Goddess's Coffin and Flower of the Other Shore

"Seize them all!" Ying Caihong pointed at Hu Bayi and the others, commanding Yoko and her men to move in.

"Yes, Master!" These people were long brainwashed by her; her word was law. At her command, they all charged forward, and in an instant, the group erupted into a melee.

Xiao Hen watched from the sidelines, not joining the fight. A rift had already formed between him and Ying Caihong. If he went for the Flower of the Other Shore later, he'd inevitably cross Hu Bayi's team too, but that didn't matter—as long as he got the flower, these were small concerns.

Leaning against the stone wall, Xiao Hen quietly observed the scene unfold.

After a bout of fighting, Yoko and her crew found themselves on the losing end. Hu Bayi and Wang Kaixuan were clearly too strong for them. Seeing this, Ying Caihong immediately drew a pistol, pressed it to Shirley Yang's head, and strode over. "Everyone stop, or I'll kill her."

"Shirley..." Hu Bayi and the others froze, staring at Shirley Yang with worry.

"Let her go!" Wang Kaixuan shouted.

Hu Bayi looked at Ying Caihong. "Don't hurt her. Put the gun down."

Yoko kicked Hu Bayi to the ground, returned to Ying Caihong's side, and held Shirley Yang in place, glaring coldly at the group.

Ying Caihong smiled slyly. "Take me to the Goddess's Coffin in the Underground Palace, and your girlfriend will be fine."

Shirley Yang: "I'm not his girlfriend."

Hu Bayi: "She is my girlfriend."

Wang Kaixuan blinked. "What? What the hell?"

Shirley Yang: "Sleeping together doesn't make us boyfriend and girlfriend."

Hu Bayi glanced at her. "Sleeping together makes you a girlfriend."

Wang Kaixuan was baffled. "Hey hey, what's all this nonsense? When did you two hook up? Don't you sleep next to me every night?"

"That kind of thing, you just find a moment..." Big Gold Tooth muttered.

Wang Kaixuan scratched his head. "No, no, I don't get it. When did you sleep together?"

"The day I washed my hands of the trade," Hu Bayi said.

"That day?" Wang Kaixuan winced. "I spent that night hugging the toilet bowl, and you two did it right under my nose?"

He smacked his lips. "So you got drunk and took advantage of the girl... you're an animal, man."

"Master Hu's only human..." Big Gold Tooth whispered nearby.

"He didn't take advantage of me." Shirley Yang lifted her head. "I slept with him."

Big Gold Tooth was stunned. "Oh, my god, you're a real heroine!"

Wang Kaixuan was also taken aback. "You, you've got no shame."

Listening to their babbling and muttering, Ying Caihong couldn't take it anymore. She raised her gun and fired. BANG! "Shut up, all of you! You idiots, I don't care if you're boyfriend and girlfriend or if you've slept together! The celestial moment is coming! Hurry up, hurry up, and find me the Goddess's Coffin, or you'll all die, all of you!"

Seeing Ying Caihong's frantic rage, Hu Bayi knew he couldn't provoke her further. He quickly said, "Fine, I'll do it."

Ying Caihong's agitation eased slightly at that.

Hu Bayi continued, "Big sister, my Luopan is destroyed, and I can't use the Xunlong Jue. I need my girlfriend's help."

"Hurry up. You must find me the Goddess's Coffin. You must." Ying Caihong aimed the gun at Hu Bayi and the others.

"I led everyone through the first two trials. You should trust me. Don't worry." Hu Bayi said solemnly.

"Even without the Luopan, the human body can replace it for Gold-Splitting Cave-Detecting. This is called Yin-Yang Union!"

"These eight statues aren't placed randomly..."

"Seek the dragon, split the gold, watch the winding hills; one winding hill, one barrier's thrill."

"Yin and Yang unite, senses flow through; seek the dragon, never lose its clue."

Xiao Hen paid no mind to Hu Bayi and Shirley Yang's theatrics. This so-called Yin-Yang Union was all a bluff to fool Ying Caihong. The real passage to the Goddess's Coffin in the Underground Palace was inside one of the statues' mouths, just like the tomb passage that led here.

Recalling the movie plot, Xiao Hen remembered that Wang Kaixuan and Big Gold Tooth had triggered the mechanism for this passage while wrestling.

He stepped over to Wang Kaixuan and Big Gold Tooth.

"Oh, brother, hello there..." Seeing Xiao Hen approach, Big Gold Tooth immediately stopped scuffling with Wang Kaixuan and grinned, nodding at him.

Wang Kaixuan also studied Xiao Hen carefully. Among Ying Caihong's crew, he was the one Wang Kaixuan couldn't read.

Ignoring them both, Xiao Hen looked around and finally spotted a statue on the wall behind them.

"This should be it." He walked up and pressed down on the statue's tongue. How much force did Xiao Hen use?

With that press, a creaking sound rang out, revealing a dark passage. The statue's tongue was the trigger for the hidden tunnel.

"A passage?" Big Gold Tooth exclaimed in surprise.

He didn't need to shout—the creaking had already drawn everyone's attention to the tunnel.

Hu Bayi called out, "This is it! This is the passage to the Goddess's Coffin in the Underground Palace!"

The group filed through the passage into a deep, blue-lit space.

Looking up, they could see waves rippling overhead.

"We're at the bottom of a lake?"

"What do these murals say?"

"The sky split open, and the first shaman received a divine revelation—a treasure that fell from the heavens. It could traverse the realms of yin and yang, bringing the dead back to life. Over a thousand years ago, the treasure fell into the hands of Princess Augu, who named it the Flower of the Other Shore. Every twilight, when the flower blooms, the gate between life and death opens." Shirley Yang narrated as she studied the murals.

Hu Bayi turned to look at Ying Caihong. "The Flower of the Other Shore can connect life and death. That's why you're here, isn't it?"

"Humanity is on the verge of destruction. This is our last hope. With the Flower of the Other Shore, I can save all living beings," Ying Caihong said. "Only I can save you. Only me. Once I obtain the flower, I can rescue the world from death."

"Who needs a lunatic like you to save us?" Wang Kaixuan snapped.

"How dare you!" Ying Caihong and her people raised their guns at Hu Bayi and the others.

"Easy, easy..." Big Gold Tooth said urgently. "Don't do anything rash. Keep your cool."

"Go. Now. Find me the Goddess's Coffin!" Ying Caihong snarled.

"Alright, alright, we're going, we're going!" Hu Bayi and the others moved forward as told.

The fog ahead grew thicker. Xiao Hen lingered at the back of the group. He was now deeply estranged from Ying Caihong's team; she and Yoko and the others were all wary of him. If not for his weapons and decent fighting skills, Ying Caihong might have already tried to kill him.

What she didn't know was that the strength he'd shown before was all deliberately held back. If he truly went all out, he could wipe out Ying Caihong's entire team in under a minute.

Almost there. Just ahead is the coffin.

Xiao Hen crouched down to examine the strange symbols carved into the suspension bridge. They were ancient markings, their meaning unknown.

The group pressed on through the thick fog, the bridge swaying beneath them.

They passed through the dense mist and entered a strange hall. Inside, bronze lanterns hung from the ceiling, and various antique decorations adorned every corner. Following a set of stone steps downward, they came to a circular bronze device. Lying within it was a woman's corpse wearing a mask. On her chest and abdomen rested a black-red stone disk.

"The black stone in her hand—that's the Flower of the Other Shore."

"The mural says it fell from the sky. That must mean it's a meteorite."

"A meteorite... does it really have the power to cross the boundary between life and death?"

Xiao Hen's eyes locked onto the Goddess's Coffin, onto the Flower of the Other Shore in the corpse's hand. This was his main quest in this world!

A smile crept across Xiao Hen's lips. Finally. Finally, he had laid eyes on the Flower of the Other Shore.

The Flower of the Other Shore is almost in hand—please vote and add to your collection!