The withdrawn fingertips gently rubbed together beneath the pool’s surface.
Steam swirled in the air as Weisheng Zhen let out a comfortable sigh.
“Seven years ago, when I entered a secret realm, I took a liking to these eight hot spring pools five large and three small and deliberately dug them up and brought them here.”
“Remember, I sent you a message back then? Oh, right, that was seven years ago, so you probably don’t remember much. I said at the time.”
Li Changshuang replied in a low voice: ” I found a treasure and hoped you would come to Lingchao Sect to see it.”
Weisheng Zhen paused briefly, then praised him, “Your memory is still as good as ever. So why didn’t you come then?”
Li Changshuang shook his head without saying much, closing his eyes slightly to relax his body.
There were eight pools in total five large and three small. The two of them were in separate pools, close to each other, yet always keeping some distance.
Slightly disheveled black hair spread out at the edge of the pool, as if tangled together.
Weisheng Zhen suddenly felt dissatisfied that Li Changshuang had once again failed to respond. He reached out and poked his cheek. “Hey, every time we get to the topic of these past ten years, you start playing dumb. Did something shameful really happen that you don’t even dare tell me?”
Seeing that Li Changshuang still showed no reaction, he suddenly felt playful and pinched his face again. “You come back and won’t even chat with me. Did you spend all ten years chatting with young ladies, and they’ve stolen your soul away, so now you don’t want to talk to a rough man like me anymore?”
“Though I suppose that makes sense my parents had already formed a dao partnership by your age. My master was also urging me recently to see if there’s anyone suitable.”
But before he could finish, Li Changshuang suddenly opened his eyes, his pitch-black pupils locking onto Weisheng Zhen’s in an instant.
The next second, his wrist was seized by a powerful force. Weisheng Zhen sensed something was wrong and tried to pull his hand back but failed. His pale arm froze mid-air, water droplets sliding down the contours of his skin and hitting the ground, evaporating into mist.
“Wh…what’s wrong?” Weisheng Zhen was startled, but more than that, he felt embarrassed. He used a bit more force and finally managed to pull his hand back. “Alright, alright, I know you don’t like people getting close. I won’t touch you anymore.”
Only then did Li Changshuang snap back to his senses. His withdrawn fingertips gently rubbed together beneath the pool’s surface. “My apologies, it’s not that… I was just a little curious, how did you reply to your master back then?”
“What else could I say? I’m not interested in any of that, so I told him I hadn’t had my fill of fun yet and that he should wait a few thousand or ten thousand years before bringing it up again.”
This matter passed like a minor episode, and Weisheng Zhen didn’t dwell on Li Changshuang’s slightly strange reaction from earlier. It was only after he reclined back into the hot spring that he seemed to hear a faint sigh from Li Changshuang’s direction.
Must have misheard.
“What about you? I remember someone arranged a marriage for you that year, didn’t they? Why did you refuse?”
Weisheng Zhen genuinely couldn’t figure it out.
When he was writing the novel back then, he had clearly written that Li Changshuang didn’t refuse the girl but instead became engaged to her.
Though it never went beyond that the girl would later die saving him in a secret realm, becoming the one and only white moonlight in Li Changshuang’s heart, and the novel would never have another female lead.
But now, the engagement never happened, and the girl was still alive and well.
The overall direction of the world had not changed, but the details had shifted slightly.
The betrothal was one such change, and so was the city that had not been completely slaughtered.
Would the events that followed also be altered?
Weisheng Zhen suddenly felt a flicker of doubt.
“Affairs of the heart cannot be swayed by human effort.” Li Changshuang shook her head, unwilling to say more.
Weisheng Zhen was merely curious, wanting to know why this matter had developed differently from what he had once written. But since he hadn’t gotten anything out of Li Changshuang, he didn’t dwell on it further. “My master still hasn’t replied to me. What about you?”
Li Changshuang shook her head. “Same.”
“It’s been so long already even two days have passed since my last spiritual message barrage. There’s no way they’d still be ignoring me, right? Besides, I have no grudge against the Sect Master, and he quite favors my talent. There’s no reason for him to ignore me either.”
“Unless the place they’re in now has no spiritual energy, and the immortal jade slip can’t receive anything.”
“…”
The two suddenly exchanged a glance.
Weisheng Zhen helplessly slapped his own forehead. “I was being foolish, I didn’t think of that.”
When it came to places between heaven and earth, across all the continents, that lacked spiritual energy, there was only one: the Immortal Prison.
“I only just remembered as well the Sect Master did mention in the sect’s group chat that he and his old friends would be going to interrogate prisoners these days.” A hint of chagrin also crept into Li Changshuang’s expression.
The “old friends” she referred to were, of course, the heads of the six great sects.
“Since we can’t resolve this for now anyway… I’m so sleepy. Let’s go back and rest.”
With the weight in his heart somewhat lifted, Weisheng Zhen felt a wave of drowsiness wash over him.
He rose quickly. The inner robe, soaked from the hot spring and clinging wetly to his body, was dried in a few breaths by his spiritual energy. Only after draping on his outer robe did Weisheng Zhen notice that Li Changshuang had already finished getting ready. He muttered something about how fast she was, then hurriedly fastened his own belt.
Li Changshuang glanced at him, then deliberately averted her gaze elsewhere.
Although they now knew where their masters were, the Immortal Prison was not a place just anyone could enter. Not only did one have to go through four procedures submission, transmission, review, and adjudication there was also a public notice period after that.
It would take at least two to three months to get through.
It was indeed troublesome, but since the prisoners held inside were all heinous criminals guilty of monstrous crimes, the proper procedures could not be skipped.
So the two discussed it and decided it might be better to head to Star Sea Terrace first.
That might actually be the fastest way to see them.
They had come in a hurry, but the departure was leisurely. Weisheng Zhen tossed a small jade boat into the air, and the two decided to make their way slowly toward Star Sea Terrace. Along the way, if Li Changshuang spotted any demons or monsters during the journey, they could conveniently descend together to “grind for levels.”
**
More than ten days passed in the blink of an eye.
The closer the time for the Rising Talents Tournament drew, the livelier Star Sea Terrace became. The hotels and inns in the city had already been fully booked half a year before the tournament began, and even the three nearby cities, Moon Sea City, Mountain Ying City, and Man Cloud City were packed with crowds.
Aside from the rising disciples of the six great sects, rogue cultivators from the eight continents and even royal families from various mortal kingdoms had all sent representatives to compete.
After all, if one were to make a name for oneself in this Rising Talents Competition, not to mention the myriad eyes that would fall upon them, even just breaking into the top fifty would come with rewards enough to fill half a nation’s treasury.
By the time Weisheng Zhen and his companions arrived, only ten days remained before the competition began. Most of the participating cultivators and some invited guests who had come to observe had already taken up residence in Star Sea Terrace. Over the next ten days, the guard corps would erect a barrier around Star Sea Terrace, except for participants, the city’s residents could leave but not enter, until the day the competition commenced.
This was to prevent anyone from taking advantage of the chaos to cruelly slaughter the outstanding younger generation.
Weisheng Zhen had no intention of entering Star Sea Terrace early, and though Li Changshuang had also been invited to observe from within, both of them knew they were people who couldn’t sit still.
So they simply found a vacant inn in Manyun City and settled in.
Because for the past several millennia, competitions of all sizes between the various continents had almost always been held at Star Sea Terrace, the surrounding towns lacked nothing so much as they lacked rooms there were plenty to spare.
With rooms in abundance, this time each of them got their own.
Every year at this time, quite a few demons and monsters would slip into the towns around Star Sea Terrace. Li Changshuang showed them no mercy no sooner had they checked into their rooms than he sensed two or three impure auras. After informing Weisheng Zhen, he went off alone to capture those demons.
Weisheng Zhen had no intention of following. A few minor demons no need for both of them to go.
He had never been to Star Sea Terrace before, and at this moment, everything piqued his curiosity. Since the nearby towns were all protected by barriers that forbade sword-flight, Weisheng Zhen simply decided to follow the example of others and began strolling idly through the streets.
There weren’t many people wandering aimlessly like him, but his clothes clearly marked him as someone of considerable wealth. In the past, people like this would usually hire a carriage or a spirit palanquin, it was rare to see one walking on foot.
Weisheng Zhen had only remembered to change his face, not noticing the other details. When people saw his unfamiliar face and the fact that, aside from his jade ornaments, he carried little else, they assumed he was probably some young master from a lesser-known family.
Combined with his generous spending, and recalling the moderately sized but sufficiently luxurious jade boat that had arrived outside the city earlier, some people began to harbor ill intentions.
Weisheng Zhen flicked his folding fan, as if sensing something.
He should have known, when buying the fan earlier, he shouldn’t have been so ostentatious standing at the street stall. If he’d just walked into some shop, he probably wouldn’t have drawn this kind of attention.
Originally, he’d given the old woman running the stall extra spirit stones out of kindness, seeing how elderly she was. Now, because of that, he’d been tailed.
Ah, no those with crooked hearts wouldn’t care whether he paid inside a shop or at a stall.
He thought about simply revealing his true face, but then he remembered how his master had recently spread word across the other sect groups that he would be participating in the competition.
If those observers were to learn that Weisheng Zhen wasn’t staying inside Star Sea Terrace but in the outer towns instead, that would be a disaster he wouldn’t get a moment’s peace for days.
Just as he was thinking this, a hand suddenly reached out from the somewhat dim alleyway on his right and yanked him inside.
Given Weisheng Zhen’s strength, how could that man possibly have been able to pull him? But he sensed some kind of aura in advance, a hint of amusement flickering across his face, and then obediently allowed himself to be shoved against the wall by that burly cultivator.
“Little young master, don’t be afraid. We brothers invited you in here just to have a little chat.” A sinister grin spread across the man’s face. “You’ve got a kind heart, haven’t you? A mortal-grade folding fan, and you toss out a top-grade spirit stone just like that?”
These five cultivators were all at the Golden Core stage. Weisheng Zhen had previously suppressed his own aura to around the Golden Core level as well, so the five of them figured five people couldn’t possibly lose to someone of the same rank, right? And so they recklessly charged at him.
A look of innocence mixed with wariness appeared on Weisheng Zhen’s face. He closed his fan with a snap, cupped his fists, and said, “I appreciate the sentiment of you brothers wanting to chat with me, but this place hardly looks like a suitable setting for conversation. I’m afraid of the dark and don’t wish to linger, so I’ll take my leave first.”
Afraid of the dark?
The leader, who had been wearing a genial smile, suddenly darkened his expression and let out a cold snort. “Did I say you could leave?”