Coming to the front of this solitary grave, he did not immediately begin digging.
Instead, he first took out a palm-sized compass from his shoulder bag.
This compass was not the ordinary type used by feng shui masters, but a specially made "Yin-Fixing Compass."
The compass face was made from lightning-struck jujube wood, and at the end of the magnetic needle floating in the heaven pool, a small piece of magnetite soaked in corpse oil was attached.
Lu Yuan placed the compass flat on the grave mound. The magnetic needle first pointed due north, then immediately began to tremble violently.
The needle tip swung wildly between three directions: the northwest Qian position, the northeast Gen position, and the due west Dui position.
It could never stabilize.
"The Three Powers are misaligned, the earth veins are in chaos."
Lu Yuan murmured, "As expected, the layout has been altered."
After a brief test, Lu Yuan put away the compass, shouldered his hoe, and walked to the "Earth Eye" position he had previously measured out with his footsteps.
He took a deep breath, then suddenly swung the hoe and began digging!
Scooping away at the large grave mound, digging and digging!
But very quickly, after about seven or eight strikes of the hoe, having only dug down a little, Lu Yuan discovered he couldn't dig anymore!
Of course, the winters beyond the pass were very cold and could freeze the ground as hard as iron but clearly, the reason he couldn't dig now wasn't because it was too cold, but because...
A formation!
Someone had placed a formation here.
Hiss...
Seeing the formation beneath his feet, Lu Yuan frowned.
This ghost marriage was far more complex than just gouging out eyes, cutting off the tongue, and severing legs!
Lu Yuan crouched down halfway, grabbed a layer of sandy soil, and brought it to his nose to sniff.
Hmm...
After a moment of contemplation, Lu Yuan stepped back half a step and took out a small packet of "Earth-Awakening Salt" from his chest.
This was made by exposing sea salt to the sun for seven days, then mixing it with realgar powder, mugwort ash, and dried rooster comb blood.
Lu Yuan evenly sprinkled the salt grains into the small pit he had dug.
The moment the salt grains touched the soil, they immediately made a faint "sizzle" sound and emitted wisps of nearly invisible blue smoke.
A strange smell permeated the air, similar to burning hair yet also carrying a fishy, salty odor.
The person who set this formation was very skilled.
At minimum a Celestial Master, possibly even a Five-Star Celestial Master, the strongest among Celestial Masters.
Logically speaking, Lu Yuan's cultivation level shouldn't be able to break it but fortunately, this formation was already old and had been partially broken by someone.
As for who broke it, it was likely that the Ghost Bride had worked it open herself over these years.
It could only be said that Lu Yuan's luck was extremely good. With one application of "Earth-Awakening Salt," the formation was directly broken without much effort then, Lu Yuan exerted force with both arms, and the hoe once again sank into the soil with a thud.
The sensation from this strike of the hoe was extremely bizarre!
It didn't feel like digging earth, but rather like cutting through some elastic, ice-cold, viscous substance.
The hoe encountered obvious resistance, yet also carried an uncomfortable "sucking sensation."
It was as if the soil were alive, resisting, trying to envelop the hoe.
Lu Yuan remained unmoved, steadied his arms, and pried up the first hoe-full of earth.
When the soil turned over, it actually carried a dark red, blackish color, like coagulated blood clots.
Moreover, it was abnormally viscous. When the hoe was lifted, it pulled out long, thread-like strands.
Lu Yuan tossed this shovelful of earth to the side. When the clump hit the ground, it made a muffled "plop" sound and actually bounced slightly like rotten mud.
The second strike, the third strike...
As the depth increased, the color of the soil grew deeper and deeper, gradually changing from dark red to nearly pure black.
The texture also changed from viscous to brittle like charcoal ash, but the cold became increasingly intense.
With every strike of the hoe, a faint, electric-current-like numbing sensation would transmit upward.
When he had dug to about two feet deep, there was suddenly a crisp "clang" as the hoe struck something hard.
It wasn't stone. The sound was more muffled, carrying a hollow echo.
At this point, Lu Yuan quickly dropped the hoe in his hand, crouched down, and brushed away the loose soil with his hand.
Below, a corner of pitch-black wood was revealed. The wood grain was fine and dense, yet faintly showed an oily sheen.
He'd reached it!!
After clearing away all the charcoal-ash-like black earth above, Lu Yuan once again gripped the hoe.
Aiming at the seam of the coffin, he swung it straight in!!
Crack—
The blade of the hoe, neither deviating left nor right, lodged perfectly into the coffin seam.
Lu Yuan gritted his teeth, the muscles in both arms bulging as he put all his strength into the hoe and fiercely pried at the coffin!
At the same time, he silently recited the Defilement-Breaking Incantation in his heart, "Heaven and earth are natural, foul qi disperses, the void within the cave, bright and grand..."
Crack—!
With a crisp sound of wood snapping, the hoe blade wedged completely in, and the coffin lid was pried open to create a gap about an inch wide.
At the same time, his nostrils detected a rich, sweet fragrance so cloying it was nauseating.
It was the smell of aged corpse oil mixed with some kind of herbal medicine and spices.
Lu Yuan steadied his breathing and used the hoe as a lever, prying the coffin lid bit by bit.
The pagoda tree wood coffin lid was abnormally heavy. Each movement was accompanied by a teeth-grating "creak creak" friction sound.
Finally, drenched in sweat and gasping for breath, Lu Yuan forcibly shifted the coffin lid more than halfway open.
Lu Yuan collapsed beside the grave mound, took several deep breaths, then stood up again and took out a fire starter to examine the contents.
Speaking of which, Lu Yuan was someone who had seen things.
Although he had only been here for a year since transmigrating, during this year he had been running around everywhere.
The things Lu Yuan had seen were what ordinary Daoists wouldn't see in three to five years.
Moreover, Lu Yuan was that old man's personal disciple.
That old man had also taken Lu Yuan to many terrifying places that other Daoists could never go to in their entire lives.
Over this year, Lu Yuan had long since transformed from a high school student who didn't dare go to the bathroom after watching horror films.
Into a Daoist who wouldn't even change expression if a jiangshi breathed in his face but when he had steeled himself mentally and, by the faint light of the fire starter and the cool moonlight, clearly saw the scene inside the coffin in that instant.
Lu Yuan still felt as if struck by lightning and abruptly retreated a large step backward.
Holy... holy crap?!!
Inside the coffin... her eye sockets were two smooth, scorched black holes, the edges perfectly even.
As if the eyeballs had been precisely "scooped" out with some kind of scalding copper spoon.
The old man had mentioned a type of cruel torture.
Before gouging out the eyes, aged lamp oil of over three years was first dripped into the eyes.
Euphemistically called "borrowing yang fire to see the human world one last time."
In reality, it was to burn away the last moisture in the eyeballs, preventing any remaining "visual memories" from manifesting in the underworld and inside those scorched black holes, some kind of dark red mud-like substance had been stuffed.
This...
What was this??
Lu Yuan swallowed and boldly leaned forward a bit closer...
Eye-Suppressing Mud!
Made from the blood of middle fingers of three generations of male descendants from the husband's family, ancestral hall incense ash, and rooster comb blood powder, this was "Eye-Suppressing Mud."
Lu Yuan's gaze slowly moved upward.
On her smooth forehead, a line of dripping characters had been written in fresh blood.
The writing had already turned black, yet still exuded a gloomy, venomous malice.
"Your eyes now blind, yin and yang both forgotten. Cannot see right from wrong, cannot distinguish direction. See through your husband's eyes, forever serve at his side."
Looking again at the surface of the mud seal, a pair of extremely small, inverted yin-yang fish had been painted in gold lacquer.
Yang below, yin above.
Signifying that she would forever be in a position of being looked down upon and controlled by her husband.
At some point, Lu Yuan's clothes had become soaked through with cold sweat.
Lu Yuan suddenly understood.
There was one thing Lu Yuan had never been able to figure out before.
Even if her physical body had its eyes gouged and tongue cut, she was already a twenty-star super fierce entity. Why would her soul form also be incomplete and damaged?
She couldn't even speak?
With her current cultivation as a twenty-star super fierce entity, repairing such minor defects on her soul form should be as easy as turning over her hand.
Her soul had been firmly nailed to this mutilated physical body by these extremely sinister techniques!
As long as the seal on her physical body wasn't removed, her soul form would never, for all eternity, be able to return to normal!
Lu Yuan gazed at that face in the coffin that had long since lost all vitality, and at that line of malicious blood characters on the forehead.
A chill shot straight from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head.
What sinister techniques!
What malicious human hearts!