Chapter 26: Plotting in the Starfall Sea Ruins
Lu Qingyang sprawled on the cracked reef, spitting out salty seawater, fluorescent algae clinging to his fingers, flickering in the twilight.
The bronze coffin beast head he had swiped from the Sinister Dragon Pool three days ago was heating up, resonating with the new golden patterns on the cracks of the qingmu spirit pearl.
He pulled out half a flatbread, broke it into pieces, and fed it to the Iron-Armored Turtle at his feet; the mottled divination symbols on its shell suddenly pointed southeast—the direction from which the Starfall Pavilion ruins were emerging.
"Gurgle—"
A muffled sound from the seabed scattered the fish.
Lu Qingyang stuffed the last half of the flatbread into his mouth, then casually flipped the Iron-Armored Turtle over.
The star map engraved on the turtle's belly overlapped with the phantom in the qingmu spirit pearl's space, revealing a bronze altar beneath the underwater vortex.
He took out the Water-Avoiding Pearl he had pilfered from Ye Wuchen's storage jade pendant and squinted at it against the setting sun: "These sanctimonious Taiyi Pavilion fellows even mixed three-tenths lead powder into their Water-Avoiding Pearl."
At three-quarters past The hour of Xu, the tide, laden with phosphorescence, swept over the mudflats.
Lu Qingyang stepped on the coral reefs exposed by the receding tide and dove towards the vortex; the Jiao tendon rope wrapped around his waist suddenly tightened—the Iron-Headed Pomfret he had caught yesterday with Dragon blood-laced bait was now frantically tearing at the dried rotten meat in his trouser's secret pocket.
"Crack!"
A bronze arm covered in barnacles stretched out from the coral cluster.
Lu Qingyang took the opportunity to shove the Iron-Headed Pomfret into the mechanism's crevice.
Amidst the grinding roar of gears, he slid along the rock wall into a suddenly opening secret door, not forgetting to scrape off night-luminescent pearls fragments from the doorframe with his dagger: "These spendthrifts of Starfall Pavilion, they even inlaid the door hinges with North Sea cold jade..."
The undercurrent, carrying salty seawater, poured into the passage.
Lu Qingyang held his nose and swam thirty ten feet, then suddenly choked on water, startled by the sight before him—the entire sunken ship was actually constructed from hundreds of bronze coffins fitted together with mortise and tenon joints, and an ethereal blue glow seeped from the coffin lid seams.
The qingmu spirit pearl flew out uncontrollably; the hourglass inside the pearl inverted, flowing at ten times the normal speed, allowing him to clearly see that each coffin's surface was carved with the trajectories of the constellations.
"Qian position, Heavenly Pivot; Kun Palace, Earthly Fiend..." he murmured, tracing the star patterns on the coffin, then suddenly kicked a slightly mottled coffin in the Xun position.
The clicking sound of gears meshing was exceptionally crisp underwater; seven coffins opened in response, revealing fragments of astrolabes wrapped in Shark silk.
Just as Lu Qingyang was about to use the Jiao tendon rope to bundle away the largest fragment, a fishbone trident suddenly thrust from the darkness.
As he dodged sideways, he deliberately knocked over two coffins; the scattered bronze parts precisely blocked the attacker's pursuit path.
Catching sight of the scale patterns on the assailant's forehead in the fluorescent light, he grinned and said, "My Merman brother, are you also here to 'touch gold'? Why don't we team up, Mr. Lu only needs thirty percent..."
"Human Race thief!" The Merman guard's gill fins flared in anger, and the water stirred by his tail fin formed a trapping array of twelve night-luminescent pearls.
Lu Qingyang flung out three pepper-laced smoke bombs, seizing the opportunity to stuff the astrolabe fragments into his crotch: "Don't get excited! I'm here to help you all repair your ancestral shrine!"
After a chase lasting half an incense stick, Lu Qingyang was forced to hide in the main coffin chamber.
The bronze coffin he leaned against suddenly opened, and a Merman girl wrapped in star-patterned gauze tumbled out.
Her azure pupils reflected the astrolabe in his arms, and the silver bells on her wrist suddenly rang out with a clear, crisp sound: "You have the scent of Dragon blood on you."
"Good nose, young lady." Lu Qingyang pulled out a piece of dried ink-Dragon jerky, "Do you want to try some three-hundred-year-old vintage..." Before he finished speaking, the entire sunken ship suddenly trembled violently.
The moment the Merman guards broke through the door, he pulled the girl in front of him, his finger-clasped Exploding Flame Talisman quietly shifting towards a certain star pattern on the coffin.
"Crack-la-la—"
The star-patterned gauze moved without wind, and the secret compartment at the bottom of the coffin opened in response.
As Lu Qingyang rolled into the secret passage with the girl in his arms, he casually tore off half a piece of the gauze and stuffed it into his embrace.
The fluorescent moss on the secret passage walls formed a star map; as he fled, he used his dagger to carve incorrect trajectories: "Pursuing brothers, look closely, this is a love letter left by your princess..."
The Merman girl in his arms suddenly bit his wrist; blood seeped into the star-patterned gauze, causing it to glow with a silver light.
Lu Qingyang cried out in pain and let go, but then saw the girl dip her finger in blood and draw a complete Zhou Tian Star Dou Map on the wall: "The Legacy of the Starfall Pavilion requires both Dragon blood and Merman tears to unlock."
"You should have said so earlier!" He pulled out a jade bottle to catch the Merman pearls falling from the girl's eyes, then smoothly spread the blood-stained star-patterned gauze into the star map's recess.
A muffled thunder-like tremor came from the seabed; the ethereal figures of the Twenty-Eight Mansions Star Officials rose from the bronze coffins, forming a brilliant star array above their heads.
Lu Qingyang seized the opportunity to pilfer three suspended star cores; the qingmu spirit pearl suddenly burst forth with green light, engulfing one of them.
As the girl's fish tail transformed into legs, he was busy stuffing the remaining two star cores into his shoe soles: "Young lady, this transformation trick of yours is much more exciting than the Hu Xuan Dance at the Drunken Immortal Pavilion..."
"My name is Yinghuo." The girl stepped barefoot onto the starlight, and the chensha stone dangling in her hair suddenly shot towards a certain coffin.
Lu Qingyang pounced to catch the flying gem; the coffin lid, knocked open by his back, revealed a corpse clad in a star-patterned Dao robe—its face was exactly like the old man's phantom that occasionally appeared in the qingmu spirit pearl.
The seabed tremors grew more intense, and the angry roars of the Merman guards, mixed with the grinding sound of bronze mechanisms, drew closer.
Yinghuo grabbed Lu Qingyang's collar and leaped into a suddenly appearing star gate: "Since the star cores have recognized you as their master, you should go and unravel what happened three hundred years ago..."
Amidst the dizzying spin, Lu Qingyang glimpsed his reflection in the star gate—a Dragon scale-shaped golden pattern had appeared on his brow at some unknown time, perfectly aligning with the cracks on the qingmu spirit pearl.
The two star cores in his arms suddenly grew hot, making him curse and swear, yet he refused to let go.