Living off a Man?

"Wenjin, how is it? Have you found any clues?" Wu Sansheng carefully edged over to Chen Wenjin.

"Mm, a few, but I keep feeling something isn't quite right." Chen Wenjin had been deep in thought for a long time.

"What isn't quite right?"

The others all looked over too. They couldn't all move closer because the stone platform was too small. Of the entire bronze chariot, only its wheels and passenger compartment rested on the platform; the four horses hung in the air. They were standing spread apart and could only look over.

"Look at that horse's mouth. Isn't there a seam where it joins together?" Chen Wenjin pointed it out with her flashlight.

The others shifted positions to look, but the illuminated spot was awkwardly placed. It would have been easy to see from below, but from where they stood, they had to lower their heads and look diagonally downward to glimpse the edge. They couldn't see the whole thing.

"I think that's the mechanism too, but how do we get over there? The horse is hanging in midair. Should someone crawl over?" Huo Ling agreed.

Wu Sansheng ordered one of the men to climb up, but as soon as he got onto the horse's back, a bronze sword suddenly shot out and ran him through, killing him on the spot.

"Why don't we find someone to go over from below? Two meters isn't that high; they can reach it," Xie Lianhuan said.

"Shall we pick you? It's all concentrated acid down there. Who knows when it'll come out?" Huo Ling mocked him.

"All right, stop arguing. We don't have much time left. I'll go. If the concentrated acid comes out, you have to pull me up quickly." After speaking, Wu Sansheng tied a rope around his waist and prepared to go down.

"Third Master, let me do it. Nothing can happen to you." Pangzi stepped forward and spoke to Wu Sansheng.

Wu Sansheng gave Pangzi a long look and said, moved, "Be careful, Pangzi."

With a rope tied around his waist, Pangzi jumped down and landed lightly, then quickly went beneath the horse's mouth to take a closer look.

"Third Master, it's just as Wenjin said. This is the only horse with a mouth joined together. I should just need to move it. I'll try." He walked back a few steps, picked up speed in a running start, and leaped upward. His left hand caught the horse's head precisely, and his right hand wrenched its mouth. Mechanical clunks sounded, and a half-meter-high opening appeared where the very top of the Bronze Door met the ceiling.

No one would have imagined the entrance was up there.

Seeing the entrance open, Wu Sansheng tugged on the rope and said, "Pangzi, come up quickly."

"Okay, Third Master."

The group hooked the entrance with a nine-claw grappling hook, then climbed over. Xie Lianhuan was the first to haul himself onto it. He called down to the people below, "No wonder the explosives couldn't blast it open. This door is a full meter thick, and there's a door-blocking stone underneath. There's no way to blast it open."

"What's inside?" Someone asked; it wasn't clear who.

"I can't see. I lost my flashlight while we were running," Xie Lianhuan answered.

"Don't go down yet. Wait for me, and we'll check out the situation over there first." Wu Sansheng climbed up nimbly.

He shone his flashlight inside. This had to be the Corpse Storage Pavilion. The floor below was covered in coffins: bronze coffins, stone coffins, and even ones cast in molten iron. What the hell kind of place was this? It didn't match any burial practice at all. Even for burial sacrifices, they dug a large pit or arranged the coffins in specific positions. No one lined them up this neatly, in such a motley assortment of materials.

"Damn, it really is just like the map said. Corpse Storage Pavilion-they sure named it right." Wu Sansheng stepped down the face of the door using a rope they had prepared earlier and nimbly made his way down. The others followed.

"There really are this many coffins. There must be at least two hundred. If they all have burial goods inside, won't we strike it rich?" The few remaining men rubbed their hands together, ready to open the coffins and loot the corpses.

"Don't touch anything," Wu Sansheng said.

"Third Master, we came with you to hunt for treasure too. Fo Ye paid us a lot, but you can't stop us from making a little extra on the side, can you? That side chamber we passed on the way was full of treasures, but we listened to you and didn't touch any of them. Look how many people have died, though. We need to take something out to help our brothers' families," one of the men, who had a scarred face, said.

"That's right, Third Master. You've all got big families and fortunes, so you look down on this little bit of money, but we have families to feed."

"That's right."

"Yeah."

"Third Master, don't worry about whether we take anything. You go look for a way forward. We'll just open one or two and have a look. If it doesn't work out, we'll stop," one of the men said, trying to smooth things over.

Wu Sansheng pinched the bridge of his nose. Too much had happened on the way, and too many people had died. He also knew how greedy these men were. Only these five were left alive now, so he said nothing more. Forcing them to stop would inevitably cause a conflict, and they still had more mechanisms to deal with.

Wu Sansheng never imagined that this moment of indulgence would nearly get their entire group wiped out here.

After sleeping in the space, Yu Zhi and Zhang Qiling felt it was about time to go out and have a look. After all, they didn't have much time either. Once outside, the two went straight beneath the bronze horse. Zhang Qiling leaped lightly, successfully activating the mechanism, and an entrance opened above the huge Bronze Door.

As the small entrance slowly opened, both of them heard screams and gunfire from inside, mixed with cursing. He hadn't expected these people to be so useless that they were still here. Amid the screams, several giant centipedes as long as an adult's arm crawled out of the entrance one after another. Their bodies were as thick as fists, and the densely packed legs on either side slid along, making one's skin crawl. (Yu Zhi: They're pretty fat. Looks like they've been eating well.)

"Quick, the entrance is open! Let's climb out, hurry!"

Hearing that they were going to climb up, Yu Zhi killed the centipedes with spiritual power, then hurriedly pulled Zhang Qiling with him and flew up to the entrance to stop them.

If they landed on the stone platform, concentrated acid would flow out again. Although it posed no real danger to them, it would dirty their clothes.

"Oh my, what a sorry state you're in." Yu Zhi looked down from above at the group in chaos below. What a miserable sight. Giant centipedes covered the floor, and some had climbed onto people and were biting them. But the worse off they were, the happier he was.

Everyone's eyes turned upward in unison. They saw Zhang Qiling standing above them, still holding Yu Zhi around the waist as he quietly watched them.

"Master Zhang, Mr. Yu, save us!" Xie Lianhuan was being bitten and darting around everywhere. The others weren't doing much better.

Several corpses lay on the floor, hidden beneath a dense mass of centipedes. The faint sound of chewing could still be heard.

Yu Zhi thought that since he had been seen, he might as well lend a hand and save them. Otherwise, these people would definitely die here. It wasn't time for them to die yet; Zhang Qishan still hadn't taken the Longevity Pill, and these people were still very useful. But there was no reason to save them for free.

"Sure. Five million per life, though. That's not too much, is it?" Yu Zhi said.

"Not too much, not too much! Mr. Yu, save us!" Xie Lianhuan was quick-witted. He didn't ask Zhang Qiling because it was obvious that Zhang Qiling followed Yu Zhi's lead, and asking him might not have done any good.

"Please save us, Mr. Yu!" Five or six voices cried out in succession.

Yu Zhi delayed no longer. He circulated the Azure Nether Creation Art and swept out his palm. Countless blood-red vines shot out, blotting out the sky and covering the earth. They caught the centipedes one after another, coiling around them and crushing them to death. In the blink of an eye, the vines had absorbed every centipede, leaving not even a scrap. If their wounds hadn't still been hurting and a few corpses hadn't been lying on the floor, gnawed beyond human recognition, these people would surely have thought it was an illusion.

After absorbing them, the vines conveyed that it wasn't enough. Without hesitation, Yu Zhi controlled the vines to wrap up every coffin. Before long, bronze and stone fragments were scattered across the floor, and nothing else remained.

Wu Sansheng and the others were stunned. This was the work of an immortal-no, the work of a devil! It was terrifying.

Then they glanced discreetly at Zhang Qiling and thought, Well, well, Zhang Qiling. No wonder he won't let go of that waist. Living off a man this good, who would let go?

"Thank you, Mr. Yu. Thank you, Master Zhang."

Now only Wu Sansheng, Xie Lianhuan, Qi Yu, Huo Ling, Chen Wenjin, and Pangzi remained. They had all suffered some injuries, but none were serious, and they each began bandaging themselves.

Looking at the six of them, Yu Zhi marveled inwardly at how powerful the plot really was. The six left were all important characters in the plot, though Qi Yu seemed to exist only in memories?

Yu Zhi couldn't remember clearly either. Much of it hadn't been written from an omniscient perspective, and many plot holes had never been filled in, so he wasn't sure whether it was because Qi Yu had never met Wu Xie face-to-face or for some other reason.

"How did you end up in such a miserable state?" Yu Zhi flew down with Zhang Qiling.

He didn't want Zhang Qiling to display abilities that set him apart from ordinary people. It was also a precaution against these people.

"Don't even mention it. It was all those men's fault." Xie Lianhuan answered as he bandaged himself. "They insisted on opening a coffin, and when they did, it was full of giant centipedes. It wasn't too bad at first. There were only a dozen or so, and we dealt with them all. Who would've thought they'd start coming out of the coffins nearby too? They just kept throwing themselves at people, and it turned into what you saw."

"What did you come here looking for?" Yu Zhi didn't bother with pleasantries and asked directly.

"Uh, well..." Xie Lianhuan first looked at the five people behind him, then at Zhang Qiling, and said, "The Longevity Pill."

"The Longevity Pill? What's that?" Yu Zhi pretended not to know.

"We don't know exactly what it is either. Going by the name, it's probably just a pill. Fo Ye said we'd know it when we saw it," Xie Lianhuan answered honestly. Since he was no longer keeping it secret, he might as well tell them everything. These two were exceptionally powerful fighters, and if he won them over, they could get the item sooner.

"Where do you look for it?" Yu Zhi asked again.

"Probably in the inner hall. Mr. Yu, Master Zhang, this Longevity Pill is the medicine that can save Fo Ye's life. You can have anything else, but I need to take this back," Xie Lianhuan said quickly.

"You can rest completely assured. I'm not interested in that thing," Yu Zhi replied disdainfully.

"I know, I know. I judged a gentleman by my own petty standards. Someone as formidable as you, Mr. Yu, has no need of it at all." Xie Lianhuan's face reddened as he flattered him.

"All right, hurry up and rest for a bit. We're going farther in. I'm in a hurry." Yu Zhi cut him off before he could continue, then found an inconspicuous spot with Zhang Qiling and stood there, observing their surroundings.