Chapter 40 Jade (Part Two) The young man with red hair and golden eyes...
Pat, pat.
Two drops of liquid fell from above, the cool touch sliding down her cheek to her chin, accompanied by a ticklish sensation. Qingxing let out a soft hum, her eyes flickered slightly, and then she slowly opened them.
She propped herself up from the ground and couldn't help but raise her hand to gently rub her temples.
My whole body aches. My heart is burning. My head feels like it's been stirred with a spoon, I'm so dizzy I can't tell which way is which.
Qingxing subconsciously withdrew her spiritual power, trying to make herself feel better. But when her fingertips, imbued with spiritual power, touched her forehead, she suddenly froze.
Wasn't she dead?
Having his heart pierced by the purple-clad demon's silk threads, he'd at least be crippled by now.
How can it still have spiritual power?
She looked down and examined her body with the help of the spiritual fire in her hand—her disciple's robes were somewhat torn, and her chest was stained with a lot of blood, but other than that, there was nothing else unusual. Even the blisters on her hands from the purple-clad demon's scalding were gone.
Startled for a moment, Qingxing immediately sat cross-legged in meditation. Using her spiritual power as her eyes, she delved deep into the spiritual network. Familiar energy flowed through her limbs, passing through the already illuminated Fenglong, Xuehai, and Quchi meridians, finally settling before the "Guanyuan" point.
This path has always been a major hurdle on the road to immortality, with many cultivators stopping here, only able to look up at those above the steps with regret and resentment.
Qingxing had grasped some of the tricks of the trade while she was on Mount Taihua. Although everyone said she was exceptionally talented and made rapid progress, only she knew that whenever she climbed over a mountain and was about to embark on the next journey, there was always an invisible barrier that firmly blocked her way.
The barrier was ever-present and omnipresent, as if someone had foreseen the limits of her abilities and deliberately implanted this obstacle, preventing her from breaking through.
Unfortunately, she had no solution.
But at this moment, the Guan Yuan lineage, symbolizing the "Nascent Soul," was flickering, seemingly containing some kind of enormous energy, quietly waiting for its master to discover it.
Qingxing lowered her eyes, looking at the green flame burning in her palm.
The flames were dazzling but not scorching; they burned silently, radiating a vitality unique to the wood spirit root, like the pulsating heart of an ancient tree.
...She actually stepped directly into the Nascent Soul stage?
It's like a dream.
Qingxing pressed her chest; the place where the thread passed through still ached slightly.
Although I don't know why you level up every time you die, in the current situation, having spiritual power is better than having none.
She carefully recalled the scene before she fainted: the purple-clad demon should have been defeated, and before the demonic energy exploded, she saw off Duanmu Tingzhu and her master. In the last scene... she seemed to have entered a cave somewhere underwater with them.
Yes, we need to find them first.
Qingxing helped herself up from the boulder beside her. She dusted herself off and was about to look around when she suddenly heard a "crack".
Then came the clanging of metal, echoing in the cave for a long time. It sounded like someone had accidentally dropped all the pots and pans on the ground.
"Who?" Qingxing raised her hand and waved it, and blue flames spread from in front of her, lining up on the stone walls on both sides.
There is no one.
The noise was so loud that she couldn't believe she was hallucinating. Behind her was a dead end blocked by boulders, but ahead was a passageway large enough for two people to pass through. After a moment's thought, Qingxing slowly walked forward.
She quickened her pace, keeping an eye on her surroundings. After about the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, she arrived at a stone door.
The stone door was crude, covered with moss. Qingxing didn't even have to exert much force; he simply placed his hand on top and gently pushed, and the stone door slowly opened.
The stones rubbed against each other, making a harsh sound. Qingxing cautiously stepped inside, even slowing her breathing.
The gate was wide open, unlike the dark and damp passageway before. Strangely, it maintained a dryness that didn't belong to the lake bottom, and Qingxing couldn't even feel a drop of moisture.
She used her spiritual power to light up the wall lamp, illuminating the interior and gradually revealing the scene inside.
This is a confined space with uneven, black stone walls on all four sides, and only a few wall lamps hanging in three places. Beneath the stone walls, there is a mountain of scrolls and books. They are not placed neatly, but rather piled up on the ground as if they were trash.
This seems to be a locked room, Qingxing thought.
She stepped inside, bent down to pick up a book, and casually flipped through it. She found that it contained some basic cultivation methods, which she had seen before in the Taihua Mountain Scripture Pavilion.
There seemed to be nothing special about it. Qingxing put down the book and was about to pick up the next one when suddenly a gust of wind blew by, her hand trembled, and the book fell to the ground with a "thud".
At the same time, the stone door creaked open without warning and then slammed shut.
Qingxing immediately raised her hand and struck the stone door with her spiritual power. The secret chamber trembled, and dust fell from the stone walls.
She lowered her voice: "Who?"
No one answered.
Qingxing frowned slightly. This place should be deep at the bottom of Emerald Lake, dozens of miles below the surface. Just now, when she was walking in the passageway, she couldn't feel a breath of wind. Now, in this airtight chamber, it was even more impossible.
Someone must be up to no good.
She stomped heavily on the ground, causing ripples of blue water to spread outwards. Qingxing spoke again: "Come out."
Another gust of cold wind blew, causing the wall lamp to sway back and forth and the books on the floor to rustle loudly, but still no one responded to her.
It's like I'm teasing her.
Qingxing lowered her eyes and pondered for a moment, then ignited a spiritual fire in her palm. She leaned her hand against the pile of books on the ground and threatened expressionlessly, "If you don't come out, I'll set this secret room on fire."
Ding-dong!
After a series of clattering sounds from pots and pans, someone behind him spoke coolly: "No, not allowed."
Qingxing took half a step back and turned around to look at the person who had come.
This was a young man around eighteen years old. He wore a jade crown and white robes, revealing a very small face. At this moment, his lips were downturned, and he was frowning as he stared at Qingxing. Seeing that Qingxing was staring at him, he pointed to the blue flame in Qingxing's palm and emphasized again, "No, you're allowed to burn it."
Qingxing: "?"
Where did this person come from? And he even stutters!
Her gaze shifted downwards, and she realized that the "person" floating in mid-air was a spirit.
"Who are you?" Qingxing shook her hand, extinguishing the fire.
"Shouldn't we be asking you that? You barged into someone's house without warning and even threatened to burn their things." It was another unfamiliar male voice.
Qingxing glanced back and saw a red-haired, golden-eyed young man striding towards her. A smile played on his lips as he walked to the white-clad youth's side, giving Qingxing a once-over before teasingly remarking, "Are all young people these days so impolite?"
Young people? Qingxing looked at their youthful faces and thought to herself: You two aren't old, are you?
Although she was internally complaining, she realized that she had indeed been rude first, so Qingxing said, "I'm sorry. My name is Qingxing. There was some trouble at Emerald Lake, and I wandered into this place by mistake."
"What could possibly happen at Emerald Lake?" The red-haired man seemed to be deep in thought.
After a moment, he hissed and asked, "Hey, I'm asking you, what year is it now?"
Qingxing replied, "The year 2005 of the Immortal Calendar."
"Two thousand and five?!" The red-haired man exclaimed in surprise, "Five hundred years have passed!"
The man in white also looked surprised and said, "Good, that's far."
“Yeah, I didn’t expect this when I left my shadow in the secret room…” The red-haired man stopped abruptly halfway through his sentence. His eyes darted around as he looked at Qingxing slyly and asked, “I’d like to ask you, have you ever heard of a man named Wangyan?”
The man in white glanced at him, seemingly speechless.
Qingxing hadn't expected him to ask that, so she honestly replied, "I've heard of it."
It's not just something people have heard of; it's practically a household name.
The red-haired man pressed on, "Then has he already achieved great success in his cultivation and ascended to the upper realm?! Such a dashing and exceptionally talented man must have become a legend praised by everyone!"
Qingxing: "...No. Nobody praised it."
"How could that be!" the red-haired man protested. "How could someone so capable have lived such a mediocre life!"
"...He's not mediocre at all," Qingxing said calmly. "He's quite famous."
The red-haired man asked, puzzled, "What do you mean?"
"He's possessed by a demon. A notorious and infamous demon." As soon as she finished speaking, Qingxing sensed something was amiss. She scanned the red-haired man from head to toe, and asked suspiciously, "You're not just spouting nonsense, are you?"
"Haha...haha." The red-haired man chuckled dryly. "That's me."
Qingxing:......
She asked in surprise, "Why...do you look like this?"
Wang Yan asked in bewilderment, "What's wrong with me? Am I too handsome?"
Qingxing gestured towards him, then hesitated, "No... this hair color... and these eyes..."
She had only ever seen white-haired monks before; this was the first time she had ever seen one with red hair like this.
Strangely enough, she had heard no fewer than a hundred versions of the legend about Wangyan, but upon closer examination, none of them described Wangyan's appearance.
Wang Yan shrugged: "All of my people look like this. Did it almost blind you?"
After saying that, he even flirtatiously flicked the stray hairs on his forehead with his index finger.
"Your clan? Which clan?" Qingxing was completely confused. She pointed to the white-robed man on the other side and asked, "Who is he? Is he also one of your clansmen?"
"No, his name is Sun Buqiu. What, you're from five hundred years in the future and you've never heard of Sun Buqiu?" Wang Yan leaned on Sun Buqiu's shoulder and teased him, "Looks like you're doing worse than me. At least I'm a demon king."
“Sun Buqiu is the head of my Taihua Mountain sect,” Qingxing said. “There is also a statue of him inside Taihua Mountain.”
However, the statue was of an old man with a big beard, which was completely inconsistent with the image of the handsome young man in front of him.
"Hahahahahahaha!" Wang Yan understood what Qing Xing hadn't finished saying and laughed so hard he could barely breathe. "Sun Buqiu, you've finally met your match! I really want to see what your statue looks like!"
"No, it's not funny." Sun Buqiu patted his hand, then turned to Qingxing and asked, "Demon, w-what's going on?"
Qingxing blinked twice. At first, when Guda said that Sun Buqiu was a stutterer, she thought the book spirit was just making things up, but now it seemed that what he said was true.
It took her a while to understand what Sun Buqiu was trying to say. After sorting out her thoughts, she briefly recounted the great war between humans and demons five hundred years ago.
"Wait, so that means I fell into demonic possession, and he sealed me away?" Wang Yan's eyes widened. "Are you kidding me!"
“Not just him, there are several others,” Qingxing added.
Sun Buqiu fell silent after hearing this, but Wang Yan, acting as if nothing had happened, teased him: "Don't look so gloomy. That happened so many years ago. The path of cultivation is long, and it's normal for things to go wrong. Besides, I'm still here now, aren't I?"
“It’s fake.” Sun Buqiu pointed at him, then at his own chest, repeating, “Fake, fake.”
"Fine, fine, it's fake then. I shouldn't have brought you along when I modified the memory bead." Wang Yan couldn't persuade him and impatiently flicked his sleeves.
After Qingxing finished telling the story, she didn't say anything more. She heard Wangyan's words and caught the words "modify the recording bead" in them, so she asked, "Senior's current spiritual body is recorded by the recording bead?"
“That’s right,” Wang Yan said. “Who isn’t a genius?”
Qingxing ignored the smug look in his eyes; she wanted to know something else. "So, for the past five hundred years, have you been in this secret room all this time?"
He recklessly declared, "That's only natural."
Qingxing's eyes lit up: "Did you see two male cultivators? One tall and one short, one big and one small. The big one was wearing pink clothes, and the small one was wearing the same disciple robes as me."
After falling into the lake, she looked around and found no other passageways. It was highly unlikely that her master and Tingzhu had fallen somewhere else. After much thought, she concluded that this secret room was probably the only place where they could hide.
Although she didn't see any other openings that would allow someone to get in.
Upon hearing this, Wang Yan exclaimed "Ah!" and snapped his fingers, causing the pile of books behind him to move aside. He and Sun Buqiu shifted half a step to the side, revealing two figures lying inside, and asked, "You mean these two people?"
Qingxing went up to take a look and indeed saw that eye-catching pink dress.
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