How Terrifying, They Were Still So Pure and Chaste!

"Big brother, I have a little idea. What do you think?" Yu Zhi blinked his big eyes and looked at him with a beaming smile.

Zhang Qiling couldn't get enough of that sly look, with its hint of a mischievous grin. He lowered his head, kissed Yu Zhi's soft pink lips, and said gently,

"What idea?"

That cool, clear voice had a magnetic quality to it. It was too unfair. Zhang Qiling had been so alluring since coming here. If the time and place weren't both wrong, Yu Zhi would definitely pounce on him. Speaking of which, several years had passed, and they were still so pure and chaste! Though they did have to remain virgins before Foundation Establishment.

But!

But!

But!

Forget it. There was no use thinking about it!

His thoughts had wandered off course again. He patted his head and said, "The thing they're looking for should be the Corpse Bug Pill, that Longevity Pill. We'll help them get it and let them take it back to Zhang Qishan. Watching him slowly turn into a Forbidden Woman after taking it will surely be a wonderful sight."

"All right."

Zhang Qiling had no objections at all. He knew Yu Zhi wanted to take revenge for him.

"Don't go out yet. Where did you put that pile of coffins from the Tomb of the King of Lu?" Zhang Qiling asked.

"Over there, all of it. I thought it was inauspicious, so I put that lot as far away from our home as possible." Yu Zhi raised a hand and pointed into the distance. A pile of things had been heaped haphazardly at the point farthest from the house.

Yu Zhi was also at a loss as to what to do with them. They weren't short of money now, and although he could take them out and sell them, they were cultural relics, after all. He couldn't bring himself to stand by and watch them end up overseas or the like.

As for donating them, that was even more out of the question. He wasn't stupid. Was he supposed to donate them so that those fat-bellied, empty-headed parasites who sat around waiting to die could sell them for money? He had never hesitated to judge the human heart with the worst possible malice. After all, people were evil by nature from birth.

Zhang Qiling flashed over to the pile of objects. They had clearly been stacked quite haphazardly, rising more than ten meters high altogether. Because the enormous bronze coffin and outer coffin had been the first thing put away and were so large, they had been buried at the very bottom.

He walked around the oddly shaped tower once and looked it over. Then he carefully used his Faqiu Finger to push open a gap wide enough for a hand, quickly reached inside, and pulled out a palm-sized eight-treasure box. He pulled the objects above it back into place, closing the gap again.

Zhang Qiling didn't understand what this arrangement was supposed to be, but he respected it.

"What's that?"

Yu Zhi was curious. He hadn't looked at the things since putting them away. After all, the well-known things in there were the Nine-Headed Serpent Cypress, Qilin Blood, and the Blood Corpse. The rest was all junk, so he hadn't paid much attention.

"The Ghost Seal."

Zhang Qiling used his Faqiu Finger to squeeze and push hard at a certain spot. The box opened like a lotus, and he took out the Ghost Seal inside and held it up for Yu Zhi to see.

"The Ghost Seal? How come I didn't know it was in that tomb?" Yu Zhi's small face was full of enormous confusion.

Zhang Qiling looked at that fair little face, the wide-open eyes and petal-like lips parted in surprise, the head tilted as Yu Zhi studied him. He was so cute. Zhang Qiling reached up to pat his head and handed him the Ghost Seal to examine.

"I think it's because Wu Xie didn't know I'd taken the Ghost Seal either."

"Then is that the key to entering the Bronze Door?"

"It's not the only one. Qilin Blood and the Snake-Eyebrow Copper Fish can do it too. The key isn't important. The person is what matters."

"I don't quite understand what guarding the door means. Will just anyone do? Otherwise, why would people from the Nine Gates be able to do it too?"

Yu Zhi was truly puzzled. Even now, he still hadn't figured out how the whole thing worked.

"I don't remember what guarding the door is for. It may involve the secret of the Ultimate."

He paused, then continued, "It's not just people from the Nine Gates who can do it. Anyone can. Although I don't remember exactly what's inside, an ordinary person who goes in has only one path: death. The Nine Gates are the best suited, and back then we had signed a contract. Every ten years, one of the Nine Gates would send one person. Even though they were capable, they couldn't claim they could come out alive. Basically, it was understood that they were being sent to their deaths."

"But they never came, not even once."

"Because no one came, instinct would take control of me and bring me here. Once someone entered the door, I should have ten years of peace."

"Then 'it' wants it too. Why not let it go in, or join forces?"

Zhang Qiling thought for a long time before saying, "Because 'it' will kill every member of the Zhang Family and bring the Ultimate into the human world. Between 'it' and me, only one can live. This is also the mission of the Zhang Family."

"Mm. I'll stay with you."

Yu Zhi understood, because Zhang Qiling was compassionate to the core. Whether out of responsibility or a sense of mission, he hadn't turned evil despite all the suffering he'd endured.

"We've been here a long time. Let's go out and see how far they've gotten," Yu Zhi suggested.

"Mm."

When they came out, they were still in that high corner and didn't make a sound. Yu Zhi hadn't expected the group to still be searching here.

As soon as they came out, they heard the faint sound of a mechanism starting up. Then someone inside said, "Holy shit, what the fuck is this? Come take a look!"

"What the fuck, what kind of monster is this?"

"Third Master, come look! I accidentally stepped on a mechanism just now, and a strange stone statue came out from behind this wall. It looks like a giant grasshopper," one of the men said.

Wu Sansheng and the others hurried over and saw a relief protruding from the wall, with only one thing on it.

"You know what, Third Master? It really does look a lot like a big grasshopper, except it has a human face and a few extra legs," Pangzi said.

"That's not right. A hall like this would usually have a seated statue of the tomb's owner. Why hide it? Could it be that the tomb's owner looked like this and thought he was ugly too?" Xie Lianhuan analyzed.

"Would you stop analyzing? What kind of nonsense is that?" Huo Ling's eyes nearly rolled all the way up to the heavens. Of these two brothers, one had not a single clever thought in his head, while the other was full of them.

"This is King Wannu."

Chen Wenjin explained. Anyone who could work alongside this bunch was bound to have some ability, as anyone could imagine. Chen Wenjin's research into ancient history concerning longevity was exceptionally thorough, and at her young age, she had already surpassed many scholars.

"This is King Wannu? Could a person look like that? You might as well say it's that chief god King Wannu believed in," Xie Lianhuan offered his own view.

Chen Wenjin ignored him and reached out to feel carefully over the relief. At its abdomen, she found a bronze mechanism and pressed it in hard.

"Hey, little sister Chen, don't go pressing things at random." Xie Lianhuan was unlucky. The spot where he stood happened to be the entrance to an underground passage, and he dropped straight through with a cry of alarm.

"Hey, Lianhuan, are you all right?" Wu Sansheng asked nervously, lying on the floor and peering down. It was too dark below to see anything.

"Ow, ow, I'm fine, I'm fine, Third Brother. It's a slope. I rolled down, and it wasn't too high," Xie Lianhuan said as he switched on the flashlight he carried.

"Then we'll come down too. Everyone be careful. We should be entering the real underground palace now," Wu Sansheng cautioned them repeatedly.

Only after the whole group had gone in did Yu Zhi and Zhang Qiling come down. Walking toward the entrance, Yu Zhi said, "They're really slow. Is there any danger in this hall?"

"There's no danger. You can think of this place as the area in front of our home, and this wall as the front door."

"Then shouldn't there be even more traps set at the front door to keep people from breaking in?"

"The dangers are all farther in. Besides, this place needs food." As Zhang Qiling spoke, he opened the entrance to the underground palace again and jumped down into it with Yu Zhi.

"Food? It eats people?" Yu Zhi was a little bewildered. This was another thing he'd never encountered before.

"Sacrifices. It doesn't eat people," Zhang Qiling patiently explained.

"I see. I keep thinking of this place as my original world, so I didn't catch on at first."

Yu Zhi was helpless too. He still hadn't managed to make that mental adjustment. The moment he heard "food," the first image in his head was the bloody sight of a grasshopper covered in legs eating people.