The village was not large, and the group walked through it entirely without finding any new discoveries. In order to raid the mysterious cave at night, everyone returned to their respective rooms early to rest and regroup.
That night, the mountain moon hung like a prisoner.
Looking outward from the window, the surroundings were almost pitch black. The moonlight was locked outside the nine heavens by heavy forest mists, failing to leak even a sliver of clear radiance, allowing the pitch-black darkness thick as spilled ink outside the window lattice—to seep inward.
As soon as the last lamp in the village went out, Song Lianzhou knew the timing for action had arrived.
He pulled two sets of night-traveler clothes from his storage ring and handed one set to Qingmiao. “Junior Brother, do you dare to come with me tonight?”
“What’s there not to dare?” Qingmiao stood up immediately, snatching the dark garments to change into them in the alcove.
Ye Xisheng sat by the table, watching Song Lianzhou pack talismans and compasses into his pouch, yet he delayed packing the most important item.
Flicking the tabletop with his fingertips, he asked, “Senior Brother, where are my night clothes?”
Song Lianzhou put away the flint and looked toward him with his eyebrows raised in one-third surprise: What do you need night clothes for? Are you going stargazing in the middle of the night?
Taken aback for a moment, Ye Xisheng finally reacted: “Senior Brother, you aren’t planning to take me with you?”
Song Lianzhou asked with extreme bewilderment, “Why would I plan to take you?”
“Who knows what the situation inside the cave is like? Why would a Foundation Establishment cultivator go? Just stay safely right here and provide backup for us.”
Ye Xisheng: “I!……”
For thousands of years, Ye Xisheng had been the supreme number one above all others; when had he ever been looked down upon and treated with such casual dismissal? Yet stubbornly, he couldn’t think of any retort, nor could he lose his temper at this person.
Crossing his arms and planting himself there, Ye Xisheng began to sulk in frustration. “Senior Brother shouldn’t always underestimate me. I’m actually much stronger than you think. If Senior Brother takes him instead of me, it must mean you don’t truly regard me as a junior brother in your heart.”
“Yes, yes, you’re the strongest.” Busy packing things into his storage ring, Song Lianzhou coaxed him perfunctorily. “Then you, the strong one, stay behind outside to cover our retreat, alright, be a good boy.”
Ye Xisheng: “……” That was clearly not the main point of what he had just said!
He could only watch helplessly as Song Lianzhou dressed in his night-traveler clothes and fastened a black veil over his face. The dark martial attire hugged his slender waist, and when he tied his ink-black hair up high, it kicked up a sharp, brisk arc. He turned back and raised an eyebrow at Qingmiao with an air of dashing gallantry. “Let’s go, Junior Brother.”
Instinctively, Ye Xisheng wanted to reach out and grab his hand, only to watch Qingmiao glide effortlessly past him and reply, “Coming.” Then the two turned around and walked out together, shutting the door behind them with a click, severing the yearning gaze fixed upon them from behind.
Ye Xisheng: ……
Ye Xisheng: …………
He was not jealous at all!!
Fanggu Village, outside the lotus pond.
Two figures flitted through the night sky at lightning speed, landing softly on the ground a moment later.
With the surroundings completely deserted, Song Lianzhou made a decisive judgment and stepped onto the stepping stones protruding from the pond. “Let’s go.”
Qingmiao followed closely behind Song Lianzhou, muttering with some uncertainty, “That’s someone else’s village sacred ground, after all. Is it really not quite proper for us to just barge in like this? Master said that entering someone else’s home requires knocking on the door first—”
Song Lianzhou almost laughed out of amusement. “Alright then, go knock on the door and see if a lotus root spirit will pop out from the middle of this entire pond of lotus flowers to answer you with a ‘Welcome inside, honored guest’?”
Qingmiao: “……”
“Besides, several living people have gone missing in this village; can we really say that’s very proper? Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
Qingmiao was left speechless.
The two made their way all the way to the foot of the waterfall.
The waterfall rushed downward with fierce and ferocious velocity. After standing there for just a few seconds, the collars of their robes were already half-soaked by the splashing spray.
Condensing spiritual energy in his palm, Song Lianzhou attempted to channel the water spiritual roots within his body to control and part the waterfall.
Sensing the surrounding water-type spiritual energy, his brow gradually furrowed, and the spiritual energy in his palm abruptly dissipated.
Noticing this, Qingmiao asked, “Failed?”
Song Lianzhou nodded. “I can’t manipulate the water here. It seems something has sealed off the entire lotus pond.”
Since Qingmiao possessed a single lightning spiritual root, he was equally powerless to help. He could only attempt to gather a ball of lightning and hurl it directly toward the waterfall opening.
Boom!
The instant the two collided, the waterfall suddenly emanated a golden light, and Qingmiao’s spiritual energy collided against what felt like an unbreakable copper wall, dissolving into nothingness in a split second.
“There really is a seal,” Song Lianzhou realized in his heart, gently raising his arm to extend it toward the waterfall. The moment his palm was about to touch the water’s surface, the golden light of a barrier flared beneath his palm, blocking his entire hand on the outside.
“What do we do then? Break through by force?” Qingmiao asked.
A seal differed from an array formation in that it lacked an eye; its standard cracking methods tended to be much more complex, and whenever Qingmiao encountered seals, he usually smashed them straight through with brute force.
“We cannot. When a seal is cracked, the person who laid it down will definitely sense it. If we cause too much commotion and draw people over, it won’t be good.” Maintaining his posture, Song Lianzhou slowly gathered his spiritual energy and pushed forward. “I still retain some perception over water; let’s see if I can control the water here while the seal experiences a lapse in stability. Junior Brother, cover me.”
Qingmiao nodded. Closing his eyes, Song Lianzhou channeled his spiritual energy until it gradually blanketed the entire pond.
Locating the most unstable point of the seal, he slowly fed his spiritual energy into it…
Hum!!
The spiritual energy of a late Nascent Soul cultivator easily loosened the seal; the golden light beneath Song Lianzhou’s palm flickered erratically, looking extremely unstable.
A prime opportunity!
Song Lianzhou drove his water spiritual roots forward, gathering water-type spiritual energy in his palm once more before sinking it into the seal, merging seamlessly with the rushing waterfall.
Swish,
As if an invisible blade had descended, the waterfall was violently cleaved down the middle into two halves!
“It’s open!” Song Lianzhou immediately turned around, grabbed Qingmiao’s arm, and lunged forward in a bound straight into the cave.
The next second, the waterfall gates closed behind the two of them, cutting off the final shred of daylight.
Their vision went blind for a brief fraction of a second. Twirling mid-air, Song Lianzhou drew his sword and thrust it toward the waterfall, only for it to be blocked right back as expected amid a crisp clashing sound.
“It closed up again,” Qingmiao said with a solemn expression. “What do we do now?”
“We’ll take it one step at a time. At worst, we’ll just use the same method to get back out later.”
Song Lianzhou ignited a flint and lifted it to illuminate the path ahead.
The light inside the cave turned out to be somewhat brighter than outside; lotus flowers blooming all across the ground radiated a faint blue fluorescent glow, illuminating this tiny square inch beneath their feet.
The cavern floor was damp, and the two groped their way cautiously forward, accompanied only by the faint, scuffing sounds of their footsteps splashing through shallow puddles.
After walking for an unknown depth, the lotus flowers began to bloom more luxuriantly, and the converging illumination grew increasingly dazzling.
Song Lianzhou came to a halt.
The scene before them abruptly widened—they had arrived before a set of doors.
The bronze double doors were corroded and covered entirely in verdigris, gazing with a towering, solemn dignity upon the two uninvited guests.
Qingmiao tested pushing them with his hands, and they actually creaked open.
Nothing could be seen inside; not even lotus flowers were planted there. Looking in from the outside, it stretched into an endless, bottomless dark void.
Song Lianzhou probed the darkness with his divine sense, roughly perceiving that the space inside was very large, with the path ahead sealed off and the entire space forming a circle—this was a cavern grotto.
“Junior Brother, be careful.” He cautioned him while holding up the flint.
Condensing lightning radiance in his palm to illuminate the way, Qingmiao stepped inside the cavern one after the other with him.
The cavern grotto was dead silent, devoid of everything and appearing perfectly normal.
Yet according to Song Lianzhou’s experience, the more normal something appeared, the more abnormal it truly was; there had to be another path hidden within this grotto.
Approaching the wall with his flint to observe closely, he suddenly heard Qingmiao say from behind him, “Senior Brother, there seems to be a crack here.”
“Where?” Song Lianzhou hurried over to look.
Under the dual illumination of firelight and lightning radiance, a neat split was visible, fracturing across the stone wall. Looking upward, the crack curved overhead, outlining a shape that closely resembled a door.
A secret passage, indeed!
His spirits lifting, Song Lianzhou applied protective talismans to both himself and Qingmiao, then reached out to shove hard against the crack.
Clack.
The stone wall dented inward slightly, and a familiar, icy blue fluorescent glow leaked from within the seam.
Confirming that there were no other anomalies around, the two exerted their strength together, pushing hard to force the sunken stone wall open.
Clatter, clatter…
As if triggering a mechanism, a flurry of gear and chain rotations echoed through the surroundings, and the massive rock before them was pulled backward to one side, shedding a shower of gravel and sand.
Song Lianzhou instinctively wanted to brush away the dust in front of him, but his movements were frozen in place by the sight that greeted his eyes.
Before them lay a dense, sprawling sea of blooming lotus flowers.
Countless lotus flowers converged together, and the blue light they emitted illuminated the entire cavern as bright as day. The area of the lotus sea cavern was even larger than the outer grotto, stretching out almost endlessly to the horizon.
Qingmiao’s gaze swept toward the surrounding walls, his pupils trembling slightly. When he looked toward the center of the lotus pond, he froze in place entirely.
At the very center of this lotus sea, a gigantic lotus flower was in full bloom, and seated in the heart of the lotus was a person, white as a drifting soul.
Taking a step forward, Song Lianzhou’s footfall splashing through the water was exceptionally distinct.
Gazing at that figure, he softly murmured, “…… Holy Maiden?”
The Holy Maiden in the heart of the lotus slowly turned her head to look in their direction.
Her lips didn’t move, yet her voice sounded ethereal, as though it came from a very distant place: “Who are you?”
“Why did you come here?”
“We bear no malice; coming here is merely to find some answers.” Song Lianzhou stepped forward once more, his entire body entering the lotus pond.
“Pardon me, are you the Holy Maiden?”
The Holy Maiden stared coldly at him for a moment before speaking. “In the sacred grounds, of course I am the Holy Maiden.”
Qingmiao spoke in a low voice, “The characters ‘Pure Lotus Pond’ are carved on the wall; this should indeed be the sacred ground of Fanggu Village that they mentioned.”
Li Yusheng had said that this waterfall concealed both a forbidden area and a sacred ground; their luck was quite decent not to have stumbled into the forbidden area.
Nondiscriminatory toward the Holy Maiden’s reply, Song Lianzhou smiled instead and continued asking, “Then, Holy Maiden, have you ever seen Li Nianshang?”
The lotus flower in the Holy Maiden’s hand trembled slightly. “Li…”
Her expression shifted slightly and lightly. “You… unfamiliar… aura.”
“Are you… outsiders?”
Song Lianzhou had no idea how she had sniffed out the scent of outsiders, but to prevent her from raising her guard, he bit the bullet and explained, “The Holy Maiden must be mistaken. We are simply villagers, and we must have traveled alongside a few newcomers who arrived in the village today, carrying some of their scent on us by coincidence.”
“Wrong, wrong.”
The Holy Maiden stood up, retreating barefooted by a few steps.
“These past few days, outsiders… just like you… came here.”
“Please leave.”
“What?” Song Lianzhou was stunned.
Weren’t they talking perfectly fine just a moment ago? Why was she suddenly driving them away?
“Since other outsiders have come before you, you must know that people have gone missing in Fanggu Village! We only wish to know their—”
“Please leave!”
The Holy Maiden suddenly raised her voice to cut him off.
“Leave… the village… do not come back again,” crystalline tears suddenly welled up and slid past the corners of her eyes. “Do not… search for them anymore… do not touch… the village’s… secrets.”
“Leave this place, leave this place…”
“Leave this place.”
“Leave!!”
The final word abruptly transformed into a shrill, piercing wail, and a fierce gale whipped up inside the cavern. The massive force carrying an irresistible momentum came crashing straight toward the two of them, sweeping them both off their feet.
Boom. The stone doors slammed shut rapidly behind them, and Song Lianzhou only had time to spin around and blurt out, “Wait!”
The doors closed, isolating everything inside the lotus pond.
Cough, cough… Ptui, ptui. Qingmiao tumbled to the ground, swallowing a mouthful of dust, coughing as he stood up.
Brushing the dust off his body, he couldn’t help complaining, “Why did her attitude flip for no reason? She was completely fine just a moment ago…”
“She must be quite sensitive to our identity as outsiders, which is why she suddenly grew agitated.” Staying silent in place for a long moment, Song Lianzhou turned around. “Let’s head back first and see if we have a chance to come back later.”
Qingmiao followed behind him. “Is she resisting us?”
“Rather than resisting, it’s more like… she is pleading with us to leave.”
Frowning as he pondered the Holy Maiden’s bizarre reaction, Song Lianzhou noted her continuous repetition of telling them to leave, the tears falling from the corners of her eyes, and… the shackles on her ankles.
Amidst his musings, he suddenly felt that the surroundings had grown a bit too dark.
Had it been this dark before?
No.
After coming out of that cave, the path outside should have been lined with plenty of lotus flowers.
Reacting with a sudden jolt, Song Lianzhou immediately grabbed Qingmiao beside him. “Wait! Don’t move forward yet”
However, it was already too late.
Song Lianzhou heard the sound of mechanisms loosening from not far away, ringing out with striking clarity within the gloomy, silent cavern, followed immediately by multiple whistling sounds cutting through the air!
Reacting with supreme velocity, he pulled Qingmiao behind his back with one hand while rapidly raising a protective barrier with the other to intercept the attack.
Qingmiao also snapped to attention. “This isn’t the path we took to get here!”
The two made a prompt, decisive choice to retreat swiftly. Yet the path they had just walked seemed to have vanished into thin air; no matter how long they retreated, they couldn’t find the way they came, surrounded on all sides instead by an endless storm of arrows.
What was even worse was that strange magical powers surged along those arrows. Song Lianzhou couldn’t sense the aura of true spiritual energy, but under the dense barrage of attacks, the barrier beneath his hands began to destabilize.
He had no choice but to channel all his spiritual energy to sustain it a little longer, yet the barrier showed faint signs of shattering.
“I’ve got this.” Qingmiao joined in circulating his spiritual energy to raise a barrier, but his cultivation level fell short of Song Lianzhou’s. After barely holding on for a moment, the barrier began to tremble unsteadily once more.
Veins bulged fiercely across the back of Qingmiao’s hand as he clenched his teeth, squeezing a few words out from between them: “The spiritual energy on top of these… is truly wicked!”