"Where...where?" Wang Xi was, after all, a girl, and she had been brave enough, but seeing her familiar home in such a state, she was completely lost.
Ling Yi has a sinister air about him. Although he is just an ordinary person, he never says anything unnecessary to play pranks.
No one present took his words as a child's joke.
"It's right where Senior Brother Yang just looked!"
"Show me." Ling Yi gripped his sword tightly; as the senior disciple, he should stand in front.
"There!" Ling Yi frowned, looking at the nervous group. "You really can't see it?"
"I can't see it." Yang Wennan closed his eyes, carefully trying to understand, but still found nothing. "Maybe this is how I died in my past life?"
"Then Senior Brother Yang, you should go out first!" Ling Yi pushed him out, still looking at him with lingering fear. "Senior Brother Yang seemed to be possessed earlier. I'm afraid there might be something here that could harm your health."
Yang Wennan nodded and walked out first, knowing that Ling Yi was right.
In fact, if they weren't still inside the tunnel, he would have loved to leave the moment they saw the light of day again.
This place, this road, held a strange attraction for him. He longed to walk the entire length as quickly as possible, as if something was urging him to leave, as if his arrival would bring unforeseen disaster.
"Senior Brother, crouch down, I see something."
Ling Yi used the momentum to climb onto Liang Si's shoulder and stand there, because he discovered that it seemed only he could see that thing. The other three people just stared blankly at that spot when they heard him speak, and they didn't see anything that he could see.
"Be careful." Wang Xi watched his busy figure. "This place existed before I was born. I only walked here once, on my coming-of-age ceremony, when my father took me there. I never expected to make it this far."
“Then it must be…” Ling Yi gasped, reaching into the cracks in the rocks, “It must be hiding a secret. Maybe, it’s a backup plan left for Senior Sister. They, they, they, cough cough cough… are waiting for Senior Sister to, cough cough cough, to save her.”
The stone rolled to the ground, raising a cloud of dust that choked Ling Yi and blinded him.
He rubbed his eyes, feeling a wave of dizziness. "Senior brother, I... I feel a little dizzy."
"Hold your breath!" He quickly covered his nose, fearing the sandstorm might have been poisonous, and looked worriedly at the child who had fallen onto his shoulder, grabbing his hair and peering inside: "Are you done yet?"
"Okay, okay, I, I touched it, but, I feel dizzy, I can't exert any strength."
"Senior brother," Wang Xi said thoughtfully, stepping forward to help Ling Yi steady himself. "I also choked on it, but I don't feel dizzy. Is it a curse? Targeting whoever takes it?"
"Alright." Ling Yi leaned back, hooking the thing with his finger and shaking it. If Wang Xi hadn't been there to catch him, he probably would have fallen to the ground. "Look, this!"
It was a box wrapped in yellow talisman paper, which was damp from the moisture.
The box was large and hidden behind rocks. Logically, they shouldn't have ignored everything that Ling Yi could see.
"Here, let Senior Brother Yang take a look." Ling Yi handed the box to Wang Xi, but fainted before he could finish speaking.
"this……"
Fearing something might go wrong, Liang Si quickly said, "Let's go outside first and talk about it."
"yes."
What happened to him?
"Look..."
Yang Wennan's hand froze on the spot, as if he had caught a hot potato. The box was thrown away the moment it touched his hand. "Where...where did this come from?"
He didn't pick it up; instead, he flinched in fear, as if the box contained some evil spirit that would bewitch people if opened. "My intuition tells me it's best not to open this thing."
"Why?" Liang Si asked him. "Xiao Yi fainted while trying to get that thing. We can't let the child's efforts go to waste!"
"Is that so?" Yang Wennan couldn't explain why, but she was just scared. "My intuition tells me that if we go any further, there will be a few more things similar to this box. It's best not to open them."
“This belongs to our Qianyan royal family, so it’s my responsibility to open it, not Senior Brother Yang’s.” With that, Wang Xi went to open the box, and Yang Wennan did not stop her, but simply kept a distance.
He actually wanted to open it, but a voice inside him kept telling him to leave as soon as possible.
He was also confused about this and could only place his hopes on so-called divine will. If he wasn't the one who opened the door, wouldn't he be able to openly seek the answer?
“It’s locked.” After tearing off the talisman paper from the box, Wang Xi looked at the keyhole and was puzzled.
This is no ordinary lock. There are similar locks in the Xuan Yun Sect. If Wen Jinge were still around, there would be no problem, but now it seems that only Ai Fengling can open it.
"This lock is called Qianqiao. Each lock has a different solution. If you make a mistake at any step, it may be impossible to open."
Liang Si explained to Ai Fengling that even when they were at Xuan Yun Sect, Ai Fengling rarely touched this type of lock, saying that it was easy to make, but after a long time, he might forget how to open it, which showed how tricky it was.
Yang Wennan, who had been sitting silently to one side, suddenly licked his lips. He rubbed his hands together, and seeing that both of their eyes were on his face, he smiled shyly and asked, "Shall we start?"
An inexplicable sense of unease spread through Wang Xi's heart, and she nodded subconsciously. Liang Si, though puzzled, also agreed.
"Then I'll open it." A faint smile played on his lips, like a child doing something naughty right under an adult's nose. "You really opened it!"
"No!" Liang Si finally realized.
Ling Yi asked Yang Wennan to go out and get the box himself because he was afraid of Yang Wennan. Yang Wennan's condition was indeed not right at that time, but it was different from now.
However, Liang Si was a step too late.
The box was opened; it opened by itself after a simple fiddle. Inside the box was nothing but a section of human hand bone.
"Found it! Found it!" A black line appeared on Yang Wennan's forehead, but it quickly disappeared. He paused, almost scrambling to get away from the box. "Senior, senior brother, why did you open it?"
"You opened it!" Wang Xi scratched his head. "Just now, Senior Brother Yang seemed like a completely different person."
"Changed? It's changed?"
"Yes, you opened the box and said you found it."
"Anyway," Liang Si said, hoisting Ling Yi onto her shoulder, "if we can't even stay in this place, then where exactly is the treasure vault?"
"Almost there, almost there, it's right below that pavilion in the middle of the lake."
There is indeed a pavilion by the river in the distance.
However, before she could say anything more, Yang Wennan rushed to the riverbank with the box containing the hand bone in her arms.
"Senior brother—"
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