Chapter Fourteen: The Legend of the Seventy-Two Deadly Stars

At the foot of Mount Kunlun, there was truly a sea of people—at a glance, nearly a thousand had gathered. Most were onlookers who were kept outside the police cordon, while only a handful of experts were permitted to pass through and venture deeper. Old Ma and the group of teachers were only granted entry after presenting their archaeological credentials, authorizing them to lead their students inside.

Once inside the cordon, I was so startled that I nearly toppled onto Ashuang. This, they called an imperial tomb? It was clearly just a cavern. Yet, on second thought, with all the history I’d studied, I’d never once heard of an imperial mausoleum at the foot of Kunlun. Could it have been formed by some geological collapse?

That idea quickly faded. The cavern was already lit with bulbs, and a string of lights illuminated almost the entire space except for a few side passages. More than a hundred people stood inside without crowding the place. The archaeological experts who had arrived before us greeted Old Ma with hearty handshakes—clearly, he was well respected in the field.

At first glance, you’d never think this cave concealed treasures of gold or jade, but a closer look revealed that every niche was adorned with bizarre, ancient yellow-jade sculptures. Judging by the flowstone and moss creeping over them, these works had stood for at least a millennium.

To others, they might have been ordinary stone statues, but Old Ma and I saw them differently. He was a master of yin-yang arts, and I, a high-level demon corpse. Yin-yang masters open their celestial eyes before embarking on their path—without that, they are considered untrained. As for me, the bite from Jiang Chen had awakened my own celestial sight.

The so-called celestial eye, known among common folk as the yin-yang eye, pierces the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead, revealing the truth of all beings. I counted seventy-two statues in total. Peering into the dark side tunnels with my zombie vision, I saw that all the water trickling there was infused with nether energy.

A “nether vein,” much like the so-called “corpse-nourishing grounds,” fosters not zombies but wrathful spirits and disaster-bringers. This cavern, spanning a thousand square meters, must have existed for over a thousand years, sealed by a powerful master long ago. The collapse had broken the seal, and I sensed that these evil spirits would soon break free.

The surest way for them to shatter the seal was for the yellow jade encrusting their bodies to be destroyed—and the greed in the eyes of the hundred-odd people around us made Old Ma and me exchange bitter smiles. We both thought, “This is bad.”

Sure enough, some had already begun prying at the statues. Every shard of yellow jade they removed leaked deadly energy.

Yellow jade is known as the “corpse-suppressing jade.” Legend tells of a man who, a thousand years ago, dropped a piece into a zombie’s mouth. The zombie fell lifeless, but the jade was priceless. The man, unwilling to abandon his treasure, pried open the corpse’s jaws to reclaim it, thinking the thing truly dead. At that instant, the zombie sprang up and drained him of blood.

Seeing the situation deteriorate, Old Ma quickly called out, “That’s enough for today. Everyone, return to the bus. Xiaodong, stay and help me. Xiaoshuang, you go back too—no need to help him walk, I’ll handle it.”

The group reluctantly exited, leaving only Old Ma, myself, and ten experts in the cavern. The students had accomplished nothing but gawking and prying off bits of yellow jade. It was less an excavation than an act of vandalism.

With the power of the nether vein, the seventy-two evil spirits had grown far stronger than before. Thanks to the students’ meddling, their souls were already rising from the jade, on the verge of breaking free.

Of course, only Old Ma and I could see this. The experts, oblivious, peered through magnifying glasses to determine the age of the statues, unaware of the looming danger.

I asked Old Ma, “Didn’t you say this was an imperial tomb?”

He ignored me and pointed toward some square blocks in the distance. Following his gesture, I saw they were all carved from yellow jade—a feat only the royal family could afford. If the coffin was made of yellow jade, then the being inside could only be a zombie.

Let me clarify: zombies come in two types—those clad in Qing dynasty garb, and demon corpses like myself. Only the Jiang Chen lineage of demon corpses remains. In other words, the one sealed in the yellow jade coffin was the traditional kind.

Fed for centuries by the nether vein and the corpse-nourishing ground, this imperial zombie would be far more formidable than any ordinary type.

I glanced at the seventy-two spirits, already halfway out of their statues, and was shocked. At this rate, by midnight they would be fully free and seeking bodies to possess.

The greatest danger wasn’t even the spirits or the imperial zombie in the coffin. After midnight, the police would seal the site with guns. How would Old Ma and I get in?

As expected, time ran out. The police ushered us and the experts out of the cave. Dusk had fallen, and the sun was barely above the mountain ridge. Old Ma and I watched the sudden turn of events with growing anxiety. Truthfully, I wasn’t worried for myself—it was Old Ma who was most distressed. Should the seventy-two spirits break free, their first targets would be the students; if any were harmed, Old Ma could end up behind bars.

The sun had slipped behind Kunlun’s peaks, plunging our side into darkness. Only the lights on the cars and at the foot of the mountain pierced the gloom.

In such darkness, my vision grew sharper. I peered into the cave and saw the seventy-two evil spirits already opening their eyes. In a few hours, they would break the seal and roam in search of bodies.

The entrance was guarded by a dozen soldiers armed with AK-74s, standing motionless with grim expressions. I nudged Old Ma to follow me, and though he was confused, he stepped away from the bus.

A short distance away, I said, “Uncle Ma, I have an idea.”

“What could you possibly do at this point?” Old Ma’s skepticism was clear.

Time was short. I explained that I would lure the seventy-two spirits out and destroy them, after which we could join forces to take down the imperial zombie.

Old Ma, seeing this was our only option, agreed. “Alright, Xiaodong. I owe you another big favor. Be careful.”

I nodded, spread my wings, and soared toward the cave. The darkness concealed my flight, so I had no fear of being seen.

From the bus to the mountain’s base took only a few minutes. I circled above the soldiers’ heads three times, then, with a speed faster than lightning, darted into the cave, leaving the guards with nothing but a chill breeze brushing their faces.

Inside, the imperial zombie’s yellow jade coffin was cracking—far worse than I had feared. The seventy-two evil spirits were nearly free.

Their faces were terrifying, like demons escaped from hell: each had two pairs of black wings, a trident in hand, and a black tail tipped with a triangle—devilish in every respect.

Lost in these dreadful visions, my watch suddenly beeped. The hand pointed to the ominous hour: midnight, sharp!

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