Chapter 173 Come down and play mahjong with me!

Upon hearing this, the entire water prison fell into a deathly silence.

Yun Wan'er forgot to cry, Ji Lian covered her face and forgot the pain, and everyone stared in disbelief at Ling Xiao Zhenren kneeling before the paper doll.

Yan Qiubai was the first to react.

His eyes lit up instantly, like a lost puppy finally smelling its master. He forgot he was still carrying a seriously injured person in his arms and rushed over with a howl: "Master!!!"

That cry was so sincere and moving, it was truly unforgettable.

But he was probably too excited and forgot his current appearance—he was holding the unconscious Qingxuan in an extremely heroic posture.

With this sudden charge and the excessive turning motion, a muffled "thud" was heard!

Qingxuan's weak and powerless head slammed solidly and precisely into a protruding, cold, and hard stone pillar next to him!

The sound was crisp and clear; it hurt just to hear it.

Qingxuan's face, which had regained some color after taking the pill, instantly turned pale again. His breathing, which had just become steady, suddenly stopped, his head slumped to the side, and he became completely still.

Yan Qiubai: "!!!"

The elders: "..."

Shen Zhaozhao: "..."

Yan Qiubai froze on the spot, looking down at his senior brother who had fainted for the second time and whose forehead even had a small bump that was visible to the naked eye, and then looking up at his master, whose paper figure seemed to be stiff even in its paper form. He was completely at a loss and stood there dumbfounded.

Immediately, a sigh, aged and filled with deep silence, seemed to pierce through time and space, echoing softly: "Qiu Bai... hundreds of years have passed, and your clumsy nature... hasn't changed a single bit!"

"While you pose no threat to me in the cultivation world, in the education field, you have truly made your teacher lose face!"

The little talisman's words were tantamount to a direct admission that what it contained was a wisp of divine thought from the long-deceased Xuanji Daozu!

For a moment, the expressions of the people in the water dungeon varied.

Yan Qiubai felt both ashamed and happy. He hugged Qingxuan, who had a bump on his head, and his eyes were red. "Waaah... Master, how did you become such a weakling?! You see, I told you to pay more attention to your conduct while you were alive. Look, the retribution has come!"

"..."

Xuanji Daozu's divine sense seemed too lazy to pay attention to his good-for-nothing little disciple anymore. The talisman figure turned to the elders. Although it had no facial features, it had an undeniable majesty.

"What are you all standing there for? Can't you see that Qingxuan is almost killed by Qiu Bai, that idiot? Hurry up and carry him to the Pill Pavilion, use the best medicine to keep him alive! If anything happens to him, you lot can all quit your cultivation and come down here to play mahjong with me!"

"Senior brother, look... what are you saying..."

"Ahem, that's right, senior brother, you can't say things like that carelessly, quickly 'spit it out!'"

Elder Dan Ge reacted the fastest, quickly calling to the others. They almost snatched the unconscious Qing Xuan from the still dazed Yan Qiubai's arms and rushed out of the water prison with lightning speed, afraid that if they were a step too slow and something really happened to Qing Xuan, they would really have to report to the Yellow Springs as well.

Seeing Qingxuan being taken away, Lingxiao Zhenren's tense shoulders relaxed almost imperceptibly for a moment. He subconsciously tried to get up, but just as his knees were half an inch off the ground—

"Smack!"

A crisp, loud slap suddenly echoed through the water dungeon!

It wasn't a real physical clash, but rather an invisible, immense force that slapped Lingxiao Zhenren hard across the face from a distance!

The force was so great that it knocked his head to the side, and even the jade crown that held his hair up was slightly crooked!

Lingxiao Zhenren was completely stunned and looked at the floating talisman figure in disbelief.

The paper figure remained motionless, only a cold, ancient voice, like the chill of winter: "Did your master tell you to get up?"

"Look at yourself. I only took three of you as my disciples. I was hoping you could support each other. If things didn't go well, you would at least have your senior uncles. You wouldn't be bullied by outsiders."

"But look at yourself now, yes, you weren't bullied by outsiders, but you were betrayed and stabbed in the back by your own people!"

"Look at your two junior brothers, look what you've done to them!!"

"Qiu Bai was forced to betray the sect, and Qing Xuan was almost killed by you with a single palm strike and thrown into this godforsaken place to die!"

After saying that, the paper talisman seemed to tilt slightly towards Shen Zhaozhao, "If this little girl hadn't risked going to that godforsaken place, the Yellow Springs, to find me, you would have killed all your junior brothers and sent them to me before you were satisfied, wouldn't you?!"

Xuanji Daozu's voice was not particularly passionate, but every word was piercing, carrying a heavy sense of disappointment and anger. It made Lingxiao Zhenren's face turn pale, and his lips trembled. He couldn't utter a single word in rebuttal and could only kneel back down again, even more heavily.

Yun Wan'er, who had just been helped up by Ji Lian, saw her master suffer such a great humiliation, but instead of worry, a glint of shrewdness flashed in her eyes.

Grandmaster Xuanji was clearly there to protect Qingxuan, and his attitude was so tough. Even his master was slapped and forced to kneel in public. As the "victim" who accused Qingxuan, even with his master's protection, he probably wouldn't get any benefit.

no……

She absolutely could not sit idly by and wait for her master, Xuanji, to take action against her.

We must strike first, muddy the waters, and divert the attention of our grandmaster and master from Qingxuan's matter and from her.

Thinking of this, Yun Wan'er endured the excruciating pain and weakness caused by the dissipation of her spiritual energy, gently pushed away Ji Lian's supporting hand, staggered forward half a step, raised her pale, tear-stained face, and looked in the direction of Lingxiao Zhenren and Xuanji Daozu.

She took a deep breath, and her voice, weak and feeble due to her severe injuries, lacked any hint of accusation. Instead, it sounded more like a frail disciple worried about the safety of her sect, uttering a humble question.

"Master...Grandmaster..."

"Wan'er is too dull to understand..."

"Our grandmaster... has long since passed away, and his soul should rest in the underworld. Senior Sister Zhao Zhao... only has the cultivation of the early Golden Core stage... how was she able to enter that forbidden area for the living?"

Her words were broken and disjointed, like a drop of cold water falling into boiling oil.

"Could it be... that Senior Sister Zhao Zhao, in her eagerness to save lives, acted rashly in a moment of panic... and activated the seal guarding the entrance to the Yellow Springs?"

Yun Wan'er paused at the opportune moment, coughed violently a few times as if she were having difficulty breathing, before continuing to ask the most crucial question in her weak voice.

"Wan'er has heard that... the Yellow Springs Seal is related to the balance of the Three Realms. If the seal is damaged and the covetous Demon Realm discovers it... and takes the opportunity to launch a large-scale invasion... then wouldn't our Lingzhou land... suffer a catastrophic disaster and be filled with countless lives because of one person's mistake?"

After she finished speaking, she seemed to have exhausted all her strength, and her body swayed weakly. She was only able to fall down because Ji Lian was there to support her in time.

A pair of watery eyes, filled with tears of fear and helplessness, timidly looked at Lingxiao Zhenren, as if she were merely stating a terrifying conjecture that she could not comprehend. The label of "devastation" was thus silently placed on Shen Zhaozhao's head.