Xun Zi You verified this.

He felt that Shen Shou Xing’s behavior was inconsistent and a bit strange.

However, since Shen Shou Xing had promised, he had no reason to refuse. Originally, he wanted to enter the mine for the ink painting.

Xun Zi You restrained the sword energy within his body, cupped his hands and said, “Alright, many thanks, Elder Shen.”

Shen Shou Xing nodded with a dim gaze.

Afterward, he ordered people to fetch the mine map and then led the way towards the Shen family mine. Quite a few Shen family cultivators accompanied them.

Xun Zi You’s gaze slightly narrowed, and he followed behind them.

Gu Master also followed without hesitation.

On the other hand, Fan Jin’s steps were like lead, and his expression was hesitant.

From the bottom of his heart, he fundamentally did not want to get involved in this messy situation.

However, the Shen family, Tai Xu Gate, and the Gu family people all went. If he, as the 典司 (diǎn sī) of Gu Shan City, did not go together and fulfill his responsibility, he would truly suffer without escape if the matter were investigated afterward.

Not to mention being a 典司, he probably wouldn’t have a place to stay in the entire Qian Xue territory.

Seeing everyone walking farther and farther, Fan Jin felt anxious in his heart. Finally, he gritted his teeth, then also took heavy steps and followed the crowd.

As Shen Shou Xing and his group entered the mine, the cultivators inside Gu Shan became more numerous, and the situation also became more complex——

And in the tomb, the ink painting was still holding the compass, discerning the direction, and leading the way for Pi Er Ye, and the four black-robed cultivators with unclear identities.

Walking and walking, the ink painting suddenly stopped.

“What happened?” Hui Er Ye asked.

“I always feel like something is following us——” the ink painting said somewhat tensely.

Pi Er Ye and the others looked around.

It was black all around, with nothing at all.

“You must be mistaken,” Mouse said.

The ink painting frowned but didn’t say anything, just continued to move forward.

And in the darkness behind them, it seemed that there was indeed something rustling. At this moment, the crowd, focused on moving forward, did not detect it——

After walking for a while, a gate appeared again at the front of the tunnel.

The crowd had to stop at the gate.

“There’s still a gate?” Hui Er Ye said with a frown. “Why build so many doors inside this tomb path——”

No one could answer him.

Hui Er Ye shook his head, looked towards the ink painting, “Little brother, it’s up to you.”

“Um.” The ink painting nodded, and then as before, took out the compass and array pen, and began to deduce the array pattern and seek a method to crack it.

Hui Er Ye and the others waited patiently at the side.

The ink painting looked at the array pattern on the gate roughly several times, calculated it several times in his heart, and then knew how to break the array on this gate.

However, in order to act like a ‘normal array master’, he still pretended to work hard.

On the blank array paper, the ink painting drew stroke by stroke, with a serious expression on the surface, and perfunctory deduction inside.

While drawing, the ink painting’s heart suddenly moved, and he frowned.

“It seems… there really is something——”

From the tunnel they came from, in the midst of those darkness, there seemed to be indeed a ‘rustling’ sound. Of course, saying it was a ‘sound’ was also not quite right,

It was more like a kind of ‘common sense’ on the divine sense.

As if something sinister was crawling towards him from the midst of the darkness.

But what would it be?

The ink painting frowned.

If there was really something in the darkness, would Hui Er Ye, the tomb robbers, and those four mysterious black-robed cultivators not perceive it?

They were Jin Dan cultivators after all.

Although the ink painting had proven his way with divine sense, and his divine sense was powerful, he was only at the Zhu Ji (Zhú Jī) stage after all, and his divine sense was only at the peak of nineteen patterns. He didn’t really think that his divine sense was just stronger than Jin Dan.

What’s more, there were still seven Jin Dan.

If there was really a trick, then how could these seven people be completely unaware——

The ink painting calmed down and began to continue pretending to solve the array.

But while drawing, that sinister feeling got closer and closer, and also stronger and stronger, and clearer and clearer.

The ink painting pondered for a moment, and suddenly understood something.

But he didn’t show it, but remained calm for a moment, suddenly a shock, and looked up.

His anomaly was also detected by the others.

Everyone looked up, but the top was a black tunnel, with no light at all, and no breath either.

“Kid, what are you doing, suddenly shocked——”

The tomb robber named Mouse, with a sharp mouth and monkey-like cheeks, frowned and said, but before he finished, his face suddenly changed, and he said in shock:

“—… Er Ye!”

Hui Er Ye was somewhat unclear, but a moment later his face suddenly paled.

He felt that something was tightly sticking to his back.

Sticky, disgusting, like a lump of rotten meat wrapped in bone.

Hui Er Ye didn’t dare to move his head, and glanced back with the corner of his eye, then saw a rotten, dirty hand full of mud grabbing his shoulder.

At the same time, a gust of foul wind came from the back of his head,

It seemed that something had opened its big mouth and was biting towards his head,

In an emergency, Hui Er Ye suddenly lowered his head, avoiding the bite from behind.

And when he lowered his head, the ink painting and several others also saw the thing grabbing Hui Er Ye’s back.

That was a rotten corpse.

Deformed, withered, ugly, flowing black and foul blood, with a face whose five senses were squeezed out of shape and couldn’t be distinguished, only the mouth,

Had three cracks, like ground insect teeth, white and chilling.

When the crowd saw this scene, their expressions all changed.

And this flesh monster, having just bitten empty, immediately opened its face and its three-petaled mouth, like a meat worm, and again gnawed towards Hui Er Ye’s head.

It stuck to his back, and its movements were fast and hidden, so Hui Er Ye couldn’t deal with it for a while.

Just as the three-petaled mouth of this flesh monster was about to suck on the back of Hui Er Ye’s head, the black-robed young master beside him, with a flick of his long sleeve, sent a sharp long sword out of his hand, carrying a blood-colored sword light, and directly stabbed the monster’s face.

The swift sword body had great force.

The powerful sword energy went through the monster’s head and also with this monster, flew backward and was nailed to the stone wall of the tunnel.

But even with its head penetrated, this monster was still alive and twitching, still struggling, and even not long after, it struggled to climb up, emitting strange calls, regardless of the splashing black blood, regardless of the blurred flesh, and directly pulled its bloody and deformed head out from the middle of the long sword.

Like pulling down a meatball from a skewer.

Seeing it about to pounce again, the short and sturdy tomb robber nicknamed ‘Stone’ immediately rushed forward, operating his spiritual power, covering his right arm with a layer of soil and stone armor, and one punch blasted this flesh monster into 残肢 (cán zhī – scattered limbs).

The monster’s 残肢 were scattered all over the ground, still wriggling.

But they did not aggregate again, nor did they continue to pounce and kill.

The crowd breathed a sigh of relief.

But before they could fully sigh, the ink painting then shouted again: “Head!”

Hui Er Ye looked up, and a pool of flesh fell on his face.

This was another one, with a slightly smaller body, but the same three-petaled mouth, a fleshy, foul, rotten corpse-like monster.

There were originally two of these monsters.

One followed behind, and one grabbed onto the top of the tunnel.

The first one was killed, and everyone only relaxed for a moment, and then this other one suddenly appeared and pounced on Hui Er Ye’s head.

This change was more sudden, and Hui Er Ye fundamentally had no time to react, and then was jumped on the face by this monster.

The monster’s insect teeth bloomed, and three rows of sharp teeth directly bit Hui Er Ye’s forehead.

But the expected scene of flesh exploding did not occur. This monster’s three-petaled mouth exerted force and bit down, but only bit open a little.

Although its teeth were sharp enough, it seemed that it was still only a two-grade monster and could not bite through Hui Er Ye’s Jin Dan realm flesh.

The white and chilling sharp teeth and mouth only left several teeth marks on Hui Er Ye’s forehead, bringing out a string of blood.

But even so, this monster was still greedy and sucking, not letting go.

Hui Er Ye’s shocked soul just settled, and then anger rose from his heart.

He stretched out both hands, directly pinched the monster, and tore it rotten, then endured the disgust and pulled its three-petaled mouth off his face.

Stone took out a bottle of unknown spiritual liquid and handed it to Hui Er Ye.

Hui Er Ye poured the spiritual liquid down his head, washing off the rotten meat and foul blood.

After that, he didn’t dare to be careless, and immediately took out a bottle of green medicine powder, poured it on the wound, and again took several pills internally, then sat in meditation and inwardly viewed,

Confirming that his flesh and spiritual power were fine, and there was no sign of being poisoned by Corpse Poison, only then did he let out a long breath.

The black-robed young master beside him, seeing the situation, condensed his gaze and asked: “Is it okay?”

Hui Er Ye nodded and said somewhat fortunately: “Fortunately, this thing is only two-grade, if it were three-grade, I would probably have to confess here in this life.”

Moreover, suffering this monster’s gnawing would probably be a miserable death, a true death without a burial place.

“What exactly is this monster?” the black-robed young master frowned and asked.

Hui Er Ye’s face was grim,

, “Probably a kind of ‘Corpse Harbinger’ inside the tomb.”

“Corpse Harbinger——”

The black-robed young master pondered for a moment, frowned and said: “This kind of Corpse Harbinger seems completely different from the copper corpses and iron corpses refined by magic path refine corpse methods. Hui Er Ye has been exploring tombs year-round and knows quite a lot about the strange things inside tombs. And his line was originally gray, and he also dealt with quite a few magic cultivators, then nodded and said:

“Copper corpses and iron corpses are ‘zombies’ refined by magic cultivators. But this Corpse Harbinger is different. Most Corpse Harbingers are naturally generated in the dark underground, in an environment where evil energy, yin energy, and dead energy intertwine, and they undergo strange transformations, becoming yin, toxic, and bizarre.”

“Zombies are carried by corpse cultivators, but this kind of Corpse Harbinger is generally only found in tombs. If you don’t go down into a tomb, you basically won’t encounter them.”

The black-robed young master nodded slightly, then said strangely: “Between heaven and earth, all things have breath. Demons have demon energy, magic has magic energy. Since this Corpse Harbinger is a ‘corpse’, it naturally should have ‘corpse energy’.”

“Moreover, this Corpse Harbinger is imprisoned underground, and its corpse energy is thick, and its flesh is rotten to this extent, and it smells extremely pungent. Why did we not detect it at all?”

“This—”

Hui Er Ye frowned, also unable to explain clearly.

Corpse Harbingers are also divided into many kinds.

Some Corpse Harbingers have the same foul smell, with overwhelming corpse energy, and can be perceived from very far away.

But inside this tomb, for some reason, the energy seemed so hidden,

Just at this time, the black-robed old man among the crowd suddenly opened his mouth.

This was the first time he had spoken since going down into the tomb. His voice was abnormally old, and it exuded a deep, heavy dead energy:

“Life and death are all creations of heaven and earth. This kind of ‘Corpse Harbinger’ gathers innate resentment energy, earth yin energy, and dead evil energy, and transforms under coincidence.”

“This is a creation of heaven and earth.”

“Things generated by heaven and earth, whether living or dead, all have ‘ingenious craftsmanship’. Therefore, compared to copper corpses and iron corpses, they are always somewhat difficult to grasp. This point is unmatched by things refined by cultivators.”

The black-robed young master pondered for a moment, nodded, and cupped his hands in a salute:

“Junior receives the teaching.”

Even the ink painting was surprised in his heart when he heard these words.

This old man wearing a black robe and not showing his face indeed had an extraordinary understanding of the great dao of heaven and earth.

He didn’t know exactly who he was——

The ink painting muttered in his heart.

But even so, to the crowd, these Corpse Harbingers were still a big problem.

Stone beside him whispered to Hui Er Ye: “Er Ye, this is still in the outer edge of the tomb, and this kind of Corpse Harbinger has appeared. There are probably more inside, and it is even possible that there are three-grade ones——”

Stone’s expression was somewhat fearful.

Hui Er Ye’s brows furrowed tightly, and after a moment, his eyes revealed a sharp light, and he said in a deep voice:

“No big tomb, no Harbinger. The more evil, the more it proves that this tomb is buried with a noble, and there are more good things inside.”

Stone nodded and said no more.

The business of tomb robbing is like this, the higher the benefit, the greater the risk.

Similarly, the greater the risk, it also indicates that the possible benefits are more abundant.

Wealth and honor are sought in danger, they all understand.

After that, the crowd prepared to set off.

The ink painting continued to solve the array, thinking about opening the gate.

Hui Er Ye still sat at the side adjusting his breathing.

He was an old hand in this line and knew that the things inside tombs were full of strangeness everywhere. He didn’t take it lightly just because the Corpse Harbinger was only two-grade just now.

Some Jin Dan fellow travelers had been poisoned by unknown two-grade corpse poison and died inside the tomb.

Hui Er Ye had heard quite a few such examples.

Therefore, inside a tomb, once injured, even a small injury, it is necessary to be very careful.

Hui Er Ye sat in meditation, adjusting his injuries.

And the ink painting was also concentrating on solving the array.

Now that the Corpse Harbinger had appeared, he was also unwilling to delay, so he pretended to grind for a while and then broke the gate array and opened the gate.

Behind the gate was still a black tunnel.

“This broken tomb, the place may be really big——” Mouse frowned and said, “Endless.”

“Time is pressing, don’t complain.” Hui Er Ye said.

He took a final look inside, checked his injury, confirmed that there was no problem and no sign of being poisoned by ‘corpse poison’, only then did he stand up and say, “Let’s go.”

The crowd again walked towards the depths of the tunnel.

The ink painting was still holding the compass and walking in front.

The crowd followed behind him.

But because of the ‘Corpse Harbinger’ matter, not only Hui Er Ye and the others, but even the four people in black robes, were all vigilant.

This Corpse Harbinger was bizarre, rotten and foul, but it was also silent, and divine sense seemed unable to detect it, making people unable to guard against it.

Therefore, the crowd was all on high alert.

Especially Hui Er Ye, just now those two Corpse Harbingers both rushed towards him, one grabbed his shoulder, and one jumped on his face, those disgusting mouths and teeth still biting his forehead.

Once bitten by a snake, he feared well ropes for ten years.

Therefore, Hui Er Ye was extra careful.

Especially since these two Corpse Harbingers were very likely just following behind them before, and followed for a long time, but everyone among them was completely unaware—

Hui Er Ye thought of this here, suddenly thought of something, and his heart leaped.

“No… Not everyone didn’t detect it——”

Hui Er Ye turned his head, looked at the ink painting, and his heart was solemn: “This boy, it seems he detected it——”

“Before coming on the road, he just said that there was something. It was very obvious that he perceived something.”

“Perhaps the perception was not clear enough, but this share of alertness to danger is rare and valuable, especially in the business of tomb robbing——”

Hui Er Ye again looked up at the ink painting.

“This is a top-quality good seedling. No matter what, I can’t let him go. I must grasp him tightly in my hand and let him sell his life for me.”

Hui Er Ye’s gaze was excited, and he looked at the ink painting deeply, then restrained his expression, pretended that nothing had happened, and guarded against everything around him.

And while Hui Er Ye was silently watching the ink painting, the ink painting was also quietly paying attention to him.

There was one thing that the ink painting didn’t say.

In Hui Er Ye’s eyes, these two Corpse Harbingers rushed towards him.

But they weren’t.

These Corpse Harbingers were actually coming for the ink painting.

Just like the nightmare he had in Gu Shan City, in the dream, many deformed vengeful souls crawled out of the deep abyss, tearing and gnawing at him.

These two Corpse Harbingers were the same.

Only, the Corpse Harbingers were a bit ‘stupid’. They knew where the ink painting was, but they didn’t seem to know exactly who the ink painting was among the crowd.

The ink painting left a part of his divine sense on Hui Er Ye’s body.

These two Corpse Harbingers just treated Hui Er Ye as him and began to grab his shoulder and jump on his face.

Of course, the ink painting also appropriately pushed and assisted a bit, such as saying a few words, rendering the atmosphere a bit, and dispersing some attention.

Or in the situation where Hui Er Ye could not avoid it, he opened his mouth to remind him and let him lift his head and expose his face for the Corpse Harbinger to gnaw.

And these Corpse Harbingers were actually not simple at all.

Almost all of their moves were aimed at the cultivators’ heads.

Once bitten on the head by them, a wisp of evil, toxic, evil thought would penetrate into the cultivators’ brains along the wound, breaking open the gate of life in the sea of consciousness.

The true ‘corpse poison’ of this Corpse Harbinger was not in the flesh and spiritual power, but in the sea of consciousness.

Just now when Hui Er Ye was bitten, a wisp of greenish-black poison thought had actually already penetrated into his sea of consciousness along his forehead.

Hui Er Ye didn’t know, and the other several people couldn’t tell, but the ink painting saw it clearly.

Of course, he was afraid that Hui Er Ye would not accept it after knowing, so he didn’t tell him, but observed Hui Er Ye’s state secretly from the side.

He was just curious before.

What kind of erosion did demonic and magical evil thoughts have on normal cultivators? Was there a gradual process? How were the specific manifestations?

Only, unfortunately, he never had the opportunity to research.

Now that a live ‘case’ was right in front of him, the ink painting naturally had to observe it carefully.

But unfortunately, after observing for so long, Hui Er Ye didn’t seem to have any abnormalities.

The ink painting guessed that either the dose of this ‘corpse poison’ evil thought was too small to exert its toxicity.

Or it was because Jin Dan cultivators had high divine sense resistance, and two-grade evil thoughts had little influence on Jin Dan realm cultivators.

Or it was just currently in the ‘incubation period’ and the symptoms were not visible.

“Let’s wait and see if there are other Corpse Harbingers that can be lured over and bite this Hui Er Ye a few more times.”

“If it’s really effective, then——” The ink painting thought for a moment, and his eyes suddenly brightened:

“I’ll just grab some evil things and try to cultivate them into ‘viruses’ like Corpse Harbingers.”

“Later, if there are bad people above Jin Dan who want to kill me and I can’t defeat them, then I’ll just find a way to throw these evil thought poisons at them unknowingly, polluting their sea of consciousness, confusing their divine sense, and corroding their dao heart——”

The ink painting’s eyes became brighter and brighter.

Then he pondered for a moment and felt that according to his idea, it should be feasible.

But all things must be verified in practice. Any idea must be verified through actual cases.

The ink painting nodded.

After that, he just led the way on one side and quietly paid attention to Hui Er Ye on the other, wanting to verify his idea of borrowing evil thoughts as ‘poison’ through Hui Er Ye’s illness.

And at this time, Hui Er Ye was still unaware, carrying the thought of imprisoning the ink painting for his own use, and walking step by step towards the depths of the tomb.