Chapter 17

Chapter 17

The person walking ahead didn't notice Xu Muchan had fallen behind.

He still had the concealment talisman Yan He had given him, and the pseudo-human monsters hadn't noticed him yet.

Only the towering Lady Golden Flower lowered her head, and her face—bigger than his whole body—cast a heavy shadow over him. That's when Xu Muchan finally got a look at the face hidden behind her long, curtain-like hair.

Her face had no normal features—just a tangled mess of black threads. Those threads seemed alive, intertwining with one another, forming a single vertical eye in the middle of her face that took up almost the whole thing.

It was only then that Xu Muchan realized the hair covering her eyes was made of those same black threads.

The threads were noticeably more active, and the vertical pupil was slowly cracking open into a thin slit. Clearly, just like the Taoist said, she was about to wake up.

Xu Muchan instinctively held his breath. Fear of the unnatural and pure survival instinct both screamed at him to run, but his body was being controlled, moving with a lightness and agility that shouldn't have been humanly possible. He leaped two-plus meters into the air and landed feather-light on Lady Golden Flower's back.

Up close, Xu Muchan saw that her broad back was riddled with holes. Those weirdly proportioned pseudo-humans were crawling in and out of them.

Xu Muchan's trypophobia flared up, and he felt like throwing up again.

But his hand had a mind of its own. It reached into one of the holes and dug around.

When a deity possesses you, your senses are shared. Xu Muchan vaguely felt his hand go way deeper than his arm should have been able to reach. Sticky, soft things that felt like organs squeezed past his fingertips. Slippery, slimy secretions clung to his hand, and Xu Muchan dazedly felt like the massive monster under him wasn't some terrifying creature, but a gutted fish.

Xu Muchan dug around inside for a long time before finally grabbing something warm and faintly pulsing.

He instinctively figured it must be a heart—the pulse was about the same rhythm as a heartbeat—but then he second-guessed himself. It didn't feel right, though. If this were really the monster's heart, it'd be way too small.

He clenched his fingers tight around the pulsing organ and started pulling.

Xu Muchan felt clear resistance. At the same time, all the pseudo-human monsters that had been crawling in and out of the holes suddenly froze. Their misshapen heads all turned toward Xu Muchan at once, pitch-black pupils locked on him. Their mouths split open as wide as they could go, and they all let out piercing shrieks.

It was somewhere between a scream and a cry—piercingly shrill, like a hundred forks and knives scraping against ceramic at once, mixed with vague chewing sounds. All those sounds piled together hit him like a psychic assault, making his stomach churn and acid rise in his throat.

He squeezed his eyes shut and took a hard, deep breath to fight back the urge to puke. When he opened them again, a big blob of black, shapeless stuff was shoved right in his face.

That black thing seemed alive, writhing and struggling between his fingers, black goo stretching into strings and dripping down.

The monsters around him seemed to get some kind of signal, throwing themselves at Xu Muchan one after another—only to slam into an invisible barrier. Their deformed, twisted bodies began to melt like candles held to a flame...

And Xu Muchan—his tightly sealed lips opened on their own, and his right hand lifted the black thing, ready to shove it into his mouth.

No matter how calm Xu Muchan usually was, he couldn't hold it together now. He clamped his lips shut and shook his head wildly in protest. He'd rather die than eat something that disgusting. Eating that felt like it'd mutate him on the spot.

Maybe his resistance was too obvious, because the involuntary movements finally stopped.

The cold, yin energy swept away the tears that had welled up in his eyes from pure physical reaction. It touched his bitten-red lips too, then finally settled on Xu Muchan's trembling eyelashes.

Xu Muchan's vision went dark, then brightened again the next instant.

"Eat it. It's good for your eyes."

"Why won't you eat? Do you need to be fed?"

A low, muffled voice spoke directly in the depths of his mind. Then Xu Muchan felt something reach into his mouth, like it was about to pry his jaws open again and feed him personally.

Xu Muchan quickly clamped his mouth shut, but it felt like he'd bitten down on something. His mouth was clearly closed, but there was still a strong foreign sensation inside.

He frowned and quickly said, "I'll eat it myself!"

He wasn't the type to be ungrateful. Since his brother said it was good for his eyes, no matter how disgusting it was, he could hold his nose and choke it down.

But clearly, the other party had other plans. Before Xu Muchan could do it himself, that cold, yin energy slipped between his lips again—gentle but brooking no argument—forcing his mouth open.

Xu Muchan was forced to tilt his head back, feeling something slide down his throat and into his esophagus. His throat was irritated, and he kept retching. His hands and feet, which instinctively wanted to fight back, were pinned down by unseen limbs. He could only passively watch as that black, unknown mass was torn into small pieces and fed to him bit by bit.

Tears from the physical reaction streamed down his cheeks. The whole feeding process was humiliating and miserable. When Xu Muchan finally regained his freedom, he viciously yanked at the wooden plaque on his chest, thinking that when he got back, he would burn this damned wooden plaque to ashes. He would never, ever invoke a deity's possession again.

As for the thing still attached to him, he decided he wouldn't make offerings to it today either!

If it loved eating so much, it could go find its own food from now on!

Xu Muchan wiped the tears from his face through gritted teeth and silently slid down from Lady Golden Flower's back.

Ever since he ate that black thing, all the pseudo-human monsters had melted away, turning into a layer of thick, heavy grease covering Lady Golden Flower's body, even sealing up the holes on her back.

And Lady Golden Flower had stopped moving for some reason.

Her six arms were braced against the ground, her upper body prostrated weakly, her lowered head facing in Xu Muchan's direction.

After landing, Xu Muchan glanced back and saw that the eye on her face was now fully open. The half-closed slit had become a fully open almond shape, and where the pupil should have been was pure blankness.

She just lay prostrate on the ground, silently watching Xu Muchan.

Xu Muchan felt a strong sense of danger and ran without looking back in the direction Yan He and the others had gone.

The moment Yan He led the children out through the passage he had opened, the blurry path disappeared.

The four of them stood in an ancient, picturesque mansion.

Wei Yao saw this familiar old residence and immediately had a full-blown PTSD episode, screaming like a startled chicken: "What the hell, how did we end up back here again?"

Wen Dajiang hugged him, nearly weeping into his clothes: "Just give me a quick death, I really can't take this anymore."

He Jiaqi was also feeling dejected, but since she wasn't close to Wei Yao and Wen Dajiang, she could only endure her fear in silence. She turned around to look for Xu Muchan, only to find that the person who had been following behind her was gone.

Her face went pale. "Xu Muchan is missing."

Wei Yao shoved Wen Dajiang away and jumped up: "Where is he?"

Wen Dajiang sat dumbly on the ground, saying blankly, "I don't know."

Yan He also noticed someone was missing and frowned. "The path is already gone. He's probably been kept behind by Lady Golden Flower."

"What do you mean?"

Wei Yao said, "It's only been a moment. Even if we got separated, he can't be far. He must still be in the mansion. If we go look for him now, we can still make it..."

Yan He looked at the three helpless children and sighed. "We've already escaped from Lady Golden Flower's ghost domain. Young Master Wei, this is your own home."

Wei Yao was stunned for a moment, then belatedly realized that the old mansion in front of him no longer had the eerie dense fog. The branches visible above the rooftop were full of vitality—it was his familiar old jujube tree.

Wen Dajiang got up and walked around, patting the blue stone of the wall: "Holy crap, Old Wei, we actually made it out."

"But what about Xu Muchan? He hasn't come out yet."

"What do we do about Xu Muchan?"

Wei Yao and He Jiaqi asked in unison.

Yan He's expression held a trace of pity, but that was all. He had seen too many people enter the ghost realm and never return, and too many people like Wei Yao and He Jiaqi who couldn't accept the devastating news. He could only try to inform them of the worst outcome in the gentlest tone possible.

"Lady Golden Flower has already awakened. The passage I opened was the only way out. Once Lady Golden Flower fully awakens, even I wouldn't dare to go back in. Those left inside..."

Which meant death.

Either being assimilated, losing themselves and becoming monsters controlled by Lady Golden Flower.

In Yan He's view, dying cleanly and quickly was actually a mercy.

But this answer was too cruel for a few high school students facing death and parting for the first time, so he paused and said in a heavy tone: "I'm sorry for your loss."

He didn't have much time to let them grieve. Yan He turned to Wei Yao and said, "Young Master Wei, your parents and grandfather are waiting for you at the ancestral hall. Come with me."

Wei Yao didn't move at all. He clenched his jaw so hard that a metallic taste filled his mouth: "Xu Muchan is still in there. We can't just abandon him... He got caught up in this because of me..."

His voice trembled, and he couldn't get his words out straight. He wanted to cry but didn't dare, and could only desperately clutch Yan He's sleeve: "I don't get all this Golden Flower, Silver Flower crap. Send me back in there. If you won't save him, I'll go save him myself!"

Yan He looked at him helplessly, saying nothing, but his expression said it all.

Wei Yao let go of his sleeve weakly and squatted down, burying his head in his arms. Wen Dajiang opened his mouth to comfort him but didn't know what to say, so he hunkered down beside him as well.

He Jiaqi's eyes were slightly red. She looked at Wei Yao, then at the helpless Yan He, and said in a soft voice with a stuffy nose: "Xu Muchan isn't like other people. Maybe he'll be fine."

Yan He instinctively wanted to argue. Forget a clueless high schooler—even he himself, if he hadn't gotten out in time, would've been lucky to end up dead by his own hand.

But seeing the tears welling up in the young girl's eyes while she desperately held them back, he didn't have the heart to say anything else. He only sighed and said, "I hope so."

Yan He truly didn't have much time. Ignoring the three kids still grieving for their friend, he dragged them to the ancestral hall.

Wen Dajiang, worried, insisted on following. He Jiaqi had nowhere else to go, so she swallowed her pride and tagged along.

Wei Yao's parents and grandfather were all waiting in front of the ancestral hall. Seeing Wei Yao being dragged over by Yan He, they immediately crowded around him, overjoyed.

Bai Shanshan noticed her son's downcast look and asked worriedly: "Did you get scared?"

Old Master Wei said: "Yaoyao has been afraid of these things since he was little. He must be terrified today. Give him a minute to catch his breath."

He then looked at Yan He and said cautiously: "Master Yan, what should we do next?"

Yan He asked: "Let's go look at the statue of Lady Golden Flower first."

"Please follow me, Master."

The statue of Lady Golden Flower was kept in a side room of the ancestral hall. Old Master Wei led the way, while Bai Shanshan and her husband helped Wei Yao along from behind. Wen Dajiang and He Jiaqi exchanged a glance and followed, not wanting to but not knowing what else to do.

The side room was a spacious and tidy shrine. Directly facing the door stood a statue—wearing a phoenix crown and colorful robes, hands folded in a ritual gesture while sitting upright in a large armchair, with two child attendants standing on either side.

This was the Lady Golden Flower that the Wei family had worshipped for many years.

The statue had aged, its colors somewhat faded. Even with sunlight streaming in through the window, it seemed unable to illuminate the shadows around the statue.

Yan He paced back and forth before the statue, studying it for a moment. He first took out a yellow talisman to cover Lady Golden Flower's eyes, then pulled out some red thread. With a solemn expression, he wound the thread around the statue, finally tying it into an unbreakable knot with a copper bell the size of a fingernail at the end.

After completing all this, as if it had taken a lot out of him, Yan He wiped the sweat beading on his forehead and said to Old Master Wei, who was watching hopefully: "The formation back then was set up by my master, but he has already passed away. I'm not as powerful as he was. For now, I can only buy you some time. Once this talisman and red thread formation lose their power and the copper bell rings, Lady Golden Flower will surely come for you again. At that time..."

Yan He paused and said: "Use this time to find someone better. Maybe you'll find a way."

Old Master Wei wouldn't accept that. His face crumpled like dried bark: "Master Yan, if even you can't do it, no one else stands a chance. Our Wei family has had one son per generation for generations, with only this one descendant. Please, you must save him. Whatever the cost, we can—"

"This is the cost you must pay." Yan He suddenly interrupted him, anger flaring up.

In truth, when the Wei family first approached him, he hadn't wanted to get involved in this mess. But Old Master Wei had begged profusely and brought up his master's name, so he finally took the job.

But upon arriving, he discovered that things were nothing like what the Wei family had told him.

He was certain the Wei family had hidden a lot. Originally, he didn't plan to ask, preferring to look the other way and let them find someone else. But now the Wei family was bringing up the old matter again, so he decided to lay it all out: "Old Master Wei, I didn't ask before because I didn't want to get involved. But you must have known long ago that your Wei family was cursed to die out. You used some method to invite the fertility Lady Golden Flower for protection, so the family could keep going."

"But as the saying goes, easy to invite a god, hard to get rid of one. Since you made a deal with Lady Golden Flower, you should know there's a price to pay. Lady Golden Flower has come to collect now. An ordinary debt might be taken to court, but this is a debt to the dead. If you have the ability, you can go to the ends of the earth to argue your case before Lady Golden Flower. But I don't have that kind of power, so I'll take my leave!"

Old Master Wei's face went red, then white at his words. He naturally knew Yan He was right, but the Wei family had fought so hard to keep the family going. Watching his only grandson be taken by Lady Golden Flower and the family line end—he couldn't accept that.

He leaned on his cane, silent for a moment.

It was Wei Jianguo who saw Yan He getting angry and about to leave, and quickly stepped in to mediate, talking him into staying.

The adults argued heatedly, red-faced and shouting, while Wei Yao and the other two kids listened in confusion from behind.

"Grandpa, Mom, Dad, what are you all talking about? Who's this Lady Golden Flower? Why would she want to take me?"

"Can you just explain things clearly?" Wei Yao finally couldn't hold back, setting his jaw and speaking in a low, stubborn voice: "If our family really owes some debt, in this world or the next, taking me alone is better than dragging the whole family down, right?"

He had already dragged Xu Muchan into this, and he truly didn't want his family to get hurt because of him.

Bai Shanshan heard this, frowned, and patted him: "You child, what kind of unlucky talk is that? Don't say things like that."

Wei Yao stubbornly refused to move, looking like he wasn't about to let it go.

Old Master Wei looked at his grandson, stubborn as a mule, and sighed helplessly. He sat down dejectedly and said: "If he wants to know, then tell him. He's not a kid anymore—he'd have to learn eventually."

Wei Yao looked at his parents. Wei Jianguo wiped his face and started telling the story of how the Wei family came up in the world with a heavy expression.

The Wei family's ancestral home was in Yundong. Going back through the family tree, they had produced many high-ranking officials and were among the most prominent wealthy families in the region. They say wealth never lasts three generations—other families rose and fell, but the Wei family just kept going up and up, never declining.

Even after dynasties changed, the Wei family remained prosperous and powerful, running the place like local kings in the Yundong area.

But as the saying goes, no flower blooms forever, and no one's luck lasts. The Wei family, which had always had smooth sailing, suffered a great calamity in the early years of the Republic of China Era, nearly being wiped out entirely.

What exactly that calamity was, even the current Wei family members couldn't say for sure. They only knew that the main branch of the Wei family was completely wiped out, with only one branch barely surviving. After that, they went into hiding under new names and moved from Yundong to Jiangcheng.

This branch that moved to Jiangcheng thought they could start fresh in a new place. But as the Wei elders passed away one by one and no new children were born, they finally realized that the Wei family was dying out.

The Wei family naturally refused to accept this fate. They spent large sums of money burning money on prayers and offerings everywhere. Following someone's advice, they traveled all the way from the south to bring back a statue of Lady Golden Flower.

Lady Golden Flower was a fertility deity worshipped in some southern regions, said to be very good at granting children.

And miraculously, not long after bringing back Lady Golden Flower, the lady of the house at the time became pregnant. After ten months, she gave birth to a son, barely keeping the family line going.

After that, the Wei family's devotion to Lady Golden Flower got even more devout. And while the Wei family never had many children, every generation managed to have one son.

This went on until Wei Jianguo's generation.

At this point, Wei Jianguo wiped his face awkwardly: "Whether Lady Golden Flower lost her touch or for some other reason, after your mother and I got married, we couldn't conceive for a long time. We went to the hospital for check-ups—neither of us had any problems. We tried IVF, but it didn't take, twice. When your grandfather heard about this, he realized something was wrong and started asking around."

That's when they found out that the Wei family should have died out long ago.

Despite the years that had passed, Old Master Wei had heard about the family's early troubles from his own parents, but he hadn't really believed it—until his son and daughter-in-law couldn't even get pregnant through IVF. Only then did he start to believe it and go looking for help.

He went to see several famous masters one after another, and they all said pretty much the same thing—the Wei family was cursed to die out, and it was a miracle they'd made it this far.

As for whether there was a solution, the masters all stayed tight-lipped, telling Old Master Wei not to bother and suggesting his son just adopt a kid, raise it from a baby, and it'd be just like having his own.

But Old Master Wei wouldn't accept that. He figured the Wei family should've died out ages ago, and it was only thanks to Lady Golden Flower's blessing that they'd survived this long, so he went to pray to her.

But even Lady Golden Flower, who'd kept the Wei family going all this time, stopped answering their prayers.

Seeing that his son and daughter-in-law were both past thirty-five and still no baby, Old Master Wei's frustration grew day by day, so he went looking for other, less conventional options.

Hearing this, Yan He's expression finally changed, and he asked, "What did you do?"

He'd always felt something was off about the Wei family's Lady Golden Flower, but he could never quite put his finger on it.

Wei Jianguo looked at his father, his lips trembling before he finally spoke: "I heard that if a big wish doesn't come true, you can bribe the gods with black gold. If the god takes it, it means the thing'll happen."

"What is black gold?" Yan He asked, totally confused.

"It's Black Taisui."

There are a lot of legends about Taisui.

The Compendium of Materia Medica says: "Rou zhi looks like flesh. It attaches to big rocks, has a head and a tail, and is a living thing. The red ones look like coral, the white ones like fat, the black ones like lacquer, the green ones like kingfisher feathers, and the yellow ones like purple gold—all of them shiny and clear like solid ice."

In modern times, science says Taisui is actually a type of fungus that grows underground—a rare mix of slime molds, bacteria, and fungi.

But the truth is, Taisui is water.

Water gives life to everything, and everything returns to water. Everything in the world lives and grows because of water.

And Black Taisui is said to be the very first life-water.

But the whole life-water thing is pretty out there—where would you even find it now? The person who'd pointed Old Master Wei in the right direction told him life-water was actually yang water.

Yang water is just the old-timey word for "amniotic fluid." People back then believed life started with "yang qi," so they called the fluid that nourishes a baby "yang water."

So Old Master Wei shelled out big money to have people collect amniotic fluid from hospital maternity wards, then offered it up to Lady Golden Flower.

Collecting the amniotic fluid wasn't easy—even with all the money the Wei family threw at it, they only got a small flask's worth. Following the instructions, he set the amniotic fluid in front of Lady Golden Flower's statue and prayed for her to bless his daughter-in-law with a quick pregnancy and keep the family line going.

By the next day, that little flask of amniotic fluid was bone dry, like something had drunk every last drop.

And the statue of Lady Golden Flower, which had been dull before, now had a shiny glow to it, looking brand new all of a sudden.

Old Master Wei was over the moon and quickly told his son and daughter-in-law the good news.

And sure enough, not long after, his daughter-in-law was pregnant.

At this point, Old Master Wei's face darkened. He glanced at his daughter-in-law, who was sitting next to his grandson, and let out a heavy sigh.

Wei Jianguo looked at his wife, like he wanted to say something but couldn't, while Bai Shanshan hadn't said a word since they'd started talking about the family's past.

Wei Yao could tell something was off in the air. It suddenly hit him—Xu Muchan had kept bringing up five older brothers. His face went pale, and his voice started shaking: "Do I... have more than one brother?"

Bai Shanshan turned her face away without saying anything, and Wei Jianguo let out a strained "Mm."

When his wife first got pregnant, the whole Wei family was thrilled, and Bai Shanshan was extra careful, terrified something might go wrong with this hard-won blessing.

But from conception to birth, everything went shockingly smoothly.

Bai Shanshan had her first kid at the ripe old age of thirty-six. The hospital had been on high alert, but she gave birth faster and easier than women half her age.

The baby was super healthy too, weighing a solid six jin and eight liang.

For a while, the couple was so happy they couldn't stop smiling. Wei Jianguo even stopped paying attention to his company, spending every day at home with his wife and son.

But those happy days didn't last long. When the child was three, one night Wei Jianguo suddenly noticed someone had entered the house. He followed the noise and found it was coming from his son's room.

The child was young and slept with the nanny. Figuring it was the nanny doing something, he quietly pushed the door open—and saw something he'd never forget for the rest of his life.

A monster with six arms was picking his son up off the bed. As the monster held the boy, his soft, pale skin started oozing a sticky fluid. That fluid was super corrosive, instantly eating through his pajamas and revealing gray, scaly skin underneath.

It wasn't even human skin anymore. Once the monster grabbed him, his son had turned into another monster.

Wei Jianguo passed out right then and there.

When he woke up the next morning to the sound of his wife sobbing hysterically, he remembered what had happened and rushed back to the old house to check—the six-armed monster looked exactly like the statue of Lady Golden Flower they worshipped at home.

He suspected his dad had brought some evil god into the house and wanted to find another master to look into it, but his wife refused to accept such a crazy explanation, insisting their son had been stolen by human traffickers.

It wasn't until three months later that his wife found out she was pregnant again.

At the time, because of their son's disappearance, his wife's mental and physical health had gone downhill badly. There was no way they could've slept together, yet she was pregnant.

They were both terrified, but after a hospital check-up confirmed the baby was developing normally.

Even though it was creepy, after talking it over, they decided to have the baby and see what happened.

But what came next was out of their control. They seemed stuck in a vicious cycle—the second kid was born fine, but within a year, it also disappeared under weird circumstances, leaving the same faint yellow goo behind in the crib.

And just three months later, Bai Shanshan was pregnant again.

These terrifying, bizarre events nearly destroyed Bai Shanshan. She had more than one mental breakdown, but no matter what she did, the baby in her belly kept growing with a weird, stubborn persistence.

Even now, thinking back on those nightmare years, Bai Shanshan could barely breathe.

In just a few short years, she'd lost five kids in a row.

She grabbed Wei Yao's hand tight and said in a shaking voice, "Then when you were born, your grandpa found Taoist Master Yan's teacher. He set up a formation and said that as long as you weren't grown up yet, Lady Golden Flower wouldn't be able to find you."

Wei Yao still had over a year until he came of age, and after more than ten years, the old fears had faded. They'd figured they wouldn't have to worry about this until he was grown.

Who would've thought Lady Golden Flower would suddenly come after Wei Yao now?

Bai Shanshan closed her eyes, forcing her tears back. No matter what, she couldn't handle losing another son.

"So that's how it is."

After hearing all of it, Yan He finally got why the Wei family's Lady Golden Flower had become so weird.

Even though Lady Golden Flower was a folk deity from the south and had at one point been lumped in with forbidden shrines, overall it was actually a pretty gentle god with no history of hurting anyone.

But the first time Yan He saw the Wei family's Lady Golden Flower statue, he'd felt really uneasy.

"That Black Taisui is probably something bad, and it's made Lady Golden Flower mutate... which is why it's been going after Wei Yao," Yan He guessed.

Bai Shanshan held back her panic and pushed on: "So does the Taoist master have a way to fix this? Isn't a mutated god just an evil spirit? Don't you guys kill demons and get rid of evil..."

"Lady Golden Flower isn't some ordinary ghost or demon, and with mortal power, these things can't be killed."

Yan He shook his head. "I'd never even heard of Black Taisui until now, and I know even less about the cause of Lady Golden Flower's mutation. Barely managing to hide you from her sight and buying you some time is already my limit."

"I'm sorry, but you'd better find someone else, and soon."

With that, Yan He took his leave, clearly unwilling to wade into the Wei family's troubled waters.

The Wei family's faces visibly fell.

Wei Yao, however, seeing his mother weeping in sorrow, set aside his own fear and forced a weak smile. "Mom, don't cry. I've got luck on my side. If that Lady Golden Flower comes for me, I'll just hide. I'm fast—she'll never catch me."

Bai Shanshan wiped her tears and patted his head, at a loss for words.

Patriarch Wei remained silent for a long time before suddenly speaking up. "Maybe there's still a way."

Wei Jianguo flinched, looking at his father nervously—a mixture of hope and dread.

He couldn't help but resent his father for what had happened before, but Wei Yao had grown up safe and sound since then, and the old man was aging, with who knew how many years left. Any lingering grudges had slowly faded.

But now, hearing the old man say there was still a way, Wei Jianguo couldn't suppress a shudder.

"What way?"

Bai Shanshan also turned to look.

Patriarch Wei gazed at his son and daughter-in-law, who were well past their youth, and pushed himself up with his cane. Instead of explaining, he said, "Wait here. I'll go pay my respects to the ancestors and ask for their guidance."

With that, he shuffled unsteadily into the back of the ancestral hall.

The spirit tablets of the Wei family's forebears were arranged in the main hall, row upon row of black tablets arranged in tiers like steps. At the highest tier sat the tablet of the family's founding ancestor, Wei Xilou.

According to legend, the main branch of the Wei family was wiped out, leaving only the founding ancestor Wei Xilou and his younger brother Wei Ting as survivors.

The two grabbed what was left of the family wealth and fled to Jiangcheng. Not long after, Wei Xilou passed away, and Wei Ting took over, carrying on the family line to this day.

So this branch of the family were all Wei Ting's descendants.

As for Wei Xilou, who died young... Patriarch Wei seemed to steel himself as he opened a hidden room behind the ancestral hall.

A narrow door slid open in the decorative wall behind the spirit tablets. Patriarch Wei, leaning on his cane, shuffled through it. As his figure disappeared into the narrow doorway, the ancestral tablets on the altar all toppled over at once, making a series of "thud thud" sounds—as if trying to call the old man back from his decision.

But Patriarch Wei had already stepped into the secret chamber.

The chamber was small and simple. After passing through another sealed door, a coffin of golden nanmu wood came into view.

The coffin was nailed shut from the outside, its gleaming golden surface covered in unreadable crimson cinnabar inscriptions—as if afraid of what was inside getting out.

Patriarch Wei recalled his father's dying words—words passed down from every Wei family head to the next.

His father had said: "If the Wei family ever hits rock bottom, when you've got nowhere left to turn, open this coffin. Maybe there's still a chance to turn things around."

Patriarch Wei didn't know what was inside, only that every generation was told to guard it—that it held something of utmost importance to the family.

It could only be opened when the family was desperate; otherwise, it would bring disaster on the clan.

Patriarch Wei hesitated, gently stroking the coffin.

As for being at the end of their rope—with their current wealth, the Wei family could squander it for five generations.

But if they couldn't get through this crisis and his grandson was taken, the line would end this generation—how was that different from extinction?

Patriarch Wei finally made up his mind. Groping around, he found a sharp protrusion at the top of the coffin and, gritting his teeth, pressed his palm down on it.

It was a hexagonal nail with a pointed protrusion extending a full two centimeters. Patriarch Wei forced his palm down onto it, the nail nearly going straight through his hand. Blood gushed out, staining the golden coffin red.

The red inscriptions on the coffin melted like candle wax upon touching Wei blood, sliding down the coffin like fresh blood.

Patriarch Wei, old as he was, was startled by the eerie sight and stumbled back. His heart pounded, and he fumbled for a nitroglycerin pill to keep from collapsing.

By then, the whole coffin was stained red. The coffin lid, nailed shut tight, had somehow come loose—

As if something was pushing from inside, the gap widened until the four corner nails popped out, clattering to the floor with a clink, and the heavy lid was finally thrown off.

Patriarch Wei, having watched it all, stared wide-eyed, his heart racing and breath ragged.

A pale, bloodless hand gripped the coffin's edge.

In the ghost realm, Xu Muchan paused, as if sensing something. The massive Lady Golden Flower chased close behind him, her thick snake tail lashing out with the force of a collapsing mountain.

Xu Muchan raised a hand and caught her tail effortlessly.

"So that's where it's been."

A dark red light flickered in his eyes as he looked toward the ancestral hall. The next instant, he shot off toward the hall.

The ancestral hall in the ghost domain looked exactly like the one in reality.

Xu Muchan burst into the secret chamber, and his face lit up with wild excitement at the sight of the open coffin.

He climbed into the coffin and lay down.

Xu Muchan stared blankly at the ceiling patterns, too drained to even be angry, only growing more determined to burn that damn wooden plaque to ashes once he got back.

If he could even make it out of this coffin.

A pale, slender hand gripped the coffin's edge, and the man in the Republic-era long robe sat up. Having lain in the coffin so long, his skin was deathly pale from lack of sunlight, yet his features were strikingly sharp—high nose, deep-set eyes—giving him an exotic look that made him seem like the classic vampire from horror movies.

Letting out a long sigh, the man turned to the stunned Patriarch Wei, his pupils glowing with an eerie dark red. "A Wei family member?"

Looking puzzled, as if he'd found something rare and curious, he stepped out of the coffin, approached Patriarch Wei, and leaned in to study him. "So you lot haven't died out after all?"

Patriarch Wei shuddered at those words.

He looked at the man's towering, imposing frame and his impossibly young, handsome face, and recalled a faded black-and-white photo he'd once seen at his grandfather's place. Even in blurry black and white, you could still see the effortless charm of the young man in the photo.

It was said to be the only photo ever taken of the Wei family's founding ancestor.

Before Patriarch Wei passed out completely, he stammered out the man's name.

"Wei... Xi-lou."

So the vital treasure sealed in the coffin was none other than the Wei ancestor himself—Wei Xilou.