Chapter 3 The Forbidden Tomb

When she fall asleep due to weakness.The forest thickened as the sun began its descent, dripping molten gold through the canopy like a god's final blessing. Li Mei moved through the shadows like a thread woven by an unseen hand, guided by the flickering pulse of the scroll against her chest. It didn't burn this time it throbbed. As if it were alive. As if it hungered.

She hadn't meant to stray this far from the village. But something inside her whispered no, insisted that this path mattered. That the past had not been buried; it had only been waiting.

When her feet touched the threshold of the forgotten glade, her breath caught.

Before her rose an ancient tomb massive, vine-entwined, weathered by centuries but not defeated by time. The stone lions flanking the gate had long since cracked, their jaws frozen mid-snarl, their eyes hollow with warning. Crimson talismans fluttered in the wind like torn wings, slapped against pillars carved with imperial dragons.

The air was thick with incense and rot.

Li Mei took a step forward and the scroll ignited with invisible fire beneath her robe, its symbols shifting once again.

This time, a name appeared.

Zhen Yao.

She gasped.

In the novel, Zhen Yao had been little more than legend. A warrior of myth half-demon, half-mortal who disappeared after the first rebellion that nearly shattered the empire. He was rumored to have had power over time itself, sealed away after betraying heaven's mandate. But no one really believed he had existed.

No one... except the dead.

Li Mei pushed the doors open with trembling hands, every ounce of her screaming don't, but something deeper whispering now.

Inside, the air was cold, heavy with spiritual residue. Ancient scrolls lay scattered across pedestals, ink faded but not forgotten. Gold-plated armor rested on a statue so lifelike it seemed to watch her.

The walls shimmered with murals tales of battles waged in both mortal and celestial realms. And in the center, enshrined in obsidian glass, was a coffin laced with dragon-shaped locks.

Been a person curious about the ancient history, Her fingers hovered over the inscriptions. She couldn't read them before.

But now... she could.

"He who carries the burden of time shall live again only by the blood of the unwanted soul."

The riddle settled over her like frost. An unwanted soul? What did that mean?

And then she saw it a relic tucked beneath the coffin: a jade dagger shaped like a phoenix, its hilt scorched black. The moment her fingers brushed it, visions assaulted her fire, war, screams, a man with Zhou Wen's face but his eyes... were empty. Possessed. Lost.

She screamed and staggered back, the dagger clutched tight in her hand.

A low rumble echoed through the tomb. Dust poured from the ceiling like falling ash.

And then.... Her touch has awaken something

A voice. Deep. Ethereal. Not human.

"You meddle in fate, child of ink. The ink that writes can also erase."

She turned. The statue... had moved.

Its eyes glowed.

The coffin's locks began to crack open.

Something ancient was waking.

The walls of the tomb began to pulse with a heartbeat not her own, and the jade dagger in Li Mei's hand shimmered with runes that weren't there before. Outside, far above, Zhou Wen stirred in his fevered sleep his body seizing, sweat pouring, whispering one name over and over.

"Zhen Yao... Zhen Yao..."

But Li Mei wasn't listening. Because she had left him and wondered off following the scroll directions.

Because the coffin lid was sliding open and what rose from within wasn't entirely human.

She screamed calling Zhou wen..... How? What? How did you get here? ....