While Feiyi was momentarily dazed, the Holy Maiden’s procession had already silently passed her by. By the time she snapped out of it, the surrounding villagers were already stirring and buzzing with restless movement.
She hurriedly tugged at Song Lianzhou. “Sen—Senior Brother, I just saw the Holy Maiden looking like she was crying!”
She hadn’t intentionally controlled her volume, so besides the four of them, Li Yusheng standing close by had heard it as well.
“Feiyi younger sister must have seen wrong.” Li Yusheng smiled and shook his head. “The Holy Maiden is an immortal; she has no mortal emotions or worldly sorrows and joys, so how could she cry?”
“But—” Feiyi instinctively wanted to argue, but suddenly remembering where they currently were, she forced herself to swallow the words back. “Right, it must have been the glaring sunlight that made me see things.”
Whether Li Yusheng believed it or not didn’t matter; in any case, Song Lianzhou and the others unconditionally believed her.
Once Li Yusheng had walked away, Feiyi gathered the group together and said in a hushed voice, “I really saw the Holy Maiden crying! Wait, is she really the Holy Maiden?”
“According to the intelligence given by Yuling Chun, she shouldn’t be,” Song Lianzhou said. “Then just who is she? Or rather… what kind of entity is she?”
“In any case, she shouldn’t be an ordinary person. What ordinary person looks like that? Her whole body is stark white; she feels like she’s about to turn transparent at any second.”
Qingmiao chimed in, “Speaking of her coloring, it looks quite similar to the lotus flower she’s holding.”
Feiyi agreed, “Oh, right!”
Hearing this, the two juniors exchanged a glance before simultaneously letting out cold snorts and turning their heads away.
“Alright, stop bickering,” Song Lianzhou said between laughter and tears, grabbing one of them by the arm with each hand to pull them along. “Let’s follow them and see where they’re heading.”
The group followed the procession all the way from the head of the village to the tail end. Once they cleared the residential area, only farmland and a small stream remained on either side. The stream rushed forward, flowing into a massive, boundless pond. In the distance stood the waterfall that was visible right from the village entrance.
A few villagers were also tagging along, but seeing the four of them follow, no one tried to stop them.
Song Lianzhou suddenly felt someone drawing close behind him. Twirling two copper coins of unknown origin in his hand, Ye Xisheng leaned in close to his ear and spoke as if it were a casual remark: “The lotuses planted in this pond are quite interesting—they’re exceptionally neat and orderly.”
Following his gaze, Song Lianzhou saw that the pond was also fully bloomed with blue lotuses. While their distribution appeared random at first glance, several areas were noticeably denser.
He strained his vision to observe further and discovered that there were a total of six spots where the lotuses grew luxuriantly, perfectly distributed across six directions to form a hexagonal shape.
The procession ahead came to a halt.
The Village Chief and the shamaness stepped on the stones, halting at the very center of the waterfall. The shamaness swung the horsetail whisk in her hand while clutching a yellow talisman paper in the other, dancing frantically in front of the waterfall. A moment later, the Village Chief struck the ground forcefully with his cane.
Something miraculous happened: the water flow of the waterfall grew increasingly sparse until it finally trickled to a stop, revealing the scene hidden behind the waterfall—a cave actually concealed behind the waterfall?
Feiyi clutched the cuff of Song Lianzhou’s sleeve, stretching out her neck to look. “What is this? Are they using spiritual energy? Or an array formation??”
“It looks like it, yet it doesn’t,” Song Lianzhou carefully analyzed the residual fluctuations of magical power he had just sensed. “It seems somewhat murkier and more turbid than the spiritual energy used by ordinary cultivators.”
Fanggu Village seemed to possess its own unique system of cultivation laws. Song Lianzhou couldn’t quite tell what school of techniques the Village Chief and the shamaness were utilizing, and could only judge from the fluctuations and power of their magical energy that the two individuals possessed strength roughly equivalent to the middle and early stages of the Nascent Soul realm.
This realization made him let out a slight breath of relief: at the very least, he would be able to protect his three junior martial siblings.
The cave behind the waterfall was winding, deep, and bottomless. One could only see that the cave was also filled with blooming lotus flowers, emitting a faint blue glow in the dim cavern. Once the cave entrance opened, the four sedan-bearers began walking inside.
Seeing a few villagers follow closely behind, Song Lianzhou intended to blend in with them as well, only to be blocked right as he stepped to the edge of the lotus pond.
Looking at Li Yusheng, who had somehow materialized from goodness knows where yet again, Song Lianzhou nearly failed to maintain his facial expression:
How is this guy everywhere?!
“Ah, Song-xiong, please stay your steps. You can’t go any further.” Li Yusheng pulled the group back. “Ahead lies our village’s sacred ground and forbidden area, which outsiders aren’t allowed to enter. If you rashly barge in, terrible things will happen!”
“If you few are bored, you can wander a bit further upstream—there’s a bamboo grove there that’s quite refined and elegant. Oh, right, Feiyi younger sister, this is a grass-woven rabbit I made for you. Do you like it?”
A vibrant green little rabbit crafted out of woven grass was presented right in front of Feiyi.
Even though Feiyi always claimed to be a grown-up and past the age of liking such knick-knacks, when she saw this grass rabbit, she still couldn’t help being charmed, happily taking it with a beaming smile. “Thank you, Big Brother Li~”
Li Yusheng instantly bloomed into a smile. “You’re welcome~”
Finding no suitable excuse to brush him off, Song Lianzhou decided to follow Li Yusheng’s suggestion and head upstream. Glancing back, he saw that Li Yusheng was still standing in the exact same spot, gazing after them—or to be more precise, gazing after Feiyi.
Once they had completely shaken off that lingering gaze, Song Lianzhou immediately turned around, pinched the grass rabbit between two fingers to inspect it, and after confirming there were no hidden tricks, handed it back with a casual warning: “Don’t randomly accept things from other people.”
“Hehe, Senior Brother, are you jealous?” Feiyi stuck her tongue out at him. “Don’t worry, my absolute best Senior Brother is none other than you. Playing along with Li Yusheng was just for fun; I’m only ever sincere when I’m playing with you.”
Song Lianzhou: “……” What kind of messed-up logic was that.
Unable to watch any longer, Qingmiao spoke up to steer the conversation back onto serious matters: “Shouldn’t we be discussing proper business now? Since they won’t let us into that cave, where should we go to investigate next?”
Song Lianzhou: “Since they won’t let us in, we’ll just sneak in secretly when nobody’s around.”
Qingmiao froze in shock. “But didn’t that Li Yusheng say it’s a forbidden sacred ground and outsiders aren’t allowed?”
Song Lianzhou: “……”
As expected of a direct disciple nurtured by a major sect—he really was law-abiding to a fault, insisting on obtaining an official entry visa before entering Qishan City, and actually refusing to enter simply because someone told him outsiders weren’t allowed.
Song Lianzhou sincerely voiced his puzzlement: “Forbidden grounds and the like… aren’t they just meant to be broken into? Just like how the merciless path is meant to be defied, and the Joyful Union Sect is meant to make you stay single.”
Qingmiao: “……” Instant enlightenment!!
Side Story:
Upon returning, Feiyi discovered that her desk had suddenly gained a lot of new items: a grass-woven cat, a grass-woven dog, a grass-woven chick……
Walking past with an air of supreme nonchalance, Qingmiao dropped a super casual remark: “I made all of those. They’re yours now.”
Feiyi: “Oh, thanks.” Rummaging through the pile of grass creatures, she asked, “Where’s my rabbit?”
Qingmiao gazed up at the sky. “Threw it away… tore it apart. I took it apart to see how it was woven, and then I couldn’t put it back together.”
Feiyi: ? Hey!