I squatted on a broken cardboard box in the back alley of the antique shop, fingertips rubbing the half-piece of bronze mirror that my father had sent me before he disappeared.
The dragon pattern glowed coldly under the moonlight, and the words in blood on the back of the mirror, "Dragon Vein Revealed, Lu Family Destroyed," dragged me back to twelve years ago - it was raining heavily that day, and I watched with my own eyes as he was forced into an alley by three black cars and never came out again.
Three days ago, Su Li from the Department of Archeology, who always carried a thermos cup, suddenly blocked the door of the store. His eyes behind the lenses were like scalpels: "Lu Zhao, is your family's "Coffin Breaking Technique" missing half a volume?" In the notebook she opened, there was a dragon pattern exactly like the one on my mirror.
Underground rivers, hanging coffin formations, moving green clam guides... When I followed her into the robbery cave deep in the Qinling Mountains, I had no idea that this job would involve me in a situation spanning twenty years - from the "Tiangong Alliance" in the mouth of the elders to the capital giants entrenched in the clouds. All the clues pointed to the same place: the dragon vein that had been cut off for thousands of years was spitting out letters, waiting for us to uncover its man-eating mouth.
When the half mirror left by my father and the half volume of atlas hidden by Su Li formed a complete dragon shape on the coffin lid, I heard the sound of chains breaking above my head.
It turns out that the most terrifying thing is not the zongzi, but the ghosts hidden in people's hearts - what they want is never the dragon's veins, but to make the Lu family the last generation.
