Guide to the Rebirth of the Evil Woman in the Immortal Realm - Chapter 38

The tomb passage was dim. To see the full mural, Shen Fuxin took two steps back and bumped into a warm body behind her.

Sweet and fragrant.

She knew without looking back that it was Ji Ting. Beyond Ji Ting’s customary scent of plum candy, Shen Fuxin acutely sensed a cold, murderous aura pressing against her waist—an aura she had never detected from Ji Ting before.

She went somewhere else. Shen Fuxin lowered her eyes but did not ask.

Ahead, Chu Huaizhuang and Chu Huailing finally finished taking rubbings of the small characters on the mural. Chu Huaizhuang carefully placed the rubbings into her pack and turned back to Shen Fuxin. “Let’s go take another look at the main burial chamber where the previous Emperors’ coffins are kept.”

Since they were already here, Shen Fuxin pulled her attention away from Ji Ting and agreed. The group traversed the passage to find the main burial chamber of Emperor Piao Jing. Murals lined the walls here as well; it was because of these paintings that they could confirm this was indeed the coffin of Li Kunling.

Shen Fuxin stood before the late Emperor’s massive, heavy coffin. She glanced at it and said with feigned nonchalance, “Shall we open the coffin to see that legendary War God’s sword?”

Faced with the actual tomb, the sisters hesitated. Chu Huaizhuang’s hand brushed against the dark wood. She exchanged a look with her sister and eventually shook her head. “This sword is useless to us, and it is a burial object that accompanied Emperor Piao Jing throughout her life. We have already learned some of the historical truths of thirty thousand years ago. We should not disturb the dead further.”

Shen Fuxin glanced at Ji Ting, who stood to the side acting as if nothing had happened.

The sword is on her.

Chu Huailing and Chu Huaizhuang couldn’t tell, but Shen Fuxin could. The coffin clearly showed fresh signs of having been moved. Ji Ting had come here moments ago and taken Emperor Piao Jing’s War God sword.

Ji Ting’s gaze rested blankly on the smooth coffin, her lips sealed. Since she offered no explanation, Shen Fuxin didn’t ask. Who in this world didn’t have a few secrets they didn’t want others to know?

Even when she was in the upper realm, she had thought about killing Ji Ting to silence her. Ji Ting’s current silence was only natural.

She put some distance between herself and Ji Ting, taking the lead toward another burial chamber. Noticing Shen Fuxin’s movement, Ji Ting quickly followed, her tone as gentle as ever. “Xiao Fu, why are you walking so fast? Wait for me.”

Shen Fuxin ignored her and entered a chamber that was significantly larger and more cavernous. The ceiling was very high. Compared to Emperor Piao Jing’s chamber, which was filled with crates of jewels and silk, this place was austere—even chaotic, due to the porcelain scattered all over the floor.

She intended to walk straight in but stopped the moment she saw the porcelain.

Ji Ting leaned against the chamber door behind her, peering inside. “Porcelain lotuses?”

Along this journey, the lotus had become a familiar motif. Shen Fuxin thought irrelevantly of the lotus ring Zhao Lanying always wore, the lotus leaves at the Divine Court’s banquets, and her own name.

Fuxin. The heart of the lotus.

What kind of hope had her mother held when giving her such a name?

Shen Fuxin stepped over the scattered porcelain. These pieces were a delicate celadon color, shimmering with a fluid light under her spiritual fire. The coffin here was not placed in the center like the previous room; it was tucked into the furthest corner. If they hadn’t walked in and had only looked from the doorway, they would never have found it—it was perfectly positioned in a blind spot.

She took a few steps closer, each step landing on the empty spaces on the floor.

As she saw the coffin clearly, Shen Fuxin’s eyes widened slightly.

She took another step forward, and a piece of the exquisite coffin—shaped like a petal—collapsed downward. It wasn’t until she stood directly in front of it that the coffin, designed like a budding lotus, shed its outer bronze petals to reveal its true form.

“What is this?” Ji Ting asked from behind her, sounding confused. “So many pits… it’s covered in them.”

Shen Fuxin stared at the strange, almost spherical coffin and whispered, “When the lotus petals fall away, naturally only the seedpod remains.”

Shen Sha and the Chu sisters followed them in, all of them finding the grotesque coffin hard to stomach. Not only was it nearly round, but it was also covered in dense, pitted hollows. It looked like a lotus seedpod, yet also like countless black eyes watching them.

One couldn’t look at these pits for long; Chu Huailing and Chu Huaizhuang felt dizzy after just a few glances. The main body of this seedpod-shaped coffin was a stark contrast to the scattered bronze petals. The outer petals were the height of elegance, but the pod itself was bumpy and ugly, devoid of any aesthetic appeal.

In the darkness, those countless eye-like pits seemed to stare at them gloomily.

“Who is buried here? The coffin is so disgusting,” Chu Huaizhuang muttered sacrilegiously. “Look at this, I’m getting goosebumps.”

Shen Sha didn’t understand the ancient script, but as she stood a few yards away looking at the murals, she managed to guess something. “The one buried here is the founding sovereign of the Si Dynasty, the Si Emperor.”

The Si Emperor? Shen Fuxin stared at the lotus-pod coffin, a brief flash of unease crossing her heart.

Shen Sha’s words drew the sisters to the murals. The three of them looked up together. Murals covered not just the walls but also the domed ceiling, which was lined with bronze plates carved with ornate, uneven lines.

Ji Ting spoke softly behind her, “Xiao Fu, aren’t you going to look up?”

“What’s painted there?” Ever since leaving Emperor Piao Jing’s chamber, Shen Fuxin’s mood had been sour. Now that Ji Ting had approached her, she quipped, “Is it some ‘masterpiece’ that I absolutely must see?”

Ji Ting laughed. She didn’t look up but gazed into Shen Fuxin’s eyes. “It might not be a masterpiece, but perhaps Xiao Fu will be surprised after seeing it.”

Shen Fuxin shifted her gaze from the ugly coffin to the bronze plates several yards above.

The moment she saw the mural, she froze.

Unlike the shockingly ugly coffin, the paintings on the bronze plates were exquisite, and the figures possessed a celestial air. After scanning a few panels, Shen Fuxin understood the meaning.

“This Si Emperor was a cultivator?”

In the mural, a woman dressed in Taoist robes held several lotus flowers, her other hand forming a mudra while she meditated with lowered eyes. Curiously, the mural didn’t focus on the founding Emperor; it spent far more detail outlining the lotuses.

Lotuses held in her arms, growing in ponds, offered before faceless divine statues… lotuses in every possible form.

These flowers surrounded the Si Emperor in the mural like a strange formation, providing her with a constant stream of power.

“Cultivators are rare in your Taiyin,” Shen Fuxin noted. “It seems the Si Emperor was an exception.”

“In Taiyin, and even across the entire continent, the existence of cultivators is mostly a legend from ancient times,” Chu Huailing mused. “Legends say they could ride the clouds and use magic, and a powerful cultivator could save a small nation. But those are just stories. Before you appeared, no one had actually seen one.”

Chu Huaizhuang pointed at the mural. “Isn’t she powerful enough? Look, she’s flying on clouds in the painting.”

“Not quite,” Ji Ting said, having finished examining the murals. She laughed. “Records say this ancestor only reached the Foundation Establishment stage. Even so, she lived to be one hundred and three. The combined ages of the next few Emperors didn’t even match hers.”

It felt wrong—as if this founding Emperor had plucked all the luck from her descendants and stacked it onto herself. Shen Fuxin had read the books in their library. Taiyin women were long-lived, but reaching one hundred and three was rare even there.

At that time, Taiyin’s worship was centered on the Moon Goddess and Wu Zhen. Shen Fuxin pursed her lips, watching the lotuses in the mural, and made a decision.

As a sovereign, the Si Emperor seemingly didn’t worship the Moon Goddess or the War God; she was fanatically obsessed with these lotuses. What could lotuses bring her? Or rather, if a mortal wanted to cultivate, what was the one thing they couldn’t do without?

With the example of Emperor Piao Jing burying the War God’s sword in her coffin, Shen Fuxin looked at the hideous coffin before her and had an idea.

She withdrew her gaze and waited for the others to move toward the passage. Ji Ting had things she wanted to see and take; so did she.

The moment Chu Huaizhuang and the others left the chamber, Shen Fuxin unhesitatingly closed the distance to the coffin and threw open the lid!

As her spiritual power flipped the lid, countless dark iron spheres shot toward her like lotus seeds—traps left by the ancient craftsmen. Protected by her spiritual shield, such things were minor nuisances to her. However, as the iron spheres touched her barrier, she realized they were infused with faint traces of spiritual energy.

Once the trap was spent and the lid was open, Shen Fuxin felt no psychological burden about robbing an ancestor’s grave. She didn’t even spare a glance for the corpse wrapped in gold-threaded iron silk. She reached directly for the golden lotus clutched tightly in the Si Emperor’s hand.

She tugged, but it didn’t budge. The Si Emperor’s skeletal palm was like iron, gripping the never-wilting lotus. Shen Fuxin didn’t allow anyone to compete with her for items, not even the dead. She reached down with her other hand and—snap—broke the Si Emperor’s stiff finger joints, snatching the lotus away.

The sequence of movements was fluid. She tossed her prize into her spatial bag and resealed the coffin. In the split second before the lid closed, she saw the corpse inside instantly collapse. Even the remaining bones turned into a puddle of water. In the blink of an eye, nothing was left.

What is the most indispensable thing for a cultivator? Shen Fuxin had already guessed it.

Spiritual Qi.

Her mind was a whirlpool of thoughts, but her face remained impassive as she walked out of the chamber to catch up with the others. Ji Ting seemed to have guessed what she did; she lowered her eyes slightly and gave her a beaming smile.

Shen Fuxin didn’t fall for her “honey trap.” Feeling a surge of awkwardness, she looked away.

They had only walked a few steps when a rumbling boom echoed from the Si Emperor’s chamber. Despite having done the deed, Shen Fuxin looked perfectly composed, spreading the blame equally. “Perhaps one of us accidentally stepped on a trap just now.”

Chu Huailing grew tense, and Chu Huaizhuang reacted even more strongly, reaching out to grab the powerful “Immortal Shen’s” arm. “Immortal Shen, you must save my sister and me!”

Ji Ting watched her with a half-smile, while Shen Sha stood dazed, sensing that something wasn’t quite right.

And the powerful, “benevolent” Immortal Shen gave a profound smile. “If you beg me, I’ll save you.”

Chu Huaizhuang was nothing if not adaptable. “I beg you, Immortal Shen!”

The collapse was already spreading toward them. Shen Fuxin raised her hand and blasted an opening through the imperial tomb, saying gently, “You’re lucky to have met me. Go home, burn some incense, and laugh in your sleep.”

Is that really the case? Shen Sha looked at Ji Ting as they flew upward. Seeing the identical smile on Ji Ting’s face, she silently looked away.

She had forgotten. These two were of one heart.