By the time Li Yuan, Naran, and Sheng’er returned to camp, the Wolfmother had already arrived. The woman whose eyes shimmered with a mysterious, dreamy glow stepped into the tent, dipped a slight bow to Li Yuan and Naran, and asked, “Firstborn of the Sunmother, mighty Khagan, what would you have of a woman who serves the gods?” Li Yuan returned the bow and got straight to the point. “A member of my family is gravely ill. I hope to secure a coffin in the Deathless Tomb for her.” There were 6,974 coffins in the Deathless Tomb. Of those, 6,174 were occupied, leaving a full 800 empty. “Mortals may not enter,” the Wolfmother said the next moment. “She isn’t a mortal,” Li Yuan replied. “She’s family.” The Wolfmother fell silent, and so did the surroundings. After a moment, something in her presence shifted—deeper, darker, more uncanny. When she opened her eyes again, they were as fathomless as the sea. Li Yuan’s expression didn’t change. He knew the Gravekeeper had arrived. Sure enough, the voice that came out of the Wolfmother was no longer hers, but cool and remote, as if indifferent to the world. “Do one task for me, and I will grant you a coffin.” “One task?” Li Yuan frowned. The Gravekeeper , awakened from the Wolfmother’s depths, only stared at him, cold as ice. “Jen’gal Yuan, decide quickly.” “What sort of task, honored one?” Li Yuan asked. “Prevent the Grand Union of Yin and Yang.” “How?” A flicker of veiled curiosity crossed Li Yuan’s eyes. “Ghosts cannot themselves engineer the Grand Union of Yin and Yang,” the Gravekeeper said, her gaze unreadable. “If you slaughter all the minions under those ghosts, that will suffice as prevention. If you truly and completely stop it, I will grant you three coffins.” “Then let me use the first one now,” Li Yuan said. If they hadn’t said when he had to stop it, he might as well take the freebie first. If he and the gods of this graveyard were going to clash, they could postpone the fireworks. Only a fool would start bargaining now. “You may,” the Gravekeeper said. “But you must first enter the Deathless Tomb and complete a small task.” “What task?” ᴛʜɪs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪs ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ʙʏ 𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹✦𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖✦𝓷𝓮𝓽 “Carve the contract upon your soul, so it becomes your oath and your mission. You’ll find this mission benefits everyone who lies down in a coffin.” “What benefit?” Li Yuan kept picking for free information. “Resurrection?” Li Yuan echoed, surprised. The Gravekeeper glanced at Naran. “Jen’gal Yuan, have your son step outside.” Naran didn’t budge. Only when Li Yuan looked at him did he give a cold snort, fix the Wolfmother with a murderous glare, fling the curtain aside, and stride out. The Gravekeeper finally spoke. “The Grand Union of Yin and Yang makes Yin and Yang condense even more. Think about it, things that once diffused and intertwined, set loose to roam, are drawn back together…what do you suppose happens then?” Li Yuan shook his head. Even if he knew the answer, he wasn’t about to play the clever one. “The cycle of Yin and Yang shrinks,” the Gravekeeper said . “And its rotation speeds up. In other words, there will be fewer places with true day and night, and more regions will be swallowed by darkness and cold— frozen tundra in the far west. In the human world, the hours of day and night will both shorten, and the difference between them will grow ever more extreme. For us, once the world falls entirely into eternal night, light can never again reach the Deathless Tomb…and we will never rise from it.” “If the Grand Union of Yin and Yang is stopped,” Li Yuan asked, “light will eventually reach the Deathless Tomb?” The Gravekeeper nodded. “Even the tribesmen of the Nine Flames have noticed it. All their bonfires are slowly drifting, inching toward the Deathless Tomb. That’s on the surface. Underground, a matching current of extreme Yin is moving as well. “When Yin and Yang meet again at the Deathless Tomb, the entire Nine Flames lineage will bask in sunlight once more, and we can awaken. It will take roughly 3,000 years. “This is the world mending itself, a natural recovery. This permafrost is like a bandage tied over a wound. But if the Grand Union of Yin and Yang comes to pass, that day may never arrive, because more and more lands will be devoured by endless night.” “I noticed the bonfires burning hotter,” Li Yuan said suddenly. “That’s because more land has sunk into the Evernight,” the Gravekeeper replied. “The Yang of those lands gets sealed here, so the bonfires…naturally grow hotter. It is not a good sign. Jen’gal Yuan, you mean to enter the Deathless Tomb yourself. You wouldn’t want your kin who enter it to be unable to revive, would you?” Once, Li Yuan might have believed her. Now he trusted no one. Back in the Ocean Province, he’d learned through Xie Wei of the conversation between the Revival Tree God and Xie Feng. That mysterious man had deliberately let Xie Feng go and told him that only the Grand Union of Yin and Yang could produce the people needed to face the calamities to come. So what would the Grand Union of Yin and Yang actually bring? Li Yuan didn’t know. Did those future calamities truly exist? He didn’t know that either. The more he learned, the more he saw how little he understood of this world. As for what these people really wanted, he had no clue. Seeing his hesitation, the Gravekeeper pressed him. “Decide quickly.” “If someone is placed in a coffin,” Li Yuan said, “can the coffin be opened later to take them out?” “No,” the Gravekeeper replied. Yet during his last visit, Li Yuan had clearly seen a coffin lid open with his own eyes and saw a flicker of 0~1. He kept his face carefully hesitant. “I’m not entirely at ease. Could you take my eyes in for a look, do a trial run? I’d rather waste one slot just to see what actually happens when the coffin lid opens and shuts.” “Jen’gal Yuan, you disappoint me,” the Gravekeeper said, her voice turning to ice. “I promised you three divine places, and still you hesitate.” Li Yuan didn’t bristle. He offered a rueful smile. “Honored one, I’m only being cautious. Please indulge this small, foolish worry of mine.” The Gravekeeper paused. “Very well.” “Thank you!” Li Yuan bowed. Li Yuan called over NAran, who was only second to him in strength, and Sheng’er. He had probed the Deathless Tomb a few times over the years. He knew that puppets couldn’t enter. Once they entered, their hearts would freeze, and their bodies would cease to function. He also couldn’t send any of the Nine Flames tribesmen, since that would expose the truth of the Deathless Tomb, and that was the last thing he wanted. Demonic beasts, however, were proven to work, as long as they were hardened to the cold. The direwolves tamed by the Wolfmother were lifeforms practically born to keep vigil over the Deathless Tomb. And from watching Sheng'er, Li Yuan had discovered something else interesting. Her crows were a blend of flesh and Yin energy. Strictly speaking, the true Sheng'er was her plus the tens of thousands—hundreds of thousands—of crows. As she grew, the crows multiplied. Wasn’t that, in its own way, another kind of growing a body? Truth be told, Li Yuan trusted neither the Gravekeeper nor the gods. He himself didn’t play by the rules, so why believe anyone else would? Who was to say the coffin lids of the Deathless Tomb couldn’t be opened whenever pleased or corpses tossed aside whenever liked? This meant that even if Xue Ning, and any family who might one day follow, were placed in coffins, it still wouldn’t feel safe. With that, Li Yuan, Naran, and Sheng’er mounted direwolves that Li Yuan had personally tamed in the past and followed the Wolfmother toward the Deathless Tomb. After travelling for some time, the group arrived outside the Deathless Tomb. They were greeted by the sight of corpses frozen in a dozen poses, and vast blue icicles drooping like spears from the sky. Deeper in, they saw the entrance to the labyrinth drop away into bottomless darkness. Naran dismounted his direwolf with his golden great axe, casually carving a fearsome gouge into the ice, then moved aside and stared at the Wolfmother without blinking. The Gravekeeper frowned. “Jen’gal Yuan, tell your son to stop staring at me like that.” “Yes, honored one,” Li Yuan said. Then he turned to his son and said, “Naran, eyes elsewhere.” Naran averted his gaze. Li Yuan slapped the neck of his direwolf and gave a whistle; Sheng'er’s direwolf stepped forward too. The two giant wolves followed the Wolfmother’s own picked wolves inside. Everything unfolded exactly as expected. Within the Deathless Tomb, all was normal. They soon reached the enormous Yin-Yang twin fish gate. “Honored one,” Li Yuan said suddenly, “I want to try putting a direwolf into a coffin.” The Gravekeeper all but couldn’t believe her ears. She turned, face dark with anger. “How dare you profane this place?” “I want to test for myself whether a coffin can be opened,” Li Yuan said. “Do you not trust the gods?” her voice went cold. Li Yuan bowed apologetically. “You promised me three coffins. Surely I may decide who is laid in them? Please, grant me this small wish.” The Gravekeeper was silent for a moment, then nodded. “Very well.” Li Yuan didn’t waste breath. He guided one of the direwolves to leap onto a chosen coffin. It pressed its forepaws to the lid and shoved. The lid wasn’t heavy; it slid aside under the push. The direwolf hopped in and lay down. Through the transparent, gemlike crystal of the outer wall, Li Yuan saw the beast truly fit. No matter how large it was, once inside the coffin its form adjusted; from the outside, it looked no bigger than the coffin itself. The direwolf settled in with obvious contentment. As the lid swung shut, that expression froze, caught and preserved in that moment of time. Li Yuan flicked another thought and had a second direwolf push at the lid. A gentle nudge did nothing. He made it ram the lid, still nothing. He went further, preparing to have the direwolf drop from above in a crushing strike. The Gravekeeper ’s own direwolf had been watching silently. At that, the Gravekeeper snapped, “Enough!” By then Li Yuan’s direwolf was standing on the coffin lid. He obeyed and held still, but through the direwolf’s eyes he could just make out 0~1s drifting in the darkness to either side of the coffin. He had the direwolf hop down and keep pushing with its paws. “Forgive me. Let me try once more.” “Hurry up,” the Gravekeeper said, her expression souring. This time, the result was the same. But unlike before, Li Yuan poured all his attention into watching the surroundings, and he caught a tiny difference. As his direwolf shoved the coffin lid, strange shapes on the far side pressed back. Force met force and canceled out. That was why the lid didn’t budge. “...” Li Yuan narrowed his eyes. So the lid can, in fact, be opened? This meant the Gravekeeper was lying to him. Li Yuan sighed inwardly. In a scene , he could no longer trust the god in front of him. Peace talks and papering things over weren’t going to cut it. His gaze flicked; he let out a sudden, easy breath of relief and said, “I’m done investigating. Thanks for indulging my selfishness.” “Then follow me into the Deathless Tomb,” the Gravekeeper said. “It’s time to fulfill your oath.” “Gladly, it would be my honor.” Li Yuan replied with grave courtesy. “And it concerns the resurrection of me and my family. I’ll give it everything I have.” “Father, no! This is still way to suspic—” Naran blurted out anxiously, but the words caught in his throat by what he saw next. The white-haired old man suddenly seized the Wolfmother and dislocated all four of her limbs in one wrench. He then hoisted her like a chick and hauled her over. “Naran, keep your eyes on her. If anything’s off, kill her. From now on, if a Wolfmother shows up, you kill a Wolfmother,” Li Yuan said plainly. “Uh, okay...” Naran stared at his father, dumbstruck. Sheng'er, on the other hand, wasn’t surprised in the least. She even covered her lips and smiled. Li Yuan cleared his throat lightly. “Sheng'er, your turn.” As always, Sheng'e was quiet and obedient. She took one step forward. A packed, dark, chill, bristling sea of crows surged off her like a black tide, wingbeats rattling the air. Mid-flight they wheeled, then knifed toward the depths of the Deathless Tomb. In a heartbeat, the crows flooded in and unraveled into tens of thousands of 0~1s, scattering around the twin Yin-Yang fish and beginning a grand purge. The Wolfmother—or rather, the Gravekeeper —jerked her head up to stare at Sheng'er, aghast. “How can this world hold a jade husk like you?!”