Chapter 98

The scale of the old tomb was larger than people would think, and they had only just reached outside the tomb after walking for so long.

With the ghost, Gu Bai and his party left the burial pit and soon came to a downhill stairway. There was no end to the whole thing. It was long and dark, plus a strong cold and Yin atmosphere, which made people feel terrible.

They followed the female ghost, all while trembling, and kept going down. Along the way, they passed through many caves. There were burial halls with gold and silver treasures, and mountain walls carved with stone reliefs of various monsters.

It was unknown how long they walked, as the darkness disappeared, and before them, a dazzling palace instantly appeared, along with gold bricks paving the ground, white jade obelisks, construction that surpassed nature and gave off an extravagant and impressive loftiness.

At the direction up ahead was a dragon-headed jade bed, which laid a corpse wearing a monarch’s clothing. Without a doubt, this was Emperor Nanxun’s corpse.

Everyone stared at the scene before them, standing there stupefied for a very long time, before muttering with rueful sighs, “Too beautiful, too grand…”

StarNet was also in an uproar; even the emperor stood up in excitement. This tomb was the Interstellar’s greatest discovery!

“What’s there to sigh about? No matter how pretty or elegant it is, they’re all just inanimate things. You can't bring it with you before your birth, and you can't take it with you after death; they’re all buried underground, never to see daylight…”

The female ghost didn’t really like seeing everyone sighing in adoration, so her tone was very bitter. Despite how distinguished and favoured she was during her life, she still ended up being buried alive to serve as company for the monarch and even turned into a fierce ghost after death, trapped underground for tens of thousands of years, unable to reincarnate. Naturally, she was resentful.

Everyone instantly shut their mouths and no longer dared to speak due to the faint complaint in her tone. Gu Bai was not scared of the female ghost, but they were very much so.

“There is no way forward in the place. Where is the main tomb you spoke of?”

Gu Bai ignored the lustrous gold and silver valuables in the palace and went straight for the main topic. He felt as if he was approaching something, the flame marking on his forehead suddenly burning up.

When the female ghost heard this, she immediately turned grim and reached out to perform sorcery. Instantly, accompanied by a rumbling noise, the wall left of the palace slowly shifted and finally revealed an abyss.

They could only see that the abyss was so deep that the bottom could not be seen. There were no cliffsides around it, leaving only a suspension bridge connecting to the precipice on the opposite end. Surprisingly, suspended in midair of the abyss were several dozen soldiers in black armour with their eyes closed, in deep sleep!

“This-this is simply too inconceivable! How did they do this?!”

Everyone exclaimed in shock. Without the help of any flying devices, these people were surprisingly able to stand unmoving in midair, so much that even their expressions were vivid and lifelike. This was simply unimaginable; something like this wasn’t possible even with the current technology.

Gu Bai was also very astonished, but was still much better off than everyone else. He wasn’t astonished about these people being able to stand on nothing, nor was he astonished that their appearances remained unchanged even after thousands of years.

This was because he could see that these weren’t people at all, but simply soulless puppets. It was natural that they wouldn’t age.

What he was astonished about was that the energy guarding the puppets was extremely strong. No wonder the female ghost said she couldn’t go near the main tomb. With such powerful puppets guarding it, don’t even mention the female ghost. Perhaps even those daoist immortals from upper planes wouldn’t necessarily be able to approach.

What in the world was in the main tomb for there to be a need for such powerful defences?

The female ghost was very scared of the puppets. The instant the abyss was revealed, she retreated to the very back, then looked at Gu Bai before speaking with faint fear.

“Great Immortal, this concubine dares not go further. These guards are the divine army the expert bestowed to the emperor at the very beginning. After the emperor died, they’ve always been standing guard at the main tomb. No one can go near it. You have that protective marking the expert left behind. It may be assumed that these guards won’t harm you. If you wish to look, simply cross this bridge…”

Gu Bai nodded. He was rather impatient to go, but was caught by Han Lijun. “I’ll go with you…”

“Admiral, you can’t ah!”

A surviving soldier yelled worriedly from the back. That female ghost had already said that only Student Qiao Qi could cross. If the admiral went along, it was hard to say whether or not there would be an accident.

Though Admiral Han was very powerful, this tomb was truly too strange. Ghosts and whatever had already exceeded everyone’s range of understanding.

Seeing this, the female ghost hesitated a moment before adding, “Great Immortal, this young master can probably go with you. This concubine can see that this young master is not ordinary…”

Far more than ‘not ordinary’, she could feel an even more frightful aura from this man than the ‘great immortal’. It simply made one tremble and goosebumps rise from the bottom of their heart. Without a doubt, this man who appeared normal was in fact an extremely frightening character.

She, on the contrary, could not make out Han Lijun’s true identity. But she had cultivated for tens of thousands of years, so someone with such cultivation still had a sense of intuition.

Han Lijun simply ignored the female ghost’s words. He just did not want Gu Bai to be even a hair’s breadth away from him. Taking hold of Gu Bai’s hand, he walked up to the bridge while leading him along.

The suspended bridge was several thousand years old. Even if the tomb was protected by spiritual energy, some decay couldn’t be evaded. Although the bridge did not break while they walked over it, the swaying made one scared. Gu Bai had some indescribable fear, but the hand being tightly held by Han Lijun brought incomparable relief.

The instant the two of them stepped onto the bridge, the puppet guards floating in the air suddenly opened their eyes and went into fighting stances. But immediately, the flame marking on Gu Bai’s forehead glowed, and the puppet guards withdrew their fighting stances.

At the same time, the intelligent camera following the two abruptly failed and fell down into the dark abyss. The netizens on StarNet could not watch at a closer distance and could only watch the scene from afar, through the cameras of the survivors left on the other side of the abyss.

“Sure enough, the Great Immortal is the one chosen by the expert!”

The female ghost’s face revealed excitement and pleasant surprise. If he was not chosen by that expert, these puppet guards would have instantly leapt over and killed the trespassers.

The others didn’t know such amazing reasons, and thus weren’t as excited. They only watched nervously and in amazement as Gu Bai and Han Lijun walked towards the other precipice step by step.

When Gu Bai and Han Lijun crossed the bridge and reached the cliff, they did not see any palace of glorious splendor, nor did they see any priceless gold and silver treasures.

The whole cliff was extremely empty. Aside from the relief sculptures carved all over the mountainside, there was nothing else at all.

This main tomb was so heavily guarded by powerful puppet guards, yet it only had a few ordinary relief sculptures? This was simply too illogical.

“These relief sculptures seem to be recording a story. The people in it… are really familiar.”

Han Lijun walked towards the relief sculptures, his gaze fixed at the people in them as he muttered.

Gu Bai also walked over. He was too far away just now, so he couldn’t see clearly due to his bad eyesight. When he walked closer and saw the picture portrayed on the wall’s relief sculpture, he instantly stopped breathing.

These carvings were none other than character portraits one after another. They were carved very exquisitely, and the characters’ appearances and postures cut an extremely vivid picture.

The content of each carving was all of two men. One of them looked about seventeen to eighteen years old and was like a flower in spring, incomparably elegant.

After experiencing so many missions, Gu Bai had seen many good looking people. Almost all his mission’s original hosts were at the level of beauties who were able to topple a country. However, not a single one could compare to the youth in this relief sculpture. His facial features were so beautiful, as if God had carved them to perfection with utmost care. He was simply an exquisite puppet, and one would lose their soul at a single glance.

But the youth’s eyes were clean and pure, as if he was unaware of the ways of the world. They were like transparent crystals, so clear it could reflect one’s heart.

Whereas the other person in the relief sculpture was a strong person who looked extremely valiant. He was dressed in armour and wore fighting boots on his feet. His face was cold and handsome. It was just a mere sculpture, yet one could feel his powerful aura.

The contents of the relief sculpture weren’t difficult to understand. From the very beginning, the youth and the man pulled out their swords and faced each other like strangers, then the sculpture depicted the two either kissing or hugging each other in comforting, intimate postures. It wasn’t hard to make out that this was telling the true love story of two men.

But these weren’t what made Gu Bai’s breathing hitch. His cause for difficulty in breathing was that the armoured man in the relief sculpture was no one else but… Ye Cang.

Why would it be Ye Cang?

Gu Bai felt his throat go a little dry as his heart pounded. He had a sort of illusion of having peeped into an enormous secret. He shifted along the relief sculpture step by step, slowly continuing to look.

There actually wasn’t much in the relief sculpture. After the few most intimate scenes, the relief sculpture displayed that pretty youth alone.

The youth’s original clean and limpid eyes began to gradually change, filling with sorrow and helplessness, as well as unexplainable, complex emotions.

He laid prone on the floor, both shoulders trembling as he cried. He appeared extremely frail, as if everything outside had brought him indescribable malice. He appeared just that scared, hesitant, and helpless…

For a moment, Gu Bai felt as if his soul was being stabbed like a pincushion.

Until at last, he saw the final portrait where the youth’s face was divided into two. One half had a sorrowful eye with a tear stain trailing down, his eye filled with deep loneliness.

The other half of the face was another delicate and unfamiliar appearance. That half had no expression, displaying an indifference that defied everything.

Beside the final part of the relief sculpture, there were also some deeply engraved words. He didn’t know the language, yet could understand it for some reason.

“Do not forget, do not trust anyone, do not panic, do not worry, remember at all cost…”

Gu Bai suddenly took a couple steps back, clutching his chest as he gasped for breath. His eyes were firmly locked on the final carving as raging waves surged in his heart. The other half of that face was actually… the former him!

How could this be… What in the world was going on here? Who was this youth? Why would his face appear on this person’s body? What was their relationship? Why would all of these appear in this sort of tomb as well?

What were these relief sculptures telling him? Or, what did they want to tell him…

Gu Bai swallowed with great difficulty. His mind was in a mess, as the always calm him could no longer think about it. He could only stare at the final carved image and feel a sort of exceptional pain.

He felt as if he should have something in his heart, but it was just a blank space that lacked some very important things, as if they had been dug away while he was alive.

What was it? What in the world did he lack? Why-why did he suddenly feel as if his heart was so… so empty, so empty that everything was hazy…

He clenched his fist so tightly that his nails dug deep into his flesh. When the blood from his hands dripped onto the floor, the mountainside suddenly began to vibrate as the ground began to crack.

“Admiral, the cliff is about to collapse!”

The survivors on the other end who had been keeping a close eye on the two’s activities suddenly shouted.

Gu Bai snapped back to his senses when he heard this and closed his eyes. Giving a final glance at the relief sculpture on the mountain wall and swiftly recording the contents into his memory, he then pulled along Han Lijun, who also looked similarly possessed, and immediately returned.

When the two returned to the safe side at the palace, the opposite cliff instantly crumbled apart with a tremendous rumble.

The energy around the puppet guards floating in midair disappeared, and having turned into ordinary puppets, they fell into the abyss along with the cliff’s rubble. The protective array enveloping the entire tomb also disappeared in an instant…

Baobao Notes

Back by unpopular demand, me. *jazz hands* but Cat will be back next chapter don’t worry