After descending several dozen steps, we relied on our flashlights to finally make things out. The stairs were covered in cinnabar, resembling a blood-red path.
Without the Celestial Eye, we had to depend on our mortal eyes and flashlight beams to see no more than twenty or thirty meters ahead. Our ability to sense danger had greatly diminished.
Yang Xiao led the way up front, while Mi Rongheng brought up the rear. Strangely enough, although they had both been doused in corpse oil, Yang Xiao seemed completely unaffected. It felt like he had another method of sensing danger in the surroundings.
The staircase had around a hundred steps. At the bottom was a narrow corridor. After we got down, Yang Xiao glanced around and exchanged a few words with Wu Rendì before deciding to proceed forward.
We had only walked a few steps when Sun Fatty suddenly shouted, "Hey! Look! What's that on the wall?" Before he even finished speaking, four or five flashlight beams had already focused on the wall. I saw that on both sides of the corridor, every ten meters or so, there stood a strange statue.
Each statue depicted the same person: a man dressed as a Daoist priest. Though he appeared elderly, he had no beard under his chin, and his face bore a fierce, ruthless expression.
Xiong Wanyi seemed to recognize it and said, "It's the Ghost Path Sect!" But even he didn't sound too confident. He turned to Mi Rongheng and asked, "Mi Rongheng, is it the Ghost Path Sect?"
Mi Rongheng stepped forward to get a closer look. "Yes, it's the Ghost Path Sect's Guiding Messenger. That's impossible… The Ghost Path Sect vanished long before the Republic era. How could this place be related to them?"
Sun Fatty was intrigued. "Ghost Path Sect? Ghosts and Daoism can be a sect together?"
The others, intentionally or not, glanced at Yang Xiao and then all lowered their heads in silence.
With no one answering, Sun Fatty grew even more curious. He turned to me, "Lazi, have you heard of it? What's this Ghost Path Sect?"
I had indeed seen that term before in the archives: "The Ghost Path Sect was a religious movement that emerged suddenly in the late Qing Dynasty. It lasted only a short time—records mention no more than thirty years. Unlike orthodox religions, the Ghost Path Sect did not revere the Three Pure Ones but only worshipped ghosts and spirits. That's why it was also known as the Cult of Ghost Worship. By modern standards, it was a legitimate heretical cult."
(Note: The Three Pure Ones are the highest deities in Daoism.)
I paused for a second. A sudden thought hit me—those records mentioned the Ghost Path Sect was infamous for manipulating souls and spirits. During the reign of the Guangxu Emperor, there were documented cases of its members extracting people's souls and using ghostly entities to control life and death. Wasn't that exactly what the person leading our team had done?
I had only said half of that when Sun Fatty grew impatient. "Lazi, don't stop halfway—finish the story!"
I signaled him with a look. "That's all I know. Go check the archives yourself when we get back to the Bureau."
It was too dark for Sun Fatty to catch my signal. He muttered, "Back to the Bureau? The guy in front of us knows. Right, Old Yang?"
Yang Xiao stopped walking and turned back to look at Sun Fatty. But it was too dark to see the expression on his face.
I was speechless in the darkness and elbowed Sun Fatty. He finally caught on and smoothly added, "Why don't you ask Ximen Lian if she knows?"
Ximen Lian picked up the cue without missing a beat. "Never heard of it. Look it up in the archives when we're back at HQ."
Yang Xiao said nothing and simply turned around to keep walking.
Only after he had walked ahead did Sun Fatty whisper to me, "Can't mention the Ghost Path Sect in front of Yang Xiao?"
I replied, "He's probably part of it himself. And you still want to poke the hornet's nest?"
Sun Fatty pouted, "How was I supposed to know?"
This corridor stretched over three hundred meters. Who would've thought there was such a place beneath the academy? At the end of the hallway stood a large arched door, but it was locked. Mi Rongheng looked like he was about to kick it open when Sun Fatty stopped him. "You're an amateur at this—let me."
No one knew where he got a piece of wire. He used his flashlight to inspect the lock, twisted the wire a few times to find the angle, then inserted it. After a few twists and turns, we heard a click—the lock opened in under a minute. Yang Xiao moved up to follow.
Not knowing what was inside, we stayed on high alert. Xiong Wanyi and Sun Fatty had already drawn their batons. I pulled out my pistol and flipped off the safety. When I looked at Wu Rendì, he was already gripping a short sword—identical to the one my third uncle gave me.
Yang Xiao pushed the door open slightly and peeked inside. Then he took out a small wine cup—the same one he had used earlier to contain that puff of black mist sprayed out by Shao Yiyi.
He began chanting under his breath and gently shook the cup in a rhythmic motion. The black mist floated up from the cup, circled around Yang Xiao once, then seeped through the door crack and drifted inside.
After about three to five minutes, the black mist slowly floated back out and returned to the cup in Yang Xiao's hand.
Without a word, Yang Xiao gestured for us to follow, then slipped through the doorway. Wu Rendì paused briefly, then followed without a word.
Seeing no danger, the rest of us followed one by one.
What greeted me inside made me jump. It was a grand hall filled with over a hundred statues—each one a deity. But these deities all bared their teeth in terrifying expressions, nothing like anything I'd seen before.
"What was this academy originally for? Why is there something like this underground?" Sun Fatty said, staring at the statues. "These aren't Buddhist or Daoist deities. Who the heck are they worshipping?"
"These are the myriad gods of the Ghost Path Sect," said Yang Xiao. He was staring blankly at the largest statue.
So these were the deities of the Ghost Path Sect? Under the flashlight beams, I scanned the statues more closely. Whoever carved them was clearly a skilled artisan—each one was lifelike and vivid.
But calling them "deities" felt off. Aside from the few fierce-faced ones near the entrance, most had the appearance of ordinary folk. The strangest part? A few were pushing carts or carrying shoulder poles. They represented farmers, merchants, laborers—every walk of life. The threshold for becoming a deity in the Ghost Path Sect seemed absurdly low. What divine roles did they even serve? Gods of the market stalls?
When I reached the last statue—the one Yang Xiao had been staring at in a daze—I was startled by its appearance. The deity depicted looked to be in his twenties, with a babyish face and a half-smiling, half-smirking expression. What shocked me was that this divine figure looked exactly like Yang Xiao.
I wasn't the only one who noticed. Several flashlight beams landed on the face of the "Yang Xiao" statue, and Sun Fatty and the others immediately saw the resemblance too. Only Wu Rendao seemed oblivious to the uncanny likeness—his mind was entirely focused on Shao Yiyi, worried she'd catch cold after getting drenched in the rain. He had already taken off his coat and draped it over her shoulders.
At last, Yang Xiao snapped out of his daze. Strangely, it seemed the moment of distraction had helped jog his memory.
"Director," Yang Xiao called out to Wu Rendao, "according to the Ghost Path Sect's rites, what lies ahead is the Path of the Dead. Should we proceed?"
"No need to ask me. You're in charge now," Wu Rendao replied calmly. "We'll follow your lead."
Yang Xiao nodded and, without saying another word to the rest of us, turned and walked into the forest of statues. After a few twists and turns, he stopped at the edge of the wall. We followed behind and saw him reach out, running his fingers along the wall as if searching for something. Moments later, he seemed to find a mechanism and silently inserted several fingers into a seam in the wall.
The motion looked familiar. When I noticed Sun Fatty frowning and staring intently at Yang Xiao, it clicked. This was just like the first time I met Sun Fatty months ago—inside the Water Curtain Cave.
Back then, I had done the same thing. The only difference was that I had my Celestial Eye active and could see the ghastly pale face embedded in the wall.
As Yang Xiao's fingers entered the wall, it began to change—the entire section of wall started to sink slowly.
Sun Fatty glanced at me and whispered, "Lazi, that move—he picked it up from the Water Curtain Cave in Yunnan, didn't he?"
I nodded and replied in a low voice, "Great Sage, stay sharp. Either Yang Xiao is tied to the Ghost Path Sect, or the Sect is connected to the living corpse we encountered in the Cave."
As we spoke, the wall had sunk all the way down, revealing what lay behind.
Unlike the grand hall that had appeared in the Water Curtain Cave, what lay beyond this wall was a dark, narrow corridor—a gloomy passage. This must be what Yang Xiao had referred to as the "Path of the Dead."
But contrary to expectations, Yang Xiao's expression turned grim at the sight, and Wu Rendao frowned as well. Neither of them said a word. They simply stared into the corridor, then exchanged a glance—one filled with silent understanding.
Among us, Mi Rongheng was the one most familiar with the Ghost Path Sect aside from those two. As soon as he saw the corridor behind the wall, he blurted out, "This isn't the Path of the Departed!"
All of us turned to him. Sun Fatty asked, "What's that supposed to mean, Heng Shao? What do you mean by 'Path of the Departed'?"
Mi Rongheng looked over at Yang Xiao, and seeing no objection, he explained, "The Path of the Departed in the Ghost Path Sect has two branches: the Path of Virtue and the Path of Vice. It's meant for the dead to walk, and it must be walked by two or more people separately—otherwise, no one reaches the end. Those who did good in life walk the virtuous path; the wicked walk the vice path. But both lead to the same destination. Since this corridor only has one route, it's not the Path of the Departed."
While Mi Rongheng explained, Ximen Lian and Xiong Wanyi swept their flashlights through the corridor. It was fairly long, but Ximen Lian had sharp eyes and spotted something. "There are branches up ahead—looks like it splits."
Yang Xiao seemed to notice the same thing and didn't rush in. He glanced at us and said, "Let's split into teams. Eight people, four groups."
Mi Rongheng was taken aback. "But the Path of the Departed only has two routes. Why split into four?"
Staring into the darkness at the end of the corridor, Yang Xiao exhaled and seemed to calculate something before speaking. "Director Wu and Shao Yiyi—"
Before he could finish, Wu Rendao cut him off. "You go with Shao Yiyi. I'll go with Shen Lazi. The rest of them can pair up however they like."
Huh? What was that about? I could understand entrusting Shao Yiyi to Yang Xiao, but why did Wu Rendao insist on pairing up with me? That was very unlike him. Still, no matter how puzzled I was, what Wu Rendao said was final—we had to go along with it.
So that left the other four: Sun Fatty teamed up with Xiong Wanyi, and Ximen Lian paired with Mi Rongheng.
Before entering the corridor, Wu Rendao leaned in and murmured a few words to Shao Yiyi.
Ever since we entered this underground realm, Shao Yiyi had surprised me. Though she was visibly nervous and scared at first, she remained far more composed than most people her age. Her attitude toward Wu Rendao had shifted too—she was beginning to rely on him. Of everyone, she was the least happy about the team assignments, and it took some whispered words from Wu Rendao to persuade her to accept being paired with Yang Xiao.
As we entered the corridor and kept walking forward, we eventually reached its end—only to find four separate branching paths. That's when we realized why Yang Xiao had split us into four groups.
"Old Yang, didn't you say the Path of the Departed only has two branches—Virtue and Vice? What's up with these four? Virtue-Virtue-Vice-Vice?" Sun Fatty joked. He was one of the few in the Bureau who never really took Yang Xiao seriously—probably because he knew Wu Rendao's presence meant Yang Xiao couldn't do anything to him.
Yang Xiao didn't respond. It was Mi Rongheng who answered in his stead: "Someone redesigned the Path of the Departed. This isn't the Ghost Path Sect's original layout."
Yang Xiao walked to each of the four branch entrances in turn, then pulled out the small wine cup again. The black mist inside circled into each of the four branches. This whole process took over an hour.
"There's nothing too dangerous inside," Yang Xiao finally said. He pulled out three sticks of incense and handed one to each of the three remaining teams. "Light the incense when you enter. Each stick will burn for thirty minutes, which is enough to get through. Once you're out, do not wander off. I'll come find you."
With that, Yang Xiao took Shao Yiyi into the leftmost branch. Just before stepping in, Shao Yiyi gave Wu Rendao one last lingering glance.
Mi Rongheng and Ximen Lian lit their incense and entered the branch next to Yang Xiao's.