At eight o’clock the next morning, Jiang Yan arrived at the high-speed rail station. The other four had already arrived.
Shen Xiaoxiao was visibly excited—she’d never experienced anything like this before. She was glowing, as if she were about to witness some miraculous gift.
“I’m ready!” she said, rubbing her hands together.
“Jin Chuan’s cold pot skewers are super famous. We can have that for lunch! There are so many brands, though. I posted in two forums to ask netizens for recommendations, but everyone likes a different one. It’s driving me crazy.”
“Why do people’s tastes differ so much—”
“I’ve figured it out,” Pingping said, rubbing her sleepy eyes, listless. “You talk nonsense every day. Even the most normal things, you have to make a fuss about.”
Shen Xiaoxiao: “?”
She clutched her heart in despair. “Why do you always have to roast me, you annoying little brat?”
Pingping couldn’t be bothered to reply. She put on her headphones and started listening to foreign news. Shen Xiaoxiao craned her neck to peek at the long string of English on Pingping’s phone screen, blinking in confusion. “How far have you gotten now?”
“Second year of high school, I guess,” Pingping replied offhandedly.
Shen Xiaoxiao: “…I’ll be in second year after summer break too.”
Pingping: “I’ll be starting third year soon.”
Shen Xiaoxiao: “…Oh.”
Shen Huanhuan helplessly covered her face. “Why are you even comparing yourself to her?”
Yu Renwan joined in, “It’s like trying to compete with Jiang Jiang on mission speed.”
“Everyone has their own strengths.”
Shen Xiaoxiao forced a smile. “Yeah, yeah.”
“Let’s stop talking and go check in.”
Since Jin Chuan was very close to Jiangcheng, the trip took less than twenty minutes. By nine o’clock sharp, the five of them walked out of the station.
Shen Huanhuan flagged down a taxi. Just as she was about to ask the driver if he’d go to the barren mountain, he rolled down the window:
“Heading to the barren mountain, right?”
Shen Huanhuan nodded quickly. The driver gestured for them to get in. After some discussion, Jiang Yan sat in the front, and the other four squeezed into the back.
Shen Huanhuan asked Pingping, “It’s a bit crowded. Can I hold you on my lap?”
Pingping: “No, but I can hold you.”
Shen Huanhuan nodded. “That works too.”
So the two of them ended up sitting in a position that looked suspiciously like child abuse. Pingping muttered something under her breath, and once she couldn’t feel any weight on her legs, she leisurely gazed out the window.
But the driver couldn’t keep his composure. He kept glancing at the rearview mirror, his expression growing more and more bewildered.
In the end, Jiang Yan had to prompt him, “She’s the youth division boxing champion—her legs are all muscle. It’s fine. Just drive.”
The driver snapped back to himself, quickly responded, “Oh, oh,” and hit the gas toward the mountain.
Shen Huanhuan rubbed her nose awkwardly, but still, thinking of the driver’s earlier words, she asked, “How did you know we were going to the barren mountain?”
“Are a lot of people heading there today?”
The driver replied, “Since yesterday afternoon, I’d say half my fares have been to the mountain. People just love to join the crowd.”
“After all, the archaeology experts are all there. Must’ve dug up some treasure. They’ve blocked off two hundred meters around the mountain, but outside the police line, there are tons of people with binoculars trying to get a look.”
Yu Renwan asked, “Has anyone actually seen anything?”
The driver shook his head. “Security’s tight. Most people leave as soon as they realize they can’t see anything. But there’s a good side—our cold pot skewer shops have been packed these past two days, haha.”
Shen Xiaoxiao immediately sat up straight:
“Can we still get a reservation?”
The driver was certain. “No way!”
Shen Xiaoxiao’s mouth drooped.
Fifteen minutes later, they arrived at the mountain. Just as the driver had said, the area outside the police line was packed with people, but with so many officers on duty, no one crossed the line.
Shen Xiaoxiao had planned to stand outside and soak up dragon qi all day, but after a while, Jiang Yan glanced at her phone and walked over to the group:
“He Qingyuan just sent an update. All the archaeology experts will withdraw within half an hour. I’m going into the tomb.”
“The dragon qi concentration inside is even higher. Do you want to come?”
Shen Xiaoxiao’s mouth split into a grin. “Yes, yes, yes! Only an idiot wouldn’t!”
Shen Huanhuan, however, was a bit worried. “Will we disturb you?”
Jiang Yan: “No.”
“But it might be dangerous inside. With such a high concentration of dragon qi, a lot of the burial items have probably developed sentience. If we run into a particularly bloodthirsty short blade or spear…” Jiang Yan said seriously, “There’s a chance they’ll attack anyone who enters.”
“We know that!” Shen Xiaoxiao chimed in. “Lots of psychics from the Bureau have gone down with the archaeology teams. They’ve posted about it on the official forums.”
“It’s fine. Burial goods washed by dragon qi can’t be that bad!”
Jiang Yan smiled and didn’t say more, leading the way forward.
Passing the police captain, she showed him the message from He Qingyuan. After reading it, he quickly let them through.
The five entered the mountain. Behind them, they heard curious voices from the crowd.
—“Hey, how did those five get in?”
—“Must be students of some big-name archaeologist.”
—“Makes sense, but why is there an eight- or nine-year-old girl with them?”
—“Uh… child prodigy class?”
*
When Jiang Yan followed He Qingyuan’s directions to the spot, the tomb entrance was already deserted.
She zipped up her sports jacket, grabbed the rope the experts had left, and slid down the one-meter-wide tomb shaft. It took her a full three minutes to reach the bottom.
Ten minutes later, everyone was down.
The temperature here was noticeably different from outside. Even with her jacket, Jiang Yan felt a chill. She turned and wrapped everyone in a layer of yao energy.
“This will keep you warm.”
Shen Xiaoxiao curiously touched her now-warm arms. After a few breaths, she whispered, “Can I not have this?”
Jiang Yan frowned. “Aren’t you cold?”
Shen Xiaoxiao waved her hands. “No, no.”
“It’s just that being a bit cold makes it more immersive—like a real tomb experience…”
Jiang Yan took a deep breath and immediately withdrew the yao energy from Shen Xiaoxiao, then looked at the others. “You too?”
Everyone nodded, so Jiang Yan withdrew all the yao energy.
Shen Xiaoxiao was satisfied. She blew into her palms, rubbed her arms, and Jiang Yan shot her a cold look, saying nothing as she walked toward the bronze door.
Because of the uneven terrain, it took them nearly fifteen minutes to reach the bronze door.
The ornate bronze door was tall and magnificent, a full four meters high. One section was especially smooth, engraved with the same sentence from the photo. Below the inscription was a mechanism with rotating characters—clearly meant for inputting the correct answer.
Jiang Yan didn’t waste time and immediately rotated the characters to spell out “Jiang Chixi.”
The moment the last character clicked into place, the bronze door let out a thunderous rumble. Centuries of dust fell in a cloud. Soon, two bronze slabs slowly slid open. A blast of icy wind surged out, swept through the group, fluttered their clothes, and then rushed outward.
They all felt a distinct sense of comfort.
A comfort that came from the soul, as if they’d just had a hearty meal.
“Was that wind just now dragon qi…” Shen Xiaoxiao asked hesitantly.
Jiang Yan: “Yes.”
“But the concentration isn’t as high as I expected. Most of it’s probably already been absorbed by the burial goods inside.”
“I’ll go in first. If it’s safe, I’ll call you.”
With that, Jiang Yan pushed the gap in the bronze door wider and strode inside.
But inside, it wasn’t the sea of rare treasures she’d expected. By her calculations, this should have been the tomb of Jiang Chixi’s adopted daughter—the third Empress of Jiang—since Jiang Chixi’s body had been brought back from the snowy mountains by her.
Jiang Chixi had probably told her about her existence, so she’d left something for her in the tomb.
But Jiang Yan realized she was wrong.
There were no treasures in the tomb—only huge, semi-transparent screens floating in the air, like bubbles in sunlight. You could see them hanging there, but aside from their beauty, they contained nothing.
They shimmered with rainbow light, but were otherwise blank.
Jiang Yan didn’t understand what these were, or why they’d be in a tomb—they were like modern projections, something impossible in Jiang’s era a thousand years ago.
A few seconds later, she tentatively released her yao energy to try and touch the screens.
But the moment her power was released, the bronze door behind her suddenly slammed shut without warning.
“Bang—!!”
The four who hadn’t entered were trapped outside. Pingping shouted, asking what was going on and if they needed to come in, but Jiang Yan stopped her from using her ability.
“Don’t come in yet. There’s something strange inside—I want to look around alone.”
“Then we’ll wait out here for you,” Shen Huanhuan replied.
Jiang Yan answered, “Okay.”
She focused and looked up at the screens above her. As the bronze door closed, light began to flow across them, gradually condensing into a phantom.
A girl who looked strikingly like her—or rather, she looked like the girl.
Jiang Yan had seen a portrait of this girl from He Qingyuan—seventeen or eighteen years old, named He Qingfu, director of the Supernatural Administration Bureau, and Jiang Chixi’s reincarnation. She’d died forty years ago.
The images were He Qingfu’s memories.
They began with her at six years old, going up the mountain to study. The scenes flowed by: the girl’s extraordinary talent shocking her sect, the grandmaster doting on her like a granddaughter, her master teaching her everything and making her the sect’s first disciple.
But her talent didn’t distance her from ordinary people emotionally. Because her power was empathy, she could truly feel everyone’s joys and sorrows. Though she was a favored child of heaven, she often chose to experience the lives of the poorest, loneliest humans.
Her empathy was so strong that she often cried in secret, but the next night, she’d choose to empathize with another person from history—some who’d failed all their lives, some who’d served their country only to be betrayed.
He Qingfu set her ideals early: even if she couldn’t make everyone happy, she’d at least ensure those around her lived joyfully.
She was just and fair, never biased. By fourteen, she was the most beloved senior disciple.
At eighteen, her master died, and she took over the Supernatural Administration Bureau. On her first day, she purged the old bad habits, set up a strict ranking system so only those who truly contributed could earn rewards, and personally traveled to fill the warehouses, established an interrogation room, and punished the most heinous spirits.
That year, Bai Ze came seeking help for his wife’s lifespan. He asked if the Bureau had any pill to prevent her soul from dissipating—he’d pay any price.
This was a promise from a great yao of the Classic of Mountains and Seas.
After careful thought, He Qingfu’s grandmaster asked if she’d be willing to empathize with the future.
He Qingfu’s ability allowed her to sense two thousand years forward or back—she could see history or the future. But while she could view history at will, the future was different.
Peeking into fate came at a price: every time she looked into the future, she lost five years of her life. But after thinking it over, He Qingfu agreed.
First, it was the grandmaster’s first request. Second, she wanted to help Bai Ze’s wife.
Once prepared, He Qingfu empathized with the future for the first time. Guided by her power, she instantly locked onto two thousand years ahead, finding a pill formula in the hands of a “new human.” This formula could lead a soul on the verge of dispersal into reincarnation.
The herbs were rare, but that was no problem for Bai Ze. Grateful, he left to find Torch Dragon and travel through time for the ingredients.
But after sending Bai Ze off, He Qingfu didn’t feel happy.
Because of the “new humans.”
Two thousand years later, humanity was not as it was now. With the resurgence of spiritual energy, human souls had mutated—everyone could control ghosts.
To make sure she’d seen correctly, He Qingfu empathized again that night, this time looking a hundred years ahead, and saw the horror resurgence.
Forty years later, the turbid qi generated by humans would reach unimaginable levels. Countless unresolved spirits would form energy fields. A hundred years later, hundreds of energy fields would cover the globe, and humanity’s numbers would plummet to one-tenth, then one percent.
In the end, only a few million survived.
These people lived in the cracks, building human bases between energy fields, sending teams to clear new fields and expand the bases. Over two or three centuries, humanity’s numbers kept shrinking. For survival and profit, bases clashed constantly, and the population dropped again.
Four hundred years later, only seven hundred thousand remained. When the century bell tolled, spiritual energy revived worldwide, and human souls mutated overnight—the new humans were born.
Because everyone was a psychic, and could control supernatural entities, the odds of breaking through energy fields soared. In fifty years, they cleared all remaining fields.
Afterward, humanity founded spirit power schools. Every child signed a contract with a supernatural entity at birth, learning to control ghosts. Step by step, humanity emerged from the shadows and survived for thousands of years.
After empathizing, He Qingfu needed a long time to process what she’d seen.
Because of her empathy, she truly experienced the pain of those who died in energy fields—missing parents, family, children who never grew up, struggling in vain, not knowing what they’d done wrong.
The suffering lasted so long that even after four hundred years, when hope finally dawned, people were numb and exhausted.
Almost all were alone.
They’d long lost all family.
He Qingfu was tormented by the pain, breathing heavily as she sat in her mountain retreat, using her power to search for a way to save the world.
Eventually, she found it.
She saw that forty years later, a crimson wedding robe floated out of a display case in the National Museum. By then, the global horror resurgence had begun, humanity was struggling to survive, and many yao had appeared—on the streets, you could see upright-walking weasels.
The wedding robe spun idly in the air, then drifted toward the deep mountains. Along the way, He Qingfu saw it casually punch a hole in an energy field, floating in and out as easily as if it were its own home.
Once she confirmed the robe’s power countered energy fields, He Qingfu tried to empathize with it.
After several attempts, she’d already spent fifteen years of her life in one night, but she didn’t stop.
Through this empathy, she discovered the robe’s owner was Jiang Chixi.
He Qingfu had once empathized with Jiang Chixi, but not for long—she only remembered that in her previous life, Jiang Chixi was incredibly capable, saving the nation from disaster several times. The Empress had few hobbies, except collecting unique items—she’d once used rare materials to repair an ancient wedding robe, then tossed it into the imperial tomb and never took it out again.
In the robe’s memories, He Qingfu found it was extremely lazy—
After being repaired, it quickly gained sentience, but didn’t leave, just lay quietly in the tomb. When the Empress’s tomb was sealed, it stayed as a burial item.
It could have left at any time, but wanted to soak up dragon qi from the ley line. As soon as the tomb was sealed, it floated to the dragon’s head to “age up.” During this time, its abilities evolved, allowing it to see and attack desires.
A thousand years later, it sensed changes in the Heavenly Dao, but since it didn’t care for human bodies, it didn’t care about taking human form. Later, when archaeologists brought it to the museum, it still didn’t leave.
In short, the robe’s temperament was, to put it nicely, easygoing; to put it bluntly, indifferent to everything.
After the horror resurgence, it felt nothing for humanity’s misery—neither harming nor helping, it drifted around, found it boring, and went to the mountains to keep soaking up dragon qi.
He Qingfu’s empathy ended here, and the first screen above Jiang Yan’s head faded away.
Jiang Yan stood there, a little dazed.
Because this wasn’t her memory at all. She’d been raised by Jiang Chixi, had taken human form, even raised Mu Wang in the tomb. Now, with the global horror resurgence, she’d participated in several psychic missions—she’d never gone to the mountains to “retire.”
But then she thought again.
If she’d never taken human form, just stayed in the tomb, she probably would have done exactly that.
So her past had been altered.
Just as she’d used a time-related rune to save Shen Huanhuan and the others, someone had used a time-related power to go back a thousand years and change her past.
Still, Jiang Yan couldn’t quite figure it out.
She looked up at the second screen, which began to play.
A few seconds later, the flowing lights on the screen formed two figures: eighteen-year-old He Qingfu and an elderly man over eighty.
After her night of empathy, He Qingfu went to her grandmaster and told him what she’d seen of the future.
“What I saw is only the most likely future on the current timeline. The future can be changed.”
He Qingfu said seriously, “Grandmaster, we need to find that wedding robe and negotiate a deal with her.”
“We can ask what she wants in exchange for helping us fight the energy fields.”
But after hearing He Qingfu’s account, the grandmaster immediately rejected her suggestion:
“No cooperation. It won’t agree.”
“From what you’ve described, that yao isn’t affected by energy fields at all. It won’t waste its time helping humans, and with its abilities, we have nothing to tempt it.”
He Qingfu insisted, “Let’s try. I can empathize with the world a thousand years from now and look for something it might want.”
“As long as it exists in this world, it must have desires. Yao shouldn’t be an exception.”
The grandmaster shook his head. “You’re still young. You don’t understand.”
“Don’t waste any more of your life. The Bureau still needs you. I already have a plan.”
He Qingfu frowned and pressed, “What plan?”
The elder didn’t want to say.
He Qingyuan’s tone hardened: “Grandmaster, you know—even if you won’t tell me, I’ll find out another way.”
The elder sighed helplessly.
He said, “Didn’t you help Bai Ze? He said he’d grant any wish. So I’ve decided to ask for his power—the power to turn yao into runes.”
“When that yao appears, I’ll have someone capture it and forcibly turn it into a rune for humanity’s use.”
“I believe the rune will be invaluable against the horror resurgence.”
He Qingfu seemed not to have heard clearly. She asked again.
So the elder repeated himself.
He Qingfu’s eyes filled with disbelief, her voice rising, “Grandmaster, do you know what you’re saying?!”
The elder nodded. “Of course.”
“Those not of our race are sure to be of different hearts,” he said slowly. “Qingfu, this is an eternal truth.”
He Qingfu took a deep breath, trying to reason with the elder she respected most: “Humanity is suffering because the Heavenly Dao is testing us. Every species goes through this. Twenty years ago, when the Dao changed, all yao lost the ability to take human form—that was the Dao beginning to weed out the yao.”
“Now it’s humanity’s turn. What we should do is show the Dao that humanity deserves to survive, show how far we can go through unity and struggle—not forcibly destroy a yao and make it a sacrifice for our own reproduction!”
The elder’s voice turned cold. “You’re the one who doesn’t see clearly.”
“The yao race was eliminated, but humanity won’t be. What they couldn’t do, we can. Survival of the fittest is the law of life. If we can truly control that yao, it proves it’s the weaker one—it deserves to be eliminated.”
He Qingfu looked at him in silence.
After a moment, she stepped back and said quietly:
“My view is that any people who must destroy other races to ensure their own reproduction do not deserve to exist.”
“Humanity has never been that kind of race.”
“At least, we aren’t.”