Star Trace Gate

"Whoosh!"

When that devouring power surged out of the coffin, Ren Ye could no longer suppress his inner desire. He suddenly activated his spiritual power and flew to the front of the coffin.

After standing still, he eagerly peered into the coffin, only to sense a hazy aura rising up. The scene inside the coffin became increasingly clear, but his face suddenly turned pale, and his body became extremely stiff, standing there like a statue.

"Brother, at this moment, I must sincerely congratulate you...!" Li Xiaopang was genuinely happy and excited. He followed closely behind, his mouth full of auspicious words, but after seeing the scene inside the coffin, he suddenly became dumbfounded.

"Hurrah!"

The rising, consuming aura dissipated leisurely within the palace.

The four perpetrators stood blankly beside the coffin, only to find it completely empty, devoid of any unusual phenomena or spiritual energy, containing only a jade pillow and a yellow mat laid at the bottom of the coffin.

After countless hardships and a life-or-death pursuit, they finally found the coffin of the sleeping blind man in the Divine Tomb and Immortal Palace... but in the end, all they found was emptiness.

Inside the coffin, there were no earth-shattering phenomena, nor were there any primordial eyes... This was truly despairing.

"This...this is impossible! There was clearly a devouring aura rising just now!" Li Xiaopang said, his face ashen. "If it really was just an empty coffin, without any living creature, how could we have sensed that aura?!"

"Ugh."

The storyteller sighed and shook his head, saying, "There are many possibilities for this phenomenon. For example, the blind man may have slept here for too long, leaving some residual devouring energy in the coffin. After being sealed away, it's not surprising that it's leaking out now. Or... this jade coffin was crafted by the Huang family to keep the blind man asleep, and some devouring power was injected into it, nourishing his body and soul over time, which is quite normal. It's even possible that this jade coffin was originally a modified magical artifact of the Huang family's ancestors, and it has long been tainted with devouring energy...!"

Upon hearing this, the four of them felt utterly dejected.

"Gudong!"

Ren felt exhausted and sat down heavily on the ground, shaking his head and saying, "I guessed wrong. Zhao Mi didn't hide the Origin Eyes in my jade coffin at all... This is troublesome. Our clues have been cut off again, and we have lost our direction."

After he finished speaking, the other three remained silent.

“That’s not right. Our previous deductions were spot on, without missing any important information.” Ren Ye frowned and said, “Just like Zhong Deng said, this coffin was made for me. For the Huang family’s inheritance, it is the most suitable vessel to nurture the power of devouring… But why didn’t Zhao Mi choose it? Could it be that he foresaw that one day I would find this place, or that someone else would find it?”

Ren Ye's face showed the pain of intense mental strain. He couldn't help but rub his face with both hands, muttering to himself, "And... what do those mysterious 'feelings' I just recalled, like the faint whispers, that huge light, that loud bang... represent?"

The Little Bad King was filled with doubts, and his mind was in turmoil once again. Unlike the three remnant souls before him, he was a traveler, a "player" who had come here to accept a mission from the Heavenly Dao. Therefore, he understood better than the other three that the "memory" he had just experienced might have actually happened to the blind man himself, but its plausible appearance now seemed to be some kind of hint from the Heavenly Dao to him.

But he really can't figure out what this hint means or what it implies.

Not far away, after pondering for a long time, the storyteller suddenly looked at Aunt Tianwei and asked, "When the blind man was asleep, he was still a child, and his memory was shallow to begin with. Coupled with a long period of sleep... this may have caused him to forget many things. But when you were asleep, you were already an adult. Didn't you remember some of the secrets of these Origin Eyes and some of the secrets of this jade coffin?"

“Yes, I don’t remember,” Aunt Tianwei answered very readily.

"…!" The storyteller looked speechless, then turned to Ren Ye and gently comforted him, "Don't be too discouraged, especially don't let your will to continue committing crimes crumble. We must persist on this wicked path until we achieve our goal!"

Ren rolled his eyes: "What time is it, and you're still in the mood for jokes?!"

“I’m not joking, but I want you to strengthen your faith.” The storyteller pointed out incisively, “You guessed wrong that the Origin’s Eyes are in the coffin, but that doesn’t mean you guessed wrong that the Origin’s Eyes are in this divine tomb… It’s almost impossible for an outsider to understand another person’s thoughts, and to be so thorough and accurate throughout the entire process.”

“Even Zhao Mi’s wife and his own mother couldn’t do this, let alone you.”

"He may have had other considerations, which is why he didn't hide the Origin Eyes in the coffin. Don't be discouraged, we'll just continue exploring this divine tomb."

“Yes, yes.” Li Xiaopang immediately comforted him, “Let me tell you, if Zhao Mi hadn’t hidden the Origin Eyes in this divine tomb, given my second uncle’s character, it’s impossible that he wouldn’t have noticed anything all these years… Let me put it this way, my second uncle is absolutely a peerless genius when it comes to gathering inside information and monitoring rival families. Take the Yin family for example, over the years, he knows exactly which of the Yin family’s female dogs has slept in the wrong bed or broken their marital vows. Think about it, could Zhao Mi have kept something as big as obtaining the Origin Eyes from my second uncle?”

"The Illusion Village is only so big; if someone farts in the east of the village, you can smell it in the west. If he's cultivating the power of devouring, he must devour the essence of powerful individuals to steadily improve. It's impossible for there to be no sound at all...!"

Although his words were rough, they were not without reason: "In short, I firmly believe that the Origin Eyes are definitely in the Divine Tomb. Because apart from this place, Zhao Mi really can't hide anywhere else safely. You should know that if it is discovered that he secretly stole your Huang Clan's inheritance, he will be hunted down by the other three clans...!"

The comfort offered by his two accomplices did indeed restore a lot of Xiao Huaiwang's confidence, and he quickly emerged from his self-doubt.

“Yes, the Divine Tomb and Immortal Palace naturally possess an aura of devouring, which happens to blend perfectly with the devouring power I inherited.” Ren Ye slowly rose and said, “Only within the Divine Tomb can Zhao Mi utilize this devouring power to nurture my inherited origin. This is simply impossible in other places. With so many limitations combined, Zhao Mi truly had no choice but to hide it here…!”

"Let's not dwell on it anymore. Let's rest here in the Green Palace for a while, and then go to other areas to explore, searching every inch of the place, without missing any corner."

“That’s right.” The storyteller nodded in approval: “Regain your confidence and continue committing crimes.”

"stable!"

Ren replied, then asked, "You came to the Tomb of the Gods to find something, didn't you? Well, after looking around, do you have a direction now?"

"What I'm looking for might be even more troublesome than what you're looking for," the storyteller sighed, then waved his hand and said, "Take care of your matter first, then I'll deal with mine."

"Alright."

After a brief exchange, the group rested briefly in the Qing Palace.

Li Xiaopang took out a lot of delicious food from his consciousness space and shared it with everyone, also paying special attention to his storyteller father.

Aunt Tianwei revisited the place and was filled with emotion. After taking only a bite, she went to her rear hall, where the coffin was kept, and looked around casually.

Ren sat cross-legged on the ground, drinking strong liquor and gnawing on roast chicken, while carefully reviewing his previous speculations in his mind.

Li Xiaopang had a big appetite and ate quickly. After whirling down four pork knuckles, he began to wander around the hall with great curiosity.

This stroll actually yielded some interesting findings!

Li Xiaopang bent down and stood on the west side of the hall, looking down at a bookshelf behind a screen, and then asked curiously, "Damn it, why are there so many broken pieces of wood here?"

"What wood chips?" Ren also came to his senses and looked up to ask.

"Come and see, right here." Li Xiaopang waved his hand.

Upon hearing this, Ren Ye stood up, walked to the west side of the main hall, passed through the screen, and stood next to Li Xiaopang.

Before them were two bookshelves, each taller than a person, made of exquisite wood, radiating a dark golden light and exuding a strong woody fragrance; they were clearly not ordinary objects.

Behind the bookshelf were the walls of the palace, a vibrant crimson, seemingly untouched by the ravages of time, like a freshly painted surface. The bookshelf held many bamboo slips and paper texts, all enveloped in clusters of iridescent light. The chubby boy, who had just been itching to pick one up, found it impossible to lift, and any contact with the iridescent light caused an unbearable burning sensation on his skin.

Perhaps it was some supreme being who used secret techniques and forbidden arts on every book and bamboo slip, so that only family members or those recognized by the power of the Great Dao could read them.

That's how Little Fatty understood it, but Ren Ye believed that everything here was an evolution of the Heavenly Dao. It was impossible for Him to allow you to travel through the secret realm and receive all of the Huang family's treasured books for free. Moreover, the Heavenly Dao might not even know what the Huang family's previous books were, so these things might all be "illusory props" that had evolved, rather than real objects.

In short, his attention was not on that, but on some scrap wood piled up next to the two bookshelves.

According to classical decorating practices, the ancients valued symmetry. For example, if there were three foot basins on the east side, there should also be three on the west side. But what's strange is that there are six bookshelves on the east side of this bedroom, but only five on the west side.

Furthermore, compared to the east side, there is one less screen here, which makes it look very out of place.

In addition, the left side of these two bookshelves is empty, and about one bookshelf away, there are three more bookshelves to the left.

This means that a bookshelf and a screen should have disappeared, while a pile of broken wood is placed in the empty space to the left of the two bookshelves.

Ren slowly bent down, reached out and picked up some broken pieces of wood next to the bookshelf, then carefully stroked and felt them.

These wood chips vary in length, but their texture and feel are consistent with the materials used for the bookshelves and screens.

He tried to break a relatively long piece of wood with his hands, but found that even with the physical strength of a third-grade cultivator, he could not break it, which was enough to show that the wood was extremely hard.

“These broken pieces of wood must have been left here after the screen and bookshelf broke.” Li Xiaopang also noticed the clue and squatted down to say, “However, how could such a sturdy bookshelf suddenly break?! Besides, there are no outsiders in this tomb... Even if it broke, it shouldn’t have been so neatly collected in this corner.”

Ren ignored him, holding the wood in his hand, and instinctively looked back at the place where the jade coffin was suspended. He then discovered that his "view" was not blocked. From here to the jade coffin, there was a straight parabola. There was no screen or bookshelf.

"Yes, nobody comes here. How could the bookshelves and screens have been completely destroyed...!"

His heart was filled with doubt, as if he had grasped something, yet he was also unsure of it.

Seeing this, Li Xiaopang was immediately disheartened and said, "Damn it, does this mean... anyone can enter this divine tomb? I wonder how many people have secretly come here, but only my Li family is foolish enough to abide by the rules and dare not take a single step in?"