Chapter 55: Grandmother's True Arrangement

Grandmother’s hand reached out from the coffin and seized me.

If you had asked me in that instant what I was thinking, I would have had to admit—I had no idea. My mind was utterly blank.

I don’t know how long it took before I came to my senses. Staring at Grandmother’s hand, tightly gripping my wrist, I realized this was no hallucination. Lying within the coffin, Grandmother seemed alive.

Logically, if Grandmother wasn’t dead, I ought to have been overjoyed. But in this situation, I simply couldn’t summon any happiness. Grandmother’s hand had suddenly grasped me, yet the rest of her body lay motionless in the coffin.

Something was clearly amiss. If Grandmother truly weren’t dead, she would have spoken, not just seized my hand and then done nothing else.

I tried gently to pull away, but Grandmother’s hand did not let go. I lifted the oil lamp, illuminating her face.

Her expression was unchanged from before: eyes shut, her features peaceful.

Looking again at her hand, wrapped like a shackle around my wrist, I could not fathom what was happening, nor why Grandmother was holding onto me.

Was this some kind of corpse resurrection?

As soon as that thought surfaced, I shook my head. This didn’t seem like that. I had seen such things twice before, and it was nothing like this.

Because it was Grandmother lying in the coffin, I quickly calmed myself. I set the oil lamp atop the coffin lid and began prying her fingers from my wrist.

As I worked, I noticed something strange—Grandmother’s hand was not cold and stiff like a corpse’s at all.

On the contrary, it retained some warmth. The temperature wasn’t quite that of the living, but her skin was soft, nothing like the dead.

This made me recall my earlier failed attempt to summon the lost soul. Could it be that Grandmother truly wasn’t dead?

It is common knowledge that a corpse grows cold and stiff after death.

But when I discovered Grandmother’s passing that night, her body had already been rigid, the very picture of death. Now, though, lying in the coffin, she seemed nothing like a corpse—more as if her soul had left her body, leaving her in a deep slumber.

I couldn’t say what was really going on.

The only possibility I could imagine was that there were two Grandmothers—one who had actually died and been buried on the mountain, and the other hidden here.

But I could not believe I had two grandmothers. After all these years, surely I would have noticed something.

Thinking further, I concluded this was some elaborate ruse planned by Grandmother herself. She was feigning death.

As for the purpose, it was easy to guess: to deal with Old Master Qin.

Before this, Grandmother sensed there was a formidable villain lurking in secret, though she didn’t know the exact identity. She also knew that if she remained alive, the person hiding in the shadows would never show themselves.

So Grandmother staged this whole affair, using the events that had happened to me as a pretext. Knowing her as I did, I was sure she would keep her word—she had promised to help me recover my lost soul and rid me of the birthmark on my face. She wouldn’t have deceived me.

Looking back now, it was exactly as I suspected. By faking her own death, Grandmother lured Old Master Qin out of hiding.

Grandmother’s strategy was truly ingenious. Even Xu Buhuo seemed not to have discovered the deception. Otherwise, when we opened the coffin on the mountain, Xu would surely have noticed something.

Or perhaps Xu Buhuo had already guessed Grandmother’s plan but pretended not to know, leading me around in circles, putting on a convincing show of Grandmother’s death for Old Master Qin’s benefit.

Anything was possible. I no longer dwelled on the trick itself. My nervousness and anxiety gradually shifted to excitement and joy.

I also remembered the slip of paper hidden in Grandmother’s ancient tome of divination, detailing how to enter the secret chamber. She must have placed it there deliberately, knowing I would search for the chamber and ensuring I’d find the instructions.

Apart from the bright red coffin and Grandmother herself, there was little of value in the secret chamber. If she hadn’t wanted me to find her, there was no need to let me discover its existence at all.

Realizing this, I couldn’t contain my excitement. I wanted to shout, to vent the pent-up emotions of these past days. Still, I knew it wasn’t time to rejoice just yet. Although the truth was coming into focus, the final outcome remained uncertain.

Taking a deep breath to steady myself, I resumed prying at Grandmother’s hand. After several attempts, I found her grip was extraordinarily strong—impossible to break without brute force.

From her appearance, Grandmother seemed to be in deep sleep. Forcibly removing her hand might have unforeseen consequences. I hesitated, unable to understand why she would clutch my wrist so tightly for no reason.

Unless—she had something to tell me? Some warning?

The thought came to me in a sudden flash. I realized I’d had the coffin open for some time, yet nothing had happened. Only when I was about to close it and leave did Grandmother’s hand suddenly seize me, as though she did not want me to go.

With this in mind, I spoke to her inside the coffin: “Grandmother, it’s me, Ziwu. Is there something you want me to do? If so, loosen your grip a little.”

Her hand was moving, but she hadn’t awakened—I figured this must be a side effect of her feigned death. Perhaps the time was not yet right for her to wake, so she could only use simple gestures to communicate.

As I waited, I felt Grandmother’s grip on my wrist soften.

I couldn’t help but grow emotional, my eyes hot and wet. I knew then that my guess was correct—Grandmother was truly alive. Taking a deep breath to compose myself, I pressed on: “Grandmother, if there’s something you need me to do, just point it out.”

Her hand suddenly released me, but did not return to the coffin. Instead, her index finger pointed down to the floor.

I brought the oil lamp close, expecting some clue on the ground. But after a careful search around the foot of the coffin, I saw nothing—no sign or mark. As I was about to ask what she meant, I noticed the circle of oil lamps and the array inscribed around the coffin.

Could it be that she wanted me to light the lamps?

The array, combined with the oil lamps, surrounded the crimson coffin. With Grandmother lying inside, it was clear the array’s effect centered on her.

“Grandmother, do you want me to light these lamps?” I asked nervously.

Her finger twitched twice, then her hand withdrew into the coffin.

I understood now—Grandmother wanted me to light the oil lamps around her coffin.

There was no oil in the lamps. Searching the chamber, I found only one bottle of oil. It wasn’t sesame oil, but a dark, viscous liquid with a faintly fishy odor, clearly meant for the lamps.

Just to be sure, I searched again, but still found no sesame oil. The black oil, then, was what Grandmother intended me to use. I promptly filled the lamps.

Counting as I worked, I realized there were exactly ten lamps circling the coffin—the same number as the three souls and seven spirits of a person.

Even more precisely, when the last lamp was filled, the bottle was empty—every drop used.

These arrangements were all Grandmother’s doing.

I lit the ten lamps. At first, the flames were orange-yellow, but gradually they deepened to a bloody red, casting an eerie glow over the chamber.

As the ten lamps burned, a faint chill began to stir in the secret room.

Feeling the breeze, I moved to cover the entrance with the wooden plank, worried the wind might blow out the flames. But as I brought the lamp to the stone steps near the entrance, I noticed the flame in my hand flickered slightly inside the room, but stood perfectly still and upright at the doorway—not swaying at all.

The breeze, it seemed, was conjured by the lighting of the ten lamps themselves.

Looking again at the bloody red flames, I saw that after a moment’s wavering, they too became perfectly still, untouched by the chill wind.

Had I not witnessed it myself, I would have thought these flames were nothing but painted models.

Ten oil lamps—ten, the sum of three souls and seven spirits.

I couldn’t help but guess that Grandmother had been waiting for me all along, waiting for me to light the ten lamps and activate the arcane power of the array.

When the ten lamps burned out, perhaps she would awaken.

Whether my guess was correct, I waited eagerly to see. After watching for a while and seeing nothing else happen, I knew there was nothing more for me to do but wait. I stepped forward to close the coffin.

But as soon as I tried, Grandmother’s hand shot out and pressed against the lid, stopping me—she did not want me to close it.

Seeing this, I bade her farewell, made sure nothing else in the chamber could catch fire, and reluctantly left.

If it were possible, I would have stayed in that secret room until the flames died out and Grandmother awoke—but I knew I could not.

At the entrance, I stuck my head out to make sure no one was around, then hurried out and replaced the wooden board.

The slip of paper had described only how to enter, not how to leave. Taking a chance, I walked forward a few steps and found myself outside the original threshold. When I looked back, there was no sign of the board—just smooth floor.

I returned to where the board had been, stepping on it, but it was just ordinary floor—no entrance at all.

The arts of divination and the shifting of hidden doors—truly miraculous.

Having experienced it myself, I found my curiosity about these mysteries growing. Once all this was over, I resolved to study them thoroughly.

Before leaving the yard, I composed my features, arranging my face in a mask of confusion.

I could not be sure whether Old Master Qin was watching from the shadows, but I could not dismiss the possibility. If I appeared happy, he would surely guess that I had discovered the secret chamber in the old house.

Then, if he threatened my mother’s safety to force me to reveal how to enter, Grandmother—just on the verge of awakening—would be in grave danger.

On the way back, I thought about the bronze key Old Master Qin wanted and felt troubled.

I had assumed it was hidden in the secret chamber, but I had scrutinized every object within and found no bronze key, not even a scrap of iron.

Of the three days’ deadline, nearly one had already passed. Time was running out.

“Ziwu.”

I had just stepped into the new house when a familiar voice called out ahead. I looked up and my heart gave a jolt.