Chapter 60: Daybreak

"Junior Brother!" Uncle Hai responded to me enthusiastically, his voice carrying a slight tremble. It seemed he was truly excited; he never expected that in his twilight years he would take on an apprentice on behalf of his master and gain a junior brother. That was a momentous occasion indeed.

"Senior Brother!" Fearing he might think me insufficiently enthusiastic, I immediately replied, almost embracing him on the spot.

Yet deep down, I felt rather awkward. Two grown men, one old and one young, addressing each other this way—wasn't it rather strange?

"Haha, since we are now fellow apprentices, this matter should be settled sooner rather than later. Let's return to my Daoist temple right now and kowtow to our master!" Uncle Hai eagerly finished his cup of tea and spoke to me without delay.

Strike while the iron is hot. I had no objections. Originally, my apprenticeship had been merely exploratory, but who could have foreseen that I would become Senior Hai's junior brother? Truly, the ways of creation are whimsical.

Just as I stood up, Zhang Xiaofei called: "Hello! We are about to start over here. When are you coming?"

"You've arrived there? Good, I'm getting ready to go now." I hung up the phone and turned to Senior Brother Hai: "Senior Brother, earlier the Zhang family went to grave-rob near the Liancheng Mountain shooting range and set up a Thunder Pattern Array, which I accidentally broke halfway through. Then trouble arose: the older brother cast a curse on the unclean entity inside the tomb, and now his wife is pregnant with a ghost baby. They want me to help them solve it."

"What? The Zhang family wants to rob the ancient tomb at the shooting range? And she's pregnant with a ghost baby? Tired of living, are they? Thunder Pattern Array! Thunder my foot! Do they really think that tomb is easy to rob? The tomb is situated on the 'Dragon Playing with a Pearl' formation. Elders legend that it is a tomb within a tomb, one suppressing another. Do those two Zhang brats think they are immortals? Running off to grave-rob, they must be courting death!" Hearing this, Senior Senior Brother flew into a rage. Wasn't this pure self-destruction? A tomb standing there for hundreds of years—had no one else discovered it over the generations? How many people had tried to rob it and failed? That meant the secrets within ran deep indeed.

"Dragon Playing with a Pearl? A tomb within a tomb?" I felt a sense of foreboding. Could this tomb really be so formidable?

"Indeed! That tomb buried two immensely powerful ghost entities. Aren't they asking for death?"

"Just how powerful?" I frowned. I had no love for meddling in other people's affairs. If it was truly too powerful, for the sake of my own life, I would rather not go.

"Er... I don't know, but very powerful anyway. However, powerful or not, it's none of our business. Your Senior Brother here doesn't have the habit of grave-robbing. The ones robbing the tomb are them, and they invited us just to watch the fun. Let's go—watching from afar does no harm! Still, as an elder, I simply must call their old man down a peg." Senior Brother Hai had a rather restless personality; he loved getting involved in everything. This was what he called rubbernecking.

Yet, thinking that I had this newly recognized senior brother to anchor the scene, I stopped refusing. With him around, no matter how big the problem was, I could just run for my life. But going to rubberneck in my current situation—was that really a good idea?

Then this new senior brother called the elders of the Zhang family. Predictably, the person on the other end of the line flew into a towering rage. It seemed the two Zhang brothers hadn't told their elders the whole truth; they probably hadn't even mentioned the real reason behind the ghost baby pregnancy.

No wonder those two had brought half the village with them when they came to settle scores with me and Zhao Qian—it turned out they were in deep trouble and didn't dare speak of it.

"Look at that! Those two little rascals didn't even dare tell their parents that they were robbing a tomb within a tomb, haha! Now that things have blown up, the Zhang matriarch is going too. Come on, let's go, it's getting more and more interesting!" Having successfully stoked the flames of curiosity, Senior Brother dragged me toward his car.

My scalp went numb. Something like a tomb within a tomb sounded thoroughly inauspicious, yet my senior brother was dragging me along to watch the fun. He was entirely too unreliable.

I got into the car and started the engine. But looking back, Senior Brother hadn't gotten in. He was leaning against the vehicle, coughing violently. Sensing something was amiss, I immediately got out and asked, "Senior Brother, you've been too exhausted these past two days. Shall we skip this sightseeing?"

"Ah, don't mention it. Exhausted is a given; borrowing the path of Yin and Yang inevitably inflicts secondary damage on one's vital energy."

I stepped over to check on his condition, and Senior Brother steadied himself against me for a moment. But precisely at that moment, he looked up at the sky, and his expression suddenly changed: "This isn't right, Junior Brother! Did you notice anything?"

"Senior Brother, what could I possibly know?" Frowning, I looked up at the sky as well. The sky was covered with dark clouds, the stars were gone, and there was a somewhat chilly, damp feeling—it felt like rain was coming, but surely nothing major would happen.

Ignoring me, Senior Brother felt the ground, his hand retracting instantly as if shocked by electricity. He hurriedly pulled the turtle shell out of his backpack, shook it a few times in his hand, and scattered copper coins onto the ground.

Picking up the coins, he pinched his fingers to calculate something, then looked at me with a tightly furrowed brow: "This is bad! Something has gone wrong down below. I don't know what Li Poluo did, but he failed to hold the ground. Things are about to turn upside down!"

I started, my face turning pale!

Could that person below be coming to claim my life? So soon?

I had zero confidence in fighting her! Even with Xijun's skyrocketing strength, she could barely fight to a draw with the Black and White Impermanence generals. And while Song Wanyi was adept at seizing souls and capturing wits, facing a City God who could casually release ghostly hands to grab people, she would undoubtedly be crushed like an ant, with zero chance of victory.

"Senior Brother! What on earth did Li Poluo go down there to do? Didn't he tell you? And didn't you say there was a way to alleviate my waning lifespan?" I hurriedly demanded.

Senior Brother took off his glasses and wiped the sweat from his forehead: "Indeed. But all methods of alleviation are built on the premise that Li Poluo could hold out for a little while. Actually, Senior Brother only discovered you were inside because I opened the Yin-Yang Dao, so I immediately made him step in. That fellow is half a righteous man; seeing you in distress, he saved you first. But once he realized the mountain ghost and the soul-devouring ghost general were your reared ghost queens, he was filled with regret."

"You had quite an adventure, though. You ran into your Senior Brother here and came right back. Li Poluo went straight in to face the City God head-on and lost the initiative. Fortunately, your Senior Brother is clever; I used a secret technique and returned directly to the realm of the living. After all, he had said before that once the path of Yin and Yang was borrowed, the rest was up to me, so of course I slipped away on the soles of my feet. Junior Brother, wouldn't you say so? Senior Brother isn't even close to him; it was our first meeting—was it worth risking my life? Besides, can that City God even be called a City God? Have you ever seen a City God wearing dead men's skin?"

"I certainly haven't. When I met her, all I could do was run for my life. But what did you calculate with that turtle shell just now? How did you know Li Poluo failed? And what were you calculating with your fingers? Why did you end up looking at me?" Suspicion surged in my heart. Watching him drenched in sweat, I felt so suspended in anxiety I was almost tempted to grab him by the throat and demand answers.

"I cast divination with the turtle shell to calculate the fate of that brat Li Poluo, and I found that he probably couldn't defeat the entity below. It seems he has already fled back, and the forces below are in a murderous rage chasing him, stirring the sky until its colors changed. Junior Brother, not to brag, but Li Poluo has much greater fortune than you; he's safe now. So just now I used my fingers to calculate your fortune along the way, and right now, your life is hanging by a thread—blessing and misfortune are still unpredictable!"

"Senior Brother! You are utterly unreliable! You said a whole bunch of nonsense and ended up dragging your Junior Brother into it?!" Veins bulged on my forehead. As I spoke, Lady Wife fiercely tugged at the corner of my clothes. My expression froze, and terror made me instantly want to run. But where could I run?

The underworld was coming to claim my life! Damn that City God—if she drags me down there again, I'll have no choice but to fight you to the death!

"I was just telling you the cause and effect!" Seeing me as anxious as an ant on a hot pan, Senior Brother broke out in cold sweat as well.

"Then help me! I can feel the underworld about to throw a tantrum right now!" There was nothing around us, yet Lady Wife kept tugging at me fiercely. I figured it definitely wasn't her acting coy; she was telling me to run for my life!

I looked up, looked down, jumped left, and ran right. My dear Lady Wife, I beg you to speak a word—just where is the danger coming from?!

Seeing me lose my temper, Senior Brother stamped his feet in panic, hurriedly pulled out the Companion Turtle, pierced all four of its feet, and produced a large sheet of blue paper for the turtle to crawl on.

"Bite your finger! Quick! Follow its claw prints and dot the paper!"

Senior Brother slapped the back of my head, a blow that finally shocked me back to calmness. I thought: My dear Senior Senior Brother, if you have something to say, say it properly, but don't hit me! I'm practically being scared out of my wits!

In pain, the Companion Turtle went berserk, racing wildly across the paper, yet miraculously never running off its edges.

Lady Wife fiercely ripped a hole in my clothes. Feeling my soul practically leaping out of my body, I hurriedly bit my middle finger and frantically started dotting the blood footprints left by the turtle on the large sheet of paper!

The moment I struck, Senior Brother immediately formed hand incantations and began chanting spells at a furious pace. He grabbed a handful of ritual salt—regardless of how precious it was—and scattered it directly onto the paper. Just that one handful must have cost tens of thousands.

The moment I pressed my hand against a blood print, the paper instantly changed color, and a hole was pierced right through it. The Companion Turtle ran frantically like a ghost across the page, and my hand rapidly dotted along the bloodstains. I didn't know how many times I pressed, but in the end, the entire large sheet of paper formed a shape like ghost talismans, though it was punctured everywhere.

I didn't know what this represented, but seeing the immediate danger resolved, I knew it was no less terrifying than any ordeal of the past.

Lady Wife finally quieted down. I let out a long breath and burst into tears on the spot: "Senior Brother, can you please not scare me like this next time?"

"This... how could I have known this would happen?" Senior Brother's face was also deathly pale. Glancing at the remaining ritual salt in his hand, he stealthily scraped it back into his private pocket, though tears welled up in his eyes as well.

As a senior brother, he truly wasn't a wealthy man. How long would he have to work to earn back that handful of ritual salt? Taking on a junior brother felt great, but it was a losing financial proposition.

Just as each of us was feeling a sense of surviving a disaster, the sky opened up with a torrential downpour, as if rain cost nothing at all. Having narrowly escaped death, I drove Senior Brother out of the Zhao family estate.

However, right at the intersection, a Daoist stood like an iron pillar, glaring at us with lightning-like eyes.

Li Poluo!