Chapter 35 The Mist (Part Two) I was sent by the patriarch to help you...
"Uncle-Master, why do I feel like we're going further and further astray?"
Shen Wan wailed and raised her hand to rub her throbbing temples.
Half an hour ago, after Elder Qinghe finished explaining the mission, they immediately headed northwest. But after traveling for so long, all they could see were peach groves and thick fog; they hadn't seen a single person, or even a bird.
And whether it was psychological or not, the longer Shen Wan stayed in the peach grove, the dizzier her head became. She even began to suspect that there might be poison in the fog.
Upon hearing this, Jiu Quchen hissed and channeled spiritual energy into the compass in his hand. The needle tip trembled for a few moments before returning to its original position.
He said, "No, the compass is working perfectly."
"You must be tired from walking!" Guda mocked Shen Wan, who was squatting to the side. "You haven't even found Duanmu Tingzhu and Master yet, don't collapse first!"
Shen Wan looked up and slapped Guda: "Are you kidding me? You think I'd fall down? I'm the number one swordsman in the world!"
"What number one swordsman? You..."
Guda dodged Shen Wan's hand while retorting. It turned its head, wanting to make a face at Shen Wan, but suddenly froze when its eyes met hers.
Shen Wan's cheeks were flushed, her lips were deathly pale, and her eyes were filled with bloodshot veins, which was quite frightening.
"Shen Wan!"
Xie Yuzhou tried to pull her up, but couldn't move. He was held down by some unknown force, his limbs seemingly nailed to the spot. He struggled violently for a few moments, but to no avail.
Jiu Quchen, who was standing nearby, also encountered the same situation, but fortunately, he was at the Nascent Soul stage and could still move. He stiffly raised his hand, crushed the pill, and used his spiritual power to send it into Shen Wan's aura.
Shen Wan closed her eyes, her complexion slightly better.
Gudako stared in shock at the group of people before her, who seemed to be bound by invisible lines: "What's going on?!"
"I don't know." Jiu Qu Chen was secretly struggling with that invisible force. His robes tore open with a "rip" sound, and beads of sweat dripped from his forehead, gradually staining his pink clothes.
He was puzzled: Although his cultivation was not enough compared to the elders, he was still a Nascent Soul cultivator. Who was this person in the shadows who could cast a spell on them without them noticing?
Moreover, apart from the Duanmu family, he had never heard of any other forces within the Blood Peach Forest.
Could it be that some powerful figure has come here to live in seclusion?
Thinking of this, Jiu Qu Chen amplified his voice and shouted towards the peach grove: "I have mistakenly entered your territory, which is truly offensive. I wonder if you would be willing to show yourself? If you want compensation in the form of spirit stones, we can discuss it."
His voice echoed through the empty peach grove, but there was no reply for a long time.
After a long while, Xie Yuzhou spoke up to remind them, "Uncle-Master, there are people over there."
He was still conscious, his eyes bloodshot, staring intently at what was behind Jiu Quchen.
Jiu Quchen felt a chill run down his back, but the two juniors were still there. He mustered all his strength and courage to turn around and frown at the newcomer.
The man was dressed in luxurious clothes, his hair was neatly combed, and he had a standard smile on his face.
"Who is that? Is that even human?" Gudako muttered under her breath, hiding behind Jiuquchen. "Looks like a ghost."
Jiu Quchen's voice trembled: "Don't... talk nonsense."
The "ghost" young master stared at them for a long time, then ignored their expressions and said with a smile, tilting his head, "My name is Duanmu Rui. I was sent by the patriarch to help you."
Bang!
As soon as he finished speaking, four wisps of purple smoke suddenly rose up, and Guda was choked and coughed violently.
"Cough cough cough! Cough cough!" It opened its mouth wide and gasped for breath, angrily shouting, "What the hell? Don't you have any manners?!"
As the purple smoke dissipated a little, it tried to tug at Jiu Quchen's sleeve to cover itself, but missed.
"Master? Qingxing's master?" With no reply in sight, Guda frantically searched around, "Master's master! Don't scare me!"
But even after it shouted until its throat was hoarse, there was no reply.
"Is anyone there? Hey!" Gudako flew around quickly, fanning away the smoke in front of her, trying to find the other three.
But once the purple smoke completely dissipated, Guda flew to a high place and faced the empty peach forest. It had to accept a cruel fact: the three people, along with the suddenly appearing nobleman Duanmu Rui, had all disappeared.
However, before it could react, a sudden surge of intense spiritual energy caused Guda to feel the air around it being compressed. A familiar force enveloped it completely from behind, and a feeling of suffocation washed over it. It only managed to let out a slight scream.
"ah--"
Gudako was "captured" into a certain space where it was pitch black and the dark darkness was like the stomach of a giant beast, as if it wanted to devour it.
When it saw the sunlight again, its screams not only didn't decrease but increased, and a pair of hands reached out from behind and covered its mouth.
"Shh," Qingxing whispered, covering her mouth as she made a gurgling sound, "Don't scream, there's a ghost here."
"Qingxing!" Guda broke free from her hands and buried herself in her arms, crying, "Waaah, Master, you have no idea what I went through, waaah, it was so scary, waaah!"
"Alright, it's alright now." Qingxing gently patted its head, and only after the book spirit calmed down did she ask, "Where are Master and the others? Weren't you with them?"
Guda sniffed, then looked up abruptly upon hearing this: "That's exactly what I was going to say!"
"After you disappeared, those monsters went berserk! I felt like all the monsters in the entire Peach Blossom Forest surged up!" Guda exclaimed excitedly. Qingxing suspected that if it could spit, it would be spitting everywhere by now. It continued, "The situation was so critical! Shen Wan was almost swallowed whole by the monsters. In the blink of an eye, luckily I..."
"Get to the point," Qingxing interrupted.
"I was just about to say something! Why are you in such a hurry!" Guda said angrily. "I used the Water of No Life with Shen Wan to blow up the demon, but for some reason, Duanmu Tingzhu disappeared inexplicably. Qinghe, a Nascent Soul stage expert, is still here. He just left without anyone noticing. Isn't that strange? And his talisman is still right there!"
"Tingzhu is gone?" Qingxing asked in astonishment.
When she first entered the Blood Peach Forest, Gudako warned her that Duanmu would die there.
She originally thought that even if she wasn't there, with her master and Elder Qinghe, both at the Nascent Soul stage, Duanmu should be fine.
Remembering the piles of wooden puppets in the Dream Array, Qingxing felt a sudden pang of panic. She tugged at Guda and pressed, "And then? Where did Tingzhu go?"
Gudako: "I don't know! Qinghe told us to split up and search, and we went, but the strangest thing happened. We hadn't gone far when your master and those two main characters were suddenly controlled by some kind of evil magic, and a guy named Duanmu Rui inexplicably appeared! Where did he come from in this desolate wilderness..."
"Duanmu Rui?" Qingxing frowned, interrupting it again, "You encountered Duanmu Rui?"
“Yeah,” Gudako said impatiently, “Don’t interrupt, I’m telling you…”
However, this time Qingxing didn't interrupt it, and its voice gradually faded away on its own.
"What?" Qingxing asked, puzzled.
“No,” Gudako frowned at her, “how did you bring me back?”
“The Book Spirit Mark,” Qingxing replied. “The water ripple mark you left on me when I first met you.”
She found no useful clues in the large pit, and then remembered that she had a book spirit named Guda. Qingxing had read in a book before that book spirits and their masters could sense each other and even have their words become law through the mark.
The book was a bit obscure, and she wasn't sure if it would work, so she decided to try anything, closed her eyes, and drew a teleportation array on the mark on her arm.
But thankfully, it seems that all those years of studying weren't for nothing.
“But this place…” Gudako circled around, looking around in shock, “This is where we fought the monsters before! This huge crater is exactly the same as the one we blew up!”
"Furthermore, as far as I know, no teleportation arrays can be used in the Blood Peach Forest!"
In other words, from Gudako's perspective, they started from here, and after a series of strange events, the other three disappeared, while Gudako was teleported back.
However, Qinghe had warned them as soon as they entered the Blood Peach Forest that they could not fly on swords here, let alone use teleportation arrays.
Even a book spirit won't do.
Therefore, Qingxing's teleportation array did not break through the restrictions here.
Excluding this condition, and considering the repeated appearances of Duanmu Rui and the unanswered communication talismans, only another terrifying possibility remains—they have been circling around this pit all along and have never left.
Qingxing raised her eyes, stared intently at the large pit in front of her, and said coldly, "The Blood Peach Forest is a large formation."
From the very beginning, they were manipulated by others.
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