Chapter 3: Meteorite Soul-Suppressing Nail
Under Liu Xiu’s guidance, Wang Liang began making his way through the ruined city.
Perhaps because he believed he could seal the ruins of Kunyang completely, the seal restraining Liu Xiu had been laid out in plain sight.
Three hundred years of wind and rain had toppled the walls and destroyed the city, but Wang Liang still found the “meteoric nails” Liu Xiu had mentioned without much trouble.
Wang Liang finally understood why he and these ancients seemed unable to communicate: their ideas were fundamentally different.
He could never have imagined that Liu Xiu would call something like this a nail.
It was plainly a pure-iron statue almost as tall as Wang Liang himself.
Like the way Wang Liang had been buried earlier, these statues had been sunk into the earth, with only their heads exposed.
The expressions on their faces were remarkably subtle. A single statue had been endowed with seven entirely different expressions; viewed from different angles, it displayed a different character each time.
Once the iron statues had been dug out, it became clear that their clothing had been crafted with extraordinary care. Every detail had been cast with precision, making them resemble the stone guardians placed before an emperor’s tomb.
The more closely Wang Liang examined the technique used to create the statue, the more familiar it seemed. It appeared to bear traces of the style of the Spring and Autumn period.
“Is this… a Golden Man?”
“Oh? You actually recognized it.” As Wang Liang dug out several more statues, Liu Xiu’s range of movement grew wider and wider. He could even stir up a gust of ghostly wind, blocking out part of the sunlight and allowing himself to appear above ground.
“It’s obvious. This follows the method by which the King of Qin gathered weapons from across the realm and cast the Twelve Golden Men. But the King of Qin didn’t simply invent the Golden Men on a whim. Some of the ideas behind them had an inherited origin. They’re actually recorded in the Zhou Library. Once you trace them back to their source, the lineage is immediately apparent.
“This Golden Man clearly follows a pre-Qin style, with barely any alteration. I imagine the Twelve Golden Men were left behind as models, and this was made from them.”
After hearing Wang Liang’s explanation, Liu Xiu grew curious as well. “How do you know all this so clearly?”
“I… How do I know?”
Liu Xiu’s question plunged Wang Liang into thought. At last, he answered slowly, yet with absolute certainty:
“I saw it with my own eyes.”
The moment those words left his mouth, purple aura surged around Wang Liang. He then struck one of the statues with his palm. The face, which had possessed seven distinct emotions, slowly changed until it became rigid and expressionless.
“That’s right. See? I told you everything can be traced back to its origin. No matter how much it changes, it can never escape its fundamental nature. As long as you understand the root of something, that’s enough.”
As he spoke, Wang Liang continued striking the statue with both hands.
With every blow, a portion of the purple aura around him flowed into the statue.
At that moment, Wang Liang felt his thoughts surging like a tide. Many things he had failed to understand while cultivating the Profound Scripture, the Primordial Heaven and Earth Skill, and the Book of Changes were suddenly clarified one after another.
At the same time, things buried deep within his memory were brought to the surface. He saw a vast library filled entirely with purple bamboo slips. Most of the slips contained fewer than ten words, yet by combining those words in different ways, one could derive entirely different meanings.
As Wang Liang’s movements grew faster and faster, the statue shrank as well. In the end, the iron figure that had originally stood nearly as tall as Wang Liang became a small iron figurine that could be held in one hand.
Wang Liang reached out and took the figurine. A faint smile appeared on his face.
【Meteoric Iron Soul-Suppressing Nail — Ancient Wengzhong】
【Quality: White. Nine pieces may be combined to upgrade it to green; twenty-seven pieces to blue; fifty-four pieces to purple; eighty-one pieces to red.】
【Description: Forged from meteoric iron that fell from the heavens, it suppressed the fortune of the Han imperial house for three hundred years. Recast through ancient sorcery, it possesses three innate special effects. It may be used to establish formations or refine magical treasures.】
【Special Effect One: Fortune Shatter. An effect born from the death of the Chosen One beneath a stone fallen from beyond the heavens. It ignores the influence of an enemy’s fortune, locks onto the enemy with absolute precision, and prevents the enemy from evading through methods related to fortune.】
【Special Effect Two: Suppression. An effect born from suppressing the fortune of the Han imperial house for three hundred years. Once the formation is established, anyone who enters it will suffer the erosion of their fortune and be able to exert only half of their original power.】
【Special Effect Three: Protection. An effect activated through ancient sorcery. After returning to human form, the Meteoric Iron Soul-Suppressing Nail will automatically protect the owner of the magical treasure.】
After reading the long string of information, Wang Liang said calmly, “Now that you’ve seen what I can do, can you tell me exactly what you mean by the Spirit-Sealing Grand Formation?”
At that moment, Liu Xiu stepped out from the shadows.
When Liu Xiu had been suppressed, he had not yet become emperor—not even king. Yet the fortune of the Han imperial house over several centuries had gathered within him, and as a result, even his clothing had been replaced.
He wore a black imperial robe patterned with red dragons and phoenixes. Looking closely, one could see that the robe bore seven emblems in all: the sun, the moon, the stars, the dragon, the phoenix, white rice, and water plants. It did not conform to the proper style of an imperial robe.
Under Wang Liang’s gaze, Liu Xiu, whose skin had already grown somewhat withered, lowered his head.
“As you can see, I had not yet become emperor. Even wearing an emperor’s crown and robe, I could not possess all twelve emblems. To have seven is already the protection of the Han imperial fortune.”
With that, Liu Xiu bowed once more to Wang Liang.
“I have yet to thank you in person for saving my life, sir.”
“There’s no need. If you have something to say, get to the point. What exactly is this Spirit-Sealing Grand Formation you mentioned?”
Liu Xiu looked at Wang Liang helplessly, wondering why the man seemed so discourteous. Yet Wang Liang’s presence was formidable, and he was surrounded by a layer of purple aura. His understanding of the Meteoric Iron Soul-Suppressing Nails was also far deeper than Liu Xiu’s. By all appearances, Wang Liang should have been the more learned and proper of the two.
Could it be that Liu Xiu had studied the wrong things?
At that thought, Liu Xiu lowered his head.
“I did not learn much from an early age. I worked out most of what I know through my own research. I…”
“Stop wasting time. Get to the actual matter.”
As he spoke, Wang Liang began processing several of the other statues he had dug out earlier.
Watching Wang Liang’s movements, Liu Xiu could only begin explaining his own situation.
“I actually knew nothing at all. Most of what I understand was figured out little by little during the three hundred years I was sealed away. I don’t know what the formation Wang Mang used to suppress me was called, but I felt that as long as this city remained in place, I would never be able to leave. I could not even sense anything outside the formation. I could only remain in a darkness without end, so I named it the Spirit-Sealing Grand Formation.
“However, through the movement of the Han imperial fortune, I could sense the arrangement of the formation and the flow of its power. Don’t ask me how I know. I have spent all these years trying to escape, repeatedly staking my life to test it. Where I met resistance and where I could not go—I understand all of that quite clearly.”