The boy became more excited as he spoke, his voice carrying a sob.
"But Father said it wouldn't do."
"They all say the outside is very dangerous, that we are sinners, and if we go out, we'll suffer heavenly punishment."
"But I've been here since I was born. What crime did I commit? What crime did my father commit? What crime did my grandfather commit?"
"Why must we be locked in this sand sea for a lifetime, unable to even catch a glimpse of the world outside?"
He struck the ground with force.
"I won't accept it!"
"I want freedom..."
"I want to see true green mountains and clear waters."
"I also want... I also want to be a knight-errant, roaming the world with a sword, just like in the stories the storyteller told..."
The mummified corpse "listened" quietly.
She did not understand.
What was freedom?
What was out there?
Green mountains and clear waters, red flowers and green grass, birds that could sing... these were all concepts completely beyond her comprehension.
However, she remembered this child named Tuoba Feng.
She remembered the resentment in his voice and the longing in his tone.
He was the first person to actively speak to her since her consciousness began.
It was very interesting to listen to him speak.
But it was a pity.
Her mouth was sewn shut; she could not speak, and since she understood nothing, she had no way to answer him.
She could not even manage a single "I am listening."
"Roar—!"
A violent beast's roar pulled the mummified corpse back from her memories of a thousand years ago.
She turned her eye sockets toward the direction the sound came from.
A particularly massive black-spot monster had circled around Tuoba Feng's front and lunged at him from the side.
Tuoba Feng reacted extremely quickly, swinging his blade in a backhand strike, but the edge was caught by the black qi on the monster's body, only sinking in half an inch.
The monster jerked its head back with immense force, causing Tuoba Feng to stumble several steps, while its sharp claws tore a wound into his arm.
"Tuoba!" Su Xue cried out in alarm, the orchid in her hand blooming as several streaks of emerald-green light instantly sank into his wound.
Tuoba Feng moved his arm, gave Su Xue a nod, then tightened his grip on his long blade and rushed toward another monster.
The mummified corpse watched his departing figure.
His robes were already tattered beyond repair, covered in black blood and yellow sand.
His aura was somewhat erratic, but his gaze remained steady.
He was fighting with his life.
For her.
The mummified corpse suddenly felt a wave of guilt.
These disasters were all brought about by her.
If it weren't for her, the Western Region wouldn't have become like this, the Grave-keepers wouldn't have died generation after generation, Tuoba Feng wouldn't be trapped here, and his daughter Xiaoyun wouldn't be infected by the black spots.
It was all her fault.
"Xiaoyun, are you alright?"
Tuoba Feng took a moment to look back, watching her anxiously.
His face was stained with blood and sweat, but those eyes were full of concern.
The mummified corpse shook her head.
As she looked at his face, which was entirely different from a hundred years ago and etched with the hardships of time, her consciousness began to drift again.
When was it... that she first gained sight?
It seemed... to have been several centuries later.
Several hundred years might only be a period of erosion by wind and sand for a stone.
But for a corpse that could only listen, it was enough time for her to learn many things.
From the mouths of generation after generation of Grave-keepers, she pieced together her own identity.
She was originally the divine remains, a forbidden existence.
And these Grave-keepers were the guilty ones who had been exiled here.
Their ancestors had committed unpardonable sins, so their bloodline was cursed, requiring them to stay in this barren Western Region for all eternity to watch over and suppress her with their own blood and lives.
She could not be allowed to emerge; otherwise, heavenly punishment would descend, and the entire world would suffer a catastrophic disaster.
So that was how it was...
That truly was serious.
No wonder they had to gouge out her eyes, sew her mouth shut, and seal her in such a cramped coffin with such a complex array.
The mummified corpse felt that they were doing the right thing.
She must never go out.
Staying here in this god's tomb, listening to them practice their blades, listening to them marry, listening to them have children, and listening to them... die.
It seemed that this, too, was not bad.
Over these several centuries, she remembered many more names.
There was the cheerful and laughter-loving Tuoba Mu, the gentle Tuoba Sang who sang folk songs, and Tuoba Dan, who always secretly dozed off during sacrifices...
But she rarely heard Tuoba Feng's voice anymore.
He seemed to have grown up, his voice becoming low and deep like his father's, losing the clarity of his youth.
He was no longer as talkative as when he was a boy, becoming silent and taciturn, deep like the sand sea of the Western Region at night.
He had become... less lively than before.
Until that day, when she heard his voice again while he was alone.
The heavy stone door was pushed open, and the thick scent of alcohol drifted into the sacrificial burial chamber.
The sound of stumbling footsteps eventually stopped before her sarcophagus.
Tuoba Feng did not speak; he simply sat down against the cold stone coffin, gulping down wine mouthful after mouthful.
Suppressed sobs issued from his throat.
He was crying again.
He drank while he cried.
"Father... is dead..."
"Why... why did you leave too..."
"You said... you would watch me marry and have children, watch me... become the strongest Grave-keeper... You lied to me... You liar..."
The mummified corpse listened quietly.
She did not understand.
Why did he sound so sad?
To die was simply to be dead.
Had she herself not died long ago as well?
What was there to be sad about?
Death was nothing more than a return to eternal peace; was that not good?
She did not understand sorrow, she did not understand parting, and she did not understand what the passing of one life meant to another.
"...It's all because of the bloodletting... It's all because of the bloodletting!!"
Tuoba Feng suddenly slammed the wine jar onto the ground, causing it to shatter with a sharp crack.
He struck his head against the stone coffin over and over, producing muffled thuds.
"For the sake of this damned seal, to suppress you, my grandfather died, and my father died too!"
"Am I... next?!"
"What did our Tuoba clan do wrong?!"
"To have to endure such a curse! Generation after generation, never a day of peace!!"
His voice was filled with resentment and bitterness.
But even more so, it was filled with the helplessness and despair of being unable to escape his fate.
The mummified corpse understood only half of it.
Oh, so that was it.
Bloodletting... could kill people.
No wonder the names she remembered—Tuoba Mu, Tuoba Sang, Tuoba Dan... so many of them—were voices she never heard again later on.
It turned out they had all died.
It turned out that death meant never being able to hear that person's voice again.
Thinking of it this way, she seemed to understand Tuoba Feng a little better.
The next day, a grand sacrifice was held in the god's tomb.
This time, the atmosphere was more solemn than ever before.
"The divine remains are undergoing a corpse change, the array is loosening, and ominous signs have appeared throughout the Western Region as the black spots spread."
The patriarch's aged voice echoed through the god's tomb. "The seal... can no longer be suppressed."
"We need more blood, we need stronger power."
"I'll do it!"
"Me too!"
"My life was born to guard this seal! Patriarch, let us begin!"
One voice after another rang out.
The mummified corpse understood.
It was because of her.
It was she who brought the disaster, causing the land to warp.
Therefore, a stronger seal was needed, which meant... more people had to die.
She listened to those people as they gave brief farewells to their families before voluntarily going to their deaths.
"Take good care of the children."
"Wait for me."
"...Alright."
So, were these people going to die as well?
She hadn't even had the chance to remember their names, and yet, she would never hear them again.
The mummified corpse suddenly felt a sense of suffocation.
It was a very strange feeling, as if a large stone were pressing down on the depths of her consciousness, making it hard to breathe.
It turned out that when someone died, it truly was sad.
It turned out that sadness felt like this.
The sacrifice proceeded in a tragic and heroic atmosphere; the screams and the sounds of life fading from outside gradually grew sparse, eventually returning to silence.
It was also at that moment that the mummified corpse discovered her world was no longer just a void of darkness.
She seemed... to be able to see.
It was a very blurry sensation, as if looking through a thick veil.
She saw the interior of the coffin she was lying in.
On the underside of the lid above her, intricate and complex patterns she didn't understand were carved, resembling a starry sky.
It was too dark and too small inside the coffin; besides these patterns, she could see nothing else.
But, after all, she could see.
....
"Xiaoyun, how are you? Are you feeling unwell somewhere?"
Seeing the mummified corpse standing still, Tuoba Feng called out anxiously.
The mummified corpse snapped back to reality and saw Tuoba Feng looking down at her with concern.
His robes were tattered, and the wounds all over his body were beginning to heal slower and slower, even with Su Xue's treatment.
She could no longer suppress the black spots within the god's tomb, so Tuoba Feng's battle was far more difficult than she had imagined.
A strong wave of guilt instantly overwhelmed the mummified corpse.
These disasters, these monsters, these deaths... they were all brought by her.
"Xiaoyun, don't be afraid. I'm here."
Seeing her not responding, Tuoba Feng thought she was frightened; he forced a faint smile, his voice raspy and gentle.
"Don't worry, as long as your father is here, these ugly things won't hurt you. I promise."
"Just hold on a little longer. I will take you out of here."
The mummified corpse suddenly trembled.
No, that wasn't how it was.
She lifted her head and looked at Tuoba Feng, her shriveled lips parting as a harsh sound issued from her chest. "...I am fine."
Having said that, she raised both hands, and the sinful karma on her body surged out once more like tentacles, wrapping around a black-spot monster lunging from the side.
The black qi tightened instantly, binding the monster firmly.
With a hard pull, the mummified corpse dragged the screaming monster toward herself.
Splash!
The monster's body slammed into her chest and quickly merged into it.
The mummified corpse's body trembled violently.
There was now one more black spot.
She could feel the black spots inside her body becoming more dense, her power becoming increasingly uncontrollable.
But it didn't matter.
As long as she could drag one more monster back, Tuoba Feng and the others would be in a little less danger.
"Xiaoyun!"
Seeing her actions, Tuoba Feng's eyes instantly turned red.
He rushed over and pressed down on her shoulders.
"Don't do this! You won't be able to hold on!"
The mummified corpse looked up at him with her empty eye sockets.
She wanted to say: I won't die, I have been dead for a long time.
But she couldn't say it.
She was afraid of piercing the lie she had woven.
She could only gently shake her head.
Then, she released her sinful karma again, dragging in another monster.
Watching her like this, Tuoba Feng's tears finally fell uncontrollably.
He wiped his face hard, smearing tears and blood together.
Then, he gripped his blade and turned around.
"Your father is useless for being unable to protect you."
"Xiaoyun... is truly such an obedient, good child."
The mummified corpse shuddered.
Yes.
Xiaoyun... had always been a very obedient, good child.
While dragging the black-spot monsters into her body, the mummified corpse thought back to her first meeting with Xiaoyun.
That had been many years after she had first gained the ability to see.
The sacrifices within the god's tomb had become more frequent, and their scale larger each time.
The number of Grave-keepers had decreased drastically, and the vivid voices in her memory had vanished one by one.
In contrast, her own power—the corpse change of the divine remains—seemed to be growing increasingly severe, and thus she became stronger and stronger.
Finally, one day, she discovered that the stone coffin that had imprisoned her for ten thousand years could no longer hold her.
With just a slight thought, the coffin lid would slide open, leaving a gap.
She secretly slipped out.
It was very dark in the burial chamber, but she had long since grown used to the darkness.
The mummified corpse stepped barefoot onto the cold, hard stone tiles, curiously observing this world she had listened to for a thousand years but had never seen.
It was very large, with stone pillars and murals everywhere.
The murals were carved with many figures and stories she didn't recognize.
She was like a newborn infant, full of interest in everything.
She extended a withered finger, carefully touching the stone walls and feeling the uneven carved marks upon them.
She also discovered a small pool of water; the water was mixed with silt and very murky.
She leaned over and saw her own reflection in the water.
The mummified corpse tilted her head, seemingly not finding this appearance frightening at all.
This was how she was supposed to look.
After wandering around the god's tomb, she arrived at the tomb door.
It was an unimaginably massive stone door, likewise covered in seals, with the array of the god's tomb still in operation.
She could feel that if she wanted to, she could easily push this door open and walk outside.
But she didn't dare.
She still remembered that she was the divine remains, a taboo, and the source of disaster.
She could not be allowed to emerge, or she would face heavenly punishment.
She had already brought so much disaster to this land and its people, causing so much death; she could not continue to be wrong.
She just quietly pressed her thin body against the gap in the stone door and looked out into the distance through that narrow crack.
Outside was an endless sea of yellow sand.
The boundless golden sand sea reflected the piercing light of the midday sun.
In the distance, within the air distorted by the heat waves, the silhouettes of several undulating dunes were faintly visible.
The sky was a pure azure, like a giant gemstone without any flaws.
It’s so beautiful.
The mummified corpse offered such praise from the bottom of her heart.
It was so much more beautiful than the inside of that cramped coffin.
The coffin only had darkness, silence, and herself.
But outside, there was wind, sand, and light.
Even if it was just a wasteland, it felt novel to her.
But soon, she sensed someone approaching the god's tomb.
Startled, she quickly turned around, ran back to the sacrificial burial chamber at her fastest speed, lay back in the coffin, and pulled the lid shut once more.
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