Although the room was filled with many杂物 (záwù - miscellaneous items), there were very few places large enough to accommodate a corpse. Ye Huohuo and the others searched every corner, even pulling out the drawers of the filing cabinet, but found nothing.
"This shouldn't be. Was it not in the room?" Lu Yao wiped the sweat from her forehead and said somewhat exasperatedly, "What bad luck, I've truly come for nothing. The shadowy figure I wanted to catch didn't even show its shadow, and I finally had a chance to capture a Blood-Clad Vengeful Spirit, only to have you take it as free labor."
"Alright, stop complaining. I think it's definitely in this room, we just haven't found it yet. Otherwise, that girl's soul wouldn't have opened the house lock to let us in. Let's search again."
"Search for what else? Everything here is in plain sight. The only place something could be hidden is this filing cabinet, and we've searched through everything inside. Where else could it be?" Lu Yao was already impatient.
Ye Huohuo pursed her lips and scanned the room again, her gaze finally settling on the filing cabinet.
"You're kidding, you want to search again?" Lu Yao took two steps back. "If you want to search, you search. Inside are just old newspapers and worn-out work clothes, and there's a strange smell. It was already giving me a headache."
Ye Huohuo did not open the filing cabinet. Instead, she reached into the gap between it and the wall. "There's a draft!"
"A secret room?" Lu Yao walked over upon hearing this. Her previous delicate demeanor vanished instantly. The two of them, working together, moved the iron filing cabinet. Sure enough, behind it was a hidden door.
They exchanged a glance and looked at the lock on it. Ye Huohuo pointed and said, "How about it? Your turn?"
"Am I your subordinate?" Lu Yao grumbled unhappily, but her hands were already busy.
She took a straightened paperclip from the hem of her clothes and inserted it into the keyhole. After fumbling with it a few times with her eyes closed, there was a "click," and the lock sprang open.
Lu Yao pulled the door open, and an extremely chilling cold air rushed out from within, blowing onto both of them. They both involuntarily shivered.
Ye Huohuo even sneezed several times.
"Damn, is this a freezer?"
"It can't be a freezer. If I'm guessing correctly, something has been done to this place. This cold air isn't just ice-cold; didn't you feel an extremely heavy Yin Sha energy? There should be a top-grade Yin Gathering Talisman." Lu Yao's eyes lit up.
A top-grade Yin Gathering Talisman was a treasure that could only be encountered by chance and sought by desire. Not only did neither she nor Ye Huohuo possess one, but even if the Wuji Temple and the Maoshan Sect combined, they wouldn't have many.
Lu Yao looked eager to try, and Ye Huohuo couldn't help but rub her hands together.
"Ye Huohuo, we have an agreement. Later, that Blood-Clad Vengeful Spirit is yours, but this top-grade Yin Gathering Talisman will be mine." Lu Yao placed one hand at the entrance of the hidden door, blocking Ye Huohuo from entering. This was a matter of personal interest, and she had to make things clear from the start.
Ye Huohuo smiled and shook her head, brushing her hand away. "If that Blood-Clad Vengeful Spirit is willing to follow you, I won't stop you. I know you sent all the souls I dispersed earlier into reincarnation. You're not as unfeeling as you appear on the surface."
With that, she added a layer of spiritual power to her hand, and the light on the talisman on her fingertip flared up, like holding a windproof little torch.
"Don't act like you know me so well. Once this is over, we'll still be enemies," Lu Yao's expression turned unnatural.
Ye Huohuo said nothing further. She walked ahead, her left fist clenched tightly, still holding the lightning talisman she had drawn earlier to deal with the vengeful spirit. She was not the type to rush in blindly, and she always prepared an escape route for herself.
Lu Yao followed closely behind Ye Huohuo, also gripping a dagger-sized peach wood sword. Though her words were tough, her palms were still damp.
Ye Huohuo had originally expected that after opening the hidden door, there would be a small hidden room. However, to her surprise, what greeted her was a flight of stairs leading down. The light in her hand did not illuminate the bottom.
She estimated roughly that it was at least ten meters deep.
She took a deep breath and descended the steps one by one.
The darkness below was peeled back layer by layer by the light in her hand. The surroundings were so quiet that a pin drop could be heard. Only the sound of their breathing could be discerned. As they went deeper, the temperature dropped further. Ye Huohuo felt her body going numb with cold. The air she exhaled seemed to turn into frost flowers, forming thick white mist before her eyes.
It was unclear how long it took. It seemed like only a minute, yet it also felt like a long time, so long that they thought they would never reach the bottom.
Finally, when their feet no longer met steps, they exchanged a glance and saw frost flowers clinging to each other's hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes, looking like the "white-haired, youthful-faced" described in books.
They no longer had the mood to tease each other. They simply nodded at each other, mouting the word "careful" to each other.
Then, Ye Huohuo poured a large amount of spiritual energy into the light talisman on her fingertip, instantly illuminating the surroundings as bright as day.
They also saw the scene in this underground chamber.
Although they had prepared themselves psychologically, they were still stunned by the sight, their mouths agape.
The space before them, while not large, was about the same size as the room above, even a bit smaller, around forty square meters. However, the items arranged within it made their jaws drop.
Ye Huohuo never expected to see a coffin here, and moreover, an ancient coffin.
It was like a giant refrigerator, radiating waves of cold air all over.
Lu Yao and her Maoshan Sect often had opportunities to enter ancient tombs. Sometimes, when commoners dug up graves or foundations and unearthed an ancient tomb, they lacked protective awareness at first and, considering it extremely inauspicious, would invite the sect to handle it for peace and safety. However, with the government's strong promotion later on, such situations would involve local government departments.
But government departments sometimes found these things difficult to handle. Initially, they didn't pay much attention, but after some incidents, they were forced to seek their help to deal with them, though they mostly announced it as protecting cultural relics.
Lu Yao had seen some ancient coffins. After her initial shock, she slowly walked over and touched the paint on it. "Based on my experience, this is a coffin from the pre-Tang period, at least over a thousand years old.
Judging by the material, it's a top-grade nanmu coffin. Back then, only high-ranking officials and noble lords could afford to use such coffins; ordinary wealthy people didn't have the right to. And look at the patterns on it; this is the 'Ultimate Bliss Ascension to Immortality' diagram, clearly the best blessing for the deceased. What is depicted on it... a Qilin? Could this be the coffin of a prince from the Tang Dynasty?" Lu Yao analyzed with a frown.
"But why is there a coffin here? Could it be that the girl's body is inside this coffin?
This is definitely not an ancient tomb. The surrounding soil is all new soil, the oldest being within the last ten years. It's impossible to place a thousand-year-old coffin here. This coffin must have been transported from somewhere else, but..."
She squatted down, looked at the soil beneath the coffin, and even picked up a bit of it to smell. "But this coffin wasn't just transported here; it's been here for several years. It couldn't have been specially prepared to hold this Blood-Clad Vengeful Spirit. This... is very strange!"
Ye Huohuo listened to her words without any response, as if she hadn't heard anything.
"Hey, Ye Huohuo, I'm talking to you. Give me a response!" Lu Yao said unhappily. She was kindly analyzing things with her, and this guy was completely silent.
"Hush!" Ye Huohuo raised her hand, making a silencing gesture at her, and pressed her ear against the coffin, listening intently.
Lu Yao opened her mouth, wanting to say more. Seeing her like this, she closed her mouth again, bit her lip, and with a confused expression, also pressed her ear against it.
Ye Huohuo pressed her ear against the coffin, holding her breath. If possible, she even wished she could stop her heartbeat. After listening for a while, her eyes suddenly widened, and she sprang up from beside the coffin as if she were a compressed spring...