Chapter 874: Ceremony Activation
The moment they stepped into the room, they could sense that the water element there was extremely dense. There was mist everywhere, making it hazy and hard to see clearly.
But what caught their attention even more was that apart from the dense water element, there was an even stronger feeling of resentment. It was enough to send shivers down their spines. There was also a cold chill sweeping through this room. Bi Linglong wrapped her arms around herself, trembling in place.
Zu An couldn't help but ask, “Why is there such a strong aura of resentment here?”
Mi Li frowned slightly as well. “This strong resentment has either been caused by a great injustice, or tremendous hatred. Those who would have the qualifications to be buried here shouldn’t have experienced any of these situations…”
Zu An speculated, “Could it perhaps be a certain ancestor of the Qin rulers? Or maybe it’s someone like Hu Hai?”
This was the Qin State royal family ancestral hall. It was natural for some related people to be buried here as well. After the first emperor fell and Hu Hai rose to the throne, he had trusted the eunuch Zhao Gao greatly. But in the end, the armies of many different places had risen up in revolt. When the chaos neared its end, Zhao Gao hounded him to death and used him as a scapegoat. As such, it wouldn’t be all that surprising if Hu Hai carried such resentment.
“There is indeed that possibility,” Mi Li replied. After being around Zu An all this time, she had not only learned about what happened after she was sealed in the Qin Dynasty, but also quite a bit about the twenty-four histories that had unfolded afterward. She naturally knew what had happened to Hu Hai.
“There’s so much resentment here… Is it possible that some kind of malevolent spirits or dangerous elemental creatures might have formed here?” Bi Linglong was quite worried. Her personal sword had been destroyed in the metal element room, so she was already utterly terrified.
“That won’t happen.” Mi Li pointed at some different runes in the area. “There are formations set in place by many experts to prevent such resentment from gathering and developing sentience. It’s merely the purest state of resentment.”
Zu An and Bi Linglong walked over and took a look. There were extremely profound and complex runes everywhere. The two of them didn’t know a thing about runes, but they could tell that they were formidable from their complexity.
Mi Li seemed to have thought of something. She looked up and saw that there was an area where the chilliness was richest. There even seemed to be some gleaming reflections there. When the group got closer, they saw that there was actually a pool there. They could make out the vague silhouette of a coffin at the bottom of this pool.
Mi Li stood by the edge of the pool. After thinking to herself for a moment, she said to Zu An, “Use your Blue Mallard to separate the water. Let’s head down and take a look.” They had just experienced a series of rooms, a Five Elements Formation, and this emperor-level burial room. She was becoming more and more curious about the person’s real identity.
Zu An was stunned. “Blue Mallard can be used that way?”
Mi Li replied, “It might not work for a large river, but this kind of small pool should be possible with your current cultivation. Your Blue Mallard increases your affinity with the water element, so this much shouldn’t be an issue. Use your imagination; stop constantly filling your head with ways to chase after girls.”
Zu An was shameless enough that he didn’t really care about the remark, but Bi Linglong really wanted to run away in embarrassment.
Under Mi Li’s guidance, Zu An successfully parted the waters and formed a path for them to move through. At the bottom was naturally the coffin. Zu An had to give those of higher cultivation realms credit for their creativity in using and controlling the elements. It wasn’t something that lower rank cultivators could understand. If he hadn’t received pointers from Mi Li, it would have taken him many, many years to slowly grope around and realize such things.
Mi LI took the initiative to jump down, landing next to the coffin. Zu An and Bi Linglong quickly followed. The resentment grew stronger and stronger the closer they got.
Zu An sasked, “We don’t need to open the coffin this time, right? What if there’s a crazy monster sealed up inside…”
Mi Li had swung her sleeve before he even finished what he was saying. With a loud bang, the coffin lid was blown off.
Zu An was speechless. Tsk, what’s the point in even saying anything? But he was also curious and looked over. Mi Li had already moved aside the inner coffin’s lid.
“Huh?” Bi Linglong cried out in alarm. The one lying inside wasn’t human. To be more precise, her upper half was human, but her lower half was that of a fish.
What was even more shocking was the host’s beauty. She had long blue hair, and she wore a crown made from coral and pearls. Even though there wasn’t a trace of life force left on her face, it still didn’t stop them from picturing her peerless magnificence when she had been alive. But her brows were tightly furrowed, and her face a bit warped. She had clearly been filled with resentment before she died.
“A mermaid?” Zu An’s eyes widened. He had only seen them on a screen before. Who could have thought that they would really be this beautiful?
But as the lid was opened and air entered, that exceptional face immediately scattered away into ashes. Only a spotless, white set of bones remained.
“The remains of a beauty…” After personally experiencing it himself, the visual shock was too much. Zu An was even worried that it might leave behind some kind of psychological trauma.
Sigh, even a woman this beautiful ended up becoming nothing more than a pile of bones… He couldn't help but feel a bit down when he thought of that. He hadn’t really cared much about immortality previously, but now, he suddenly felt as if he could understand those who pursued immortality a bit better.
His eyes suddenly narrowed as something caught his eye. He reached his hand toward the skeleton’s forbidden area.
Bi Linglong had a weird look on her face. “She’s already dead; isn’t this a bit… disrespectful?” But she quickly realized that she had misunderstood. What Zu An had taken out was a sparkling scale. It was as beautiful as a piece of jade.
“This thing looks a bit familiar,” Zu An remarked with a pensive expression.
Mi Li asked, “What happened?”
“It’s nothing.” Zu An smiled. He put the jade-like scale away. “Do you recognize this woman?”
“I don’t. But judging from her appearance, she was probably an extremely important member of the Mermaid race, perhaps even their empress. No wonder she was able to enjoy such an extravagant burial,” Mi Li replied. However, she had lost most of her interest when she saw that it wasn’t someone she knew. She closed the coffin and returned to the surface.
Zu An was just about to follow her when Bi Linglong gave the coffin’s bottom a conflicted look and said, “I think I sensed a lot of water element power flowing along the formation in a certain direction. Those other rooms were also similar. Have our actions triggered some kind of ceremony?”
Zu An was shocked. He turned toward Mi Li. “Was there really something like that going on?” Even though his cultivation was high, his fundamental knowledge of cultivation was lacking compared to someone like Bi Linglong, who had been raised in a great clan.
Mi Li had been examining something on the ground. When she heard the question, she replied indifferently, “Yes, there was.”
Zu An became puzzled as he returned to the surface. “If you already knew about it, why didn’t you take precautions?”
“We didn’t even touch the coffins in the earth and fire element rooms,” Mi Li replied. “That means that even if some kind of sinister ceremony was initiated, it wouldn’t be complete, and would thus fail. We could then use that chance to destroy it completely and prevent something major from happening.”
Zu An laughed and exclaimed, “Master sees far and wide after all! My respect for you gushes forth like the relentless tides of the river…”
“Shut up already.” Mi Li rolled her eyes. “Get over here and look at these murals. It seems to talk about Xu Fu’s journey into the sea later on. He found the Mermaid Race, and brought back either a princess or queen to offer to Ying Zheng.”
“No wonder she carries so much resentment.” Bi Linglong suddenly felt a bit of sympathy for the woman. Her role as the crown princess looked glamorous from the outside, but she had always served as a chess piece in the hands of another.
Suddenly, the entire room began to tremble as rumbling came from outside.
Mi Li’s expression changed. “The five elements are acting up and flooding this entire palace! Has the formation already been activated? But how can that be?”
…
Meanwhile, in the fire element room, the crystal coffin had been turned on its side. The lifelike Fu Su was now only a set of white bones.
He Li looked around the coffin and brought a pile of funerary objects to the fatty next to him. “Your majesty, I found these treasures.”
Zhao Ruizhi harrumphed. “It’s just a pile of scrap metal. You even call these treasures?”
Things that could serve as a prince’s funerary objects were obviously not scrap metal. But for the emperor, who had the world at his disposal, they weren’t anything special.
They hadn’t found anything in the earth element room. Zhao Ruizhi had thought that he might have stumbled upon the secret of immortality when he saw the corpse remain intact after so much time had passed, but he felt greatly disappointed by what he had seen.
A rumble erupted in the distance, and the room began to tremble as well. He Li and the only two deathsworn soldiers who remained were horrified. Were the rooms around them going to reorganize themselves again?
Zhao Ruizhi had a look of excitement on his face. “Some kind of mechanism has been activated. I can sense the aura of life.” He couldn't wait any longer and rushed out.
He Li and his two companions hesitated for a moment, but in the end, they couldn't suppress their curiosity. They quickly followed the emperor.