Actually, I remained highly vigilant after entering the cave to ensure our safety. I even called YunQingYue to help me check the surroundings. Fortunately, my alertness allowed me to detect a slight disturbance in the distance as soon as it occurred. Through detection, I confirmed that it was an extremely fierce Yin energy and most likely either a freezing soul or a vicious ghost sentinel from Mo Du Yin Hun with the task of patrolling and guarding.
Obviously, we couldn't let that thing discover us. So when I sensed its presence, I immediately activated the Cover Heaven Bell and pulled Xie Yilin towards it. JIETOU and Chi Qingshuai also reacted quickly and joined us inside.
The Cover Heaven Bell had absorbed a large amount of Yin essence by then, making it powerful enough for easy manipulation with just one thought from me. Its size doubled instantly to cover all four of us.
However, except for me, JIETOU and Chi Qingshuai couldn't see what was happening outside anymore.
"YiHeng, what's going on? What happened?" Xie Yilin asked cautiously when she saw our serious expressions but didn't understand why.
"I'm not sure yet about the specific situation. Let's keep quiet since that thing is coming over here," I replied while closing my eyes and releasing my abundant Qi like tentacles probing outside through Tianmen Gate.
"It's here," YunQingYue whispered lowly as soon as my Qi went out.
"Cough cough... QingYue girl, are you standing there so brazenly? Aren't you afraid of being discovered?" Seeing her behavior outside made me roll my eyes involuntarily.
"Don't call me 'girl'! Who do you think you're talking to? Do you know how old I am? Older than your ancestors combined!" YunQingYue retorted disdainfully at my words, making me feel helpless.
"Okay, okay, can you please be more reserved? At least find a place to hide," I begged with a bitter face.
"What 'place to hide'? Do you think I'm your child? If they discover me, I'll just pretend to be one of them. Maybe then I can infiltrate and become your insider for unexpected results," YunQingYue said confidently.
"Cough cough... Old ancestor, please don't daydream. We're over a kilometer apart now and have no connection between us due to our current strength. If your identity is exposed later on, you might end up sacrificing yourself for nothing," I reminded her with a wry smile.
"Ancestral ancestor?" YunQingYue frowned and pondered for a moment, then suddenly her eyes lit up and she said, "This name is good, powerful enough."
"Nima-" Seeing her expression, I almost spurted out a mouthful of old blood. This stinky girl was so naive that she didn't even hear the sarcasm in that title.
"Hush-" Just as we were chatting nonsense, YunQingYue suddenly silenced me and looked ahead to the side.
Seeing this situation, I couldn't help but look over there too. But when I saw it, I was stunned because I didn't expect the newcomer to be not a spirit body but a zombie.
The appearance of the zombie was very strange. It was wrapped in green rust-stained armor with an oily black face and shriveled skin. Its eye sockets were empty with bared teeth and its bamboo-like claws held an ancient-looking long-handled axe which seemed to be made of bronze covered in green rust.
"Ding Ling Ling- Ka Cha-" The zombie walked mechanically while swinging its legs forward. As it walked around it also twisted its head looking around; obviously patrolling.
"Chi Chi-" When the zombie approached us it stopped involuntarily and sniffed subconsciously as if sensing something unusual in the air but could not see any obvious foreign objects. So its expression became puzzled as it tilted its head checking on where we hid behind that mushroom for quite some time before finally turning around slowly leaving us alone.
When the zombie got closer to us, upon closer inspection I found that its armor had corroded severely even entangling with his flesh making him look extremely ferocious like green rusty scales growing on top of his skin which looked disgusting.
Fortunately though, the zombie did not discover us since YunQingYue behaved herself without provoking it so eventually he left slowly at last.
After the zombie left, I couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief and then opened up the cover of the sky-covering bell. While gasping for breath, I explained the situation to JIETOU and his team.
"That's right. In ancient times, emperors had the bad habit of burying their servants alive with them. King Helu of Wu was no exception. If I'm not mistaken, the zombie we just saw should be one of the burial soldiers in his tomb. Now it has turned into a armored corpse and become the guardian spirit of King Helu," said Captain Chi Qing to us.
"So there may be quite a few of these things around here, which could be troublesome," I couldn't help but furrow my brows upon hearing this.
"What's so troublesome about that? They're just a bunch of stupid zombies. Are we afraid of them?" Jietou looked at me and sneered, "Besides, don't you have the Heaven-Covering Bell? We can hide inside it and they won't even notice us. What is there to worry about?"
"You don't understand," I interrupted Jietou and said, "I noticed that armored corpse seemed to have a sense of smell earlier. So if we continue on our way, even if we hide inside the Heaven-Covering Bell, they might still find us."
"If they find us then we'll fight them! What are you afraid of?" Jietou took out his golden wheel as he prepared for battle.
"I'm not worried about those corpses alone; what worries me is that it might alert those powerful Motu Yin Hun spirits. If that happens, we might not even be able to enter their domain or end up getting stuck here." I frowned.
"Damn it! You're scaredy-cat personality annoys me most! Then tell me what do you suggest? Do you want to go back now? Why did we come all this way then? Just for sightseeing?" Jietou glared at me with displeasure.