Chapter 274: All of You, Show Yourselves!

Lu Yuan pulled the blade out another half inch; the knife-light beneath the oil lamp was as cold as a sliver of ice.

The breath in the room tightened inch by inch with that sliver of chilling gleam from the blade.

Before the sound of that "Hiss—" outside the door had fully dissipated, the faint white light underground trembled once more.

It was as if that eye deep below had suddenly rolled over in the far distance, forcing a surge of breath upward through the layers of earth.

But no matter how hard it pushed, it couldn't force out its true form right now.

All it could do was let the bit of blackness on the broken face of the black wooden tablet swell slightly, like a dead tumor buried in flesh, stubbornly refusing to shrink.

Lu Yuan stared at the black speck, then suddenly raised his hand and gently tapped the broken edge of the wooden tablet with the spine of his blade.

*Dong.*

The sound wasn't heavy, but it was exceptionally clear in the room.

"It's working." Lu Yuan said in a low voice. "It's more afraid of what's inside than what's outside. This opening isn't sealed tight yet, so we can still handle it."

With that, he turned to look at Lin Zhaoxuan.

"You hold onto this half of the wooden tablet. Don't let it get too far from the lamp's flame."

"If the black speck swells again, press salt onto it along the grain."

"Remember, don't crush it completely. If you kill it, it'll turn Yin energy into hardness."

"What we want is to leave it half-dead, to make it understand this path isn't easy to walk."

Lin Zhaoxuan acknowledged the order, taking the wooden tablet with both hands. His expression was steady, but the thin layer of sweat on his palms had already soaked the edge of the wood.

Lu Yuan then looked at Xu Erxiao.

"Go get that old coat of Iron Abacus's."

"Huh?" Xu Erxiao was stunned. "What for?"

"Don't ask. Just go."

"Alright!"

Xu Erxiao didn't dare delay. He quickly ran to the eastern wall and pulled down Iron Abacus's dirty, damp outer robe.

When he carried it over, a cold, foul odor of Yin energy hit his nose, almost making him throw the thing away.

Lu Yuan took the coat, pinched the sleeve for a look, then ran the tip of his blade across the fabric. With a sharp *shiiing*, he tore open a long gash.

"This old thing spent half his life guarding the mouth. The skin on him can't go to waste either."

"That face outside the door was always trying to borrow a name to pry the door open, wasn't it?"

"Today, we'll use his lingering energy as bait and make it charge into nothing."

Wang Cheng'an was momentarily stunned, then understood about half of it.

"Brother Lu, you want to use Iron Abacus's coat to lure that thing outside the door?"

"Yes." Lu Yuan said calmly. "Iron Abacus is the dead man in this room most familiar with this road."

"As long as that thing outside still remembers him, smelling his old energy, it'll definitely pounce in."

"Once it pounces, we'll be able to see which path it takes."

Zhou Heng frowned and asked:

"But what if this thing doesn't recognize the coat?"

"Then we'll make it recognize something else." Lu Yuan bunched the torn coat into a ball, his tone flat.

"As long as it wants to get in, it has to borrow some familiar path."

"Iron Abacus is dead. His corpse is still here, his coat is still here, and the face print on the door is still here. Plenty for it to choose from."

"If it really doesn't take the bait, then we'll just let this attempt go to waste."

"If it does, then we'll follow the hand it stretches in and chop that face of it apart."

When he said this, there was no fluctuation in his expression, but it made everyone's spine feel tight.

The faint, scattered sounds outside came again at that moment.

Not knocking, not scraping, but like someone slowly pressing their fingers against the door panel, moving from top to bottom, inch by inch.

The sound was so light it could almost be mistaken for an auditory hallucination, but no one in the room dared to treat it as such.

Lu Yuan raised his hand to signal everyone to stay still. He himself slowly pressed Iron Abacus's coat against the center of the door panel, directly over the face print that had been smeared black with ash.

The moment it was pressed on, the outside of the door fell silent for an instant.

Then, from within the door panel came an extremely low, low sound of inhaling, as if something, separated by the wood, had caught a whiff of a long-lost smell and suddenly leaned in close.

"It's coming."

Lu Yuan's gaze turned cold.

The next moment, the dark shadow outside the door shook violently, as if the whole thing had suddenly plastered itself against the door panel.

*Slap.*

A muffled sound.

Not a hit, but a stick.

Like a wet hide, *slap*—pasted onto the outside of the door.

Immediately after, the face print covered in black ash on the inside of the door panel began to slowly bulge outward.

First the nose bridge, then the eye sockets, and then, a faint corner of the mouth also tried to turn outward.

"It's recognizing the path!"

Zhou Heng's face changed, and he lowered his voice.

But Lu Yuan seemed to have expected it all along. With a flick of his wrist, the tip of his blade, carrying a bit of salt residue, *shiiinged* a small hole into the coat. He then casually smeared the salt he'd just been holding into the crack of the door.

"Recognizing the path is good." He said. "Only by recognizing the path will it reveal its true form."

The wet face outside the door pressed in even tighter now.

A layer of water vapor floated on the door panel, as if something was pressing its face against the wood, breathing out in puffs, actually making the earlier black-ash-smudged lines turn white.

Lu Yuan's eyes narrowed, and he suddenly raised his voice:

"Qinghe, press the lamp lower against the bottom of the door."

"Shine it under its chin!"

Song Qinghe was startled, but she steadied her hand and moved the oil lamp down.

As the light dropped, the lower half of that face outside the door finally came into view.

It wasn't a full face, only half of one.

The lips were thick and swollen, as if from years of being waterlogged.

The chin was frighteningly thin, the skin clinging to the bone, wrinkled in layers.

The most chilling thing were the two thin, split lines at the corners of the mouth, as if they had been sewn shut with needle and thread and then torn open again, with the stitch marks trailing all the way down to the base of the ears.

"What kind of face is that?"

Xu Erxiao's voice had changed.

A trace of coldness flashed in Lu Yuan's eyes:

"It's not a face."

"It's a borrowed skin."

"Borrowed skin?" Wang Cheng'an gritted his teeth. "Whose skin?"

Lu Yuan didn't answer immediately. He just stuffed the torn coat of Iron Abacus into the gap below the door, following the lamplight as he watched the face print on the door panel slowly sink down.

"Iron Abacus's. It's the skin he used to guard the path in his early years."

"Before he died, he peeled off a part of his own Yin-route for this setup, which is why this thing recognizes him."

"So what's outside the door right now isn't recognizing a face, it's recognizing the layer of familiar energy he left behind."

No sooner had he spoken than a rapid, hoarse scraping sound came from outside the door.

"Hsss—"

It was like someone was scratching at the door panel with their fingernails for all they were worth, making wood shavings fall off.

Lu Yuan sharply raised his blade, the spine facing the door, but the tip diagonally pressed against the tear in Iron Abacus's coat.

"Erxiao!"

"Sprinkle the salt!"

Xu Erxiao had been waiting for that command. He immediately slapped a handful of salt squarely into the middle of the door crack.

The moment the salt fell, a white, frothy smoke-like fume rose from the door panel with a *chi* sound.

The wet face outside the door immediately twisted violently, as if burned by hot oil by the stove, and the whole face retreated a full inch.

But it retreated quickly, and Lu Yuan pressed faster.

He took the opportunity to push the tip of his blade into the tear in the coat and shouted in a low voice:

"Show yourself!"

The blade tip flipped the coat up, and from inside it fell a short, shiny black object.

It was long and thin, like a strand of hair, or a tendon that had been soaked rotten. At its tip hung a tiny white bead.

The moment the white bead rolled, it started to burrow into the crack of the door on its own.

"Don't let it in!"

Lin Zhaoxuan's face darkened. He immediately raised his hand and used the half-section of wooden tablet to press down horizontally.

The moment the black wooden tablet pressed down, the black speck in the broken opening of the tablet suddenly bulged outward, as if a tiny eye was desperately trying to roll upward.

Lu Yuan's eyes were sharp, and he immediately barked:

"Press it!"

Lin Zhaoxuan gritted his teeth and added more force, the veins on the back of his hand bulging. He forced the tablet down with all his might.

With a *crack* sound, a thin line split open in the broken opening of the black wooden tablet.

The next instant, the wet face outside the door suddenly *donged* against the door panel.

This time, it wasn't a stick, it was a ram.

The entire door panel shuddered, and the door bolt made a *giiik* sound, the kind old wood makes when it's about to fall apart.

"Brother Lu!"

Wang Cheng'an shouted in a low voice and raised his hand to brace the door.

"Don't brace it!"

Lu Yuan said sharply:

"It's borrowing force to find an opening. Whoever braces it will get stuck!"

Everyone was startled and hurriedly retreated half a step.

The door panel shook two more times, each one like a heavy hand slapping against the wood.

The energy inside and outside the door flowed back and forth. The salt-line was shaken until it turned faint white, and the ring of white salt under the crack of the door began to collapse grain by grain.

Lu Yuan stared at the collapsing salt-line, his gaze turning extremely cold.

"It's testing."

"Testing whether our line is still stable."

"Cheng'an, get the cinnabar."

"Erxiao, sweep the salt in front of the threshold half a foot inward!"

"Zhou Heng, go get the basin of water by the kang bed and splash half a ladle onto the door panel!"

Everyone immediately complied.

Wang Cheng'an smeared cinnabar onto both sides of the door crack, as red as a blood line oozing from a knife wound.

Xu Erxiao used the back of his hand to sweep the layer of salt in front of the threshold inward, creating a thin, white trench.

Zhou Heng carried the water basin, his hands trembling, but still splashed half a ladle of cold water onto the face print on the door panel.

*Splash—*

The moment the water splashed on, the door panel instantly became hazy white.

And in that white haze, a human figure faintly emerged.

The figure was abnormally thin and long. Its neck nearly stretched out half a foot, and its head hung low.

Its face couldn't be seen, only its two hands. The fingers were long and thin like dead branches, slowly, bit by bit, gouging into the door panel from the other side.

"There's another layer."

Lu Yuan squinted his eyes.

"This isn't the face itself from outside the door."

"There's something else behind this thing, pushing it."

"What do you mean?" Zhou Heng asked, breathing heavily.

Lu Yuan said in a deep voice:

"This face outside the door is a test."

"What's really trying to get inside isn't it."

"It's the breath behind it."

Before his voice faded, an extremely low, low sound of *chewing* came from underground again.

Like someone had rolled over from the very depths, pushing mud and dead roots up together.

Lu Yuan immediately turned his head to look at the ground.

Underneath that black wooden tablet, the black speck that Lin Zhaoxuan had just suppressed began to bulge outward again.

And this time, it wasn't a little. It was bulging outward together with the grain, like something had woken up inside the wood and was pushing out with its entire face.

"That thing underground has moved too."

Lin Zhaoxuan's face tightened:

"They're coming one by one. One slams the door outside, the other digs underground, boosting each other's energy back and forth!"

Lu Yuan nodded, his expression unmoved, but he had already seen the situation clearly.

"Right."

"The slamming on the door outside borrows our living energy to send a path underground."

"The digging underground borrows the face outside to push its energy upward."

"The two of them go back and forth. It's not a solo fight, it's a pair attack."

As he spoke, he suddenly pointed a finger at the corpse of Iron Abacus against the eastern wall.

"Drag him back here."

"Huh?"

Wang Cheng'an was stunned:

"Shouldn't this old thing be kept far away from the eye opening?"

"It's different now." Lu Yuan's eyes sank. "With the two of them colliding, we need something in between to block."

"Iron Abacus guarded the path his whole life. His corpse still has half a breath of familiar energy."

"It's perfect to use as a wedge."

Upon hearing this, although they didn't understand his intent, they didn't dare to delay.

Wang Cheng'an and Zhou Heng immediately dragged Iron Abacus's corpse back two steps, positioning it directly in front of the door, slightly to the left.

The moment they put it down, the corpse gave a slight tremor.

Not like a living thing, and not like something completely dead. It was as if the last bit of familiar energy on its body had been re-triggered.

Lu Yuan stared at Iron Abacus's corpse, then suddenly reached out and felt from its waist a small, flattened cloth bundle.

The bundle wasn't big. Its outside was smeared with a layer of greasy dirt, and on one corner was tied a piece of old thread.

Lu Yuan pinched it open. Inside was a small pile of greyish-white powder, mixed with a few dark purple, nearly black, husks of grain.

"What's this?" Xu Erxiao leaned in to look, his voice unsteady.

"Road ash." Lu Yuan said. "Iron Abacus kept it himself."

"He didn't guard this opening just with the black wooden tablet and the Spirit-Suppressing Nail."

"He also carried a bundle of his own road ash on him."

"This thing was originally meant to hold the door and seal the opening."

"Now, it's just right to use to lure it into showing itself."

After he said this, he shook out that pinch of road ash in front of Iron Abacus's corpse. The moment the ash powder hit the ground, the door-slamming sound outside indeed paused.

The next second, that wet face inside the door panel suddenly pressed forward again.

This time, Lu Yuan clearly saw half of its eye socket.

There was no eyeball in that socket, only a very tightly pressed layer of white film.

It seemed like something was turning inside that white film, slowly, circle by circle, grinding away at one's heart and making one's hair stand on end.

"This isn't a face." Lu Yuan said softly. "This is a shell."

"A shell?" Zhou Heng's throat tightened.

"Yes."

"This shell outside the door is for that eye underground to see."

"The two of them recognize the path for each other. The shell looks at the door, the eye looks at the ground."

"The real thing is still behind the shell."

When Lu Yuan said these words, several people in the room couldn't help but suck in a cold breath.

Only now did they truly understand why Iron Abacus had died, why he had guarded, and why even after death, he hadn't completely severed the setup.

This place wasn't a single layer of evil; it was layer upon layer.

A skin outside the door, an eye underground, a stretch of Yin-route in the middle, and the real thing hidden in the deepest part.

That thing wasn't a dead thing.

It was alive.

And it had been alive for a very, very long time.

Lu Yuan slowly stood up straight, the tip of his blade lightly touching the ground.

"Everyone listen carefully."

"The moment I make my move, Wang Cheng'an, you're in charge of the salt-line on the left."

"Xu Erxiao, you watch the door crack. Wherever white fog appears, you slap cinnabar on it."

"Zhou Heng, don't let go of Iron Abacus's corpse. Even if it twitches, you hold it down."

"Qinghe, don't raise the lamp. Keep it aimed at the bottom of the door at all times."

"Lin Zhaoxuan, you guard the black wooden tablet. If that black speck dares to roll outward, you press it down with salt immediately. Don't hesitate."

Everyone answered in unison.

But right at that instant, the outside of the door suddenly went silent.

Silent in an uncanny way.

The layer of moisture that had been groping, slamming, and probing at the door panel just moments before vanished completely.

Even the sound of wind in the courtyard seemed to have been strangled, and even the faint rustle of a few leaves ceased.

In the entire cellar, there was only the soft *pop* of the oil lamp's wick.

But Lu Yuan's heart suddenly sank.

He knew this wasn't a retreat.

It was a change of tactic.

Sure enough, the next second, a very soft *crack* came from underground.

Like some hard shell had split open a crack from the inside.

Immediately after, the black speck in the broken opening of the black wooden tablet swelled violently, and from within the wood, a thin line of white light seeped out.

The white light was extremely thin, as thin as a needle.

But the moment it came out, the shadows on all four walls of the cellar shrank inward a little.

"Damn it."

Lu Yuan's gaze turned icy cold:

"It's not going to borrow the door anymore."

"It's going to turn over from the bottom."

Lin Zhaoxuan's face changed:

"Then what do we do?"

Lu Yuan didn't answer. He just snapped his head to look at the door panel.

"That shell outside the door can't be allowed to connect with the underground."

"If it connects, the eye fetus will change its skin."

"If it changes its skin, it'll be able to borrow the entire Yin-route to climb up from the ground."

He spoke until his voice was low to the extreme:

"Cut it off for me."

"First, break the shell outside the door, then choke out the eye underground."

"If we don't dig it out today, we've come down this mountain for nothing."

With that, he suddenly raised his blade and stabbed it backward.

The tip of the blade didn't stab the door, nor the ground, but plunged deep into the center of the road ash bundle at the waist of Iron Abacus's corpse.

"Break the road!"

Lu Yuan shouted in a low voice.

The moment the blade tip entered, a cloud of grey smoke *puffed* out from the road ash.

The moment the grey smoke scattered, a sharp, piercing shriek suddenly erupted from outside the door.

It was like someone's throat had been violently grabbed from behind the door, their entire voice twisted out of tune.

At the same time, that needle-like white light underground also shook violently, as if that single stab had hit its root.

But Lu Yuan didn't stop.

He flipped his left hand, cinnabar; he wiped his right hand, salt. Then, with the spine of his blade, he slapped Iron Abacus's corpse once, forcing all three things together.

"Iron Abacus guards the mouth! Today, I borrow your death road to seal the door!"

"That shell outside the door, GET OUT!"

"That eye underground, CONTRACT!"

"EVERYONE, GET BACK!"

When this shout went out, everyone in the room felt their eardrums tremble.

The wet face outside the door panel suddenly collapsed as if it had lost its bones, leaving only a blurry black water stain on the door.

And that needle-like white light underground, after shaking three times in succession, suddenly contracted downward, as if someone had forcefully pushed it back into the earth.

But there was no joy in Lu Yuan's eyes.

He knew this was only scattering, not killing.

Sure enough, that black water stain didn't dissipate completely. Instead, it slowly crawled down along the crack of the door, like a living thing slithering outside the wooden plank, trying to find a new path.

Lu Yuan looked at the black water stain and suddenly said:

"Don't look at the door anymore."

"Look at the ground."

"It lost its shell outside the door, so now it wants to borrow that echo underground to find its path."

Zhou Heng was stunned, then quickly looked down at the ground.

When he saw it, his entire scalp exploded.

On the white pattern at the broken opening of the black wooden tablet, where it had just been suppressed, a tiny bit of wet mark was slowly bulging out.

That wet mark wasn't water. Its color was grayish-white, like a very thin layer of skin, slowly spreading along the earth cracks.

What was even more horrifying was the shape that wet mark spread into. It looked like half of a small footprint.

The footprint was thin, but the toes were eerily sharp, like something that hadn't fully grown yet was learning to take steps in the earth.

"It's taking form." Lu Yuan said through gritted teeth.

"It's finding feet for itself."

"We can't let it solidify its footing."

"Cheng'an, smear the cinnabar on the ground!"

"Erxiao, smash salt onto the footprint!"

"Lin Zhaoxuan, take the black wooden tablet and press it down on the footprint!"

Several people acted almost simultaneously.

Wang Cheng'an grabbed the cinnabar and slapped it onto the ground. It was as red as blood, *slap*, covering the front half of the footprint.

Xu Erxiao grabbed a large handful of salt and threw it viciously onto the footprint. The moment the salt grains touched the wet mark, they sizzled, sending up a wisp of faint white smoke.

Lin Zhaoxuan even grabbed the half-section of black wooden tablet and pressed it down hard on the footprint.

*Pfft!*

The wooden tablet pressed down on the ground. The footprint immediately trembled, as if something underneath had been grabbed by the neck.

But Lu Yuan didn't breathe a sigh of relief. Instead, he said sharply:

"It's not over."

"That's not a footprint."

"That's a fetal foot."

"The eye fetus is about to turn over!"

This shout made everyone in the room's face change color.

A vein on Lu Yuan's forehead twitched slightly, but his gaze was incredibly fierce.

"Go get that old mirror from the eastern wall."

"Huh?" Wang Cheng'an was stunned. "What mirror?"

"The soul-reflecting mirror."

"The one with the black frame that Iron Abacus hid. Hurry!"

Wang Cheng'an's mind was already a bit numb, but hearing the name, he knew this was serious. He quickly went with Zhou Heng to dig at the base of the eastern wall.

That spot had been blocked by Iron Abacus's corpse earlier, so no one had examined it closely.

Now that they dug it away, they found that a thin, black-framed bronze mirror was indeed embedded in the corner. The mirror surface was covered in dust, the frame was dark with rust, and on the back were wrapped three circles of cracked red string.

When Wang Cheng'an pulled the mirror out, his fingers were trembling.

"Brother Lu, how do we shine this thing?"

"Back of the mirror facing up." Lu Yuan said rapidly. "Don't point the mirror surface at anyone first. Point it at the ground."

Wang Cheng'an complied, flipping the black mirror onto the ground.

The moment the mirror hit the ground, a hazy white figure was reflected on its surface.

The white figure wasn't large. It looked like a curled-up little person, or a ball of unformed flesh. Its whole body was bluish-green, its head and face blurry, with only two thin eye slits, half-open, half-closed, looking outward.

"It's reflected!"

Zhou Heng exclaimed.

Lu Yuan's gaze was icy cold:

"This is the base form of the eye fetus."

"It hasn't fully opened up yet."

"Now is the time. Press it back."

Before his voice had faded, another very light *dong* came from outside the door.

This time, it wasn't a ram or a grope, but like someone lightly bumping their head against the door panel from outside.

Immediately after, the black water stain on the door panel slowly parted, revealing a hand.

That hand was long and thin, with prominent knuckles and sharp, blackened nails, slowly probing into the crack of the door, as if trying to split the door panel from the middle.

And at the same time, that white figure in the black mirror also lifted its face. From its thin eye slits, a cold, greyish light shone through.

One outside wanted to come in.

One underground wanted to climb up.

Caught in the middle, the whole cellar felt like it was being slowly squeezed flat.

Lu Yuan saw it clearly and suddenly said in a low voice:

"Good."

"Perfect timing."

"They're both getting impatient."

"When they're impatient, they'll expose their base."

He stood beneath the lamp, his short blade held horizontally in front of him. He suddenly lifted his eyes to look at the black mirror.

"Cheng'an."

"Here!"

"Move the mirror half a foot to the left."

"Erxiao, break the salt-line by an inch."

"Qinghe, shine the lamp onto the mirror."

"Zhou Heng, move Iron Abacus's corpse to the side of the door."

"Lin Zhaoxuan, keep an eye on the footprint. Don't let it take a second step."

As the orders fell, everyone complied.

As soon as the black mirror was shifted, the white figure inside twisted in response.

As soon as the salt-line was broken, the black hand outside the door immediately reached further in.

As soon as Iron Abacus's corpse was moved, both the outside of the door and the underground seemed to find a conflicting target at the same time. The energy field instantly fell into chaos.

This was the moment Lu Yuan had been waiting for.

He suddenly stepped forward. The tip of his blade pointed straight at the white figure in the black mirror. His voice was hoarse but carried an unstoppable ferocity:

"Today, whether you're a shell, a fetus, a path, or that evil god's true body hiding at the very bottom—"

"ALL OF YOU, SHOW YOURSELVES!"

The blade flashed.

The flames in the room leaped up high, illuminating the scene. The white figure in the black mirror shrank back, the black hand outside the door paused, and the footprint on the ground stiffened for a moment.

And in that single frozen moment, Lu Yuan suddenly saw it clearly.

Behind the white figure in the black mirror was not one face.

It was layer upon layer of faces, one stacked on top of another, like countless unopened eyes hidden beneath the skin.

On the very top layer, the facial features were crooked, the corners of the mouth split to the base of the ears, bearing a faint, three-part resemblance to Iron Abacus's appearance right before he died.

But deeper still, there was an older, thinner, flatter outline, like a shadow hanging beneath the skin of a corpse. It didn't belong to a human, nor did it look like an animal.

That was the real thing.

Lu Yuan's heart suddenly sank.

He knew he had found it.

But with that one glance, he also understood that the real trouble was just beginning.

Because that deepest layer of face was slowly opening its eyes in the black mirror.