Yun Hao and Yu Longting similarly harnessed the advantages of ectothermic animals.
The palm holding my wrist gradually warmed, gently lifting my body as our pace suddenly quickened, "Snake Servant, from the coffin on the mountain, push it down."
"Whose coffin is this? It looks rather lavish," I remarked as Yun Hao quickly led me to the front of the vehicle.
A huge and imposing coffin lay across the middle of the railroad.
The coffin, painted red, no longer revealed the texture of the wood.
There was no ancient wear of earthy burial on its surface, yet it was far from a frivolous modern craft.
It exuded a sensation of traversing through time and antiquity, ever new as the ages passed.
Beneath the red paint base, it was decorated with golden lacquer depicting odd patterns, many of which were variants of ancient beasts. I scrutinized for a while before noticing that the four sides of the coffin were adorned with the four Divine Beasts.
Carved on the coffin's lid was an Evil-Suppressing Lotus, with the lotus embedding dewdrops red as the Chicken Blood Stone.
On closer inspection, those were not gemstones nor chicken blood stones.
It was the very Wind-Setting Pearl the white-bearded old man had spoken of!
Even more terrifying, the coffin had cracked open, and although I couldn't make out the form of the corpse inside, I could see countless centipedes crawling out, never seeming to end.
It was enough to make one's scalp tingle.
Seeing my shocked expression of someone unacquainted with the world, Yun Hao gave a smiling chuckle, "It is the coffin that once housed my previous body, those so-called snakes of the righteous path, they killed and dismembered me, fearing I would not stay dead, so they used a thousand-year-old centipede demon to suppress me."
"Should I say you are scheming, or should I say you sacrifice yourself for others?" I curled my lips, feeling that Yun Hao's sacrifice was too great, all to distract a mere eccentric old Taoist.
He was even willing to use his own former snake body as bait...
Yun Hao tightened his grip on my wrist, "It's just instinct."
Instinct to protect me, is it?
I felt a pang of guilt deep inside, sensing that Yun Hao indeed had it rough.
Feeling my old face heat up, I changed the subject, "That explains why, after the coffin dropped to the ground, it's like we poked a centipede nest, with so many crawling up onto the train."
"The passengers on the train won't be harmed, the Wind-Setting Pearl is also the centipede bead."
Yun Hao casually stepped on one, revealing a faintly glowing red body within the decaying centipede corpse.
"Collection of Gourd, volume five." I blurted out, recalling an ancient tome I had read in my childhood.
Noticing Yun Hao's slightly surprised look, I explained, "My grandfather left a lot of ancient books, which he passed on to my dad, and I read some of them."
"During the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, in the Yu Bridge of Wujin... Inside a barrier laid a centipede, several feet long, all its legs tightly bound in death. When its head was cut open, they found a bright pearl one inch in diameter. And for each of its hundred legs, there was one bead per leg," Yun Hao recited from the Collection of Gourd, his long life giving him profound knowledge.
The classical Chinese text was not complicated.
It described an encounter with a large centipede during the Wanli era of the Ming Dynasty. Follow current novels on novel⦿fire.net
When its head was chopped off, they discovered a large, brilliant pearl inside the brain, the very Wind-Setting Pearl that could protect against all toxins.
A small centipede bead was found in each of the large centipede's feet.
Despite its ugly appearance, if a centipede were to cultivate successfully,
its inner core would be a rare treasure.
Xiao Honghong, perched on my shoulder, stared intently at the coffin as if mesmerized, murmuring softly, "Ancestor... my ancestor is inside the coffin."
"You're not thinking of saving your ancestor, are you?" Three black lines appeared above my head, thinking if we saved this millennium centipede and it turned out evil, what then?
Xiao Honghong snorted lightly and burrowed back beneath my collar, "It's long dead, just a corpse with a lingering breath of life."
Feeling the aura settling on Xiao Honghong, I knew it had gone back to sleep. My fondness for Xiao Honghong grew as I patted it through the collar fabric, "Sleep well, sleep well~ my adorable little Xiao Honghong~"
"You even have the ability to converse with centipedes?" Yun Hao smiled softly, his icy visage thawing like the March sun melting white snow.