Chapter 263: Meridian-Picking Needle |
"Remembering people?" Song Qinghe was stunned.
Lu Yuan nodded seriously and said:
"Someone was trapped down below and couldn't get out, so they used their fingernails to mark the walls."
"Some people aren't recording themselves—they're recording when something else comes."
As he spoke, he suddenly stopped in front of a mark.
That mark was deeper than the others, and beside it was carved a small dot, like an eye, or a nail head.
Lu Yuan stared at that dot, his gaze sharpening slightly.
"This wasn't carved by a person."
"This is a mark from inside the altar."
"That means there really is a second-layer altar down below."
Lu Yuan nodded.
"And it's not far ahead now."
The moment he finished speaking, a very faint sound of water suddenly came from up ahead.
Drip.
Another sound.
Drip.
It was like something slowly dripping water in the dark.
But within that water sound, there was also a very faint echo of a wooden fish.
Dong.
Closer and clearer than the one above ground.
Lu Yuan's eyes darkened, and he raised his hand to signal everyone to stop.
"We've arrived."
He said softly.
At the end of the vault passage, a faint yellow light flickered slowly in the darkness.
Like a lamp.
Or like an eye.
As that single yellow light flickered in the dark, everyone's breathing in the vault passage grew slightly lighter.
Lu Yuan didn't rush forward. He just steadied the remaining fragment of the Vault-Questioning Incense in his hand and first looked at the ground.
The floor was old rammed earth, neither loose nor hard, carrying a bit of moisture.
The fingernail marks on both walls ended here, as if the person who made the marks didn't dare to go any further either.
"Don't rush."
Lu Yuan said softly.
"What's ahead isn't a lamp—it's an offering."
Lin Zhaoxuan nodded, his hand already resting on his waist.
Zhou Heng and Song Qinghe also tensed up, not daring to make any noise.
Behind them, Wang Cheng'an and Xu Erxiao were even more well-behaved, shrinking at the tail of the group, holding back even their coughs.
Lu Yuan moved forward step by step. The closer he got to the yellow light, the heavier the scent of incense ash became, mixed with an indescribable sweet rankness.
Like old sacrificial fruit rotting at the bottom of an altar, or like blood that hadn't dried being covered by incense smoke.
After another ten or so steps, the vault passage suddenly opened up.
Ahead was a semicircular underground stone chamber.
The chamber wasn't large, and the ceiling arched very low, but all four walls were neatly laid with blue bricks, the cracks packed with white lime.
In the center sat a low offering table, on which burned an oil lamp the size of a soybean.
The wick was extremely thin, but the flame didn't go out. The yellow light came from there.
But what truly sent a chill down the spine wasn't the lamp.
It was the thing behind the offering table.
It wasn't a statue, nor did it resemble a spirit tablet.
It looked more like a wooden stake that had been forcibly erected, wrapped in layers of blackened cloth strips. Seven short nails were driven through the cloth.
The nail heads were slightly turned outward, like seven eyes.
But on top of the wooden stake was attached a planed wooden head, with no facial features painted on it, only a thin crack split open on the forehead.
Stuffed inside the crack was a tuft of grayish-white hair.
The moment that thing stood there, the entire stone chamber's presence felt wrong.
Lu Yuan stared at it for a long moment before finally speaking:
"A false position."
Zhou Heng whispered, "A what position?"
Lu Yuan said, "Something doesn't dare to sit openly on the main altar, so it uses a substitute placed here to eat the incense for it, to receive the offerings for it."
"The stake is the body, the crack is the eye, and the forehead hair is the path to guide the spirit."
Lin Zhaoxuan squinted at the wooden stake and said slowly, "This isn't an ordinary sacrificial method. It looks like the techniques used by some guides from the old days."
Lu Yuan nodded. "It's twisting the presence of a living person's path into the wood."
"If this thing stands here long enough, the mountain road below will recognize it as its own meridian."
As he spoke, his gaze suddenly fell beneath the offering table.
Under the offering table was pressed a half-open wooden box.
The box was black and glossy, as if smoked by years of incense, its corners wrapped with several loops of old red string.
The red string had already turned black, but it wasn't broken; instead, it was embedded strand by strand into the wood grain, like veins growing out of the wood.
Lu Yuan crouched down, extending a finger to gently nudge the box lid.
"Creak."
The lid opened another half inch by itself.
A blast of cold air immediately surged out, making the oil lamp's flame tilt sharply, nearly extinguishing it.
Lin Zhaoxuan immediately stepped half a pace forward and said quietly, "Be careful—there might be a baleful aura inside."
Lu Yuan didn't speak. He directly reached into the box and pulled out an object.
It was a small piece of bone, like a finger bone or an animal bone, its surface yellowed by smoke, covered in densely packed small characters.
The characters weren't standard script or talismanic symbols; they looked more like a vow slowly scraped out with a fine blade.
Lu Yuan glanced at it, and his expression darkened.
"A Life-Borrowing Contract."
As soon as these three words left his mouth, the stone chamber seemed to turn a degree colder.
Song Qinghe's face turned pale. "Life-borrowing?"
Lu Yuan turned the bone piece over. "Stealing a person's life flame to feed the bureau. Once the bureau is formed, it's used to feed something bigger."
"This kind of thing isn't done by one person alone."
"There has to be someone leading, someone offering incense, someone keeping the living entrance below in check."
Zhou Heng couldn't help but curse, "Those bastards really have the guts to do it."
Lu Yuan didn't respond. He just stood up and scanned the stone chamber.
On the walls, besides the white lime in the brick joints, there was a faint layer of black powder, as if settled from smoke.
In the corner of the stone chamber sat three small earthen pots, each containing some blackened ash, with round imprints pressed into them by incense sticks.
"Three pots of incense ash."
Lin Zhaoxuan glanced and said, "This is arranged according to the Three Offerings system."
Lu Yuan shook his head. "It's three paths."
"The path of heaven, the path of earth, the path of humanity."
"The offerer wanted to lock all three paths down, making the mountain trails above, the vault passage, and the yin-route all converge to one place."
As he spoke, he pointed at the wooden stake behind the offering table.
"That's not the main altar, but it's very close to it."
"This false position is used to attract the essence for the main altar."
"As long as it's here, the presence below won't dissipate."
Lin Zhaoxuan asked, "Then where is the main altar?"
Lu Yuan didn't answer immediately. He only lowered his head to look at the oil lamp on the offering table.
The wick was extremely thin, the flame flickering, revealing faint characters on the table's surface.
Those characters had been covered by grease, but now, illuminated by the lamp flame, a partial outline slowly emerged.
It was the character "North."
"To the north."
Lu Yuan said slowly, "The main altar is deeper to the north, or rather, it's heading north."
"This stone chamber is just a transfer point."
Wang Cheng'an and Xu Erxiao stood in the back, utterly confused, but they knew they couldn't interrupt, so they just watched obediently.
Wang Cheng'an was still holding a bundle, and Xu Erxiao shrank his shoulders, motionless, like two wooden stakes without mouths.
Lu Yuan put away the bone piece and then felt around the bottom of the box, pulling out a handful of black soil.
As soon as the black soil touched his hand, it carried a damp heat, as if freshly dug from a living person's chest.
He smelled it, and his face turned even colder. "This isn't mountain soil."
"It's grave soil."
Zhou Heng frowned. "Why would grave soil be here?"
Lu Yuan said, "Because this place originally had people buried in it."
"And not just one or two."
"This stone chamber was later built on top of the graves."
"The graves are suppressed, the souls are still there, and the bureau becomes even more stable."
Lin Zhaoxuan's gaze sharpened. "So beneath this, there might not only be one layer of vault and one layer of altar, but also an old grave meridian."
Lu Yuan nodded. "And the grave meridian hasn't been severed."
"Someone connected it to an evil altar, which is why this kind of thing was nurtured."
As he spoke, he suddenly looked up at the base of the right wall.
A thin black liquid was slowly seeping out from between the bricks there.
The black liquid wasn't much, like ink, or like blood, crawling silently along the wall's base.
Lu Yuan's eyes sharpened, and he immediately shouted, "Fall back!"
Everyone reflexively stepped back half a pace.
Lu Yuan had already pulled out a purifying talisman and slapped it onto the wall.
As soon as the talisman paper touched it, the black liquid suddenly retracted, as if scalded.
Immediately after, a very low creaking sound came from behind the wall, like something slowly turning over behind the bricks.
Lin Zhaoxuan said, "There's an opening inside there."
Lu Yuan stared at the wall. "It's a corpse gate."
Zhou Heng's voice changed. "Corpse gate?"
Lu Yuan nodded. "A gate sealed with dead bones and grave soil."
"Living people walk past it without a sound; dead people walk past it with a response."
Lu Yuan paused, his gaze heavy. "Once this gate opens, behind it is either a corpse pit or the main path."
The moment he finished speaking, the oil lamp in the stone chamber suddenly shook violently.
The flame was pressed down by something invisible, instantly shrinking half an inch.
Then, the seven short nails on the wooden stake behind the offering table simultaneously let out an extremely faint sound.
Ding.
Like seven eyes, all opening at once.
Lu Yuan's expression changed, and he immediately pressed everyone back. "Don't look at its eyes!"
But it was already half a step too late.
From the thin crack on the wooden stake's forehead, a grayish-white substance slowly seeped out, like fur, or like the white of an eye.
Immediately after, the entire false position let out an extremely faint and subtle sigh, like someone slowly breathing inside the wood.
Zhou Heng's back instantly went rigid.
Song Qinghe gritted her teeth, her face pale, but she held back from making a sound.
Wang Cheng'an and Xu Erxiao stood at the very back, their faces green, pressed tightly against the wall, their palms slick with sweat.
But Lu Yuan, at this moment, instead grew calm.
He took out a short length of red string from his bag, tied it to a copper coin, twisted the coin half a turn around his knuckle, and chanted softly:
"False position, false position, not the true god.
Wooden body, wooden fate, do not consume living souls.
Today I borrow my coin, first cut your line.
Today I borrow my incense, first retreat your gate.
Urgently, urgently, as by the law's command—break the false!"
As the word "break" left his mouth, the copper coin flew straight out, and with a smack, it struck the thin crack on the wooden stake's forehead.
The wooden stake shook violently.
The seven short nails let out a piercing hum in unison, and the oil lamp on the offering table also jumped, the flame nearly extinguishing.
But in that single tremor, the wall behind the wooden stake actually cracked open a thin slit.
No water or soil came out of the slit first.
What surged out first was an old, bitter scent of incense smoke.
Lu Yuan's gaze darkened. "A door behind a door."
Lin Zhaoxuan immediately stepped forward and said in a deep voice, "Let me open it."
Lu Yuan said, "Don't force it."
"There's locked presence behind this door. If you use force, it will bite back."
"We need to cut off its offering scent first."
As he spoke, he pulled the remaining half of the Vault-Questioning Incense from his sleeve and held it to the oil lamp flame. The incense tip instantly glowed with a fine red ember.
Lu Yuan turned his wrist, guiding the trail of smoke slowly toward the crack.
As soon as the smoke approached the crack, a low, muffled sound came from behind the door, like something below unwilling to smell this scent, shrinking back.
Lu Yuan took the opportunity to drive the mud-suppressing nails one by one into the four corners of the offering table, then pressed the last short talisman under the wooden stake's base, shouting lowly:
"Cut off the offering."
"Cut off the incense."
"Cut off the path of presence."
With each "cut," the force resisting from inside the wall weakened by one degree.
When the third command fell, there was finally no more movement from behind the door.
Only then did Lu Yuan reach out, press his hand against the thin slit, and slowly pull it outward.
"Grr..."
A deeply concealed stone door was pulled open by him.
Behind the door wasn't a long corridor, but a narrow passage slanting northward.
Both sides of the narrow passage were densely studded with wooden wedges, from which hung faded red cords, each cord's end tied with a small piece of shredded paper.
The paper scraps weren't painted with talismans, but with names.
At a glance, there were over a dozen.
Lu Yuan swept his gaze over them, and his expression completely darkened.
"All offering names."
He said quietly, "This isn't something done in just a year or two."
"Someone has been continuously renewing it."
Lin Zhaoxuan looked at the rows of names, his expression equally cold. "It seems we've touched the real thread."
Lu Yuan didn't answer. He only raised the lamp and was the first to step into the northward narrow passage.
He knew the stone chamber was just the second door.
The thing behind the door was the real root that had been feeding the mountain path.
And the end of that thread was probably no longer in the mountain.
But no matter where the end was, he had to keep going down tonight.
Lu Yuan held the oil lamp he had taken from the offering table. The flame wasn't big, but it cast a yellow shadow along the northward narrow passage.
The narrow passage was darker than the earlier vault road.
The wooden wedges on both sides were densely packed, red cords placed one after another, the small paper slips tied to the cord ends trembling slightly in the lamp's breeze, but refusing to fall.
The names on the papers seemed written in light ink, faded to gray and black over the years, but still barely legible.
As he walked, Lu Yuan said quietly, "Don't touch the cords."
"And don't read the names out loud."
Zhou Heng quickly averted his gaze, his throat moving, but he didn't dare to ask more.
Lin Zhaoxuan walked beside Lu Yuan, using the lamp light to glance at the paper slips on the wall and said in a low voice, "These offering names—some are old, some are new."
Lu Yuan said, "Right."
"The old ones are below, the new ones are above."
"That means this line has never been broken—it's still being renewed recently."
Song Qinghe's expression wasn't great, and she asked softly, "Who would hang living people's names here?"
Lu Yuan didn't answer immediately. He just reached out and gently touched a wooden wedge, and what came off on his fingertip wasn't dust, but a very faint greasy feeling.
"They aren't hanging names."
"They're feeding on names."
"Once an offering name enters this position, even if the person outside isn't dead yet, their life presence will slowly be drained thin."
"When the fire beneath that name truly goes out, that person is likely to have trouble."
He said this lightly, but it was colder than the wind in the mountain.
The narrow passage went on for about twenty-odd steps, then widened slightly ahead.
Lu Yuan stopped and raised his hand to signal everyone to halt.
Ahead was no longer a brick wall, but a semicircular earth arch.
Beneath the arch were placed three black earthenware pots, each with a shallow layer of water inside.
The water wasn't much, but it was black and shiny, as if it had swallowed even the shadow of the oil lamp.
Beside the middle pot stood a small wooden tablet about a foot high.
There were no characters on the wooden tablet—only an upside-down copper needle was driven into it.
Lu Yuan stared at the copper needle for a while, then said slowly:
"This is the meridian-picking needle."