After Liang Yinqiu and the others rushed into the courtyard, strange sounds indeed came from outside.
Without Yan Shouyi's command, Wang Sihua had already asked everyone to find something to block the main entrance.
After all, it was too damn terrifying outside!
Yan Shouyi, facing the encroaching paper figures, held his Zanpakuto. Any paper figure that rushed out of the wound gate would be instantly killed by Yan Shouyi.
Noticing that everyone had fallen into a siege again, Lin Zhitong opened the door of a room and let everyone hide inside.
Everyone rushed into the room, and soon the door was smashed open by the frantic zombies. Yan Shouyi, caught between enemies, could only retreat into the room.
Xia Qi said nervously, "There are too many zombies and evil spirits. Even if we hide in the house, we won't last long!"
As soon as she finished speaking, Yan Shouyi suddenly threw a handful of talismans.
These talismans flew to the doors and windows on their own, emitting a golden light after attaching themselves. Yan Shouyi chanted the incantation:
"Heaven and Earth Xuanzong, ten thousand Qi as root. Cultivating for ten thousand kalpas, I attain my divine powers. Within and beyond the three realms, only the Dao is supreme. Golden light, appear swiftly, protect my body!"
The Golden Light Incantation!
Yan Shouyi's strength had improved again. With the boost from the talismans, the Golden Light Incantation directly enveloped the entire room.
Those paper figures, zombies, and evil spirits, upon touching the house, immediately recoiled as if electrocuted and retreated several steps with great caution.
However, the newcomers did not care and continued to press forward.
Under their attrition, the golden light gradually weakened. It was clear that the Golden Light Incantation could not protect everyone safely indefinitely.
"Miss, Young Master, I can help!"
Taohua Ying floated into the air, spun around, and her ghost qi transformed into pink peach blossoms, covering Yan Shouyi's talismans.
Instantly, those fierce evil entities all stopped moving and no longer attempted to enter the house, but they still lingered outside.
"What is this...?" Lin Zhitong asked doubtfully.
Taohua Ying explained, "I have temporarily masked our scent of life. They can't detect our presence."
Indeed, ghosts understood ghosts better. Yan Shouyi and Lin Zhitong couldn't help but praise Taohua Ying.
From the paper figures resurrecting to being trapped in the house, everything had happened too suddenly. Only now did everyone have a moment to breathe.
Without time to worry about others, Yan Shouyi looked out through the crack in the window. The zombies and evil spirits were still wandering outside. As long as anyone stepped half a foot out of the house, they would still be attacked.
This clearly wouldn't work. A solution must be found.
Yan Shouyi pondered for a moment, took out the wooden bird Sanyuan from his satchel, and quietly released it.
Using Sanyuan's perspective, he intended to survey the entire inner city, hoping to find some clues.
"Big fool," Lin Zhitong said, "the bell chime was the trigger for the paper figures to revive. You should have Sanyuan look for a bell in the inner city; perhaps there's an exit."
"That's what I was thinking," Yan Shouyi nodded, communicating with Sanyuan with all his focus.
Through Sanyuan's perspective, Yan Shouyi could survey the entire inner city.
The inner city was built around the palace, forming the middle layer of the "回" character. It could be imagined as a simplified version of an ancient imperial city, easily visible at a glance.
As expected, Sanyuan found the great bells!
However, it was slightly different from what Yan Shouyi had imagined.
There was a great bell at each of the four corners of the inner city. This was why when Yan Shouyi first heard the bell chime, he heard several peals instead of just one.
What made Yan Shouyi even more puzzled was that the bells were not struck by wooden stakes, but by four strange coffins!
These four coffins were hung next to the great bells. For some unknown reason, they had swayed earlier, striking the bells and causing all the paper figures, zombies, and evil spirits to awaken.
Yan Shouyi shared his discovery with Lin Zhitong. Lin Zhitong was silent for a moment and said,
"To find a solution, we probably have to go to the great bells ourselves and open the coffins to take a look."
Yan Shouyi sighed. This was the only way for now.
The inner city was fraught with danger. It was imaginable that they would face all sorts of perils upon going out.
But if they didn't go out, everyone would be trapped and die here.
Lin Zhitong began to plan: "Let's each go to a corner. If we don't find anything, we'll move to the next..."
Yan Shouyi interrupted, "Before we go out... let's open this box and take a look."
He held the wooden box he had obtained outside the inner city gate earlier. Knowing that it contained a piece of Yin wood, Yan Shouyi vaguely felt that a soul must reside within this wood.
Perhaps this soul could solve many problems.
"Isn't there any danger in this box?" Li Yang asked worriedly.
"Everyone's situation is already quite bad, can it get any worse?" Xia Qi said, "We might as well open the box and see."
Liang Yinqiu also said, "Let's open it. That box wouldn't have been suspended at the inner city gate for no reason."
With everyone's support, Yan Shouyi took a deep breath, broke the small lock on the wooden box, and slowly opened it.
Inside, as expected, lay a piece of Lu Ban Yin wood.
As soon as the box was opened, the Yin wood trembled slightly. Yan Shouyi's eyes narrowed: he knew it, there was a soul within this Yin wood!
Taohua Ying sniffed, her eyes showing a hint of apprehension, "The fellow inside here is much older than me."
After all, this was something from Qin Shi Huang's mausoleum. Excluding the possibility of it being placed there later, the soul within this Yin wood must be over two thousand years old.
Seeing that the soul within the Yin wood was weak and couldn't come out for a long time, Yan Shouyi decided to give it a hand.
After a few simple incantations, the soul within the Yin wood was finally awakened.
A ghost figure slowly floated out of the Yin wood. Its upper body was already formed, while its lower body was still "stuck" to the Yin wood, giving it a feeling similar to the genie in Aladdin's lamp.
However, everyone could finally see the ghost's appearance clearly.
This ghost appeared to be in his early twenties. He wasn't handsome, but there was a certain arrogance in his eyebrows, a kind of pride that ordinary people couldn't possess, a temperament honed by long-term superiority.
What surprised Liang Yinqiu was that this young ghost was wearing a grand ceremonial robe!
The ceremonial robe, known as Mian Fu, was the attire worn by monarchs during sacrifices. The Grand Ceremonial Robe (Da Qiu Mian Fu) was the most honored among them, used when the King sacrificed to Shangdi!
This young ghost's ability to wear the Grand Ceremonial Robe indicated that his identity was by no means ordinary!
Liang Yinqiu swallowed and asked, "Is your surname Ying?"
"How dare you!"
The ghost immediately became enraged and cursed, "What kind of commoner dares to call the imperial surname by name! Guards! Drag this lowly woman out and behead her!"
Got it.
Yan Shouyi had intended to ask what kind of person from the Qin dynasty this ghost was, but as soon as he spoke, Yan Shouyi had already guessed his identity.
Anyone who dared to call himself "Zhen" (朕, the imperial pronoun) was naturally an emperor.
And something found in Qin Shi Huang's mausoleum must be an emperor of the Qin dynasty.
When Qin Shi Huang died, he was already forty-nine years old, not this young appearance.
Qin's Third Emperor, Ying Ziying, who reigned for only forty-six days, surrendered to Liu Bang. A little over a month later, Xiang Yu led his troops into Xianyang, massacred the city, set fires, and incidentally killed this Third Emperor of Qin. Given the circumstances of the Third Emperor of Qin at that time, it was highly unlikely that he would have entered the imperial mausoleum.
Therefore, this ghost before them could only have one identity – Qin's Second Emperor, Hu Hai!