Chen Duan's Might Overwhelms the Kong Family, Gu Worms Cleverly Break the Stone Coffin Lock

"Hmm?" Chen Duan recognized the voice at once.

Before long, Kong Tianpeng pushed through the crowd and rushed to the front. When he saw Chen Duan, he froze.

"Senior Chen! It really is you!"

His instinctive reaction upon meeting an acquaintance was delight, but then he remembered their current predicament, and that delight vanished.

The situation he had feared most had still come to pass.

"Third Brother, you know him?"

"Mm..." Kong Tianpeng faltered, suddenly unsure how to explain.

Chen Duan did not make things difficult for him. He simply said, "Since you are the kin of an old acquaintance, I will not make things difficult for you. That belongs to me. Leave."

Kong Mingcheng and the others froze at first. Then fury at being belittled and humiliated shot straight to their heads.

"Second Brother, Senior Chen..."

Kong Tianpeng was about to plead with him again, but Kong Mingcheng yanked him behind himself and signaled for him not to interfere.

Kong Mingcheng stepped forward, his eyes blazing and his tone firm. "Your Excellency, what you are doing is hardly in accordance with the rules. This is the ancestral ground of the Kong Family. By rights, the things here should naturally belong to us."

Chen Duan could not be bothered to waste any more breath. He straightened, then rolled his neck.

"Very well. I will give you a chance. All of you, come at me together."

An incense stick's time later.

Another human-shaped hollow had appeared in the Tomb Chamber's wall. Its "resident" was none other than Kong Mingcheng.

Duan Chonghe, who had been pretending to be dead nearby, heard every bit of the commotion outside and could not help gloating inwardly.

That group of Previous Dynasty remnants had beaten him mercilessly just now. They deserved what was coming to them.

As for everyone else, apart from Kong Tianpeng, they were all black and blue. By now, they sat or lay obediently where they were, not daring to make another move.

Kong Tianpeng stood where he was and stared at the scene before him, his heart filled with indescribable shock.

Just who was this Senior Chen?

Even a Five Refinement Master like his Second Brother had been utterly powerless before him?

The scene at present was bizarre beyond words.

The Tomb Chamber was filled with elite Martial Masters. Taken outside, this force would have been enough to easily conquer several counties.

Yet all of them had been held at bay by a single person?

If word got out, it would truly be laughable.

"Are you done yet?"

Chen Duan turned toward Xu Miao and the others, a trace of impatience entering his voice.

"Almost, almost! We're nearly finished!"

Pockmarked face trembled all over and hurriedly replied, moving his hands even faster as cold sweat poured down his face.

The second layer of the Stone Coffin's lock was far more complicated than the first.

Chen Duan swept his gaze over the Kong Family members and asked, "Which of you knows how to deal with this?"

The Kong Family members looked at one another, then lowered their heads one after another. No one answered.

At that moment, a young man dressed in the Gu Tribe's clothing timidly tried to raise his hand. But a Gu Tribe youth beside him noticed at once and hurriedly reached out to press the boy's arm down.

How could such a subtle movement escape Chen Duan's eyes?

His figure blurred, and he appeared beside the Gu Tribe boy, hauling him out of the crowd.

"You have a way?" Chen Duan stared into the boy's frightened eyes and asked bluntly.

The boy went pale with fright and instinctively looked toward the Gu Tribe youth.

"Look at me!"

Chen Duan's voice sank. He reached out and turned the boy's head straight. "Answer me. Can you or can you not?"

Overwhelmed by his powerful presence, the boy's lips trembled as he stammered, "Gu worms. I can try using Gu worms."

"Good! Then I'll give you a chance. If you succeed, I'll reward you handsomely."

Chen Duan then waved his hand, sending the four-person locksmith team aside.

Xu Miao and the other two had been trembling with fear when they saw Chen Duan's displeased expression, worried that they had angered him. But now, seeing that he merely intended to switch people and try again, they immediately breathed a sigh of relief and secretly congratulated themselves on their luck.

Only Pockmarked face stared wide-eyed, looking somewhat "abnormal"...

"It can work! It really can! Let me try one more time! Just once!" He suddenly threw his arms around Chen Duan's leg. His bloodshot eyes were stretched wide, and a hint of madness flickered deep within his pupils.

"I felt it! I was just a little short!"

He babbled incoherently, his whole being seemingly trapped in some sort of deranged state.

Under the successive rounds of immense pressure, Pockmarked face seemed to have suffered a mental breakdown.

"Er Gou!" Xu Miao and the others were horrified. They hurriedly went forward to pull him away.

But Pockmarked face's strength was astonishing now, and they could not pull him loose no matter how hard they tried.

Chen Duan glanced at the man, somewhat surprised.

Who would have thought that picking a lock could actually drive someone insane?

He then raised one foot and kicked the man unconscious before replacing him with the Gu Tribe boy.

Xu Miao and the others felt as though a heavy burden had been lifted. They hurriedly carried Pockmarked face to the corner and stayed there. By now, merely seeing that Stone Coffin made their hearts creep, and they hid as far away as possible.

The Kong Family members, meanwhile, gathered around with a measure of curiosity.

"Alas, I never expected that such a fiendishly difficult step would be set at the very end. It really is beyond imagination." Kong Tianpeng stood beside Chen Duan, his tone tinged with emotion.

Along the way, quite a few Kong Family Disciples had fallen. Those sinister and bizarre arrangements had practically seemed designed to toy with people. If so much effort had been expended only for the Stone Coffin to contain nothing at all...

Kong Tianpeng could not help recalling some of the Jianghu's circulating anecdotes. Certain highly skilled, eccentric senior masters, bored out of their minds, truly enjoyed setting up false tombs and taking pleasure in fooling later generations who came seeking treasure.

An expedition into the hidden and mysterious was inherently a gamble. Not only did it consume manpower and resources, but whether one returned laden with treasure or lost everything depended entirely on fate.

Under everyone's focused gazes, the Gu Tribe boy drew a deep breath. He untied a tiny bamboo tube from his waist and pulled out the stopper. A small, lustrous-white worm resembling an earthworm slowly crawled out of the tube and coiled around his fingertip.

The boy's lips began to move faintly, producing a string of strange whispers, as if he were communicating with the white worm on his fingertip.

Under the boy's direction, the white worm writhed into the gaps in the Stone Coffin's mechanism.

Immediately afterward, a series of "click, click" sounds came from inside the Stone Coffin.

The Kong Family members had lived in the Southern Border for years and neighbored the Gu Tribe, so they had long since grown accustomed to such strange methods.

Though Chen Duan had seen something similar in Hunxi Valley before, he still found it quite novel.

The boy's whispers just now had all been caught by Chen Duan's Wind Listening Ears.

It was a very familiar sensation, rather similar to the pipa music he had heard in Yingcheng.

Between the two, Gade had sensed traces of internal force. These Gu worms and that pipa seemed to be the same kind of existence.

On a whim, he summoned a Gu Tribe youth from the Kong Family's group and had him explain everything in detail.

Though this Gu Tribe youth, Ainuo, held Chen Duan in awe, the moment he began discussing the Gu arts his tribe was renowned for, it was as if he had become a different person. His eyes shone, and his speech grew smooth and brimming with pride.

After all, to them, Gu worms were not merely a skill for making a living. They were a faith and pride woven into their blood.

According to Ainuo's explanation, Gu worms could generally be divided into two categories: "Wild Gu" and "Life Gu."