Returning to the Qingyin Cemetery felt… wrong.

  The place was the same, yet utterly different.

  The first time we came, clouds pressed low, gravestones stood like teeth in the dark—

  now autumn sunlight fell bright and sharp, and the world was quiet in a way that didn’t feel natural.

  “Where is he?” I scanned the rows of stone markers.

  No sign of the old servant who’d intercepted us before.

  Even that creepy crow gnawing twigs was gone.

  Lian crouched and swept a handful of dust through her fingers, brows tightening.

  “Signs of struggle. Not wind.”

  “Struggle?” My voice shot up instantly. “Don’t tell me the old servant just got dragged off by some dog-demon-pig-ghoul hybrid—”

  “Not necessarily.” Hua’s gaze sank, sharp. “More than one group came through.”

  Before he finished, a sudden rush of wind curled behind us.

  Dry leaves skittered.

  Several figures dropped in without a sound.

  “West Altar people?” I took a half-step back.

  “No.” Lian drew his short blade, eyes gone cold. “Traitors.”

  The newcomers were masked in black, sleeves marked with the sign used by those expelled from the West Altar.

  They moved with lethal intent—no greetings, no threats, straight for the kill.

  The Deputy Envoy froze for one beat, then roared, “You ungrateful bastards!” and charged with his iron ruler.

  I moved to join him—

  but my foot slipped, my body pitched forward, and in sheer panic I grabbed a crooked gravestone beside me.

  Click.

  A very tiny, very ominous click.

  “Huh?” I stared down, halfway through saying “This rock’s weird—”

  Then the whole ground dropped out from under me.

  “HEY—HEY HEY HEY—!”

  I plummeted into darkness.

  Lian’s shout—“Careful!”—shredded through the wind—

  WHUMP.

  My head met something painfully solid, and the world blinked out.

  —

  Don’t know how long I was out.

  What came back first was the damp smell of stone, then the drip-drip of water somewhere.

  My forehead throbbed like someone used it to pound rice.

  I sat up with a groan, rubbing the back of my skull.

  “Where… am I?”

  Pitch black everywhere—no walls, no ceiling, just a faint, flickering light far ahead like a dying firefly.

  Panic crept up my spine.

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  “H-hello? Hua? Lian? Deputy Envoy? Anybody?!”

  Only the water answered me.

  Drip… drip… drip…

  Like the darkness was swallowing its own spit.

  I swallowed mine. Hard.

  I grabbed a pebble and tossed it at the light—

  no sound came back.

  Oh, that’s bad. That’s very bad.

  “System! Hey! SYSTEM! Are you alive?!” I yelled inwardly.

  Something buzzed in my mind—

  a familiar metallic chime.

  Ding.

  Not a bell.

  Not a monster.

  Just that shameless, half-dead interface of mine.

  【Environmental Scan Initiated……】

  【Warning: Host has triggered ancient-tomb mechanism and fallen into an undisclosed zone.】

  【Recommendation: Do not touch random gravestones, statues, tablets, bricks, carved tiles, or anything that CAN or MIGHT be a mechanism.】

  My eye twitched.

  “You couldn’t have said that EARLIER? I almost died!”

  【……Data loading delay. Requesting host’s understanding.】

  “Understand your—”

  I brushed dirt off me, muttering, “You always wait till I fall into some murder hole before chiming in. Can’t you show up TEN SECONDS earlier for once?”

  The system stalled, then added:

  【Trajectory status: On main route. Host has entered Hidden Plot Area.】

  “…Hidden plot?” I blinked. “All I did was touch a crooked rock.”

  Then it hit me—

  the others were gone.

  No Hua, no Lian, no Deputy Envoy.

  Was this a puzzle dungeon or a burial chamber for solo idiots?

  I sighed, groping along the wall to stand.

  “Dog-demon-pig-things want my body, my brother wants my soul, and YOU—” I jabbed a finger at the air—

  “YOU want my sanity. A perfect cosmic alignment of suffering.”

  The faint light ahead pulsed again.

  Looked like… a door?

  I edged forward.

  Stone door, tight seams, faint traces of mechanism slots.

  Suspicious. Too suspicious.

  Just as I raised a hand—

  【System Warning: Sealed passage detected. Entry possible. Confirm exploration?】

  “Why would you ask NOW? I’m already touching it!”

  Silence.

  Even the system sounded embarrassed.

  I pushed lightly.

  CRAAAACK—

  The stone slid open.

  Behind it, a long, breathless corridor.

  Cold air rushed out, smelling of old earth and older secrets.

  I shivered, but stepped inside.

  The corridor wound on and on—turns, bends, tighter turns.

  My limbs numbed, breath whittled thin.

  Then suddenly—

  fresh air.

  Moisture.

  Grass-scent.

  A breakthrough.

  I hurried ahead, turned another corner—

  And found a chamber.

  Dark stone walls.

  A narrow skylight spilling down pale light.

  Under it, a rusted wooden ladder leading upward.

  A ladder.

  A LADDER.

  I stared like it was salvation itself.

  “Does this go up?”

  【Affirmative. Passage leads to surface-level structure. Exercise caution during ascent.】

  “You could have told me both sentences at once.”

  Still, I grabbed the ladder.

  It groaned. A very alarming groan.

  But it held, and I climbed, slow as a dying snail.

  At the top, I pushed open a half-unlatched door—

  And the world opened.

  A courtyard.

  Quiet, elegant, almost serene.

  White walls. Green tiles.

  Aged pine leaning over eaves.

  A faint scent of cold incense drifting by.

  A hidden residence.

  But that wasn’t the worst part.

  Above the main hall hung a plaque—

  two words deep in dust:

  Qingyin Hall.

  My scalp exploded.

  “You’ve GOT to be kidding me.”

  But it was real.

  Stone, timber, shadow—

  all of it exactly the kind of place someone would swear didn’t exist.

  I backed up a step, muttering,

  “Don’t tell me this is my last dream before dying? The dog demon invited me for drinks and instead I fell into a coffin?”

  The system murmured suddenly:

  【Do not panic. What exists and what does not exist depends not on what you see, but on what has left its trace.】

  “I understood none of that.”

  Still clutching the doorframe, I took a breath and stepped inside.

  Qingyin Hall was dim… but spotless.

  No dust.

  A teacup on the table still steamed.

  The wind blew, but the lanterns didn’t sway.

  The doors creaked open but made no sound.

  A strange warmth crept up my spine—

  a familiarity I couldn’t place.

  Like I had been here before.

  Then it hit me so hard I almost cursed aloud.

  This—

  this was the place where that cursed yellow dog exactly invited me in!

  I froze in the doorway, eyes wide.

  “But— but wasn’t I told that Qingyin Hall doesn’t exist?!”