The Legend of Resurrection

Alice's conclusion plunged the group into silence: it was hopeless; that meant Ade would die here.

And this isn't just Ade's problem.

"Ade can't stay, and we can't keep him around," Finley said grimly. "His scent will kill us."

The team members all thought of the swarm of insects they had just encountered; it was so powerful that no one wanted to experience it again. After all, they wouldn't be so lucky to encounter a river every time.

If they encounter a swarm of insects in a place without water protection, they are doomed.

"Then let's leave it at that, Brother Sun. The swarm just left, they might come back soon. We should..." one of the three people whose names Yu Xing didn't know interjected, "Deaths are common, aren't they?"

For people whose job involves digging up ancestral graves, moral values are not strong, and they are more ruthless than ordinary people.

The man was right; the swarm was probably nearby. They didn't have time to hesitate. Finley had even moved far away from Ade. He was relieved that Ade's vomited blood hadn't gotten on him.

Ade was already out of his mind; after spitting out blood, his eyes rolled back and his pupils dilated.

Yu Xing didn't care about that. In his opinion, Ade's fate was already sealed. Even if this group of people were particularly kind and willing to take Ade with them, Ade would not survive and would instead become a real burden.

The smart choice is to give up.

He didn't participate in the discussion; instead, he carried his bag back to the riverbank and lay down to watch.

The river was flowing, but it wasn't fast; it looked almost still. Yu Xing searched for a while before finding a drowned insect corpse downstream from where he had just hidden.

"What are you doing?" Shi Jiu had followed us again without us noticing. She seemed to really enjoy being around Yu Xing. Even before we set off, she was the only one eating outside Yu Xing's tent, as if she were watching over him.

Yu Xing smiled, and under Shi Jiu's slightly horrified expression, reached out and scooped up a dead insect, gently tossing it onto the ground.

The insect was soaking wet, its wings were stuck together, and its eight thin legs were folded up like a spider's, but its hard body and mouthparts were still frightening.

"Smell it." He gestured for Shi Jiu to come closer, and Shi Jiu squatted down with some skepticism and took a sniff.

"No fragrance?" Her eyes widened slightly, and she quickly understood what Yu Xing meant. "I understand. The fragrance comes from the insect's blood. After it bites someone, the toxins enter the body and first change the blood. The fragrance on Ade comes from the wound and the blood he vomits."

"That's right, so as long as it doesn't cause any wounds, insecticide is safe." Yu Xing liked talking to smart people; it saved him a lot of time explaining. "Did the team bring insecticide?"

Shi Jiu was delighted. "I brought it, it's in the supplies, but I remember there were only two bottles of spray, after all..." No one expected there to be such deadly insects in the mountains.

But this was undoubtedly good news, immediately calming her panic at being helpless against the insects. She said, "I'll go tell them to send two people to carry the insecticide as a backup."

After finishing her Shi Jiu, she wanted to go back, Yu Xing stopped her.

"What's wrong?" Shi Jiu asked curiously.

Yu Xing tossed the insect corpse back into the lake and asked calmly, "How long have you been in this team?"

"Hmm..." Shi Jiu glanced at him, "Actually, this is my first time working with them. I used to go into tombs with my own people, but this time something went wrong with my people, and I only got in touch with Brother Sun's team through an introduction."

"I'm nominally a member of the team, and I take orders from Brother Sun, but he still has to be polite to me. After all, I don't rely on him, and if we fall out, I can still go home." She gave a confident smile, seemingly quite pleased with Yu Xing's question. "Otherwise, why would Brother Sun have suspected me just now? I wouldn't have argued with that old scumbag Finley."

"I see..." Yu Xing stood up, still feeling a bit strange.

Shi Jiu's words made sense, but he still remembered that when he first woke up, Shi Jiu's rebuke of Finley was entirely an attempt to use Brother Sun to suppress Finley. She seemed to know Brother Sun very well, and even knew a lot about the team's preparations.

The two didn't waste much time there. Seeing that he had no other questions, Shi Jiu ran back and told him about Yu Xing's discovery, emphasizing that it was Yu Xing's doing and suggesting that they should stop judging people by their appearance.

As a result, the disdain for San, the painter, within the team diminished considerably, and even Finley became less sarcastic.

Yu Xing remained calm as he listened to the team finally finish discussing how to handle Ade.

"Sigh..." Brother Sun glanced at his teammates, pulled out a dagger, and decisively slit Ade's trachea. "Let him die quickly, so he won't be eaten alive by the bugs later. Take his supplies, let's go."

No one objected; they were all mentally prepared.

Less than four hours after entering the mountains, the group had already suffered losses, and everyone's morale was low; they were even speaking less.

Looking at the map, Brother Sun pointed in a direction. "This place is a little off from our destination, but not by much. Let's go around it."

For the next while, everyone was on high alert, keeping an eye out for any more gray bugs. Sure enough, they spotted a few lone ones on their path. They ignored the ones further away, but once a bug flew over, A Long, who had the best eyesight, was responsible for spraying it with insecticide.

And so, for the next hour or so, everything went smoothly without any more dangers, and they didn't encounter any more ferocious creatures.

In the sixth hour, Yu Xing received one-third of the background information provided by the system on time.

[You are now a member of the Weird Event Investigation Studio. During this time, you've utilized your hidden abilities as a painter to complete numerous tasks for the studio, earning the boss's appreciation.]

[The black shrines and Coffin Village from the previous discovery sparked the interest of tomb raiders. Experienced raiders dug into the stories behind the shrines, trying to unravel the secrets of immortality and illusion. Among them, one force located black shrines scattered around the world, discovering that they were all connected, seemingly leading to a massive tomb.]

[This tomb corresponds to an ancient legend. It is said that a thousand years ago, a demon daoist researched the art of immortality, creating many half-alive, half-dead corpses. He devoted his life to these insane experiments, and the final results of his experiments, along with his own body, were buried in the long river of history.]

[The demon daoist may have discovered a method to restore vitality and life to the dead—not immortality, but resurrection. If such a method truly exists, it must be hidden within the demon daoist's tomb. This news drove countless people into madness.]

[The teams that initially searched for the Black Shrines around the world possessed the most comprehensive information. Among them were Feng Shui Master deduced the approximate location of the tomb from the layout of the shrines—within the Heavy Yin Mountain in the northern part of the country.]

[This time, after your boss heard about the "temple tomb," he guessed that some powerful force would approach you to be their guide. He told you to handle it yourself; if you could uncover the tomb's secrets, you would receive assistance from the studio to resolve the internal family conflict sooner.]

[Various interested factions have recently set off for Heavy Yin Mountain. Although their entrances differ, their destination is the same. You randomly selected a reasonably experienced team to stay with, intending to use them to reach the tomb and then thoroughly study its secrets.]

As Yu Xing walked, he processed the plot. He was somewhat surprised that the black ancestral hall on the mountain in Coffin Village had such a big secret, and that it was a chain of ancestral halls. The one he encountered was just one of many ancestral halls.

At this moment, some inexplicable things in his mind about the Coffin Village were answered.

It turns out that the black coffin came first, and then the Coffin Village was formed. The Coffin Village was formed purely because of the influence of the black coffin and the ancestral hall. Zhou Yongsheng probably sensed the power contained in the coffin, which is why he staged a scene of sacrificing a living person to revive himself.

Unfortunately, Zhou Yongsheng failed; he rotted away there, returning to where he was meant to be.

Yu Xing developed a strong interest in temples and tombs. If a shrine could possess such power, what about a real tomb?

Was that demon daoist buried in the tomb truly dead? What is the principle behind his resurrection ability, and is it related to his own resurrection abilities?

The thought of this energized him.

If he could, he really wanted to delve into the tomb, lift the coffin lid of the demon daoist, and if it could still speak, discuss with it the origin of its resurrection ability—and incidentally ask it what price must be paid for this ability.

Yu Xing always felt that his infinite resurrection and recovery were not solely due to the power of the curse and prolonged weakness; there must be other costs waiting for him. He had always been in a very dangerous situation, and only when the secret was fully revealed would he know... what kind of end he would suffer.

"Oh no, is it going to rain?"

Suddenly, Luke's shouts reached his ears, snapping him back to reality as he looked up at the sky.

A tiny raindrop landed right on the tip of his nose, bringing a cool and refreshing sensation.

The weather in the mountains is like a corpse underground, changing in an instant.

Not long after Luke spoke, the rain intensified from a drizzle to a downpour. Brother Sun quickly called out to everyone, "Don't go any further! Let's find a campsite to take shelter!"

The surrounding terrain was uneven, and they hurried forward, trying to find a suitable spot.

Yu Xing ran after him, and within minutes he was soaked to the bone, his hair obstructing his vision, so he pushed it back.

The team members looked around, and finally A Long spotted a good spot, pointing up the slope. "There's a cave over there! Shall we go in and take shelter from the rain?"

Finley said, "I don't know if there's enough space inside, or if there are any dangerous things in the cave. How about this, you guys keep searching, Scar and I will go in and take a look."

Yu Xing also wanted to go, but Alice grabbed her arm and dragged her to the base of a large, leafy tree.

Alice proudly boasted, "San, this tree has so many leaves that hardly any rain gets under it. Aren't I amazing? You stay here, I'll go call Shi Jiu and Luke over too."

There were about four people standing under the tree. Her suggestion was reasonable, so Yu Xing didn't object. Alice darted out very nimbly, her skill unlike that of a doctor.

He patted the water off his backpack and the paint tube, lost in thought—according to the plot, it was about time some other danger appeared; could it be related to this rain?

Alice ultimately failed to summon Shi Jiu and Luke, because Finley quickly emerged from the hole on the slope, shouting in his hoarse voice, "Come in, all of you! The hole can barely fit us all!"

A Long added, "I've checked! There's no danger!"

Yu Xing wiped her face and silently glanced at the terrain around the cave. The cave was on a slope, high enough to avoid being flooded, and the entrance was well hidden and not easily discovered.

The problem is that he always felt that the pile of grass at the entrance of the cave seemed to have been covered up by someone.

The traces were very faint, and may have been damaged or covered up later. Ordinary adventurers and tomb raiders might not have been able to spot them, but he was able to detect them thanks to his superior observation skills and a certain degree of intuition.

There may or may not be danger inside the cave, but someone must have taken refuge here before.

Based on the background information provided by the system, he already knew that Brother Sun's team wasn't the only one in the mountains. Although they were indeed the only ones who started from the local camp, it was hard to guarantee that there weren't other teams nearby entering the mountains via other routes.

As Yu Xing followed Brother Sun's directions toward the cave, her thoughts wandered: Will I run into Carlos?

Since the system gave a special reminder before the simulation, it means that Carlos is very likely to participate in the simulation of the Tomb Palace. After all, he is not the only one who survived in the Coffin Village who can provide information to other teams. Carlos, Xiao Xuechen, Wei Fan, and the twin brothers whose names he couldn't quite remember could all be competent for this role.

Even Zhou Qinghai, to some extent, was conceived by the living village chief Zhou Facai and the dead in the tomb, and his existence is more deeply connected to the tomb palace.

"Come on in." Shi Jiu was right in front of him. She turned around and tugged at him, laughing, "You're smart enough for tomb raiding, but you need to work on your physical fitness. Why are you so slow climbing a slope?"

Yu Xing was just thinking about something; she wasn't walking properly.

He remained calm and composed, displaying the composure expected of a painter who rarely moves, and after thanking him, he finally bent down and crawled into the cave.

The air inside the cave was more humid than outside. The entrance was low, but the interior was much more spacious, just the right size to fit eleven people and their supplies. Any more would be too cramped.

The cave walls were covered with moss, and tendrils like ivy meandered and climbed the upper part of the cave.

No wonder Finley and A Long confirmed it was safe in no time; the cave was completely open, with no cracks or side passages, so there was no possibility of danger even if they wanted to.

"They're all soaked." Brother Sun looked at everyone's clothes. The supply backpacks were waterproof, so they were fine. But if people wore wet clothes, they might get sick, and getting sick here is no joke.

He shook off the water, thought for a moment, and said, "Let a few people come with me to gather some usable branches. We'll make a fire to dry our clothes, and then we'll set off once the rain stops."

Everyone agreed that, after some discussion, Brother Sun, Shi Jiu, Finley, and a young man named Troublemaker would go and collect the branches, while the others would rest.

Apart from this cave, the terrain on this side of the hillside is very low-lying. After a short while of rain, water accumulated. Before the rainwater seeped into the soil and tree roots, the branches on the ground were basically useless, so they could only walk further up the mountain.

Luke instructed, "Come back early. If anything happens, just shout or send a signal flare."