"Alive."
Huang Lao San answered.
Cheng Xinzhan felt his heart drop when he heard that.
Earth-fire opposite heaven-fire is yin; it corresponds to the Ding fire.
But at the same time this was a sea-borne fire vein — a fire in the water, tied to the ocean and thus yang.
A fire cavity like this, yin containing yang, a lone yang wrapped by yin, was exactly the kind of place suitable for a Ding-fire corpse whose yin-end gives birth to yang.
If this fire-vein were large enough, it could serve as a place for a Chi corpse to achieve union with the Dao.
Undersea fire veins are normally suppressed and blocked by the great ocean; they’re very hard to detect unless an undersea volcano bursts through even the water’s crushing pressure.
But once a submarine volcano erupts, it means the place is throbbing with earth-qi, a mingling of water and fire, yin and yang balanced — the sort of land a hegemon would seize.
Like the palace of the Yellow Sea Dragon, for example.
If there truly was a living undersea fire-vein beneath Huangliu Island, that was undeniably terrible news.
"Did you investigate the fire-vein thoroughly?" he asked.