“Phew! I’m spent!” Taoist Master Chang Qing fell sitting on the ground. He looked fatigued.
His cultivation level was the lowest among the three, and the intense battle had tired him.
Tang Hao and Shabby Taoist Master had higher cultivation levels and therefore did not feel the strain. They regained their strength after taking a breather.
“That’s a lot of dumplings! I counted about forty of them. Even at such a place of blight, it should still take hundreds of corpses to produce this many dumplings.” Shabby Taoist Master said as he scanned the area.
The cave floor was a mess, covered with charred, disfigured zombies.
Tang Hao’s jade talismans possessed a lot of power and could burn a zombie to a crisp. However, the two other Taoist masters’ talismans had lesser power and could only disfigure them.
Of course, after being burned by talismans, the zombies became deader than dead.
“Let’s go further in! I want to know which wretched being constructed this place,” Shabby Taoist Master said as he led the way.
“Rearing corpses is one of the biggest taboos in the cultivation world. Only heretical sects will do this, while the typical cultivator would shy away from such practices. Of course, there are people with sinister intentions in this world. You’ve got to be more careful in the future, kid. Who knows when you might meet someone like this.”
Tang Hao nodded.
The corpse stench became more intense as they went further down the narrow path. The stink in the air almost felt sticky.
The three people’s expressions changed.
“This intensity of corpse stench… There’s something fishy!” Shabby Taoist Master’s eyebrows were locked together. He looked grim.
The path suddenly widened into a huge cavern. Wooden coffins were placed vertically around the cavern.
The coffins were black. Some were firmly nailed shut, while some were broken from within. They were placed densely together and went around the perimeter of the cavern.
They lifted their heads to see that a step was carved into the walls about a meter off the ground. There was another ring of coffins.
Another ring of coffins was seen further up.
Tang Hao counted that there were five rings of coffins in total. Each ring had about a hundred coffins.
“Goddess of Mercy in heaven!” Shabby Taoist Master exclaimed. His face displayed utter shock.
He went close to a coffin and took a closer look. His expression changed again, and he trembled out of anger. “These people… were buried alive!”
“What?” Taoist Master Chang Qing exclaimed as his complexion went pale. He walked ahead to take a look and his expression became ghastly. “Who would be so utterly devoid of conscience to bury more than five hundred people alive?” He said angrily.
Tang Hao’s expression also changed.
Those people were alive when they were nailed into the coffins. They must have suffered a period of insanity and despair before dying.
That was more than five hundred people!
Tang Hao could not imagine what sort of living hell it must have been!
“The heavens cannot tolerate such a sinful act! The only fortunate thing here is that the culprit must have been dead after so many years,” Shabby Taoist Master said indignantly.
The three people turned to look at the center of the cavern.
A coffin laid on top of a platform shaped like an altar.
The strange thing was that the coffin was not made of black wood. Rather, it was made of bronze.
“Careful, there must be something fishy about this coffin. It’s in the center of Corpse Cave. If something is inside it, it has to be a hairy zombie,” Shabby Taoist Master said.
He held the peach wood sword in his hand tighter, while he clutched several jade talismans in his other hand.
One needed jade talismans to fight hairy zombies.
Taoist Master Chang Qing was on high alert and clutched some jade talismans in his hands.
Tang Hao was also being cautious. His eyes never left the bronze coffin.
Crack! Crack!
Shabby Taoist Master inched forward carefully. When he reached in front of the platform, everyone heard a loud thwack and the lid of the coffin burst open. Then, a black silhouette pounced out of the coffin and headed straight at the Taoist master.
“It’s a hairy zombie!” The Taoist master exclaimed in surprise and took several steps back. At the same time, he flicked his wrist and threw a jade talisman.
Boom!
The jade talisman exploded and fire engulfed the silhouette.
Soon, the silhouette burst forth from the fire and continued its advance.
Hairy zombies had fortified skin and bones and held a certain level of defense against sorcery spells. A single jade talisman did not do much damage against it.
“Back down, Master!” Tang Hao yelled at Taoist Master Chang Qing. He pounced and rushed forward to Shabby Taoist Master’s aid.
Swish swish swish!
Three jade talismans flew toward the silhouette’s head.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The jade talismans exploded into balls of fire. The resulting shockwave pushed the silhouette back.
Under the firelight, Tang Hao saw clearly the hairy zombie for the first time. It was an unusually-sized zombie clad in ancient war armor wielding an oversized saber. Its body was covered in thick, black hair. Its face was savage, and its eyes glowed in a sinister blood-red light.
“Careful, kid, this dumpling is powerful!” Shabby Taoist Master yelled. He lifted his peach wood sword and poised its tip on his palm, then slashed at the zombie.
The zombie brought down its saber and broke the peach wood sword in two.
Shabby Taoist Master was stunned, then curse words rolled out of his mouth.
“F*ck! Dammit! That f*cker is strong!”
‘Careful, Master!” Tang Hao ran forward and knocked the Taoist master away.
Meanwhile, the zombie’s saber swung toward them, missing them by a hair.
“You, you, you… you bastard! You dare ruin my favorite weapon? I’ll kill you today!” The Taoist master was flustered as he got off the ground.
He flicked his wrist and threw all his jade talismans at it.
Tang Hao and Taoist Master Chang Qing also took the opportunity to empty their hands of jade talismans.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
After the fire and lightning receded, the zombie was still standing, though it was heavily damaged. The war armor was broken and the saber was shattered by lightning.
“Another round!”
Shabby Taoist Master was not happy. He retrieved his stack of yellow paper talismans and threw them as though they were free.
Tang Hao activated his sorcery and tossed balls of fire.
Under the barrage of spells, the hairy zombie finally fell. There was not a patch of undamaged skin on his body.
Shabby Taoist Master took a step forward. He took Taoist Master Chang Qing’s peach wood sword and killed it for the last time.
“Haha! That was a blast!” Shabby Taoist Master laughed. It was the first time he had squandered so many talismans, and they were jade talismans, too.
“Your talismans are amazing, kid! We’d have a much tougher battle if not for your talismans.”
Then, Shabby Taoist Master twitched when he remembered the cost of all those talismans.
“How much money was that again? One jade talisman is thirty thousand yuan. That bout just now cost us almost a million yuan.”
He cringed for a while more, then went to pick up the broken peach wood sword and placed it in his cloth bag. Then, he went up the platform to examine it closely.
He noticed something and smirked. “So it’s him! Who else could have been so malicious?”
Tang Hao and Taoist Master Chang Qing went over.
“Look here, there’s the ‘Wang’ character!” Shabby Taoist Master pointed at the coffin.
There was indeed a ‘Wang’ character on a corner of the bronze coffin.
“So it’s him, Wang Changsheng!” Taoist Master Chang Qing immediately understood.
Then, he explained to Tang Hao. “This Wang Changsheng is a notorious figure from the heretical sects. He’s from the late Ming and Qing dynasty, but he was killed by one of the founders of Mao Mountain.”
The three people burned all the coffins with fire, then left the cave.
It was already night time when they returned to the provincial city.
At dinner, Shabby Taoist Master explained the current situation of the cultivation world. Tang Hao was utterly fascinated.
They exchanged phone numbers before they parted ways.
After that, Tang Hao took a three-hour cab ride and returned to Westridge District.
