Chapter 115 The narrow cavern seemed to be...

The long, narrow cave seemed to have no end. A thin rope was hung from a blue stone, with a round jade pendant tied to the other end, and it fell towards the unknown future due to gravity.

The dull sound of the stone striking the rock wall, mixed with the crisp tinkling of the jade pendant, abruptly stopped. A faint light appeared at the end, a blue stone blocked the cave entrance, a thin rope hung from his body, and a round jade pendant hung high in the air, its edges reflecting a white, ethereal light.

Moist air gathered into water droplets that dripped down the rock wall, and the pattering sound they made when they hit the ground became the only sound in this unfamiliar space.

After confirming that there was no sign of life below, the bluestone stuck at the cave entrance shook twice and found a suitable angle to crawl out of the cave.

The bluestone and jade pendant fell to the ground with a short, sharp sound, and the space, which had been emitting a faint light, suddenly brightened.

Xie Baoqiong rolled over, her body landing on top of the jade pendant that had fallen into the dust. Her aura was instantly concealed, leaving only an ordinary blue stone in her original spot.

He stayed there for a while, and the light that had illuminated the space went out, returning to the state where only the rock walls emitted a faint light.

The blue stone remained motionless, as if it had blended into its surroundings; it was truly an ordinary stone.

Using the dim light, Xie Baoqiong looked around at his surroundings. The nearest dark brown rock wall was uneven, with an unknown liquid clinging to it, emitting a faint fluorescence.

In the darkness ahead, one after another, translucent spheres crowded together, stretching into the depths of the darkness and surrounding him. The objects inside the spheres were silent in the shadows, only vaguely visible. Among the closer spheres, Xie Baoqiong could vaguely make out the heaving chest of an indistinct object.

He carefully released a wisp of his divine sense tentacle and probed it toward the nearby translucent sphere. After the tentacle touched the sphere, a sense of emptiness returned to him. It was as if his divine sense was being absorbed by the sphere, and he could not sense the sphere's existence at all.

The sphere ahead seemed to stretch endlessly, and he had better pray that the objects inside were not living beings, just as he had sensed at the cave entrance...

But no matter how you look at it, the creatures inside the sphere are all demonstrating that they possess life, and the huge outer sphere is like a womb nurturing life.

The space suddenly brightened, and a damp smell suddenly approached. The blue stone on the ground, along with the jade pendant, was tightly gripped in his hand.

"Ah-Jung, I found you first."

"Qi Gui, what are you doing here?!" Qing Shi's surprised voice went straight into the mind of the boy who had grabbed him.

The boy, holding the stone, walked to the rock wall away from the sphere: "I woke up here, and when I saw it suddenly light up, I hid to see what was going on. I didn't expect to follow the noise and find you." Qi Gui's tone gradually softened from the excitement of their reunion: "Ah Qiong, if I hadn't wanted to find someone, we wouldn't have..."

“It’s not your fault.” Xie Baoqiong interrupted the boy’s self-pity and told him what he had seen and heard after waking up, especially mentioning what Bai Dongyi had said: “Once we get out of here, we will be able to find your mother’s whereabouts.”

"Hmm!" The boy's doe-like eyes, misty with moisture, curved into a smile. He nodded emphatically, his face lowered, and his voice was soft and gentle, like the downy feathers of his body brushing against the ground: "After meeting Ah-Qiong, I feel like I've been very lucky."

The faint, shimmering light from the rock face fell on the smile that played on his lips, but it vanished in an instant: "Ah-Qiong, so the person who captured us was His Highness Prince Xuan?"

Upon hearing the unfamiliar title, Xie Baoqiong couldn't help but ask in confusion, "You know him?" Although he could be considered half a member of the imperial family, he didn't know as much about these matters as Qi Gui, who had grown up in the capital.

Qi Gui sat down against the rock wall, untying the thin ropes binding the blue stone and jade pendant tightly, and began, "Among His Majesty's generation of royal descendants, only Prince Xuan is a cultivator, and he shares the same mother as His Majesty and the Eldest Princess..." He paused, remembering what Xie Baoqiong had just told him, "Because he's a cultivator, his name is more renowned, but everyone in the capital says he, like the Imperial Preceptor, neglects state affairs..."

But Lin An, who is doing what he is doing now, is clearly not what the rumors say.

Qi Gui untied the tangled knots, put the jade pendant back on the bluestone he had wiped clean with his sleeve, and spoke again with a hint of confusion in his voice:

“According to custom, cultivators like Prince Xuan, who are supported by Da Sheng, would sign a contract to pledge allegiance to Da Sheng at the beginning of their cultivation. But how could he still do those things?” Qi Gui thoughtfully avoided mentioning Princess Huayang’s name.

A refreshed Xie Baoqiong spoke up: "He did not do anything to harm Dasheng or the royal family. The things that happened in the past were done by others who were misled, and I..." The dim light from the rock wall fell on the motionless stone, and her calm voice stated plainly: "My body can no longer be called the child of Princess Huayang."

“Arjun…” The sensitive little bird easily sensed the waves beneath the surface of Pingjin Lake. He could already see the dawn that was about to shine upon him, but his friend had been deprived of this possibility from the very beginning, and he could do nothing to change it.

"Let's not talk about that anymore, Qi Gui. Do you know what's inside these balls?"

go home.

Qi Gui took over the conversation, but the words he uttered shocked him:

"I came out of there when I woke up."

The boy rolled up his sleeve, revealing his wrist in front of the stone, on which was a dull bracelet:

"This bracelet seems to have been put on me by that Fellow Daoist Bai when we parted ways. When I woke up inside the sphere, it flashed and the membrane forming the sphere broke, and it turned into this."

Based on Qi Gui's description, Xie Baoqiong could roughly guess that the bracelet in front of her was a one-time defensive magic artifact.

"By the way, Arjun, you absolutely must not use your spiritual power to touch these balls!"

Qi Gui's soft voice turned unusually serious. He picked up the stone in his arms, stood up, and squeezed through the gaps between several semi-transparent spheres.

The person, the stone, and the thin membrane forming the sphere were almost touching. Xie Baoqiong could now clearly see the sphere closest to him. The creature inside the sphere floated in the liquid, possessing human limbs, but its skin was replaced by scales. Several sharp spikes grew on its back and elbows, making it seem like a hybrid of human and animal. Although the creatures in the other spheres were not exactly the same, they all possessed characteristics of both humans and animals.

An incompletely transformed demon?

In the past, during his time in Sishui Mountain, he often saw Su Xiaochun with a fox head, tail, and ears. This was the first answer he could think of.

But when he glanced at the figure carrying him through the crowd, and considering Qi Gui's words, he dismissed the guess.

The creatures inside should be half-demons, just like Qi Gui.

There aren't many combinations of humans and demons, but the sheer number of half-demons stretching as far as the eye can see seems a bit too many.

"Qi Gui, did you feel uncomfortable after you came out of the ball?"

Under the light of the thin film and the surrounding dim light, the liquid filling the sphere showed a mixture of light in shades of blue and green, like the shimmering liquid on a rock wall, which didn't look like anything good.

Holding the stone, Qi Gui cautiously stopped, avoiding the nearby membrane, and frowned as he sensed it:

“While I was inside, I felt like someone was talking to me the whole time, it was very noisy, but after I came out, the sounds disappeared. Arjun, I’ll let you know if I’m not feeling well.”

After passing through two closely spaced spheres, Qi Gui, carrying Qing Shi, finally arrived at their destination:

"Ah-Jung, look."

Suddenly, a piece was missing from the middle of the sphere that should have been tightly packed together. Blue-green liquid gathered in the depression on the ground, spreading to Qi Gui's feet. In the very center lay a creature with its eyes closed, its large wings clinging to its body, covering most of its body, and blue-purple veins were clearly visible on its upper body.

“When I first came out, I was right next to Him. At that time, I wasn’t fully conscious and my spiritual power was not under control. When I touched the thin membrane on His body, the membrane broke, and He flew out to attack me. After I dodged, He passed out.”

Xie Baoqiong cast her gaze into the distance. There were countless spheres in this space. Even if each creature could only attack once, it would still be enough to give them a hard time.

Thinking of the direction he came from, he extended his divine sense upwards and soon found other caves of various sizes. He selected an entrance from the cave from which he had come out that was large enough for him and Qi Gui's main body to pass through.

"Qi Gui, we need to go up there..." Xie Baoqiong calmly shared her thoughts with Qi Gui: "...My hidden universe is sealed. Do you have anything that can hold both of us?"

Qi Gui, however, refuted him for the first time: "Ah Qiong, it's too dangerous to use spiritual power here. Let me take you flying up."

Fear was suppressed by determination in the boy's eyes, and his usually watery eyes showed a resolute look. He clenched the stone in his hand, as if to gain courage from it: "I believe you will catch me, and Arjun, you have to believe in me this once too."

Qi Gui placed the bluestone in his hand on the clean ground, and his figure gradually faded away. A half-grown chick stood beside Xie Baoqiong:

"Ah-Jung, come on up."

Faced with such a resolute return, Xie Baoqiong did not hesitate. She shrank her body even further, and with the jade pendant hanging from her, she fell into the downy feathers, which softly wrapped around her.

Feeling the weight on its back, the gray-white bird flapped its thin wings and wobbled as it flew higher.

A touch of white stood out strikingly in this dark space.

It was also noticed by those lurking in the shadows.

A powerful storm of spiritual energy swept straight toward the white sky.

Wherever the silent storm of spiritual energy swept by, the sphere formed by the thin membrane beneath cracked instantly.

The continuous sounds approached from afar, and the migratory birds flying in the air could naturally sense the approaching storm.

His wings flapped more vigorously, and his previously swaying figure became steady as he charged straight towards the dark cave entrance.

The cracking sound rang out again, but this time it wasn't the sphere on the ground that cracked.

"Bang."

It was the sound of bluestone striking the rock wall.

The faintest sound seemed insignificant amidst the immense commotion of the storm sweeping through the entire space.

The white wings that had been raised drooped helplessly as they watched the blue stone being flung into the narrow cave entrance.

The white figure, stained with blood, plummeted straight down into the awakened monster below.