Beyond the nearly invisible gate, all that lay before him was a vast expanse of jagged rocks of various shapes. Yun Xian followed the path on the other side, but after a few steps, he turned back. "The entrance over there is also blocked by fallen rocks."
Considering the age of this altar, it would be truly strange if it could still lead to somewhere else.
"The most important thing now is how to open the door and get in." Yun Xian kicked the ground in front of the door with her toes, sending up a lot of small stones. But unlike what she expected, there was silence outside. There were no traps or traps as she had imagined. "Strange. Senior Brother, is there any mechanism on this door?"
Su Chi stepped forward, his fingertips touching the stone door. After a moment's hesitation, he said, "I can't sense it."
Yun Xian could actually think of this.
Black iron is a metal. Logically speaking, any sophisticated mechanical mechanism must be made of iron. However, the master of the altar does not even use black iron to make puppets, but only uses stone carvings and inlays. This is so unreasonable that nothing is surprising here.
"How exactly was this stone formed?" Yun Xian touched it twice more, feeling something strange. "There's a faint spiritual energy emanating from it."
This is even more strange. How can a stone have any spiritual power? It is a stone, not a product made of human bones.
"However, the sword energy is ineffective and the mechanism can't sense it." Yun Xian said calmly, "Big Brother, what did you say before that you wanted to come alone?"
Su Chi was not overwhelmed by her, but said calmly: "There is nothing here that can hurt me."
What a big tone! Did you eat leeks? Yun Xian laughed and said, "How do you know you didn't? Is there anything that can hurt me?"
Su Chi said, "As long as I am here, I will also be gone."
As soon as he finished speaking, sword energy began to surge beneath his sleeves, sending sand and rocks flying throughout the cave. The ground beneath Yun Xian's feet was shaking continuously. The sword energy condensed into a sharp blade as bright as day, and it chopped down from a concentrated point. The stone door suddenly made a loud bang, and a gap was directly opened up that was large enough for someone to pass through.
It was so simple and crude, her intelligence and talent were not used at all. Yun Xian was silent: "... Senior Brother, aren't you afraid that this will collapse?"
"No." Su Chi said briefly: "Let's go."
“…”
There is a different world inside the stone gate.
This was indeed a vast space, like a luxurious underground palace. However, it was so old that only a few of the firefly beads inlaid on the wall still stubbornly emitted a dim light. Yun Xian looked up at them thoughtfully and said in a voice transmission, "If this is truly a mausoleum, there would be no need for so many firefly beads."
The place for the dead and the place for the living are different after all. If you want to light a lamp, a perpetual lamp is enough. If the lights are so bright that the "people" here cannot distinguish the boundary between life and death, it will cause big problems.
Years of dust danced in the light cast by the firefly beads. The spiritual energy here was so rich that it even bred a number of tiny sandworms. The sandworms had no eyes, only black mouths full of sharp teeth. They twisted and squirmed on the ground, following the sound. Yun Xian struck with his sword, driving away these disgusting little creatures, wondering, "You can't just grow taller just because no one is watching?"
Su Chi stood at her right side, holding a sword, and looked around vigilantly.
The two of them held their breath since they first stepped into this place. The air in this hall seemed non-toxic, but it slowly corroded the human body. If the body was left here, it would turn into bones in less than half a month.
"Be careful." Su Chi said, "The traps are all inside the door."
As expected, Yun Xian had just taken a step when he heard a very subtle "click" sound coming from under his feet. A formation of arrows filled with poison came with a fierce wind, one after another, and it was impenetrable. But when Yun Xian was drawing his sword, an idea suddenly flashed through his mind.
This formation was much weaker than she had imagined... Of course, that was also due to the passage of time. But it was still too weak. Were these things meant to prevent outsiders from coming in, or to prevent those inside from leaving?
Half an incense stick later, the ground was covered with arrows and daggers, and the two of them quickly ended this battle without much suspense.
"I'm getting more and more curious." Yun Xian tilted his head and said, "Would you try going a little further in?"
Su Chi nodded.
The further he walked inside, the more certain he became of his thoughts. In the vast hall, all he could see was a wall of stone, devoid of any color, as dull as a blinding leaf. But in reality, the interior was fully stocked with everything. Yun Xian even spotted a stone stove and boiler, which he could even light if he tried.
"These things are made of the same stone as the puppets." Yun Xian said, "Is he imprisoned here with no interests, and can only do handicrafts to add furniture to himself?"
Su Chi said, "The formation in front of the door just now can be broken by those in the Spiritual Severing Stage."
"That's really strange. Can a formation of this level actually stop the altar's master?" Yun Xian pondered. "If he's not even at the Spirit Severing stage, why bother mobilizing such a large force and using an underground palace like this to detain him?"
As she walked, her fingertips aimlessly touched the slightly undulating rough part of the stone wall. Suddenly, she paused, raised her eyes, and said in unison with Su Chi: "Stone puppet!"
The stone puppet will not fight back and has no aggressiveness. Although it is agile, it is only more agile than an ordinary person. It does not have the cultivation level to break through the numerous formations and the adaptability that is unique to humans.
"I just checked and found that the formation is still intact and hasn't been destroyed." Yun Xian frowned and said, "So, someone came here and let the stone puppet escape when they left?"
Who gets there first?
Su Chi did not answer, but frowned and looked at her fingertips.
Yun Xian was a little puzzled, and then he saw him stretch out his arms, and a strong wind swept across, wiping away the sand covering the stone wall, revealing the blurry wall carvings underneath. Faintly, one could make out several discontinuous pictures, and two or three lines of illegible ancient handwriting. The strokes were rough and the pen tips were erratic, looking like a child's casual scribbles, extending all the way to the depths of the stone hall.
"This format is very similar to the comic strips I often read as a child." Yun Xian half-knelt and tested the height. "If the most suitable height is here, the person depicted must be petite, or perhaps very young. Senior Brother, do you recognize this character?"
Ancient characters were much more complex than modern ones, with many different shapes and fonts. Su Chi nodded, leaned forward slightly, and read calmly: "A long time ago, there was a little monster..."
This continuous mural is like a comic strip, telling the story of a girl named "Monster".
The reason why the monster is called a monster is because not only is she ugly, she also has a big birthmark on her face, and no one wanted her when she was born. She was picked up in the cold winter, and then thrown away three times. She was picked up three times, and each time she survived miraculously. Her vitality was so tenacious, and the last time, someone was finally willing to keep her.
The words were joyful and the tone was extremely lively, but on the corresponding wall carving, the girl was locked in a huge iron cage, with many children with surprised expressions gathered around her. She held the iron bars with both hands and laughed very happily.
"The monster grew up drinking dew and came in first place in the spiritual root test. She was so happy that she made her first 'friend' overnight. The friend was broad-minded and didn't get angry at the monster's ugliness. She stayed with the monster day and night, but other people didn't seem to like the monster's friend."
Her "friend" on the wall carving was a very crude-looking puppet with only a blood-red grinning mouth drawn on it. One step further, the puppet was torn into pieces and lay motionless on the ground. The girl named Youkai was sitting in a cage and crying loudly, while people of all kinds around her pointed at her heartbroken face and laughed heartily.
The face is blurred, like a devil.
In the subsequent mural carvings, the brushstrokes began to become messy.
"Tears flowed from the monster's eyes. Everyone told the monster that this was called 'laughter', a sound made by people when they are happy. Everyone loves to see the monster laugh! You must laugh more, laugh often, and laugh all the time, so that everyone will like you! Wuuwuwu, wuuwuwuwuwu..."
"Monsters can't cry, they can only laugh, but the tears in their eyes can never dry up, and their puppets can never finish what they do."
The girl in the carving was transferred to the current underground palace. She was surrounded by puppet debris, formation books, fluorescent beads that were lit day and night, and blurry-faced people guarding nearby. Her face still had that painful expression, but her hands moved very briskly.
Yun Xian frowned.
She seemed to hear a slight sound of wind behind her ears, but she didn't know where it came from.
"Finally one day, the monster got tired of this kind of life. Sometimes the monster wanted to cry instead of laugh. But his friends wouldn't allow it. They said they only wanted to see the monster laugh, not cry!"
Su Chi's fingertips fell on the last mural, and he slowly paused.
The messiness of this mural is so disorganized that it's a headache, making one suspect it was simply scribbled at random. But the closer one gets to look, the more alarmed one becomes:
The "monster" stood within the palace, blood-soaked, yet a beaming smile played upon its face. Naturally, in her mind, this smile symbolized sadness—if only the bones beneath her weren't piled high above her. The blood-soaked heads formed a tower, the face of the figure at the top still etched with terror. Beside them stood the puppets of sorrow and joy, their heads still attached, their bodies only a frail mass.
She got fed up and killed them all.
"Happiness is better shared than happiness alone. The monster wants all his friends to laugh together! Look, how happy everyone is laughing, wuwuwu, wuwuwu, wuwuwuwu..."
Yun Xian choked: "..."
This is such a hell of a fairy tale!!!
No wonder this puppet is so exquisite. She was wondering what the stone was made of before. Could it be that it came from some unique source? Now it seems... killing a person and putting his head on it is also a way of carrying the soul's bones.
Skull, how can it not be considered a bone?
Yun Xian didn't even dare to think about what was behind the puppet mask that stole her fluorescent pearl robe that day. It might be Yao Xing's great-great-great-great-ancestor. It was well maintained and still so lively.
"The Xingyan Sect relied on the puppets she made to roam the four realms, and she eventually used them to wipe out the Xingyan Sect." It seemed that some events could be connected in this way. Yun Xian said briefly, "It was precisely because of this time that the once-prosperous Xingyan Sect suddenly came to an end. No one inherited its skills, and finally, a branch in the Northern Realm relied on some leftovers to re-establish the sect. This is the current Xingyan Sect..."
No, but something is still wrong!
"The flower on this mural is called Canglan." Su Chi pointed to a corner of the mural and said, "Canglan flowers can only grow in the North Realm. They can't survive in the East Realm at all."
"All of this happened in the Northern Realm, but now the altar has appeared in the Eastern Realm for the first time. Sword God, puppets, formations..."
Yun Xian was still thinking when he heard Su Chi's urgent voice: "Be careful!!"
A whistling sound of wind came from behind her ears. Yun Xian's expression became stern. She dodged and passed by a huge and strong arm, which hit the stone wall beside her heavily!
A cloud of dust flew up, and Yun Xian sneered, looking back and said, "Your strength is good, but your speed and agility are too poor... What the hell is this?!"
She wasn't asking what the giant stone puppet in front of her was, but as the stone wall was destroyed, several pieces of white bones were revealed inside, as if they had been built in earlier. Yun Xian came to her senses and pulled Su Chi inside, panting, "How many did she kill?!"
I originally thought that the human head tower had been used to make puppets, but now I see that the entire Xingyan Sect is probably inside this wall! It saves a lot of building materials!
And the formation at the door... Yun Xian originally thought that since she specialized in puppets, her own cultivation was not that important, so the strength was only that, mainly to restrict the puppets. But now it seems that there is another possibility, that is, Xing Yanzong thought that her cultivation was only that level.
"I've lost count." Su Chi's sword energy still had no effect on the stone puppet. He said calmly, "I think we've killed until there's no one left."
The naked eye could see that the ancient Xingyan Sect favored mechanical puppets, each with its own specific function. The one currently chasing the two was aggressive, extremely powerful, more agile than a human, invulnerable to pain and indestructible, and incredibly formidable. But the current Xingyan Sect, however, favored auxiliary formations. Puppetry had become a lesser-known ninth path, with no disciples cultivating it as their primary focus. Had there been a single individual inheriting the sect, this wouldn't have been the case. It seemed they had truly killed off the remaining members, leaving only a few minor branches.
Although it's quite pitiful, Yun Xian still couldn't help but think, why did you bother her for no reason? This place was originally used to imprison "monsters" and was called an "altar" to conceal it from people. Later, it really became an altar, and you can even take a family photo with the fluorescent beads.
Some people have previously speculated that this matter was related to the devil, but at least now it seems that it really has nothing to do with Chi You. All we can say is, we should leave some room for maneuver.
The senior brother and sister rushed all the way, and their luck was not very good, or maybe Su Chi was brought down by Yun Xian, and they encountered countless obstacles during the process:
"No, there's no way forward!"
"Nothing, let's go another way."
“This is also a dead end!”
"Then I won't walk!"
Su Chi raised his sword with a cold look and slashed. With a loud bang, he directly broke through to another side hall. In the sound of the wind, Yun Xian did see a lot of scattered spiritual treasures and magical tools. Each of them could be sold at a sky-high price in the Qiankun Auction House, but they were just thrown on the ground and swept together like garbage.
But what followed were the puppets that kept reviving in the corner. They had been sleeping here for a thousand years and were now suddenly awakened. Their movements were still a little stiff, and there was a confused red light in their eyes.
"She has this puppet. If she actively drives it, it will be no problem for her to go out." Yun Xian dodged the thrown spear and continued to speak intermittently: "I think she just doesn't want to go out, or she has become accustomed to living underground compared to living on the ground."
Besides, for someone who didn't know how to laugh or cry, and whose behavior was so bizarre, everyone she met would surely be filled with fear and suspicion. Her only friends were the Sword God and his various puppets. But how did the Sword God become her friend? Yun Xian remembered from unofficial history that the Sword God had once annihilated an unnamed sect. Perhaps they shared the same extensive experience in single-handedly annihilating clans... Never mind, forget it! There might be no escape!
Yun Xian had previously mocked Jimo Shu for breaking through the wall, calling her a miner. Now, he was covered in dirt and dust, and could barely tell east from west. "Big Brother, where are we going now?"
Su Chi's chest heaved as he said, "We're here!"
"What's arrived?!" Yun Xian asked, "Where is it?!"
His waist tightened, and Su Chi, under the attack of the puppets, embraced her and threw her in a certain direction. Yun Xian only felt a soft force lifting her up, and she couldn't help but look around -
There are several doors on this vast stone wall. The two doors in the center have one painted with the sword-shaped emblem of Jiange, and the other has a sideways guqin, surrounded by sound waves.
Jiange and Qinfang? !
In addition to these two doors representing the sects, there are three more doors, but the patterns painted on them are too obscure. Yun Xian is sure that he has never seen them before and has no impression of them.
Where do these doors lead to? What do they mean?!
But now is not the time to think about these things.
In front of each door is an open coffin, emitting a dim light, and the material looks exactly like stone.
She was lifted up and gently dropped from mid-air, landing directly into the coffin in front of the Jiange Gate.
Not to mention, this is quite unlucky.
Su Chi came over and closed the lid of her coffin.
Yun Xian’s eyes went dark: “…”
Although this wasn't the right time, she still wanted to complain. Senior Yokai was truly a century ahead of the curve. She'd finally seen the sliding coffin lid she'd always dreamed of at this very moment. She really didn't know what to say...
It was pitch black in front of him, but his hearing was still sharp. Yun Xian could hear the sounds of fighting outside the coffin. To be precise, it was probably only the eldest brother who was going to be beaten.
The puppets outside that were stealing shiny things didn't attack people, but they were extremely intelligent. The puppets guarding the altar were different. They had become dumber, but also much stronger. After a brief fight just now, Yun Xian found that the puppet was really difficult to deal with.
What's more, the sword energy of Jiange is now immune to these puppets, which means that Su Chi can only dodge and cannot attack. However, no matter how strong a person's human power is, it will eventually decline. He can't turn into a sword on the spot, right?
The coffin was made of the same material as the puppet, which could block out auras. Yun Xian frowned and listened carefully, realizing that Su Chi might not be able to enter the coffin belonging to the Qinfang, so he could only resist from outside. She made up her mind, lifted the coffin lid, and said, "Big Brother!"
Su Chi glanced at him: "...cover it, I'm fine."
"Come on, come on, it's okay." Yun Xian patted the coffin lid and lied with his eyes open: "If we squeeze in, we can still squeeze in three!"
Three what? Three little monsters?
Su Chi still refused: "No need."
Yun Xian used his trump card: "If you don't come again, I will come out."
There was a sound of wind in front of him, and a warm and cool body approached. Su Chi raised his hand and closed the coffin again with a "bang".
In the narrow coffin, the two bodies were pressed tightly together, their breaths blending, and a cold fragrance floated in the air. Yun Xian's eyes were dark, and besides the creaking sound of the not-so-intelligent puppet searching next to his ears, he could hear the beating of a chest close at hand, "boom, boom, boom," steady and powerful.
It was so narrow that the two of them could only cross their legs and hands. Yun Xian noticed that Su Chi was trying his best to raise his body to avoid overly close contact. If he raised his body any higher, his back would lift up the coffin lid.
"Just wait a moment." Su Chi avoided her face and made small talk. "They don't have human minds. They have no goals and will leave soon."
As he spoke, his chest vibrated, a little numb. It would be inappropriate to continue this close. After all, Yun Xian had just made a vow at thirty-nine not to fall in love too early, so he secretly moved away a little.
She just moved slightly, and Su Chi noticed it immediately. Her heartbeat was getting faster and faster, thump, thump, thump like the beating of a drum, and it seemed like it was not going to stop.
Yun Xian: “…”
Big Brother, I know you're shy again, but normally I can pretend not to notice. Now that we're so close, if I still pretend not to notice anything, wouldn't that be too much...
The puppet was still wandering aimlessly outside, and no one knew when it would leave. For a long moment, no one spoke.
Surprisingly, in this strange place and urgent situation, an untimely peace arose in their little world.
Yun Xian felt a chill on her neck, as if the sweat from Su Chi's forehead had dripped there. She seemed to be feeling uncomfortable somewhere and moved back slightly.
Su Chi coughed lightly: "...What's wrong?"
"...Nothing, it's just that." Yun Xian rarely showed any hesitation on his face, "There's something I don't know whether I should ask."
Su Chi had a hunch that something was not right, but he never stopped Yun Xian from saying anything: "Just go ahead and say it."
"It's like this. It's a bit presumptuous. Of course, it's very possible that I have some illusion, or it's my own fault." Yun Xian finally said slowly: "Is that the scabbard next to my waist?"
"Yes. Did it hurt you?" Su Chi paused, confused, "Why do you ask? What else could it be if not the scabbard?"
Yun Xian immediately shut up: "Oh, just pretend I didn't say that."
Su Chi: “?”
The dark coffin was silent for another half an incense stick. Amidst the sound of his heartbeat, he finally seemed to come to his senses. He gritted his teeth and said belatedly, "...Yun Xian!!!"
What are you thinking about every day? No matter what, he would never...never be like that!
Even though he couldn't see anything, Yun Xian could imagine that the eldest senior brother would probably be blushing from forehead to heels again.
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