Chapter 160 Meimei, what number is this?

Zhang Xiangyun immediately slid down the wall into the deep pit and rushed towards Luo Fu.

Luo Fu's eyes were bloodshot and filled with malice; he looked like he wanted to slap and kick anyone he saw.

Sensing someone approaching, Luo Fu looked over impatiently, about to make a move, but restrained himself after recognizing Zhang Xiangyun.

"Calm down, everything's alright for now." Zhang Xiangyun gestured to Luo Fu, while Li Jinshuang was still not far away.

Luo Fu pressed his right hand against the pulse in his left hand, forcing himself to calm down.

Li Jinshuang didn't go over. She looked up towards the hidden door above, wondering where Nangong Sui had gone.

Zhang Xiangyun stayed by Luo Fu's side until he calmed down. After the effects of the orchid poison wore off, Luo Fu was covered in sweat and extremely weak, not even having the strength to stand up.

Luo Fu slumped against the wall of the pit, and Zhang Xiangyun gave him two Rejuvenation Pills to stabilize his breathing. He deliberately positioned himself to block Li Jinshuang's view.

Zhang Xiangyun lowered his voice and asked Luo Fu, "What's the dosage?"

He asked the question with a hint of gritted teeth, believing that Luo Fu's actions were somewhat impulsive.

If Hu Gui doesn't escape and instead continues fighting, it will be very disadvantageous for Luo Fu. If Situ Jin finds out about Lan Du, things will become difficult.

Situ Jin is the young master of the Situ family, so it's not easy to shut him up.

"One bite," Luo Fu replied weakly.

After hearing this, Zhang Xiangyun's expression softened a bit. He reached out and patted Luo Fu on the back, saying, "Rest first."

After speaking, he frowned slightly, glancing out of the corner of his eye at his bloodied shoulder. The wound was torn open, and he was sweating profusely from the pain. Zhang Xiangyun reopened the mechanism box to get medicine and treated his and Luo Fu's injuries.

Li Jinshuang remained silent.

While tending to his wounds, Zhang Xiangyun tried to distract himself by asking her, "You really don't know where Nangong Sui is?"

Li Jinshuang said, "I don't know."

"How did you get down here?" Zhang Xiangyun asked again.

Li Jinshuang said, "I have already said that."

Zhang Xiangyun looked up and glanced at Li Jinshuang, who was standing not far away: "You only said that Nangong Sui was going to find Mei Liangyu, how could she be sure that Mei Liangyu was in the underwater mechanical city?"

Li Jinshuang was still looking at the hidden doors and mechanisms above, and answered irrelevantly, "Sneaking onto the boat."

Zhang Xiangyun looked at Li Jinshuang's mechanical uniform, was temporarily convinced, and rewrapped his bandages, asking, "Then how did you separate from Nangong Sui?"

“There were many people on the boat. The man who kidnapped Situ Jin earlier caused a chaotic scene when they started fighting, which is why they separated,” Li Jinshuang said.

Zhang Xiangyun thought to himself that Li Jinshuang still had some ability to protect herself. Just now, her sword spirit withstood the Heavenly Gang and Earthly Fiend Lightning without disappearing. If it were someone else's sword spirit, it would have been reduced to ashes the moment it was hit by the purple lightning.

As for Nangong Sui... well, she'll just have to pray for good fortune.

After a while, Zhang Xiangyun thought again that it wouldn't be good if something really happened to Nangong Sui. After all, she was the Princess of Qingyang, and her status and position were what they were. It would be quite troublesome if something happened to her along with him.

"Since Nangong Sui wants to find Mei Liangyu, what news does she have?" Zhang Xiangyun asked.

Li Jinshuang replied, "I don't know."

Zhang Xiangyun hissed inwardly. Talking to Li Jinshuang always felt like punching cotton.

He tried every means to strike up a conversation with Li Jinshuang, and only quieted down after asking all the questions he wanted to know.

Neither Zhang Xiangyun nor Li Jinshuang thought Situ Jin could win her over. Sure enough, when Situ Jin returned, he was alone and didn't look too good.

"How is it?" Zhang Xiangyun asked first.

“They ran away,” Situ Jin replied, looking up at Zhang Xiangyun. “I need to go out and contact the people on the Spirit Bird. What are you doing here?”

"It's a secret." Zhang Xiangyun refused to answer. "I can come in openly and honestly, unlike that person who has to sneak around."

Situ Jin looked at Zhang Xiangyun with suspicion for a while, then ignored him and rushed out to find Situ Lingkui and the others. He took two steps outside, then stopped and looked back at Li Jinshuang, asking her, "Li Jinshuang, are you going with them or with me?"

Zhang Xiangyun's gaze darted back and forth between the two, his eyes slightly narrowed.

Li Jinshuang seemed to be thinking and did not answer immediately.

Situ Jin glanced at Zhang Xiangyun out of the corner of his eye. He had already regained his noble young master demeanor and said slowly, "Weren't you looking for Nangong Sui?"

Li Jinshuang then followed.

Zhang Xiangyun did not stop them and watched them leave.

Situ Jin led Li Jinshuang into the Dragon Ladder, and after the Dragon Ladder door closed, he said, "Are you very familiar with Zhang Xiangyun?"

Li Jinshuang said, "Not familiar with them."

Situ Jin nodded, thinking to himself, "I knew it." After thinking for a moment, he said in a reassuring tone, "I won't ask why you came to Beikun City, but you'd better change into Situ family clothes, so it will be easier for me to explain."

Upon hearing this, Li Jinshuang, who was standing behind him, looked up with clear eyes.

Panlong Grottoes.

Xing Chun stepped onto the ice of the underground river, outwitting and outmaneuvering Hai Huo who surrounded him. In the end, he was humiliated and returned to the front of the cave passage. Staring at his two unconscious brothers, he took a deep breath and roared with all his might, "Wake up!"

The two unconscious individuals showed no response.

Xing Chun raised his hand to touch his nose, leaned against the stone fence and sat down facing the two of them, sighing and saying, "What kind of unlucky thing is that? How can such a thing exist in the world? Could it be a strange fire? If it is a strange fire, then we are really doomed. Do you two even know what a strange fire is?"

He lowered his head and raised his hand to wipe his face. After wiping for a couple of seconds, a somewhat hoarse male voice rang out: "I don't quite understand."

Another low, husky male voice asked slowly, "What fire?"

Upon waking, Mei Liangyu frowned, her expression cold and weary. Having not spoken for a long time, her voice was extremely cold and deep when she finally spoke: "He said it was a strange fire."

Zhong Lishan opened his eyes and looked at Xing Chun: "How can he still be alive?"

Xing Chun looked at them and cried tears of joy: "You're finally awake!"

Mei Liangyu said expressionlessly, "The way you yelled just now would have brought the dead back to life and asked you why you were yelling so loudly."

Xing Chun grabbed Zhong Lishan's hand and shook it: "How are you feeling? Has the Five Elements Qi been restored? Your hand was broken in the sea eye, and you lost your sword, but your bones shouldn't be broken. Move around a bit."

After saying that, she reached out and pinched Mei Liangyu's cheek, made an "eight" gesture in front of him, and asked him, "Do you know you've been poisoned? But I'm not sure if it's the Six Mysterious Wood or the Milky Way Water poison, Meimei, what number is it?"

Mei Liangyu lifted his eyelids slightly and said coldly, "One."

Xing Chun gasped upon hearing this, then slapped his thigh hard: "Damn it, he's been poisoned to the point of madness!"

Zhong Lishan sat up cross-legged and stretched his shoulders. He glanced at Mei Liangyu beside him. At this moment, Mei Liangyu's aura was cold but with a hint of ferocity. This state usually appeared after Mei Liangyu woke up. He and Xing Chun were already used to it and didn't pay any attention to it.

"It's a miracle I wasn't poisoned and rendered mute." After saying this, Zhong Lishan stretched out his arm, and a cracking sound was heard, which made Mei Liangyu and Xing Chun turn their heads to look.

Zhong Lishan maintained his posture, his expression unchanged, and said, "It seems to be broken."

Mei Liangyu said indifferently, "It wouldn't have broken if you hadn't moved it."

Xing Chun scolded him with exasperation, "Are you stupid?!"

Zhong Lishan leaned against the wall, his forehead already covered in fine beads of sweat. Xing Chun scolded him while helping him back up. After scolding Zhong Lishan, he scolded Hai Huo, who had trapped them.

Mei Liangyu and Zhong Lishan listened to Xing Chun cursing this and that, and they both wondered if he had been corrupted by Pang Rong.

“We all managed to come out of the eye of the sea alive, and we must let Cang Shu and the others know that. I have to go home this year and have the steward write this into the family genealogy. My father can record it as ‘unfilial descendant of the Xing family,’ but it must include my glorious achievement of coming out of the eye of the sea alive!”

Xing Chun became increasingly angry as he spoke: "But this thing is blocking my way home. It won't let me go back. I've tried all the Nine Streams Techniques I know, but not only can I not destroy it, it also devours my Five Elements Qi if I get too close."

"Do you know what I've been through these past few days?!"

After Xing Chun finished speaking angrily, he tightened his grip, and Zhong Lishan gasped in pain.

"How many days has it been?" Mei Liangyu was still leaning against the wall, with only one leg bent, one hand on his knee, looking up at the flickering flames in the distance.

“It’s been about three days, right? It’s impossible to estimate the time accurately in this place.” Xing Chun finished setting Zhong Lishan’s arm and immediately deflated, looking listless. “Now it’s my turn to sleep. You two can use your brains to come up with a solution.”

He said he could fall asleep anytime; he would close his eyes, tilt his head, and drift off to sleep.

Mei Liangyu and Zhong Lishan did not stop them. The two quietly looked around, one looking at the grotto behind them and the other looking at the sea fire in front of them.

“Buddhist artifacts.” Zhongli Shan, with his right hand in a sling, slowly scanned the hundreds of small niches on the grotto wall, staring at the contents inside, and said, “Scripture scrolls, vajra, jade Buddha, black wooden fish, red kasaya—these are all rare Buddhist artifacts.”

“People only remember the destructive power of the sea eye, and easily overlook that the sea eye also has the power of teleportation, but it is uncontrollable, and no living thing can leave the sea eye.” Mei Liangyu stared intently at the sea fire in front of him and said, “There can’t be an underground river Buddhist cave in the sea. If I’m not mistaken, this is the interior of the underwater mechanical city.”

Zhongli Shan looked at the three Buddha statues again, his gaze falling on the seated Buddha in the middle. After examining it for a long time, he pondered and said, "Acala, one of the three forms, with benevolent eyes. The other two statues are forms with angry eyes casting spells, so I'm not sure."

"You know about this?" Mei Liangyu turned his head.

Zhong Lishan looked down at him, raised an eyebrow, and said, "I know a little bit."

Mei Liangyu narrowed his eyes, his expression conveying only two words: "Still pretending?"

“My mother was an orphan who grew up in a Buddhist temple in the countryside. I heard her mention it when I was a child.” Zhong Lishan turned his gaze away without changing his expression and looked back at the Buddha statue. “However, my mother was a lay Buddhist. She was only familiar with some scriptures and Dharma names.”

The Buddhist family has been dormant in the Xuan Gu Continent for hundreds of years, and Buddhist temples are becoming increasingly rare. Even those that still exist in some corner of the world are old and dilapidated.

Upon hearing this, Mei Liangyu's mind conjured up an image of the woman in purple leading him by the hand as they walked up the stone steps:

A bluish mist enveloped the surroundings, the fog was thick, the distant mountains were layered with green, the ancient pines were covered with dew, and the stone steps underfoot were covered with moss, making everything wet.

Upon entering the mountain gate, one sees a golden bell, and inside the hall, the sound of a wooden fish echoes. The five elements resonate through the bell, its sound permeating the entire green mountain.

The temple doors were open, and blurry figures moved about. The curtains hanging inside swayed gently in the morning breeze, and the candlelight on the incense table seemed to be shrouded in smoke, appearing both close at hand and as far away as the horizon.

This Buddhist temple is bright red, with gilded door pillars and painted beams and corridors, making it both vibrant and ancient.

The eldest princess of Yan Kingdom took his hand and stopped him in the courtyard. When he looked up, he saw the towering black pagoda behind him.

It lies hidden in the clouds and mist, silently overlooking the world.

Mei Liangyu lowered her eyes, lost in the fragments of Fu Su's memory, briefly lost in thought.

He couldn't recall everything, but what he could remember was enough for him to re-examine his current life.

Zhong Lishan said, "It looks like a Buddhist treasury, used for offerings or collections. If this is the underwater mechanical city, the mechanical engineers might be working on something very innovative, related to the nine schools of Buddhist arts."

He spoke with a straight face, but Mei Liangyu could understand the meaning behind his words. Zhong Lishan couldn't figure out what the connection could be between the underwater mechanical city and the Buddhist library.

“What the Buddhist grotto’s storage room is for is irrelevant; what matters is these sea fires burning everywhere.” Mei Liangyu stood up and looked up. On the walls above the grotto, there were also rings of burning sea fires, blocking their way out.

Zhong Lishan frowned at his words: "How could the sea eye suddenly appear? Shouldn't it be fixed in place?"

Mei Liangyu said calmly, "As long as you're alive, you can see all sorts of strange things."

Zhong Lishan paused for a moment, then turned to look at Mei Liangyu and asked, "What are you angry about?"

Mei Liangyu didn't even blink: "No need to ask, I get angry often."

Zhong Lishan nodded: "That's true."

He then asked, "Is the poison the Six-Mystic Wood or the Milky Way Water?"

Mei Liangyu said, "It's possible that both are true."

Zhong Lishan asked, "Can he live?"

Mei Liangyu stared at the Buddha statue and said, "He won't die for now."

Zhong Lishan raised an eyebrow: "They're still not dead?"

Mei Liangyu slowly turned her head to look at him, and said with a forced smile, "Guess what I'm angry about?"

Zhongli Shan walked right past him and headed towards the frozen underground river: "Let's go see Hai Huo."

[Author's Note]

Thank you so much for your support! I will continue to work hard!