Why is she in so much pain?
She was awakened by the pain.
What caught her eye were the beams of her familiar, shabby little house on Chengxiandao Road. A few thin rays of morning light filtered through the paper-covered window frames, casting mottled shadows on the ground. The air was filled with the rich, bitter aroma of herbs and the faint scent of her blood.
"hiss--"
She was just about to try to turn over to avoid the most painful spot, but as a result, the muscles were only slightly stretched, and a sharp pain that seemed to tear her apart suddenly exploded from her lower abdomen and rushed straight to her forehead.
Suddenly, stars appeared in front of her eyes and cold sweat soaked her thin shirt. However, she let out a suppressed cry of pain in her throat, and she forced back the tears that were welling up in her eyes.
"Ouch." Zhou Suyao gasped and had an inappropriate thought: she must have been slapped back to the beach after trying so hard to make a leap.
The huge room was empty. After thinking for a while, she endured the pain and struggled to stand up. She staggered step by step and crawled to the door like a turtle. As soon as she opened the door, she bumped into her second brother Qu Mingwu who was holding a bowl of medicine.
"Awake? You're pretty tough, short girl." Qu Mingwu raised his eyebrows, put the medicine bowl on the small table next to him, and pretended to help her.
Zhou Suyao ignored his provocative name and looked over his shoulder, anxiously looking behind him: "Where's the eldest brother? Where is he?"
The moment he heard the word "Big Brother," the teasing look on Qu Mingwu's face faded. He pushed her back onto the creaking bamboo couch in the room and said, "Don't look. She's not here. Do you think everyone is like you, lying here groaning for three days and that's it? You dare to get up and walk casually? You're really not afraid of the pain."
He paused, his face sullen. Without a word, he brought the bowl of medicine for her to drink. After a long moment, he spoke solemnly, "He single-handedly broke into the underworld to rescue you, and then cleaned up the mess you'd caused. On his way out, he was blocked by that female ghost... In order to force his way out, he broke his own elixir. Now he's lying there even more securely than you."
Zhou Suyao's eyes suddenly widened, and she nearly dropped the medicine bowl in her hand—that was the elixir! It was well known that after entering the spiritual path, cultivators spent ten years cultivating a soul core, ten years cultivating a soul heart, and another ten years cultivating a soul elixir. Only after they had cultivated the elixir could they be considered to have truly broken through the heavenly path and entered the spiritual path. And yet, the eldest brother had actually… personally destroyed at least ten years of his own cultivation in order to save them.
She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She felt as if her chest was about to explode.
"Why...why is he the only one here?!" Zhou Suyao was still puzzled. "How is this possible? What about the other elders, or the people from Xincong Sect? Didn't they notice anything wrong?"
Qu Mingwu shook his head, his voice lowered a few degrees. "The exam room was in chaos. People outside just thought it was an intense illusion. Only he... I don't know how he used it, but he realized that you really had fallen into the underworld. Without a joker card or a token, he just said goodbye to the three of us, then forced his way through the Yin-Yang Road alone, opened the Yin-Yang Gate, and when he got in, he saw that all of you - except for the second young master surnamed Qi who still had a little strength left - were seriously injured. He single-handedly took all the damage from the evil spirits and the ghost soldiers..."
Halfway through his words, he suddenly froze and paused, as if someone had suddenly grabbed his neck. At the same time, Zhou Suyao also raised her head abruptly.
Their eyes met in the air, and they both thought of the same key point at the same time.
"Second Brother, tell me, why did I enter the real underworld?" Zhou Suyao thought for a moment and asked, "Didn't we say that the exam was all an illusion? And if you want to enter the real underworld, you must have the underworld's joker card. I definitely don't have it, so who else could have it?"
"Or maybe no one did," Qu Mingwu said. "The third brother mentioned it to me before. He said there's a high-level, uncanny magic that allows people from the mortal realm to infiltrate the underworld. What do you think... could someone have secretly tampered with you four before you entered the illusion, and opened the link between the Spirit Stone and the underworld? And just like that, they sent you into the underworld without anyone noticing."
Zhou Suyao nodded. "It's not impossible, but," she hesitated for a moment, "this kind of high-level spell can probably only be performed by high-level cultivators. Moreover, they would have to cast this spell on all four of us at the same time to send us all to the underworld. Regardless of the three of them, just talking about me, before the competition, the only high-level cultivators I met were my master... and that elder from the Xincong Sect. They don't look like..."
"What doesn't it look like?" asked the second brother.
Yes. Zhou Suyao thought about it. Her master was so good to her. If she didn't have absolute evidence, she would never think that her master could be the evil person.
But the elder of Xincong Sect was completely different. She had only met him once, so how could she be sure that he was a good person?
Fear was like a cold stone, silently hitting them and making it hard to breathe.
After a while, Qu Mingwu finally let out a long breath and raised his hand to rub Zhou Suyao's messy head, trying to dispel the strange atmosphere. "Alright, little dwarf. You're back with all your limbs intact, right? Drink the medicine first and heal your body. Even if the sky really collapses one day, the first ones to be crushed will be Master and the three of us, not you."
"Qu! Ming! Wu! I! Can! Still! Grow! Up!" Zhou Suyao instantly became furious. She picked up the box of medicinal soup beside the couch and smashed it at the face that deserved a beating with incredible precision.
At the same time, at the foot of the mountain where Chengxiandao was located, it was so shabby that it didn't even have a proper mountain gate.
A graceful woman stopped at the foot of the mountain. She was wearing a blue and white Xincong Sect school uniform. She had an upright posture and an extraordinary demeanor.
Wangcai, who had been bored digging at the foot of the mountain, barked at the approaching figure. A moment later, a gray figure swayed and descended. It was none other than Zhou Suyao's cheap master, who could channel the air of a sage into the air of a streetwise uncle.
"Let me see... the aesthetic taste of those old fellows from Xincong Sect. What sin have I committed to see this unlucky thing as soon as I come here?"
After saying that, the master glanced at the girl, only to see that her face was completely calm. He felt a little embarrassed and turned away helplessly, saying, "The sect where I escaped from is full of young men who never leave the house. If you're here to look for someone, then you're going to look for that girl Su Yao, right?"
"That's right." The woman finally spoke in a clear voice, bowing slightly and politely. "I'm here to visit Madam Zhou on the orders of my young lady. Please, Master, show me the way."
After hearing this, the master snorted coldly, "You are much more polite than your clan leader." Then he pointed casually and threw a bunch of keys that looked very old into the woman's hand. "Just hold these keys and say 'Zhou Suyao' three times, and you will be able to go directly to her mountain... Oh, and remember to give the keys to Wangcai before you leave."
The woman held the cold, old key ring in her hand, a trace of bewilderment finally showing on her face. "...Wangcai?"
The master paused and pointed at the dog still digging a hole with his chin: "Here, this is it."
woman:"……"
"You're saying that Mingluo suspects Xuan Yangming—that old man from the Xincong Sect—might be involved in the unexpected events surrounding the exam?" Zhou Suyao frowned. "But, isn't that her master? Why would she... choose to tell me this?"
"This is all the young lady's choice. I have no right to know more." The woman leaned forward slightly. "The young lady also asked me to tell you that if you are willing to form an alliance with her, you can go to the 'Jinluo Pavilion' in five days. She will be waiting for you in the upper wing room on the third floor with a bell hanging on the door."
After the woman left, the second brother jumped down from the beam and stared at the woman's departing figure. He thought for a moment and said:
"As far as I know, before I was accepted as a disciple by the Chengxian Dao, the Xincong Sect and the Chengxian Dao had already been at odds. What do you think this girl named Mingluo is planning?"
"But I don't think Mingluo would harm me. She did this because she must have discovered something... something that she herself finds hard to accept, or even scared."
Before she could finish her words, there was a sudden sound of hurried footsteps outside the door. Then, the woman from Xincong Sect who had just left came back and appeared at the door. Zhou Suyao saw that her calm face, which had remained unchanged for thousands of years, finally cracked, and was stained with a trace of barely noticeable embarrassment.
She raised the rusty key in her hand, her tone showing a rare hesitation: "Uh... Madam Zhou, how am I supposed to get down the mountain with this thing?"
Zhou Suyao blinked, stunned for two seconds, then couldn't help but burst out laughing, causing her lower abdomen to ache again. She could only grit her teeth and breathe in, saying intermittently, "Ahem... just hold the key and silently say 'down the mountain' three times in your mind, that's all."
"But..." She paused, the expression on her face becoming even more ferocious due to the mixture of unable to suppress laughter and the pain in her lower abdomen. "You must not directly call out Xincong Zong. Last time, Third Senior Brother called out, and he was dragged straight into the shit pit."
The woman looked even more embarrassed and disappeared without a trace after turning her head.
The second brother gasped at the low desk behind him. After making sure that the woman wouldn't come back, he stood up shakily, holding the desk and hunching his waist. "Hey, little sister, did you see my reaction when I hid just now? I'm a genius, isn't it?"
"Like a fool." Zhou Suyao retorted.
"Hey, why do you say that about your senior brother?" Qu Mingwu shook his head, but still sat back down beside her bed, put away the medicine bowl beside him, and after thinking for a moment, he said, "Suyao, I support you no matter what you do, but this time the situation is really too strange. I can't understand why Mingluo, as a member of the Xincong Sect, would come to form an alliance with you... I think all of this is a bit strange and bizarre."
"I know." Zhou Suyao nodded. "Actually, I don't completely believe her, but I feel..."
After a pause, she seemed to suddenly remember something, raised her head and asked:
"Is the eldest brother awake now?"
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