Hu Bayi's compass suddenly spun wildly, its copper needle scraping sparks from the Ren position. What seeped from the cracks between the bricks of Heishui City wasn't corpse fluid, but blood crawling with live insects. The blood-eyed corpse that clawed its way out of the earth had sweet-smelling red liquid dripping from its empty sockets, while black bugs in its fingernails crawled into Wang Pangzi's boots.
No one knew that this zongzi was only a lure. When half of a Faqiu seal fit perfectly into the Hu family's compass, secrets from the late Qing dynasty poured out like soot ink from a tomb ceiling: the so-called orthodoxy of the Mojin captains had been fabricated, the Xiling wolf-head token was soaked in the blood of their own people, and the wolf-fang necklace of Agula, heir to the Banshan tradition, was seeping beads of cursed blood.
The Four Symbols jade talismans lay hidden deep in tombs from four dynasties. The Azure Dragon talisman brought the Mother-and-Child Curse, and the purple blisters on Wang Pangzi's ankle were crawling toward his heart. The White Tiger talisman awakened the flying-head creature aboard a sunken ship in the deep sea; its head dragged its nerves through the water as it pursued them. The Vermilion Bird talisman concealed the secrets of the Shadow Pavilion, the organization manipulating the infighting among the four factions. It intended to unleash soul-devouring insects from the earth's core, letting them consume human souls and turn the world into a living hell.
From the star-chart mechanism in the double-layered Liao tomb to the corpse-oil wax walls of the desert's lost city, Hu Bayi's entrenching tool had split open a heart used to nurture corpses, but it could not cut through the character for "regret" on Ninth Master Chen's Faqiu seal, nor could he escape the wolf-head tattoo beneath Shi Gandang's Xiling jacket. When they finally assembled the last jade talisman, they understood the Liao empress dowager's blood-written message:
"Either let the insects devour this world, or... use your own bones to mend the seal that broke a hundred years ago."
The zongzi here can imitate the sobs of the living. A teammate's wound may conceal an insect from the Shadow Pavilion, and even black donkey hooves must be prepared according to the secret Banshan recipe.
Lin Yue, Lord of Defying Fate
The Grave Robbers' Chronicles: Zhang Qiling's Ten-Year Promise
An Answer Across Time: Echoes of the Emperors in China
The Yin Emperor Rises: The Legend of the Underworld's Founding
[Bone Soil: Blood Road to the Western Heaven] Dark Journey to the West
Journey to the West: Defiant Bones, A Record of Buddha's Slaying in the Abyss of No Return