The incense-choked vault reeked of seven corpse-oil lamps arranged in a Big Dipper formation. As the grey-robed elder stuffed longevity contracts into a rat-head idol''s maw, a faint crack echoed — spiderweb fractures spread across the statue''s left eye. His heart seized as if gripped by spectral claws before he could reach his luopan.


    "Lord Grey... the pact..." The elder collapsed onto his divination plate, nose bloodying the "Wu-Xu-Hai Period (1898)" engraving. His extended lifespan — borrowed shreds from rodent deals — finally expired.


    Rats scrambled for scattered contracts beneath the altar, dragging his warmth-flecked corpse into floor cracks.


    Dawn filtered through guesthouse curtains as Feng tweezed peachwood shards. The carbonized blade crumbled like burnt toast. Six rat-tooth talisman fragments lay displayed, each etched with fading "Zhou Clan, Southern Yunnan" script. The blind man snored nearby, sleeves stained with subterranean moss.


    "Crude geomantic trap..." Feng flipped Annals to the "Three Coins House Protection" diagram. The mute girl scratched circles in the corner, charcoal stub tracing the blind man''s dropped divination stick — replicating its "Mingyi" hexagram in shaky strokes.


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    "Ha! Poetic!" The blind man jolted upright, scattering talisman shards across his plate. "Kan shifts to Li, Xun enters Kun — Lord Grey''s vessel network is severed!"


    Feng dumped sword remnants into trash: "The netherworld''s cauldrons remain intact."


    Noon sunlight glinted on reassembling coin fragments. Feng lifted his pillow to find yellowed rice paper — "Netherworld Decree" stamped with bloody rodent prints, paragraphs ranting about "yin-yang transgressions" and "defying underworld codes".


    "Too coarse for toilet paper." Feng crumpled the decree. It combusted midair in jade flames. The blind man chuckled, "Netherworld scripts hate yang energy. Like burning spirit money."


    His laughter died as he snapped a divination stick: "Find Lord Grey''s ledger before 3 PM, or wait till next Ghost Festival to petition the underworld..."


    In Paper-Chen''s shack, a charred ledger page protruded from a paper effigy''s eye socket. The old man extracted it with tweezers, bronze ash snowing down: "July 15, 1998 - Thunder Talisman Theft Mastermind..." Bloodstains drowned the text save "Heavenly Master Manor".


    The girl pointed southwest. Feng''s lightning scar pulsed as coin fragments realigned — no longer targeting the city god temple, but Dragon-Tiger Mountain''s sacred peaks forty kilometers away.