Uncle Nine surveyed the surrounding mountains and analyzed in a deep voice, "This is a secluded and auspicious place where wind can be contained and energy can be gathered."
"With a dragon vein to the north, flowing water to the south, and the surrounding hills on the east and west, this is a superior auspicious burial site."
He pointed to the stream to the south. "But here it bends back into a reverse bow shape, and then its course is artificially altered to bypass the tomb. This forcibly transforms vital energy into yin energy, pouring it into the tomb."
Uncle Nine stood up, his peach wood sword held horizontally in front of him. "Go in! But be careful. A tomb capable of crafting a thousand-year-old Golden Armored Corpse must have incredibly complex mechanisms and formations."
Uncle Nine first lit a talisman and threw it in. After seeing the talisman burn out, he took the lead and stepped into the tomb entrance, with Lin Yu and Four Eyes following closely behind.
The tomb passage was pitch black, but Lin Yu lit a flame at his fingertips, illuminating the passage.
The walls are covered with dense patterns, but most of them have been worn away and blurred by time.
As they went deeper, some patterns appeared on the walls. Lin Yu looked up and saw that these patterns clearly recorded some scenes of corpse refining in the past.
Some carvings depict people pouring black liquid into corpses, while others show corpses wrapped in armor and buried in the eye of a formation. However, most of these carvings have been eroded by time, resulting in incomplete images.
"Is this the method of creating zombies in ancient times?" Four Eyes squatted at the base of the wall, his fingers gently tracing the blurry zombie-making patterns on the wall, watching with great interest.
As someone who transports corpses, he naturally knows a little about the techniques of corpse refining, and now he is learning the methods of the ancients.
He stroked the remnants of the array within the patterns, his tone filled with amazement.
After walking about ten steps, Uncle Nine suddenly raised his hand to stop. "Be careful, there's a trap ahead."
He bent down and touched the ground, picking up a bit of fine sand from the dust with his fingertips, then pointed to the tomb bricks above his head.
The sand here is noticeably different from the previous sand, and the top is covered with tiny holes.
Uncle Nine tried picking up a stone and throwing it in, but it was instantly swallowed up by the sand.
It's obvious there's a formation here.
"The tomb passage is paved with quicksand; stepping into it, the quicksand could swallow you whole, and there are crossbow bolts hidden in the cracks between the bricks."
"It's been over a thousand years, the mechanisms in this ancient tomb probably won't work anymore," Four Eyes said uncertainly after looking around.
Uncle Nine didn't speak, but gave him a faint glance.
"Just to be on the safe side, let's look for any hidden mechanisms." Four Eyes consciously began to feel around on the wall.
Before Four Eyes could figure anything out from the wall, Uncle Nine lightly touched the ground with his toes and leaped into the quicksand area.
He moved with such lightness that he didn't sink into the quicksand, and his continuous leaps didn't even cause a ripple in the sand beneath his feet. In the blink of an eye, he reached the middle of the tomb passage.
"Click"
The moment Uncle Nine landed, the cracks in the tomb bricks above his head suddenly split open with a "whoosh," and dozens of crossbow bolts gleaming with black light shot out, their tips dripping with sticky black liquid.
But Uncle Nine didn't even lift his eyelids. He raised his hand and grabbed several crossbow bolts that were shot at him, the shafts still trembling slightly in his palm.
The remaining arrows grazed his clothes before finally embedding themselves in the opposite tomb wall, their fletchings still buzzing.
Uncle Nine stood opposite, glancing indifferently at Four Eyes, who was still standing in place. His eyes were devoid of emotion, yet they seemed to be asking silently, "Now you know if the mechanism is useful?"
Four Eyes stood still, then quietly withdrew the foot he had just lifted.
He looked at the wall opposite him, riddled with crossbow bolts, then at the shimmering quicksand beneath his feet, and swallowed hard. "This... this mechanism really isn't broken..."
He wanted to jump but didn't have Uncle Nine's skills, and he wanted to find the mechanism but couldn't figure it out. Frustrated, he spun around in circles twice.
Lin Yu didn't rush, but instead condensed a ray of light at his fingertips and slowly swept it across the brick walls on both sides of the tomb passage.
The formation in this ancient tomb is still usable. There is often a flow of spiritual energy at the core of the formation. When his master triggered the mechanism just now, he vaguely sensed a faint spiritual energy.
When the light swept across a brick in the middle of the left wall, the light resonated with it. Upon closer inspection, Lin Yu sensed a subtle flow of Spiritual Power within it.
"Uncle-Master, there's a problem here." Lin Yu raised his hand and pressed down on the brick, tapping it lightly with his fingertips. The sound from the brick was crisper than the other bricks.
"There's spiritual energy flowing beneath this brick; it should be the key to the formation. If we trigger it, the quicksand and crossbow bolt mechanisms might be temporarily shut down."
Upon hearing this, Four Eyes immediately leaned closer. "Really? Then let's try it!"
Four Eyes eagerly pressed down on the stone brick, and with a soft "click," the brick surface slightly sank.
As the positions below shifted, the quicksand in the passage gradually sank and disappeared, revealing the original brick path, and the arrow slits above closed.
"It's done!" Four Eyes exclaimed in surprise. This time, without hesitation, he took small steps and ran along the brick path.
"Junior nephew is still the best!" After they passed by, he didn't forget to pinch Lin Yu's cheek.
"Let's keep going. The traps ahead will only get more dangerous, so be careful." Uncle Nine interrupted Four Eyes's antics and continued leading the way.
The three followed the passage to the end of the ancient tomb, where a side chamber appeared before them.
In the center of the side room stood a decaying wooden table, on which lay several books wrapped in silk cloth, long since yellowed and rotten.
Several earthenware jars were piled up in the corner, containing a black, paste-like substance that smelled faintly fishy.
Uncle Nine picked up a booklet and carefully unfolded it. On the silk cloth were written in ancient seal script.
In the third year of the Yongjia era of King Yue of the East China Sea, he obtained Mysterious Armored Corpse, set up an array to nurture it, and passed it down to his descendants. A thousand years later, when the Yin energy clashed with the sun, it was refined into Five Elements Golden Armored Corpse to open the Yin Coffin...
"The Sima Clan?" Four Eyes also leaned closer to examine the contents, growing increasingly alarmed with each look. "So, these jars are filled with materials for refining corpses?"
Lin Yu also got a general idea and immediately understood that this was something created by a dynasty.
"A thousand-year-old scheme, Senior Brother, do you think it might be related to what Senior Uncle did last time..."
Uncle Nine interrupted Four Eyes, saying that this matter was not suitable to be discussed here and that it was best to keep it to oneself and speculate.
Uncle Nine carefully put the booklet away, his face grave. "Whatever it is, it's definitely not good."
This zombie has already caused the deaths of people in the entire area since it was born. We absolutely cannot allow any more zombies to be born. Uncle Nine led the two of them toward the main tomb.
Just as they stepped out of the side chamber, they suddenly heard a loud "boom" coming from the direction of the main tomb chamber. Immediately afterwards, a yin energy even more concentrated than that of the Golden Armored Corpse surged out.
The wind made Lin Yu's hair fly wildly across his forehead.
"Oh no! This main tomb has an array that isolates the aura; there's someone inside!" Uncle Nine's expression changed. No wonder he felt something was off when he came in; now that the commotion had started, he realized there was a concealment array inside.
Lin Yu was also taken aback. He didn't use his Primordial Spirit to sense the inside carefully. If he had probed inside from the beginning, he might have found that there was someone inside.
However, his invincible status over the years made him too complacent, causing him to lower his guard.