Chapter 275: Dead Corpse Crushes the Living Guide!

The deepest face inside the black mirror was slowly opening its eyes.

It didn't snap open all at once, nor did it suddenly flare into view. Instead, it was extremely gentle, extremely slow, a sliver of grayish-white light seeping out from a thin crack.

That light wasn't bright, but it sent a bone-deep chill through everyone. It felt like the century-old cold air buried in a deep mountain grave, finally pried open from beneath the soil.

Lu Yuan saw it clearly, and the sweat on his back instantly turned ice-cold.

He wasn't seeing evil for the first time, but this was different.

Before, there were the wet faces outside the door, the shell on the door panel, and the eye fetus turning over underground.

Though dangerous, they were still within the "formation." He could still use salt, cinnabar, black ash, lamp extinguishing, and corpse positions to suppress, guide, and deceive them.

But this layer inside the mirror was clearly no longer something that could be easily pinned down by mere mortal tools.

That was the face of the "main gateway."

"Don't look at the mirror."

Lu Yuan's voice was very low.

"Looking at it might let it recognize your presence."

Song Qinghe's lamp nearly trembled in her hand. She immediately averted her gaze, staring intently at the oil stains on the tabletop, not daring to glance at the mirror again.

Zhou Heng wiped the sweat from his forehead, his voice tightening. "What the hell is this thing?"

"An evil deity?"

"Not yet." Lu Yuan didn't shift his gaze, only staring at the outline of the ancient face slowly opening its eyes inside the black mirror. "The true body of a Malevolent Deity wouldn't be this easy to see."

"This is more like an old gateway it left underground, a main face."

"It's not here to show itself. It's here to use the mirror to see the road."

"See the road?" Wang Cheng'an was stunned. "What road?"

Lu Yuan didn't answer him. Instead, he suddenly turned his gaze toward the door.

On the door panel, the black hand was still suspended, its five fingers like five thin black nails, slowly probing inward along the door crack.

But it moved extremely slowly, as if it, too, was afraid. Afraid of the salt under the threshold, afraid of the light in the mirror, afraid of the half-exposed eye fetus at the center of the formation.

Under the ground, that fetal footprint had stopped pushing outward, instead shrinking back by half an inch.

The faint white light beneath the floor tiles trembled like a living creature when illuminated by the black mirror, as if it was dodging.

Lu Yuan's mind instantly clicked.

"They're afraid of the mirror."

He said in a low voice. "The soul-reflecting mirror isn't for reflecting people. It's for reflecting evil gateways."

"Iron Abacus hid this thing in the wall, not to keep people out, but to stop the deepest thing under this cellar from recognizing the door and coming out."

As he spoke, he suddenly took half a step forward and pinched the three rings of cracked red thread on the back of the mirror.

As soon as the red thread was touched, it emitted an extremely faint "crack."

Like the skin of something incredibly old and decrepit being forcefully pulled.

Lu Yuan's gaze grew colder. "This mirror can still be used."

"Cheng'an, cinnabar."

"Erxiao, salt."

"Zhou Heng, pull Iron Abacus's corpse back three feet."

"Lin Zhaoxuan, don't let go of the black wooden tablet. Keep pressing down on the light underground."

"Qinghe, shine the lamp behind the mirror. Don't aim it directly at the face."

Upon hearing this, the others immediately followed his orders.

Wang Cheng'an was quick. He grabbed the cinnabar jar, used his thumb to scoop some out, and smeared it on the edge of the mirror. The red was fierce, like a ring of freshly cut bloody gashes.

Xu Erxiao, using both hands, sprinkled a circle of salt around the mirror. The salt grains hit the ground with a fine crunch, the red and white, with the cinnabar, precisely enclosing the mirror.

Zhou Heng and Wang Cheng'an worked together to drag Iron Abacus's corpse, forcefully moving it back three feet.

As Iron Abacus's toes scraped across the ground, they produced a faint "swishing" sound, as if countless tiny mouths beneath the soil were gnawing at the layer of skin and flesh.

Zhou Heng gritted his teeth, the veins on his forehead bulging. "This old thing is really heavy, like dragging a stone."

"Heavy is right." Lu Yuan said. "There's still some road qi in him that hasn't dissipated."

As soon as Iron Abacus's corpse moved, the black hand outside the door did indeed shrink back, as if it had lost its aim.

But the white light underground seized this gap and suddenly surged up.

"Pfft."

Like a needle tip piercing paper, punching a hole right through.

Lu Yuan's pupils constricted sharply, and he shouted, "Lin Zhaoxuan, press down!"

Lin Zhaoxuan was already half-kneeling on the ground, his hands pressing on the half-buried black wooden tablet. Upon hearing this, he immediately pushed down with all his weight.

With a "crack," the black wooden tablet pressed tightly against the floor tile. The white light underneath was forcibly suppressed, and even the thin eye-crack nearly closed.

But at that moment, the deepest face inside the black mirror suddenly moved.

It didn't lift its head, nor did it open its mouth. Instead, it made an extremely light "pressing" motion forward.

The movement was indescribably strange. It was like, through a layer of water, a layer of mud, and a layer of skin, it was slowly smearing itself onto the mirror's surface.

The mirror instantly fogged up.

Inside the fog, the outline of the face became slightly clearer.

The face was gaunt, with high cheekbones and a mouth so wide the split ran all the way to the ears, like a smile, or like a fissure.

The eyes were long and narrow, with drooping eyelids, but the whites of the eyes were covered in dense rings of wrinkles, like a net woven from countless threads.

The strangest thing was a round, black hole in the center of its forehead.

It looked as if it had been nailed there once, or like a naturally occurring bottomless pit.

Lu Yuan stared for just a single breath, and his heart sank heavily.

"The unfinished road that Iron Abacus spoke of, I'm afraid it started from here."

He said slowly, "This face is the road face."

"All the dirty things that borrow doors, borrow land, and borrow names have to pass through this face once."

Zhou Heng's scalp tingled. "Doesn't that make it the ancestor?"

"More or less." Lu Yuan said. "But it's still not the true body."

"If the true body was here, this face in the mirror wouldn't just appear so simply. It would have already broken through the mirror."

As his words faded, an extremely, extremely faint "click" suddenly sounded from outside the door.

Like the subtle misalignment of a finger joint.

Immediately after, the black hand on the door panel suddenly plunged forward, its five fingers squeezing half an inch through the door crack!

"It's trying to break the door!"

Wang Cheng'an shouted, and he immediately threw the cinnabar in his hand toward the door crack.

The cinnabar exploded against the door panel with a "pop." The black hand instantly jerked back, as if scalded, a faint wisp of white smoke rising from the back of its hand.

But at the same moment, the white light under the floor tile suddenly surged up again.

It clashed head-on with the black hand outside the door, across the door panel, the floor tiles, the black wooden tablet, and the salt line.

"—"

A low, rumbling vibration echoed throughout the cellar.

It wasn't loud, but it was extremely heavy.

Like an ancient bell buried deep in the earth, struck from an unfathomable depth.

Lu Yuan's face changed drastically. He immediately realized something was wrong.

"They're merging the paths!"

"That hand outside the door isn't a separate shell!"

"It's delivering a body for the eye underground!"

"Delivering a body?" Zhou Heng was stunned. "How?"

Lu Yuan didn't have time to explain in detail. He shouted directly, "Flip the mirror over!"

"Hurry!"

Wang Cheng'an was shocked. "Flip the mirror?"

"Yes, mirror face down, back up!"

"Stop it from seeing the road!"

The others immediately followed his orders.

But the black mirror was eerily heavy. The four of them had to exert all their strength just to lift the edge of the mirror half an inch.

But the face inside the mirror suddenly retracted, as if sensing something was wrong, its eyelids lifting slightly.

With that single lift, the entire mirror darkened by half.

Lu Yuan's short blade was already out of its sheath. The tip of the blade drew a shallow cut across the cinnabar ring.

He smeared his fingertip against the bloody gash and muttered in a low voice, "Borrow yang to seal the mirror, borrow blood to cut the road!"

Then, he smeared the blood onto the red thread on the back of the mirror.

"—"

The red thread, touched by blood, bulged up section by section, as if alive.

Zhou Heng's teeth ached at the sight. He couldn't help but ask, "How is this mirror moving like it's alive?"

"It's not the mirror that's alive." Lu Yuan said.

"It's the breath inside that hasn't died."

"Iron Abacus used his own blood, the old road, pressure door nails, and road ash to forcefully tie it into a shell."

"Now that the shell is loose, of course the thing inside wants to turn over."

As he spoke, he suddenly noticed a bit of black water slowly seeping out from the edge of the black mirror.

The black water was thick as ink and heavily fishy. When it dripped to the ground, it didn't spread but condensed into small, black beads, like eyeballs or insect eggs.

"Don't touch it!"

Lu Yuan shouted. "That's yin-mercury seeping out from the road-reflection."

"If you touch it, it will make you follow its path."

Xu Erxiao was so frightened he stumbled backward, almost stepping on the salt line. Song Qinghe had to remind him softly before he managed to stand still.

As soon as the black water beads touched the ground, the black hand outside the door trembled slightly, as if it had received a signal.

The next second, an extremely, extremely faint laughter drifted in from beyond the door.

It wasn't human laughter, but rather like air bubbles squeezed from a throat, gurgling and rolling.

The laughter carried a watery, fishy stench, making one's scalp tingle just from hearing it.

"Brother Lu." Wang Cheng'an swallowed his saliva. "What's it laughing at?"

Lu Yuan didn't answer immediately, but his gaze grew colder.

"It's not laughing."

"It's recognizing something."

"Inside this mirror, there's an old road it has walked before."

By now, the fog on the black mirror was even thicker. The black hole in the center of the road face's forehead was also clearer, like an ancient well.

Inside the well, something seemed to be slowly probing outward. First, a thread of white, then a speck of gray, and finally, an extremely small eye faintly appeared.

The eye was very small, black and shiny, staring unblinkingly at the outside world.

Lu Yuan's heart tightened sharply.

That wasn't the eye of the face in the mirror.

It was someone looking from behind the mirror.

"There's another layer behind."

He said in a deep voice. "A mirror within a mirror."

"What Iron Abacus hid wasn't just one face. He also sealed a deeper opening."

As soon as he finished speaking, the mirror's surface emitted a faint "ding," as if something sharp had gently tapped it from the inside.

Immediately after, the corner of the mouth of the face in the mirror suddenly twisted, as if it was about to smile out from the fog.

"Fall back!"

Lu Yuan immediately shouted. "Press the mirror face down on the ground!"

"Don't let it face the door!"

The others exerted every ounce of their strength and heavily slammed the black mirror face-down onto the ground.

"Thud!"

The moment the mirror hit the ground, the entire cellar seemed to sink with it.

But at that moment, the black hand outside the door suddenly grabbed fiercely. A sharp, piercing scraping sound came from the door crack.

At the same time, the white light underground suddenly leaped up by half an inch, glowing so brightly it was almost blinding.

The black mirror was pinned to the ground, but the red threads on its back continued to bulge section by section, as if someone inside was using their nails to crawl out along the threads.

Lu Yuan squinted, then suddenly lifted his foot and stamped it onto the cinnabar ring on the mirror's back.

"Smack!"

His stamp was extremely precise, landing exactly on the center of the intersecting red threads.

Instantly, the bulging threads on the mirror's back seemed to be snapped by the stamp. An extremely, extremely faint shriek came from inside.

"—"

The cry was neither human nor beast. It sounded like an unformed fetus having half its breath forcefully ripped away.

At the same time, the white light underground suddenly dimmed. The black hand outside the door also jerked backward.

Everyone in the room was stunned by this.

But Lu Yuan didn't stop.

Taking advantage of the moment, he flipped his left hand, placed the handle of the short blade downwards, and drove it hard into the edge of the black mirror.

With his right hand, he grabbed a handful of salt and poured it straight down the blade handle.

"Seal it for me!"

The salt grains, hitting the cinnabar and blood lines, crackled as if they were burning.

The breath under the black mirror, sealed by this, fell briefly silent.

The silence was too fast, which felt wrong.

Lu Yuan's heart tightened, and he immediately said in a low voice, "Everyone be careful."

"It's not giving up. It's changing its shell."

"Changing its shell?" Lin Zhaoxuan's gaze sharpened.

Lu Yuan slowly raised his head, looking at the three spots: the mirror, the door, and the floor tiles.

"That hand outside the door just now wasn't grabbing randomly."

"It was sending 'skin' to the eye underground."

"The road face in the black mirror wasn't laughing just now."

"It was opening the main gateway behind it."

"Now that the mirror is pinned down by us, they can't take the direct path. They're probably going to move somewhere else."

As he said this, his gaze suddenly landed on a loose soil brick in the east corner.

That was the spot where Iron Abacus's corpse had been dragged away, leaving an empty patch of wall base.

And at that moment, from that brick's crack, a bit of blackness slowly seeped out.

Black as ink.

Black as water.

More like a pupil of an eye, slowly opening from within the wall.

"There!"

Zhou Heng shouted in shock.

Lu Yuan strode over, his blade tip hooking the loose brick and prying it open.

Behind the brick was neither soil nor stone, but a small hollow space.

Inside the hollow was a wad of blackened cloth.

Wrapped in the cloth was something square, like a wooden tablet or a small box.

Lu Yuan pulled it out in one go and opened it. Inside was a yellow paper figure folded into four layers.

The paper figure had a face painted on it with cinnabar. Its eyebrows and eyes were long and narrow, its mouth wide open in a split, bearing a five or six out of ten resemblance to the road face in the black mirror.

The eeriest thing was a moldy yellow talisman stuck to the paper figure's chest.

The talisman's head was already soaked and decayed, but the single character in the middle could still be vaguely made out.

"Guide."

Lu Yuan's breath hitched.

"Found it."

He said in a low voice.

"Found what?" Wang Cheng'an asked urgently.

"The replacement shell." Lu Yuan said. "This is the head it never showed."

"Borrowing a face outside the door, borrowing an eye underground, borrowing a road in the mirror—in the end, it all relies on this paper figure as the central line."

"What Iron Abacus was guarding wasn't just a cellar."

"He was guarding the main conduit of a living yin route in this mountain."

Saying this, Lu Yuan's gaze sank inch by inch.

"In other words, we haven't touched the Malevolent Deity's true body yet."

"But we've already touched one of the fingers it's reached out."

The others felt a chill at their hearts upon hearing this.

But Lu Yuan didn't let them daze off. He quickly shook out the paper figure, illuminating it with the lamp. He found the back of the paper figure was covered in a dense row of tiny words.

The handwriting was crooked and black, as if written with a mix of blood and ink.

At the very top, there was a name.

Not a person's name.

An offering name.

Written on the back of the paper figure were: The One Who Feeds the Eye, The Guide, The Gatekeeper, The One Who Tastes the Lamp, The One Who Presses the Bed...

Behind each string of names was a small circle drawn.

Some of the circles were already blackened out, while others remained empty.

Zhou Heng's lips went white as he looked. "This... what does this mean?"

Lu Yuan stared at the string of words, the chill in his eyes growing heavier. "A name ledger."

"It's keeping a record of who fed it, who guarded it, and who passed qi for it."

"The empty circles are the unfilled openings."

"These openings all need human lives to fill."

Wang Cheng'an gritted his teeth upon hearing this. "How many years has this evil thing been nurtured?"

"Who knows." Lu Yuan said. "But if it's managed to create a name ledger, it means it stopped seeing humans as people a long time ago."

"Iron Abacus was just an old nail pressed onto the name ledger."

"Now that the nail has loosened, it's our turn to settle this account."

He finished speaking, then suddenly turned the yellow paper figure over to its front.

The face on the paper figure bore a faint resemblance to the wet face outside the door.

The same split at the corner of the mouth, the same slender neck. But on the paper, the eyes were still closed, the eyelids shut tight as if in deep sleep.

Lu Yuan's heart stirred. He suddenly understood something.

"This paper figure isn't a shell."

"It's a skin for changing names."

"The face outside the door, the eye underground, the road in the mirror—they all rely on this paper figure to change a round of names."

Before his words faded, a very short "thump" suddenly came from outside the door.

It sounded like something had finally pressed against the outermost part of the door panel.

At the same time, the white light underground completely lit up.

It wasn't illuminating. It was "shining through."

Brightly enough to be blinding. Like a tiny eyeball, forcefully pushing up a thin membrane from beneath the soil.

The entire cellar was instantly hit by that cold white light.

Song Qinghe nearly dropped her lamp, barely managing to steady herself.

"Brother Lu... it's about to come out!"

"Not yet." Lu Yuan said sternly. "It's being forced to change its breath!"

"Listen to me—"

He threw the yellow paper figure to the ground. As soon as it landed, the paper figure itself slid an inch toward the center of the three spots: door, mirror, and floor. It was as if pulled by an invisible thread.

Lu Yuan seized this breath. He suddenly lifted his foot and kicked Iron Abacus's corpse over, making it land squarely on the back of the yellow paper figure.

"Dead corpse crushes the living guide!"

"Shell outside the door, eye underground, road in the mirror—all of it gets stuck!"

"Cheng'an, splash cinnabar on the corpse's back!"

"Erxiao, sprinkle salt on the door crack!"

"Zhou Heng, flip the black mirror half an inch upright. Don't let it completely lock down!"

"Qinghe, shine the lamp on the paper figure's face!"

"Lin Zhaoxuan, hold the black wooden tablet down. Don't let it flip!"

The group worked frantically, hands and feet a mess, but no one dared to slow down.

As the cinnabar splashed onto Iron Abacus's corpse back, the red and white clashed, and a thin layer of mist rose up.

Salt sprinkled on the door crack, and the black hand outside immediately began to shake wildly.

The black mirror was flipped half an inch upright, and the road face inside the mirror was also forced into a twisted slit.

The oil lamp shone on the paper figure's face. The paper face instantly developed a thin layer of pale yellow sweat, like a living person being forced awake by fire.

And as this series of actions concluded, the eye underground finally couldn't hold on anymore.

"Pop!"

An extremely light, crisp sound came from deep within the earth.

Like an eyelid that had been closed for too long, finally split open by the thing inside.

White light poured out from the crack, illuminating the entire cellar in a ghastly, deathly white.

Lu Yuan's pupils constricted sharply. Only one thought remained in his mind.

Can't let it open fully.

He bit his fingertip. As the blood droplet emerged, he reached out and pressed it onto the black spot on the broken end of the black wooden tablet.

"With blood as the nail!"

"With name as the lock!"

"Use death to suppress life!"

"You've been hiding in the mountain, devouring people. Don't blame me for peeling back this layer of your skin today!"

As the blood was pressed onto it, the black spot let out a "pop," as if burned open.

Immediately after, the tiny human face outline on the cross-section of the black wooden tablet all simultaneously shrank inward, as if something was forcefully pulling them back from the deepest part.

At the same time, an extremely shrill, piercing scream came from outside the door.

The sound was so sharp it hurt the eardrums, like a hundred fingernails scraping across bones at once.

The black hand on the door panel suddenly let go, its five fingers twisting into a black shadow, and instantly withdrew.

The road face in the black mirror also twitched violently. The split on both sides of its cheeks suddenly burst open, as if torn apart.

Lu Yuan knew he couldn't let go even a little. His left hand was still pressed firmly on the black spot. His right hand grabbed the yellow paper figure and pressed it directly onto the white light crack in the ground.

"Get down there!"

"This paper figure is your name-skin. Today, use your own skin to plug your own eye!"

As soon as the paper figure touched the white light, a thin layer of pale yellow flame ignited.

The flame wasn't large, but it was extremely eerie. It burned the cinnabar corners of the paper figure's mouth, twisting them in agony. It was as if something truly inside was screaming in pain.

"—"

A low, drawn-out cry rose from the deepest depths of the earth.

It didn't come from outside the door, nor from the mirror. It seemed to squeeze out from the very bones of the entire mountain.

Lu Yuan swayed, nearly forced back a step by the sound.

But he gritted his teeth and held his ground.

"Cheng'an!"

"Fire starter!"

Wang Cheng'an immediately lit the fire starter and handed it over.

Lu Yuan took the flame, reversed his hand, and touched it to the yellow paper figure.

With a "whoosh," the paper figure finally burned completely.

The flames weren't high, but they engulfed the paper face in an instant.

The script of the name ledger on the paper curled, blackened, and cracked bit by bit in the fire, like an old bill being burned through.

And at the very moment the paper figure burned through, a muffled, rumbling sound came simultaneously from three places: outside the door, inside the mirror, and beneath the ground.

"Boom——"

The entire cellar shook.

Fine dust fell from the ceiling. The oil lamp in the corner flickered violently, nearly going out.

Song Qinghe protected the lamp with all her might, her lips bitten white.

Zhou Heng fell heavily to the ground on his back, breathing like a beast working a mill.

Wang Cheng'an and Xu Erxiao both stumbled, nearly colliding with each other.

Lin Zhaoxuan's temples were throbbing with veins, his hands still pressing tightly on the black wooden tablet, not daring to let go.

Lu Yuan stood in front of the burning paper figure, his eyes unblinking.

He saw that the black hand outside the door had completely disappeared.

The face imprint on the door panel had sunk.

The white light underground had also, as if forcefully pressed back, receded inch by inch.

The road face in the black mirror, tangled by the red threads on its back, had its split pulled into an extremely long black gash, like a mouth split down the middle.

But what made his heart skip a beat was that, in the instant before the flames died out, the deepest, oldest face slowly turned its head and looked at him.

That look held no trace of haste or anger.

Only a cold, almost unreasonably indifferent calm.

As if it had remembered him.

As if it had recorded him into its accounts as well.

Lu Yuan's heart sank slightly, but his face remained impassive. He slowly sheathed his blade.

The room was quiet for a long time.

Only after the paper figure had burned down to its final embers, with no more sounds from outside the door, the ground no longer heaving, and the black mirror lying on the ground like a dead piece of iron, did anyone dare to speak.

After a long pause, Wang Cheng'an asked in a hoarse voice, "Brother Lu... is this suppressed?"

Lu Yuan looked at the pile of black ash on the ground, his voice low. "Suppressed one gate."

"Didn't suppress the root."

Lin Zhaoxuan looked up. "You saw it?"

"Mm." Lu Yuan nodded. "That deepest face recognized me."

"What we burned was a section of its name-skin, one of its guiding lines."

"But its true body is still in the mountain."

"And it's older than we thought."

"Deeper."

"Harder to deal with."

Hearing this, the breath of relief that had just started to form in everyone's hearts immediately tightened again.

Lu Yuan raised his eyes, sweeping over them all, his tone extremely steady. "But it's not without gains."

"We've managed to pry open a corner of the line Iron Abacus left behind."

"Now it's certain that there's more than one feeding mouth in this mountain."

"The door, the ground, the mirror, the name ledger—these are all its outer shells and tentacles."

"The true body of the Malevolent Deity should still be hidden in a deeper main cavern."

"Next, we won't defend this cellar anymore."

"We're going to follow the exposed line and head deeper into the mountain."

Lin Zhaoxuan looked at Lu Yuan and said in a low voice, "Then let's go."

"Before it fully recovers."

"The deeper we go into the mountain, the sooner we need to do it."

Lu Yuan didn't answer immediately. He just bent down to pick up the half-burnt black wooden tablet, then gathered the charred yellow paper ash and wrapped it in a piece of torn cloth.

He knew this was far from over.

Tonight, they had only peeled back one layer of the Malevolent Deity's shrine, touched the main line.

Burned one name-skin, forced the deepest face to turn its head and look back.

But the true mountain belly, the true main cavern, and the thing that was truly being fed were still waiting ahead.

It might be deep in a cave.

Maybe at the bottom of a dry well.

Or perhaps behind some unseen altar, waiting for someone to awaken it completely.

Lu Yuan tucked his blade back into his waistband, raised his head, and looked at the pitch-black earthen ceiling above the cellar.

His gaze was very cold, cold like the night wind sweeping through the mountains.

"Let's go."

"Let's go and dig out that true evil buried under this mountain, with our own hands."