Hearing Master Longbrow’s warning, Ye Qiu looked ahead and gasped.
Before them lay a vast graveyard.
Countless graves, tightly packed, overgrown with weeds, utterly desolate.
There had to be thousands!
Each grave had a rusty sword thrust into its mound.
It was clear these graves were ancient.
“Good heavens, why are there so many graves here?” Master Longbrow exclaimed. “Who knows who’s buried in them?”
Ye Qiu fixed his gaze on the nearest grave, activating his Heavenly Eye, his vision piercing the soil.
The next second, his face paled.
Inside the grave was a pitch-black coffin, containing a middle-aged man.
The man, around forty or fifty, looked serene, as if sleeping, but Ye Qiu’s senses confirmed he had no life signs.
He then looked at another grave.
It was much the same.
Another black coffin, this time with a young man inside.
The youth, dressed in white, was handsome, eyes closed, as if in slumber.
“Little brat, what are you looking at?”
Master Longbrow noticed Ye Qiu staring at the graves, blinking intently, and asked curiously.
“Be quiet.”
Ye Qiu’s eyes continued scanning the graves, one by one, for a full half-hour, examining all of them.
Three thousand graves exactly!
Each contained a coffin with a body—men and women, old and young. Though lifeless, none showed decay, as if locked in eternal sleep.
“Old man, how long do you think these graves have been here?” Ye Qiu asked.
Master Longbrow thought for a moment. “From my perspective, at least a few hundred years.”
“Maybe even over a thousand.”
“Little brat, did you find something?”
Ye Qiu said, “I counted just now. There are exactly three thousand graves, each with a body inside, but…”
“But what?” Master Longbrow asked eagerly.
Ye Qiu said, “The bodies in the graves aren’t decayed. They look serene, like they’re just sleeping.”
“Impossible!” Master Longbrow said. “Even if they died a few hundred years ago, they should be bones by now. No decay is impossible.”
Ye Qiu said, “The truth is, these bodies are perfectly intact.”
“Little brat, are you serious? You’re not joking with me?”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
Master Longbrow frowned. “Could it be that Dragon Tiger Mountain’s records are true? Was Shu Mountain really wiped out overnight?”
“Are these the graves of Shu Mountain’s three thousand sword cultivators?”
“By the way, little brat, what’s the cause of death?”
Ye Qiu shook his head. “I didn’t examine closely, so I can’t tell yet, but I can confirm there are no external injuries.”
“Forget it, let’s not worry about them. Finding the dragon vein is more important.”
“Old man, you’re skilled in geomancy. Can you locate the dragon vein here?”
Master Longbrow hesitated, then said, “Little brat, let’s keep moving forward.”
With that, he stepped onto the grassy path between the graves.
Ye Qiu followed, feeling something off. He thought, *The old man looked like he wanted to say something but held back. What was it?*
*Is there something wrong with the dragon vein here?*
Following Master Longbrow, they wove through the dense graves, both quietly observing.
“Little brat, why does every grave have a sword on it?” Master Longbrow asked, puzzled.
Ye Qiu said, “I noticed earlier that the swords on each grave vary slightly in length and style. Perhaps these were the weapons of the deceased, buried with them.”
The weapons of Shu Mountain’s sword cultivators?
Master Longbrow’s eyes lit up. He pulled a rusty sword from a grave.
“What are you doing?” Ye Qiu said. “Old man, you’re not even sparing the dead’s belongings?”
“Is that a problem? Have you never taken things from the dead? Last year, you took a top-grade white jade coffin from the Dragon Clan’s ancestral tomb.”
Ye Qiu said, “That coffin went to the Underworld Palace.”
“Hmph, you’d give it to the Underworld Palace but not to me. Heartless!”
Master Longbrow added, “I just want to see what kind of weapons Shu Mountain’s sword cultivators used.”
He flicked the scabbard with his finger.
*Clang—*
The sword trembled, rust flaking off, revealing a simple, ancient long sword.
The scabbard bore two seal characters: “Shu Mountain!”
Master Longbrow gripped the hilt and pulled hard. With a *shing*, the sword’s cry was like a dragon’s roar.
The sword was unsheathed.
Master Longbrow looked closely. The blade, forged from bronze, gleamed like flowing water, exuding a chilling aura.
“Good sword!”
Master Longbrow touched the blade, and a cut appeared on his finger.
“So sharp!”
He said, “Little brat, this sword’s sharpness is probably not much less than your Emperor Sword.”
Ye Qiu infused true qi into his fingertip and flicked the blade, producing a crisp sword hum.
“Indeed a fine sword!” Ye Qiu marveled.
Master Longbrow said, “I just pulled out a random sword, and it’s this impressive. It shows how glorious Shu Mountain once was.”
Ye Qiu sighed deeply. “What a pity, such a great sect fallen to this.”
“Indeed. Back then, our Dragon Tiger Mountain, as the ancestral court of Taoism, was so glorious. Now, we’re not even as good as Wudang Mountain. Sad! Lamentable!”
Master Longbrow finished, returned the sword to its scabbard, and placed it back on the grave.
“Why put it back?” Ye Qiu asked.
Master Longbrow said, “To be honest, this sword is great. I like it. I even want to take all the swords here.”
“But I have my principles.”
“Let this sword stay with its master.”
By now, the sky had darkened, not a star in sight, the blackness suffocating.
All was silent, not a sound around.
Eerily quiet.
Ye Qiu suddenly thought of something. “Old man, if Shu Mountain was completely wiped out, who buried these sword cultivators?”
Master Longbrow’s heart jolted. “Little brat, are you saying there are survivors in Shu Mountain?”
Just then.
Abruptly, footsteps echoed.
