Chapter 62: The Black Coffin

Looking at the Soul-Suppressing Talisman before me, an inexplicable sense of tension arose in my heart.

What Lvyuo had just said was likely the truth.

This top floor indeed did not look like anyone had been here.

As for the Soul-Suppressing Talisman on the iron door, it must have been left behind by some high-ranking master of profound arts.

The lines of the talisman were clear and distinct, drawn using fresh blood as the catalyst.

This was sufficient to prove that the person who drew it was an peerless expert with heaven-defying abilities.

The reason he did not enter to subdue the fiend was probably due to some misgivings.

As for what those misgivings were?

I did not have an exact answer in my mind.

However, I could be certain that the entity inside possessed extraordinarily formidable power.

At the very least, the place where it resided was a forbidden zone that the owner of the women's club dared not touch.

"Qiyue, now you know how terrifying this evil entity is. Hurry back! Given your cultivation, you are no match for it at all."

Lvyuo shouted at me from the side. It was clear that she didn't want me to die here either.

"Find a place to hide. No matter what kind of monster is inside, I must go in and meet it."

With that, I walked up to the iron door on the top floor and prepared to remove the talisman.

The expert who drew the talisman with fresh blood possessed formidable strength.

I had no idea whether I could successfully remove the Soul-Suppressing Talisman from the iron door, but for Liu Qingqing's sake, and for my own, I had to go in and investigate.

"Divine power through all directions, the laws obey nine chapters. The talisman transmits from heaven, exterminate every ghost and fiend. Essence of yin and yang, divine might hidden in the heart. All methods originate from me, let the talisman open and disperse your might!"

I put my palms together and earnestly chanted the incantation.

As my voice fell, a golden light rapidly emanated from the Soul-Suppressing Talisman, slowly detaching itself from the door it was pasted upon.

With the door unlocked, I shoved forward fiercely, pushing open the heavy, tightly sealed iron door.

Yet the moment I stepped inside, the wide-open iron door swung back and resealed itself.

That was truly interesting.

Even Lvyuo, hiding in the hallway, was left dumbfounded upon witnessing such a display of my power.

At that moment, the look she cast toward me filled with awe.

Stepping into the top floor, I found it exceptionally quiet; the sound of my own footsteps echoed clearly.

The most eerie part was that, as I took step after step forward, numerous lit lamps suddenly appeared in the open space on both sides of my body.

The emergence of this phenomenon somewhat exceeded my expectations.

I lowered my head to look—these were not ordinary lights, but numerous oil lamps.

Taking a slight sniff, the fuel burning within these lamps was most likely grease harvested from mermen in the South China Sea.

According to records in the "Hundred Volumes of the Treasury of Sutras," South China Sea mermen possessed a ferocious nature and frequently attacked ships navigating the deep sea.

Their bodies were exceptionally rich in fat, which was said to burn for ten thousand years without extinguishing.

While such a claim sounded somewhat exaggerated, based on my observation, the merman oil in these lamps burning for another hundred years would pose no problem at all.

I carefully surveyed my surroundings and counted every single lit oil lamp around me.

Neither more nor less, there were precisely eighty-one of them.

These oil lamps were also known as ever-burning lamps, the netherworld lights guiding lost souls.

Yet to suddenly light eighty-one of them and use South China Sea merman oil defied common sense.

I surmised this must be yet another bizarre formation.

An even more shocking sight manifested before me at that very moment: beneath each and every lit ever-burning lamp, a small child lay prostrate.

This scene sent a jolt through my heart, causing my brow to furrow tightly.

With eighty-one kerosene lamps in this place, it implied there were eighty-one children's corpses.

No wonder the yin energy here was so dense; with so many wrongfully dead children gathered here, how could the yin energy not be overwhelming?

Gazing upon the corpses of these deceased children, I felt a deep sense of pity for them.

They should have been enjoying the prime of their lives, yet now they were lonely and bound within this top-floor room.

For them, this was simply too agonizing.

To be honest, I now held a shred of admiration for the feng shui master who had set up this formation.

For an ordinary person to nurture even a single child ghost required immense accumulated virtue.

Yet this fellow had nurtured eighty-one of them all at once; that was truly formidable.

It seemed the forces behind this women's club were indeed powerful.

No wonder they had set up a Blindfolding Formation within the club to prevent outsiders from peering into the situation inside.

If the affairs here were to leak out, it would likely cause a massive sensation throughout the entire feng shui community.

However, while I was shocked, I did not let it completely overwhelm me.

My purpose in coming here was to find where the child ghost mark on Liu Qingqing's forehead originated.

She could not die!

At this moment, I could also conclude that the Soul-Suppressing Talisman on the iron door was not meant to suppress these child ghosts.

Bound here as they were, they were clearly under the control of another feng shui master.

Once I found the mastermind behind the scenes, all of this would seemingly unravel itself.

I walked in circles around these ever-burning lamps and the infant corpses beneath them, searching for any hidden secrets.

Yet after pacing around several times, I could not spot anything amiss.

It appeared these child ghosts had been deliberately stored here by someone.

Could it be that the child ghosts clinging to the necks of the male technicians in the club all originated from this place?

If that were the case, it could only mean the club owner was a person of immense audacity.

Pity that I had not brought any ritual instruments inside with me.

Otherwise, aided by such tools, I would likely have been able to comprehend the situation more thoroughly.

I pulled out my phone and checked the time.

Twenty minutes had already passed, leaving me with merely ten minutes out of the half-hour limit she had given me.

Just as I prepared to retreat and head to Liu Qingqing's house to review the security footage, a thought flashed sharply through my mind, making me instantly halt in my tracks.

I recalled the incident where Chen Hongyi had previously tried to kill me using an imp; he had been refined into an evil ghost, wielded as a sharp blade to harm others.

It was highly likely that the eighty-one child ghosts here had all been refined into evil ghosts, destined to fulfill some special ritual or formation.

Their purpose in being here was probably to pacify the true evil entity concealed within.

Yet if these eighty-one child ghosts formed a formation, where would the core of the formation be?

My heart grew urgent.

I was now only a single step away from solving this mystery.

Where could the core be hidden?

My gaze swept back and forth unceasingly, desperate to locate the eye of this formation.

Yet after searching for a long while, I gained not a single shred of harvest.

What should I do?

Anxiety began to grip me.

However, I quickly devised a solution. Even without a Luopan compass, I could use my own body as a compass to sense the eight trigram directions.

I extended my arms straight and began to rotate slowly.

I would treat myself as a compass to locate the gate of life and the gate of death for this formation.

Only after finding both could I pinpoint where the eye of the formation lay.

As I spun around, I gradually sensed a strange aura enveloping me.

Soon enough, I opened my eyes.

I had found the position of the gate of life, and using it, I quickly determined the location of the gate of death.

Yet at that very moment, I found myself plunged into internal conflict.

If I were to release this fiend, how would I ever subdue it?

Thinking of this, I felt the pockets of my clothing.

Inside rested items capable of preserving my life.

After careful deliberation, I ultimately decided to flush this evil entity out.

For only by doing so could Liu Qingqing be saved, and only then could I obtain the items my grandfather had left behind for me.

Otherwise, Liu Qingqing would not survive much longer.

Having made up my mind, I slowly walked over to the glowing ever-burning lamps.

I twisted each of the candle lamps that marked the position of the gate of death.

Amidst the creaking and groaning of iron chains, an immensely massive shadow slowly materialized above my head.

Illuminated by the ever-burning lamps, this shadow appeared exceptionally gargantuan.

The sight filled me with profound terror.

Raising my head, I watched as a pitch-black coffin was slowly lowered, finally coming to suspend directly before me.

I scrutinized this black coffin closely; its surface was covered in bizarrely written inscriptions and talismans.

The presence of such objects made me acutely aware of the extreme peril harbored within this black coffin.

Yet there was no alternative—for Liu Qingqing's sake, and for my own, I had to open this coffin.

I needed to see what manner of entity was locked inside, requiring a formation crafted from the corpses of eighty-one children!

That was simply too ruthless!