Uncle Nine: You were supposed to drive corpses, so you summoned the Monkey King!

"The time has come; go to the yamen."

Lin Chen and his two companions huddled close to the wall, avoiding the main road, and made their way to the high wall of the back courtyard of the yamen.

A barbed wire fence was strung over the wall, and there were faint lights. Two soldiers with rifles were talking together.

Lin Chen pushed off with both legs, his whole body rising up along the wall, grabbing the edge of the wall with one hand, and flipping up.

Before the two soldiers could react, Lin Chen struck them both on the back of the neck with two swift hand strikes.

Without even a groan, the two of them collapsed limply to the ground.

Four Eyes and Thousand Cranes followed them in, looking at the bruised neck on the ground.

"Your strength is even more ruthless than that flying yaksha."

"Easy." Lin Chen clapped his hands and looked towards the prison entrance.

Two pale white paper lanterns hung outside the door, and a blood-stained talisman covered with centipedes and venomous snakes was pasted on the door.

Chizuru stepped forward and used her fingernail to pick up a corner of the blood talisman.

"The poisonous blood curse of Southeast Asia will drain the yang energy of any living person who touches it."

Qianhe took out an exorcism talisman, bit her fingertip, put a drop of her blood on it, and stuck it on the talisman.

With a hiss, the blood talisman emitted black smoke and burned to ashes.

Pushing open the iron gate of the prison, the three of them walked down the damp stone steps.

The deeper you go, the heavier the yin energy becomes, and the temperature drops sharply.

They went down to the lowest level of the death row.

Four soldiers with rifles stood in front of the heavy iron gate.

A man's hoarse laughter came from inside the iron gate.

"Lin Fengjiao, aren't you usually quite imposing in Renjia Town? Why are you sitting on the ground like a coward today?"

Lin Chen gestured to Simu and Qianhe, and the three of them peered into the shadows around the corner.

A fat man in a brand-new military uniform and riding boots was smoking a cigar through the iron fence.

This person is the newly appointed Mayor Li.

In the very center of the death row cell, Uncle Nine sat cross-legged on a pile of dry hay.

Uncle Jiu ignored Mayor Li and stared at the slightly protruding floor tile in the center of the formation.

"Don't bother." Mayor Li exhaled a smoke ring, threw his cigar on the ground, and stomped it out.

"The commander said that the underground of Renjia Town is a mass grave left by the White Lotus Sect a hundred years ago."

"Those old Taoist priests used the Bagua formation to seal off the Yin energy for decades. Today, at Hai hour, is the time when the Yin energy will rebound most fiercely."

Mayor Li took out the Browning pistol from his waist and cocked it with a click.

"The commander's order is to set up a hundred coffins array in Blackwater Town, using the earth's yin energy to raise a legion of invulnerable bronze-armored corpses."

"Your pure yang flesh and blood, Lin Fengjiao, are just the right appetizer for this old ancestor below!"

Uncle Jiu finally lifted his eyelids and glanced at Mayor Li.

"Using living people as sacrifices in battle, raising corpses to cause havoc. Commander Li is going to be punished by heaven."

"Divine retribution?" Mayor Li burst into wild laughter. "The commander-in-chief has guns and cannons. Even if lightning strikes, he can blast it back with cannons!"

"It's time. Open the door and send Master Lin on his way!"

Mayor Li took a step back and waved his hand.

Four soldiers stepped forward. One took out a key to open the iron gate, while the other three raised their Mauser rifles and aimed the muzzles at Uncle Nine in the center of the formation.

The moment the key was inserted into the lock, Lin Chen, who was at the corner, moved.

The soldier who opened the door felt a blur before his eyes, flew backward, and crashed into the wall behind him, losing consciousness.

Just as the other three soldiers were about to pull the trigger, Master Four Eyes rushed over from behind, swinging his sword around like a stick without even unsheathing it.

"Bang! Bang!"

With two muffled thuds, the greatsword struck the two soldiers, who fell to the ground screaming in agony.

The last remaining soldier was terrified and turned his gun towards Lin Chen, ready to fire.

Lin Chen reached out with his right hand, gripped the barrel of the Mauser rifle, and twisted it with force. The barrel made a creaking sound as it was twisted into a pretzel.

The soldier's eyes widened, but before he could utter a sound, Lin Chen delivered a chop to the neck, causing him to collapse to the ground.

All four soldiers were taken down.

Master Simu watched as Lin Chen twisted the gun barrel into a pretzel.

"You brat, are you cultivating Taoism or forging blacksmiths?"

Chizuru also gasped in astonishment. He had been traveling around for many years and had seen many masters of external martial arts, but he had never seen anyone like Lin Chen who could break a gun barrel with just his physical strength.

Mayor Li was so frightened that he raised the Browning pistol in his hand.

"Who are you people! How dare you storm the government prison! You want to die?!"

Lin Chen turned around and looked at him.

"Are you the new Mayor Li?"

Mayor Li put his finger on the trigger and shouted.

"I'm warning you, don't mess around! My cousin is Commander Li!"

"My cousin, Commander Li, has five thousand guns and three Krupp cannons under his command!"

"There's a battalion of troops outside, and the commander-in-chief's artillery battalion over in Blackwater Town! If you dare lay a finger on me, the commander-in-chief will raze your mortuary to the ground with cannons tomorrow!"

Master Four Eyes snorted coldly.

"Trying to intimidate me with warlord tactics? When I was driving corpses, your so-called warlord was still wearing open-crotch pants!"

Seeing that he couldn't scare anyone, Mayor Li pulled the trigger on Lin Chen.

"Bang!"

Lin Chen was prepared. When Mayor Li pulled the trigger, he tilted his upper body slightly, and the bullet grazed his Taoist robe and hit the stone wall behind him.

Mayor Li was stunned.

Before he could fire a second shot, Lin Chen was already in front of him, his right hand covering the gun-holding hand of Mayor Li and squeezing it hard.

"Snap!"

Mayor Li's wrist was deformed, and his pistol fell to the ground. Lin Chen took the opportunity to kick Mayor Li in the knee.

Accompanied by pig-like screams, Mayor Li knelt on the ground.

Lin Chen bent down, picked up the pistol, gripped the barrel with both hands, and broke the Browning in two right in front of Mayor Li.

He casually tossed it in front of Mayor Li.

"I don't know if Krupp cannons can flatten the mortuary, but I do know that your foreign gun isn't very good quality."

Lin Chen looked at him.

"I don't care where Commander Li's artillery battalion is, but if I snap your neck now, your cousin definitely won't be able to save you in time."

Mayor Li stared at the pistol broken in two on the ground, his face ashen, a large wet patch soaking into his crotch.

"Disciple, well done!" Master Four Eyes gave a thumbs up.

Chizuru picked up the key and opened the iron gate.

"Senior brother, are you alright?" Qianhe quickly walked in.

Uncle Nine sat in the center of the formation and exhaled.

"If you had arrived any later, I would have had to dig a tunnel to escape."

Uncle Nine stood up, supporting himself on his knees.

Master Simu examined the Bagua formation on the ground.

"Feng Jiao, why is the yin energy down here so heavy? Have you been sitting here suppressing it for the past few days?"

Uncle Nine walked to the corner of the wall, picked up the Taoist robe, and put it on.

"General Li found a heretical cultivator who returned from Southeast Asia and connected the geomantic veins of Renjia Town's government office with the Hundred Coffins Formation in Blackwater Town."

"The more than one hundred coffins in Heishui Town belong to the military generals who died in the previous dynasty's suppression of the Taiping Rebellion."

"They wanted to use the malevolent energy of the mass grave to accelerate the growth of the more than one hundred former dynasty military generals' zombies, turning them into an obedient bronze-armored zombie army to fight for their territory."

"These warlords don't even care about the lives of the living, let alone the dead, in their fight for territory."

"I deliberately got caught up in this situation to find out the true nature of this formation."

Lin Chen walked to the edge of the formation.

The black water on the ground didn't decrease; in fact, it gushed out even more fiercely, and a stench of corpses mixed with the rotten smell of underground silt assaulted the nostrils.

"Uncle-Master, it seems like the array's core can't be suppressed anymore," Lin Chen reminded him.

Uncle Nine turned his head and glanced at it.

The Bagua Trapping Evil Formation on the ground was corroded by the black water, leaving countless holes.

The raised floor tile in the center of the formation began to rise and fall, as if something alive was crashing upwards from below.

"Oh no! That evil cultivator is setting up an altar and performing rituals in Blackwater Town, forcibly draining the yin energy from this area!" Uncle Nine shouted. "Get out of here quickly!"