I was falling and nothing could save me. My body was in pain after they beat me until I almost lost consciousness. I had hoped for a moment that they would kill me, that's why I had provoked Wen Chao.

I knew that my body would not last long without my golden core!

When Wen Zhu Liu came to me to take it, I was afraid that he would find out that I had no gold core. If I had, would they have understood what I had done? No it was impossible and then the question did not arise, they had not discovered it!

The two guards had each grabbed me by one arm and on Wen Chao's orders, they had made me climb on their swords. My balance was precarious. I had almost no strength left. I wondered where they were taking me and what they were going to do with me!

And then I saw the mountains and the cursed area of the Burial Mound ! Being from Yunmeng, I knew the legend of this place.

Once sacred and a source of spiritual power, Xue ChongHai had made it his sanctuary where he had developed the all-powerful Yin Iron! His madness of grandeur and power had made him want to subdue the world of cultivation by using the powerful amulet.

Then, for the first and only time in their history, the Lan, Nie, Jiang, Jin and Wen Clans joined forces to defeat him!

A terrible battle ensued with hundreds, even thousands of deaths. There were so many of them at the end of the battle that they could not all have a decent funeral. In fact, many of the bodies were unrecognizable, so they were left behind. This sacred land became cursed. All the souls of the deceased in the Burial Mounds were held by the spiritual power of the place.

Since only members of ruling clan families were granted the ceremony of spirit appeasement, all others became damned souls. Gradually the fertile land became barren. The clear water dried up. All animal life deserted the place, leaving it to the evil spirits. The sun was darkened by the black energy of the resentment of the wandering souls. Their anger at being abandoned by their blood only increased the evil power of the place. It became a place to be avoided and was named the Burial Mound because of the thousands of corpses that littered it and fed its black soil.

It was said that Xue ChongHai had hidden many treasures there. Some people had been foolish enough to try to find them. None of them had ever returned! When some fools walked along the place to get to Yiling faster, they said they heard frightening screams in the daytime and saw scary black shadows at dusk. But no one ventured near at night!

What did Wen Chao say before he threw me into the darkness?

"When a living person goes in, neither his body nor his soul can return. There is no way to get out. Let's see if you can keep smiling until the end," and he had pushed me.

"You will be trapped here for eternity" were his last words!

I was falling, seeing the ground getting closer and closer. The terror was getting to me. I screamed. Far above me, I could hear Wen Chao's insane laughter.

I flapped my arms. I knew it was useless, that it wouldn't slow my fall, but I couldn't help it.

The only result was that I rolled over onto my back. At least I could no longer see the ground coming closer. I kept falling. Again and again, then suddenly I felt something cold envelop me.

Wisps of black smoke surrounded me.

My fall stopped. It seemed as if I was floating in the air. I didn't know how far I was from the ground or why my fall had stopped. I watched as the dark energy twisted around my limbs. It seemed to be trying to find me.

Then, as suddenly as it had stopped, my fall resumed. I broke through the thick fog of darkness and crashed violently to the cursed floor of the Burial Mound. The power of the impact made me lose consciousness for a few moments.

My body could no longer bear the intense pain. Without my core, it was impossible for me to heal. I was going to die here in the depths of this forgotten land! Was I going to become a damned soul? Was I going to haunt this place like all the other corpses that were there? It is on this questioning that I lost consciousness.

A voice came out of the darkness and brought me back to life. I recognized some of them. They belonged to my friends, my companions, my family from Lianhua Wu. They were shouting my name and calling me. What were they doing there, why was I hearing them here and now?

I thought that it was the spirits of the veterans of the burial mound that would come to me! And then they said that nothing came out of it! But could spirits enter it at the cost of being locked up for eternity?

I felt a terrible power around me, I could not determine its source. I was in pain, my body was broken. The shock of my fall must have broken several ribs. As for my legs, I wasn't even sure I could stand up. At the same time, I didn't have the strength... nor the will. I only hoped for one thing... to die.

So why did I feel the need to follow those voices?

And then, there was one...louder than the others. A voice I would have recognized in a thousand! Lan Zhan! Why could I hear his voice? Had he too left the realm of the living to join the realm of the dead? I had not seen him since the cave on Mount Muxi.

I heard his voice again and it made me sit up. Once again, it overpowered all the others. She made me turn around. That's when I saw it, floating in a halo of light piercing the darkness. A sword. The shouts and voices changed.

I no longer recognized them. They reminded me vaguely of the ones we had heard in the cold cave just before we met Lan Yi. I felt an uncontrollable urge to get closer to that sword! I crawled towards it. I could do nothing else, I was too weak!

I was assailed by all these cries from beyond the grave. I wanted it to stop. I wanted all this noise to stop .... and let me die in peace!

I continued to crawl. I had the strange impression that if I reached the sword, the voices would be silenced and silence would return! I was still moving forward, chasing the murmurs and their invisible owners with my hand.

A woman's voice became louder than the others and asked me if I wanted revenge.

Revenge? In my condition!

"Don't come near me" was my only answer

But the voices continued. Others joined the woman's voice, asking me if I wanted to stay?

Stay? All I wanted was to leave this hellhole or be left to die in peace!

I had moved closer, I was only one hand away from the sword. The voices kept asking me if I wanted to stay, if I wanted revenge.

My fingers closed on the hilt of the weapon. The black energy that surrounded me withdrew. That's when I recognized it.

It was the sword that I had found in the belly of the Xuan Wu turtle in the cave of Mount Muxi! I recognized this energy too, it was the energy of Iron Yin; it was identical to the piece we had found in the cold cave with Lan Zhan.

I tried to remember, ... this sword, I had put it in my Qiankun bag. Why had it been reactivated? I didn't know. When I found it, it was stuck in the ground. When I had freed it, I had heard voices similar to those I was hearing now. What if I stuck it in the ground? Would it silence the voices again? I gathered what little strength I had left and pushed the tip down .... and silence fell.

It was then that a single voice was heard. A strong, confident, bewitching and persuasive male voice.

"Wei Wuxian, do you want to take revenge? "I knew whose voice it was. Here in the Burial Mound, the Iron Ying was back in its birthplace and that voice could only be Xue ChongHai's.

The dark energy had completely surrounded me. My sword stuck in the ground gave me a new feeling of revenge. I didn't know how yet, but I would make all those who had hurt me pay the price of blood! The Iron Ying, Xue ChongHai and the spirits of the Burial Mound would help me!

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)