One person: Orochi, starting with Feng Baobao's Eight Heroes.

Lu Ci stomped his foot in frustration.

"Just let him go like that?"

Wugensheng gazed in the direction Chen Qi had left and murmured.

"Everyone has their own trials to overcome. Let's go, there's more to come in Qishan."

A golden light streaked across the night sky as Chen Qi accelerated to his maximum speed.

The monkey's distress signals were getting weaker and weaker, which made him extremely anxious.

"Who... could possibly threaten the Heart Monkey?"

Chen Qi was completely baffled.

The restless mind is formless and intangible; ordinary methods cannot touch it, let alone cause any harm...

Suddenly, a familiar wave came from afar.

Chen Qi stopped in his tracks and hovered in mid-air.

"This is... the aura of Shuten-dōji?"

He frowned.

"No, there's more..."

Within that raging ghostly energy, he vaguely sensed a power that shared the same origin as himself.

It felt like...like facing another version of yourself.

Chen Qi was startled.

"Could it be..."

Without further hesitation, the golden light surged once more, and he sped off in the direction he sensed.

Meanwhile, in the Yin Palace.

Shuten-dōji crushed the last corpse of the Tsuchimikado clansman, his fifteen blood-red eyes blazing with even greater killing intent.

It turned toward the wise elder, its voice like thunder.

"Not enough...not nearly enough..."

Despite his fear, Shanqi forced a smile.

There's more out there...

"Do not..."

The Ghost King suddenly looked up at the dark night sky outside the palace.

"I sense... an even more delicious prey..." 3.9

Its enormous body began to shrink, eventually transforming into a handsome man with red hair and red eyes.

Only the two horns on its head and the thirteen blood-red eyes that vaguely appeared on its back revealed its inhuman nature.

"Humanity."

Shuten-dōji looked at Zenki, a cruel smile curving his lips.

"The game has only just begun..."

Shanqi suddenly felt a pang of fear, as if something beyond his comprehension was approaching.

He instinctively looked outside the hall, but saw only boundless darkness.

In the darkness, a golden light was approaching at an astonishing speed...

Chapter 244 Distress Signal

Chen Qi stood in front of the square entrance at the southeast corner of the imperial mausoleum, his fingertips gently tracing the mottled patterns on the stone wall.

A faint call came from the depths, a distress signal from the restless mind.

The clone of his soul, which should have been invincible in the inner realm, is now in trouble.

"It can actually trap the restless mind..."

Chen Qi muttered to himself, his brows slightly furrowed.

The Mind Monkey was formed from his soul, and it possessed at least 70% of his strength in the cultivation of "sex," making it impossible for ordinary evil spirits to get close to it.

Unless... Shanqi has mastered a similar method of summoning spirits and commanding generals.

Thinking of this, Chen Qi sneered.

Even if the other party truly possessed the ability to bind spirits, his soul and body were already one, and he was not afraid of any soul-capturing evil magic.

He stepped into the dark passage.

Longxin Palace Lanterns hung on both sides of the passage, their dim light casting swaying shadows on the stone walls.

Chen Qi suddenly stopped and gently blew a breath toward the nearest lamp.

The flames flickered violently, exhibiting different swaying frequencies at different locations.

In some places the flames almost solidified, while in others they flickered wildly.

"Time flows at different rates, and the seasons are confused..."

Chen Qi squinted.

"The natural energy flow based on the dragon vein is interesting."

He closed his eyes and released his spiritual senses.

The airflow inside the passage was turbulent, but among the many chaotic "winds," a special aura drew him in.

Chen Qi followed the direction of this inexplicable wind and walked deeper into the distance, his steps as light as a cat's.

The path to the spirit path is lined with strangely shaped stone statues, not the usual civil and military officials or auspicious beasts, but some twisted human figures, some with three heads and six arms, and some half-human and half-beast.

The stone statue's surface was covered in moss, but it couldn't conceal its chilling aura.

As Chen Qi passed by, he vaguely felt that the stone statue's eyes were following him.

"Pretend to be a ghost."

He snorted coldly and flicked a burst of energy from his fingertip. The nearest stone statue shattered instantly, revealing a hollow interior.

It turned out to be just an ordinary stone carving.

The sacred path leads to the Yin Temple. Along the way, the murals are mottled with color and depict wild boars, pheasants and other wild animals from the mountains and forests. The technique is rough and primitive.

"The level of culture in the early Qing Dynasty was just like this."

Chen Qi casually glanced at the murals, but his gaze was soon drawn to a half-open stone door in front of him.

The stone door had no latches or traces of sealant.

"The imperial tomb is not sealed?"

Chen Qi seemed to be deep in thought.

"It seems this is no ordinary tomb; it may be the foundation upon which the Manchu Qing dynasty rose to power."

Upon entering, dozens of eunuch sculptures kneeled on both sides of the steps, each with lowered eyes and hands folded in a gesture of respect.

The sculpture is exquisitely crafted, with even the texture of the clothing folds and the wrinkles on the face rendered with lifelike detail.

Chen Qi bent down to examine the nearest sculpture and found that even the fingernails of the sculpture were carved with exquisite detail.

"Pouring with living people?"

He lightly ran his fingertip across the sculpture's neck, revealing the grayish-white bones inside.

"really..."

Several fresh corpses lay scattered on the steps, dressed in Japanese clothing with samurai swords at their waists.

"Japanese pirates?"

Chen Qi used his toes to flip over a corpse and found that the deceased's face was contorted and blood was flowing from his seven orifices.

"Unfamiliar with the Qi system, his soul was torn apart by the chaotic flow of time."

Further in, several tombs appear on both sides of the spirit path. Through the half-open stone doors, one can see that the tombs are filled with tea leaves, animal hides, and other items, all well-preserved, as if time has stood still here.

As Chen Qi passed through a sunken area, he suddenly stopped.

Dozens of corpses lay scattered in the square tunnel, all dressed in coarse work clothes, some still holding tools in their hands.

The body was contorted in a grotesque position, clearly indicating that it had been buried alive and died from a painful struggle.

"Workers repairing the tomb...607"

Chen Qi's eyes were icy cold.

"They were all buried alive with the deceased after the project was completed; it's an old trick."

Further ahead, two neat square burial pits are arranged symmetrically.

As Chen Qi approached, he saw the bodies of soldiers dressed in Ming Dynasty armor neatly arranged in the pit.

Strangely, many of them only have real heads, while the lower bodies are made of paper, crudely made, and only hastily drawn with a few strokes of cinnabar.

"The Qing army disposed of the Ming soldiers' heads and used them as funerary offerings..."

Chen Qi crouched down and carefully examined a head, finding that the cut on the neck was clean, indicating that it had been decapitated with a sharp knife.

"Does it symbolize conquest? What a twisted sense of humor."

In addition, there were burial pits for concubines in the side chambers, with piles of bones interspersed with gorgeous headdresses and broken jade artifacts.

Chen Qi did not linger and walked straight into the depths of the Yin Palace.

A huge screen wall blocked the way, with a magnificent battlefield scene painted on it.

Chapter 245 Seven Star Formation

Chen Qi recognized that it was Fan Wencheng's handwriting.

The scene was bloody and brutal, with severed limbs and remains scattered across the wilderness, and carrion crows circling in the sky.

The entire painting is filled with murderous intent and malevolent energy; looking at it for too long can make one dizzy.

"Use a painting to ward off evil spirits?"

Chen Qi sneered.

"Your drawing skills are good, but unfortunately, they're useless to me."

As you pass the screen wall, a strong stench of blood hits you.

More than twenty Japanese pirate corpses lay scattered haphazardly on the floor of the Yin Palace, their deaths extremely gruesome.

Some bodies had their skeletons twisted, others had their limbs folded in opposite directions, and all the corpses showed unnatural amounts of bleeding, with blood almost soaking the entire ground.

"This is..."

Chen Qi squatted down to examine a corpse and found that the deceased's bones were shattered, but there were only slight bruises on the outside.

"Destroyed from the inside by immense force?"

The interior of the Yin Palace was dimly lit, with only a few kerosene lamps provided by the Japanese pirates.

Chen Qi waved his hand and lit all the lamps, instantly illuminating the entire space.

Only then did he get a clear view of the entire Yin Palace.

The fifteen coffins were arranged in a circle. Fourteen of them were ordinary wooden coffins, but the one in the very center was made of alloy and covered with yellow talismans. The iron chains that had originally bound them had all broken.

"It's all empty."

Chen Qi inspected each coffin and found that neither the wooden nor the metal coffins contained a corpse.

"Looks like the real deal has finally come out 々‖."

On the ground around the coffin, dozens of corpses sat cross-legged according to the directions of the Five Elements and Eight Trigrams in Qimen Dunjia.

Chen Qi observed carefully and discovered that these corpses were divided into several types.