Records of the Nine Provinces Ruins

Beneath this land lie countless ancient ruins.

The mirror-like reflections of Sanxingdui, the nine tripods of Erlitou, the sunken abyss of Yunmeng, the murals of the Gobi Desert, the jade cong of Hongshan, the miasma of the Lingnan cliff caves… what our ancestors left behind were not just relics, but also a power called the breath of the ruins. Countless prayers, the lingering thoughts of the dead, and the images of contemplation are sealed within, awakening and dissipating due to the turbulence of the earth's veins, weaving a bewitching illusion.

Zhang Ziling and his four companions traveled among ancient ruins. They did not adhere to a single method of extermination, nor were they fixated on suppression and confinement: Shang contracts stabilized, ruins harmonized, Yue witches offered sacrifices, Chu spirits guided the river, painted patterns defined boundaries, jade veins continued the lineage, and Gu contracts fostered symbiosis. Each civilization held within it the path by which their ancestors coexisted with the ruins.

The inheritors of Shangqi and the explorers of Cangxu each follow their own paths, their positions intertwined, their struggles endless. On one side lies the ever-present, volatile rift of the ruins; on the other, the calculations and confrontations of various forces. They traverse ruins, deserts, miasma forests, and underwater worlds, deciphering ancient inscriptions, reconciling their chaotic thoughts, and seeking the answer to balancing the ruins and the human world within the obsessions left by history. Zhang Ziling comes from a seven-generation family of tomb raiders, whose ancestors adhered to the ancient precepts of "cautious tomb raiding, avoiding greed and injustice, and respecting heaven and earth," never indiscriminately robbing ancient tombs or disturbing spirits. In the late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China, the family retired from tomb raiding, completely withdrawing from the business, leaving only ancestral geomantic secrets, ancient tomb identification formulas, and the complete set of tomb raiding rules, passed down secretly through generations, never to be revealed to outsiders.

From a young age, he studied with his grandfather the orthodox secret arts of finding dragon veins in mountains and rivers, determining burial sites based on yin and yang, analyzing mountain veins, and finding coffins by observing qi. He was also well-versed in ancient tomb construction, funeral rites, and classic texts on mountains and rivers.