Yin Huizhi had thought Xie Ling was merely trying to scare him when he said they could not get out for the time being, but he had not expected it to be true.
Deep underground within the altar, it was impossible to tell the time. Yin Huizhi could only roughly estimate that half a day had passed.
During these hours, he had examined every single nook and cranny, even managing to figure out the entire architectural structure of the altar.
Xie Ling, on the other hand, was sitting right in the center of the altar, which essentially meant sitting on someone else’s grave, meditating with complete composure.
It was glaringly obvious that Xie Ling truly loathed the Ouyang clan.
Yin Huizhi withdrew his gaze and was about to continue searching for clues when Xie Ling called out to him, “Stop wasting your energy.”
Xie Ling kept his eyes closed. “You had better save your strength. That way, we can hold out a bit longer.”
Startled by such disheartening words coming from him, Yin Huizhi froze for a moment. “Since that masked man could enter and leave this place, we should be able to as well.”
Xie Ling replied flatly, “He has long known the secrets of this divine temple. That is why he was able to use the arrays and traps to keep us here.”
You do not seem to know much less than he does, Yin Huizhi thought to himself.
However, he knew that Xie Ling’s words made sense.
“Inside the altar, the stone door can only be controlled by the mechanism at the entrance. He destroyed it when he fled,” Xie Ling continued.
Yin Huizhi fell silent for a long while. “Are we going to die here?”
“No,” Xie Ling said. “Behind the altar lie the Ouyang family’s treasure vault and secret chamber. Inside the secret chamber, there is a mechanism connected to the Gate of Life. Shen Zhihui knows where the other entrance is; he will find his way here.”
This short explanation contained more information than Xie Ling had disclosed over the entire past month. Yin Huizhi spent a few moments digesting it before he could not help but ask, “Have you been here before?”
Xie Ling gave a brief “Mm,” showing no intention of elaborating further.
Earlier, when Yin Huizhi had mentioned his own mother, Xie Ling had not pried. Now, reciprocating the courtesy, Yin Huizhi let the matter rest.
He glanced at the barren, stone-tiled floor and asked a more practical question: “Then will I die here?”
Although Xie Ling had given him the Nightmare, Yin Huizhi possessed no cultivation of his own and was merely an ordinary human.
An ordinary human could not last a week without food and water.
Xie Ling finally lifted his eyelids, saying indifferently, “I will not let you die.”
Yin Huizhi forced a bitter smile.
Xie Ling motioned with his eyes for him to sit on the altar. Knowing Xie Ling was worried he would deplete his energy by moving around, Yin Huizhi complied.
This wait lasted for three days.
By the third day, his lips were already severely dehydrated, cracked, and peeling.
By the fourth day, his head spun, and his body swayed from time to time.
Eventually, by what must have been the fifth or sixth day, he unconsciously toppled backward once more. Yet, instead of hitting the icy surface of the platform, he leaned against a firm, steady back.
Yin Huizhi blinked, clearing the darkness from his failing vision, and called out the name of the person behind him in a low voice: “Xie Ling?”
His voice had grown horribly raspy.
Xie Ling gave a low “Mm” in response.
Yin Huizhi then closed his eyes.
After a short while, he forced his eyes open again with great effort and whispered, “Will you really not let me die?”
Xie Ling gave another “Mm” and instructed, “Talk less.”
Seemingly suffering from impaired hearing due to starvation, Yin Huizhi only caught the first half of the sentence. Turning a deaf ear to the command, he asked, “Why?”
Xie Ling did not hold it against the half-dead man. “And why did you come back after finding a way out? Were you looking to die?”
Yin Huizhi defended himself in a small voice, “I did not know that was the Gate of Life.”
Xie Ling said nothing.
“You are lying,” Xie Ling said flatly. “Shut up.”
It was unclear how much of those words Yin Huizhi actually heard, but after a moment, he spoke up again with stubborn persistence: “Xie Ling.”
Xie Ling replied, “Mm.”
Yin Huizhi murmured, “Talk to me.”
Xie Ling fell silent for a moment. “Are we not talking right now?”
Yin Huizhi truly could not hear well anymore, as he repeated himself, “Talk to me.”
His voice was weak and muffled. “When I was little, I actually liked to talk a lot, with my mother, with the little beggars on the street, with the grandmother who sold candied haws, anyone at all. But later, my mother passed away, and no one wanted to talk to me anymore. I raised a little sparrow, and I talked to the sparrow. Later, the sparrow was stepped to death by Ouyang Yi, so I stopped liking to talk.”
Xie Ling remained silent for even longer this time. “I know.”
Yin Huizhi did not reply again. He had completely passed out from severe dehydration.
A warm liquid flowed along the seam of his lips, trickling drop by drop into his mouth and down his throat.
Yin Huizhi was parched beyond measure. Instinctively, he poked out his tongue to lap at it, trying to obtain more of the moisture to quench his burning thirst.
The object pressed against his lips paused for a moment, yet it did not pull away. Accompanied by a soft slashing sound, even more liquid surged into his mouth.
Yin Huizhi slowly opened his eyes. His numb taste buds recognized what he was drinking even before his blurred vision could make it out.
Spurred by a sudden, inexplicable burst of strength, his face turned deathly pale as he pushed Xie Ling away.
Fresh blood slid down Xie Ling’s pale arm, pooling at his fingertips, which were the very fingertips that had just been pressed against Yin Huizhi’s lips, before dripping steadily onto the ground.
Xie Ling looked down at his arm. His initially softened expression turned cold. “Yin Huizhi, waste is shameful.”
This was clearly not a joke. Yin Huizhi’s face grew increasingly pale as he stared fixedly at Xie Ling’s unnaturally white countenance.
Xie Ling’s patience wore thin in the face of Yin Huizhi’s dead silence. He tossed the blade back onto the altar.
With a sharp clink as the blade landed, Yin Huizhi’s face was seized by a hand, and his mouth was roughly forced open.
The copper-tasting, viscous liquid flooded down his esophagus. Yin Huizhi struggled a few times but was pinned back down with irresistible force.
The Nightmare within his tail ring remained utterly silent, refusing to obey his commands.
Finally, Yin Huizhi stopped struggling.
Discerning that his arm had stopped bleeding, Xie Ling released his grip on Yin Huizhi and wiped his face for him. He had left the lower half of Yin Huizhi’s face in a terrible mess, and the collar of his robes was stained a deep color.
“Do not you dare throw it up,” Xie Ling threatened mildly.
Yin Huizhi’s throat convulsed slightly. He did not vomit but instead turned his face away. Even so, Xie Ling caught sight of a wet streak that had appeared on the side of his cheek, like clear water dispersing red ink.
Xie Ling said cruelly, “If you cannot accept drinking blood, then you can only accept starving to death.”
Having said that, something else crossed his mind. He knitted his brows slightly, a hint of confusion leaking into his tone. “Is it really that hard to accept?”
Yin Huizhi ignored him, appearing a completely different person from the one who had been slurring and begging him to talk just a short while ago.
Xie Ling let the matter drop and sat back down to resume his meditation.
“Xie Ling,” Yin Huizhi suddenly called out.
Before Xie Ling could respond, he heard Yin Huizhi say in a very low voice, “If Shen Zhihui still has not arrived by tomorrow, do not worry about me anymore. Once I die, just place me on the altar.”
Xie Ling’s brow furrowed tightly.
For the next half-day, Yin Huizhi did not utter another word, though Xie Ling knew he was awake.
Xie Ling silently cursed Shen Zhihui for moving as slowly as a turtle, while pondering how he would trick Yin Huizhi into lowering his psychological resistance to drink a bit more tomorrow. Since Yin Huizhi was occupying his body, this fool had no right to decide his own life or death.
Due to the significant blood loss, Xie Ling felt somewhat drowsy as well. Concentrating on his meditation with closed eyes, he temporarily lost track of time.
When he opened his eyes again, it was because he was startled by the sound of a blade scraping against the stone platform, followed by the motion of someone picking it up.
Xie Ling snapped his eyes open. Moving as swift as lightning, he clamped down on Yin Huizhi’s wrist. His eyes darkened instantly, his expression turning exceedingly grim.
Yin Huizhi said nothing, keeping his eyes lowered as he stared at a tiny, protruding grain of sand on the platform surface.
Xie Ling did not speak for a long time either. He stared at him, slowly pulling his lips into a cold, mocking smirk.
“Yin Huizhi, how come I never knew since when were you so self-sacrificing?”
Yin Huizhi’s gaze was detached as he replied calmly, “My mind is just a bit muddled. I wanted to see if I could use the blade to scratch a mark on the ground to keep track of time.”
“No need. I can see your mind is indeed muddled.” Xie Ling yanked him off the altar in one swift motion and dragged him over to the Gate of Life.
Yin Huizhi stumbled a couple of steps. Before he could even steady his footing, he saw Xie Ling extend his scar-ridden left arm and press his palm firmly against the Gate of Life.
“With the sun and moon as the furnace, and my own flesh as the flame.” Xie Ling’s icy lips parted slightly, a chilling hatred welling up within his abyssal eyes. “Heaven and earth are heartless, together consuming human life. I pray to summon the power of Yin malice to punish them. Though I die nine times, I shall have no regrets.”
As the final words fell, Yin Huizhi’s pupils contracted sharply. He seemed to hear the shrieks, cheers, and roars of countless resentful spirits in his ears, all rushing madly toward Xie Ling.
A crimson, chilling light erupted and boiled up from the depths of Xie Ling’s eyes.
In the next instant, the Gate of Life, along with the entire array of the underground altar, shattered with a resounding crash.
Yin Huizhi’s eyes widened abruptly. The only sound left in his ears was the faint ringing that followed the destruction of the century-old grand array.
He stared intently at Xie Ling, watching as Xie Ling’s left hand fell gently from the air, before he closed his eyes.
“Xie Ling,” Yin Huizhi reached out to touch his arm.
In his head, a chorus of voices erupted, “Master. Master. He is calling you. He is calling you. He is calling you. Master, Master, he is calling you, he is calling you, he is calling you, Master, Master, Master, he is calling you, he is calling you, he is calling you, he is calling you, he is calling you.”
“Scram,” Xie Ling barked, his brow furrowing with a sinister look.
Yin Huizhi’s movements froze instantly. He slowly withdrew his hand, his eyes fixed unblinkingly on Xie Ling’s face.
As if sensing his gaze, Xie Ling swept his crimson eyes over him before looking away expressionlessly.
“If you do not want to die, keep up.”
During the next stretch of the way, Yin Huizhi felt dizzy and lightheaded, with sharp bursts of ringing echoing in his ears. It took every ounce of his strength just to barely keep pace, and Xie Ling never turned back even once.
Suddenly, his foot caught on something. The world went black before Yin Huizhi’s eyes, and he stumbled to a halt, wanting to call out for Xie Ling to wait.
Unfortunately, there was no longer anyone ahead of him.
Yin Huizhi swallowed down the sour, metallic liquid rising in his throat. Enduring the intense nausea, he tried to forge ahead, only to crash heavily to the ground.
The surface beneath him was not flat earth. It was a person’s body.
Yin Huizhi struggled to lift his head. Before completely losing consciousness, he saw Xie Ling’s face. He also caught a startled cry, “Lord Domain Master!”
Inside the massive bedchamber, Shen Zhihui was bustling about, never pausing for a single moment.
One minute he was whispering quietly with several physicians, the next he was glancing at the bed, or checking to see if Yin Huizhi, who was sitting by the table, was thirsty, hungry, or tired.
Yin Huizhi answered “no” to everything, his gaze drifting toward Xie Ling who lay upon the bed.
Xie Ling’s dark hair was in disarray. His eyes were tightly shut, and a lingering look of gloom was etched between his furrowed brows.
Yin Huizhi could feel it; from the exact moment the Gate of Life was shattered, an earth-shattering transformation had occurred within Xie Ling. Xie Ling knew it himself, and Shen Zhihui knew it too. He was the only one kept entirely in the dark.
That bizarre incantation was something he had never encountered in any ancient texts, but he was certain it was by no means a righteous technique.
Yin Huizhi was lost in a somber mood. At a glance, his expression and demeanor actually bore a slight resemblance to the sleeping Xie Ling. Catching sight of this, Shen Zhihui could not help but ask, “Are you feeling unwell?”
“No.” Yin Huizhi voiced the suspicion that harbored in his heart. “Young Master Shen, who exactly is he?”
In the current Qinyin Ghost Domain, with the Qinyin City Lord Zhou Ye present, who else would dare have their subordinates address them as “Lord Domain Master”?
All the previous oddities seemed to find a vague explanation at this very moment. If he still firmly believed that Xie Ling was just Xie Ling by now, he would be truly foolish.
Shen Zhihui began to regret striking up a conversation so impatiently. After a long silence, he said slowly, “Young Master Yin, you should not ask me this. It would be better to wait for the Lord to wake up and ask him yourself.”
A voice suddenly drifted from the bed: “Shen Zhihui.”
Shen Zhihui turned around instantly, quickly walking over to squat beside the bed. Bowing his head, he said, “Lord Domain Master, your subordinate is here.”
The red light in the depths of Xie Ling’s eyes had not yet faded. He extended a hand, allowing Shen Zhihui to help him up. “What is the situation outside right now?”
Shen Zhihui reported truthfully, “On the surface, there is no movement from Qinyin City. However, Xie Gou is blocking the path outside. It is likely that Zhou Ye has placed pressure on him, and he highly suspects something. As for those orthodox sects, it is the same old story.”
The same old story. As soon as the Fulin Divine Temple collapsed, it immediately drew the attention of the various prominent cultivation sects, who swarmed in at once.
Countless accusations were hurled at them, including Ouyang Yi’s death, which was pinned entirely on their heads. Using this as a pretext, they dug up every single past deed of the Tianye Sect from years ago, culminating in the declaration, “Their crimes are heinous; they must be executed!”
Xie Ling gave an “Oh.” “Have the preparations for the reconstruction of the Qinyin Palace begun?”
Shen Zhihui replied, “Everything is prepared.”
Xie Ling stated, “Tell Zhou Ye to either scram back to his Wuliang Mountain or serve as the foundation for my Qinyin Palace.”
Shen Zhihui smiled faintly. “Understood.”
Xie Ling suddenly spat out in a heavy, dark tone, “Shut up.”
The smile vanished from Shen Zhihui’s face instantly, replaced by a heavy and complex expression. The silence inside the bedchamber grew so profound that one could hear a pin drop. Yin Huizhi, who had been ignored all this time, abruptly snapped his eyes up to stare blankly at Xie Ling.
He thought in utter bewilderment: Just now… did anyone speak?
Xie Ling rubbed the space between his brows. “So noisy.”
Shen Zhihui took a deep breath, suppressing the emotions on his face, and said softly, “Please sleep for a while. Let me massage it for you.”
“Mm.” Xie Ling closed his eyes again, leaning back against the soft pillow.
Suddenly, he opened his eyes once more, casting his gaze toward Yin Huizhi, who had remained entirely silent throughout.
Perhaps because Yin Huizhi’s expression looked far too shaken and anxious, Xie Ling’s brow furrowed slightly as he changed his mind: “Forget it. Take him out to rest.”