The words Feng Ruohang said after that didn't register at all.

Even though I understood Ye Yang’s purpose, I still felt like something was off!

I paused my hand raised in the air, while Ye Yang’s sword tip gently pointed towards the ground.

In the distance, the arrows inscribed with frontier poems resonated in unison under the guidance of Ye Yang's sword, the upright energy within the verses seeming to burst forth.

I suddenly roared, "Stop! All troops retreat!"

As the underworld soldiers retreated, Ye Yang sheathed his sword, and Feng Ruohang turned to look at me, "What the hell are you doing?"

I said in a deep voice, "Qiao Gongliang, shouldn't your story be changed?"

A burst of laughter came from the top of the mountain, and Qiao Gongliang, dressed in a long robe and mandarin jacket like a storyteller, appeared in front of the tomb passage, "A promising young man! I didn't expect you to discover my plan at the most critical moment."

"Let's put it this way! I never intended to return to the underworld with you. So, you don't need to waste your efforts; leave early and you might save your lives. Otherwise, you few will be the fifth group of Yang Jian Jie Ming Ren to die by my hand."

Feng Ruohang didn't react for a moment, "What's going on?"

I said calmly, "The underworld's advancement mission can't be that simple. If we just came, confronted him, and took away the earth soul, most Jie Ming Ren could do it. Why would it be listed as an advancement mission?"

"Moreover, have you noticed a detail? How old was Qiao Gongliang when he came to the Northeast? According to Lao Liu's description, Qiao Gongliang should have been around sixty years old when he saw him."

"However, the legends about this storyteller in the martial world can be traced back decades."

"Looking at it this way, Qiao Gongliang should have been over a hundred years old when he came to the Northeast, right? A person over a hundred years old, instead of thinking about returning to his roots, traveled all the way to the Northeast. Is it really just for a letter?"

I looked at Qiao Gongliang, "I can't help but suspect that he was chased all the way to the Northeast by the Jie Ming Ren."

"If this suspicion is valid, there's no possibility for Qiao Gongliang to return to the underworld with us! A ghost who killed a Jie Ming Ren, would he dare to return to the underworld to be punished?"

"So, all the talk about ancestral wishes is a lie."

I paused there, and Qiao Gongliang looked at me with a smile, "Then what's the truth?"

I stared directly at Qiao Gongliang, "The truth is, you encountered a disciple of the Coffin Gate in the Northeast. He sealed you in a specially made coffin and buried it under 'Huagu Longmu' (Bone-Dissolving Dragon Wood), wanting to slowly wear away your bones."

"However, that disciple of the Coffin Gate didn't do a thorough job. He didn't notice that you had accomplices. Your accomplices staged a good show of the warlord digging up the grave."

"They designed to dig you out, but couldn't open the coffin to completely set you free. They could only put you in this tomb that hadn't been buried yet."

"The real owners of this tomb have already been killed by you, right?"

Qiao Gongliang nodded, "Indeed, in troubled times, lacking sufficient strength but occupying such an obvious Feng Shui treasure land, is more of a curse than a blessing for them!"

I said indifferently, "The reason you occupy this Feng Shui treasure land is to use the earth's energy to open that coffin. But you can't do it yourself. Because stories aren't omnipotent secrets. No matter how good the story, it can't become reality."

"You can trap your opponents with stories, but you can't lift your own coffin lid. So, your heart is set on finding the *Xie Guan Pu* (Cursed Coffin Manual) to open your own coffin."

"To open the coffin, you made two preparations. Your backup plan landed on the Jie Ming Ren. You have been waiting for suitable Jie Ming Ren to appear, triggering the earth's energy to impact the coffin and forcibly break it."

"Therefore, you repeatedly left clues in Du Fei's house, connecting the half-true, half-false story of the Qiulong Tomb. As long as we suspected the Qiulong Tomb, finding you would only be a matter of time."

"During this process, your real purpose in repeatedly trying to pressure me into compromising was not to let me release you, but to use the flaws in my character to achieve your goal."

"I don't want to give in, so I can only threaten you with what you care about most. And you have already given me the bargaining chip to threaten you, which is to destroy the Feng Shui here."

"If Ye Yang's sword really falls, it won't threaten you, but will give you a chance to escape. I think, when you escape, you will kill all the members of the curse group, using their stories to hold us back, and escape yourself."

Qiao Gongliang clapped lightly when he heard this, "Well said, accurate to a T."

"However, you have no other choice but to choose to break through the gate of the tomb and find me."

My face sank slightly when I heard this. Qiao Gongliang wouldn't give me such a simple choice.

Qiao Gongliang continued as expected, "Your underworld soldiers are inexhaustible, and my curse group can also be continuously injected with ghosts."

"Do you know why I have always adopted the method of elimination to constantly kill people? It is so that one day, I can negotiate terms with the underworld."