The hand clamped around Weisheng Zhen’s waist didn’t loosen immediately either…
The attacker was one of the wanted criminals who had been fleeing in this direction.
The man seemed not to have expected that the two could dodge his first strike. He furrowed his brow and charged again, apparently intending to seize them as hostages.
His target was Weisheng Zhen, who was being held by Li Changshuang. In his eyes, these two were embracing each other in broad daylight clearly an unusual relationship. Of the two, Li Changshuang’s cultivation was unremarkable, and Weisheng Zhen’s was even more ordinary. But Weisheng Zhen’s clothing was made of finer materials than the other’s, suggesting he might be the young master of some wealthy family out on an outing with his lover.
If he could grab one of them and use that person’s status, perhaps there was still a chance to escape!
The thought flashed through his mind as his fingers curled into claws, tearing through the air with a sharp whistle as he reached for Weisheng Zhen’s shoulder!
Yet his fierce movement was unexpectedly stalled for a moment by a zither sound that seemed to come from nowhere. But that brief hesitation was all it took the two before him escaped again, replaced by the attacks of the city guard cultivators.
Having failed to grab Weisheng Zhen, the man gritted his teeth and tried to slip away. But the zither attack didn’t stop; instead, it pelted him like rain. What’s more, the zither sound wasn’t merely a physical attack each individual pluck of a string produced a pleasant note, yet when combined, they formed a completely atonal, tuneless, utterly discordant melody.
The man could sense that the zither sound was connected to Weisheng Zhen, the one he’d just tried to grab, which only made him more agitated.
A mere nascent soul cultivator normally he could kill someone like that as easily as crushing an ant. Yet now this so-called ant had inflicted such profound psychological damage on him!
Even after quickly blocking his hearing, the rasping zither notes that had already entered his ears lingered in his mind, refusing to leave, as if they could stir the deepest rage within him. He gritted his teeth and cursed, “That’s disgustingly awful to hear,” before struggling through dozens of exchanges with the city guard cultivators and being taken into custody with a face full of resentment.
Aside from him, his two accomplices were also captured and quickly led away from the scene.
The scene was utter chaos. The expression on Li Changshuang’s face was somewhat tense, and the hand clamped around Weisheng Zhen’s waist didn’t loosen right away. It was only when Weisheng Zhen, finding it a bit awkward, patted the hand at his waist that the stiffness on Li Changshuang’s face began to thaw slightly. He murmured an apology and let go, standing at Weisheng Zhen’s side.
Weisheng Zhen looked at the now-sparse queue and, seeing no sign that the people around them intended to return to the line, said, “It seems everyone else has left. Let’s just head straight to the city gate.”
Though they’d saved time by skipping the queue, the earlier incident had caused the exit barrier to be temporarily sealed. Weisheng Zhen fetched two small stools, and the two sat there waiting for about half an hour until the line behind them had stretched into a long dragon again and the barrier was finally reopened.
“First time entering the Inch of Land?”
The reviewing cultivator glanced up slightly at Weisheng Zhen.
Weisheng Zhen nodded, and the man tilted his chin up, gesturing for him to pass through a space that looked like a mirror of water beside him.
“Just walk through. This Sky-Reflecting Mirror will automatically take a strand of your spiritual energy. If you encounter danger outside, that strand will alert us on its own, and once we report it, the City Lord will come to your aid.”
Had it been anyone else, the reviewing cultivator wouldn’t have said a word more, but these two before him were people the City Lord had specifically requested he look after, so he added a few extra words.
Weisheng Zhen thanked him. After the two of them passed through the Sky-Reflecting Mirror, a small mustard-seed spatial pouch suddenly appeared on the reviewing cultivator’s desk.
He opened it with some curiosity and found the space inside was not large, but it contained a full three thousand high-grade spirit stones, equivalent to half a month’s worth of cultivation resources for him.
He nodded, and the resentment he’d felt toward the City Lord for making him look after these two diminished considerably.
At most, it just meant keeping an extra eye out. It wouldn’t cost him much effort.
Besides, the City Lord was busy with affairs of state every day. Even if he noticed something and reported it promptly, it wasn’t guaranteed to be handled.
In the end, it had nothing to do with him.
This was Weisheng Zhen’s first time in Cun Di. Never before not even in the modern era had he seen such desolate scenery.
Before arriving, he’d thought the “sparse vegetation” his senior brothers and sisters had described was at least somewhat exaggerated. But now that he stood on Cun Di’s soil, now that his lungs drew in air scorching with heat, he couldn’t spot a single hint of green as far as his eyes could see.
It formed a stark contrast with the lush greenery of the city he’d seen just half an hour ago.
He’d seen barren lands before, but never anything this barren!
Weisheng Zhen looked down at his feet the ground was cracked like a spider’s web. A casual stomp of his foot was enough to feel how the earth, baked under the blazing sun, had become as hard as steel.
To put it plainly: stomping here just made his foot go numb.
Aside from the endless stretch of desolation before him, there were also three strange teleportation arrays in front of him, their destinations unknown.
Li Changshuang stepped outside a moment later than him. He’d been here before, and with his naturally calm disposition, his expression barely shifted. He simply asked Weisheng Zhen, “The three arrays lead to the three nearest trading posts. One of them is slightly closer to its array, but compared to setting out from here, the difference is only about half a day’s journey.”
Now that he was in Cun Di, Weisheng Zhen no longer needed to conceal his appearance. Bathed in the harsh sunlight, his entire figure seemed gilded in a layer of golden light. As Li Changshuang spoke, he found himself stumbling over his words without realizing it.
He steadied his mind. “How do you plan to proceed?”
Weisheng Zhen thought for a moment. “The more people who see us, the more trouble this trip will bring. Besides, I suspect those trading posts are even more chaotic than the scene we just left. Better to set out from here directly. It’ll cost us an extra half day, but it should save us a lot of hassle.”
Li Changshuang had been thinking the same thing, so he naturally had no objections. He’d only asked because he’d noticed Weisheng Zhen staring at the three teleportation arrays using the explanation as an excuse to gauge whether Weisheng Zhen was interested in the trading posts, whether he wanted to take a look before leaving.
Weisheng Zhen did enjoy lively places, but he also knew how to prioritize. Once the two had decided, Li Changshuang produced the special jade boat required for travel in Cun Di. They hadn’t been traveling toward the seal’s location for long before the boat seemed to fade like color bleeding out of cloth, gradually dissolving into the surrounding scenery until it vanished from sight.
This is the advantage of the specially crafted jade boat it obscures vision and conceals aura.
The spiritual energy in the wilderness felt somewhat lacking compared to towns, perhaps due to the absence of large formations. Weisheng Zhen always felt that cultivation here yielded half the results with twice the effort.
The estimated arrival time was about a month. Because of the sparse spiritual energy, Weisheng Zhen temporarily set aside any thoughts of cultivation and instead spent his days holed up in the jade boat’s cabin, tinkering with the three fragments of the Bibo Cauldron.
At first, Weisheng Zhen had assumed that once he collected all three fragments, the artifact would automatically fuse together and be ready for use. But after obtaining them, he realized he had been too presumptuous to use these three fragments, they would need to be fused with at least an Earth-grade cauldron fragment.
Though Weisheng Zhen didn’t possess an Earth-grade cauldron fragment, he had plenty of cauldrons in his mustard-seed space. Worst case, he could just smash them apart and try each one.
So for five consecutive days, Li Changshuang could hear the constant clattering and banging sounds coming from nearby.
He knew Weisheng Zhen’s cultivation didn’t require the same grueling practice as sword cultivators. Though he had no idea what exactly Weisheng Zhen was up to in that room, Li Changshuang didn’t disturb him, he simply quietly added another layer of soundproofing barrier around the jade boat.
Another ten days passed in the blink of an eye. By the time they were more than halfway through their journey, the sounds from Weisheng Zhen’s cabin finally began to subside.
Weisheng Zhen had lost count of how many cauldrons he had ruined and how many attempts he had made before he finally managed to piece the Bibo Cauldron fragments together with other fragments into a somewhat rounded artifact.
Fortunately, Heaven-grade artifact fragments wouldn’t be damaged, and they patiently endured his prolonged fiddling.
After tossing them into the small furnace that the senior sisters from the artifact refinement sect had once gifted him, and roasting them in the flames for three to five days, the fragments would automatically fuse into one.
Weisheng Zhen clapped his hands in satisfaction.
Indeed, gifts made with one’s own hands always felt more sincere.
He stretched comfortably, only then realizing he hadn’t checked his immortal jade slip in a long time. The group chat was flooded with messages he had no idea how those people could generate so many messages among themselves.
Weisheng Zhen scrolled all the way to the top and found that the topic had indeed been started by Xian Yuyi.
He pondered for a moment, staring at Xian Yuyi’s username “I’m Obsessed” for a long while, feeling like he ought to settle some score with her. But as for what exactly it was about, he couldn’t recall for the life of him.
After thinking a bit longer with no results, Weisheng Zhen temporarily gave up and skimmed through the messages in the group.
To prevent anyone from shielding their own assigned seal sites, Xian Yuyi had been assigned to the seal site west of Baihua Isle. Since it was closer to Xinghai Terrace, she was also the first to arrive at her seal site.
Around the very first day Weisheng Zhen and the others left Zhelin City and entered the wilderness, she had already arrived near the seal site.
The reason she was spamming the group chat was simply because there was no one around to talk to, so she could only vent her words furiously in the group.
“This seal site doesn’t seem to show anything unusual. [Image] [Image]”
She then tagged everyone else.
Hua Fan also kept her immortal jade slip on her at all times and quickly replied to Xian Yuyi, saying she felt like the southeast corner seemed to be concealed by something, suggesting she go check it out.
The second to arrive was Jiang Yandao. Her destination was Lianzhou.
Unlike Xian Yuyi, who had to carefully assess whether the seal site had any issues, Jiang Yandao’s approach was far more straightforward and blunt.
She set up a board directly, sat down on the ground, and began to calculate!
The closer she was to the sealed location, the more accurate the information Jiang Yandao could deduce. After she had performed several more divinations of the sealed area’s condition nearby and confirmed there was no error, she likewise took a photo and sent it to the group chat.
As Weisheng Zhen and the other person spent longer entering the restricted area, Hua Fan and Xing Tan also arrived at the sealed location one after another. Because the matter was of great importance, and it was difficult for any single person to judge and decide alone, that was why there were so many group messages.
Even Li Changshuang spoke up in the group, offering some experience in making judgments.
On the contrary, it was Weisheng Zhen, who had previously been the most active in chatting and sending messages in the group, who saw these messages the latest.
However, he was self-aware enough to know that with his practical experience of “three years in seclusion, three days out in the world,” the best help he could offer at this moment was to not disturb them.
In the end, they concluded that the remaining four sealed locations had no issues. But the more this was the case, the more uneasy Weisheng Zhen felt as he gazed at the end of the jade boat’s journey.
It was as if, at the unknown end, something extremely dangerous was waiting for them.