Yin Huizhi was almost laughed to a fit by his antics.
A demonic practitioner capable of producing “Nightmares” at will and siphoning human “essence” was calling himself a “useless Foundation Establishment waste”? Yin Huizhi thought to himself: Tell that to the ghosts.
Even knowing Xie Ling was lying, he was powerless to stop him. He made a silent vow to use this opportunity to crack Xie Ling’s hard shell and dig out the man’s secrets.
Xie Ling did not seem particularly familiar with this temple either. He paced slowly along the temple walls before finally coming to a halt beneath a massive divine statue. Yin Huizhi looked up at the statue, feeling an indescribable sense of eeriness.
Click. A pale hand landed on the divine lamp at the statue’s knee and gave it a heavy twist.
Standing some distance away, Yin Huizhi had a direct view of the statue’s face. The moment Xie Ling twisted the lamp, the statue’s eyeballs seemed to twitch. Just as he was about to call out Xie Ling’s name, a wave of horror washed over him. The statue’s eyes had actually turned, silently focusing on Xie Ling beneath its knee. Its face shifted rapidly, appearing to cry and laugh at once, neither joyful nor grieving, until it suddenly froze in a weeping expression.
Not good.
Yin Huizhi: “Xie Ling!”
However, the statue’s massive hand, suspended in midair, was faster than his voice, slamming down directly toward Xie Ling. Xie Ling belatedly looked up but remained motionless. The string of tension in Yin Huizhi’s mind snapped. Action outpaced thought; in the next instant, he had teleported to Xie Ling’s side.
Waves surfaced in Xie Ling’s calm eyes at his appearance as if he wanted to say something. But Yin Huizhi gave him no chance, lunging forward to tackle him out of the way.
Boom!
The massive hand crashed into the floor, sending cracks through the ground. Yin Huizhi and Xie Ling rolled together, both aching from the impact, having barely dodged the blow.
Xie Ling: “You”
Before Xie Ling could finish, Yin Huizhi tried to pull him up to avoid the giant hand that was chasing them again. However, Xie Ling grabbed him back. Not only did he refuse to move, but he also pinned Yin Huizhi in place.
The statue’s palm swept down with the force of breaking wind. Yin Huizhi thought they were finished. Yet, just as it was about to crush them, the statue stopped.
Xie Ling was holding a sword tassel he had pulled from somewhere, colored gray and blue. The statue’s gaze fell on the tassel, and its weeping face shifted again, showing an expression bordering on confusion. Yin Huizhi took one look and understood. This was an old item of the Ouyang clan, likely stolen by Xie Ling from Ouyang Yi. The statue lacked true sentience; sensing Ouyang Yi’s aura, it could no longer distinguish if the intruder was an outsider.
So his intervention just now had been completely unnecessary.
Rumble. The statue withdrew its hand, returning to its original state of ambiguous sorrow and joy. The stone wall behind it slid apart, revealing a square opening.
Yin Huizhi steadied his breathing and stepped forward as if nothing had happened. “The door is open. Let us go.”
Xie Ling was not about to let him off that easily. Grabbing him by the back of the collar, he said with a half-smile, “Why are you not getting to the bottom of things this time?”
Yin Huizhi played dumb. “Ask what?”
Xie Ling: “…”
“Nothing,” Xie Ling retracted his gaze, tossing the tassel up and catching it. “I only realized today that someone cares so much about whether I live or die, though this care is a bit hard on the bones.”
Yin Huizhi’s ears burned with embarrassment. Feeling a mix of shame and a strange, unidentifiable irritation, he ducked into the stone tunnel without a word. Xie Ling followed, and the tunnel sealed behind them. As Yin Huizhi expected, every step here was a point of no return.
The tunnel was winding and convoluted. There was no end in sight, no sense of direction, only gusts of cold wind blowing from nowhere. Following a tacit understanding, the two moved forward one after the other, keeping a close watch on their surroundings. After walking for an unknown amount of time, two identical tunnels appeared before them.
“Xie Ling, can you still tell which direction we are facing?” Yin Huizhi whispered.
Xie Ling gave a low “mhm,” picking a direction at random. “East, I suppose.”
Yin Huizhi looked over. Their eyes met, and Xie Ling tilted his head slightly as if asking: What do you want to say now?
A faint curve appeared at the corner of Yin Huizhi’s mouth. “I think so too.”
Throughout the walk, he had been observing the directions of the turns. Based on that alone, they should be facing North. However, the sections of the tunnel after each turn were not perfectly straight. Because there were so many turns and each section was short, the slight curve was easily ignored. He had almost been fooled himself. Accounting for the curvature, they were indeed facing East. North of Mount Fulin was a cliff, the East was the sea, the West was land, and the South was the city.
Looking at the two openings, one had a constant breeze, which seemed to be the source of the wind they felt earlier; the other was completely still.
Yin Huizhi: “Which way?”
Xie Ling laughed, looking at him strangely. “You are asking me?”
Yin Huizhi looked at him for two seconds and countered, “Are you actually going to listen to me?”
Xie Ling said lazily, “Why not?”
Yin Huizhi pointed to the right opening with the cold wind. “Then we go this way.”
Xie Ling did not hesitate at all. “Fine.”
He started toward the opening Yin Huizhi had pointed to, but just as he was about to step in, Yin Huizhi grabbed his sleeve and pulled him back. Xie Ling turned around as if facing a troublesome child. “What is it now?”
Yin Huizhi pulled him into the other opening and said softly, “This way.”
The sound of Xie Ling’s light laughter came from behind, making Yin Huizhi speed up his pace.
This time, they arrived at a place resembling an altar. The floor was square and the stone ceiling was domed, likely following the ancient concept of “the round sky and the square earth.” Aside from the two arched doors where they entered, the other three walls each had three arched doors. In the center stood a massive altar built of stone bricks.
Fzzzt.
The light in Yin Huizhi’s hand vanished without warning. It seemed some power within the altar had interfered, breaking his spell. He immediately turned and reached out to find Xie Ling, but his hand caught only empty air. He tried the illumination spell again, but it failed.
“Xie Ling?”
No one answered. Yin Huizhi gritted his teeth and took a few careful steps forward. Suddenly, a hand covered his mouth. Yin Huizhi’s eyes widened. He held his breath and attempted a backward elbow strike, but the attacker seemed unaffected by the altar’s restrictions. The person easily suppressed him with a spell, sealing his five senses.
His hands were bound tightly behind his back by something soft. Though Yin Huizhi could not speak or see, he could clearly identify what it was: the Immortal-Binding Rope. The person grabbed him and took flight, heading toward a specific direction.
To break the seal on the senses, one does not always need external help. Yin Huizhi pressed his tongue against his teeth, preparing to bite down hard, but his vision suddenly cleared. The attacker had removed the seal. The face that came into view was entirely unexpected.
“Senior Brother?” Yin Huizhi blurted out.
The grip of the Immortal-Binding Rope loosened significantly, resting loosely on his wrists. Ji Huixue brought him to the ground and fully released him. “Ah Yin.”
Yin Huizhi had never expected him to appear here. “Did you not return to the Guanlan Sect?” he asked in disbelief.
Anger surfaced on Ji Huixue’s face. “If I had returned to the Guanlan Sect, you would have lost your life today!”
Yin Huizhi was confused. “Why do you say that?”
Ji Huixue looked into his eyes. “This is the Ouyang family temple. Do you really think that man wants to help you?”
“There are eleven doors here, but only one is the Gate of Life. Only the head and the heir of the Ouyang clan know which one it is. For an ordinary clansman, they must blood-sacrifice a living person to get the answer.”
Yin Huizhi understood the implication and frowned. “But Senior Brother, he has no reason to do that. And how do you know this is the Gate of Life?”
“I know because when I saved Ouyang Yi years ago, he feared his possession of the treasure would be his downfall. He used this information as a bargaining chip, begging me to take him back to Guanlan.”
Ji Huixue paused, his face showing disappointment. “I have finished. Ah Yin, I did not expect you to trust him to this extent.”
Yin Huizhi’s expression was conflicted, his voice growing lower. “I trust him because he is”
“More honest than you.”
Yin Huizhi suddenly lunged, striking “Ji Huixue” in the chest. “Ji Huixue” was sent flying, hitting the wall and sliding down like a limp noodle, completely unharmed. “Ji Huixue” stared at him with resentment. “How did you see through me? And your spiritual power, it was not suppressed? Are you a descendant of the Ouyang family?”
No, it is because I was not using spiritual power at all, Yin Huizhi thought.
Under his gaze, that gentle and handsome face twisted and peeled away, revealing a gruesome true form: a blood-drenched Painted Skin demon. With no time to wonder why such a creature was in the altar, Yin Huizhi quickly formed a killing seal and struck out, only for it to be blocked mid-air by an invisible barrier. The Painted Skin demon, who had instinctively covered its face, slowly moved its hands away, staring blankly at the vanishing light.
Yin Huizhi’s mind raced. Was the power of the altar preventing him from harming this demon? He raised his hand and summoned the Immortal-Binding Rope, throwing it at the demon. This time, there was no obstruction.
Yin Huizhi bound the demon and looked down at it. “If you understood my Senior Brother enough, you would know that under no circumstances would he use the Immortal-Binding Rope to tie up a mortal.”
The demon froze for a second, then burst into loud laughter. Its bloody face showed resentment and malice. “I am indeed not your Senior Brother, but I did not lie to you just now. The person truly deceiving you is still back at the altar.”
Yin Huizhi thought to himself: Nonsense. If three out of ten words from Xie Ling were true, that would be a miracle. He left the Painted Skin demon behind and turned back. The demon screamed behind him, “You have not answered my other question!”
Yin Huizhi paid him back in kind, sealing the creature’s mouth. He was certainly not a descendant of the Ouyang family, but “Nightmares” were not spiritual power, so how could they be suppressed by the altar? When his spell was cut off, he simply pretended to be defenseless to figure out what the enemy was planning.
Unfortunately, the mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind. The Painted Skin demon’s goal was simply to separate him from Xie Ling. Yin Huizhi ran back to the altar and saw a black-clad, ghost-masked man fighting with Xie Ling. As soon as the masked man saw him, he changed direction and lunged toward Yin Huizhi. Xie Ling sneered and gave chase, but the masked man unexpectedly threw a talisman behind him.
A piercing explosion rang out, and the shockwave of spiritual power knocked Yin Huizhi down. By the time he stood up, all eleven stone doors had slammed shut, and the ghost-masked man was gone. Xie Ling stood by the altar, staring gloomily at his bleeding hand. Yin Huizhi called his name several times, but he did not respond.
“Xie Ling!”
Xie Ling finally looked up, giving him a cold, indifferent glance. Yin Huizhi had no time to wonder why he was suddenly acting up. He frowned at the eleven closed doors. “We are trapped here.”
Xie Ling sneered. “Not necessarily. Perhaps if I sacrifice you, I can get out.”
Yin Huizhi: “…”
Yin Huizhi: “I was not the one who provoked you. Why are you taking your anger out on me?”
He took the handkerchief Xie Ling had given him earlier from his sleeve, grabbed Xie Ling’s hand, and carefully bandaged the wound on the back of his hand. Only then did he look up and ask, “Can you talk now? Where did that masked man come from, and what did you find out from fighting him?”
Xie Ling frowned and pulled his hand back. “He seemed to be coming for you.”
Yin Huizhi’s eyelashes stilled for a moment. He did not argue. “Mhm.”
The masked man had high cultivation and had conspired with the Painted Skin demon to lure him away as Ji Huixue. He did not hurt him, only stalled for time, while every move against Xie Ling was a killing blow. They wanted to dispose of Xie Ling quickly because the real target was Yin Huizhi. However, the enemy had overlooked one thing: Xie Ling was not an easy opponent to handle.
Yin Huizhi said, “I feel like from the death of Ouyang Yi to our current situation, there is a hidden hand pushing everything. I came to Fucheng to investigate the cause of my mother’s death, and one of the goals of that hidden hand is to stop me.”
If his guess held, it proved his mother’s death was indeed suspicious. Xie Ling did not ask for details. Instead, he looked at him. “Then tell me, whose hand do you think it is?”
Something flashed in Yin Huizhi’s mind, but he only shook his head in silence. “I do not know.”
Xie Ling looked at him, his mood seemingly improving. He even turned to comfort him: “No matter who it is, the fox will eventually show its tail.”
Yin Huizhi changed the subject. “The one who took me away was a Painted Skin demon, but the altar blocked me when I tried to kill it.”
Xie Ling was not surprised. “And?”
Yin Huizhi mentioned some gossip he had read. “Rumor has it that Ouyang Che, the ancestor of the Ouyang family in Fucheng, kept a Painted Skin demon for entertainment while he was alive. He could not bear to leave it after death, so he brought it into his tomb”
He stopped mid-sentence, looking at the central altar. The words of the demon echoed in his ears. His descendant? If the Ouyang family could place an ancestral statue in a temple for people to worship, then building an underground altar to sacrifice to the ancestral tomb was not surprising.
“Xie Ling, I think we might have wandered into the Ouyang family’s ancestral grave,” he said slowly.
Xie Ling gave an “oh” and added, “We cannot get out for now anyway. Why not see if we can dig it up?”
Yin Huizhi: “…”
He once truly wished to dig up the Ouyang family’s ancestral grave, but after the Tianye Sect bloodbath, the main branch of the Ouyang clan was nearly wiped out, so he had let the thought go. Yin Huizhi turned and saw that Xie Ling was not joking. He could not help but be curious. “Does your family also have a grudge against the Ouyang family?”
The current leader of the Tianye Sect was Xie Ling’s father, Xie Gou. The bloodbath of the Ouyang Manor back then was ordered by the former leader, Xie Yin. Even if there was a grudge, it should be between Xie Yin and the Ouyang clan.
Xie Ling smiled. “No. I just find them annoying.”
Ah, that reason was exactly the same as the explanation Xie Yin gave after the massacre.