Chapter 68: Yin Crossing, Destroying the Stronghold
The moon was hidden and the wind fierce as the sound of shoveling earth echoed continuously through the night. Li Yan and Sha Lifei dug with all their strength while Wu Laosi sat meditating nearby with a strange posture.
He lay flat on his back facing the sky, legs bent with the soles of his feet pressed together. It resembled the Returning Yang Recline, yet his palms overlapped in a bizarre hand seal.
After a short while, he suddenly opened his eyes and sprang upright like a carp leaping from water. His entire demeanor had changed, and his eyes now shone with startling brilliance.
“Good!” After glancing at the pit in the ground, Wu Laosi said solemnly, “Three feet above the earth dwell spirits; three feet beneath the earth reaches the underworld. This depth is sufficient. Bring the coffin!”
Li Yan and Sha Lifei immediately tossed aside their shovels. They first scattered five-colored soil into the pit, then poured in a bottle of yellow wine before lifting the thin wooden coffin nearby and carefully lowering it into the hole.
What was a thin coffin?
Even coffins had their classifications. Ordinary coffins were traditionally eighteen chi long, hence the saying: “In this world, a coffin measures eighteen chi long, enough to bury every man beneath the heavens.”
That, however, only applied to commoners. Imperial nobles and aristocrats followed entirely different customs. Wealthy families used fine sandalwood or cedar wood, materials that resisted decay for generations. Poor people, on the other hand, couldn’t afford such quality timber. Their coffin boards were often less than 0.3 chi thick, earning them the name thin coffins.
Since such coffins, once buried, were often dug up by wild dogs that smashed through the thin boards to eat the corpses inside, they were also called dog treats.
Wu Laosi wasn’t being properly buried, so a thin coffin was more than enough. Once the coffin had been placed properly, Wu Laosi grabbed several handfuls of spirit money and began chanting scriptures to warn wandering ghosts not to interfere. At the same time, his fingers continuously formed hand seals.
Li Yan could smell several streams of earth yin killing qi being drawn upward, circling around the coffin in the shape of the six stars of the big dipper.
Only after completing all that did Wu Laosi remove his shoes, placing one upright and one upside down inside the coffin before slowly lying down within it, the Summons Writ gripped tightly in his hands.
“Remember this well!” Wu Laosi’s expression turned grave. “At the crow of the rooster, when dawn arrives, immediately dig open the coffin if the bell rings. But if the bell does not ring, then burn the coffin. Under no circumstances are you to open it!”
“Burn it?!” Sha Lifei was stunned. “But Senior, what about you...”
Wu Laosi shook his head and interrupted him. “Don’t worry about me. If you don’t want to die, burn it. If the bell doesn’t ring... whatever comes out definitely won’t be me!”
With that, he slowly closed his eyes.
Li Yan and Sha Lifei exchanged helpless looks. That was their first time witnessing a true Yin Crossing ritual, and neither of them understood how it worked. They could only obey instructions.
The two slowly closed the coffin lid without driving in coffin nails. A small hole had also been left in the coffin lid. Li Yan first threaded a hemp rope with a copper bell attached through the opening. Only after seeing Wu Laosi tighten his grip on the rope from inside did he and Sha Lifei begin shoveling dirt over the coffin.
Afterward, according to the positions Wu Laosi had specified earlier, they arranged six oil lamps in the formation of the big dipper’s six stars and tied the copper bell to the tree.
Only then was everything complete.
Cluck-cluck!
Nearby, a large rooster tied to a tree scratched at the dirt, searching for insects.
Sha Lifei shook his head. “This method looks creepy as hell. Who knows whether it’ll actually work?”
“Just follow the senior’s instructions.” Li Yan grunted, “Uncle Sha, remember this well. If cold winds start rising later, scatter the spirit money immediately. Don’t let anything come for Senior Wu’s body.”
Sha Lifei swallowed nervously. “And what if those things refuse to let it go?”
Li Yan calmly tied the Three Talents Demon Suppressing Coin Tassel to his Guanshan blade.
“If words fail, we settle it with force.”
***
Meanwhile, Xianyang itself was far from peaceful.
Clack, clack-clack!
An old night watchman slowly walked through the old streets. “Midnight has arrived! The air is dry, beware of fire!”
As he passed a dark alley, he suddenly felt a chill and instinctively tightened his clothes before quickening his pace. Years of night watch duty had sharpened his hearing. In the silence of midnight, he could clearly hear many people breathing inside the nearby alley.
Of course, the old man had no intention of meddling. The main granary was not far away, and guarded by government troops. If trouble really broke out, it wouldn’t be his concern.
As for the large blacksmith shop across from the alley, that place served as the Iron Blade Gang’s headquarters. Those thugs normally bullied everyone around them, and the old man himself had suffered at their hands more than once.
He certainly had no desire to interfere. After decades weathering the storms of life, he had seen far too much. When he was young, the Wang Family had been a mighty clan. Wealthy, powerful, full of experts, and even connected by marriage to the imperial palace, they were practically kings of Xianyang.
Yet a single imperial decree had reduced the entire family to dust.
In his middle years, the Gao Family produced several Core Jin Realm experts and became famous throughout the Guanzhong Plains. Even powerful gangs from other provinces had to pay respects before entering their territory. But after offending some mysterious force, the entire clan had been exterminated overnight.
Compared to those stories, something like the Iron Blade Gang was nothing but a fart. In the jianghu, there was always someone with a bigger fist.
The moment the old watchman left, two figures slowly emerged from the alley. One wore a sheepskin jacket. He was the same man who had waited outside the Dao Inquiry Hall alley that night and dealt with the beggars who attempted the ambush.
The other was Luo Shihai.
The man respectfully cupped his fists. “Senior Luo, you could’ve simply stayed home. Pulling out the Zhou Family’s final rotten tooth will be easy work for us.”
Luo Shihai snorted coldly. “The Iron Blade Gang is hiding a ritualist from Jiangnan who dares covet my treasure. That man absolutely cannot be spared!”
“Of course. Rest assured, Senior.” The sheepskin-jacketed man nodded before his expression darkened. “Everyone, move out!”
At his command, a large group of black-clothed men surged out from the alley. All wore black headscarves and carried short wooden rods. The rods were roughly the length of an arm plus one elbow, thicker at one end and thinner at the other.
This weapon was called a whip staff, also known as a mule-driver’s whip. Popular across Shanxi and the Jin Province, it was an ancient weapon practiced by many martial artists. The most famous style was the Xinyi Liuhe Whip Staff.
But for an entire group to wield them in unison, that was the unmistakable mark of a carriage guild The attackers were none other than men from the Taixing Carriage and Horse Company.
The moment they emerged from the alley, they broke into a sprint toward the blacksmith compound’s surrounding walls.
As the Iron Blade Gang’s headquarters, the blacksmith shop was naturally no ordinary place. Several neighboring buildings had been connected together, and walls as tall as two men surrounded the compound like a miniature fortress.
But such walls couldn’t stop the experts of the Taixing Carriage and Horse Company. They moved in teams of three. Two men crossed their arms to form footholds while the third stepped atop them and vaulted to the top. When he was there, he reached down to pull the other two over.
Their movements were smooth and efficient. In mere breaths, they had all scaled the walls.
Crash!
The sound of shattered clay jars rang out. The Iron Blade Gang had intentionally placed pottery jars along the walls as nighttime alarms.
“Who goes there?!”
Gang members were immediately awakened and rushed outside carrying short blades.
Normally, those hoodlums would never gather together like this, especially at night. Visiting brothels, gambling, drinking... Everyone had their vices to chase. However, the times were rather dangerous lately. Even the White Ape Gang had been wiped out by the authorities, so their gang leader had ordered everyone to remain at headquarters and avoid causing trouble.
When they first saw the black-clothed intruders leap down, the Iron Blade Gang members were startled. But once they realized there were fewer than thirty enemies, their courage immediately returned.
“Where did these bastards crawl out from?!”
“Brothers, let’s spill some blood!”
The members of the Iron Blade Gang yelled in a frenzy as they charged into battle. Yet the instant they exchanged blows, they realized something was terribly wrong.
The black-clothed men remained completely silent, and the force behind their blows was terrifying. From thrusts, chops, lifts, and hooks, their movements were clean and efficient, effortlessly smashing wrists and knocking blades from their enemies’ hands.
That was the true strength of the whip staff. Though not made of iron, it was compact, fierce, swift, and endlessly versatile. As the staff whistled through the air amid dull cracking impacts, screams erupted one after another.
The experts clad in black were real jianghu fighters. The Iron Blade Gang instantly felt fear rise in their hearts. Most of them were merely street hooligans and lazy ruffians. Though they knew a few moves, years of wine and women had hollowed out their bodies. At best, they could bully ordinary civilians.
Previously, they relied on government rules and shameless tactics to pressure wanderers who were down on their luck into submission. But against genuine ruthless fighters, all they could do was get beaten.
Before long, the ground was littered with bodies. The fighters of the Taixing Carriage and Horse Company were vicious. Though they avoided fatal areas like the temples, they had deliberately shattered the limbs of every thug they fought.
Even if those injuries healed later, permanent disability was unavoidable. Worse still, so many crippled men would require medicine and caretakers. The expenses alone could drag the Iron Blade Gang into ruin.
if they abandoned their injured members, the gang itself would simply collapse entirely. After crippling all the guards, the men of the Taixing Carriage and Horse Company still refused to stop. They spread throughout the blacksmith compound, searching every corner.
“Find Zheng Heibei!”
“Find that ritualist!”
“Search everywhere, check for hidden tunnels!”
The black-clothed men searched room after room. Yet when they passed a certain side chamber, every one of them unconsciously ignored it, leaping past without even glancing inside.
Two yellow talismans were pasted onto the wooden window within that chamber. Upon a small altar table, a black Wandering Soul Jar had already been opened, and a cold wind carrying incense ash spiraled through the room.
Behind the altar sat a man with loose hair draped over his shoulders and a taiji symbol painted across his forehead in cinnabar. This man was You Laosi, the ritualist Zheng Heibei was hiding.
Sweat drenched his forehead as he formed hand seals and chanted spells nonstop.
Outside, voices rang out.
“We didn’t find him!”
“Senior Luo, what do you think?”
“Forget it. He’s probably hiding with that old monkey. Let’s go.”
“Withdraw!”
At the command, the men of the Taixing Carriage and Horse Company immediately retreated, leaving behind only the agonized cries of crippled Iron Blade Gang members. Only then did You Laosi finally heave a sigh of relief and dismantle the altar, trembling all over.
He only knew curse arts and harmful rituals. He had no martial arts whatsoever. If he had been caught, he would undoubtedly suffer a brutal beating. Only one question remained in his mind. How had Luo Shihai discover his schemes?
Now that the Zhou Family had fallen, the Iron Blade Gang could no longer shelter him.
You Laosi’s expression shifted unpredictably before a cold sneer gradually appeared on his lips. Taking advantage of the fact that all the gang members in the compound were injured, he quietly crept toward Zheng Heibei’s room...
At the same time the Iron Blade Gang suffered a gang-ending disaster, movement also stirred within the woods outside the city.
Whooooosh!
The moment midnight arrived, yin winds suddenly rose, startling flocks of birds into flight.
Li Yan formed a hand seal to activate his divine ability and immediately smelled a cold, decaying stench rising from the ground in the distance, carrying a sticky, rotten sensation.
“Uncle Sha, quickly!”
At his warning, Sha Lifei hurriedly grabbed a handful of spirit money and scattered it into the air. “Friends passing through, let mountains and rivers keep their boundaries. Let’s all mind our own business...”
