123: Chapter 123 The Door Opens to the Underworld, Eating Evil Winds

The shriveled and blackened severed finger was pressed without hesitation by Lin Ye into the groove of the gigantic bronze gate.

"Click."

A dull mechanical interlocking sound echoed through the silent, expansive underground plaza.

The sound was not loud, yet it struck everyone's eardrums with the force of a thousand jun.

From inside the two ten-zhang-high gigantic bronze gates came a rapid and heavy series of gear grinding sounds.

The mechanisms sealed for two thousand years began to interlock and operate once more.

Large chunks of green patina peeled off the door panels, crashing onto the black rock floor below and shattering into powdery dust all over the ground.

"Rumble!"

The bronze gates slowly retreated to both sides.

As soon as a gap of less than half a meter split open, a dense grayish-black mist, mixed with the damp, fishy stench of earth buried deep underground for millennia and the odor of rotting corpses, turned into a violent hurricane that poured out directly toward everyone's faces.

This wind was bone-chillingly cold.

The wind carried a strong corrosive property.

Second Master Lei and the three tomb raiders behind him retreated in fright, while Dazhuang stumbled and fell flat on his buttocks to the ground.

In a panic, they pulled up the filters of their gas masks, tightly covering their mouths and noses, not daring to let this evil wind touch even a sliver of their skin.

Lin Ye stood at the very front, preparing to circulate his Pure Yang True Qi to prop up a protective Qi barrier.

A petite blue figure darted ahead of him first.

Frost Star, barefoot with her tender white little feet, stood firm against the wind.

The little girl raised her face, which was as exquisite as a porcelain doll.

In her heterochromatic pupils—one blue and one red—flashed a light of extreme excitement.

She opened her pink, tender little mouth and took a deep breath with force.

Facing Frost Star's abyss-like suction, the grayish-black mist—enough to instantly freeze a living person into an ice sculpture—transformed into a visible funnel-shaped cyclone, continuously swallowed into her belly.

"Hiccup ~ "

Frost Star let out a loud, satisfying burp.

She smacked her lips and stuck out her little tongue to lick the mist residue at the corners of her lips.

"So sweet! This wind carries the aroma of aged cured bacon; it's much tastier than frozen pig blood in the refrigerator."

The little girl patted her slightly bulging little belly, turned her head to flash Lin Ye a brilliant smile, her two sharp little canine teeth flashing with a bone-chilling cold light in the darkness.

Lin Ye's eye twitched wildly.

He reached out a large hand, grabbed the back collar of Frost Star's nightdress, and forcibly hauled this gluttonous little Nether Corpse King back.

"Eat, eat, eat, swallowing whatever black gas that's been expired for two thousand years into your stomach."

"This wind is full of earth-vein dead Qi mixed with bacteria. If you get a stomachache and diarrhea later, I won't wash your pants for you."

Lin Ye scolded her with exasperation, his large hand taking the opportunity to vigorously rub her silver-blue interwoven twin tails.

Frost Star pouted aggrievedly.

Following Lin Ye's force, she turned around, opened her arms, and threw herself directly into Lin Ye's embrace like a koala.

Her two slender arms tightly wrapped around Lin Ye's neck, and her two legs skillfully coiled around his waist.

"The wind inside was too dry; it made my throat itch from eating it."

"I want to drink a sip of your blood to lubricate my throat, just a tiny sip, okay?"

Her words were cooed in the softest, most spoiled tone, but her actions were not polite in the least.

Before her voice faded, her two sharp canine teeth unhesitatingly pierced the skin above Lin Ye's collarbone.

"Hiss... You little foodie!"

Lin Ye gasped a breath of cold air.

The pain brought by the sharp fangs piercing his skin was not simply physical; the extreme cold corpse Qi unique to the Nether Corpse King flowed along with the blood, violently colliding with the Pure Yang origin inside Lin Ye's body.

A tingling, electric-like thrill surged straight up his spine to his cerebral cortex.

Lin Ye did not push her away.

He supported Frost Star's back with one hand, letting the little girl greedily suck on his Pure Yang Qi and blood.

That slightly cool saliva stained the edge of the wound, stirring up a continuous itch.

Leng Yue stood beside Lin Ye.

Watching her younger sister hanging onto Lin Ye, acting spoiled and drinking blood, a trace of helplessness and indulgence flashed in her deep red eyes.

"Husband, the underground palace behind this door has a massive layout. Frost Star is young and gluttonous; if you spoil her like this, sooner or later your Yang Qi will be entirely drained dry."

Leng Yue's voice was crisp and cold, but her tone revealed a hint of gentleness and care.

Lin Ye patted Frost Star's back with one hand, the corners of his mouth curling into a casual smile.

"It's fine. This Pure Yang Dao Body of mine has no other virtues, except that it produces blood fast and has a long mana bar. Her appetite is just a pre-meal appetizer."

Having eaten a full meal of hot Pure Yang blood, Frost Star contentedly let go of her mouth.

She stuck out her tongue to lick the teeth marks on Lin Ye's collarbone twice. Under the repair of the Corpse King's saliva, the wound healed rapidly, leaving only a slightly red strawberry mark with an ambiguous hue.

The little girl jumped down from Lin Ye's body, gripped the small dark-blue bone knife once again, and stood at the very front in high spirits to pave the way.

The gigantic bronze gate completely opened to both sides.

Behind the door was a wide tomb passage leading straight down. The ground was paved with huge bluestone slabs.

Lin Ye turned his head to glance at the Ghost-Faced Water Centipede parked at the edge of the blood river.

This behemoth was tightly controlled by the Ancient Miao Military Strategy Talisman, docilely coiled in place.

"You stay here and guard the door. Without my command, you are not allowed to go anywhere," Lin Ye issued an instruction to the water centipede.

He turned around, gripped the soul-suppressing copper coin sword tightly, and took the lead by stepping into the tomb passage with his long legs.

Second Master Lei and his three subordinates, carrying heavy equipment boxes, followed behind tremblingly.

Ayugu held up a glass bottle filled with glowing fireflies, walking in the middle of the procession to provide illumination.

On the walls on both sides of the tomb passage, a bronze everlasting lamp was embedded every five meters.

The lamp oil had long since dried up, leaving only empty lamp bowls.

As everyone went deeper, rows of eerie humanoid statues began to appear on both sides of the tomb passage.

These statues knelt on both knees, their hands tied behind their backs with iron chains, and their heads lowered.

The surface of the statues was covered with a thick layer of dark yellow waxy substance.

Ayugu brought her flashlight closer to take a look, and her face instantly turned pale.

"Chief Manager! These aren't stone statues! They are real people!"

She pointed at the edge of the damaged wax layer of one of the statues.

A section of blackened, shriveled human skeleton was exposed there.

"This is the most cruel burial method of the ancient Miao frontier: pouring boiling corpse-sealing wax into prisoners of war while they are alive."

"The wax liquid flows down the throat into the internal organs, solidifying a person from the inside out into a wax corpse that will never decay."

Second Master Lei and the others felt their scalps tingle as they listened.

Dazhuang's palms holding the earth blunderbuss were full of sweat.

Walking in this tomb passage lined with hundreds of living wax corpses, the psychological pressure was extreme to the limit.

Frost Star showed no fear towards these terrifying wax corpses.

The little girl skipped along with her hands behind her back.

The brass bells on her ankles made crisp, ethereal sounds.

She walked up to a wax corpse and curiously tilted her head to examine it.

The little girl extended her tender white index finger and poked hard at the wax corpse's forehead.

"Crack."

That layer of hard wax covered for two thousand years could not withstand the Corpse King's strength, splitting open a crack on the spot.

Along with the cracking of the wax layer—

"Hiss, hiss ... "

A faint insect chirping sound came from the empty eye sockets of the wax corpse.

A highly venomous centipede with a black and red body and countless compound eyes crawled out along the nasal cavity of the wax corpse.

It opened its ferocious venomous jaws and lunged straight at Frost Star, who was close at hand.

"Watch out!" Ayugu exclaimed.

Frost Star didn't even blink an eyelid.

The corners of her pink, tender lips turned down, and an expression of extreme disgust appeared on her face.

The little girl backhanded and swung that small dark-blue bone knife.

A blade flash swept past.

"Clack."

That venomous centipede, along with half of the wax corpse's head, was chopped squarely in half by the bone knife.

Black venomous blood splashed onto the bluestone slabs, making a harsh corrosive sound.

Frost Star put away the bone knife, lifted her toe and disgustedly kicked the half head that fell to the ground.

"Daring to come out and scare people when you look so ugly, ugly rejection!"

She turned her head and complained to Lin Ye: "Brother-in-law, this toy is broken, the filling inside is all rotten bugs, no fun at all."

Lin Ye was amused by this girl's train of thought.

He stepped forward, rubbed her twin tails, and praised unsparingly:

"Well done. This strike was fast, accurate, and fierce, matching the style of law enforcement of my Taiping Street Urban Management Brigade."