I didn't dare to look at the old man whose body was almost turning into corpse wax. So I walked around the white marble coffin bed.
The two blue-and-white plum blossom vases were placed beside the coffin bed because they were soul vases.
It was said that they contained the five grains used to offer sacrifices to the tomb owner, praying that the deceased would live a prosperous and happy life in the next world.
My eyes had adapted to the dim light in the tomb chamber. Suddenly, a cold voice came to my ears, scaring me. I instinctively slapped the yellow talisman that Si Jiangchen had stuffed into my palm towards the direction where the voice came from on my shoulder.
"Humph, taking my kindness for ill will."
There was a hint of mockery in that voice. Then I felt something bone-chilling brush across my forehead.
"!!!"
I never expected that the talisman Si Jiangchen gave me would be useless. I quickly turned around and looked behind me. There were Chen Jiu and Lu Dayong. They were climbing on the stone wall like geckos, carefully searching for the "Taishang Soul-Returning Spell" whose appearance they all knew.
"How stupid!"
That cold voice came again. "You can't even find a ghost."
I suddenly looked up. All of a sudden, a pale face hung in front of me. The messy black hair was about two feet long, covering the guy's facial features tightly. Only a scarlet tongue hanging on the chin showed his identity as a "hanged ghost".
"Ah?!!"
In the darkness, I was so frightened by the ghost face that suddenly appeared less than an inch from my nose that I let out a scream and quickly stepped back.
I accidentally bumped into Si Jiangchen's arms. He was supervising those three guys to pull the treasures on the stone niche to the ground and check each one for things related to the spell.
"There's a ghost!! A hanged ghost!"
I pointed to the air and shouted to Si Jiangchen, "A hanged ghost is hanging in the air."
"Where? Let me take a look!"
Chen Jiu immediately lit a match and shone it into the darkness that the candlelight couldn't penetrate.
The thick darkness was like a solid substance, wrapping around the tiny flame. It felt like it would suffocate and go out at any time. There was nothing in the darkness except the colorful gemstones inlaid on the dome, which replaced the sun, moon and stars, refracting a faint and brilliant light.
"Madam, the army commander's wife, you must have seen it wrong!"
Chen Jiu had no awe for anything in the world. He even stepped on the coffin on the coffin bed and stood up high to look at the dome. "This is a place for the dead. How could there be a hanged ghost in it?"
"I really saw it!"
I looked at Si Jiangchen.
Si Jiangchen held my slightly trembling hand and slightly pursed his lips. "I know you're nervous here. It's okay. If you're scared, just take a nap. When I find it, both of us will recover."
"That's right... Madam, you're an immortal. Those ghosts should be afraid of you."
Chen Jiu's smile always made me feel creepy in the darkness. Now that he had been cast a spell by Si Jiangchen to control his mind, he naturally didn't dare to speak rudely and call me a zombie or a monster. However, his words still made a sense of fear well up in my heart.
They started to get busy again.
After discussing for a while, the three of them thought that the Taishang Soul-Returning Spell should be a book or a roll of yellow silk. So they began to focus on those scriptures and books.
Afraid that the hideous hanged ghost would appear in front of me again, I simply shrank into Si Jiangchen's arms. He held me and sat against the stone wall, and I closed my eyes.
"… How stupid…"
That cold voice came again, sometimes far and sometimes near. "Do you think you can't see me by pretending to sleep?"
Suddenly, it was like a window had opened in the middle of my forehead. The face with the long tongue clearly appeared in my mind.
"Humph!"
Just when I was trembling all over, Si Jiangchen gave a cold snort. He reached out and grabbed in the void. His long fingers instantly pulled out a semi-transparent white shadow and slapped it on the stone slab in front of us with a "pop".
"I'm just bored and want to play with you!"
The white shadow had long hair covering its face. Its soul body was pressed on the ground by Si Jiangchen and struggled and writhed. "How dare you imprison me! You're extremely bold!"
"I?!"
I was even more surprised. The address of "I" could only be used by the emperors in the past.
This was Luocheng, and this was a tomb of a vassal king of the Ming Dynasty. How could there be a ghost of an emperor lingering here for thousands of years?
"… A fallen emperor. What's wrong with imprisoning you?"
Si Jiangchen sat on the ground. The fingers pressing on the white shadow quickly formed a single-handed mudra and pushed it towards the white shadow.
"Zi!"
A faint black smoke rose. The messy hair on the white shadow's face fluttered, revealing an unwilling face. The originally delicate and regular facial features were set off by a long blood-red tongue sticking out of the lips, looking extremely tragic.
The hanged ghost was hit by Si Jiangchen's ghost-suppressing spell on his soul body. Immediately, the thunderous power rushed through his body and locked him firmly in the small area marked out by Si Jiangchen.
"A fallen... emperor?!" I stared at him in surprise.
Was this hanged ghost really an emperor?
"Yes... a fallen emperor, a fallen emperor... What face does he have to call himself 'I'?!"
The tragic look on the hanged ghost's face became even more intense. "He's just a useless person hiding in his uncle's mausoleum..."
"Are... are you Zhu Youjian?"
Looking at the appearance of the white-clothed hanged ghost, I couldn't help but think of a person in the history of the Ming Dynasty.
When the country was about to perish, he took over the throne from his short-lived and dissolute elder brother. He was diligent and thrifty for more than a decade, making the last struggle to prolong the life of the Ming Dynasty.
His queen had to sew the torn clothes at night so that the emperor wouldn't be without a crown when he went to court the next day...
However, no matter how hard he tried to rule the country with industry and thrift, he couldn't save the declining country.
During the year of great disaster, there was a peasant uprising. Finally, this emperor with great ambition hanged himself on Meishan behind the imperial palace.
Before he died, he said that he had no face to meet his ancestors in the underworld. So he took off his imperial clothes, let his hair loose and covered his face... Wasn't this exactly the appearance of the white-clothed hanged ghost in front of him?
Hearing my question, the hanged ghost showed a bitter smile on his face.
"Actually... there's still someone who remembers my name!"
He let out a long sigh. "For so many years... I've been hiding here. I didn't dare to go to the underworld. Why do you have to disturb my peace?"
As he said that, the thunder light that imprisoned him on his body suddenly exploded. The originally somewhat elegant soul body immediately swelled up countless times and roared towards Si Jiangchen and me. "There are so many treasures hidden here, but you don't take them! You have to find the spell that is the only thing that allows me to exist in this world! Don't push people too far!"
"Hehe..."
Si Jiangchen beside me gave a cold laugh. "So, it's on you!!"