Autumn Cicada Talisman

Not a single person from Ten Thousand Eternity Commerce was in sight. Only two Servants stood guard at the main gate; no one was watching these Corpse Collectors at all...

So everyone naturally assumed that the Tricky Rings around their necks were merely precautions taken for safety, and that their lives were not truly in danger...

Before long, they had once again rummaged the painstakingly arranged corpses into a complete mess.

The few Corpse Collectors who had disdained doing such dirty work earlier now brought out their own tools and began searching the corpses for tattoos, peeling off the selected sections of tattooed skin...

These bastards did not look like much, but once they seriously set about what they were good at, they gave one the feeling of having to scrape the eyes and look anew. Skinning, drying, shaping, then tanning with medicinal solution—after this string of procedures, the tattooed human skin they peeled away became like Human Skin Maps passed down for centuries or millennia. They somehow looked even clearer than when they had been on the corpses...

But Qin Yang only glanced over them a few times before no longer paying attention. The resolution of these Human Skin Maps was truly dreadful. Aside from the general outline being acceptable, the details could at best barely touch the threshold of high definition, even if one talked until one's lips cracked. The map in his mind, on the other hand, started at Blu-ray quality...

The gap was not small by any stretch...

But Qin Yang had no mood to worry about that now. After those bastards peeled off the human skin, the already chaotic corpses looked even more disorderly.

With a shout from Pockmarked Face, the group entered the house to piece together the map, leaving Qin Yang alone outside to continue collecting the corpses.

Without a word, Qin Yang searched for quite some time while collecting the bodies before barely finding a relatively intact corpse whose build was eighty percent similar to his own. With a casual grab, he stuffed it into a Storage Bag he carried on him...

Time passed quickly. After nightfall, the enthusiastic group could only temporarily set aside the map, which they had only pieced together halfway. One by one, they rested in the Three Mountains Gang. The place was large enough, and there was no one else around anyway...

After everyone had chosen their rooms, Qin Yang took the opportunity to select a side room at the edge of the others' rooms.

He placed a stick of specially made Mind-Calming Incense in an incense burner before his door. To mortals, this incense was as potent as a sedative, but to Qi Nourishing cultivators, it merely steadied the mind.

Only, its formula differed slightly from ordinary Mind-Calming Incense...

Once the incense began burning, wisps of green smoke gathered without dispersing, coiling there and slowly spreading along the walls, as though a layer of indistinct mist had veiled the surface of the room.

Qin Yang closed the door. Only after snores rose all around and everyone had fallen asleep did he lift his long robe. On its inner lining hung at least dozens of Storage Bags, densely packed together. Most had been obtained when he plundered those ghosts before, while a small portion were his own.

He took out four talismans and pasted them onto the four sides of the room. At once, a faint ripple of power stirred. The sounds outside instantly weakened by more than half, becoming intermittent and indistinct. If someone listened from outside now, they would hear nothing from within the room.

This talisman was called Autumn Cicada. The Autumn Cicada Talisman took its meaning from the mournful cry of an autumn cicada, too feeble to continue. It was a type of sound-silencing talisman.

When used directly on a person, the sounds they made would dissipate accordingly. This was high-end stuff for those Running Three Mountains; ordinary people could not afford it, since one talisman cost three or four hundred First Grade Spirit Stones.

Qin Yang had not known that the Autumn Cicada Talisman had other uses before. He only learned it after studying Introduction to Talismans. After all, the Autumn Cicada Talisman was a low-grade talisman, so it naturally had flaws. Namely, when activated, it would inevitably produce spiritual power fluctuations. To many things, those fluctuations were no different from a bright lamp...

But if one activated it in reverse along the talisman pathways, the talisman's power would not erupt all at once. Pasting it directly onto the walls could imprison the sounds inside the room. Its greatest benefit was concealment—afterward, no spiritual power fluctuations would remain...

Only after Qin Yang confirmed that there were no problems did he place one hand on a Storage Bag. With a thought, a small cloth bundle dropped into his hand. When he opened it, there were more than a dozen slender little tools scattered inside.

He had acquired all these himself after learning that lockpicking skill back then. Unfortunately, he had never had a chance to use them. Now, the first time he used them was on himself...

Qin Yang reached up to touch the Tricky Ring around his neck, slowly closed his eyes, and carefully sensed it. Then he took a thin needle from the cloth bundle and lightly tapped the silver ring around his neck.

Tiny ding ding ding sounds continued to ring out. Qin Yang kept his eyes closed as he quietly sensed them. A moment later, he opened his eyes, took out three silver mirrors, and arranged them before himself, using the reflections to observe the silver ring around his neck.

The silver ring appeared to be interlocking iron loops nested together. Each loop was like chainmail, assembled and woven from countless tiny components. The entire thing was exquisitely crafted, absolutely a work of high precision.

A moment later, Qin Yang took out a tiny needle and lightly picked at one point on the silver ring...

At once, a small opening appeared on the previously flawless silver ring, like a keyhole...

At the sight of it, Qin Yang finally revealed a faint smile and reached up to wipe the fine sweat beading on his forehead.

Since this Tricky Ring was extremely sensitive to True Essence, it had to be a purely mechanical construct. It was the sort of thing cultivators skilled in mechanisms used to show off their craft.

In essence, it was merely thirty-six interconnected little locks linked together. There were small mechanisms inside, so the distance between each nested ring would continuously shrink every day...

Setting aside the fact that it would explode, this thing was just a lock.

There were thirty-six little locks, but he did not need to open them all. Opening just one would be enough. And in truth, only one of those thirty-six little locks had a keyhole.

The difficulty now was that this thing was too small. The slightest mistake would mean losing the whole game, drastically shortening the time it took for the locks to draw closer together. Even if it did not explode, it would still strangle his neck apart...

Listening to its sounds to distinguish its structure, visually estimating and deducing, then locating the keyhole—Qin Yang had more or less confirmed it.

The reason this silver ring was called a Tricky Ring was that its most crucial part was a modified Seven-Clever Lock shrunk down to the size of a fingernail. To open it, he had to find seven key points at the same time and exert force on them simultaneously.

Facing the mirrors, he used a fine needle, a bent spoon, platinum strips, and iron wire, feeding them bit by bit through the keyhole. His fingers moved ever so slightly, constantly adjusting their positions.

After the time it took to drink a cup of tea, fine sweat covered Qin Yang's forehead, but his body had gone stiff as though frozen, completely motionless. Even the rise and fall of his chest had ceased...

Holding his breath, he gently moved his fingers once more...

Then came a soft click.

The silver ring around his neck split down the middle, hanging from his neck like a dead silver snake.

After removing the Tricky Ring, Qin Yang sat there gulping down breaths, yet a faint smile rested at the corner of his mouth.

"I never expected the skill I looked down on most—opening doors and picking locks—to save my life this time. When I get back, I must burn two sticks of Spirit Incense for that Divine Thief..."