I turned to look at her and saw that she had already reached the edge of the massive stone slab that resembled a giant stone mill in the center. We moved closer and saw that it was a stone star chart, covered with a grid of small dots representing the countless stars in the sky, with each dot indicated by an ugly, dark green stone.

This was the elixir that my uncle had shown me before, and there were so many of them here.

“What is this? An elixir of immortality?” A strange voice came from behind, accompanied by a whistle. We turned around to see that the person trailing us had brought a few companions along.

I immediately felt a headache coming on and shook my head. “This is a deadly poison that will kill you instantly if you consume it. Absolutely do not touch these elixirs; they are extremely toxic.”

“Of course, we’re not going to eat them; we just want to take a look, right?”

“No way,” I replied. “You can’t touch anything here.”

The group seemed interested, and upon hearing my words, they muttered a few complaints. One of them lit a cigarette and said, “Who do you think you are, with all these rules?” The politeness from before had vanished from his tone. I pretended not to hear, and at that moment, the flares burning around us began to extinguish one by one. The fat guy lit two more, looked up, and suddenly started shouting.

We all looked up and saw that at the highest point of the cave, several iron chains were hanging down, attached to something. The chains spread out like a spider’s web, embedded in the rock on one side and connected to that object on the other. The object was pitch black, resembling a huge black sphere.

As the flares fell, darkness returned to the cave.

“What is that thing?” someone nearby exclaimed in surprise.

“This is a suspended furnace,” Wen Jin exclaimed. “Oh my god, this cave must be the cave entrance of the legendary Longmu of the Great Fengshui Wanshan. This is the highest realm of the alchemy chamber, the pinnacle of the alchemical furnace, suspended above the ground, gathering the essence of the entire dragon vein.”

The fat guy switched to a high-altitude signal flare and said, “Let’s get a clear look.”

Another flare shot up, and this time it exploded right at the edge of the black sphere, illuminating it vividly. It turned out to be a beautifully carved bronze spherical vessel, more than three times larger than any bronze artifact here. From below, it looked like a gigantic wolf spider lurking at the center of a spider’s web, connected to those iron chains.

Wen Jin immediately told the fat guy to stop firing, worried that there might be flammable materials inside the furnace, which could cause an explosion. If that happened, we would be bombed, and none of us would survive.

The fat guy sighed, saying, “It’s a pity we can’t go up to take a look; otherwise, maybe the elixir of immortality is up there. If we could eat a dozen of them, we could go straight to the moon. I wonder how Chang’e is doing lately.”

I slapped the fat guy on the shoulder and sighed, “You’ve finally revealed your true self, Marshal Tianpeng. No wonder I found your figure so familiar.”

The person holding the elixir laughed, “Young Master San, do you really think you’re the master here? Times have changed; people don’t care about seniority anymore.” As he spoke, he dug out an elixir and shone a flashlight on it to examine it closely. However, the expression on the face of the silent oil bottle next to me changed, and I heard him softly exclaim, “It’s over.”

Before the words were finished, the stone slab suddenly lost its balance and tilted to one side, followed by a complete silence around us. The few people present were startled as well; no one dared to move, all frozen in place, waiting for the situation to unfold.

After a while, nothing happened. We exchanged glances, and the chubby guy said, “Damn it, is this stone not set properly?”

However, the expression on the muted oil bottle’s face grew even paler. He didn’t look at the stone slab but instead directed his gaze toward the surrounding jade figurines. Then, we clearly heard a few “whoosh” sounds coming from the jade figurines. Immediately turning to look, we discovered that the pieces of one jade figurine had actually scattered apart, as if the golden threads it was wearing had been suddenly pulled away. The pieces immediately lost their shape and fell apart, revealing the ancient corpse inside. It was a grotesque ancient corpse with a horse-like face.

I was instantly speechless. I had heard that once the jade figurine shed its pieces, the corpse would undergo a transformation, and this was serious. Thinking quickly, I shouted, “Get out now!”

Before I could finish, we heard a series of mechanical locking sounds at the cave entrance. The stone door we had come through had already fallen, sealing off our escape route.