You will never go back to the Second Prison again.
It sounded like a decent promise.
After the door closed, Yu Zaixi turned and buried his face in his arms. His eyes were dry and unfocused, his ears buzzed, and his head throbbed with a persistent, annoying ache.
You will never go back to the Second Prison again.
Never go back.
After lying still for half the night, his body nearly stiff, Yu Zaixi finally let out a mocking laugh. He went to open the window and looked out. The rain continued without end, pouring like a waterfall. Puddles accumulated on the ground; the dark night was devoid of light, and the surface of the water was as heavy as a deep abyss.
He glanced toward Jiang Yan’s room, reached out to catch a handful of rain, and vanished silently from the window.
In the second half of the night, eerie winds whipped through the city, causing the windows to slam against their pillars with loud clangs. A flash of cyan light flared within the room as Jiang Yan walked to the bed with a face like dark water. He stared fixedly at the bed, which had not been disturbed in the slightest. A moment later, he raised his hand and performed several motions before his chest; a palm-sized, circular array appeared over his heart. The patterns of the array were complex and terrifying, exuding a ghostly aura.
This was the Heart-Pulse Array. Once activated, the bound person would unconditionally obey the commands of the primary pulse, and their whereabouts would naturally be exposed.
Regrettably, Jiang Yan could only find Qin Nai. He could not find Yu Zaixi within the illusion. Jiang Yan’s pupils contracted slightly, and he continued to pour spiritual energy into the space outside the illusion, but Yu Zaixi was nowhere to be found in all of Luozhong.
The spiritual energy of a Mahayana-stage cultivator could support the array to search for a thousand miles. After the time it took for a stick of incense to burn, Jiang Yan’s body swayed. The array on his chest suddenly lost its color, and his pale face vanished into the darkness.
Trace-less within a thousand miles, it was exactly like what had happened back then.
Jiang Yan wiped his lips and walked to the window to gaze out at the cold night. Dawn was approaching.
The rain grew heavier. It showed no signs of stopping, even as the daybreak drew near.
Yu Zaixi sat by a well, drenched in rain. His clothes were soaked through, clinging to his skin in the cold, and he shivered uncontrollably. He had come out to track Qin Nai. Using the rainwater as a medium, he had circled the city until he finally found him; Qin Nai was kneeling in the rain at the gate of the old City Lord’s mansion’s ancestral hall.
Yu Zaixi was in the courtyard next door, separated by a wall. Both of them were standing in the rain; anyone unaware might think they had some strange fetish. He did not know why Qin Nai was kneeling there. Yu Zaixi kept sniffing, thankful that the sound of the rain was loud enough to cover the noise.
When the sky turned bright, Yu Zaixi stretched his neck to listen for movement next door. Unable to suppress his curiosity, he leaned back and melted silently into the well water behind him. After a few seconds, he emerged from a puddle at the gate of the ancestral hall. He dared not leave the water and stood behind Qin Nai, watching him curiously.
The man’s spine was stiff. From behind, he looked utterly helpless.
Yu Zaixi was too cold to stand still, so he crouched down, shivering. Some strands of hair stuck to his forehead, making him look pathetic, but he was too distracted to care about himself. He released spiritual energy to see who was being venerated inside the hall.
However, the hall contained nearly fifty orderly ancestral tablets, and all of them were empty.
Yu Zaixi’s mouth formed a silent “ah,” thinking his eyes were playing tricks on him. When he looked again, there was still nothing.
The grand ancestral hall of the old City Lord’s mansion was filled with empty tablets.
The most bizarre thing was that Qin Nai was actually kneeling before these empty tablets. If it were not someone he knew, it had to be someone related to his Master.
Yu Zaixi crouched and rubbed his chin, utterly baffled. He could not deduce the answer from the past; he did not know Tang Yuqiu, and he was not familiar with Qin Nai. All he could do was squat there, watching, hoping the man would suddenly have an episode and reveal the truth himself.
After squatting for so long, his mind began to wander. Why did the bridegroom in Quzhou City look exactly like his Master? Why come to this illusion? Why could I not find that ghost anymore? Where is Miao Pei? Did they not come to Luozhong to look for the item Tianhe left behind? So why did that bridegroom look just like Tang Yuqiu?
His legs went numb from squatting. Yu Zaixi shifted his feet, felt it was not enough, and propped himself up with one hand to try to sit, only to forget that his right arm lacked strength. He fell face-first into the water with a loud splash. He raised his head and looked at Qin Nai with an awkward laugh. The man frowned, his eyes icy as he turned around.
Yu Zaixi felt that explaining would only result in a beating. He let out a laugh and vanished from the puddle beneath him, instantly reappearing in a small puddle in front of Qin Nai. He whispered, “Why kneel in the rain? I am freezing to death out here.”
Qin Nai retracted his icy look. His face pale, he shook his head, his body swaying—likely from kneeling too long. He asked, “Why are you out in the rain?”
“To hide from Jiang Yan,” Yu Zaixi said with a bitter smile. “He cannot find me in the rain.”
Qin Nai seemed not to understand, so Yu Zaixi explained, “I am an outsider soul. I can meld into all things that are extremely yin and rootless. Rainwater is one of them.”
Qin Nai had never heard such a theory. For a moment, he forgot what he had been doing and pressed, “How did you discover that? I have read countless ancient texts and never heard of such a thing.”
“Because I” Yu Zaixi’s expression changed halfway through his sentence. He vanished from the spot, so fast that Qin Nai did not even see the ripples in the puddle.
He looked up at the gate. Jiang Yan had pushed open the courtyard door and walked in. His white robes were untouched by water; he was using an array to keep the filth of the world away.
Qin Nai stared with interest. “Did Brother Jiang track me down to this place?”
Jiang Yan did not answer his question and asked coldly, “Who were you speaking to just now?”
Qin Nai looked away, his voice tempered by the night’s cold rain. “None of your business.”
Jiang Yan did not press. A cyan array appeared beneath Qin Nai, and at the same time, Jiang Yan raised a hand, causing the Heart-Pulse Array to reappear over his heart. Qin Nai’s chest tightened, and he could not help but curl up. Kneeling in the cold rain, he looked utterly wretched.
Yet, he never uttered a sound. Qin Nai’s Heart-Pulse Curse had actually lost its effect on him.
It had not completely failed; it was just within the range that Qin Nai could control.
Jiang Yan retracted the array and gave a cold laugh. “Even if you have a way to isolate my array, how much longer can you survive in my hands?”
“Jiang Yan,” Qin Nai caught his breath, climbed up from the ground, and looked at him with mockery. “You do not actually believe that because you have reached the Mahayana stage, everyone in this world must be beneath you, do you?”
Jiang Yan remained unmoved, the same hook of a smile on his lips as he asked, “Then how much longer can Tang Yuqiu live?”
Qin Nai was struck dumb.
“What you know, I also know. What you want to do, I also want to do. Do not be overly clever.” Jiang Yan’s fingertips formed a sword, and he slashed through the air. The ancestral hall collapsed with a thunderous roar. Fifty tablets vanished amidst the shattered bricks and tiles, washed away by the rain into a pool of mud. Jiang Yan’s bone-chilling voice permeated the entire illusion. “Where is he?”
“So, you cannot find him.” Qin Nai grabbed a handful of mud and water and laughed to himself. “You brought out the Heart-Pulse Curse with such confidence, but did you ever think this day would come?”
“Is he not wanting to leave? Does he want to live more freely in the future, so he does not have to hide from you for a lifetime as he does now? Do you think you can stop him?”
“He hates you so much, yet you forced him to bind his heart-pulse to you. Tell me, just how much does he hate you now?”
Jiang Yan looked down at him. With his eyes covered by his lashes, no emotion could be discerned. The rain grew heavier. In the end, he said nothing, turned, and performed a seal to depart.
Yu Zaixi was hiding in the pool of a private residence, gazing blankly at the falling rain. He dared not release his spiritual energy for fear of Jiang Yan tracking him.
He could only hide. If the Heart-Pulse Curse was not lifted, he would have to hide like this for a lifetime, constantly searching for new “extremely yin” substances to avoid Jiang Yan’s detection.
It was troublesome, but it was doable.
It was best to find out the origin of Tianhe’s bone whistle, retrieve the whistle swallowed by the wolf-tiger beast, and gather the rest so he could return home.
The pool water was ice cold, but at this moment in the illusion, there was nothing else to use but the rain. Yu Zaixi sighed and sniffed, idly paddling his fingers through the pool, but he felt the water turn viscous. He looked down and saw only a sea of blood-red.
Before Yu Zaixi could make sense of what was happening, the blood-red color spread through the pool, quickly staining his white clothes. He stood up vigilantly, but the pool water seemed to come alive, extending tentacles from all directions to wrap around him.
Yu Zaixi formed a seal to leave, but a familiar array bloomed on the surface of the pool. The water locked his lower legs in a tight grip, and as the array rotated, the surrounding scene changed drastically. It was not Luozhong, nor were there people or illusions he had seen before. This was the empty valley on the day Yuan Qi had taken his own life.
Yu Zaixi had dreamed of it once and seen it in stories.
The valley was silent and vast, devoid of all life. The surrounding cliffs stood hundreds of fathoms high, and the only movement was the sand-wind that occasionally swept across the valley floor.
The blood-red array expanded until it covered the entire valley floor, perfectly replicating the scene of that day. Yu Zaixi scanned his surroundings, vigilant. “Who is wreaking havoc?”
One would not enter this illusion without reason. This was an illusion within an illusion; whoever could achieve this had to have cultivation at the Transformation God stage or above. Even if Yu Zaixi was prepared, he could not win. He scanned the area once more. “Why replicate this day? What is the purpose? Just tell me what you want, and I will consider it.”
But no one answered him, save for the howling wind. A stinging pain rose from the soles of his feet. Yu Zaixi looked down in shock. This array was real; he was trapped in a genuine Soul-Dispersing Array.
Someone was trying to kill him!
But he had never had any grudges with anyone!
Yu Zaixi hurriedly raised his spiritual energy to struggle, but the more he struggled, the faster the array activated. In an instant, the pain swept through his entire body!
“Why are you trying to kill me?”
His cultivation was not high enough, and he had no way to destroy the array. Was he truly waiting for death?
Yu Zaixi summoned the Wuxiang sword and slashed horizontally. The mountain groaned and cracked, surrounding boulders rolled down, and the entire area fell into chaos. Amidst this turmoil, Yu Zaixi struck upward with a fierce blade wind, tearing a hole through the very space itself.
But when he looked through the opening, he was stunned. The space outside the broken illusion should have been pitch black, leading further into nothingness. The gap was small, and in the blink of an eye, it shrunk back. It was as if he had not torn through an illusion, but had truly torn through the fabric of space for a fleeting moment.
The pain in his body grew more acute. He could not delay. He furrowed his brows and performed a technique, but as soon as he finished chanting, his expression changed drastically. He vomited a mouthful of fresh blood, leaned on the Wuxiang sword, and stared in a daze at his own palms.
He had wanted to rely on burning his soul to gain a temporary surge in cultivation, but the moment he finished the chant, he discovered that his soul was already riddled with holes and shattered into pieces, on the verge of total disintegration. It was only by forcing out a mouthful of his heart’s blood that he had managed to violently sever the incantation.
When was my soul injured?
Yu Zaixi stared with wide eyes, at a loss. He did not know how much longer his fragmented soul could hold out in this array. He was on the verge of having his meridians snap and his soul dissipate, just like Yuan Qi when he killed himself all those years ago.
He stood straight, retracted the Wuxiang sword, and pondered with lowered eyes for a moment before laughing self-deprecatingly. He pinched his fingertips and deactivated his own array that had been merged with the rainwater.
The next instant, the entire world began to tremble slightly. A sound of unbearable shattering erupted from deep beneath the earth, terrifying as the awakening of an ancient beast. The sky grew brighter and brighter, its radiance far exceeding anything natural. Then, waiting further, a sliver of cyan light flashed from the distant horizon, or perhaps it had emerged out of thin air from another dimension.
The cyan light reached him in an instant. The massive projection of the Wushang sword descended with the force of destruction. In a split second, the entire valley, the cliffs, and the boulders were leveled. The ground fractured, leaving only the spot where Yu Zaixi stood untouched. The blood-red array could not withstand the terrifying pressure of the Mahayana stage and dissipated the moment the Wushang sword hummed into the ground. Dust, howling winds, and rising blood mist swirled together, long refusing to settle.
Jiang Yan walked out from within the blade light, his hands trembling slightly beneath his sleeves. He stared at Yu Zaixi, his lips tightly pressed, his eyes filled with nothing but lingering, profound shock.