The Secret Hoard of the River Chart

The old man's corpse was bleeding from all seven orifices in the morgue, his intestines draped over the freezer. Only I could see them. Qin Jiu slammed his fist into the police station window, his Yin-Yang Eyes burning until his eyeballs nearly burst. The coroner's report said suicide, but a blood-red wraith circled above the corpse. In front of a steamed bun shop late at night, the asphalt suddenly began to seep scarlet. The Map of the Luo River, delivered by his dying adoptive father, twisted beneath the moonlight, its markings turning into oracle-bone script: The twentieth day of the fifth month of the Wuyin year, Qin Qing dies. He looked up sharply. His sister's birthday was flashing on his phone, with only 72 hours left. “Bro, there's something under my bed eating my hair!” Qin Qing's scream over the long-distance call mingled with a sticky, sloshing sound. The Blood Rabbit sprang from his backpack, its white eyes shining red and revealing green-black handprints crawling across the bathroom mirror of the villa. The rabbit, carved from ancient blood jade, suddenly spoke: “The Tomb of Fuxi has opened. Eighty-one living corpses are on their way.” “Your Qin family bloodline is the last key.” Deep in the archaeology institute's basement, Principal Li took off his gold-rimmed glasses. His pupils split into six petals. “The night your adoptive father dug up the Map of the Luo River, three thousand Yin soldiers smashed the institute's surveillance cameras. Now it's your turn.” Rain lashed the newly excavated Warring States sacrificial altar as Qin Jiu gripped a peachwood stake. The blood-red rabbit shadow swelled in the lightning, becoming a three-meter-tall beast. A golden Eight Trigrams formation appeared behind Qin Qing. “Bro, there's a line in the lining of Dad's notebook.” She tore open the yellowed page, and the oracle-bone script rose into the rain as bloody mist: Kill your kin, and you shall gain eternal life. A thunderous crash echoed from underground as bronze chains snapped. The first living corpse, dressed in a modern suit, burst from the earth. On its rotting finger was the wedding ring Qin Jiu had given his adoptive father last year.