95: Chapter 95 Another Antique

The door of the tearoom was pushed open, and the light inside was extremely dim.

The surrounding curtains were tightly drawn, casting only a few soft, cool-toned spotlights from above several glass display cases in the very center.

Standing beside the glass cases was a young man.

The man was around twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, with a lean and upright figure.

He was wearing a vintage tweed three-piece suit, with a pair of gold-rimmed glasses perched on the bridge of his nose.

His short, tousled hair was neatly styled, and his whole person exuded a strong scholarly aura of a university academic.

In his left hand, he held a yellowed leather-bound notebook, and in his right hand, a high-magnification magnifying glass. He was lowering his head, intently studying a rusted piece of iron inside the display case.

Hearing the sound of the door opening, the young man stopped what he was doing and turned around.

His face was refined and gentle, with soft facial features and no aggressiveness at all.

Lin Ye's gaze fell upon his hands.

The man's fingers were slender and pale, with a layer of extremely difficult-to-wash grayish-black powder lingering in the gaps of his fingernails.

That powder emitted a unique scent.

The smell of deep tomb soil, buried underground for years, mixed with rotted wood and aged lime.

A high-ranking Mojin Captain disguised in scholar's clothing.

"Mr. Bai, this is Master Lin whom I mentioned to you."

Patriarch Song Zhenguo spoke up to introduce them.

"Master Lin, this is Bai Yu. He is a top domestic archaeological consultant and concurrently serves as an antique appraiser for several large auction houses. He has extremely extensive research on the tomb shapes and systems of the Pre-Qin period."

Bai Yu put the magnifying glass away into his vest pocket and refinedly closed the notebook.

He stepped forward, extended his right hand toward Lin Ye, and wore a warm smile at the corners of his mouth.

"Mr. Lin, I've heard of you for a long time. Patriarch Song holds your attainments in feng shui in the highest regard. Seeing you today, Mr. Lin is truly imposing and extraordinary."

His voice was warm and gentle, his speaking pace unhurried, naturally carrying an affinity that made people feel favorable toward him.

Lin Ye reached out his hand to shake hands with him briefly.

The moment they touched, Lin Ye only felt that the other person's palms were icy and dry, without a shred of the calluses or true qi fluctuations typical of martial artists.

Bai Yu's meridians were completely empty inside, and his vital energy and blood were weak. He was truly an ordinary person without any cultivation whatsoever.

"You are too polite, Mr. Bai."

Lin Ye withdrew his hand, his gaze passing over him and casting towards the central glass display case.

"I heard from Patriarch Song that there is a tricky item that needs to be looked at."

Bai Yu nodded, turned around, and walked over to the largest glass display case.

Inside the display case quietly sat a square, rusted iron box.

The surface of the iron box was covered with large, peeling patches of dark red oxide layers, and some dried black substances remained at the corners.

The iron box had no keyhole, and its eight corners were tightly sealed by thick iron rivets.

"This item was excavated three days ago."

Bai Yu pushed his gold-rimmed glasses, lowering his voice by a few shades, exuding a rigorous academic attitude.

"Judging from the compaction density of the soil layer attached to the bottom, it has been soaked in underground water veins for at least twelve hundred years. The forging technique of the rivets on the surface of the iron box is very special. All the rivets are driven inward to form dead-locks."

Bai Yu's fingers slid slowly along the edge of the iron box through the glass.

"When ancient craftsmen built chests and boxes for storing gold and silver, the rivets would definitely face outward to prevent thieves from stealing."

"And this inward-driven forging method only explains one thing in architectural mechanics: the original design intention of this thing had nothing to do with gathering wealth; it is a purely sealed container. What it guards against is not people from the outside going in, but rather the things from the inside coming out."

This tightly-knit logical reasoning made a trace of unusual color flash in Lin Ye's eyes.

This person had no cultivation at all, yet purely based on knowledge of history and structural science, he could accurately deduce the essence of the evil object.

This power of observation and IQ far exceeded those Jianghu swindlers who only knew how to wander around blindly with a luopan.

Lin Ye slowly walked closer to the display case.

He did not activate the Qi-Observing Technique, and stared at the rusted iron box purely based on the intuition of his naked eyes.

The temperature in the tearoom dropped unconsciously.

The wind blown out from the previously weak central air conditioning vent carried a damp, fishy water odor.

A large green plant in the corner of the wall silently curled and turned yellow at the edges of its leaves.

In the silent room, a very faint muffled sound suddenly rang out.

"Drip."

A drop of turbid water seeped out from a crack in the ceiling and smashed onto the Persian carpet, leaving a dark water stain.

Patriarch Song Zhenguo shivered and instinctively tightened the jacket of his Tang suit.

A-Biao pressed his hand against the retractable baton at his waist and vigilantly looked around.

Bai Yu's face turned slightly pale.

He instinctively gripped the leather-bound notebook in his hand tighter, staring fixedly at the iron box without any movement of retreating or escaping.

He was afraid, but he was even more eager to explore the truth.

Frost Star stopped chewing the candy in her mouth.

The little girl let go of Lin Ye's hem, took two steps with her bare calves, and stopped on the right side of the display case.

She raised her small face, her heterochromatic pupils staring straight at the water-seeping corner of the ceiling, her pink nostrils twitching rapidly twice.

"There's the stench of dead fish." She muttered softly.

Ayugu secretly released Gu insects.

Lin Ye's gaze shifted from the iron box to the glass surface of the display case.

Under the illumination of the ceiling lights, the bulletproof glass reflected the silhouette of Bai Yu standing in front.

Lin Ye's eyes narrowed slightly, and coldness welled up in the depths of his pupils.

In the reflection of the glass, Bai Yu was lowering his head and recording something in his notebook.

Bai Yu in reality had just raised his right hand and pushed the gold-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose with his index finger.

One second passed.

The "Bai Yu" in the glass reflection still had his right hand lingering on the notebook.

It wasn't until the second second that the arm in the reflection stiffly raised and mechanically completed the action of pushing the glasses.

The action of the reflection was a whole beat slower than reality!

The air in the tearoom completely froze.

The fishy water odor reached its absolute extreme.

On the bulletproof glass inside the display case, a layer of white water vapor condensation quickly covered it.

Behind that layer of water vapor, a skinny palm print covered with black corpse spots was slowly forming.

The palm print was squeezing from the inside out, accompanied by a teeth-gritting sound of glass friction.

Patriarch Song Zhenguo finally discovered the abnormality of the reflection. The old man was so scared that he retreated repeatedly, falling heavily into the single sofa of the tearoom, panting heavily.

Bai Yu also sensed the abnormality in temperature. He raised his head and happened to meet the delayed-action version of himself in the glass.

His pupils contracted, fine cold sweat oozed from his forehead, and his legs stiffened in place.

As an ordinary person with zero combat power, facing this kind of supernatural and terrifying phenomenon, his body instinctively made a crash response.

Lin Ye did not voice any reminder. He strode forward with long legs, his posture composedly crossing a distance of half a meter, directly blocking between Bai Yu and the display case.

Lin Ye raised his right hand, his broad palm flattening against the icy glass surface, just covering the black palm print that was forming.

The original true qi of the Pure Yang Dao Body flowed quietly in his palm.

There was no bursting fire, no deafening thunder.

The extremely rigid and pure yang vital energy and blood silently crushed past within a square inch.

"Hiss!"

White smoke steamed up.

The black palm print on the inside of the glass was like residual snow encountering a branding iron, instantly melting away cleanly.

The water vapor condensed on the glass quickly dissipated, the temperature in the tearoom warmed back up, and that nauseating fishy water odor vanished without a trace.

The reflection returned to normal.

Lin Ye withdrew his hand, shoved it into his pants pocket, and turned his head to look at the shaken Bai Yu.

"Mr. Bai's deduction was not a bit off."

Lin Ye's tone was calm, breaking the dead silence inside the room.

"This iron box is a sealed container. The thing inside soaked at the bottom of the water for over a thousand years, gathering a mouthful of extremely wicked water-grudge malignity."

"Patriarch Song, this thing's malignity is overflowing. Don't take it out for exhibition tonight. Wrap it up with red cloth and throw it into the underground vault to lock it down tight."

Bai Yu pushed up his slipping glasses and pulled out a square handkerchief to wipe the cold sweat from his forehead.

He opened the notebook and quickly recorded a few lines of text on the paper pages with a slightly trembling fountain pen.

"Thank you very much for stepping in, Mr. Lin. I have learned a lot."

Bai Yu let out a long breath, and the look he gave Lin Ye carried a few more parts of heartfelt respect.

"The ancients used the oxidation of ironware to construct a sealing magnetic field. This method combining both anti-corrosion and confinement is truly breathtaking. The boundary between metaphysics and archaeology is far more blurred than I imagined."

He didn't ask what the palm print just now was, nor did he make a fuss and press Lin Ye on what immortal magic he had used.

He used his own knowledge system to try to digest this scene that transcended common sense.

This calm, restrained, and measured personality made Lin Ye look at him with higher regard.

"There are specialties in every trade."

Lin Ye nodded.

"Mr. Bai's understanding of underground material structures is equally admired by Lin. In the future, if we encounter tricky ancient tomb burial objects, we will still need to rely on Mr. Bai's discernment."

The two looked at each other and smiled.

Seeing that the evil spirit was easily suppressed, Patriarch Song Zhenguo let out a long sigh of relief and hurriedly instructed A-Biao to find a red cloth to wrap the iron box tightly.

"Master Lin, Mr. Bai. The dinner banquet is about to officially begin, the two of you, please move to the main hall."

The group pushed open the heavy soundproof door of the tearoom and walked back into the bustling and prosperous banquet hall.

On the stage of the hall, the lights were brilliant, and a symphony orchestra was playing a soothing welcome waltz.

Dressed-up men and women holding champagne shuttled and talked within the luxurious venue.

Separated by a single door, it was as if they were two completely different worlds.

Lin Ye politely declined Patriarch Song Zhenguo's proposal to invite him to the main table, and led several people to a panoramic floor-to-ceiling window at the edge of the banquet hall.

The night outside the window was deep.

I don't know when, but a pattering autumn rain began to fall once again over Jiangzhou City.

Raindrops hit the huge glass curtain wall, gathering into winding lines of water, sliding down toward the steel forest adorned with neon lights below.

Leng Yue stood quietly by Lin Ye's side.

The hustle and bustle of the banquet hall were automatically filtered out by her keep-strangers-at-a-bay aura.

She tilted her head slightly, her deep red eyes looking at the two side-by-side figures reflected on the glass.

"These mortal dignitaries and celebrities sink into such dissipation of wine and women every day, yet they do not know what kind of dangerous abyss they are stepping on beneath their feet."

She spoke softly, her tone carrying no disdain at all, merely stating a cold, hard fact.

Lin Ye picked up a glass of champagne from a passing waiter's tray, gently swirling the pale golden wine in the goblet.

"This world has always been like this. Only when someone bears heavy burdens forward in the abyss can they trade for their debauchery under the lights. We take money to do things and guard this one-third acre of land in the old district, and that is enough."

He raised his head and drank the wine in the cup to the bottom, casually placing the empty glass on the windowsill beside him.

Outside the glass window, the night rain was dense, blurring the outline of the entire city.