Chapter 774: Game and Communication

With a powerful grip, his palm sliced through the air with a brief whistle. The middle-aged man, leaping from the coffin, seized Li Li's throat. He squeezed hard, and the immense strength in his arm instantly made Li Li's face redden.

Even though Li Li had consumed nearly two thousand second-tier elite soldiers, force-feeding himself to reach mid-second tier, he was instantly powerless to resist.

“What kind of creature are you?”

The man in the coffin slowly straightened up, lifting Li Li with one hand.

A faint telepathic message was sent.

“A tomb raider?”

Ji Shang looked at the intricate patterns on the palace's stone walls. Unsure what methods were hidden, he exclaimed in surprise, “No, there's no damage to the outer mechanisms. Spatial teleportation? A leap, or a transfer? What method is this?”

He actually knows about spatial teleportation?

Li Li's face instantly turned crimson.

This emperor from an ancient era, one of history's most powerful Moon Diviners, who understood the vastness of the world, was well-versed in ancient and modern knowledge, and had studied creations from various epochs—had he already begun to learn about such things?

His thinking was terrifyingly advanced.

“No, what kind of creature are *you*?!”

Ji Shang, clutching Li Li's throat, felt a rush of scorching liquid within him. Unlike their gaseous blood, this was liquid blood.

“I'm... a good person... Mercy...”

Li Li managed to send a clumsy telepathic message.

As a second-tier soul cultivator, his soul could naturally emit faint telepathic messages.

But ultimately, there was a language barrier. The phrase he'd just used was something he'd coaxed from the delirious general-zombie, but it was of little use.

“A language barrier, a foreigner?” Ji Shang narrowed his eyes. Having campaigned across many continents, he had naturally encountered some foreign races.

Sensing that Li Li posed no threat, he roughly flung him away.

He tossed Li Li aside and strode towards the terracotta warriors, where he witnessed a shocking sight: all of them had their necks bitten open, collapsing to the ground as corpses.

Only his former general, Wei Ying, was still alive, but he was delirious and insane.

At the same time, the old man, who had been extremely aged in his prime, had become incredibly young, showing no signs of life decay.

“What happened here?”

Ji Shang turned, his expression still calm as he looked at Li Li, who had been tossed into a corner, yet there was a burgeoning fury evident in his eyes.

“It's all on the ground...” Li Li pointed to the stone slabs of the corridor floor and gestured.

“Hm?”

Ji Shang looked at the drawings on the ground.

These were drawings Li Li had slowly etched over the past few days. With no common language or writing, the only method he could think of was like the murals in a tomb, using drawings as the sole means of communication.

Ji Shang observed.

It depicted an ancient scene.

It showed an ancient, supreme, eternal deity, the Moon God Ji, who while wandering the cosmos, inadvertently descended upon this planet and fell in love with the most beautiful and intelligent woman in the world.

The next mural depicted the woman giving birth to a half-human, half-god hybrid. As the hybrid grew, they inherited only half of the divine bloodline, and though immortal, spent half their time in slumber.

Despite this, he possessed eternal life and slumber, as well as great power. On this planet, he established an ancient immortal dynasty. After its glory, however, it underwent a series of historical developments, ultimately declining until it could only live in seclusion within a tribe.

Within the tribe, the temple held an ancient prophetic mural.

The villagers worshipped a savior-like figure, believing that by offering their immortal blood to him, a new immortal dynasty would rise to glory.

One day, an elder in the tribe accidentally touched the temple mural, triggering a mechanism that unwittingly teleported him here.

The elder firmly believed that the legendary Son of Prophecy must be within this tomb.

So, one by one in the tomb, he bit their throats to bestow divine blood, but none of the soldiers in the tomb could withstand it...

This convoluted, melodramatic plot would be considered nonsensical to Earthlings, but for people on this planet, whose stories were scarce, it was an incredibly dramatic tale.

“So this is your origin? You are a hybrid descendant of the Moon God Ji, and then you accidentally touched the prophetic mural and were teleported here?” Ji Shang exclaimed in surprise, his face beaming with imperial delight. He chuckled, “So, I am the legendary savior of your people?”

Li Li quickly nodded.

Of course, he needed Ji Shang to get involved; otherwise, he wouldn't be able to leave. The tomb's mechanisms could only be controlled by its master.

Ji Shang, who hoped to be a half-human, half-god hybrid and was discontent with his own humble origins, now had “divine blood” presented before him. This was why Li Li had tailored the story to him, inventing this narrative.

“You specifically drew murals to explain this, as if you were waiting for me to emerge. Do you take me for a fool?” Ji Shang paced back and forth, though inwardly, he was indeed greatly shaken.

After all, someone had suddenly appeared in the tomb without damaging the burial chamber.

And indeed, there was this mysterious blood, a mysterious race... He looked at the general on the ground and began to examine his body closely, his expression growing increasingly astonished.

Li Li took a deep breath, confident he had gambled correctly. “He doesn't need to believe it completely; as long as he thinks it's possible, he won't kill me. He'll surely keep me, just in case he makes a mistake.”

This was a psychological gamble.

A shrewd overlord like him would naturally not act like an unintelligent beast, instantly trying to kill. His first reaction would be to capture the opponent and immediately figure out the situation.

Over the next few days, Ji Shang confirmed that Li Li was too weak to be a threat and instead focused on studying the imbecilic zombie.

He also began to try and communicate.

To Li Li's shock, Ji Shang's intelligence was terrifyingly high. In just a few days, he had learned some Cantonese, even picking up Li Li's catchphrase, “diu nei lou mou.” It was truly frightening.

The two sides were barely able to communicate.

As for his origin, Li Li consistently insisted it was as depicted on the murals. He claimed not to know the exact circumstances, only that he had been teleported in by accident and that Ji Shang was very likely the Chosen One.

“The Chosen One, perhaps?” Ji Shang chuckled upon hearing this. “Very well, I shall trust you this once.”

Ji Shang extended his neck. “Like the others, give me a bite.”

Li Li was stunned on the spot. He trusted him *that* much?

Shouldn't he find test subjects and be extremely cautious?

“Divine blood for immortality, creating an army of immortals—that is every monarch's dream... I should have people test the elixir of immortality, but I am also trapped here!” he said.

“Why?” Li Li asked. “Once outside the tomb, shouldn't you be able to instantly reclaim your former power? You'd have as many test subjects as you could want.”

“I had an agreement back then that my descendants would come to pay respects every few generations, once every century, but the tomb has never stirred. In fact, the outer perimeter might even be heavily guarded,” Ji Shang replied.

Li Li was startled.

Several generations had passed, and these descendants had rebelled. None of them wanted Ji Shang to emerge from his tomb, effectively gaining an additional ancestor as emperor.

“No good deed goes unpunished, huh? Your children and descendants rebelled against you after you built this empire for them. That's truly tragic.” He suddenly realized the situation.

It turned out that not only was he trapped in the tomb, but this ancient emperor was also trapped. Everyone was miserable, all confined to the tomb, and Ji Shang had no choice either.

“Well, since we're both in the same boat, I'll be frank with you,” Li Li, the middle-aged man, said casually. “Everything I just told you was a lie.”

Ji Shang was utterly bewildered.