“And then?”

“After that… nothing more, my lady Sister.” Qianyue looked at Tangxue, apology soft as winter light.

“I see…”

A hush of frustration pooled in Tangxue’s chest. She bowed her head, thought in circles like falling leaves, then let the thought drop.

“Let’s go. We’ll check the other tomb chambers.”

“Mm.”

On the way out, Tangxue studied the white-haired woman in the crystal coffin. That face—cool as frost on glass—looked strangely like Qianyue.

The second chamber sat right beside it. The murals felt familiar, like twin waves. Both sets carried faint scars of revision, strokes scraped and repainted.

Inside, the coffin wasn’t crystal. It was opaque wood. Tangxue blinked, disbelief like a cold splash. Even the worst coffins they’d passed were carved from rare ore. A plain wooden coffin here?

And the timber looked poor, not some sacred wood. It smelled of damp soil instead of incense.

“Qianyue, the murals.”

“Mm…”

Reluctance rippled across Qianyue’s face. Those murals made her head buzz like bees in a jar. But a command from Sister was a bell she couldn’t ignore.

She drifted to the first mural. She read the small script etched beside the paint. After a slow while, sympathy spread through her like mist for the one in the wood coffin.

“Qianyue? What does it say? The mural’s scenes don’t tell me much. I’m guessing the owner messed up, then… killed himself?”

“Sister… you’re right.” Qianyue sighed, weary as dusk. “It’s the Third Prince. The small letters say he and the First Prince clashed in ideals, at each other’s throats wherever they went. One day he ‘understood,’ thought he’d wronged his elder brother. Then he stabbed his own heart dozens of times and died.”

“…”

“…”

“Qianyue, it really says that?”

“Mm.”

“What about the commentary?”

Every mural carried a little extra paragraph. Tangxue had come to expect the bite.

“The commentary’s short this time, Sister. ‘Though my two elder brothers fought everywhere, I always believed they were friends… But why must they kill each other? I don’t understand.’”

“…”

Heavy as rain in winter.

“Qianyue, any note about the wooden coffin?”

“Yes, Sister.” Qianyue’s voice dropped like a candle’s flame. “They made it from a sinister tree with a ‘corrupt poison.’ To bury someone in such a coffin is to deny them rebirth for all eternity.”

“…?”

So vicious?

Tangxue stepped back, chill rising like a draft from stone. She hadn’t expected the First Prince to be this ruthless—his own brother, and still no mercy.

“Qianyue, what do you make of it?”

“When Sister asks what Qianyue thinks… Qianyue doesn’t really understand.” She thought a heartbeat, then breathed, “It just feels… pitiful.”

“I see…” Tangxue’s expression tangled like roots. She looked at Qianyue above, then turned to go.

“Let’s move. Next chamber.”

“Mm…”

The next doorway looked wrong, bruised like metal after a hammering. Tangxue felt it at a glance.

Even at the lowest level, the Spiral Mausoleum turned opulent, halls arranged like an underground palace—orderly and splendid, and no traps whispering in the walls.

This chamber had no coffin. Or it had been destroyed. Where a coffin should have rested, a handsome corpse lay—face twisted, stubborn with rage. His body bore deep sword gashes, each cut a death bell.

Tangxue guessed the unlucky prince had taken his own life again. She almost counted, dry humor flickering. How many stabs this round?

“Wait—why are there no murals?”

No paintings here. Only dense, crawling small script, a forest of ants. Even Tangxue’s eyes throbbed.

She wanted to know. But making Qianyue plow through that swarm felt cruel.

She turned to ask—Qianyue had already floated to the wall, silent as dawn.

Tangxue paced, watching Qianyue closely. Why so willing this time? Her focus was a blade. Did she remember something? I’ll ask her after.

Half an hour slid by. Qianyue exhaled, steady as a lake at night.

“Sister, this time… it’s the First Prince.”

“The First Prince?!”

Wasn’t he supposed to be the iron-blood usurper? Did the story flip?

“Yes.” Qianyue’s calm was pale moonlight. “He’s the First Prince. Vampire, the seventy-third king, and the last one. He ruled for less than a month.”

“Huh? I’m getting more lost by the minute.” Question marks bobbed around Tangxue’s head like lantern fish.

Qianyue felt different—like a tide turning. Since they’d come in, she’d been shifting bit by bit. Before, she flew, so Tangxue hadn’t noticed. Now, Qianyue stood nearly her height.

Qianyue didn’t meet Tangxue’s startled gaze. She kept reading the tight, relentless script.

“Vito… the last ‘king’ of the Vampires, and the first emperor of the Empire of the Dusk Moon. He lifted the Vampire race to an unreachable height, and almost led them to extinction.”

“He was brutal and cold. Even with his brothers and sisters, he chased them to the end. Yet he worked harder than anyone.”

“For his goals, he’d stop at nothing. He could kill his own blood without a blink, and he took in the Blood Elf race.”

“Vito… the culprit who erased two royal lines. He died by Venoina’s hand.”

“???”

Did someone just cut a scene from my head? Why does none of that fit?

Tangxue felt like a stranger peering through fogged glass.

“It’s fine if Sister doesn’t understand.” Qianyue smiled, soft as moonlight on water. “I’ll explain slowly later.”

“Let’s go to the next chamber. There’s no reason to linger. As for the corpse… let him keep rotting.”

“…”

For some reason, Qianyue suddenly felt frightening—like a silk thread hiding a steel wire.

Tangxue shivered, a chill brushing her spine. “Then hurry. I’m curious who the next chamber belongs to.”

“The next one…” Qianyue put a finger to her lips, hush like a bell. “Sister, you’ll find it familiar.”

“Ah?”

A Vampire I know? Could it be… Edgar?

Looks like I guessed wrong earlier. That zombie Vampire wasn’t that bastard. This time I’ll light incense at his tomb… then spit and leave. A proper send-off for a ‘gentleman.’

After a turn, they reached the next chamber. It stood alone, style starkly different, like a foreign season. No coffin—no, the coffin had been moved.

In the corner rested a crystal coffin with no lid. Its decorations gleamed, but it held no body.

“…” Tangxue glanced at Qianyue. “Not reading the murals this time?”

“Mm~ This time I can say it without looking.”

Qianyue smiled faintly and dropped to the floor. She dusted herself lightly, then set her right hand over her chest.

Without noticing, Qianyue had grown taller than Tangxue, like bamboo after rain.

“This is the chamber of the sixth daughter of the seventy-second Vampire king. She took one blade. It didn’t kill her. Lucky to survive, she was cursed to guard this royal tomb—bound forever. If she leaves, she loses her mind, turns into a monster, and keeps going until… death.”

Qianyue ignored Tangxue’s silence and walked forward. She reached out and touched the wall, fingers tracing paint like stream over stone.

“Her elder brother feared she’d leak his goal to unify the Blood Clan, so he tried to kill her. But the Sixth Princess lived. He found out and descended to the tomb to finish the job. Then, in a laughable flicker of mercy, he couldn’t bear to kill his ‘useless’ sister outright. So he chose this: he laid the cruelest curse, binding her here forever. No one else even knew the princess still breathed.”

“And so two thousand years crawled by. Two thousand years of darkness and solitude. The Sixth Princess finally saw the sun again. After millennia with only corpses for company, sunlight felt gentle—if only for a slow, passing instant.”

Qianyue turned and smiled at Tangxue, spring thaw in her eyes. “I think, Sister, you know the rest.”