Chapter 284 Three Years
[Triggering host-set task: "When cultivation level regresses, reward condition one will be automatically triggered." Host, do you agree? Countdown: three seconds]
When the mechanical female voice rang these words in her mind, Mu Jianjian was no longer aware of it. Her consciousness was enveloped by endless emptiness, and was repeatedly overturned, shuffled, and covered again.
Three, two, one—
As the three sounds subsided, the girl, whose eyes had been clouded, suddenly opened them and met the image of a white figure that had materialized in the void. The "eye" in the distance had left at some point, and with her body no longer suppressed, she quickly raised her hand and waved it at the phantom.
"roll."
Having regained her strength, Mu Jianjian coldly glanced at the white figure, and her surging true energy quickly dispersed the white figure, which then disappeared into thin air.
She took a deep breath, looked at the mist that had gathered around her again, quickly adjusted her body to the restored true energy, and threw herself into a new round of battle.
Only after burning and cutting away all the white mist with the Fire Fox Dagger did Mu Jianjian finally have time to catch her breath and rest.
Suddenly sensing movement behind her, she once again mustered her senses and gripped the dagger tightly against the intruder's neck.
"who?"
"Hmm..."
A white-haired boy bit his lip and raised his neck, his dark eyes fixed on her. Soon, two tears streamed down his face. Despite possessing the true energy of a Nascent Soul cultivator, his expression was like that of a newborn child, ignorant and bewildered.
Mu Jianjian narrowed her eyes, gripped the Fire Fox Dagger, and pressed it against the other person's neck again. "Now that we are both trapped here, you don't need to oppose me and make things difficult for each other."
She originally thought that bringing this person in would cause him to lose his memory and true energy, but she didn't expect that the void would have no effect on him at all.
It's still almost Nascent Soul level true energy... This is difficult to handle.
Is it because of the iron chain magic weapon he forged himself?
"Ha..." The boy gasped for breath, his chest rising and falling with each breath, until he finally managed to utter a single word, "Mother—"
Her eyes, glistening with tears, looked innocent and pure.
Mu Jianjian: ?
She gasped, "Have you lost your mind?"
What the heck? Amnesia?
"Mother, please don't abandon me, okay?" The boy's eyebrows furrowed in sorrow, as if he would burst into tears if she didn't agree. He instinctively wanted to get closer to Mu Jianjian, not even caring about the dagger at his neck.
"Stay away from me!" Mu Jianjian quickly took a few steps back to keep her distance from the boy. Her temples throbbed, but the hand holding the dagger did not move. "Don't call me mother!"
"Does Mother not want to acknowledge me anymore?" Upon hearing this, the boy's sobs grew louder and louder.
"Stop, stop, stop," she quickly interrupted, "You've mistaken me for someone else. I'm not your mother. What's your name?"
This is outrageous! After escaping a calamity by using the system's rewards in this void, I inexplicably ended up with a son!
She's still a young girl in the prime of her life!
"My name is..." The boy obediently stopped crying, frowning as he thought for a moment, "Mother, I've forgotten what my name is..."
Mu Jianjian: ...
"First of all, I'm not your mother. You can call me sister." Looking at the other person, she didn't seem to be lying, nor was she a fierce person. Seeing that he seemed harmless like a little lamb, she said, "How about I help you choose a name?"
"Okay! Mother... okay." The boy said with difficulty, but the sadness in his expression disappeared, replaced by excitement and joy.
"How about Tie Dan? You're wearing an iron chain too, it matches well." Although the other party had lost his memory, Mu Jianjian still vividly remembered the scene of him using an iron chain to ambush people from underground.
"Okay!" The voice was clear and bright, filled with boundless trust.
Seeing this, Mu Jianjian felt a pang of conscience. She waved her hand and said, "Fine, I'll call you... Pure White. If you want to change your name later, you can tell me."
"good!"
After three "good" sounds, the boy narrowed his eyes, a silver chain connecting his thin wrist on one side and dangling in the air on the other.
“As for this place, it’s just a void. What we need to do now is to break through this place from the inside out so that we can get out.” Mu Jianjian coaxed Chunbai, trying to get him to use his true energy to assist him.
After all, if she were to break through this void on her own, even if she could, it would be a long time before she could grind an iron rod into a needle.
"Then Mother... if we go out, can we still stay together?" Chunbai raised her eyes, her dark eyes fixed on the girl.
"Of course." Mu Jianjian knew it would be difficult to get the boy who had lost his memory to speak, so she ignored his form of address.
Chunbai nodded, reached out and took the girl's hand, his expression obedient like a classical puppet.
His long, white eyelashes paired with his pure white hair were as clean and unparalleled as his name, and as transparent and pure as his memories.
——
Three years later.
Inside the "Panmen" palace in the mountains, the stone walls and earth that were once stained with blood have long since sprouted new buds, exuding endless nature and vitality. In front of the lotus stone platform, a long-haired woman sits cross-legged.
At the very front of the palace, a tiny, shriveled "flower bud" was gradually shrinking and even on the verge of bursting.
"Click-clack—"
Suddenly, the black and red petals around the "flower bud" emitted a piercing sound, and inch by inch, they began to crack in the gaps between the petals. White light gradually broke out from the cracks, and the luster reflected on the surrounding stone walls, creating a scene resembling the shimmering waves of the seabed. This strange phenomenon also caused the woman who was sitting quietly in front of the stone platform to slowly open her eyes.
Her eyes swept over the broken "bud," she stood up and walked closer, her expression unchanged, but her tightly clenched palms betrayed her emotions.
“Jianjian…” Sang Wanyue softly called out the name.
Suddenly, a fair hand reached out from within the "flower bud" and gripped the stone platform tightly, as if an attraction from below was drawing people in.
Her long-dormant heart began to beat again. Sang Wanyue immediately went forward, grasped the hand, and pulled the owner of the hand out with all her might. But she never expected that what emerged from the flower bud was a white-haired boy as pure as a child.
"Who are you?"
As her memories returned, her eyes narrowed, and an endless murderous aura instantly rose from her body. The knife in her hand was thrust fiercely towards the boy's neck until a familiar girl's voice rang in her ears.
"Yueyue! Wait, wait—"
Sang Wanyue paused, turning her head to look at the girl who emerged from the "flower bud" next.
The girl stood with one foot on the lotus stone platform, the other foot having just escaped from the viscous reddish-black liquid around her. Her expression was one of disgust, yet she was enveloped in a thick aura of true energy. The "flower bud" beside her feet, after being freed, had its tentacles turn into a stagnant pool of water as if it had lost its life, and its petals gradually turned black, even showing signs of decay.
"Ha, my goodness, we finally escaped! It was so difficult, it nearly killed me." Mu Jianjian smacked her lips and wiped the sticky liquid off her face. She turned to look at the lifeless "Manluo," muttering, "It really does require someone inside to break through before it can be truly killed and eliminated. That condition is really harsh..."
"Pointy!"
Before Mu Jianjian's feet even touched the ground, a warm embrace enveloped her, and the familiar fragrance of snow lotus wafted from the woman's side, making her feel exceptionally relaxed.
Feeling the pressure from her arms, she experienced for the first time, after three years in the void, the feeling that she was still alive.
"...Jian?" Chunbai stared blankly at the two people embracing. He raised his hands as if to hug them back, but his feet didn't move and his hands couldn't reach them at all, which puzzled him greatly.
Upon hearing this name, Sang Wanyue released Mu Jianjian and focused her attention on the boy, her killing intent still lingering. "Jianjian, who is he?"
She clearly remembered that this person had grabbed Jianjian and then been pulled into the "flower bud" by Jianjian. How could he be here now?
“Ah, he is…” Mu Jianjian then realized that she had forgotten to introduce Chunbai. Taking this opportunity, she briefly recounted her confrontation with “Eye” in the “Manluo” void and her subsequent encounter with Chunbai. As expected, she received a look of heartache and guilt from Sang Wanyue.
"But have you ever thought about what would happen if his memory suddenly returned one day?"
“I definitely thought about it,” Mu Jianjian took a deep breath, “but Yueyue, his true qi skill played a crucial role in my ability to break through the 'barrier' and return so quickly. Besides, he risked his life to save me many times. I can’t ignore those things…”
Recalling the attack she had suffered from the immortal white mist in the void, she felt nauseous.
"Hello." Chunbai didn't feel rejected and greeted Sang Wanyue in a daze first.
Seeing that the other party only nodded slightly, he was not angry at all and still smiled.
"Yueyue, have you been waiting for me here all this time?" Mu Jianjian drew their attention back. Seeing her silence, she knew she had guessed correctly and felt touched. "But what if I hadn't come out? The situation outside must be extremely dire. If... if..."
“There are no ifs,” Sang Wanyue grabbed the hand of the person beside her and led her slowly outside. “I’ll tell you about the situation outside in these three years, and… the movements in the Upper Realm.”
As for the external situation, Ye Wuluo, Linghu Zhuoyu, Wan Xing and others can handle it. Besides, these things... can't compare to her.
"Come on." Mu Jianjian waved to the blankly white figure behind her, and smiled when she saw him obediently follow.
In Sang Wanyue's narration, a spirit was captured during the "sacrifice" planned by Changsheng Tower three years ago. By interrogating that spirit, they finally obtained some general outlines of the "sacrifice" plan.
First, they planted "Manluo" in the lower realm, which uses the flesh and blood of humans and demons as nourishment. Then, they lured a large number of cultivators to "sacrifice" them. Among these cultivators in the lower realm, they selected a spirit with extremely high talent to form a "mark". This way, the "red pillar of light" that Mu Jianjian had seen in the illusion would descend from the horizon and bring calamity to the other world.
However, this time she entered "Manluo", so she naturally cleared the mark, and the "red pillar of light" did not appear in the lower realm, preventing the "red pillar of light" from descending for the first time in the original book.
“At first, everyone was very worried about you. Uncle Mu, Uncle Guo, and the Third Elder all stayed here after receiving the news. Not to mention Ye Wuluo and the others, even the young master of the Supreme Palace came to visit,” Sang Wanyue sighed. “Later, when we heard from Sha Ying that the 'flower bud' getting smaller and smaller meant that the 'mark' had failed, we were relieved.”
Her junior sister is gentle yet decisive, and deserves to be liked by everyone.
"He couldn't withstand the interrogation of divine sense and told us in detail about the approximate locations of the 'Panmen' that had been planted in our area. The various sects then sent elders to explore the relevant locations. Fortunately, the other 'Panmen' were not as well-established as those in Duyunfang, and they were eliminated after some effort."
"The upper realm tried to steal a chicken but lost the rice instead, and remained quiet for quite some time."
"What about other sects besides us, such as the Golden Crow Temple, the Cloud Crossing Pavilion, and the Joyful Union Palace..." Mu Jianjian asked softly.
“Jianjian, don’t worry,” Sang Wanyue lowered her eyes, her long, curly black hair falling down her side, highlighting her stunning beauty, while her aloof and cold temperament disappeared because of the girl beside her. “I haven’t let any of the people who harmed you at the Golden Crow Temple go, nor have I let those people from Duyunfang go.”
They don't deserve to live.
The remaining sect cultivators only need to be those who share the same goals as them.
Mu Jianjian blinked, feeling the joy of being protected.
The two walked through the "Panmen" for a while, and the passageway on the side gradually narrowed. A stream of lava appeared below the stone passage, and the scorching heat seemed to be able to burn one's skin.
"Yueyue, has anyone gone down into this lava?" Mu Jianjian stopped and looked down.
"No." Sang Wanyue denied it, but instantly realized her unspoken meaning, "Is there anything special about down there?"
“Yes, we’ll go down and take a look together,” Mu Jianjian said, taking Sang Wanyue’s hand and turning back to Chunbai, “Remember what I told you?”
"Mmm." Pure White nodded.
The Yellow Spring Water was casually summoned and scattered around, even more abundant than when they were still in the Foundation Establishment stage. The two felt no heat at all, and slowly sank downwards as the water bubbles descended.
"What did you mean by what you just said to Chunbai?" Sang Wanyue asked curiously.
“He has high cultivation, but he is a bit simple-minded. I told him that if he encounters an unkind person, he will respond with words if the other person speaks, and if the other person bullies him, he will bully them back.”
"That's just like your personality," Sang Wanyue pursed her lips, "I never knew there was a hidden world beneath this magma. What's down there?"
"Do you know that 'Manluo' is nourished by the life force of humans and demon beasts?" Mu Jianjian suddenly leaned closer.
"Um."
“I suspect that the ‘Manluo’ grows the fastest in the ‘Panmen’ of Duyunfang because the dragons here are providing it with a constant source of life.”
"Dragon race?" Sang Wanyue suddenly remembered her Huo Huo.
It has been dormant in the space ever since it mistakenly ate the tentacles of that monster, and it is also a legendary ancient bloodline that has disappeared.
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