Chapter One: Blood Awakens the Underworld Coffin
The stench of rot clung to his nostrils like a living thing.
Gu Jiuge opened his eyes, choking for breath. All he saw was crimson: a blood moon hung overhead, bathing the entire wilderness in dark red. He lay on his back on cold, hard stone slabs. Hundreds of bronze coffins floated all around him, their surfaces carved with twisted Taotie patterns. Black gauze hung through the half-open lids, and when the wind blew, it moaned like a woman weeping.
“Cough... cough!”
He pushed himself up, the sour taste of blood surging in his throat. Looking down, he saw himself immersed in a translucent liquid, a murky green substance as sticky as congealed corpse oil. It dripped from his chin onto the stone, where it hissed and ate a small hole into the surface.
“Nine Nether Coffin... I’ve been waiting for you to wake up.”
A hoarse female voice drifted down from above. Gu Jiuge jerked his head up. A woman in red stood before the nearest coffin, her long hair hiding half her face. The exposed part of her jaw was ghastly white. In her hand she clutched a silver chain like a snake’s tail, its end fastened to a piece of blood-red jade. It swayed gently with her wrist, and at the sound of its “chime,” the old scar around Gu Jiuge’s wrist suddenly burned. It was a crescent-shaped mark, now glowing gold and crimson like gold foil melting in a fire.
“It’s you?” His voice trembled. Fragments of memory suddenly flooded in: an ancient tomb on a stormy night, his father’s roar as he shoved him into a coffin: “Survive this night, and you’ll be the Gu family’s sinner!” And... and the stench of the corpse in that coffin, ten times stronger than this one, mixed with a sweet medicinal fragrance that was just like...
“Just like how you looked after soaking for seven days at the bottom of the River of Forgetfulness.” The woman chuckled. The snake-tailed silver chain whipped around his feet...
