The next morning.

Qiu Changtian slowly woke up from his meditation and saw Xu Yinglian sitting in front of the dressing table, combing her hair elegantly in front of the mirror.

Junior Sister Xu usually didn't wear a pearl hairpin, but just tied it casually with a green ribbon. Now without the green ribbon, she let her hair hang down casually, which matched her slender body curves, with three parts of laziness, four parts of purity and three parts of charm, which was very attractive.

Qiu Changtian's mind moved slightly, and he hugged Xu Yinglian from behind, putting his hands on her waist.

Well, this flesh, a little more plump and a little less thin, can be said to be just right.

"What are you doing?" Junior Sister Xu snorted and said in a reproachful tone.

Although there was no whimpering, the crisp sound and the melodious tone at the end made it sound more like a act of coquettishness than an angry protest.

"What? Can't your husband hug you?" Qiu Changtian simply took the lead in protesting and questioned her.

"You can hug me, but ** is not allowed." Xu Yinglian said lazily.

As soon as he said this, Qiu Changtian immediately regretted it.

If I had known that my junior sister was so gentle, I should have hugged her more often.

As for more in-depth intimate actions, let's wait until I regain my identity as Chen Guanshui before continuing with her, otherwise after the last step, my junior sister will still think that she is marrying Qiu Changtian, which would not be so wonderful.

Wait, if I return to my identity as Chen Guanshui, I’m not sure how my junior sister will view me!

Forget it, let’s talk about it when the time comes.

Qiu Changtian helped his junior sister comb her hair and asked gently:

"Are there any other clues about Xu Zhi?"

"Well, no more." Xu Yinglian sighed, "After all, it is too far away from now, and the family at that time seemed unwilling to reveal the specific reasons why Xu Zhi betrayed the clan."

"However, I do have some clues about the secret place on the Xiangjiang River."

She stood up, took out a scroll of bamboo slips from her storage bag, and placed it on the table.

It turned out to be a bamboo slip... Qiu Changtian picked up the bamboo slip and quickly read through it.

It is said that in the ancient country of Xiangchu there was a loyal minister who, as foreshadowed in all tragedies, was not trusted by the monarch.

Finally, the loyal minister was exiled here by the king, and in grief and anger he drowned himself in the river.

After death, the heroic spirit did not dissipate, but came to some fairyland.

The masters of the fairyland are two ladies who call themselves "Xiangjiang Goddesses" and are waiting for the return of their husband "Xiang Jun".

After hearing about the loyal minister's deeds, he was allowed to live in the fairyland, waiting for the final fate of his homeland.

Seeing this, Qiu Changtian also fell into silence.

As we all know, strange stories like these that describe "mortals' encounters with gods" are often metaphors for certain secret places.

In order to prevent the information about the entrance to the secret realm from being lost, the person who wrote the story would put a lot of hints into the story.

On the other hand, in order to prevent it from being discovered by random people, one has to deliberately write in a roundabout way and refuse to say it directly.

Therefore, the common people just thought that they were all fabricated folk tales, but the monks knew that this might not be the case, and some of them might be true... Even if they had found nothing after past explorations, they could not confirm whether the stories were fabricated or they had not found the real entrance.

"He sank into the river and went to the secret realm." Qiu Changtian pondered, "So the entrance to the secret realm is probably at the bottom of the river?"

"Guess where this was found?" Xu Yinglian said calmly, "In the family's library, Xu Zhi's name is on the borrowing record, and the date is right before he defected."

"Great!" Qiu Changtian exclaimed.

Although stories like this may contain clues to secret places, most of them are real folk legends, so the screening efficiency is relatively low, so few people are willing to read them specifically.

But Xu Yinglian loved reading and had been reading the family's collection of books since he was a child, so it was not surprising that he could find this bamboo slip.

"In that case, let's call Senior Sister Luo and go to the bottom of the Xiangjiang River to find out what's going on." Qiu Changtian said with a smile.

The two left the inn room and went downstairs, and saw Luo Baiyuan sitting at a table on the second floor overlooking the river, eating a milky white river fish with a bamboo stick.

Seeing her fellow apprentices suddenly coming over, Senior Sister Luo felt a little embarrassed and said quickly:

"Qiongying, Changgeng, I'm not eating here secretly! It's just that the store owner recommended it to me just now, so I reluctantly tried it..."

"Senior sister, you are in a very elegant mood." Qiu Changtian interrupted her explanation with a smile, and said to the shopkeeper next to him, "Give us another river fish and two pairs of bamboo chopsticks."

"I won't use it." Xu Yinglian said modestly, but Qiu Changtian forced the chopsticks into her hands:

"Junior sister, after this fast, you won't eat worldly food. This is not good."

"What's wrong with that?" Xu Yinglian raised an eyebrow, "It's all foul air anyway."

"Everything in the world has its own flavor." Qiu Changtian picked up a piece of fish with chopsticks and put it into his mouth. "Try more. It's good for your mood."

"Really?" Xu Yinglian was a little surprised.

If someone else said this, she would have sneered and ridiculed him, but her senior brother had a clear mind of Taoism. Could it be that eating this kind of food was really good for one's state of mind?

Thinking of this, Junior Sister Xu stretched out her chopsticks and tasted the fish on the plate, and her brows soon relaxed.

tasty.

Luo Baiyuan watched eagerly from the side, trying hard to swallow back the little protest that was rising in his throat: “This is the fish I ordered.”

...Forget it, when the fish they ordered comes, they’ll give me a bite, right?

The river fish has a strong earthy smell, but the store owner is willing to add onions, ginger and garlic, which suppresses the fishy smell. The milky white fish soup is extremely delicious.

Qiu Changtian ate with relish, thinking that forget about Junior Sister Xu, but he could ask Miss Shi to come over and study, and learn the store’s recipes, so as to improve her cooking skills... Tsk, I don’t forget Liuli even when I’m eating delicious food, I’m really too kind.

After eating the river fish, the three of them set off.

This time the target was the bottom of the river, so the three did not continue to take the boat, but instead performed water-walking magic and then stepped into the bottom of the river.

There are more trees in the south, and the river water is clearer than in the north. There are many densely packed schools of fish, and some porpoises swimming near the water plants.

The three of them swept their spiritual senses over the surrounding water plants and piles of rocks and continued to move forward.

Of course, the efficiency of scanning while walking is extremely low, because the river is relatively wide, and the range of spiritual sense scanning is not enough, which feels like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Qiu Changtian had no choice but to ask the Kunlun Mirror to help scan in order to prevent missing the entrance to the secret realm.

After about two hours, Qiu Changtian suddenly became aware that something seemed to flash by on the top of the riverbed hill in front of him.

It looks like... a water snake?

"Found it." Kunlun Mirror suddenly said, "I have captured the spatial fluctuations at the entrance to the secret realm!"

"Where is it?" Qiu Changtian asked hurriedly.

"It's just behind that hill." Kunlun Mirror replied.