Start with acting, and you'll achieve immortality!

The footprints hadn't stopped; the water in the dark ditch had made my calves numb, and a faint trail of marks still appeared and disappeared on the bottom.

Li Ping probed a shallow mark with the tip of his shoe, stepped on it firmly, and then lifted his foot. With each scald of his chest, the yellowish-brown underwater line of armor was revealed to be further advanced.

The man's stride remained almost unchanged, only the watermarks left by his right foot grew deeper in each spot.

"His steps weren't jerked, but he avoided using his right side with every step," Su Wan said, holding up the fire talisman. "The blood on the black cloth in the eastern canal is mostly his."

"The wound is on the right side."

Ren Jun leaned down to look at the canal wall. The canal water lapped against the stone corners, and a few streaks of blood were spreading out from the protrusion on the right side, only to be dragged forward by the current, without stopping at any point along the way.

Uncle Qin walked last, the dark red wooden plaque clutched in his palm.

"So this is Foundation Establishment? Even with the injury on his right side, he's enough to kill us first."

"If you only know the way, why did you speak up for the people in front of us and tell them to turn back?"

With a hiss, the sword's edge grazed the water's surface, sending up a sliver of cold light. Only then did Su Wan turn her head.

All I know is that this road leads to the heart of the well formation.

"You just said there was no way back here, but now you know the heart of the well formation?"

Qin Bo's cheek twitched, and the dark red wooden plaque he held in his palm dug into his flesh.

"No loopholes don't mean no one is coming in."

Li Ping didn't reply. He knelt down, first using his fingertips to brush away the loose mud around the edges of the footprints, then pressing two fingers into the shallow, yellowish-brown lines, passing them under his fingers. A wisp of dark blue light immediately rose from the muddy water.

He had seen this aura before in Xihebu.

On the awning boat, the Foundation Establishment cultivator dressed in black had once struck down the gray-robed cultivator with a single palm strike. When the force of his palm landed on the boat's deck, it left behind the same chilling aura.

"This chilling aura is the same as that of the people who delivered the tents at Xihebu."

Ren Jun frowned

"You identified him as the man in black from the old house just by his scent?"

"At least their auras are the same."

Li Ping wiped the mud from his fingertips and stood up, still without naming the pioneers.

Clothes can be changed, and spiritual power can be borrowed to conceal one's true nature. The same aura can only connect two threads, but it cannot pin the person behind the thread to death.

The sound of water ahead suddenly became rapid.

Su Wan lowered the fire talisman even further. The flames first swept across the cracked stone edge at the bottom of the canal, then sank into the break, illuminating a square stone chamber below. The newly left footprints stretched all the way to the edge, with the toe of the last footprint pointing directly at the dark entrance to the chamber.

Qin Bo rushed to the edge of the broken wall, his hand reaching out horizontally, almost pressing against Li Ping's chest.

"Don't go down there, that's the outer outpost."

Li Ping looked at him

"You walked through the East Canal three years ago, and you also came here?"

Duke Qin withdrew his hand

"The furnace keeper checked the numbers as usual; I only checked once, when submitting the register."

Why didn't you mention it earlier?

"What's so special about these vacant rooms? The brochures were all moved out three years ago."

Li Ping took out the words "Borrow Nine, Return to One" from the birth certificate, which were still gleaming with an earthy sheen. The fine line crossed the broken edge and pointed straight to the depths of the stone chamber.

Whether it's effective or not, the accounts will tell.

He descended the iron ladder while Ren Jun stood guard above. Su Wan landed next, holding her sword in her left hand, pressing the blade against Qin Bo's waist, forcing him to walk in the middle.

The water in the stone chamber only submerged the shoes. With each step, the water stirred up the musty, sour smell of rotting wood. Most of the three rows of wooden frames had collapsed, and empty wooden boxes lay scattered in the water. The serial numbers on the lids of the boxes were worn unevenly by the sewage.

Li Ping used the tip of his shoe to pry open the lid of the drifting box, checked the numbers one by one along the three rows of wooden shelves, and finally stopped at the innermost compartment.

The wooden box of Mountain Twelve is still there.

There were no booklets in the box, only a blackened cover. The corner of the cover was stamped with the seal of the prefectural treasury, and next to it was a fingerprint.

Qin Shoushan

With a snap, the talisman exploded into a spark. Su Wan pressed the flame onto the cover, and the fine lines left by her handprint immediately appeared from the damp patches.

"The cover bears the seal of the prefectural governor's treasury, but the fingerprint on it is yours—the one you missed, and it just so happens to be yourself."

Uncle Qin stared at the old seal, his thumb rubbing back and forth along the edge of the dark red wooden plaque twice until his fingertip quickly turned white.

"I am only responsible for taking inventory, not for keeping the documents. The fingerprints can confirm the task, but not the guilt."

"The Earthly Element Manual is missing a page; you're just following the rules?"

Qin Bo's Adam's apple bobbed.

Li Ping used his fingernail to pry open the glued-on cover, peeling it layer by layer until he reached the seam. Half a sheet of interfacing was stuck at the bottom; the corner of the paper crumbled at the slightest touch, and two lines of legible writing remained amidst the damp ink.

"The Twelve Mountain Skills Manual is missing the chapter on severing the meridians."

"Copied by Qin Shoushan and sent to the Chen residence for safekeeping."

No one moved in the stone chamber. Water dripped from the broken end, tapping against the empty wooden box, as if counting the two lines of old ink.

Ren Jun came down the iron ladder, his face even paler than before.

"Having copied the cultivation methods, one is not merely handling these booklets for the government treasury."

"No"

Duke Qin answered quickly

Su Wan's sword moved forward half an inch.

"Both the fingerprint and the name on the copy are written as Qin Shoushan. You still want to say you were just following the rules?"

"When I received it, the 'Severed Pulse Chapter' was already missing; what I copied was an incomplete copy."

Li Ping looked at the character "缺" (missing) on ​​the paper. The ink was darker, and the brushstrokes were different from the latter half of the line, as if it had been added later.

Was the incomplete copy missing before it was handed over to Qin Bo, or was it missing when he was copying it?

Who added the missing word to the paper later?

Neither question was signed, so the evidence was insufficient.

My chest suddenly contracted, as if a red-hot needle were piercing my veins along the old scar.

The student register opened on its own, and the small dot next to Fang Cheng's name shrank to the tip of a pin, before a second black dot appeared.

The place called Jing San is changing owners.

A deep thud came from above, and the wooden box in the stone chamber shook simultaneously. The pursuers hadn't gone far; they were using the well formation to search for people below.

"Get out of here," Ren Jun said, raising his bronze shield. "They're already using the battle lines to search for people. If we delay any longer, they'll block the iron ladders."

Li Ping folded the handover paper along the old creases, tucked it into his inner pocket, pressed it against his clothes to make sure it hadn't slipped out, and then looked down at the bottom of the empty box.

A new scratch appeared in that spot.

The marks seeped through the old ash; the person who carved the inscription had only been gone a short while ago.

"The records of debts can be traced back to the original debts, and the living debts can be controlled by the living debtors. What is required is never the destruction of the records."

Su Wan finished reading, her gaze turning cold.

"He left us the writing, but he took the copper core with him. He wanted us to investigate Fang Cheng, not himself."

Uncle Qin shook his head

"You believe it just because of a single inscription?"

"I don't believe in words, I look at what he did."

Li Ping pointed to the edge of the box. The person who carved these words had taken a copper core embedded in the wooden box, causing the surrounding array patterns to break, and the yellow lines of Mountain Twelve to weaken slightly.

The opponent is dismantling the formation.

Fang Cheng stayed in Jing San, repeatedly claiming he wanted to destroy the Armor Record, but he concealed the location of the Life Register and lied to Li Ping, saying it wouldn't be included in the register. If Li Ping had believed him then, the Life Register would have remained in the hidden compartment and eventually fallen into the hands of Fang Cheng or the pursuers.

"Fang Cheng told the truth," Li Ping said, closing the Book of Life. "The Book of Life records the dead, the Book of Death records the living."

Ren Jun turned his gaze to him

"They only told half the story."

"He wants us to keep an eye on the dead while he goes to take the lives of the living."

Another cracking sound came from above the stone chamber.

The first dot next to Fang Cheng's name has completely disappeared, while the second black dot is rapidly growing larger. Jing San has changed owners, and the new owner is activating the lower-level array.

A click of a mechanism sounded from the corner of the wall, and a stone door slid open inwards.

Someone had removed the lock cylinder beforehand, and a small piece of bloodstained black cloth was found stuck in the seam. The cloth matched the fragments found in the rubble of the East Canal perfectly, and the bloodstains were also on the right side.

Li Ping picked up the black cloth, under which lay half a copper piece.

The front of the bronze piece was engraved with the remnants of an old wooden plaque, while the back bore a sword mark. Ren Jun reached out and took the bronze piece, his fingers freezing at its edge.

"The owner of this plaque, whose sword mark hasn't changed, is Shen Zhu."

"You've identified Shen Zhu based solely on a single sword mark?" Su Wan asked.

"I repaired this sword mark for him before he disappeared."

Footsteps echoed from deep within the stone gate.

One step is light, the other is slightly heavy.

With a right-side injury, Foundation Establishment cultivation, familiarity with the old house, and the four lines of Shen Zhu's wooden plaque converging here, only the final step remains: a living person personally unveiling the face.

Li Ping raised the fire talisman and shone it towards the end of the passage.

A figure dressed in black stood there, the blood on his right arm still wet, holding in his hand the copper core taken from the twelve wooden boxes of the mountain.

The man did not turn around, but instead pressed the copper core into another array eye.

"Well Three has changed hands."

A familiar voice came from the passageway

"If you want to get out of here alive, don't let Qin Shoushan run into the Sheng Ce."

The man in black clenched his fingers, and the copper core made a soft sound at the center of the array.