Chapter 2710 — Yu Xiaoke Has Vanished

The Qi Gathering Pill, for instance, was one of them. But Zhang Lifeng had taken the recipe and replaced several extinct ingredients with materials that still existed. The effects were somewhat diminished, yet on the whole the pill could still achieve a measure of what a Qi Gathering Pill ought to do—and that was precisely the wonder of Zhang Lifeng!

In his day Zhang Lifeng had gathered a great host of skilled hands about him, and this too was why: with Zhang Lifeng at one's side, one commanded inexhaustible **resources.

Still, in Wei Zhao's view, altering a pill recipe was no great feat—with his own abilities he could do it easily enough. Alchemy, however, was another matter. Wei Zhao's constitution determined that he could never practice alchemy.

Having finished reading Zhang Lifeng's life and deeds, Wei Zhao found that White Leader had finished as well. "Little Yi, shall we go?" White Leader asked him.

"All right!" Wei Zhao answered, then called to Yu Xiaoke, "Xiaoke, let's go."

But the moment Wei Zhao turned to look at Yu Xiaoke, he froze in astonishment—Yu Xiaoke was gone!

Yes, Yu Xiaoke had vanished without a trace!

In the empty tomb chamber only Wei Zhao, White Leader, and the Thunder Pig remained. Wei Zhao needed no lamp; with his eyes closed he could sense everything in the chamber. And here... there was no sign of Yu Xiaoke!

"Yu Xiaoke!" Wei Zhao cried out, instinctively turning toward the entrance of the main tomb chamber—only to see that the stone door was still shut, and had not been opened!

A chilling dread surged from the soles of Wei Zhao's feet to the top of his head. Where had Yu Xiaoke gone? Could this ancient tomb be haunted? How could Yu Xiaoke have vanished into thin air?

White Leader's scalp prickled too. "Little Yi, what is this..."

"Who is playing tricks?" Wei Zhao's sharp gaze swept every corner of the main tomb chamber, yet he still found nothing amiss. Apart from a huge coffin, there was nothing else at all in this main chamber. If someone had been hiding here beforehand to make mischief, Wei Zhao could not imagine where they might have concealed themselves.

But if no one was playing tricks, then where on earth had Yu Xiaoke gone?

Could it be that the tomb robber who had come here before, who had touched the Records of Strange Tales and Marvels and taken the Shennong Cauldron, had never left—but was hiding somewhere in this tomb, waiting for a chance to strike at Wei Zhao and the others?

At that thought, cold sweat broke out on Wei Zhao at once. There were only two possibilities: either this tomb robber was not human at all—only thus could Yu Xiaoke's silent disappearance be explained—or this person's strength was extraordinarily high, perhaps a peak late-stage Heaven Rank expert. Only such an expert could work mischief under Wei Zhao's very nose without a sound.

Yet even a peak late-stage Heaven Rank expert should give off true qi fluctuations when moving. Could it be an external-school expert?

And most crucially, Wei Zhao could not make sense of it: in this sealed tomb chamber, even if a Heaven Rank expert had appeared, how had Yu Xiaoke disappeared? She and the Heaven Rank expert must have somewhere to hide, surely?

Wei Zhao's gaze roamed the chamber and finally came to rest upon Zhang Lifeng's coffin.

"Patriarch Zhang Lifeng, forgive my disrespect..." Wei Zhao murmured to himself as he walked toward the coffin. This was the only place in the entire chamber where a person could hide!

Otherwise—the chamber was a sealed stone room, and no one could hide in the walls, the ceiling, or the floor. Only this coffin was suspect.

"Little Yi, do you mean Yu Xiaoke has crawled into that coffin?" White Leader had caught Wei Zhao's meaning as well, and asked with a strange look on his face.

"I don't know either, but it's the only place I can think of. In this whole chamber, where else could a person hide but here?" Wei Zhao was not certain either, though he could hazard a guess.

"You have a point. Saving a life matters most!" White Leader nodded at Wei Zhao, signaling that this did not count as disrespect to their patriarch—after all, the dead were never more important than the living, and even Patriarch Zhang Lifeng's spirit in heaven would not object.

Wei Zhao nodded, stepped up to the coffin, and began to examine it carefully, preparing to lift the lid.

"Up—" Wei Zhao reached out to raise the coffin lid, only to discover to his astonishment that the lid did not budge in the slightest!

Wei Zhao had not circulated his inner technique or used true qi, but it was only a coffin lid—how heavy could it be? He had not needed true qi at all. Yet this time he had miscalculated: there was not the faintest sign of the lid lifting!

"Up—" This time Wei Zhao circulated his inner technique, yet the coffin lid still did not budge in the slightest!

Wei Zhao was taken aback. He increased the force of his true qi, but the lid still would not open!

Something was wrong! Wei Zhao stopped straining at it by brute force and began to examine it closely, wanting to see just what was special about this lid, and why it would not open despite such effort.

But after careful observation, Wei Zhao discovered to his astonishment that the coffin lid was fixed—it simply could not be opened at all!

In other words, the lid and the coffin were one piece, merely carved to look like a lid. Although there was a thin seam between lid and coffin, a close look revealed that the seam was carved in. Lid and coffin were plainly a single whole—it would be a wonder if it could open!

"This coffin... is fixed? It won't open?" White Leader had noticed the strangeness too.

"Indeed, it won't open. It's a fake." Wei Zhao nodded, then rapped twice more on the coffin, back and forth, and said with a shocked expression, "This coffin... is solid. It's just a great block of stone. Inside... there are no remains!"

"What?!" White Leader's eyes went wide. This sudden turn left him speechless! The two of them had spent half the day paying their respects before a solid stone coffin with no remains in it—what kind of farce was this? "Then... Patriarch Zhang Lifeng's remains..."

"I don't know. But there are only so many possibilities: either this stone coffin was swapped out and the real one taken away, or this is not Patriarch Zhang Lifeng's true tomb at all, but a false tomb meant to mislead..." Wei Zhao said.

"A false tomb... with so many fine things inside?" White Leader cut in, unable to make sense of it.

"Without so many fine things, how could anyone believe it was the real tomb? How could the false pass for the true?" Wei Zhao countered.

"That's true enough. But if so, then placing any corpse here at all would have been better than a solid stone coffin!" White Leader was still puzzled.