Kong Shanyu was still putting on airs, but with people from the Esoteric Sect now standing in front of them, practically no one was paying attention to him anymore.
His brows knitted tightly. He actually straightened up as if he meant to say something, only for the anxious Sifeng and Siyu to yank him back down.
“Don’t go.” Sifeng lowered her voice. “By a lucky twist of fate, he’s trying to stop everyone else from going in too. We’re better off watching how things unfold.”
Siyu frowned. “But how did even the Esoteric Sect get dragged into this...?”
She cast a worried glance toward the immortal abode.
...
By now, Ye Chenyan’s group had already ventured deep into the immortal abode and cautiously entered one of the buildings.
Ye Chenyan led the way, while Yu Qingtang stuck close behind him, craning his neck this way and that.
Sure, Yu could divine things—no, wait. He knew the plot.
But he only knew the parts Gou Xiaosa had actually written about. Anywhere the original novel hadn’t covered, he was every bit as blind as everyone else.
As a survival-first salted fish, Yu’s greatest virtue was probably this: no matter what happened, he would never get so full of himself that he forgot caution.
The immortal abode had been sealed away for ages, yet there wasn’t much dust inside. Perhaps because of its recent fall, however, all sorts of objects had been knocked to the floor, leaving the place in disarray.
Yu Qingtang spotted a zither lying on the ground. Its strings had snapped, and it looked rather pitiful.
He muttered under his breath, “Don’t tell me there used to be a zither cultivator here.”
“More than one.” Ye Chenyan pointed at an inconspicuous object in the corner. “A flute...”
Yu Qingtang corrected him. “That’s a vertical flute.”
Ye Chenyan nodded. “What are those two round things?”
“Gongs!” Yu Qingtang finally found himself in his area of expertise. “You’ve heard of beating gongs and drums, haven’t you?”
There didn’t seem to be any immediate danger around them, so everyone relaxed a little.
Then someone accidentally bumped into the wall.
Light flashed.
A strange melody suddenly rang out.
Everyone instantly went on full alert and raised their weapons.
“What happened?!”
Yu Qingtang hurriedly raised the Dragon-Crane Zither too, peering around with sharp vigilance. “Something here?”
As he spoke, he paused.
Then he lowered his head and looked at the Dragon-Crane Zither.
After all, it was a spiritual artifact he had bound with blood. He could at least vaguely sense its emotions.
Normally, the only thing he could ever feel from this zither was its lecherous streak.
But right now, it seemed strangely subdued.
Almost... sorrowful.
Yu Qingtang scratched his head and stepped forward. “Move aside. Let me try something.”
Without explaining further, he played the strange melody they had just heard.
Light flowed across the surrounding walls. One instrument after another seemed to come alive, their sounds joining together in a full ensemble.
Then the wall shifted, revealing a passage hidden behind it.
The leader of Golden Craft Hall stared in disbelief.
“This... you divined this too?”
Yu Qingtang rubbed his nose, embarrassed. “No. This one was dumb luck.”
He planted both hands on Ye Chenyan’s shoulders and gave him two encouraging pats.
“Lead the way!”
Amusement flashed through Ye Chenyan’s eyes. He strode straight to the front and lifted his chin.
“Let’s go!”
Tu Jiaojiao’s expression grew complicated.
“This is a mysterious immortal abode connected to actual immortals and practically guaranteed to be a death trap, right?”
“We came here prepared to risk our lives and find out what’s going on, right?”
“We didn’t come here for a day trip, right?”
Girl in the Bamboo gave a small nod.
“Mm.”
From up ahead, Yu Qingtang turned around and called to them.
“What’s wrong? Why aren’t you coming?”
“Coming.” Girl in the Bamboo answered, then turned toward Tu Jiaojiao and said with perfect composure, “You’ll get used to it.”
Tu Jiaojiao’s mouth twitched.
It wasn’t often she met people even more reckless than the Heavenly Fire Cult.
Refusing to admit defeat, she raised an eyebrow.
“...Fine. I’ll get used to it. Let’s go!”
The group followed after them, still keeping their guard up.
They had assumed a space concealed behind a wall like this would either be a treasury or a trap.
To their surprise, it was neither.
What lay beyond was almost absurdly ordinary.
“This...” Tu Jiaojiao looked around strangely. “Why does this look like a cultivation chamber for disciples?”
Ahead of her, Yu Qingtang had already grabbed Ye Chenyan by the belt and leaned sideways around him to poke his head into the room.
“It really is a disciple cultivation chamber! Biehe Sect doesn’t have any, but I’ve heard about them.”
Ye Chenyan looked back at him. “Biehe Sect doesn’t have cultivation chambers? If I’d known, I would’ve taken you to see one back at Guiyi Sect.”
Yu Qingtang stared at him in horror.
“Do you hear yourself?”
Ye Chenyan suppressed a laugh. “Oh. Right. I forgot you don’t like cultivating either.”
He glanced around the cultivation chamber as well, then suddenly raised an eyebrow and pulled a small bottle over with spiritual power.
“This looks like pills.”
“There’s one here too.”
Yu Qingtang copied him and drew another little bottle out of a different room.
Tu Jiaojiao’s eyes lit up.
“Anything left sitting in a disciple’s cultivation chamber probably wasn’t meant to hurt them. Maybe these were spirit medicines their sect used to assist cultivation?”
A thought flashed through Yu Qingtang’s mind.
Could it be that since Ji Ruxue didn’t come, the Heavenly Dao simply converted the compensation into pills instead?
He lightly bumped Ye Chenyan with his shoulder.
“Take some. If this place really has something to do with immortals, these pills should all be ancient. The shaman healer will definitely love them. And if there are extras, we can bring some back for the old Pill King too.”
Ye Chenyan chuckled.
“The fact that you remembered to bring her something at all will already make her happy.”
Then he looked back at the others.
“We took some and nothing in the immortal abode reacted. Go ahead and take whatever you find.”
Most cultivators who risked entering a place like this had done so precisely because they hoped greater danger would mean greater rewards.
At his words, nobody bothered being polite anymore. They scattered and began sweeping the rooms clean.
After a quick search, everyone regrouped.
“Besides these pills, there doesn’t seem to be anything else.”
Someone muttered, “A sect this large might have left some kind of inheritance behind too.”
As he spoke, he glanced pointedly at Yu Qingtang.
Yu Qingtang stared back in bafflement.
Were they seriously counting on him for everything now?
He immediately waved both hands.
“Don’t look at me! I have no idea! You can’t divine something like that.”
The leader of Golden Craft Hall opened one of the bottles in his hand.
“After all these years, who knows whether these pills still—”
Before he could finish, a wisp of spiritual energy floated out of the bottle.
He stared at the now-empty container in shock.
“Empty?”
He hurriedly opened the rest.
Every single bottle he had picked up was empty.
At the sight of that, everyone else quickly checked theirs too, terrified that all their efforts had been for nothing.
A few people had gotten empty bottles, but most still had several spirit pills inside.
Someone like the Golden Craft Hall leader, who had managed to get absolutely nothing, was genuinely rare.
He rubbed his head, looking weathered by life.
“...I really am unlucky.”
Yu Qingtang opened his own bottle and peeked inside.
Then he quietly raised his eyes.
His gaze met the Golden Craft Hall leader’s.
Yu Qingtang looked a little embarrassed.
“You saw?”
The Golden Craft Hall leader’s expression became complicated.
“...And you really are blessed with incredible luck.”
Yu Qingtang poured out one pill and dropped it into the man’s little bottle.
“Here. You can have one.”
The Golden Craft Hall leader froze, then couldn’t help laughing.
“This... thank you, thank you. At least I won’t be leaving completely empty-handed. I’ll consider it sharing a little of our lucky star’s good fortune.”
Ye Chenyan raised an eyebrow and leaned close to Yu Qingtang’s face.
“You didn’t give me one.”
Yu Qingtang immediately shoved an entire bottle into his arms.
“Shh—”
“You can have all of them. Don’t tell anyone.”
Ye Chenyan’s eyes curved with delight.
Tu Jiaojiao wordlessly turned her head away.
“Right. We’ve searched this place and there’s no sign of Chang Yusheng. He probably never came in here.”
“We need to keep going deeper.”
Ignoring the two of them, she turned and led the way farther inside.
They had lost some time here. If Chang Yusheng had been traveling at full speed, he might already have put a fair distance between them.
As they continued onward, Tu Jiaojiao’s brows drew tighter and tighter.
Near the entrance, they had still been able to make out intact buildings. Even the disciples’ rooms had been mostly whole, their contents merely scattered.
But the farther they went, the more ruined the surroundings became.
Broken walls and shattered debris lay everywhere.
There were even dark stains scattered across the ground, like blood that had dried countless years ago.
The scene was gruesome.
Tu Jiaojiao crouched and rubbed a finger over one of the hardened bloodstains, then lifted her gaze.
“Who knows how long ago this was...”
“Stay back.”
Girl in the Bamboo frowned.
“I’ll go first.”
Holding the Heaven-Swallowing Bowl in both hands, she cautiously moved to the front of the group.
Her senses had picked up something unusual.
Yu Qingtang had been carrying the Dragon-Crane Zither the entire time. Its mood had been wrong all day—subdued, but also unusually well behaved.
Maybe it really did have some connection to this sect.
This time, Yu Qingtang had barely taken a single step when the Dragon-Crane Zither suddenly flashed and gave a soft chime.
The Heaven-Swallowing Bowl reacted immediately afterward.
A hazy primordial glow spilled from it as it began frantically warning them of danger.
Tu Jiaojiao barked, “Guard up!”
Everyone whirled around at once, scanning their surroundings warily.
Whatever was around them remained unseen.
All they could tell was that the yin energy was rapidly thickening.
Mist began to gather.
Something seemed to lurk inside it, radiating a pressure that made their hearts clench.
Someone spoke with a tremor in his voice.
“Is—is that an otherworldly evil demon?”
“Probably.”
Yu Qingtang sounded rather reflective.
Back when Gou Xiaosa had written about the otherworldly evil demons, his description had simply been that their “aura was extremely evil.”
Yu Qingtang turned toward Ye Chenyan.
“Does this aura feel evil to you?”
“Huh?” Ye Chenyan hesitated. “I guess it does.”
Yu Qingtang nodded with absolute certainty.
“Then that’s what it is.”
Ye Chenyan almost laughed.
“That’s really how you identify them?”
Yu Qingtang patted him on the shoulder.
“I trust you!”
“Enough messing around.” Tu Jiaojiao had finally reached the limit of her patience. “Everyone, stay alert!”
“It looks like it doesn’t want us going any farther.” Ye Chenyan tightened his grip on the black spear. “There must be something strange inside. We’ll force our way through.”
The moment he finished speaking, he attacked.
His spear stabbed into the mist.
There was no sensation of striking anything solid, but the blow seemed to enrage the shadow lurking within.
Ghostly howls erupted from the darkness.
One cultivator completely lost his nerve and launched an attack in panic. A flash of light vanished into the fog as he screamed,
“Stay away! Stay away! Otherworldly evil demon!”
Someone else thought he had already been possessed and nearly shoved him out of the group.
“You! Don’t tell me you’ve already—”
If Ye Chenyan hadn’t forcibly restrained both of them, the group might have descended into chaos on the spot.
Yu Qingtang hugged the Dragon-Crane Zither and prepared to play a Heart-Cleansing Melody for everyone.
But just as he got the zither into position, a sharp command rang out from behind them.
“Focus your minds!”
A streak of white silk shot forward and tore through the mist.
Everyone looked up at once.
A young woman in smoky violet drifted toward them.
She formed a hand seal, and a pair of unusually shaped, ancient-looking bracelets on her wrists began to glow. They enlarged as they flew outward, forming a circle around the group.
Ye Chenyan’s brows snapped together.
He grabbed Yu Qingtang and leaped outside the ring.
Yu Qingtang was caught completely off guard.
“Eh?”
Ye Chenyan held his spear horizontally in front of them and stared warily at Ji Ruxue.
“Esoteric Sect.”
Ji Ruxue hadn’t expected them to jump out of the spirit ring. She hurriedly called out,
“Don’t leave it! It’s protecting you!”
Ye Chenyan gave a cold snort.
“I don’t trust people from the Esoteric Sect.”
Hidden behind Ye Chenyan, Yu Qingtang poked his head out and looked between the two of them.
He tugged on Ye Chenyan and tried to smooth things over.
“You don’t have to be so hostile. Maybe someday she’ll even end up becoming one of us...”
Ye Chenyan’s expression immediately soured.
“Who says she’s one of us?”
Then he turned to Yu Qingtang as if lodging a complaint.
“Have you forgotten that she chased you down with some old man back then? She even hit you while you were unconscious.”
Ji Ruxue: “...”
Yu Qingtang slowly turned his head, blank-faced.
“Huh?”
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