Immortalis

Hero's Tomb: Chapter Ten

The letter left in Zhou Jinglei's room turned out to be a suicide note.

Fearing Zhou Huai might have another episode, Yang Wujian didn't hesitate for a moment—he knocked Zhou Huai unconscious with an elbow strike, then worked with Shen Qingshi to lay him on the bed.

Shen Qingshi frowned. "How could this happen? Why would he suddenly..."

Neither Yang Wujian nor Shen Qingshi had expected that their meeting with Zhou Jinglei just one day prior would be their last.

In his letter, Zhou Jinglei wrote that he had committed many wrongs in his life. Recently, he felt retribution was at his doorstep. Unable to bear hiding in this tower day after day any longer, he chose to go to the Hero's Tomb to end his life.

Yang Wujian's mind was in turmoil. Though they had suspected Zhou Huai's illness was connected to Zhou Jinglei, the truth revealed in the suicide note far exceeded their imagination.

Nearly twenty years ago, shortly after Zhou Jinglei moved to the Hero's Tomb with Zhou Huai, strange occurrences happened during the construction of White Rainbow Tower.

Several workers had suddenly vanished while working underground—among them was the renowned craftsman Yang Fang, known for his Iron Fingers.

Yang Fang and his older brother Yang Ye, the Thunderclap Hand, were both descendants of famous artisans. Unlike his brother, who excelled in martial arts, Yang Fang followed his father's footsteps and became a craftsman. He had come hoping to witness the legendary mansion built by Zhou Jinglei, the top craftsman in the martial world.

Naturally, with even the Iron Fingers craftsman joining the project, Zhou Jinglei's selected workers were all bold and meticulous—hardly the type to abandon their work midway.

Puzzled, Zhou Jinglei led other workers underground, following the excavated tunnel deeper until they discovered a pitch-black opening, with signs of collapse around it.

Clearly, the opening had been accidentally dug open. Unaware that the other side was hollow, the workers had struck the stone wall with a pickaxe, causing it to collapse and reveal a winding, eerie cavern behind it.

The missing workers, including Yang Fang, had entered this cavern and vanished.

With many workers watching, Zhou Jinglei couldn't simply ignore their fate. After confirming airflow from the other side, he took a torch and led several servants and workers inside.

What happened afterward, even after nearly twenty years, Zhou Jinglei could never forget.

At first, they advanced without incident.

But at some point, Zhou Jinglei's memory grew hazy.

He only recalled the torchlight illuminating countless pairs of eyes staring at him from the cave. When he regained consciousness, a blood-soaked servant was struggling to drag him back to the passage beneath White Rainbow Tower.

The servant, terrified, screamed, "Master, they've all gone mad, all of them!"

Later, Zhou Jinglei learned from the horrified servant that he had been walking at the rear. After about the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, the workers ahead, including Zhou Jinglei, suddenly stopped.

For some reason, everyone began whispering—not to each other, but to the rocks, to the void. Some even wore strange, occasional smiles.

As one might expect, the servant, witnessing this, dared not take another step forward. Soon, an even more terrifying scene unfolded.After muttering to himself for a while, two or three workers actually ran headlong deeper into the cave without looking back. As their torches illuminated the surroundings, the servant finally realized that this strange rocky cave seemed like a living creature. When lit by the torchlight, the rock walls actually writhed as if blinking with thousands of eyes, threatening to swallow them all.

At that moment, the remaining few also began attacking each other with their torches. Zhou Jinglei was about to draw his sword but was knocked to the ground by a worker. Seeing this, the servant rushed forward and dragged him back. During this process, he himself was heavily struck several times, leaving him covered in blood from head to toe.

Fortunately, the servant managed to maintain a sliver of consciousness and dragged Zhou Jinglei back. Those workers who remained in the cave either fell and plunged into the abyss or crawled deeper through rock crevices.

In the blink of an eye, the team of eight or nine people was reduced to just Zhou Jinglei and that servant.

Afterward, Zhou Jinglei rewarded the man with a large sum of silver, made him take an amnesia-inducing pill, and sent him back to his hometown. As for the cave, it was temporarily filled in. Only after consulting many ancient texts did Zhou Jinglei learn that their digging had actually broken into the Meat Well beyond the Bamboo Sea.

Legend has it that this was a cursed place left by Emperor Beixiang. Those who entered that mine shaft in the past never returned, which is why the local people never went to that place.

At that time, Zhou Jinglei had not yet imagined that in the coming years, he would use this hidden entrance beneath the White Rainbow Tower to turn that Meat Well into the famous "Hero's Tomb" known throughout the martial world.

"So, there is a passage to the Hero's Tomb beneath the White Rainbow Tower. No one knows about this except Zhou Jinglei, since all the workers were required to lose their memories after completing the work."

Yang Wujian, recalling everything he experienced when he descended into the Hero's Tomb earlier, couldn't help but feel a chill run down his spine.

They should have realized it sooner—Zhou Jinglei had a method to make people lose their memories. Therefore, the strange illness that struck Zhou Huai at age eight, causing him to lose all his memories, was most likely due to him eating something he shouldn't have.

Although Zhou Jinglei never explicitly stated this matter, the other secret he revealed might very well be the true source of Zhou Huai's Evil Sickness.

In his letter, Zhou Jinglei said that over twenty years ago, before becoming Qi Yanbai's son-in-law, his skills in Mechanical Arts never had a chance to flourish. The reason was simple.

Creating intricate mechanisms required many precious metals and materials. Although Zhou Jinglei could find some cheaper alternatives, this was not a sustainable solution in the long run.

The mechanisms made from these materials could never fetch a good price, so for a long time, Zhou Jinglei lived an unremarkable life—until Qi Zhongrui, after witnessing his craftsmanship, unexpectedly fell in love with him.

The Qi family was extremely wealthy; otherwise, they wouldn't have been able to obtain high-quality Mysterious Iron to forge the renowned White Rainbow Sword. After Qi Zhongrui married Zhou Jinglei, with his wife's support, Zhou Jinglei was finally able to fully develop his exceptional skills.

Although Qi Yanbai never thought highly of him because of this, Zhou Jinglei quietly created many astonishing works. Through Qi Zhongrui's connections in the martial world, he sold these works and gradually built his own business.Initially, Zhou Jinglei had done all this to win Qi Yanbai's favor. However, after Zhou Huai's birth, both Qi Zhongrui and Qi Yanbai passed away one after another. With both the Qi family's savings and his own accumulated wealth in hand, Zhou Jinglei moved to Green Bamboo Town with Zhou Huai to avoid attracting envy, and began constructing the White Rainbow Tower.

At first, Zhou Jinglei built the Dragon Locking Coffin merely to detain petty thieves who infiltrated the tower. Yet, shortly after the White Rainbow Tower was completed, an uninvited guest arrived.

Gui Sanyan.

Gui Sanyan sought out Zhou Jinglei privately for no other reason than having heard of his skill in crafting mechanisms, hoping Zhou Jinglei could create a prosthetic arm for him.

As a sworn brother of the Sword Sect, Gui Sanyan had always been a man of immense pride. His Floating Clouds Embracing Moon was a renowned martial technique that shook the jianghu. Despite losing an arm, his arrogance remained undiminished. Upon meeting Zhou Jinglei, he immediately remarked that he never expected Qi Yanbai would entrust his entire legacy to someone who couldn't even wield a sword.

It turned out that Gui Sanyan, much like Qi Yanbai, looked down upon Zhou Jinglei from the bottom of his heart for his lack of martial prowess. Initially, Zhou Jinglei intended to endure it—after Qi Zhongrui's death, he could no longer rely on his wife to handle business dealings abroad, and he had to interact with many martial artists himself.

Zhou Jinglei forced a smile and treated Gui Sanyan with utmost courtesy. Eager to forge ties with the Boundless Sword Manor, he even considered waiving the fee, offering to craft an exquisitely precise mechanical prosthetic arm for free. That way, every time Gui Sanyan swung his sword in the future, it would serve as publicity for Zhou Jinglei and the White Rainbow Tower.

Zhou Jinglei was a businessman, skilled at calculating gains and losses, but he had overestimated his own tolerance.

Gui Sanyan, accustomed to killing, spoke without restraint, repeatedly prodding at Zhou Jinglei's sore spots. In the end, he even suggested that since Zhou Jinglei's son Zhou Huai showed remarkable talent in martial arts, perhaps Zhou Jinglei should consider whether the boy was truly his own flesh and blood—or simply let him adopt the Qi surname, so that when Zhou Huai ventured into the jianghu, he wouldn't be looked down upon for being Zhou Jinglei's son.

When Gui Sanyan said this, Zhou Jinglei was measuring his arm.

Crafting a prosthetic was different from ordinary Mechanical Arts—it demanded extreme precision. Thus, Zhou Jinglei needed to know both the circumference of Gui Sanyan's arm when his muscles were engaged and when he was completely relaxed.

Hearing Gui Sanyan's words, Zhou Jinglei merely lowered his eyes and calmly said, "Hero Gui, I may need you to take a short nap next. I must observe the state of your arm when you are fully relaxed."

Gui Sanyan, brimming with pride, never imagined that this unskilled craftsman would dare to scheme against him. He tossed back the medicine Zhou Jinglei offered without a second thought. But when he awoke, he found himself lying inside Zhou Jinglei's Dragon Locking Coffin.

Gui Sanyan flew into a rage, but Zhou Jinglei was an exceedingly meticulous craftsman who had prepared for every contingency from the moment he decided to capture him.

Even though the iron walls of the Dragon Locking Coffin were seven feet thick, Zhou Jinglei had still administered a muscle-weakening, energy-dispersing drug to Gui Sanyan. With that, even if he grew wings, he wouldn't be able to escape.

Furious, Gui Sanyan roared and shouted inside the Dragon Locking Coffin, but his voice was sealed underground. Only when Zhou Jinglei opened the coffin's "Three Eyes" could Gui Sanyan's cries for help possibly be heard.Day after day, Zhou Jinglei kept him locked there, deprived of sunlight, giving him only one meal every three days. Finally, Gui Sanyan, whose heart was prouder than the heavens, bowed his head and begged Zhou Jinglei to release him.

Zhou Jinglei thought to himself: since Gui Sanyan looked down on him for his lack of martial arts, he would take Gui Sanyan's martial skills for himself. He wanted to see how Gui Sanyan, now missing an arm, would face others who could also execute Floating Clouds Embracing Moon.

That day, he told Gui Sanyan that he would release him if he could write down the sword manual for Floating Clouds Embracing Moon. By then, Gui Sanyan was utterly wretched, and upon hearing this, he clung to it like a lifeline. Without another word, he handed over Floating Clouds Embracing Moon.

Zhou Jinglei was an extremely cautious man. Fearing that Gui Sanyan might have set a trap in the manual, and being unskilled in martial arts himself with no one trustworthy in the tower to consult, he had no choice but to take the sword technique to his son, Zhou Huai. He made the young Zhou Huai practice it on the spot to confirm there were no issues, and only then did he reopen the Dragon Locking Coffin.

At that moment, Zhou Jinglei never expected that in just two short days, the already weakened Gui Sanyan had been unable to hold on and had died directly inside the Dragon Locking Coffin.

In shock, Zhou Jinglei realized that given Gui Sanyan's pride, he would never have spoken to others about his difficulties, let alone told anyone he was going to acquire a prosthetic arm. In other words, Gui Sanyan's visit to him was a secret, and now he only needed to dispose of Gui Sanyan's body to bury that secret forever beneath the White Rainbow Tower.

It was then that Zhou Jinglei thought of the Meat Well connected to the underground of the White Rainbow Tower.

No one could descend into the Meat Well, meaning that if Gui Sanyan's body were thrown into it, no one would ever be able to retrieve it.

Zhou Jinglei initially believed this method was foolproof and even made a special trip to Green Bamboo Town. However, he hadn't anticipated that due to Gui Sanyan's immense fame, some passing martial heroes had recognized him during his recent stay in Green Bamboo Town.

Zhou Jinglei grew anxious. He knew that Gui Sanyan was Zhuang Tianyou's sworn brother. If his disappearance were discovered, someone would inevitably trace his steps back to Green Bamboo Town, and then the White Rainbow Tower would naturally come under suspicion.

He had to come up with a way to turn Gui Sanyan's disappearance into a settled matter.

Zhou Jinglei was very clever. He immediately thought: since Gui Sanyan had lost an arm and, though still proud in his presence, must have been deeply resentful, why not make it seem as if Gui Sanyan had "committed suicide"?

Two days later, Zhou Jinglei chose a dimly lit dawn, disguised himself as an armless hero, wearing a bamboo hat and carrying Gui Sanyan's sword, and asked outside Green Bamboo Town for directions to the Meat Well.

He didn't say he was going to commit suicide, but Zhou Jinglei believed that a few days later, when someone found Gui Sanyan's sword outside the Meat Well, they would surely understand what had happened.

Things unfolded just as he had planned.

Half a month later, the first person to commit suicide in the Hero's Tomb had thus appeared out of thin air.