The group spread to research.
Wei Jingyan trudged ahead through the pale grass, muttering under his breath. "You'd think bells this large would keep demons away. Instead, they attract every strange story in the realm."
Meng Chuan, walking beside him, arched a brow. "Maybe they're tired of hearing your voice."
Wei Jingyan shot him a look. "My voice happens to be melodic. You wouldn't understand refined sound—you swing a sword like you're beating laundry."
"Better that than talking it to death," Meng Chuan said.
Frost glittered over the talisman papers nailed around the bell pillars, their ink faded to brown. Some had peeled loose, curling like dead leaves.
Wei Jingyan crouched, flicking a brittle charm off one post. "Old wards. They've been re-inked several times. Someone's been tampering."
"Or replacing them," Meng Chuan countered.
"Replacing, defacing—same difference. Both mean trouble."
Rong Rui's voice drifted from ahead, calm and precise. "Keep your speculations quiet and your senses open. The spiritual current here is uneven. Something beneath us is distorting the flow."
Lu Zhaoyuan, who had been silently tracing wards along the bell's shadow, frowned. "The soil's loose."
They began to dig. The mountain soil was soft but cold, dark as ink. Roots knotted through the dirt like veins, clutching fragments of broken pottery, bits of cloth that disintegrated at a touch. The air thickened, and even Meng Chuan's banter grew quiet.
Fan Rongrui's spade struck something hollow. He froze. "Here."
Everyone gathered. Together they cleared the soil until a pale curve showed — smooth, almost luminous in the dim light.
Wei Jingyan's hand stilled. "That's… not a stone."
Lu Zhaoyuan brushed more dirt away, and the shape emerged fully — a human skull, its sockets wide and dark, staring up toward the sky.
Zhou Qingrong whispered, "Heavens."
Meng Chuan crouched, his face suddenly sober. "The bone's old. Decades at least."
Fan Rongrui pointed to faint scratches along the jaw. "Look closer — markings."
Yun Shufeng knelt beside the skull, steady even as the others drew back. He touched the bone, tracing the fine, desperate lines cut across it. "Not weathering. Script."
"Script?" Wei Jingyan echoed.
"Talismans," Fan Rongrui said grimly. "Poorly drawn, using blood. Not burial rites — ritual corruption."
Meng Chuan swallowed. "Someone carved spells into human remains?"
Yun Shufeng's eyes narrowed. "A forbidden practice — the kind erased from our manuals centuries ago."
The wind moaned faintly through the hollow bell.
Wei Jingyan tried to make light of it, though his voice wavered. "Perhaps they were hoping the bell would sing for them."
Meng Chuan's reply was quiet this time. "If so, it sang of madness."
Fan Rongrui straightened. "This doesn't feel like a grave. Whoever placed it here wanted it found."
"No," Yun Shufeng said. His voice was calm but it cut through the murmuring wind. "They wanted it to listen."
Everyone turned to him.
Yun Shufeng's gaze held the skull's empty sockets. "See how it faces upward, how the markings align toward the bell. Whoever performed this act wanted to bind sound to death — to make the bell remember pain. If the bells ceased to ring, it was not accident but consequence."
A shiver passed through the group.
Then came a faint metallic sound — a trembling note that rippled through the air, though none had touched the bell.
Lu Zhaoyuan's head snapped up. "Did anyone—?"
"No one moved," Zhou Qingrong whispered.
They listened. The air seemed to hum, the ground faintly vibrating beneath their feet.
Fan Rongrui bent again to clear more soil — and froze once more. "There's more."
He swept the dirt aside, revealing another skull. Then another. Soon six pale shapes lay exposed in a circle, each marked with the same frantic script.
The wind rushed over them, carrying the scent of cold stone and iron.
Wei Jingyan's usual sharp tongue was gone. "Six skulls. Arranged perfectly."
Meng Chuan whispered, "A ritual seal… or a prison."
Fan Rongrui's voice was low. "The symmetry matches summoning formations — but one designed to trap, not summon."
Yun Shufeng rose to his full height, calm and composed though the wind tore at his robes. "Enough. We don't disturb them further." He looked at each of them in turn. "Mark this ground. Erect a barrier before nightfall."
As the others moved to obey, Yun Shufeng lingered by the circle. His tone softened, more to the mountain than to them.
"You've kept their silence long enough," he murmured. "But silence doesn't erase sin. Whatever was done here still breathes beneath the earth — and we will find it."
The bell gave a single faint ring, trembling with no wind at all.
Far below, through the drifting mist, something in a hidden cave seemed to stir in answer — a whisper waiting to be heard.
...
At first, it was laughter.
Soft — almost tender — like a child's giggle carried on wind. But it did not belong to any wind.
Ling Xiuyuan halted mid-step, the echo curling through the tunnel's darkness ahead of him. It rose, fell, and faded, as if the cave itself had drawn breath.
The laughter came again — faint, lilting, and oddly near now. A sound that should have belonged to sunlight and open air, not to a cave where no child had ever walked. It seemed to beckon them.
Mingyue glanced at Xiuyuan. "It sounds… like it's asking us to follow."
Xiuyuan moved ahead first, his spiritual sense probing the air. "There's something alive here. But not flesh."
Mingyue's steps hesitated behind him. "Alive?"
"Not as we are."
The path opened suddenly into a wide hollow. The ground was uneven, scattered with shards of pottery and bones too small to be animal. A low altar stood at the far end, half-collapsed beneath rubble. And there — carved into the stone above it — was a bell symbol, its lines scorched as though burned by fire.
The laughter came again, this time from behind the altar.
Mingyue's breath hitched. "Shizun—"
"I know."
Xiuyuan raised a talisman, drawing a faint line of qi across it. The paper shone gold, its light slicing the darkness into trembling layers. "Stay close. No matter what you see."
They stepped toward the altar. The air thickened — cold, but humming with something restless. The black stone bore stains that had long since dried, and the floor was marked with circles drawn in crimson long ago. The sight stirred unease deep within him.
He brushed the surface with his fingertips. "Human blood."
The laughter turned to a whisper. Faint words, indistinct, curling through the air like smoke. It was a woman's voice now — broken, calling from somewhere between stone and shadow.
Come back… please…
Xiuyuan's expression remained unreadable, but the hand that held the talisman trembled slightly.
He pressed the talisman against the altar. A surge of air burst outward — sharp and cold, rattling the stones. The gold light flared, then dimmed, casting the chamber into a strange half-dark.
From the crack beneath the altar, something stirred — smoke, black and thin as silk, coiling upward. It twisted through the light like fingers.
Mingyue staggered back a step, and Xiuyuan caught his arm. "Stay behind me."
The smoke shivered, and in its depths something seemed to move — the outline of a woman's face, faint and translucent, mouth half-open in a silent scream.
Mingyue's voice broke. "Shizun—there's—"
"I see it."
Xiuyuan released him only to trace a seal in the air. Golden flame formed at his fingertips, expanding into a shimmering ward that enclosed them both. The spirit's whisper hit the barrier with a low hiss, dissolving into cold air.
But the temperature plummeted. Their breath turned to mist. Frost crawled along the stone walls like veins of glass.
Mingyue shivered violently. "It's so cold…"
Xiuyuan turned, his robe brushing his legs as he moved to stand between him and the altar. "Don't be afraid."
"I'm not," Mingyue said softly.
Xiuyuan exhaled slowly. "This cave was used for sacrifice. I can feel the traces. We should leave before the seal breaks further."
Mingyue nodded, his voice low. "It felt like someone was watching us."
"They were," Xiuyuan said. "And whoever it was… they haven't left this place."
He guided Mingyue toward the tunnel mouth, never letting go of his hand.