Chapter 37

The Eight Cold Hell has eight layers, which are: the Arbuda Hell, the Nirarbuda Hell, the Atata Hell, the Hahava Hell, the Huhuva Hell, the Utpala Hell, the Padma Hell, and the Mahapadma Hell ¹ .

The Arbuda Hell is the closest to the ground, so when the gates of Hell were opened, hundreds of spirits came out one after the other instantly. After staying in the Underworld for such a long time, this was the first time, in who knows how long, that they smelled the Yang qi of human beings. Moreover, as soon as they manifested on earth, the first thing they saw was four living beings waiting for them. Naturally, the spirits who have been hungry for thousands of years, were crazy enough to want to eat these humans alive.

Su Jingmo has been dead for so long that he shouldn’t be afraid of these horrifying evil spirits, but…. for the past 1600 years his soul has been in slumber for the majority of the time, and he has only woke up twice due to the tomb being broken into by living beings. Slumber doesn’t equate to cultivation, so even if Su Jingmo was strong and brave enough to protect himself against those fierce spirits from hell, that didn’t mean that he could protect Qin Cheng. Besides, even if the Jade pendant he gave Qin Cheng was able to protect him against the ghosts before, and even though that Jade pendant was created by the most respected Taoist in Great Xu, master Qingxuan, right now it was almost useless in the face of such a large number of evil spirits.

When Qu Zhiwen arrived, long and jade-like, yet sinister and terrifying, spirits were floating mid-air. There was also a particular ghost moving extremely fast, beheading the evil spirits from the Underworld. His long black hair floated with the wind, and his beautiful clothes seemed to be blown by the hunting wind, while his whole body seemed to be dyed by the moonlight.

When he saw the dead bodies of three men, who were devoured by the evil spirits, the only two grave robbers who remained alive wanted to untie the formation and escape, but in the end they couldn’t do it, so they had to confront the evil spirits head on. Meanwhile, Qin Cheng, who was just an ordinary man being protected by the Emperor’s soul, seemed to be injured….

Qu Zhiwen, who guessed what had happened at a single glance, ran to the side of the formation without saying a word. Then he bit his index finger and drops of his blood fell at the closest position to the guide incense in the formation.

Then he sat cross-legged in front of the formation, joined his hands together, and stayed quiet for a moment. At first, it didn’t seem that he was doing anything, but then the long-extinguished guide incense burst into flames.

“The lost incense begins to surge on, the evil spirits must listen to my order.” After whispering in a low voice, the Eight Cold Hell’s gates, that were closed by the Demon Messengers after releasing the evil spirits, unexpectedly opened again with a rumbling sound. Unlike before, a huge vortex appeared in the ground, and at that moment, the floating guide incense changed its direction pointing towards the depths of hell.

The guide incense led the way for the ghosts, so the spirits inside the formation were unable to escape no matter who they were, and this included Su Jingmo….

The Eight Cold Hell, which opened again, was like a huge storm whirlpool that engulfed the evil spirits, and Su Jingmo could hardly maintain his own actions under such a storm.

“Damn it!”

Ordinary people couldn’t feel the storm of hell, so when Qin Cheng saw this sudden change, seeing how Su Jingmo was about to be sucked into the vortex, he quickly rushed over to him and hugged Su Jingmo tightly.

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However, this storm wasn’t something that ordinary people could resist. The huge storm was tearing apart Su Jingmo’s soul, and since Qin Cheng’s arms were wrapped around him, his soul was also being torn apart, making him feel a horrible pain.

The Hell vortex only absorbs souls, so Qin Cheng’s mortal body couldn’t be sucked away. However, in this kind of situation, Qin Cheng didn’t notice it, but Su Jingmo was able to see that Qin Cheng’s soul was flickering in the storm.

“Qin Cheng, let me go!”

“No!” The pain coming from Qin Cheng’s arms made him grit his teeth to the point in which he could only utter that single word.

“Do you want to die?! If you don’t let go of me, you will be sent to hell with me!”

“Let you go…. let you go down hell?! This isn’t the Hell of reincarnation! This is the Purgatory! It’s bitterly cold, and once you enter there, you will never be able to get out again!!”

“Zhen has been dead for a long time!” As if to remind Qin Cheng of it, Su Jingmo said in a stern voice: “Zhen died in the Imperial Palace of Great Xu 1600 years ago!”

Qin Cheng shook his head and didn’t speak again, he just held Su Jingmo more tightly, and didn’t let go at all.

Su Jingmo couldn’t do anything else than to close his eyes and sigh deeply.

As soon as the gates of Hell opened, even Qu Zhiwen couldn’t force it to close, and the only thing he could do was to wait for time to pass until the gates closed by themselves.

After an unkown time has passed, the gates of hell had finally closed, and thousands of evil spirits were engulfed by the vortex. Meanwhile, Qin Cheng’s arms had lost consciousness.

Su Jingmo patted Qin Cheng, who was lying on top of him, and said: “Let Zhen go.”

When he heard this, Qin Cheng sniffed, smiled bitterly and shook his head: “Even if I wanted to let you go, I won’t be able to do it. I can’t move my arms anymore…. sorry….”

The power of the vortex attracting Su Jingmo has already dislocated Qin Cheng’s arms, and when Su Jignmo noticed this, his face showed a complicated expression. He held Qin Cheng up and pressed down his arms, carefully examined them for a moment, and whispered: “Bear with it.”

“Wha ——-”Before Qin Cheng could react, Su Jingmo quickly put Qin Cheng’s dislocated bones back together.

The pain was so unexpected that Qin Cheng almost screamed out in surprise, but in the end he just gritted his teeth and held back.

Su Jingmo looked at Qin Cheng’s painful expression and couldn’t help but raise his eyebrows and smile: “You can’t even endure a little pain like this?”

“No……”

“Can you move your hands now?”

“…… Yes……”

Just because the dislocated bone was corrected didn’t mean that Qin Cheng’s arms were fine, so Su Jingmo put down the hand he was holding and said: “You should let a Physician examine it when you get back.”

“Yes, I know.” When he looked at Su Jingmo, Qin Cheng thought about something and asked: “You’re already outside the tomb, does this mean that… you can leave the tomb?”

“That’s impossible.” The one who replied to Qin Cheng wasn’t Su Jingmo, but Qu Zhiwen, who has been observing the two of them for awhile now. Jiang Ping, on the other hand, went chasing after the two grave robbers who had escaped just now.

Before, when they were under chaos, Qin Cheng hadn’t noticed who had used the spell to let those evil spirits go back to Purgatory, and once the danger was eliminated, he had put all of his thoughts in Su Jingmo, so how could he notice that there was other person close to them?

The moment he spoke, Qin Cheng found out that he was the man he had met last night, whose name was Qu Zhiwen….

“Impossible? Why? Isn’t he outside the tomb right now?”

Qu Zhiwen laughed like he just heard something funny. Since his appearance seemed to be of someone who’s been ill for a long time, he looked a bit creepy after his spiritless face suddenly showed a smiling expression.

“Those people have been working for so many days to connect a little channel with the outside world, but in the end, it’s only a small channel, and…. well…. Your Highness, can at most rely on this formation to move between this place and the tunnel. If the tomb was really easy to be broken into, then how could it stand untouched for so long, when there were so many skilled people for the last thousands of years? In this regard, I’m sure His Highness knows it best.”

At these words, Su Jingmo narrowed his eyes, looking up and down at the man in front of him. However, when he saw that the conversation had led to himself, Su Jingmo simply put the usual smile mask on his face and replied. However, he didn’t respond to Qu Zhiwen’s words, and instead, he changed the subject: “Somehow, Zhen doesnn’t know why, but Zhen feels like he has seen you before.”

Su Jingmo’s words not only made Qu Zhiwen stunned, but they also made Qin Cheng’s face become extremely ugly.

Qu Zhiwen, after returning to his senses, chuckled: “Is His Highness hitting on me? His Highness is in fact a good-looking man, and I would gladly accept this invitation, but I think that Qin Cheng wouldn’t be happy about it, am I right?”

A few moments ago, when Qin Cheng embraced Su Jingmo’s soul body, anyone who looked at them would be able to guess his feelings.

After Qu Zhiwen said this, he glanced at Qin Cheng’s green face and couldn’t help but sigh. ‘ I’m afraid that human beings and ghosts must walk through completely different paths, not to mention that the Emperor shouldn’t have any feelings for this man, and even if he has, he won’t be able to escape the cycle of reincarnation, so their feelings would be fruitless in the end. ’

‘ Moreover, the two of them have the red thread of fate ² , but they aren’t connected to each other….. ’

Qu Zhiwen thought that Qin Cheng wouldn’t care about those words, but Su Jingmo’s remark made Qin Cheng think about it a bit more. After all, he knew that Su Jingmo wasn’t the kind of Emperor that restrained himself, on the contrary, after spending so many days together, Qin Cheng could guess that Su Jingmo must have been a flirtatious Emperor when he was still alive.

The words that Su Jingmo said to Qu Zhiwen would make anyone reconsider, and even though Qin Cheng wasn’t dumb enought to believe that Su Jingmo was really interested in Qu Zhiwen, it was a little bit different when those words were said in front of him to somebody else.

Qin Cheng had already exposed his feelings when he decided to kiss Su Jingmo on the lips a few moments ago, but now Su Jingmo has decided to say something that would make others misunderstand….

Feeling a bit annoyed, Qin Cheng changed the subject: “Then you aren’t able to do it either? Make him leave the tomb?”

“I’m not capable yet.” Qu Zhiwen rubbed the corners of his sore eyes. “Not even this Hell summoning formation has been able to untie the spell formation around the tomb, so how could I be able to do it? The whole structure of the tomb is a soul-binding formation, and even if I didn’t enter the Underground Palace, I can still feel that there’s a statue of a legendary beast inside. This beast is an ancient sacred beast, with the body of a tiger, the fur of a dog, a ghostly human face, tiger feet and pig’s teeth. I’m not sure where this divine beast statue came from, but it’s not a simple beast statue. Inside that statue there must be the bones of the divine beast, guarding the tomb and not allowing anyone to enter, moreover-….”

“It also doesn’t let Zhen leave the tomb?”

Su Jingmo wasn’t surprised to hear Qu Zhiwen’s words, but Qin Cheng looked at him, who was smiling regardless, and said: “You knew?”

After Qu Zhiwen appeared, Su Jingmo, who was finally willing to look at Qin Cheng’s face, nodded and then shook his head: “This Mausoleum… wasn’t built when Zhen became the Emperor. Zhen doesn’t know what the person that buried me here did, Zhen can’t know what he can’t see. However, this legendary beast is from the Dali Temple ³ that the Lin family has guarded for generations.” When Su Jingmo mentioned the ‘Lin family’, his expression became a lot softer. “If this beast was put inside Zhen’s Imperial Mausoleum, then she must’ve become the Empress of Zhen’ brother.”

“She? Who?”

After Qin Cheng subconsciously asked this, Su Jingmo turned back at him with a smile: “Zhen’s wife, Lin Qing.”

A buzzing sound filled his mind with the ‘Qing’ character….. At that moment, Qin Cheng instantly remembered the golden cup they found in this ancient tomb for the first time after excavating the tunnel, the golden cup with a wedge mouth and no decoration, that only had a character engraved on it….

Qing ….

(*´˘`*) ♡

Footnotes

<ol>Sanskrit names of the Eight Cold Hells . In the Arbuda Hell , the sinners’ skin and flesh is blistered by the severe cold. In the Nirarbuda Hell , due to the severe cold, the blisters on the sinner’s skin and flesh split open. In the Atata Hell , the sinner’s suffering is greatly increased by the cold to the point in which his lips can’t move, and he only makes this sound with his tongue. In the Hahava Hell , the severe cold is so unbearable that the sinner is now unable to move his tongue and he can only make sounds of ‘oh’ and ‘uh’ between his lips. In the Huhuva Hell , the sinner is so frozen that his lips and tongue cannot move, and he can only make sounds by vibrating his breath in his throat. In the Utpala Hell , also translated as Blue Lotus Hell , the sinner’s suffering is greatly increased by the severe cold to the point in which his skin and flesh are so frozen that it splits open, resembling a blue lotus. In the Padma Hell , also translated as Red Lotus Hell , the sinner’s suffering is increased to the extreme, to the point in which the frozen skin and flesh split open resembling a red lotus flower. Lastly, in the Mahapadma Hell , also translated as Great Red Lotus Hell , the sinner’s suffering increases to the extreme, to the point in which the skin and flesh freezes until it tears open and his whole body turns red, resembling a big red lotus. <b>姻缘红线</b> <b>yīn yuán hóng xiàn</b> ; Also referred as the Red Thread of Marriage, the two people connected by the red thread are destined lovers, regardless of place, time, or circumstances. This magical cord may stretch or tangle, but never break. This myth is similar to the Western concept of soulmate or a destined partner. In the original Chinese myth, the thread was tied around both parties’ ankles, while in modern times, the thread is tied around the fingers, often the little finger. <b>大理寺</b> <b>dà lǐ sì</b> ; It was the central trial body in charge of criminal justice in Ancient China since the Northern Qi Dynasty [550-577], similar to today’s Supreme Court.</ol>