Evan Lin walked onward along the rocky path.
This path seemed to have no end—no matter how Evan and the others advanced, the moon that looked so close was always out of reach.
Visible, but untouchable.
"Isn't it way too quiet on this stretch? There's nothing here at all. When we first came in, at least we ran into those weird creatures."
The farther they walked, the more uneasy everyone felt. The oil lamps stretched forward along the rock wall, disappearing into the distance with no end in sight.
"Are we stuck in some kind of ghost wall? Just walking in circles?"
Harold Wang, the Wang family patriarch, couldn't help but speculate. He glanced at Patrick Liang, intending to ask him to pull out the compass for a direction check, but remembered it was destroyed and instinctively looked to Evan instead.
"Master Lin, if we just keep walking like this, it's not going to work."
He spoke respectfully: "This is our first time entering the Immortal Lady's Tomb."
"We only have some records handed down, but none of them ever mention what to do after entering the tomb, or how long it takes to find the Immortal Lady."
"There's no ghost wall. We're safe for now."
Before he could finish, Evan had already cut him off.
Hearing Evan's words, everyone felt a bit relieved.
They kept walking for who knows how long, and the air around them suddenly grew colder.
"The moon... it's turned blue."
Someone noticed the moon had changed.
Everyone looked up—the moon that had been glowing orange was now a ghostly blue.
The whole moon looked like a crystalline blue gem.
It was pure and transparent.
Looking at it now, it gave off a strangely eerie feeling.
"On the moon... is there something up there?"
"Why do I suddenly feel like my eyesight just got way better?"
Someone cried out in surprise.
Evan paused, staring up at the moon.
"We've been walking this whole time—it looks like a straight path, but actually it's a curve. And that curve leads right to the moon."
Bella Xiao spoke softly beside Evan.
She'd noticed something was off long ago, but hadn't said anything until now.
"It's not that your eyesight got better—it's that we're closer to the moon."
Bella glanced at Evan. "Because we're closer, we can see more clearly what's on the moon."
"The oil lamps on these rock walls look like they're lined up straight, but as you said, they're actually following a curve. Maybe the tomb owner planned it that way."
Evan spoke calmly: "There's no formation here, and nothing especially dangerous right now. But if we go any further, I can't guarantee our safety."
"If any of you want to leave, you can go now. Just walk back the way you came."
Hearing Evan, everyone gathered together, exchanging glances.
"The reason we came here was to see for ourselves what's inside the Immortal Lady's Tomb—to witness the true face of the Immortal Lady we've guarded for generations."
"If the Immortal Lady is truly here, then our Four Grave-Keeper Families' generations of vigilance will not have been in vain. But if she's not, then we can finally be freed from our duty."
"Now that we've made it this far, none of us plan to turn back."
The patriarchs all looked serious.
Evan nodded. "In that case, let's go."
With that, Evan stepped forward.
As he took that step, the people around him suddenly felt the atmosphere shift—the air grew strange.
Everyone instinctively looked up at the ghostly blue moon, and saw a palace appear upon it.
The palace gates were built from white jade and Loulan-style architecture, with vivid carvings of dragons and phoenixes on the stone pillars.
The whole palace radiated a chilling coldness.
It looked incredibly magnificent.
But that icy aura made it terrifying—just looking at it sent chills down their spines.
The temperature around them dropped even further.
"Why is that palace getting bigger?"
"What is that thing? It looks so weird."
"I... I'm kind of scared..."
The tension in the air was palpable.