Chapter 1: The Ghost Wedding Night: The System Awakens

Before she knew how much time had passed, Lin Fuling was jolted awake by a harsh whiff of choking dust. Her throat felt like it was packed with sand. She yanked her eyes open, but the darkness swallowed her vision whole; only a faint, dismal sliver of light leaked down from far above. She shifted, her limbs bumping against cold wooden walls—a coffin. An open coffin, lying right in the middle of a narrow tomb corridor.

She remembered the last thing she’d done. Yesterday, she’d still been in the museum, restoring Han Dynasty tomb murals. Then, in a blink, she’d been dragged into this Yin Marriage (Ghost Marriage) casket. A stone beam had crashed down from above with a thunderous roar, sealing off her escape route with a pile of rubble. A thick miasma of Black Evil Aura was seeping out from the collapse, reeking of rot and sulfurous stench.

She pounded frantically on the coffin’s rim until her fingernails snapped, smearing blood mixed with gray mud across her palms. The landslide had completely sealed the path back, and the Black Evil Aura was growing denser. She felt like her lungs had been filled with lead, a tight, crushing pressure building in her chest. *I’m done for,* she thought. *Buried in someone else’s grave, I won’t even get to keep my own bones.*

Just as her consciousness began to fade and blur, a robotic voice exploded in her mind, cold and hard as iron: “Host soul fluctuation detected; contract conditions met. Tomb Guardian System forced binding in progress... Binding complete. Basic appraisal function activated.”

Lin Fuling gasped in a sharp breath. Surprisingly, the burning pain in her lungs eased slightly. The voice continued without hesitation: “Host is in a high-risk collapse zone; Earth Veins are disrupted. System alert: The left coffin wall is misaligned by zero. three meters. The support beam will collapse within ninety seconds. Move to the rear-left immediately.”

She didn’t have time to think. Instinct took over. She rolled out of the coffin and crawled desperately to the side. A deafening boom echoed behind her as the coffin was smashed to splinters by the falling debris. Panting heavily on the dirt floor, she croaked, “...What the hell are you?”

The mechanical voice offered zero emotion: “Tomb Guardian System, bound to the Earth Veins of the Imperial Mausoleum, assisting the host in exploring the tomb and contracting Tomb-Guarding Beasts. A decoy coffin detected twelve meters ahead. Internal trigger logic present. Inspection recommended.”

She hauled herself up, relying on the faint route projected onto her retina by the system to steer clear of several cracks in the floor. There it was—a black coffin outlined in gold. It looked opulent, but the lid was caked in dust, without a single scratch or knock mark on it. The system noted, “A double mechanism is concealed beneath the decoy coffin. Forcing it open will release toxic sand and trigger a secondary collapse.”

Lin Fuling narrowed her eyes. It suddenly clicked. The decoy coffin was the tomb master’s first trap, but traps usually led to hidden chambers. She whispered, “Can this mechanism be reversed?”

The mechanical voice paused for a fraction of a second: “Yes. Opening the decoy coffin will activate the chains on the sliding door to the north, but the closure must be completed before the toxic sand is released.”

She took a deep breath, used a broken brick to prop up a corner of the coffin, and shoved the lid open with a violent heave. The inside was empty, save for a dark, heavy iron chain. As the lid flipped, the chain clanked and went taut. Toxic sand sprayed out instantly. Lin Fuling dove to the side, slamming the coffin lid back shut with a sharp crack. The iron chain jerked, and the stone wall to the north shattered with a loud roar, splitting open into a gap just wide enough for a person to slip through sideways.

The system’s voice turned urgent: “Sliding door opened. Poisonous gas inside. Host must hold breath, crawl along the ground for eight meters, then turn right.” She tore a strip from her hem and clamped it over her mouth and nose. She dropped to her hands and knees and crawled forward. The toxic gas clung to the ceiling of the passage, so she stayed as low as possible, inching through the dust on the floor. Her elbow skinned raw, but she gritted her teeth and endured it until a blast of cold, clean air rushed in from ahead.

She squeezed through the opening and tumbled into a spacious antechamber of the tomb. The noise cut out instantly, leaving only the sound of her own ragged breathing. Overhead, a mottled star chart faded into the murals. Underfoot, the blue bricks were polished to a smooth shine. The system’s voice returned: “Host has exited the main passage and entered the antechamber. Residual funerary items detected. First-time appraisal function triggered.”

Lin Fuling pushed herself up and swept her gaze across the room. Finally, deep in the shadow of a corner, she spotted a Silver Hairpin half-buried in the soil. The shaft of the hairpin was a lustrous, unblemished white, its head carved into the shape of a half-blooming lotus. After all these years, not a speck of rust marred it.

She reached out to touch it. The instant her fingertips brushed the shaft, a string of data popped up before her eyes: “Ming Dynasty gilt-silver hairpin. Personal item of the tomb master. Preserved in excellent condition. Black Market value estimated between 800,000 and 1,200,000. Channels: Liu San Niang's Channel, Nanyang private auctions.”

Lin Fuling froze on the spot. 800,000 to 1,200,000? She had restored more cultural relics in her entire career, and none of them came close to being worth what this one hairpin was. She clenched the Silver Hairpin in her fist, cold sweat breaking out on her palm.

The system added one final note: “Host may exchange funerary items using Guardian Points. Point yield is linked to the intactness of the tomb. The more precise the host’s excavation, the higher the system’s yield. This allows for upgrades to capabilities such as Yin-Yang Eyes, Earth Language, and Coffin Soul-Reading.”

Before she could fire off a question, faint footsteps echoed from the corridor at the far end of the antechamber, followed by hushed voices: “Master Bai said that if this job goes through, every one of us brothers gets a cut.”

“Shh, keep it down. This tomb is cursed as hell.” Lin Fuling’s spine went rigid. She ducked rapidly into the shadow of the corner, shoved the Silver Hairpin inside her clothes, and held her breath. The footsteps grew closer. She heard someone tap lightly against the wall, followed by a low chuckle: “Master Bai from the Coffin Shop? When did he ever start playing with the big leagues?”

“Doesn’t matter. Either way, this tomb is ours tonight.”