Chapter 122 The Portrait in the Secret Chamber: The Lord of the Immortal Palace was once the most powerful cultivator in the world, but he was only a thousand years old, and his cultivation had reached the Great Ascension stage...
The Lord of the Immortal Palace was once the most powerful cultivator in the world. He was only a thousand years old and had reached the Great Ascension stage. He was the most likely genius to ascend to immortality back then.
Three hundred years ago, after the great war between immortals and demons, too much was lost. The final victory was achieved through painstaking efforts, and the aftereffects began to appear at this time.
Her cultivation level had fallen to the mid-stage of the Integration Realm, several realms below the mid-stage of the Mahayana Realm, but her cultivation was still not to be underestimated, and her position as the number one immortal palace in the world remained secure.
Over the years, she has been in seclusion recuperating from her injuries. When she occasionally emerges from seclusion, it is only to search for spiritual medicines for the young palace master, and she rarely takes action herself.
His friend Su Ying became the best in the world, but failed to transcend the tribulation and perished.
Since the birth of the young palace master, many people have taken care of her. Because of her extraordinary talent, she is loved by the elders of the sect, who wish they could take her as their disciple. However, none of the elders could persuade the other elders, so they taught her together.
When the person in the shadows looks back, they gaze at the shadows in the distance on the horizon.
Under the cold moonlight, the puppet cranes beneath the celestial pavilion still flew tirelessly, while the celestial cranes had long since fallen asleep, adding to the sense of loneliness.
Back then, the Immortal Pavilion didn't fly that high, and the puppet cranes carrying the Immortal Pavilion weren't as numerous.
Taking advantage of the momentary lapse in vigilance during the changing of the guards, Xi Congshuang slipped out of the shadows and went straight into the gate. With her waist badge on, she passed through without hindrance and did not disturb the barrier.
As the daughter of the palace master, it wouldn't be unreasonable for her to swagger in, but that would be too conspicuous and would attract the attention of the gatekeepers, preventing her from moving freely.
The first time Red Apple did something bad, it almost couldn't keep up with Xi Congshuang's actions, even though it thought it was something bad.
Relying on the fact that no one could see it, it followed half a beat behind, flapping its wings, not daring to utter a word.
Xi Congshuang decided to ask the system to do her a favor and go inside to see if there was anything amiss.
If the system could travel independently without being seen by anyone in this world except her, its safety factor would be higher. However, the system also has a fatal weakness.
It can go anywhere, whether it's in the sky or the sea, and it can go online or offline, but it cannot be more than ten meters away from Xi Congshuang, and it cannot be forced to leave.
The palace master's residence was far more magnificent and luxurious than others, with carved beams and painted rafters, and mythical beasts and birds. However, these were not things that Xi Congshuang cared about, and she drove straight in.
Having evaded the patrols of several disciples, Xi Congshuang stopped outside the bedroom. In her eyes, there were two two-colored orbs of light in front of the door, their cultivation at the Great Perfection of the Golden Core stage.
The disciple guarding there was Lan Hui's junior sister. According to seniority, Xi Congshuang should also be called a senior sister. In principle, Xi Congshuang's face is the best pass. She can go in, but she can't do anything extra.
Red Apple felt a pang of worry for Xi Congshuang: "As expected of the head of a palace, her residence is quite heavily guarded."
Xi Congshuang lowered her eyes, thinking that this was not right.
He was once the number one in the world, so it's impossible that he didn't have some confidence in himself and needed so many people to guard his residence.
"What should we do? We can't get in if we don't lure them away." Red Apple also hid in the shadows, extremely nervous.
Xi Congshuang quickly made a decision: "Then let's lure them away."
Red Apple: "Huh? Who led this?"
With a flick of her wrist, Xi Congshuang released a paper figure from her sleeve. The paper figure drifted towards the ground with the wind, and seemingly due to a fear of heights, it instinctively grabbed Xi Congshuang's robe and slid down, landing smoothly.
The paper figure wiped its sweat, carefully hid itself behind Xi Congshuang's shoes, and peeked out with half its head, much to Red Apple's surprise.
Xi Congshuang said, "The maximum distance you can leave me is ten meters. Within this limit, find a living creature that can move. Any living creature other than a disciple of the sect will do."
"Okay." Red Apple took the paper figure and left. The paper figure couldn't see who had caught it. It struggled in fear for a moment, but then it was attracted by the feeling of flying and began to enjoy it.
As she counted the time, Xi Congshuang sensed that the paper figure had taken effect. She instantly spread out her divine sense, suppressing the boundary so that it would not be detected by the master of the barrier, and manipulated the paper figure to walk towards the spirit beast and spirit bird garden that they had just passed.
Then.
"Boom—!"
The sudden fight between the spirit beasts caught the attention of the gatekeepers. They all looked over there, observing cautiously without making any rash moves.
"What happened?"
"I don't know, but it sounds like those spirit beasts are making a ruckus again."
After some time, the newly arrived disciple still hadn't calmed the fighting between the spirit beasts, so the two senior sisters had no choice but to send one of them away.
"What kind of spirit beast is so hard to catch? Why hasn't it returned yet?"
After waiting for a long time without anyone returning, another senior sister went there as well, and together with the other disciples, they tried to mediate between the spirit beasts.
These spirit beasts were raised by the Palace Master. Because they were in the Palace Master's Hall and no one dared to touch them, they caused a ruckus.
They couldn't fight back too hard, because this was the palace master's residence, and they couldn't be presumptuous. They could only helplessly grab spirit beasts all over the place and lock them up.
While they were busy dealing with the chaotic scene, Xi Congshuang successfully entered the palace.
Red Apple, who rushed back in time, was almost blinded by the scene inside. She could hardly tell whether it was a cultivator's residence or a dragon palace, which was luxurious and dazzling.
Xi Congshuang did not linger in the front hall, which is where the palace master usually receives guests. Next door is the place where the affairs of the immortal palace are handled. She has not been in the immortal palace recently, and almost everything has been handled by the elders.
After passing the clean desks, Xi Congshuang entered the interior and began to explore various places.
Red Apple, puzzled, couldn't help but ask, "What are you looking for?"
“There will be quite a few people coming here, and important things can’t be left out in the open. I’m looking for a secret room,” Xi Congshuang replied without turning her head.
Red Apple couldn't leave Xi Congshuang, so it could only fly around her, mimicking her movements as it fiddled with the various ornaments on the display shelf.
“Found it,” Xi Congshuang said.
She paused, withdrawing her hand from turning the mermaid candlestick.
A tremor ran through her, as if something was opening up to her, bringing with it the ancient winds from the earth.
Xi Congshuang immediately dodged aside, holding her breath, unsure if there were any other traps.
If the Palace Master's secret chamber were protected by a barrier, Xi Congshuang could find it even faster, as she has an extraordinary sensitivity to spiritual energy fluctuations.
On the contrary, the secret chamber, which had no spiritual power, made it quite difficult for Xi Congshuang, who could not see the surface, to find it.
The palace was even more heavily guarded, so Xi Congshuang dared not use her divine sense to search. She could only rely on the guidance of the red apple to find her way step by step.
Fortunately, her efforts paid off, and she actually found it.
Anything protected by a barrier, no matter how complex or sophisticated, will arouse a desire for exploration.
From afar, she could hear the commotion continuing. The paper figure's effect could only last for a quarter of an hour; any longer and it would arouse suspicion.
If she missed today, the next time she could go this far would be a long time coming. Xi Congshuang turned and walked inside.
Perhaps there's a way to cure Lingfu inside. Sitting and waiting for death is not something Xi Congshuang would do; who would want to die when they can live?
After the dark figure disappeared at the entrance to the secret room, the invisible red apple on her shoulder followed her inside, reminding her of the direction and her steps.
No one would believe it if they told anyone: the secret chamber of the Celestial Palace Master, which was unknown to anyone, was entered by a blind man.
The passageway was deep and long, with mermaid candles burning on both sides. Xi Congshuang walked through it, her body slightly bent, a posture to protect her vital points and be ready to attack at any moment.
"We're here. The secret room isn't very big." Red Apple was uninterested.
Unexpectedly, the secret room was relatively empty, with few items inside, and Xi Congshuang could hear the echo of her own footsteps.
Xi Congshuang was not easily fooled by appearances. Her eyes, which had been covered, turned around, and she asked Red Apple to recount the scene in front of her in detail.
“Okay,” Red Apple readily complied. “The floor is empty, there’s nothing there. The four walls are lined with display shelves, filled with empty wooden boxes, each containing a little something…”
"Wait a moment, I'll look at them in order."
This is the unseen disadvantage: the information one wants to know has to rely on another pair of eyes, and one has to analyze the clues one wants from subjective descriptions.
Red Apple was unaware of Xi Congshuang's subtle anxiety. It started by looking at the first wall next to the entrance: "The first box contained a twin lotus flower, one larger and one smaller."
Xi Congshuang constructed a space in her mind using the words of the red apple. As it described, she felt the fluctuations of spiritual energy. The light in front of her was not even as big as a pinhead.
She concluded that the box had a sealing effect, which was why the spiritual power of the twin lotus was very weak and could not be detected unless one stood right in front of it, so this was no ordinary flower.
"The second box contained two small flags, one torn and the other intact."
From the description of the red apple, Xi Congshuang had the answer: this was the spirit flag that was planted at the eye of the formation when she first learned the formation.
Array cultivators are beings who can utilize everything in front of them, including the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, trees, flowers, mountains, rivers, lakes and seas, to form arrays. Sometimes they can even utilize other cultivators.
When beginners first learn array formation, they cannot effectively utilize the spiritual energy of heaven and earth to form arrays for themselves. They need to insert flags at the array's core to attract spiritual energy and stabilize the array.
The amazing thing is that, according to Red Apple's description, each box contains two items. Sometimes both items are intact, and sometimes one item is damaged.
It's like the Palace Master using old objects to record her cultivation journey, which is no different from her method of writing a diary—it's all just for the sake of recording.
What puzzled Xi Congshuang even more was that the shelves on the third wall were empty, and then there were things on the fourth wall, but the number of items had changed to one, and they were still small, insignificant items placed in wooden boxes.
Xi Congshuang didn't quite understand why the Palace Master would put a replica of the seal in the box—a stone seal that was smaller than the real Palace Master's seal and had no spiritual power.
What's the point of this?
The palace mistress built a secret room in her palace and put some odds and ends that seemed like children playing house, or perhaps they had some meaning that she didn't understand.
"Why is there a scroll hanging here?" Red Apple's attention was drawn to a scroll hanging on an empty wall. Its wings fell and the knotted ropes fell, revealing a blank scroll.
“This one too, there’s nothing there,” Red Apple said to Xi Congshuang, who had come over after hearing the noise.
Xi Congshuang seemed not to hear, placing her hand on the blank scroll, her spiritual energy flashing by.
“It’s an illusion. I ‘saw’ the illusion in the picture, so what I saw with my naked eye was just a blank scroll.”
Good fortune and misfortune are intertwined. If a cultivator with normal eyesight were here, he might ignore the illusion above and leave, thinking there was nothing here.
However, upon arriving here, one could only see Xi Congshuang in her true form, which made her realize the existence of the seal.
Unraveling illusions is not a difficult technique; almost every disciple of the Celestial Palace has learned it, and it is very useful in illusion arrays.
However, the difficulty of unraveling the illusion varies depending on the depth of one's cultivation.
Recalling her several encounters with the Palace Master, Xi Congshuang was certain that the Palace Master's face was not disguised; if it were, the elders would have noticed it much earlier than she had.
The illusion technique is essentially a minor spell, known to everyone in the Immortal Palace. It's a family tradition, and no matter how complex it is, it can't escape the eyes of the elders.
She can see through the illusion before her.
The scroll's true form was revealed to the red apple; it depicted a person, the ruler of the celestial palace.
Xi Congshuang: "What's drawn on it?"
The red apple was inexplicably shocked and instinctively replied, "Your mother."
Xi Congshuang: "".
Red Apple panicked: "This isn't swearing, don't punish me! It really is your mother! She looks exactly like you, with sky-blue wide sleeves, but her temperament wasn't as calm as it is now. Sitting on the throne of the palace master, she would even smile."
After looking at it again and again, Red Apple's tone became conflicted: "It's just..."
"What is it?"
Red Apple found the portrait truly terrifying. Her ethereal and beautiful face, with a smile playing on her lips, was marked with a large X, and the ink deliberately avoided the face, resembling some kind of malicious curse.
Who would mark their own portrait with a malicious cross and hang it in a secret room?
Xi Congshuang didn't quite understand its description either.
"Did you cross out your own portrait?"
*
In the dead of night, a sudden commotion arose, as lively as during the day.
The person in meditation was awakened and opened their eyes in surprise to look out the window.
Could it be that I haven't been to the Immortal Pavilion for too long?
Was the fairy palace always this lively at night?
Before she could figure it out, she got out of bed to close the window.
Generally speaking, it's best for an outsider like her to stay out of these kinds of things, as it's easy to get herself into trouble.
She had only been downstairs for one night, and her past reputation hadn't been completely cleansed yet, so she couldn't cause Xi Congshuang any trouble.
Suddenly a figure appeared by the window, descending gracefully like a celestial being. Su Wenxin looked up.
As the white silk ribbon, three fingers wide, fell from the person's eyes, the black hair began to turn frost-colored from the ends to the roots.
The person outside the window held up a finger to their nose: "Shh, give me a hand."
Su Wenxin trusted her unconditionally and asked in a low voice, "How can I help?"
“Tell everyone that I’ve been in your room all night.”
Xi Congshuang held onto the window frame, took a long stride and jumped in. Under Su Wenxin's shocked gaze, she took off her black outer robe and tucked it back into her sleeve.
She wasn't wearing an outer robe, revealing a light blue inner robe with a belt tied around her waist, showing off her slender and supple figure, looking more relaxed than usual.
Su Wenxin was almost confused, unsure where to look. She hesitated for a second before asking, "What?"
No sooner had she finished speaking than there was a knock on Su Wenxin's door; it was Lan Hui.
"Miss Su, are you inside?"
Su Wenxin looked at Xi Congshuang, who nodded to her and poured herself a cup of tea.
After calming herself down, she walked to the door, opened it, and said to Lan Hui outside, "Senior Lan, is there something you need to see me about so late?"
Lan Hui didn't look at her immediately, but instead looked through Su Wenxin behind the door into the room and saw Xi Congshuang drinking tea. Only then did she breathe a sigh of relief.
She said, "Just now, the Palace Master's spirit beasts were fighting, and my junior sisters were running around with them. I was afraid the Palace Master wouldn't be used to it and would find them noisy, so I came to check on them."
Seeing that no one was in Xi Congshuang's room, she naturally went to the next room. In Lan Hui's mind, it was no longer strange for the two of them to appear together.
She would find it strange if Xi Congshuang or Su Wenxin were alone outside one day.
Xi Congshuang slowly sipped her tea: "And then you wanted to give me two junior sisters to teach?"
The palace master would take on one or two disciples in the sect's grand competition every thirty years. After taking on disciples, she would go into seclusion, so the task would fall to Lan Hui.
The junior sisters are well-behaved and obedient, but things always keep coming up. They finally found Xi Congshuang who could help share the burden, and then they wanted to push the more talented junior sister, who they didn't have much time to teach, onto her side, so that Xi Congshuang could have some vitality.
Lan Hui was unusually a little embarrassed: "I see you have plenty of free time. Your junior sisters see that Yu Se has one and they want one too... Oh well, we're leaving for Qingfeng Sect in a couple of days, so I won't let them bother you. You should get some rest."
Xi Congshuang served tea: "You didn't ask, how come you didn't know whether I was willing or not?"
Lan Hui was pleasantly surprised: "It would be wonderful if you were willing. I'll have someone come over tomorrow. Even if you don't learn it, consider it as coming to keep Miss Su company."
"..."
Su Wenxin was shocked to find herself involved: "I'm not at the age where I need someone to play with me!"
The compassionate senior sister of the Ruthless Path didn't think so. After making the agreement, she left happily.
Even the spirit beasts aren't angry about fighting tonight.
Upon seeing her junior sisters catching spirit beasts all over the ground, Lan Hui thought to herself, "Maybe I should just stay angry."
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