A formation canât be broken into while the spell is still being performed, let alone the kind of ritual that was invoking the Demon Messenger.
The Zhong familyâs ancestral art of recruiting demons seems righteous on the surface, but this method required all the blood of a human being as a guide to conjure the Demon Messenger, so in the end, itâs not righteous at all. In front of such a sacred formation covered with a sanguinary qi, if someone breaks in at will, they would get hurt. Even the Immortals who had cultivated Immortal bones and Immortal souls would get hurt, not to mention the body of a mortal such as Qin Cheng.
However, Qin Cheng didnât understand these things, so at the moment he couldnât care less about the dangers of approaching the tunnel. The only thing circling inside his mind was that he has to break the grave robberâs formation, thinking that it might help Su Jingmo.
But, how could he destroy it, Qin Cheng didnât know at all. Amongst the objects that seem to be magic, the incense smoke drifting away from the direction of the demonâs claw movementsâŠ.
â Thatâs a guide incense. Every year when I go back home to pay respect to my ancestors, I will bring incense, candles and paper money. The candles are used to light up the way guided by the incense, so if I extinguish that incense, perhaps the demonâs claw will go back? â
Qin Chengâs idea wasnât wrong, but it wasnât entirely right either. The Demon Messenger had already found his claw, even if he extinguished the incense, the Demon Messenger who had already arrived at the world of the living wonât obey a mere humanâs order to leaveâŠ.
The five grave robbers didnât expect that a sudden intruder would break in the formation and destroy the guide incense, which messed with the qi of the formation, making it chaotic. This situation led to the demon claw that shouldâve attacked Su Jingmo, pause for a brief moment. There are thousands of Demon Messengers in the Underworld, some of them are transformed after their death, and some are transformed into strange beasts, just like Ox-head and Horse-face <sup>1</sup> , and Hei Bai Wu Chang <sup>2</sup> .
This Demon Messenger formation was inherently sinister and vicious, after all, the Demon Messengers were naturally located at the lowest level of the Eight Cold Hells <sup>3</sup> , such as the Demon Messengers of the Red Lotus Hell <sup>4</sup> . According to legend, even the Immortals havenât seen the Demon Messengers of the Red Lotus Hell, and itâs said that the Demon Messengers there are so ugly that they cannot see or hear, they canât even feel the temperature of their bodies. This way, they are able to inflict the most brutal punishments on sinful souls without any mercy. In this prison, the suffering of all sinful beings has reached the extreme, their bodies, which had already been torn open, were split into hundreds of pieces, resembling a blossoming red lotus flower. The color on their bodies being bloody red and purpleâŠ..
Since they canât see nor hear, and their bodies cannot perceive warmth, the only way they have to know where their objective is located, is with the help of the guide incense. Once the Demon Messenger of the Red Lotus Hell, who had already come from hell to the world of the living, couldnât sense the ghost they needed to take away anymore, it made the Demon Messenger, who was already brutal in nature, get instantly furious.
When the long demon claw lost its way, the only thing Qin Cheng could hear was a harsh and loud roar. Then the demon claw attacked directly at the body of the young man beside the formation. Unexpectedly, the demon claw pulled the youthâs soul out of his body!
Qin Cheng, while watching all this with pure horror, took a few steps back completely frightened. However, how could he escape when he was already inside the formation?
Qin Cheng felt that everything in front of him was more surreal than a dream. The youth whose soul was just pulled out, fell to the ground with wide, frightened eyes. It was obvious at a single glance that he was already dead. Qin Cheng then felt that the ground under his feet became abnormal and that in the dark of the night, the original dark soil became to glow red and blue.
As he subconsciously looked down, the scene in front of Qin Cheng made him take a breath of cold air.
It was like an upside-down pyramid with eight layers. This pyramid was filled with howling ghosts, who were subjected to all kinds of terrible punishments. From top to bottom, the more down you looked, the more brutal those punishments were. The ghosts were blistered, split and torn open, and their whole bodies were so deformed that they resembled a flower of five or six petals, no longer resembling the shape of a human beingâŠ.
â This is the Underworld⊠â Qin Cheng, whose mind was filled with this phrase, couldnât stop trembling in fright and fell to the ground. The scene in front of him made his stomach turn upside-down, making him feel incredibly nauseous.
At that moment, the demon claw holding the youthâs soul directly dragged it into the bottom of the Eight Cold Hells, the most terrifying and horrible placeâŠ.
âHelp! Someone help!!â
Qin Cheng didnât know who was shouting for help since he was frozen in place, simply watching how the demon claw was coming out of the Underworld again, approaching where he wasâŠ.
âAre you seeking for death?!â
A familiar voice sounded over his head, but before Qin Cheng could raise his head to look at him, he was dragged away by Su Jingmo, avoiding the attacks of the demon claw. Meanwhile, the middle-aged man behind Qin Cheng wasnât so lucky. Because Qin Cheng messed up the qi of the formation, he got injured, so at the moment he wasnât able to avoid the demon clawâs attack.
He didnât expect Su Jingmo to appear here, let alone that he would save himâŠ.
âArenât you unable to leave the tomb?â
While he glanced at Qin Cheng, Su Jingmo couldnât help frowning. â One should always be vigilant in the face of danger, but why isnât he running away nor avoiding those deities? Instead, heâs busy thinking about other matters? â
âThis formation has formed a passage.â If that Demon Messenger was able to poke his demonic claw into the tomb, that meant he also should be able to go through this passageâŠ.
After the guide incense got extinguished, Su Jingmo was able to move freely again. Whatever happened outside, who died or got injured, he didnât need to care about, he just needed to leave the passage created by the formation and return to the tomb, and he will be safe.
However, when he saw that the demon claw reached out to Qin Cheng, and that he wasnât even trying to dodge it, the always smiling-mask on the Emperorâs face immediately faded away.
Su Jingmo is a ghost, he can leave the tunnel through the formation and then retreat in one piece, but Qin Cheng canât. He has a physical body, and his physical body is currently trapped inside the formation. After avoiding the demonic claws again, Qin Cheng looked at Su Jingmo, who hadnât left, and for some reason, he suddenly became more calm.
âAm I going to die?â
While Qin Cheng asked this, another grave robber was dragged down to the Underworld by the demonic claw. When he heard those words, Su Jingmo, who was holding Qin Chengâs wrist tightly, froze for a brief moment.
After opening and closing his mouth, Su Jingmo, for the first time ever, didnât know how to answer.
âI havenât figured out what happened to the Xu Dynasty yet, and I donât know if Zhang Qishuo will resent me because of itâŠ.â Qin Cheng looked down at the purgatory in front of him. âButâŠ. Iâm afraid that I wonât be able to meet himâŠ.â
After he said this, for some reason Qin Cheng suddenly laughed as he gazed at Su Jingmoâs long hair. Then he stepped forward and hugged Su Jingmo from behind, after sensing that Su Jingmo wanted to break away, Qin Cheng hurriedly said: âEven though I couldnât help you investigate what happened to your Dynasty, I still want a small reward for my recent work.â
After saying that, Qin Cheng released Su Jingmo, walked in front of him, leaned over and kissed him on the lips.
The kiss was sloppy, but Su Jingmoâs thoughts became even more complex. After all, Qin Chengâs attitude towards him has always been ambiguous, and the meaning behind this kiss âŠâŠ even if he didnât say it, Su Jingmo knew exactly what he meant by it.
Ever since he was born into this world, Su Jingmo was worshiped by thousands of people, from being a Prince to becoming an Emperor above everyone else, there were many Ministers who were loyal to him, and there were also those who worked for him. However, they were loyal to Su Jingmo the Emperor, not Su Jingmo the humanâŠ.
This man, however, didnât show respect for him, nor did he worship him, but ratherâŠ. from the bottom of his heart, he showed his deepest affections for Su JingmoâŠ
On the other hand, Qin Cheng didnât expect that Su Jingmo wouldnât push him away: âYouâŠâ
Before he could finish his words, Qin Cheng saw that Su Jingmoâs qi suddenly became different from usual, and a sudden outbreak of Yin ghostly qi made the temperature around him decrease by a few degrees. Right after that, Su Jingmo pulled out his sword and put Qin Cheng behind him, facing the demonic claw: âRetreat!â
Perhaps because his qi was too horrifying, the movements of the Demon Messenger paused for a brief moment. Su Jingmo crossed his long sword in front of his chest, closed his eyes, and disappeared in front of Qin Chengâs eyes, without making any sound.
When he saw Su Jingmo appearing again, he had already chopped off the demonic white claw.
The Demon Messengers used to be human beings when they were still alive, so they could feel fear when faced with something powerful. This ghost was different from before, suddenly bursting with such a morbid ghostly qi, the Demon Messenger has never experienced something like this before, and he was a little afraid to retreat. However, right the next moment, when he saw that his claw was suddenly cut off, it was so shameful that the Demon Messenger became extremely furious. The Demon Messenger instantly decided to ignore the Underworldâs laws and released thousands of fierce souls from the bottom of the Eight Cold Hell.
After being trapped in hell for thousands of years, those tortured souls, like criminals escaping jail, frantically rushed towards the world of living!
âŠ
Qu Zhiwen, who was forced by Jiang Ping to accompany him to the ancient tomb, said helplessly: âI said that I wouldnât run away, you donât have to be so wary of me, Deputy Bureau Jiang. Moreover, Iâve already said that I canât help you with this case. Besides, in my opinion, those people were all killed by the fierce ghosts, and if you want to know which ghosts did it, how could that be possible? Do you want me to kidnap those ghosts and hand them over to the police?â
Jiang Ping walked over to Qu Zhiwen and said: âDidnât you tell me last time that those grave robbers might attack tonight? As a police officer, I naturally canât let this kind of theft of National Cultural Relics happen, can I?â
In fact, what Jiang Ping didnât say was that even though the light was scarce, and he couldnât see clearly that night, he always felt that he had seen one of those grave robbers somewhere, but he couldnât remember where. However, the day before yesterday, he suddenly remembered where he had seen that man before.
Jiang Ping doesnât like antiques, but his father liked them a lot. From time to time, he would collect some strange âcultural relicsâ, and each time he would say that they were objects from the Qin and Han Dynasties. He remembered that one day his father had brought a bronze pot from a man surnamed Qi, that time, Jiang Ping had arrived home at the same time that man surnamed Qi was coming out of his house. Even though he only saw that manâs profile, Jiang Ping, whoâs a detective specialized in homicide cases, is used to observing every distinctive characteristic of people. One of those distinctive points was his accent, that person wasnât someone from Xiâan, but from Shanxi.
Among the grave robbers that night, one of them looked exactly the same as the man who sold those bronze pots to his father, including his accent!
Yesterday, he deliberately went back home to inquire about that man, and what surprised Jiang Ping the most was that the man surnamed Qiâs family has been gravekeepers for generations. According to his father, gravekeepers were generally theists <sup>5</sup> , and they knew a lot about the behavior of the spirits around them. When the trees died, a tombstone collapsed, or snakes appeared, he would quickly report it to his family. If the gravekeepers were peaceful and benevolent, the family will be prosperous for generations. But if the gravekeepers damage the graves of others, then they will suffer great punishment.
Can a gravekeeper, whoâs also able to see ghosts, become a grave robber?
Jiang Ping couldnât find any connection between this man surnamed Qi and the murder cases, but his intuition told him that there was something wrong with this person.
âI donât care about those ghosts, but if someone is using the ghosts to achieve their goals, then thatâs another story.â
When Qu Zhiwen looked at Jiang Ping after he said that, he gave a sigh of relief. Speaking of which, it wouldnât be weird to call this man a rare good policeman, and Qu Zhiwen wasnât sure if he was allowed to think that he could become the second Bao Zheng <sup>6</sup> in the Underworld after his death.
Without saying anything else, Qu Zhiwen quietly followed Jiang Ping to climb up the mountain. However, as soon as they arrived at their destination, Qu Zhiwen instantly clenched his fists and frowned: âWait! Somethingâs wrong!â
After saying this, he walked in front of Jiang Ping, and then took the lead in running forward.
I want to point out that Iâm updating past weekendâs chapters today because I had some issues with my internet and couldnât upload nor translate⊠yâall can see the number of footnotes right? -haha send help- Ofc this means I will still update as usual next weekend! Hope yâall enjoyed the double updates ( Ëá”Ë )âĄ.°â