Zanxing (Retranslated)

Chapter 56 - The Grave of the Dead (2)

“Senior Uncle, what is the weakness of the Grave of the Dead?” Ziluo asked.

Li Danshu remained silent, looking at the person in the Clear Heart Mirror.

A red tongue shot out from the ‘mouth’ of the human face, and Zanxing jumped up to avoid it. With a puh sound, the tongue pierced through the tree in front of her.

Gradually, saliva-like fluid oozed from the mouth, and whether it was Zanxing’s imagination or not, a cunning smirk seemed to appear in the eyes of the gigantic human face beneath her feet, sending chills down her spine.

Just as Zanxing was about to raise her staff, she suddenly felt her feet sink, and a strong suction pulled her towards the ground.

The Grave of the Dead would devour anything that passed by, even a feather falling on the ground would be instantly absorbed as nourishment.

Zanxing struggled to jump up, grabbing onto a nearby tree branch. As she steadied herself, she noticed that her lower leg was dripping with blood, with a layer of skin corroded away.

This Grave of the Dead was truly formidable!

The land was mobile, and so was the face. In other words, as long as you stood on this land, you were no match for the Grave. And if you jumped into the tree…

Zanxing felt the tree slowly sinking, just like her mood at the moment.

Although she knew she wouldn’t die, the feeling of being buried alive made Zanxing’s hair stand on end.

The face under the soles of her feet seemed to be impatient. The empty eyes in the face rolled slightly and settled on Yang Zanxing, who was on the tree. Immediately, the tree under her broke in two with a snap. Zanxing had no time to dodge and nowhere to climb. Then, the red lips suddenly opened and swallowed Zanxing whole.

In and out of the Diagram, everything suddenly fell silent.

Everything happened so quickly that no one had time to react. By the time Hua Yue realized that Zanxing had been swallowed by the Grave of the Dead, Zanxing was nowhere to be seen on the ground.

“Damn it!” he roared.

Hua Yue’s purpose had always been the secret treasure hidden on Zanxing. But this demon cultivator, for some unknown reason, had swallowed the secret treasure along with the person, so wouldn’t all his previous efforts be in vain?

Outside the Clear Heart Mirror, Daoist Yueguang and his group were also stunned.

Gu Baiying, who had been lying lazily, sat up straight and frowned. “That’s it?” he asked.

Although everyone understood that Zanxing was definitely not a match for the Grave of the Dead, they didn’t expect her to be swallowed so decisively.

“With her current ranking, she should be around the top one hundred and unlikely to advance further,” Li Danshu pondered, while checking the names on the ranking stone. Suddenly, he froze. “Huh?”

“What’s wrong?” Xuan Lingzi asked.

“Why hasn’t her ranking changed?” Li Danshu frowned in confusion.

Since Zanxing had been swallowed by the Grave of the Dead, it meant she had been defeated by it and would soon be forced to leave. For Zanxing, this assessment would end here, and she wouldn’t gain any more qi. Her ranking should have dropped. But now, Zanxing’s ranking remained unchanged.

Cui Yufu also spoke up, “Why hasn’t she left yet?”

Meng Ying’s expression shifted slightly as she looked at the person in the Clear Heart Mirror.

Hua Yue hid in the trees, watching the still wriggling ground where the Grave of the Dead had swallowed Zanxing. Gradually, the area calmed down. He silently drew his sword from his waist.

Though he didn’t know the origin of this demon cultivator, being a high-level one, its qi was undoubtedly strong. With Yang Zanxing out of the competition, if he could kill this demon cultivator, the qi he would gain should significantly boost his ranking on the stone tablet.

His Nascent Soul cultivation was not useless like Zanxing’s.

With this in mind, Hua Yue suddenly brandished his sword towards the direction of the mouth on the Grave of the Dead, aiming a fierce strike!

Instead of the demon cultivator being sliced into several pieces by the sword blade, there was a deafening boom. The blood-red, stench-filled earth seemed to come alive, or rather, like a swarm of dense insects, it tightly gripped his sword and desperately dragged it towards the ground. Hua Yue found himself unable to pull it out for a moment.

Startled, before he could react, he felt the ground beneath his feet bubbling and steaming like water on a stove about to boil.

Immediately, a pained expression appeared on the gigantic face, and its mouth opened, spewing out a thick, viscous fluid, and throwing out a familiar figure.

Zanxing was thrown to the side, clutching her neck as she sat up, coughing out a large amount of slime. She took deep breaths and said, “That was suffocating!”

“Yang Zanxing?” Hua Yue exclaimed in shock. “How are you still alive?”

On the competition stage, Daoist Yueguang suddenly stood up, his face filled with disbelief. “It’s impossible!”

Yue Qin was also astonished. “Living creatures swallowed by the Grave of the Dead cannot be spit out.” Everything in the Xumi Mustard Seed Diagram, including demon cultivators, were mere manifestations of qi, with cultivation far below that of real demon cultivators. However, their appearances, habits, characteristics, and weaknesses were identical to the real ones. Anyone swallowed by the Grave of the Dead would quickly become nourishment, with no survivors. In the examination arena, once Zanxing fell into the epidemic-ridden land, her assessment would immediately end, and she would leave the stage.

But now, not only had she not left the stage, but she had also been spat out by the demonic grave.

Men Dong was standing there quietly, when he suddenly heard his senior uncle’s voice in his ear. Gu Baiying’s cold voice echoed in his ears, as he asked: “The Grave of the Dead refuses to swallow Yang Zanxing, is it because the Qinchong seeds in her?”

Men Dong was confused and replied carefully: “I don’t know, Uncle, I haven’t heard that the Qinchong have this function.”

Everyone was either surprised or shocked, each with their own guesses. Cui Yufu on the side stared at the diagram in the Clear Heart Mirror for a long time, and suddenly laughed: “I know.”

Everyone’s eyes turned to him.

“Third Senior Brother, what do you know?” Xuan Lingzi asked.

“I know why the Grave of the Dead spat this girl out.” Cui Yufu’s eyes were fixed on the person in the diagram, as he slowly opened his mouth.

“Why?” Zhao Mayi asked impatiently.

“Incense ash,” he replied softly. “Because of incense ash.”

Inside the Xumi Mustard Seed Diagram, Zanxing’s hand touched the sachet in her chest pocket, and she suddenly realized, “So it was the incense ash.”

The Grave of the Dead was originally a piece of land that had become tainted with demonic energy due to the burial of many plague-stricken people alive. It would devour any living creature that passed by, turning them into nourishment. It was practically a killing machine that attacked indiscriminately, but the dead were an exception.

To the Grave of the Dead, the dead were both nourishment and a part of it. Therefore, if something was already dead, the Tomb of the Dead would not attack it.

The day before the assessment, Zanxing had gone to pay respects to the Sage with Tian Fangfang. In addition to offering some spiritual fruits and elixirs, they also burned two stacks of paper money. Although they didn’t know if the currency of the Celestial Realm was paper, they figured it was the thought that counted. After burning the paper money, they collected some incense ash and put it in a sachet to wear around their necks, treating it as a protective charm from their ancestors.

Who knew that by sheer luck, the incense ash, which was only used to worship the dead, would make the Grave see her as one of the ‘dead’? That’s why it swallowed Zanxing and then spat her out.