"Sigh, who would say otherwise? Isn't it already a problem now?"
Shaking his head with a sigh, Captain Han then turned to the elderly Old Zhang beside me, hurriedly pulled me and asked in a low tone, "Who is this old gentleman?"
"Oh, forgot to introduce you." Hearing that, I quickly introduced, "This is Old Zhang, an old friend of my grandfather. I learned my skills from him!"
"So it's Senior Zhang!" Hearing this, Captain Han's eyes lit up and he quickly bowed to Old Zhang with respect, "I'm Han Leng, thank you, senior, for saving our lives!"
Old Zhang's attitude seemed lukewarm, he just nodded slightly to Captain Han and then turned his gaze back to the coffins, with a solemn look, "We may have trouble!"
"Huh?" Old Zhang's words undoubtedly startled me, and I asked subconsciously, "What trouble?"
"There's a ladder over there..."
I don't know if it was intentional to test me, or for some other reason, but Old Zhang did not answer directly, instead, he looked straight at the ladder next to him and said, "Go up and take a look, is there anything strange about the arrangement of these coffins?"
"Oh..." I expressed doubt and climbed to the top of the ladder, carefully examining the coffins in front of me.
"Huh?" Sure enough, the arrangement of these coffins was quite strange. Individually or in a row, the coffins seemed plain, but when viewed as a whole, it seemed that the arrangement of the coffins formed a formation between the rows!
"Well..." with a skeptical look, I looked at Old Zhang and said, "It seems a bit like two Big Dipper formations stacked together, but I only found thirteen formation nodes..."
"Well done, young man, you have seen all of this!" Old Zhang rarely smiled, but quickly became serious, saying, "Yes! This is two Big Dipper formations stacked together, but one of them is reversed, so there is a formation node that can be shared, that's why you only found thirteen formation nodes! Therefore, many people call it the 'Double Big Dipper, Thirteen Inverted Formation,' one of the top soul-locking formations in the cultivation world!"
"Soul-locking?" As soon as I heard this, my face changed and I looked back at the coffins, feeling upset, "Who has the audacity to dare to use coffins to set up a formation, isn't this imprisoning the souls inside the coffins as well?"
"Humph! His purpose is probably to lock the souls inside these coffins!" Old Zhang coldly snorted and then took out a compass. Following its direction, he quickly pinpointed a floor tile. With two fingers, he swiftly poked at the seam of the floor tile!
"Hiss..." By poking at the seam, it was so painful to watch such an action. However, Old Zhang seemed oblivious. Not only that, the cement in the seam of the floor tile seemed as soft as tofu in his hands and he made a hole in it! With a strong force, the whole floor tile was directly lifted by him.
"Wow!" This scene truly shocked me, and I couldn't help but admire the strength and skillful action. I thought, how strong must his hands be? Just with two fingers, he directly broke a floor tile?
While I and Captain Han looked at each other in amazement, Old Zhang's expression became increasingly serious, and his eyes were fixed on the opened ground, leaving us in suspense about what he was thinking.
Seeing this, I hurriedly approached and discovered that the opened area was actually buried with a square stone stake. The stone stake was about two fingers wide, with only an inch exposed on the outside. Exquisitely carved dragon symbols on the side of the stake, and above the stake, there were two small characters: Greedy Wolf!
"Greedy Wolf?" Recognizing the characters on the stone stake, I became even more puzzled and couldn't help asking, "Could it be that this so-called 'Double Big Dipper, Thirteen Inverted Formation' is actually related to the 'Zi Wei Dou Shu'?"
Anyone with some knowledge of metaphysics knows that Greedy Wolf is one of the fourteen principal stars in "Zi Wei Dou Shu". In addition to it, there are also seven kill, broken officer, Ziwei, and Wenqu. But aren't these all related to the realm of the birth chart? How could this be related to the 'Double Big Dipper, Thirteen Inverted Formation,' this seems completely unrelated!
Old Zhang did not answer, but instead answered my question with facts: he took the compass and walked around, and then opened another floor tile. As expected, there was also a stone stake buried inside, on which "Seven Kill" was written!
It was indeed related to "Zi Wei Dou Shu"!
Could it be that this was done by a fortune teller?
Wait! A fortune teller? Could it be the fortune teller I met before? With his terrifying strength, he might really have such a grand plan!
While I was puzzled, Old Zhang had opened a third floor tile. There was also a stone stake buried inside, but surprisingly, this stake was smaller than the previous two, and the patterns on the side were different. Furthermore, the text on it was not any of the fourteen principal stars, but rather the character "Chou".
"This..." Now I was really confused. It was just related to "Zi Wei Dou Shu," but in a blink of an eye, how did it become related to the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches? These seem to be completely unrelated!
"Haha... amazing, amazing! Really amazing!" While I was perplexed, Old Zhang suddenly burst into laughter three times. At the same time, he gave a big thumbs up to the "coffin formation" in front and praised, "What a great plan! What a great plan!"
"Locking souls with the Big Dipper, using fire to burn the Yin, cleansing the natal palace, the fourteen principal stars shining in all directions, and getting rich by raising the coffin… Tsk tsk, such a perfect formation, it's amazing that he came up with it!"
As he finished speaking, Old Zhang's smile instantly turned to frost, and then he covered the three floor tiles back up.
"Huh?" I quickly stepped forward and asked him, puzzled, "Why cover them up? Shouldn't we destroy them?"
"Destroy?" Old Zhang looked at me somewhat exasperatedly, then said with a bitter smile, "Such a grand formation, especially one that you and I can destroy? A cascade of formations interweaving, woven together, not to mention the two of us, even if your grandfather returned to life, I'm afraid he wouldn't dare to break the formation recklessly!"
"What? Really?" After hearing this, I was also startled. Despite that, I felt somewhat skeptical, saying, "Aren't they just a few stone stakes? Pull out the stakes, burn the coffins with fire, and the formation will be easily destroyed!"
"Don't mess around!" Just as I finished speaking, Old Zhang was suddenly shocked, and he quickly grabbed me and Captain Han, and swiftly left the refrigerated room.
It wasn't until we were out of the room that Old Zhang's face regained its seriousness. He then said, "It's not as simple as you think! Do you know what that stone stake represents?"
"Isn't it the character 'Chou' from the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches?" I looked at Old Zhang speechlessly and said with some sarcasm, "Besides representing the Earthly Branch, what else could it represent!"
"Humph! If you don't understand, don't speak nonsense. That 'Chou' represents the Earthly Branch, but didn't you notice that the side pattern looks a bit like the ancient 'fire' character?"
As he said this, I did indeed notice that the patterns looked somewhat like the ancient character for "fire", but I still didn't quite understand Old Zhang's point, and asked, "But what does that signify?"
"You fool!" Old Zhang gave me a whack on the head and said with frustration, "I let you read so many books, and all for nothing!" After taking a deep breath, Old Zhang calmed down and then said, "That's the Fire Chise Perimeter!"
"What!"
Upon hearing this, I couldn't help but suck in a breath of cold air. No wonder old Zhang referred to this as the "extinct formation". Apart from the Beidou inverted 13 formation, it also has a layer of fire burning outside?
Hiss... Who in the world would be so ruthless and cruel? First, they use the "Beidou inverted 13 formation" to lock in the souls inside the coffins, and then they add a layer of "fire burning formation" on the outside?
It wasn't until this moment that I finally understood the meaning of old Zhang's words just now.
Beidou locks the soul, fire burns the yin!
So this "fire burning the yin" means using the "fire burning formation" to burn the yin souls locked in the formation!
Truly malicious. This is practically like wanting to wipe out entire families! Calling it the extinct formation is just too fitting!