Chapter 243: Heavenly Fire Illuminates the Path of Heaven, Earthly Fire Illuminates the Gate of Earth!

Just as Lu Yuan’s mouthful of “ancestral fire” surged out from his chest, before the warm glow at the end of the stone path had even fully stabilized, the entire yin altar suddenly shuddered as if some giant hand had flipped it from beneath.

First came the ground.

Those white lines originally hidden in the stone cracks abruptly snapped taut, one by one, emitting a faint yet piercingly sharp “buzzing” sound, like countless old needles scraping across a bronze plate all at once.

Then, the red and white paper banners on both sides of the stone path pressed inward simultaneously. Behind the banners, the human-skinned paper faces bulged one by one, as if living breath were surging back from within.

Looking at the shrunken coffin, the lid didn’t move again. Instead, the mounds of earth, the ash circles, the incense ash, and the salt lines all around the coffin’s mouth began to sink slightly.

It felt like the entire path was sliding down into an even larger opening below.

Zhou Heng was the first to sense something wrong. He lowered his voice and called out:

“Daoist Brother Lu, the altar is closing in!”

Lu Yuan’s face was as hard as iron. His left palm was still raised high, and his right palm was pressed down flat against his chest, his entire body as if nailed into the eye of a storm.

He didn’t answer. He only gritted his teeth and forcibly raised the just-surged ancestral fire in his body by another half inch.

“Don’t panic,” he said in a low, steady voice.

“It’s not closing the altar. It’s about to flip it over.”

Song Qinghe’s face turned pale. “Flip it over?”

“Yes,” Lu Yuan said, his gaze as cold as ice.

“It first turned this section of the Wildman Ditch stone path into a yin altar. Now that I’ve forced the altar’s eye to light up, it’s going to flip the entire altar. It wants to press the people, the lamps, the ledger, the shadows, and the coffin—everything inside—to the bottom of the altar all at once.”

Lin Zhaoxuan’s forehead instantly broke out in a cold sweat. The Thunderclap Token vibrated lightly in his palm.

“If it really flips, we’ll become the incense offerings inside the altar, won’t we?”

“Exactly,” Lu Yuan said rapidly. “So we have to twist the altar’s base off course before it finishes flipping.”

Zhou Heng took a deep breath. The edge of his sword slowly lowered, but his gaze remained steady.

“What do you need me to do?”

Lu Yuan didn’t answer him immediately. Instead, he turned to look at Song Qinghe and said in a low voice:

“Miss Song, your plate isn’t just for reflecting the Yin-Yang Fish. There’s an ‘orientation function’ in its center.”

“Use it like a compass. Find me the southern vein of the altar’s base.”

Song Qinghe was stunned. “The altar’s base has a north and south?”

Lu Yuan explained rapidly:

“Every altar has an orientation, especially a yin altar.”

“This one borrows the old techniques from beyond the Great Wall’s old seat arrangements. The altar’s base is set according to the Polaris position. The main seat faces northwest, and the deadly opening falls in the southeast.”

“If it really is going to flip, the first part to close will be the ‘return seat path’ between the deadly opening and the main seat.”

“If we can pry open a corner of the return seat path first, the altar won’t be able to seal us in.”

Song Qinghe’s scalp crawled at the explanation, but she didn’t dare hesitate. She quickly brought the sealing plate to her chest and pinched its edges with both hands, twisting it slightly.

The Yin-Yang Fish on the plate had been spinning counterclockwise. She forcibly adjusted it to the main position, and the cold light immediately became extremely stable, slowly sweeping across the ground.

She said in a low voice: “To the southeast… there’s a very thin gray vein. It looks like it’s being pressed down by something.”

Lu Yuan’s eyes lit up. “That’s it!”

He abruptly stomped out three steps of inverted talisman steps, practically sliding past the salt-line. Although the short blade wasn’t drawn from its sheath, the tail of the sheath tapped lightly against the ground.

“Zhou Heng, sever the banner roots, not the banners themselves!”

“Lin Zhaoxuan, nail the thunder in the southeast, don’t strike the coffin!”

“Cheng’an, Erxiao, follow Miss Song’s plate light and scatter salt along the gray vein. Don’t deviate!”

Everyone immediately acted.

Zhou Heng’s sword rose like the wind. It swept in one stroke beneath the right-side white banner, not slashing the paper face, only severing the two strands of black thread binding the banner’s base.

As soon as the black threads were cut, the white banner instantly drooped on one side, no longer pressing inward.

Lin Zhaoxuan, on the other hand, turned the Thunderclap Token slightly sideways, aiming its tip at the deadly opening in the southeast. He recited urgently:

“Great Ancestor of the Nine Heavens Thunder, lend me a thread to nail the altar open.”

“Do not strike the coffin, do not shatter the household, only nail one inch of yin at the altar’s base!”

“There is a mouth in the southeast, seal its throat first. There is a path in the northwest, borrow its boat for now. Thunder arrives without sound, thunder arrives without roar. First sever the return seat, then sever the yin lamp!”

“Decree!”

The moment the word “decree” left his mouth, the tip of the Thunderclap Token didn’t release any thunder. Instead, only an extremely fine, thread-like white-blue electric light shot out. Like a needle, it burrowed along the crack in the ground.

*Pop!*

A small wisp of black smoke immediately rose from the southeast ground crack, like an animal hide punctured by a needle.

That gray vein had been extremely thin, but now it shuddered violently, revealing a dark brown wood grain beneath it. It looked like the altar’s skeleton had been exposed.

“We can see the wood!” Song Qinghe exclaimed.

Lu Yuan’s gaze was like a sharp blade. “Good, the altar’s skeleton is exposed.”

As he spoke, he suddenly stopped walking. He planted the sheath of his short blade on the ground and sat cross-legged in a half-kneeling position. His left palm held up the sky without moving, and his right palm slowly turned over in front of his chest.

He formed a rarely seen “Altar-Flipping Seal.”

This Altar-Flipping Seal was not an attacking mudra. It was an extremely difficult-to-use “Turning Hand Technique” within the Daoist methods.

The index finger of the left hand pressed against the back of the middle finger, the thumb hooked the base of the ring finger, and the remaining three fingers curled slightly as if holding a seal. The right palm faced downward, with five fingers naturally spread open.

It looked like he was pressing down on an invisible tabletop.

He slowly recited a spell from his mouth. His voice wasn’t loud, but each word was as steady as iron falling:

“The altar has its skeleton; the skeleton has its heart.”

“If the heart is not upright, the skeleton is not at peace.”

“I use my left hand to turn its skeleton, I use my right hand to press its heart.”

“One turn opens the yin path, one press closes the yang gate.”

“I turn until your altar’s base no longer recognizes the north; I press until your deadly opening sees no one!!”

“Rise!”

As the final word left his mouth, Lu Yuan’s right palm slammed hard against the ground.

The entire stone path let out a low, rumbling “boom.”

It wasn’t a mountain shaking, nor was it stone splitting. It sounded like some old altar tile buried deep underground had been forcefully pried loose by this strike.

The dark brown wood grain at the deadly opening in the southeast instantly arched upward, exposing half an inch of the altar skeleton’s edge.

The white lines on the ground immediately became disordered by half a circle. The altar pattern that had been converging toward the center was forcibly torn open a gap.

The seat master’s expression changed for the first time.

It stood before the coffin. Its already gaunt frame now appeared even longer, like a black wooden stake wrapped in old paper.

From its hollow eye sockets, two pale blue-white sparks slowly floated up. The moment those sparks brightened, it shifted its gaze toward the southeast.

“Someone is moving the altar’s skeleton,” it said in a low voice.

The paper-masked figure clutched the cracked ledger, its form already beginning to tremble slightly.

From the crack on its white paper mask, an oily, black liquid continuously oozed out. Clearly, as the formation was being disrupted more and more violently, it could barely hold itself together anymore.

“Seat master…” it tried to say something, but was forced to shrink back by a wisp of cold air from the coffin’s mouth.

Lu Yuan didn’t wait for the other side to react. He immediately shouted:

“Now!”

“Zhou Heng, sever the paper! Lin Zhaoxuan, suppress the lamps! Song Qinghe, follow me to flip the skeleton!”

Zhou Heng didn’t make a sound. His sword light burst forth. It didn’t strike the people; instead, it struck the edge of the ledger in the paper-masked figure’s hands.

The ledger had already been half-shredded by the earlier thunder fire and blade intent. Now, with another sword strike, the remaining pages scattered with a “whoosh.” Several torn fragments flew up, instantly swept away by the yin wind swirling back through the stone path.

As soon as the pages scattered, the pale blue-white lights on both sides of the stone path—which had been sustained by the guest ledger—immediately began to flicker.

Seeing this, Lin Zhaoxuan immediately pressed the Thunderclap Token flat and recited a “Lamp-Suppression Spell” from his mouth:

“The lamp has its root, the root is in the wick.”

“The lamp has no nameless fire; the night cannot form a gate.”

“I borrow the thunder light to suppress your wick, suppress until the pale blue-white sees no soul.”

“One breath, one nail; one nail, one sink. Nail your lamp’s mouth, don’t let it turn over!”

“Decree!”

When the Thunderclap Token pressed down, it didn’t strike the coffin or the people. It specifically brushed past the flame edges of the nearest few pale blue-white lamps.

With a few soft “puff” sounds, the lamp flames seemed to be snuffed out, shrinking by half their height.

As the lamps shrank, the shadow behind the seat master also contracted.

Lu Yuan saw it clearly and immediately shouted harshly:

“Its shadow is shrinking!”

“Hurry!”

As he spoke, he had already raised his short blade. With the tip of the blade pointing down, he followed the gray vein illuminated by Song Qinghe’s plate light and quickly scratched three extremely fine marks.

These three marks formed a “pin” shape, landing precisely on the exposed edge of the altar’s skeleton.

“The heavenly mark is the gate; the earthly mark is the lock.”

“The middle mark is the pillar. Hold this yin altar’s skeleton steady!”

“I don’t seek to open the heavens; I only seek to open a crack for you!”

“Miss Song, hold the third mark steady. Do not deviate!”

Song Qinghe had no time to be frightened. She held the plate with both hands, and the cold light of the Yin-Yang Fish steadily pressed down on the third mark.

She only felt a heat at the center of the plate, followed by a coldness, as if some extremely fine force was being drawn out of her palm to fill the altar opening Lu Yuan had cut open.

“Mr. Lu, inside the altar… it feels like something is pushing back!”

“Let it push!” Lu Yuan shouted.

“The harder it pushes, the more of the altar’s skeleton will be exposed!”

Sure enough, after only a few breaths, the wood grain edge of the deadly opening in the southeast slowly split open a capillary-sized crack.

As soon as the crack appeared, there were no treasures inside, nor was any corpse energy leaking out. Instead, a layer of gray-white, densely scaled old altar bricks was exposed.

Each of those gray bricks was carved with extremely shallow talisman patterns, looking like the “Skeleton-Suppressing Bricks” used by ancient Daoist methods to seal altars.

“This is the bottom layer of an old altar!” Lin Zhaoxuan exclaimed in shock.

“There was already an altar here originally!”

Lu Yuan’s expression was calm, but his voice grew even lower.

“It’s not that there was an altar here originally. It’s that someone borrowed an old altar to bury a new seat.”

“This Wildman Ditch scheme is older than we thought.”

As he said this, his mind flashed with a sudden realization. He immediately understood an even more terrifying fact.

This yin altar hadn’t been built in recent years. It had been layered on top of several old methods: the old temple of Liaodong, the mountain ghost seats, the guest ledger from beyond the Great Wall, the old burial grounds—all stacked together.

Its most insidious aspect wasn’t the technique itself, but the “borrowing.”

Borrowing the terrain, borrowing the old altar, borrowing people’s names, borrowing dead people’s seat arrangements. It twisted unrelated yin objects into a single line.

As long as the line didn’t break, this altar could prolong its life over and over again.

“No wonder there are lamps beneath the lamps.” A chill ran down Lu Yuan’s spine.

“It’s not one seat. It’s several seats stacked on top of each other.”

The seat master seemed to hear what he was thinking. It slowly raised its head and let out a faint chuckle.

“You’ve finally figured it out.”

“But so what if you have?”

With a flick of its sleeve, black threads shot out once again from within. This time, they didn’t scatter toward the crowd. Instead, they violently stabbed toward the newly exposed old altar bricks.

“It’s going to repair the altar’s skeleton!” Lu Yuan shouted harshly.

“Stop it!”

Zhou Heng’s long sword exploded upward. The blade swept across the air, forcefully severing the two foremost strands of black thread.

But the severed ends of the black threads didn’t fall to the ground. Instead, like ink-stained silk threads, they curled back and reconnected from another end.

Lin Zhaoxuan gritted his teeth. He raised the Thunderclap Token high. For the first time, he didn’t suppress the lamps but instead turned it toward the paper-masked figure.

“Thunder Ancestor, lend me five-tenths of your fire. Burn this paper-shelled body of his!”

“You may not be the mastermind, but you are an accomplice!”

“Once the paper shell breaks, the yin altar loses a corner!”

“Decree!”

A pale blue-white thunder silk flew out from the token’s tip. This time, it didn’t take a straight path. Instead, it arced in a half-circle around the paper-masked figure’s head and landed squarely on the right cheek of that paper mask.

*Chi la!*

The paper mask instantly turned black and curled at the edges under the thunder. The crack widened violently. A pale, bluish-gray face was revealed underneath.

That face wasn’t young. In fact, it had the somewhat refined features of a scholar.

It was just that the color beneath the skin had long drained away. The eye sockets were sunken, and the lips were thin and dry like two faded pieces of paper.

The strangest thing was a very shallow red mark on his forehead center, like the seal imprint left on someone who had received a seat mark in the old beyond the Great Wall sessions.

As soon as his true face was revealed, the seat master’s eyelids twitched slightly.

“So you were a living point,” the seat master said in a low voice.

The man’s body trembled, as if his true soul had finally been forced out of the paper shell by the thunder. His lips quivered a few times before he managed to squeeze out a tearful sentence:

“I… I didn’t mean to…”

Lu Yuan’s gaze darkened.

“So you really aren’t the mastermind.”

“You were appointed to ‘hold the ledger.’”

The man raised his head tremblingly, his eyes filled with fear. He seemed to want to say something, but was silently bound around the neck by a wisp of black thread from the seat master’s sleeve.

His expression changed drastically. A faint “gurgling” sound came from his throat.

“Save… save me…”

Lu Yuan’s gaze turned icy cold. His short blade suddenly whirled back. He struck the back of the blade against the air and shouted from his mouth:

“Bound life thread, release!”

“Lend my blade’s qi to sever your bond!”

“Open!”

As the blade’s qi surged, the black thread wrapped around the man’s neck snapped by an inch.

But at the same time, the seat master suddenly revealed an extremely faint, extremely cold smile.

“Then I’ll have you hold the ledger instead.”

As its words fell, a wet, cold sheet of paper drifted silently through the air, flying straight toward Lu Yuan’s forehead.

The ink on that sheet of paper wasn’t dry yet. Two words were faintly visible on it.

“In the Seat.”

Lu Yuan’s pupils contracted sharply. His right hand jerked the short blade upward. The copper coin on the back of the blade vibrated, and he was about to forcibly shatter that sheet of paper.

But at the instant the blade edge touched the paper, a powerful sense of alarm surged in his heart.

He couldn’t cut it.

This sheet wasn’t here to hurt him. It was here to “record” him.

Once those two words stuck to him, the yin altar would recognize him as someone on the seat.

From then on, no matter how much he slashed, broke, or drew fire, he would be seen as a guest of this altar. Any move he made would be considered “striking the seat,” equivalent to harming himself.

“Zhou Heng!” Lu Yuan let out a harsh roar, his voice nearly splitting the wind.

“Ram into the lamps for me!”

Zhou Heng was stunned for a moment. Then, he exploded into action. His entire body charged like a fierce tiger toward the nearest swaying pale blue-white lamp post.

“Break!”

The lamp post tilted. The lamp flame flickered violently. The sheet of paper bearing the words “In the Seat” also deviated by half a fraction.

Lu Yuan seized this half-fraction gap. He swiftly rose in Yu Steps beneath his feet. His body swept in an arc as if sliding along the ground.

The back of the short blade struck out with the momentum, slapping that sheet of paper forcefully into the crack in the old altar bricks exposed on the ground.

“Shatter!”

The sheet of paper fell into the crack. It immediately scorched into a small ball of black ash.

“That was close!” Song Qinghe exclaimed. A layer of cold sweat had broken out on her back.

The seat master’s gaze darkened slightly. For the first time, it truly looked at Lu Yuan, as if reassessing him.

“You recognize formations.”

“You also recognize fate.”

Lu Yuan met its gaze without the slightest fear. His voice was cold and hard.

“I only recognize one thing.”

“You’re not sitting on a seat. You’re sitting in a dead man’s position.”

“This position was never reserved for you.”

Hearing this, the two pale blue-white sparks in the seat master’s hollow eye sockets suddenly flared extremely brightly.

“A dead man’s position?” it repeated softly, as if hearing an old, laughable joke.

“How many people have been buried beneath this seat? How many have sat on it? Do you know?”

“If the position is empty, a ghost has to take it.”

“If you don’t recognize the seat, the seat will naturally recognize you.”

“In those wild ditches beyond the Great Wall, which old coffin didn’t go through this?”

Lu Yuan’s heart tightened at these words.

He knew. The other party was stalling for time.

Because the edge of the altar skeleton he had pried open was now, under the combined effect of the black threads and the cold wind, exposing an increasingly large piece of old altar bricks.

If it got just half an inch more, it could use the altar skeleton to repair the torn opening in the formation.

“I can’t drag this out any longer.”

Lu Yuan suddenly bit the tip of his tongue. He sprayed a mouthful of blood onto the back of his short blade.

A mouthful of blood from the tip of the tongue landed on the copper coin on the back of the blade. The copper coin instantly seemed to ignite, emitting a layer of dark golden-red light.

“You want to recognize the seat, don’t you?”

“Then I’ll light a ‘yang lamp seat’ for you.”

Lu Yuan abruptly raised his head. He walked three consecutive talisman steps beneath his feet and recited an extremely rare “Yang Lamp Invocation” from his mouth:

“The yang lamp does not invite ghosts; the ghost lamp does not illuminate people.”

“Heavenly fire illuminates the path of heaven; earthly fire illuminates the gate of earth.”

“I borrow three inches of warmth from the mortal world, to illuminate a single thread of dust from your yin altar!!”

“The lamp does not fall on the seat; the seat does not capture the soul. The lamp rises like the sun; when the sun comes out, there is no yin!!”

“Urgently, urgently, as by the law’s command!”