The invincible female ghost is a bit love-struck.

This time, it called out clearly.

The voice behind the stone wall was neither the previous aged one, nor the shrill voice of the woman outside the door, but rather a multitude of voices layered together. Men, women, old, young, layered upon each other, like countless mouths hidden within a mountain, finally all squeezing into one person's name. Lu Yuan did not answer.

He pushed the oil lamp forward, and the flame was immediately pressed against the wick by the black water, with a faint blue color emerging from the flame.

The seven pottery jars in the black water were also revealed in full at this moment.

The jar was small and wrapped in a blackened red cloth.

Each jar had three yellow talismans pasted on it; the talisman paper was already moldy, but it hadn't fallen off.

The talisman did not bear people's names, but rather various appellations:

"eldest son."

"Medicine boy".

"Forest ranger".

"Fleeing residents".

"A dutiful daughter."

"The Nameless Guest".

"Old Moriguchi."

The last one was half-buried under the stone platform, with only the edge of the jar's mouth visible.

Lu Yuan stared at those three words, his heart sinking.

Old guard.

These three words do not refer to Tie Suanpan alone, but to all those who guard the crossroads for the evil god.

The iron abacus was just the last one among them.

He is dead, his body is still in the cellar, and he will never come back.

But his name, "Old Guardian," remains here, like a piece of iron dropped into a deep well, only to be retrieved today. Wang Cheng'an also saw the jar and lowered his voice, saying:

"Brother Lu, is that the Iron Abacus?"

"He's not one of his people."

Lu Yuan's voice was very steady.

"It's his debt."

"The abacus has been smashed, and the accounts should be settled."

A soft laugh suddenly came from behind the stone wall.

"You're speaking for the dead."

"Now that he's gone, the bill should naturally be mine."

Lu Yuan looked up at the shadowy figure draped in black cloth behind the wall.

"You've miscalculated."

The shadow's shoulder twitched slightly.

"What did you miscalculate?"

"Iron Abacus's fate is his own."

"His debts are also his own."

"It's your business if you use him as a cover-up."

"Now that he's dead, the debts are settled, and no one is qualified to take over for him."

"The debt cannot be broken."

"Then let it collect itself."

After Lu Yuan finished speaking, he suddenly took the cracked abacus and handed it to Wang Cheng'an.

"Cheng'an, take it and knock on the third jar."

Wang Chengan was taken aback.

"A third one?"

"Medicine boy".

Why this one?

Lu Yuan looked at the words on the jar:

"They recruit people, starting with those whose identities are most vulnerable."

"The medicine boy knows medicine, the forest ranger knows the way, the eldest son carries his family on his back, and the filial daughter carries her parents on her back."

"The more these identities resemble a rope, the more they can bind people together."

"The third container contains their most commonly used priming gas."

Wang Chengan didn't ask any more questions, and walked to the Blackwater with his abacus in hand.

The black liquid trickled down the ground towards the tips of his shoes. Just as it touched the edge, the wooden frame of the abacus made a soft sound, like someone knocking from inside. Wang Cheng'an gritted his teeth and swung the abacus.

"Bang!"

The abacus landed on the third pottery jar.

A thin crack appeared on the body of the jar.

Nothing rushed out; only a wisp of pale yellow mist slowly rose from the crack.

As soon as the mist emerged, the small niches on both sides of the stone corridor shook violently, as if the old objects inside had been suddenly blown by the wind. The dark figure on the stone platform abruptly turned towards Wang Cheng'an.

"stop."

Wang Chengan delivered another blow.

"I'm not going either."

As the second blow landed, the yellow talisman on the pottery jar curled up simultaneously.

Weak cries emanated from the jar, as if many people were hiding in the fog, constantly repeating the same identity.

"Medicine boy".

"Medicine boy".

"Medicine boy".

Wang Chengan's face turned pale, but he didn't stop.

Lu Yuan looked at the pale yellow mist and suddenly spoke:

"Don't listen to them."

"They are not calling themselves."

"We're waiting for you to acknowledge it."

Wang Chengan clenched his teeth so hard they made a cracking sound.

On the third blow, the jar finally cracked in two.

The yellow mist dissipated, revealing a small patch of dried herbs on the ground, with a thin piece of white bone pressed down in the center of the herbs.

Lu Yuan used the tip of his knife to pick up the bone fragment and held it up to the light of the oil lamp. A line of extremely small characters was clearly engraved on the fragment:

"Medicine can save lives, and fame can preserve them."

"They present their status as a favor," Song Qinghe whispered. "First, they make people feel useful, then they make them reluctant to let go."

Lu Yuan nodded.

"Providing for others is not simply coercion."

"It first gives someone a position, then makes them trade that position for their life."

"Over time, people will naturally learn to cherish it."

He placed the bone fragment in cinnabar, and with a flick of the flame, the bone fragment immediately and silently turned to ash.

At that moment, the dark figure on the stone platform suddenly took a step forward.

It clearly has no feet, yet a heavy thud could be heard coming from beneath its feet.

"You can't burn it all."

"Then let's do it one at a time."

Lu Yuan turned his gaze to the remaining pottery jars.

"Second little one, the fourth one."

"Zhou Heng, the fifth one."

"Lin Zhaoxuan, keep the Soul-Illuminating Mirror focused on the audience below."

"Qinghe, the lights must not go out."

Xu Erxiao swung the dry wooden stick and smashed the jar.

A small copper button rolled out from inside.

The copper buckle is engraved with the character "escape".

He glanced at it and threw the copper buckle directly into the salt line.

When the copper buckle comes into contact with salt, it immediately makes a "sizzling" sound and turns into a cloud of black smoke.

The dark figure's shoulders slumped slightly.

"That's not how you use a name."

Lu Yuandao:

"Then don't use your identity to disguise your name."

As he spoke, he nodded to Zhou Heng.

The fifth jar is inscribed with "Filial Daughter".

When Zhou Heng walked over, there was no sound from the jar.

This is what makes people even more uneasy.

He picked up the abacus, stared at the jar for a long time, and whispered:

"Brother Lu, there's no movement inside."

"It's not that there's no movement," Lu Yuan said. "It's waiting for you to decide for yourself."

Zhou Heng's lips twitched slightly as he picked up the abacus.

The abacus was smashed.

The fifth jar shattered.

There were no bone fragments inside, only a pale button.

A black thread was still wrapped around the button.

As soon as the black line broke, a cold wind suddenly blew in from the depths of the stone corridor.

The wind carried many indistinct human voices, like a group of people who had been locked up in a faraway place, finally exhaling at the same time.

Lu Yuan turned to look at the black wall.

The shadowy figure behind the wall has fallen silent.

The black cloth covering it began to peel off, layer by layer, revealing its true shape underneath.

That's not human-shaped.

It looks more like an upside-down tree.

Countless black roots hang down from above, with closed eyes hanging at the ends of the roots.

The trunk was concave in the center, forming a huge cavity. Inside the cavity was no flesh or blood, only a slowly pulsating, grayish-white object. Like a heart.

It also resembles an eye that has not yet fully opened.

"Is that the primary tire?"

Lin Zhaoxuan asked.

"It's not the main body yet," Lu Yuandao said. "It's the embryonic core it nurtured."

"The main body is behind the embryonic core."

After he finished speaking, he suddenly looked at the last pottery jar buried under the stone platform.

"Take it out."

Lin Zhaoxuan handed the Soul-Illuminating Mirror to Song Qinghe, then squatted down by the stone platform, inserted the black wooden plaque into the crack in the stone, and pried it open with force.

The stone platform remained completely still.

Lu Yuan walked over and placed his hand on the stone platform.

He didn't use much force; he simply smeared a pinch of the black ash left by the abacus onto the stone surface.

A series of faint sounds immediately came from the stone platform.

The sound was like many fingernails scratching under a stone.

Lu Yuan said softly:

"The old guard is dead."

"His ashes will come back to you."

"Aren't you going to move aside?"

The black tree growing upside down on the stone platform suddenly trembled.

The last pottery jar buried under the stone platform moved outward by itself, an inch.

Lin Zhaoxuan seized the opportunity and dragged the pottery jar out.

The jar was much smaller than the other six, and it had no identification tag, only a black piece of paper on it.

Two words were written on the black paper:

"True eyes."

Song Qinghe's expression changed slightly.

Lu Yuan looked at the jar with a solemn expression.

This is the "true eye fetal core" they've been pursuing.

The eye underground, the road face in the mirror, the gray shadow at the mountain pass, and even the offerings and old objects, all revolve around it.

But what's inside the jar might not be a real fetal core.

The evil god's greatest skill is using a substitute to conceal his true form.

"Shall we open the can?" Lin Zhaoxuan asked.

"We can't open it directly," Lu Yuandao said. "We need to see who it recognizes first."

He picked up a shard of pottery from the ground and gently pried it off the lid of the jar with the tip of his knife.

The lid remained untouched.

A very soft sound came from inside the jar:

"Brother Lu".

Everyone heard it.

The voice was exactly the same as Lu Yuan's.

Xu Erxiao's face turned pale:

"How did it learn your voice?"

"It's testing my name," Lu Yuandao said. "It hasn't learned it all yet."

"The real me doesn't speak from inside a jar."

The voice from inside the jar said again:

"Brother Lu, open the door."

"Brother Lu, keep moving forward."

"Brother Lu, give me the lamp."

Each sentence was more and more like the original, and in the end, they even imitated the cold and hard tone.

Song Qinghe subconsciously moved closer to Lu Yuan.

Lu Yuan didn't look at the jar, but instead looked at the grayish-white thing behind the stone platform.

"It doesn't want us to open the can."

"Because the jar doesn't contain a fetal core."

"It's an echo it uses to deceive us."

"Where is the actual embryonic core?" Wang Chengan asked.

Lu Yuan raised his head.

The roots of the upside-down black tree hung all over the stone platform, and the eyes at the ends of the roots were closed one after another.

But the thickest black root in the very middle didn't have an eye.

It hangs down to the back of the stone platform, with its end inserting into the mountain wall.

There is an extremely thin crack in the mountain wall.

A sliver of grayish-white light peeked through the crack.

"Behind," Lu Yuandao said, "the embryonic core is on the rear wall of the main cave."

"That jar is a fake eye it deliberately set up."

The sound from the black jar immediately became shrill.

"no."

You're wrong.

"The true eye is right here."

"Open the can."

"Let it out."

Lu Yuan then looked down at it.

The more anxious you are, the more it proves I guessed right.

The jar began to shake violently.

The two characters "True Eye" on the black paper seemed to be soaked in invisible water, slowly flowing down.

The writing flowed onto the jar, forming a long, thin mouth shape.

When it opened its mouth, it spewed out a cloud of black mist.

As soon as the black mist left the mouth of the jar, the Soul-Illuminating Mirror in Lin Zhaoxuan's hand lit up.

In the mirror, the black mist did not rush towards the group, but instead went straight towards the mountain wall behind the stone platform.

"It's going back!" Lin Zhaoxuan shouted.

Lu Yuan's gaze turned cold. He reached out, grabbed the black wooden plaque, and slammed it down into the black mist.

The black mist was pinned in mid-air, like a tattered rag nailed to the ground, constantly struggling backward.

Lu Yuan pasted the wooden piece with the character "回" onto the black wooden plaque and whispered:

"If you want to go back, then go back to where you belong."

The wooden piece depicting the character "回" suddenly turned black.

The black mist suddenly contracted and was forcibly dragged back into the pottery jar.

The mouth on the jar made a muffled sound, followed by several fine cracks.

Lu Yuan didn't give it another chance, and pushed the pottery jar between the salt line and the cinnabar.

"Seal the container."

Wang Chengan and Xu Erxiao sprinkled salt on at the same time.

Lin Zhaoxuan then placed the Soul-Illuminating Mirror over the mouth of the jar.

The black jar immediately fell silent when the mirror was pressed down.

"It can't get out for now," Lu Yuandao said, "but it can't be sealed off for long."

"The main body of the cave knows that the fake eye has been exposed, and will immediately replace it with the real one."

As he spoke, he walked to the mountain wall, raised his knife, and gently made a cut along the narrow crevice.

The moment the knife tip touched the mountain wall, the entire stone corridor suddenly went dark.

The oil lamp flame had dwindled to the size of a bean.

The grayish-white embryonic core behind the wall also stopped pulsating.

All sound disappeared.

In the dead silence, a very low voice slowly drifted from the crack in the stone wall:

"You were looking for me?"

The voices no longer sounded like many people piled together.

It is simple, clear, and even somewhat calm.

Like a real person speaking in the dark.

Lu Yuan did not answer.

The voice continued:

"You have been burning names, cutting off roads, and dismantling accounts all the way."

"You think you're exorcising evil spirits?"

"Actually, you're cleaning out my old shell."

"What do you mean?" Wang Chengan couldn't help but ask.

Lu Yuan raised his hand to shut him up.

But it was too late.

Suddenly, an eye opened in the crevice of the stone wall.

The eye had no whites, only a thin, grayish-white membrane.

A thin crack appeared in the center of the membrane, and what was reflected in the crack was not the figures of the crowd, but a very distant valley.

There is a huge black altar in the valley.

Countless wooden plaques stood around the altar, each draped with red cloth.

At the end of the red cloth, there were thin black threads, all converging towards the center of the altar.

Above the altar hangs an upside-down stone bell.

Beneath the stone bell, a person sat cross-legged.

The man was extremely tall, wearing an old black robe, and his face was covered by a black wooden plaque.

There were no words on the black wooden plaque, only a closed eye.

"That's..." Zhou Heng's voice trembled, "The main altar in the mountains?"

Lu Yuan stared at the image and slowly said:

"It's not the eyes that are looking at the valley."

"The valley is watching us through its eyes."

In the center of the altar, the man in black robes slowly raised his head.

Despite the stone walls, the mountainside, the mirror-like surface, and countless old names, Lu Yuan could still feel a gaze upon him.

That gaze wasn't as cold as Lu's face had been before.

Instead, it carried a strange sense of familiarity.

It was as if it had known Lu Yuan for a long time.

"You've finally arrived."

The man in black robes said.

"Have we met before?"

Lu Yuan asked.

"not yet."

"But your name has been here all along."

As he spoke, the man in black robes raised his hand.

The wooden plaques around the altar were simultaneously turned over.

One by one, the writing on the back was revealed.

One of them was facing Lu Yuan directly.

There are only two words on it.

"Introduction."

Lu Yuan's pupils constricted abruptly when he saw the two words clearly.

It is neither a "guide" nor a "new guard."

Instead, it is "induced birth".

Wang Chengan lowered his voice:

"Brother Lu, what does that mean?"

Lu Yuan did not answer.

Because below the wooden plaque that read "Introduction to Life," there was an even smaller line of text:

"Born from the old eyes, returned to the true mouth."

His fingers slowly tightened, and the knife handle made a slight scraping sound.

The man in black seemed quite pleased with his reaction.

"You think you're here to kill me?"

"You think the black ash, cinnabar, and soul-revealing mirror you have are all for using against me?"

"Wrong."

"You brought those things back yourself."

Lu Yuan glanced at the black wooden plaque in his hand.

The black dot on the broken surface of the sign was pulsating slightly.

Like a tiny eye.

"The iron abacus was left to me."

Lu Yuandao.

"The abacus was merely being held in my possession," said the man in black. "Now that he's dead, things naturally return to where they belong."

"You said he kept it for you?" Lu Yuan said coldly, "Then why did he leave clues?"

The man in black robes behind the stone wall fell silent.

This time, the silence lasted longer.

"The old guard wants to get away with it."

"But he didn't manage to take it off."

Lu Yuan's eyes turned cold.

This statement indicates that Tie Suanpan did indeed attempt to resist and even left something behind beforehand.

However, he did not succeed and was ultimately held back by old grievances, dying in that cellar.

The abacus is dead.

He neither turned the tide nor escaped alive.

But what he left behind before his death became the first wedge that Lu Yuan and his group used to pry open the main cave.

"You've made a record of him," Lu Yuandao said. "And now you're using his death as evidence to justify your words."

"You evil god, you don't even spare the dead!"

The man in black robes slightly raised his head.

"Death and life are merely two ways of offering sacrifices."

"Then today I'll show you the third one."

"What?"

"Cutting off the supply."

Lu Yuan suddenly grabbed the black jar that was being pressed down by the Soul-Revealing Mirror and shoved it hard into the crack in the stone wall.

The black jar crashed into the mountainside, cracking even wider.

Upon seeing this, Lin Zhaoxuan immediately flipped the Soul-Illuminating Mirror over so that its surface faced the stone wall.

The valley in the mirror suddenly shook violently.

The red cloth surrounding the altar was torn off one by one.

For the first time, the figure in the black robe showed a noticeable tilt.

"You dare cut off my power supply?"

"You've already dismembered people to make offerings, what wouldn't I dare to do?"

Seeing this, Wang Chengan, Xu Erxiao, and Zhou Heng immediately dragged the remaining pottery jars together.

Lu Yuandao:

"Don't smash the can."

"Disassemble the talisman first."

"Take out the old items inside and burn the identity tag."

"A name can be discarded, but an identity cannot remain."

Everyone was busy.

Wang Chengan tore off the first yellow talisman, and as soon as the talisman left the jar, a sharp shriek came from inside.

His hand trembled, and he almost dropped the talisman.

"Hold on!" Lu Yuan shouted. "This is its last layer of frightening skin."

"The more you fear it, the more it can establish its reputation through your heart."

Wang Chengan gritted his teeth and pressed the talisman into the cinnabar.

Flames leaped up, and the talisman turned to ashes.

Xu Erxiao and Zhou Heng also tore off the talismans on the pottery jars.

For a moment, the stone corridor was filled with the faint sound of burning paper.

One by one, the old identity cards lost their luster, and the writing on the card table slowly faded.

The word "eldest son" has faded.

The term "absconding households" has faded.

The term "medicine boy" has faded.

The concept of "filial daughter" has faded.

In the valley behind the stone wall, cracks began to appear below the altar.

The man in black robes raised his hands, as if to press down on the cracked offering threads.

But with each power line breaking, a wisp of grayish-white vapor rises from beside the altar and dissipates out of the valley.

That's not evil.

It's the residual popularity trapped in the old name.

They were finally freed from being bound by identity tags.

"You can't leave." The black-robed man's voice became urgent for the first time. "Stay."

"There are seats here."

"It has a name."

"There is an offering."

"Nobody outside remembers you."

Song Qinghe suddenly raised her head.

"But someone will always remember."

She raised the oil lamp high, and the light reflected on the stone wall.

Even if all you remember is a sigh, an old garment, or a button.

"It's better than letting you use it as an offering."

As soon as he finished speaking, the last identity card suddenly split in two on its own.

The altar behind the stone wall emitted a heavy echo.

"Thump."

"Thump."

"Thump."

The overturned stone bell was finally struck from the inside by something.

The clock face cracked open, revealing a bottomless blackness inside.

The man in black robes immediately turned around, seemingly to block the stone bell.

Lu Yuan, however, caught a glimpse of something flashing past beneath the clock.

not human.

It's not a fetus.

It is a huge eye, entangled with countless black lines.

His eyelids were tightly closed, but the edges were already cracked.

"The real body is still in Zhongli."

Lu Yuandao.

Lin Zhaoxuan's expression changed:

"Was that man in black just a guard?"

"It's not a guard." Lu Yuan stared at the figure. "It's just a layer of human skin it's wearing."

"The true mouth of God is in the stone bell."

"It kept making us look at the altar to distract us."

The man in black robes suddenly turned around.

This time, the black wooden plaque slid an inch off its face.

Lu Yuan saw that face clearly.

There are no facial features, only a dense array of offering names.

The names crawled slowly across its face like worms, each one searching for its place.

The very center position was empty.

It looked like it was reserved specifically for Lu Yuan.

The man in black robes raised his hand and pressed it against the blank space.

The giant gray-white eye in the crevice of the stone wall suddenly opened a slit.

An invisible suction force emanated from the main cave.

The oil lamp flame was stretched straight.

The shadows of everyone simultaneously left their feet and slid into the crevice of the stone wall.

"Guard your own shadow!"

Lu Yuan shouted.

Wang Chengan hurriedly stepped on the shadow, Xu Erxiao used a dry wooden stick to block in front of his feet, and Zhou Heng threw salt at his feet.

But the suction was so strong that it felt like the lights were being sucked away.

Lu Yuan did not back down.

He inserted the dagger into the crevice in the rock, gripped the hilt with both hands, and used the blade to steady himself.

"Lin Zhaoxuan, give me the mirror!"

The Soul-Illuminating Mirror flew out of his hand.

Lu Yuan caught the mirror and reflected its surface towards his feet.

What appeared in the mirror was not his reflection, but a black line leading to the valley.

At the end of the black line was the enormous eye.

Lu Yuan suddenly understood.

The evil god doesn't want to absorb their shadows.

It is using their shadows to complete the outline of its true eye.

"Don't step on the shadows," Lu Yuandao said. "Drag the shadows away!"

"It wants to open its eyes by using our shadows, so we guide our shadows onto it."

Wang Chengan was taken aback.

"How do we drag it?"

"Use the lamp."

Song Qinghe immediately understood.

Holding the oil lamp, she took three steps back along the stone corridor. As the lamplight shifted, everyone's shadows began to lengthen in the opposite direction. Lu Yuan grabbed some salt and quickly drew a curved line on the ground, directing everyone's shadows towards the lower part of the stone wall.

"Cheng'an, scatter cinnabar along the line."

"Second Little One, press the red cloth strip down the end of the thread."

"Zhou Heng, insert the abacus into the crack in the stone."

"Lin Zhaoxuan, a mirror reflecting a bell."

Everyone went their separate ways.

As soon as the salt line was drawn, black water seeped out from the cracks in the rock, trying to wash the line away.

Wang Chengan threw down a handful of cinnabar, and the red and white clashed, causing the black water to immediately recede.

Xu Erxiao pressed the red cloth strip down to the end of the salt line, and the wooden piece with the character "回" on the red cloth lit up briefly.

Zhou Heng stuffed the cracked abacus into the crack in the stone.

The abacus beam got stuck in the stone wall, and the beads rolled around one by one, making a jumbled sound.

Lin Zhaoxuan aimed the Soul-Illuminating Mirror at the stone bell.

The giant gray-white eye in the mirror was clearly visible.

This time, the mirror reflected not the valley, but the interior of the giant eye.

It was densely packed with names that had been removed from their identity tags.

They were wrapped in black lines and were slowly squeezing towards the empty space in the very center.

"It's filling in the subject name!"

Lin Zhaoxuan shouted,

"It wants to use our shadows to fill in a new name!"

Lu Yuan looked down at his feet.

The shadows of the crowd had already converged along the salt line, forming a thin black ribbon that was moving toward the crevice in the stone wall.

And in that blank space, the outline of two words faintly emerged.

"land"

Lu Yuan's eyes suddenly sharpened.

"It's not finished writing yet."

He suddenly slashed his palm and smeared the blood on the back of the Soul-Revealing Mirror.

A sharp red light suddenly pierced through the mirror.

Lu Yuan flipped the mirror over and placed it at the end of the salt line, which perfectly covered the clustered shadows.

"Use the Soul-Illuminating Mirror to illuminate the soul."

"The name is determined by the black wooden plaque."

"Use an old abacus ashes to settle accounts."

"Return the way with a red cloth."

"If you want to use my shadow to write your name, I'll make you expose your roots too!"

The red light shot into the stone wall along the salt lines.

The overturned stone bell suddenly trembled.

The eyelids of the giant eye in the middle of the bell were blocked by the red light, preventing it from opening fully.

The black-robed man on the stone platform let out a deep, muffled roar, and large pieces of the inscriptions on his body fell off.

Each name that falls off transforms into a wisp of gray-white shadow.

They had no faces or voices, and stood for only a moment in the valley behind the stone wall before scattering into the distance.

"Don't go."

The man in black robes reached out to grab it.

But all it managed to grasp was the empty black wind.

Seeing this scene, Lu Yuan understood that the foundation of the land of sustenance was being shaken.

But the evil god has not yet truly manifested itself.

The giant, gray-white eye trapped inside the stone bell is still struggling.

It suddenly closed.

Immediately afterwards, all the red cloth, wooden signs, pottery jars, and black thread were pulled inwards at the same time.

The valley scene in the main cave suddenly disappeared.

The cracks in the stone wall quickly closed up.

Lu Yuan's heart sank.

"It needs to seal the cave."

"Then what do we do?" Wang Chengan asked urgently.

"We can't let it seal off." Lu Yuan pulled the short knife that was stuck in the crevice in the rock.

"Once sealed off, the names that just scattered will be brought back."

After he finished speaking, he suddenly turned around and looked at the end of the stone corridor.

The area was originally empty, but now a downward stone staircase has appeared.

A soft murmur of water came from the end of the stone steps.

It's not flowing black water.

It looks like someone is washing their hands in water.

"There's a second path to the main cave," Lu Yuandao said. "Go around it from below."

"The fact that it sealed the top opening means the true eye isn't there."

"The real embryonic core is hidden underground."

Lin Zhaoxuan put away the Soul-Illuminating Mirror.

"What about these things in the outer cave?"

"Mix in the salt lines and the mirror," Lu Yuandao said. "Let them guard the scattered names."

"The five of us will go down."

"I'll go too," Song Qinghe said.

"You'll get away with this."

Why?

"Without fire underneath, the Soul-Revealing Mirror won't last long either." Lu Yuan looked at the oil lamp in her hand.

This lamp is our escape route.

"You stay here, no less than if the sun were to set."

Song Qinghe did not argue, but simply nodded.

Lu Yuanzhe looked at Wang Chengan, Ya Erxiao, Zhou Heng, and Lin Zhaoxuan.

"The things below might not necessarily attack us."

"Some will shout, some will pretend to be real, and some will use old stories to deceive you."

"Remember these three sentences."

"First, do not give your real name."

"Second, don't talk to the dead."

Third, don't touch anything offered to you unsolicited.

Wang Chengan nodded.

Ya Erxiao tightened his grip on the withered wooden stick.

Zhou Heng glanced at the cracked abacus.

"Should we bring this thing or not?"

"Take it," Lu Yuandao said. "It's the last key that Tiesuanpan gave us."

The group descended the stone steps.

This time, the steps were narrower than outside, and the surrounding stone walls were damp, as if the mountain's belly was covered in cold sweat.

After walking up several dozen steps, the sounds from the stone corridor above disappeared completely.

They entered another layer of the mountain.

There are no lights here, and no wind.

There was only a shallow underground ditch that flowed forward along the stone wall.

The water was as black as oil.