments has been lost, and we don't know how to make them either."

Gu Kun sighed, "However, over the past thousands of years, the ancestral clam species in the deep sea have been almost entirely captured, and pearl-pollinated organisms are no longer needed. Furthermore, we plan to live on land in the future, so we won't need pearl-pollinated organisms anymore..."

# Chapter 493 Rebirth! ?

Jiang Liu approached the corpse and examined its body more closely, saying, "It's like a living corpse, sustained by sea air. If we could get its heart to beat again, it might actually come back to life."

"You want to resurrect this corpse?"

Duanmu Ying asked incredulously, "You have this ability?"

No, but—

Jiang Liu reached into his storage ring and took out a lead box nearly a meter long. He opened it, revealing a jade-winged, golden-scaled mermaid inside.

It is also known as the innate divine image.

Legend has it that shortly after birth, it burrowed into a clam, where it was enveloped and soaked, forming this jade-like "pearl." Its innate Qi was completely sealed within it, neither increasing nor decreasing, circulating repeatedly within it, creating a small Qi field with the effect of "warm in winter and cool in summer."

Inside the Mary Senu, Jiang Liu heard the cry of "Help!" from the jade-winged, golden-scaled mermaid.

Although he did not sense any trace of spirits or other spiritual entities on the Jade-Winged Golden-Scaled Mermaid, only the Primordial Qi circulating within it, Jiang Liu did not believe that he had hallucinated at the time. He guessed that after completely binding the Primordial Qi, some unknown change occurred between the material, energy, and information of the creature.

at the moment.

The corpse-like creature had lost all its life force, but thanks to the flow of sea air, it maintained a form indistinguishable from that of a living person.

The mermaid with jade wings and golden scales had completely transformed into a jade pearl, devoid of any life force. However, her innate Qi was locked within it, circulating endlessly throughout the body. It could even connect with the magnetic fields of others in the dark and transmit messages.

Therefore.