天命五劫

When the moonlight was swallowed by dark clouds, Ling Tian was crouched over a glazed jar, vomiting. In the pool of blood, golden silkworm gu writhed, their tails secreting a sticky silver thread that wove the words "Heaven's Mandate: Five Calamities" into the shape of a chain. He reached out to grasp it, but his fingertips passed through the phantom—those characters suddenly came alive, burrowing into his veins through his wrist bones.

Inside the crystal coffin, the corpse abruptly opened its eyes.

"The seventy-ninth generation…" A voice rasped from its throat, like decayed wood grinding together. Its right index finger eerily pointed toward the eastern wall of the secret chamber.

Staggering to his feet, Ling Tian felt along the wall until his fingers touched a coin-sized indentation—an engraved trigram with the word "Kan" at its center, its edges stained with fresh blood.

The clones inside the glazed jars suddenly turned their heads in unison. Their pupils fractured into octagonal patterns, and the liquid in the jars boiled like scalding oil. Ling Tian snatched up The Manual of Heavenly Craft and stuffed it into his robe. As the pages brushed against his palm, a sharp pain cut through his skin—it was bound in human leather, with a name tattooed on the inner cover: his mother's.

A secret passage yawned open in the direction the corpse had pointed, a rancid stench thick with iron rust billowing out. Along the corridor, desiccated test subjects hung from hooks, their skin branded with numbers: 78, 77… The one closest to the exit was missing a piece of its left earlobe—the same assassin who had hunted him three days ago.

"Boom!"

An explosion thundered from above. Tiles crumbled and fell. Ling Tian looked up to see a sliver of daylight—someone had blasted open the roof of the Ghost Market. Dozens of copper coins rained down, their holes threaded with silver strands that wove together into an eight-trigram formation. As bricks plummeted to the ground, they aligned into the "Heaven and Earth Reversed" hexagram.

"The Gate of Life at the Kan Position!" The words tore from Ling Tian's throat, as if another soul was speaking through him. He dashed toward the direction indicated by the trigram, but the floor tiles collapsed beneath him. He plunged into an even deeper abyss.

A nauseating stench of decay filled the air, yet beneath it lurked an inexplicable, mysterious scent of sandalwood. As his eyes adjusted, he saw an astonishing sight—tens of thousands of corpses arranged in precise rows, a scene both magnificent and eerie. Each corpse had a shining copper coin embedded in its heart, and from the holes in these coins, strands of red silk extended outward, intertwining and knotting together into a vast web that covered the entire cavern.

At the very center of this crimson web hung an ancient bronze coffin, its lid meticulously engraved with the Twenty-Eight Constellations—except for five positions, which were deliberately marked as empty with vermilion.

Just then, the Blood Bodhi that Ling Tian had been guarding so carefully in his robe suddenly began to sear with intense heat. He hastily tore open his garments, only to see vein-like roots sprouting wildly from his chest, stretching toward the crimson threads connecting the corpses.

At that very instant, as if reacting to the aura of the Blood Bodhi, the bronze coffin's lid violently blasted open.

Yet, instead of the expected corpse stench, a dazzling cascade of starlight burst forth, pouring down like the Milky Way. The celestial radiance bathed the red threads, infusing them with an unknown power—they snapped taut, trembling with force.

Then, an even more chilling sight unfolded.

Every single corpse raised its right arm in unison, pointing north.

"The shifting of the Purple Forbidden Enclosure, the Devouring of the Moon by the Greedy Wolf…"

A sudden, violent headache assaulted Ling Tian, crashing over him in relentless waves. Countless fragmented memories flickered in his mind like falling snow. A singular voice stood out amidst the chaos—it was his father's desperate cries.

In these memories, a three-year-old Ling Tian lay helpless on a solemn altar, his father pressing one copper coin after another into his tiny chest. Beside them, his mother sobbed hysterically, her voice hoarse with grief:

"Seventy-nine generations! When will this cursed fate finally end?"

Another explosion shattered the moment.

From the hole above, the Eastern Depot's banner troops descended—not wielding embroidered spring sabers, but brand-new firelances from the Ministry of Works.

Ling Tian flung a corpse's heart coin toward them. The coin pierced through the firelance barrel, triggering a premature explosion that ignited the corpse-web. Flames raced along the taut red threads. The burning corpses rose to their feet like marionettes, twitching and convulsing.

Through the inferno, an underground river was revealed behind a crumbling wall. Without hesitation, Ling Tian dove into the water.

As he sank, he caught a final glimpse of the pursuers' leader ripping off his own face—beneath it, his skin was covered in coin-sized tumors. The grotesque growths split open, revealing writhing silver-threaded gu, which swam through the water, forming four sinister characters:

"Jiangnan Xuan Clan."

The dark underground river raged, carrying him away until it merged seamlessly with the vast moat. When Ling Tian finally surfaced, he gasped for air, his robes drenched. But his relief was short-lived—

The Manual of Heavenly Craft, which he had guarded so carefully, was now soaked through.

With frantic hands, he flipped open its pages—new text had begun to surface, as if written in blood:

"Third quarter of the Yin Hour. Mass grave. Bring a copper coin as proof."

A shiver ran down his spine. He instinctively reached for his chest—and there, pressed against his skin, he found an object he had never noticed before.

A copper coin, engraved with a single character: "Xuan."

The clear, rhythmic beat of the night watchman's clappers echoed from afar, as if urging him forward.

Then, something unexpected happened.

The once calmly flowing moat began to freeze over at an alarming speed, sealing its surface in a thick layer of ice. Beneath the frost, hundreds of golden silkworm gu emerged, their bodies glowing with an eerie luminescence. They swarmed together, forming an ominous hexagram:

"Qian over Kun. Heaven and Earth Reversed."

Ling Tian stared at the chilling omen, his mind racing with questions.

What did this foreboding hexagram signify?

How was it connected to the message hidden in the book?

And that mysterious Xuan-engraved coin—could it be the key to unraveling everything?

One thing was certain.

This was no coincidence.