Chapter 7

Tang Qingyu lightened his footsteps and carefully climbed up the slope. The deeper he went, the more he found that the entire passage was well-developed.

Some of the irregular caves did not seem to be man-made, but were connected by a tunnel.

Tang Qingyu thought that when Wang Chongyang was building Gu Mu, it must have taken a lot of manpower to create this tunnel. Connecting these natural caves together would have saved a lot of effort.

There was no sunlight in the cave, and there were many forks in the tunnel. It was easy to get lost. There were also some places like the entrance of the cave that showed signs of collapse. Tang Qingyu spent a lot of effort to find the main path, and walked along it.

Just now, he was still hesitating about whether or not to move forward. However, when he thought about the collapse of the cave and the fact that there was no sign of people in the ancient tomb in the past few days, he judged that either there was no one in the ancient tomb, or the successor did not live in the ancient tomb anymore. Because even if one lived in the ancient tomb for a long time and did not go out, one still had to eat and cook.

Behind Chongyang Palace, behind Zhongnan Mountain, there was no sign of cooking smoke.

So Tang Qingyu had a preconceived conclusion in his heart — there was no one in Gu Mu.

But before he walked far, he saw a "light" in the tunnel. He thought it was a sign of human habitation. Tang Qingyu sighed in his heart and thought: It seems that the "Nine Yin Manual" was not fated to be with him. But it was a little rude that he did not bring a visiting card with him. Rashly visiting was indeed abrupt. But then he thought, people of Jianghu should not be too harsh on him.

Thinking this, Tang Qingyu was not disappointed. He only felt that it was a pleasure to be able to admire the legendary successor of the sect. He continued to walk forward boldly. But as he walked, he found that something was wrong.

The light in front of him was a little strange … it seemed to be glowing green!

A thought came to his mind. Tang Qingyu's heart trembled. He quickly walked forward until he reached the source of the light. As expected, it was a rotten skeleton. Judging from the clothes on the skeleton, it should be a woman. And the green light Tang Qingyu saw was phosphorescence, which was commonly known as ghost fire.

Corpses and skeletons were common in Jianghu. If it was in the past, Tang Qingyu would not be that scared. But in such a closed tunnel with no end in sight, with only a candle in his hand, and with this skeleton, it made Tang Qingyu, who had lived two lives, feel a little scared.

Taking a deep breath, he suppressed the fear in his heart. Tang Qingyu squatted down and carefully examined the skeleton. He found that the skeleton was facing the outside of the tunnel, which was the exit from which Tang Qingyu had crawled in. Face down, her hands on both sides of her head.

From this point of view, the woman's last action before her death should be to rush forward and fall to the ground.

Moving forward to check, Tang Qingyu found another arrow, which was the kind of arrow used to shoot arrows. It had pierced through the skeleton's back and chest. Looking at the position, it seemed to have penetrated the heart and lungs.

It seemed that this person was shot to death by an arrow while running out of the ancient tomb. And judging from the aging of the skeleton, she had been dead for at least ten or twenty years.

Bowing to the skeleton, Tang Qingyu thought, "It is fate that we met. If I return from this path, I will definitely collect the girl's body and let her rest in peace."

Death is like an extinguished lamp. The past is like a dream. No matter if she was a good or bad person in life, she should return to the earth after death and turn into mud. Her corpse should not be left here without a tombstone.

After Tang Qingyu finished paying his respects, he turned and walked deeper into the tunnel. After walking for about two hundred meters, he saw another skeleton, which was also emitting some green phosphorescence.

This time, Tang Qingyu was not surprised at all.

Looking carefully, judging from the peach-pink clothes that were half-rotten, the skeleton in front of him should also be a woman. The woman held a bow in her left hand, an arrow in her right hand, and a quiver on her back. From the rotting clothes, he could see the broken sternum.

The skeleton was leaning against the wall in a sitting position. The shape of the broken sternum was similar to the size of a human palm … If Tang Qingyu guessed correctly, this woman's heart meridian was broken by a palm strike and died. And judging from the aging of the skeleton, it should be about the same time as the previous female skeleton.

Let's call this woman who died in a sitting position the second female, and the one who died from an arrow the first female.

The second female had a bow and arrow, and died behind the first female. The first female died from an arrow through her chest, so it was very likely that the second female killed the first female with an arrow. The first female's head was facing out of the tunnel, clearly wanting to leave the tomb. From the way she died, the first female didn't seem to notice that there was an attack behind her … Both the first and second female had died in the tunnel for so many years without anyone collecting their corpses, which probably meant that there was no one else alive here. The second female's sternum was broken, so it was very likely that she was injured by the first female. The first female thought that the second female's heart meridian was broken and there was no one else in the tomb, so she walked out and was killed by the arrow.

The first and second female leads were both martial artists. The evidence was that the first female lead's corpse was 300 steps away from the second female lead, which was around 200 meters in Wulin Legend. To be able to shoot an arrow at such a distance and still be able to pierce through the chest, it would be very difficult for a non-martial artist to do so if the shooter was a woman.

However, these were all just Tang Qingyu's guesses. He couldn't rule out the possibility that the second female was injured by someone else and ran out to kill the first female.

Tang Qingyu lowered his sleeves and bowed to the second female lead's skeleton, silently promising that he would collect her body on the way back. Then he continued to walk forward, but soon he couldn't go any further, because there was no road ahead. There was only a wall in front of him!

He frowned and looked at the wall. It was a huge stone block in front of a tunnel. The four sides of the tunnel were inlaid with stone slabs, the same kind of stone that blocked the tunnel outside.

He used a candle to light it up and saw that the stone door blocked the tunnel completely. There was no way for anyone to squeeze through.

Tang Qingyu walked back and forth a few more times and found that there was indeed no other way out at the end of the tunnel. Thinking that there might be some clues around the first and second female leads, he turned back to check on the two skeletons, but found nothing.

Standing in front of the second female lead's body, Tang Qingyu, who was holding a candle, stood up and sighed.

He still didn't find any clues, so … he had to go back the way he came?

Just as he thought that, he saw some faint words on the wall that the second female's corpse was leaning against. Because Tang Qingyu had been focused on the skeletons, he didn't notice the wall. Plus, the candlelight was dim, so he didn't see anything.

Now that he looked at it carefully, he saw that the words seemed to be carved on the stone wall with something. He looked down at the arrow in the second female's right hand. There was no one here, and the words were on the wall behind her. Did she use the head of the arrow to carve the words?

Reading carefully, he saw the beginning of the words: "The fifth generation disciple of the Ancient Tombs, Ling Wan, respectfully greets the people of Jianghu: Misfortune befalls our sect …"

It turned out that when the fifth generation disciple of the Ancient Tombs, Miss Yang, passed away, it was similar to Lin Chaoying's death. Because she didn't take in any disciples, she left the tomb to her maids. Miss Yang's internal strength was outstanding. When she passed away, she was already an old woman in her seventies. Many of her maids had died before her, leaving only four who were much younger than her alive.

When Miss Yang passed away, she told the four maids that unless something big happened, they were not allowed to leave the tomb.

Two of the four maids were already in their fifties, while one of the remaining two was close to forty and the other had just turned thirty. The one who carved the words on the wall was the maid who was close to forty. Her name was Ling Wan, and the youngest one who had just turned thirty was Zhuo Yu. She was the first female lead who had her heart pierced by an arrow.

Zhuo Yu was young, and her appearance was very delicate. When Miss Yang was still around, she was afraid of the power of the Master, but when Miss Yang left, she was moved. She didn't want to stay in the tomb for the rest of her life. She repeatedly suggested that she wanted to leave the tomb and wander the Jianghu, but she was rejected by the two older sisters who didn't want to be tormented. Only Ling Wan, who was close to her age and had more common topics, sympathized with her and hesitated.

After a period of time, when she got up early one morning to freshen up and look in the mirror, Zhuo Yu suddenly found a strand of white hair on her head. She was born as beautiful as a flower, and she was lucky enough to learn profound martial arts, but she actually had white hair at such an early age before she saw the prosperity of the world. She was destined to spend the rest of her life in this ancient tomb that never saw the light of day … Provoked, Zhuo Yu was very resentful, but she knew that the two older sisters wouldn't go against the Sect Leader's will to let her go, so she became bold. She poisoned her daily meals and poisoned the two older sisters of the same sect who had brought her up like her own mother.

At that time, Ling Wan didn't eat much, and because of the friendship between the two, Zhuo Yu didn't want to hurt her, so she tricked her to go out. When Ling Wan found out that Zhuo Yu had killed the two older sisters, she was angry and shocked. She fought with Zhuo Yu. Ling Wan, who was also slightly poisoned, was shocked by Zhuo Yu's palm strike. Zhuo Yu tried to escape through the ancient tomb's tunnel, but Ling Wan, who she thought had been killed by her, held on to her last breath and chased after her with the bow and arrow in the tomb. She pulled down the tunnel door and sealed the exit. If she couldn't kill Zhuo Yu, she couldn't let the tomb be occupied by Zhuo Yu, who might come back after her death.

Ling Wan shot the unprepared Zhuo Yu to death in the tunnel with an arrow. At that time, although the Ancient Tombs had disappeared from Jianghu, there were still one or two old sects who knew that there was such a sect on Mount Zhongnan. Ling Wan gave a brief description of what had happened and engraved it on the stone wall with an arrow cluster. At the end of the text, she expressed the hope that if someone later saw this text, they would know what had happened.

After engraving these words, Ling Wan, whose heart meridian was severely injured, passed away leaning against the wall.

The text on the wall described the cause and effect in detail. After reading this text, the candle in his hand was about to burn out. Tang Qingyu took off the outer gauze clothes and wrapped the remains of Ling Wan and Zhuo Yu respectively. He thought to himself, "No matter what grudges you had when you were alive, they will all disappear when you die. I promised to collect your corpses, and I will definitely collect your corpses."