Gu Zhaoyan and Bailang followed the group all the way into the wilderness, pressing continuously deeper into the interior.
When they had walked far enough and the surroundings grew sufficiently secluded, the group finally halted. Gu Zhaoyan and Bailang stood beneath a large tree, concealing their presence as they watched silently. The mournful music ceased, and the wailing stopped as well. The young man holding the spirit tablet tossed it onto the ground, and the crowd began untying the white cloth and mourning garments from their bodies to use as fans against the heat.
“We finally made it out!”
“That was truly close this time. If not for the concealment artifact given by master, we would have been finished!”
“What do you think master wants with this little brat? He is Prince Jing’s son after all. If this is discovered, we will be dead for sure!”
“Shut your mouth!” An elderly man frowned and rebuked angrily, “How dare you question master’s actions?! Remember, as long as we help master, wealth and glory are guaranteed! In the future, perhaps you and I can even rise to the heavens and become carefree immortals!”
“Yes, yes, yes, Uncle Wang is right!” The others hurriedly nodded in agreement with the old man’s words.
A breeze swept past, carrying their words straight to the ears of Gu Zhaoyan and Bailang. Man and wolf exchanged glances: master? Rise to the heavens and become carefree immortals?
After resting for a short while, the group hoisted the coffin once more and marched deeper inward, prompting Gu Zhaoyan and Bailang to quickly follow. Pressing further in led straight into the deep mountains. If something that had awakened its spiritual intelligence truly resided here, being right next to the capital was by no means a good thing.
The deeper they went, the dimmer the sky became. Gu Zhaoyan looked ahead and saw those people gradually fading from view. Rushing forward in a flying leap, he sensed only a faint trace of yin energy lingering around. Gu Zhaoyan reached out toward the source of the yin energy, only to feel as though he touched empty air. Looking closely, he saw the front half of his palm as if swallowed by something.
He looked toward Bailang and said with delight, “Let’s go!”
Bailang followed closely behind, entering right alongside Gu Zhaoyan. Once they steadied themselves, they found that the space before them was pitch-dark, with only scattered points of eerie green light glowing around them.
Gu Zhaoyan produced a flint, but the firelight was dim, illuminating only a palm-sized area before him. He folded a paper crane, ignited it with spiritual fire, and sent it flying forward. Following the faint firelight, Gu Zhaoyan looked ahead and discovered that the place where he and Bailang now stood was a tunnel. The tunnel walls on both sides were uneven, and the eerie green light they had seen earlier was emanating from the stone walls themselves.
With only a single path ahead, Gu Zhaoyan and Bailang had no choice but to move forward. Surveying the long tunnel, Gu Zhaoyan asked with puzzlement, “We entered almost right on the heels of that group, so how did they move so fast?”
Bailang replied, “Perhaps they did not take this path, or perhaps they have already reached that so-called master.”
Hearing this, Gu Zhaoyan knitted his brows tightly. “Does that mean that child is in danger? We should have captured them and rescued the child first just now; the people behind them could have been tracked down anytime.” Thinking about it now, he felt he had been overly arrogant. If any harm came to that child, guilt would truly crush him.
A strange look flashed through Bailang’s ice-blue eyes as it said, “That is why we must find them as quickly as possible.”
At those words, Gu Zhaoyan tossed out several bright fire talismans. A brilliant radiance burst forth, illuminating the tunnel as bright as day. The path ahead was completely flat and devoid of anything, stretching straight into the darkness.
“This tunnel is something a bit off about it?” Being so long and sloping continually downward, was it leading underground? Gu Zhaoyan muttered in thought. He abruptly halted, surveyed his surroundings, and said with certainty, “There is definitely something strange about this place.”
With that, he walked toward the stone wall, feeling an increasing sense of unease the closer he got. The moment his hand actually touched the rock, his expression changed drastically, and he whipped his head around to stare at Bailang: “The rock wall is alive!”
The moment the words left his mouth, the stone walls on both sides began to heave in and out like a pair of lungs, slowly squeezing inward with each breath. At the same time, the scenery inside the tunnel transformed. Countless fireballs came hurtling forward at high speed from the front of the tunnel, their blazing inferno casting a fierce, bright glare across the dark passage!
Bailang whirled around abruptly, only to find several more fireballs flying in from behind as well. Without a single trace of hesitation, it opened its mouth and spat out multiple streams of water toward the fireballs, instantly extinguishing them. Before Bailang could even catch its breath, numerous additional fireballs flew in from unknown origins, leaving it no choice but to spit out more water streams to deal with them.
Gu Zhaoyan and Bailang cooperated with seamless tacit understanding, each guarding their respective flank. He threw a talisman toward the incoming fireballs, instantly forming an ice wall that firmly blocked the fiery projectiles. Then, turning around, he tossed a solid-ice talisman toward Bailang’s side to intercept those fireballs as well.
“These fireballs are appearing strangely.” Bailang gazed at the steadily compressing rock walls on both sides and the fireballs relentlessly battering the ice walls, stating, “We need to find an exit as quickly as possible. These ice walls will not hold out much longer.”
Gu Zhaoyan drew a deep breath, gripped his immortal sword tightly, and said, “I have a guess, but I cannot be certain.”
“Taking a gamble is fine,” Bailang replied, its tone brimming with trust toward Gu Zhaoyan. It believed that the eminent expert must have bestowed some life-saving method upon Gu Zhaoyan, which was why it was willing to take the risk.
“Alright.” Gu Zhaoyan tightened his grip on his immortal sword and slashed fiercely toward the stone wall. The sharp sword aura, laden with ample spiritual energy, chopped straight into the wall. A piercing, shrill shriek rang out, and a dazzling white light flared so brightly he was forced to raise his sleeve to shield his eyes.
When the blinding light faded, Gu Zhaoyan opened his eyes and froze in place. A massive ancient tree stood tall within a giant crater. Its trunk was thick and powerful, and countless vines extended downward from beneath its branches, intertwining and wrapping into a dense mass. Yet what shocked Gu Zhaoyan the most was that the people who had carried the coffin earlier were now all tightly bound by these vines, hanging from the tree’s branches. Their eyes were tightly shut, and their complexions were pale and ashen, completely lacking the look of living beings—clearly, they had been discarded by their so-called master. For reasons unknown, all of these vines were trembling slightly, as if afflicted with a sudden seizure. Meanwhile, that pitch-black coffin had been placed directly facing the tree trunk.
“Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!”
Several tough, powerful vine branches whipped toward Gu Zhaoyan like poisonous snakes!
Gu Zhaoyan glanced at Bailang, who gave a slight nod in return, prompting him to boldly draw his sword and meet the attack head-on. Multiple vines lashed viciously toward Gu Zhaoyan, but the immortal sword in his hand hacked through them without a shred of hesitation. Before long, a pile of withered vine branches littered the ground.
Gu Zhaoyan’s sword did not stop moving, and his free hand seized every opportunity to fling out numerous spiritual fire talismans. The talismans landed on the tree’s vines and burst into flames. Feeling the pain on its body, the tree demon lashed its vines with even greater ferocity while attempting to split off some vines to extinguish the fire on its body.
Taking advantage of the opening, Bailang sprinted swiftly toward the pitch-black coffin.