Guidelines
For Yun Shu, who was exerting all her strength, ten miles was but a fleeting moment.
However, it was too late.
The moment they landed, the thick stench of blood assaulted their senses amidst the sand and dust. The post station had been reduced to scorched earth, with only a few embers still flickering in the blazing sun, barely clinging to life.
No one cried out for help, no one groaned; only the crackling of candlelight bid farewell to the newly departed souls of this place.
More than ten Red Lotus Sect disciples and several merchants lay sprawled on the ground, their bodies shriveled, their flesh and blood vanished into thin air, replaced by a cloud of black sand. Beside a water pouch was a totem, its deathly aura identical to that of the one at the previous temple.
It's that cult again... that destroyed the Kingdom of Quicksand and used its identity and guardian deity—Feathered Serpent—to wreak havoc everywhere.
His divine sense spread out like the tide, bypassing the choked waves of the sea, tracing every inch of the land. Yet, even someone as powerful as Yun Shu could not detect any trace beyond the deathly aura and resentment. The murderer's actions were so swift... it made him somewhat nostalgic for his former, and first, disciple.
But that child died three thousand years ago...
Recalling the tragic fate of the Empress and the Faceless One, he no longer wished to dwell on it.
If the child's body was indeed desecrated by the cult... as his master, all he could do was personally guide her to enlightenment and then avenge her.
At that moment, he sighed softly, squatted down, and gently touched the forehead of a corpse with his fingertips, trying to soothe the spirit of the dead.
But as soon as he touched the corpse's skin, a feeling of suffocation suddenly overwhelmed him.
My vision was swallowed by endless darkness, then it became bright again.
The tragic scene before my eyes is gone, and Yunhua Mountain is peaceful under the bright sun.
The woman in blue was performing a sword dance, able to travel to the ends of the earth in an instant, and then return in the next instant.
He heard himself say, "Your martial arts skills have improved considerably. After you graduate, will you stay here or follow your heart and travel the world?"
Upon hearing this, the other person's clothes swayed, and when they turned around, they had already transformed into their original form as a black-winged kite.
“I was born to belong to the sky.” She lowered her head and drooped her wings. “But now, you and everyone in Yunhua Mountain are also my nest… I’m sorry, I mean, ‘home’. No matter where I go, I will always be the young bird under Master’s knee, a child of Yunhua Mountain.”
"Then go." The White Fox Immortal Lord raised his hand, bathing her wings in sunlight. "May your journey be smooth."
The black-winged kite bowed once more before spreading its wings and taking flight.
A familiar feeling of suffocation washed over me, and when I opened my eyes again, the ruins of the post station were before me once more.
It really was her... Yun Shu grabbed a handful of yellow sand, then silently watched it slip through her fingers before clenching her fists and slamming them down heavily.
Dai Yue was Yun Shu's first disciple before the Demon Lord Mo Yiheng. She was a child who entered the Netherworld three thousand years ago.
"The Lord of Silence" is using everything he cares about to lure him here, so he can witness firsthand the hellish place where they reap the harvest of life. Last time it was the countless souls of the Quicksand Kingdom ten thousand years ago; this time it's the Red Lotus Sect, the merchants, and his long-deceased eldest disciple, Dai Yue… Who will it be next?
“Lord Canglang,” Yun Shu rose, her gentle immortal power soothing the fragile nerves of the patrolling fire envoy, “do you know why they are on duty here?”
The latter, suppressing his grief, replied in a hoarse voice, "After the anomalies occurred at various water sources, the leader designated several post stations as transit points for the investigation, to store and transmit the clues and evidence collected..."
At this point, he suddenly looked up again: "That's right. Before I infiltrated that temple alone, the last message from headquarters said that a batch of suspicious jade stones intended to be transported to the depths of the desert was intercepted from passing merchants. According to the sect's specialists, the jade stones were cold in nature and seemed to have the ability to absorb water, as the area where they went was sparsely humid."
Absorbing water... does indeed match the "Lord of Solitude's" aversion to water and the drying up of rivers in the human world.
Before the words were finished, Yun Shu's fox ears twitched slightly, keenly detecting that a heavy object had fallen somewhere, and then she heard the subtle vibration of a human heartbeat.
Someone survived?!
He flashed to the entrance of the cellar. With a casual brush aside the broken stones and wood, he saw something curled up in a dark corner. The Crimson Lotus Cult's robes were almost entirely stained red with blood. The disciple was barely breathing, yet tightly gripped a long spear. The spearhead lay on the ground; it seemed the commotion had originated from there.
Although the man's face had not been stripped off, a deep, bone-revealing claw mark tore his right cheek, and black energy swirled around the wound, directly confronting the spear.
Yun Shu immediately bent down, took out a pill from the medicine bag given to her by Yun He, fed it to her, and then continuously poured gentle demonic power into her body, finally purifying the death energy and repairing her damaged internal organs and meridians.
After a series of actions, Canglang also rushed over with Jinzhu. The little girl was very well-behaved. She had closed her eyes since Yun Shu's expression changed ten miles ago, and she did not see the person's miserable state.
Upon seeing the man, Canglang rushed over. After confirming that the man was temporarily out of danger due to the effects of demonic power and the elixir, he lay on the body of his surviving brother, weeping uncontrollably.
As for that spear... Yun Shu glanced at it sideways, reached out to lift it, and immediately sensed an ancient aura, almost buried by the sands—the aura of Yun Hua.
More accurately, it is not the chaotic power of the current Demon God Yunhua, but the pure immortal essence of the Immortal Master Yunhua more than ten thousand years ago.
No wonder this Red Lotus Sect disciple was able to deceive the evil sect, and even Yun Shu could hardly detect his presence or voice.
The Master's things... were probably lost in the desert ten thousand years ago when the evil cult was eradicated.
Did they attack the Red Lotus Cult's post station to steal this item? Or perhaps...?
With a light tap of her fingertip, Yun Shu pulled out the little gadget hidden inside the gun barrel.
That was an eye.
Like the Empress and Jinzhu, she had emerald green eyes.
Without a doubt, this eyeball belongs to another princess from the Land of Shifting Sands. And judging from its freshness and the deathly aura emanating from it…
He couldn't help but look at Jinzhu, whose eyes were tightly closed, and hesitated for a moment, wondering if he should tell her the truth. If this child knew that her mother had met with misfortune, could her small body bear it?
But if Jinzhu isn't informed, what should be done with this eyeball...?
Just as he was annoyed, the furry ball nestled against his chest wriggled out and leaped onto Yun Shu's palm. It circled the eyeball once, then whispered close to its fox ear, "Master, the Jade Guanyin, using her soul-capturing technique, said that there is... a person hidden inside?"
……people?
Yun Shu was skeptical, but then probed with a wisp of demonic power and found a speck of "dust" on her eyeball.
When you peel it off, you will see that the tiny speck of dust has transformed into a smooth-faced person, and there is no death aura or black sand on his body.
The Faceless Ones of the Real Land of Shifting Sands, survivors of the cataclysm ten thousand years ago, have survived to this day thanks to the power of Yunhua.
But he was clearly living a miserable life. His fur coat was filthy, his hair was tangled, and his hands and feet had been burned and cut hundreds of times in the desert, only to scab over and grow new flesh and calluses again and again.
Apart from Jinzhu and the unconscious wounded, the three of them stared at each other, and the scene was eerily quiet.
It wasn't that Yun Shu didn't want to negotiate, but the other party, though faceless, was clearly quite wary, and he himself had never been exposed to the language of the Shifting Sands Kingdom. If he acted rashly, the other party might immediately run to the desert—in which case their most precious clue so far would be lost.
He gently stopped Canglang from drawing his sword, and then softly said to the faceless man who was "looking" at the golden pearls and golden hair, "Please don't be afraid. Perhaps we can talk first."
Then, he gently patted Jinzhu: "Jinzhu, the Fox Fairy wants to ask you for a favor. You don't need to do anything, just open your eyes. Whatever you see, don't be afraid... okay?"
The little girl swallowed hard, and after a moment, she finally prepared herself mentally and slowly opened her beautiful, oasis-like eyes.
While Jinzhu was still looking at the fox spirit in confusion, a "thump" came from behind her. The little girl was startled and turned around to see a ragged and faceless person kneeling on the sand. This strange person kept kowtowing and babbling a series of obscure and ancient words, eventually excitedly shouting the same word repeatedly.
Jinzhu was certain that the word had appeared in her mother's broken ballad.
"..." Jinzhu paused and read the word aloud.
“Princess.” Yun Shu guessed the meaning of the word accurately. A cold light flashed in her glass-like eyes, but it was not entirely because of the person kneeling in front of her.
Upon hearing Jinzhu's voice, the other person's faceless face displayed an almost manic expression. He nodded frantically, stretched out his arms and raised them, and began to utter string after string of words, interspersed with gesticulating and kowtowing.
Canglang couldn't understand a single word, but it wasn't hard to guess that this person was related to the Kingdom of Quicksand, so he could only hold his knife and stand guard to the side.
But Jinzhu's eyes widened, and her little hands unconsciously clenched Yunshu's sleeve.
“The fox spirit…” she whispered uncertainly, “He seemed to be talking about… ‘return,’ ‘salvation’… and also… ‘the temple in the desert,’ ‘Haslan’ that my mother sang about in her song…”
The faceless man nodded repeatedly, gesturing wildly as he pointed southeast—a result consistent with Mo Yu's investigation. He even tried to step forward and kiss Jin Zhu's hem, frightening the little girl into hiding behind her grandmaster.
Yun Shu's heart sank slowly.
It seems that Jinzhu's identity is far more captivating than they imagined. This seemingly desolate desert harbors countless eyes, each with its own agenda, watching the wandering "princess."
Daiyue's desecrated corpse, Yunhua's former magical artifacts, the eyeball of the previous princess... Just how much more does that cult, which swaggers around under the name and totem of the Faceless Ones of the Shifting Sands Kingdom, hide, and how many evil deeds has it committed...?
“Jinzhu, let him stand up first,” Yun Shu said gently as she helped the little girl up. “Perhaps you can convince him that we mean no harm. Besides, we hope to travel with him.”
"But...I don't speak that language..."
Jinzhu hesitated for a moment, then a brilliant idea struck her. She mimicked the gesture she had seen in the palace and actually managed to wake the person.
The faceless man glanced at Jinzhu, then at Yunshu, as if guessing their conversation. He lowered his head in thought, and after a long while, he nodded to Yunshu, uttered a string of unintelligible words, and then respectfully followed behind Jinzhu, tacitly agreeing to accompany her in order to save the lost souls of his people.
"Thank you for your cooperation." Yun Shu nodded, then slung Yun Hua's gun over her shoulder and turned to Cang Lang, saying, "Lord Cang Lang... please accept our condolences. Shall we take the wounded back to the Red Lotus Sect headquarters with you to recuperate?"
The Fire Patrolman rubbed his red eyes, but shook his head: "Immortal Master, just send him back to headquarters. As for me... I am still willing to accompany you all, vowing to avenge our fallen brothers!"
Yun Shu was not surprised by this: "That's good."
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