Chapter 29 (Part 1)

Ling Wushuang kept staring at the person in front of her, trying to tell truth from falsehood through his eyes. However, Song Yuanxi’s eyes were always clear and bright, so clear they even carried a hint of stupidity. After staring for too long, she actually began to feel as if she were the one bullying and tempting him.

This was way too unfair!

Ling Wushuang put away her intention to lecture him, coughed lightly, and said, “Since that is the case, I will believe you for now.”

With the crisis resolved, Song Yuanxi hurriedly asked about He Man’s whereabouts. “Senior Sister Ling, have you seen the person who fell down with me?”

“This is not the initial point where you fell from the cliff. I do not know.”

“I see. Then I’ll just…”

“However, my sect has a special method for finding people.”

The word “goodbye” was forcibly swallowed back down. Song Yuanxi walked forward warmly and said with a brilliant smile, “The three great sects have always shared the same breath and branches, especially Xuantian Sect and Tianyi Sect. We’re neighbors living right next door. As the saying goes, distant relatives are not as good as close neighbors. Our two sects have frequent daily dealings, and the sect masters are on close terms. As sect disciples, we should follow the example from above and carry through the spirit of unity, mutual aid, harmony, and affection to the very end…”

As Ling Wushuang listened to this string of official rhetoric, her expression grew increasingly subtle. Was this Qi Refining disciple from Xuantian Sect’s Administrative Affairs Hall?

She had heard her own sect master mention once that the hall master of Xuantian Sect’s Administrative Affairs Hall was deeply versed in the ways of external negotiations, and was so silver-tongued he could revive the dead and regrow flesh on bones with nothing but his mouth.

Ling Wushuang privately thought that this disciple had probably received the true inheritance!

“Stop!” Ling Wushuang raised her sword with a swish. Sure enough, the other party immediately fell silent. Only then did she say in satisfaction, “I can help you, but you have to agree to one condition.”

“As long as Senior Sister wants it, as long as I can do it.”

An hour later, Song Yuanxi was sitting on the surface of Heartless Lake. Beneath him was an enormous green lotus leaf. Ling Wushuang had made him the array eye, and before she completed the array, he was not allowed to move around casually.

To put it simply, he was the bait for fishing.

“I really never expected Senior Sister Ling to be this deranged. Using a cultivator as bait? Isn’t this asking for my life?” Song Yuanxi ranted wildly in his heart, but on his face he wore a gentle smile as he called to the person on the lakeshore, “Senior Sister Ling, when will this array be done? Earlier, you said you had been setting it up for three days…”

“I am repairing the array. It will be soon. If you are bored, meditate on your own.”

“…”

Why make things worse?

After Song Yuanxi confirmed that he was still safe for the time being, he simply lay crookedly on the lotus leaf and narrowed his eyes to sleep. He gazed at the blazing sun above his head and began pondering the differences between the secret realm and the outside world. Incidentally, he also thought about a philosophical question: was this sun the same sun, and yet not the sun?

Ling Wushuang worked hard for most of the day and finally finished repairing the array. When she looked up, the other party had fallen asleep on her emerald lotus leaf.

He had even arranged himself in an extremely languid and bewitching posture.

Ling Wushuang was speechless for a moment. If he had managed to enter Tushan Secret Realm, he had probably gone through the back door. Silently, she labeled Song Yuanxi as a freeloader.

Song Yuanxi drifted back and forth between deep thought and shallow awareness. Very soon, he sank into a daze, and finally fell into a hazy sleep. He was woken by ice-cold lake water splashing over him. In his beautiful dream, cold icy rain began to fall, slapping wildly against his face. Song Yuanxi woke with a start.

When he opened his eyes, the green lotus leaf beneath him had changed drastically. The originally large, round leaf had become pitted and uneven, extremely irregular and ragged, as if it had been bitten by something.

“What’s going on? Why is… there’s a fish!” In an instant, Song Yuanxi saw a head leaping out of the lake. It had sharp, razor-like teeth, and that thing was gnawing messily at the lotus leaf. The place Song Yuanxi occupied shrank by another eighth.

“Senior Sister Ling? Senior Sister Ling! There’s a fish! A fish is eating your lotus leaf!” he shouted toward the lakeshore.

“The emerald lotus leaf was originally prepared for the Kunpeng egg. Once it finishes eating, it will have taken the bait.” Before Song Yuanxi could cry and complain, Ling Wushuang soothed him, “The array is already complete. Even without that lotus leaf supporting you, you will not fall.”

Song Yuanxi: That is completely different, okay!

It was like walking on a glass skywalk. Because there was a layer of glass beneath your feet, you were afraid, but at least your heart had some assurance. If that layer of glass were gone and they still made you keep walking forward, even if other people told you it was very safe and had super-strong protection, you would still be scared stiff.

First of all, he could not get past the hurdle in his own heart!

Watching the lotus leaf beneath him grow smaller and smaller and smaller, Song Yuanxi truly wanted to raise his head to the sky and shout: This concubine cannot do it!

The big fish below ate the leaf very casually. Sometimes it was fast, sometimes it was slow. Song Yuanxi endured on the array eye for a long time before he finally heard a heavenly sound.

“Junior Brother Song, you can come up now.” Ling Wushuang’s trap had succeeded.

Song Yuanxi slapped three Swift Travel Talismans onto himself and rushed toward the lakeshore in one breath. After finally reaching land, he could not wait to see the culprit that had eaten the lotus leaf.

“Senior Sister Ling, may I take a look at the Kunpeng egg?”

Ling Wushuang opened her palm. In the center of it, a small fish about ten centimeters long was hopping around energetically. From its tiny size, there was no trace of the way it had looked in the lake.

“This is the Kunpeng egg?” Song Yuanxi’s expression was astonished.

Ling Wushuang said, “After eating the entire emerald lotus, it has already hatched. Right now, it is in the form of a great fish. If it obtains the right opportunity, it can transform into a peng bird in the future.”

Song Yuanxi’s eyes were doubtful, as if saying: you call this thing a great fish?

Ling Wushuang fell silent for a moment. She muttered an incantation under her breath, and the small fish in her palm rose into the air. Its body continuously grew midair, until finally it became a large fish three meters long and two meters wide.

Although it could not be connected to the Kun described in ancient books at all, it was indeed the fish Song Yuanxi had seen in the lake. It was just that…

That gray-blue back, that flawlessly pure white belly, wide in the front and narrow in the back, that streamlined curve. Especially that astonishingly large mouth, filled with row after row of sharp fangs…

No matter how he looked at it, it looked like a shark!

“Senior Sister Ling, are you sure this is a Kunpeng egg? Isn’t this… a jiao?”

In ancient times, sharks were called jiao, also known as wolves of the sea. As for the merfolk race of the cultivation world that lived in the Northern Sea, they had evolved from jiao sharks.

Ling Wushuang said, “It does indeed have jiao bloodline, but the bloodline is thin and cannot allow it to transform into merfolk form. As for the Kunpeng…”

Song Yuanxi instantly pricked up his ears and put on an obedient expression of listening attentively. Who knew the other party would suddenly stop speaking?

“Senior Sister Ling?”

“Junior Brother Song seems very interested in the Kunpeng egg?”

“I’m not! I’m really not!” Smelling a trace of danger, Song Yuanxi instinctively sought survival.

“That is good. Junior Brother Song also knows that the reason a secret becomes a secret is because heaven knows, earth knows, I know, and no one else knows. You know, only the dead can keep secrets.”

A chill instantly ran down Song Yuanxi’s spine.

Ling Wushuang turned the Kunpeng egg back into the form of a small fish, then stuffed it into a spirit beast bag and called for Song Yuanxi to follow. Now that her mission was complete, she would honor her promise and take him to search for his fellow disciple.

Song Yuanxi followed Ling Wushuang downward the whole way. Aside from necessary communication, he refused any extra conversation. Finally, on the morning of the third day, they found He Man.

The other party was together with a group of Huayang Sect disciples. Judging from his agile and flawless movements and bearing, even if he was injured, it likely was not serious.

“Senior Brother He!” Song Yuanxi rushed forward happily, waving and shouting, “It’s me, Senior Brother He!”

Hearing the voice, He Man turned his head and happily waved his arms as well. He rushed over and hugged Song Yuanxi, unable to resist thumping the other party’s back heavily.

“Junior Brother Song, I finally found you. Senior Brother missed you to death.”

He Man refined artifacts year-round, and his hands were absurdly strong. Song Yuanxi was nearly slapped into internal injury and hurriedly struggled free.

“Senior Brother He, why are you together with Huayang Sect disciples?”

“I woke up three days ago at the very end of Heartless Lake. I thought I would follow the current upstream to look for you, Junior Brother Song, and just happened to run into Huayang Sect disciples preparing to go upward. So I joined them halfway to have some company.”

He Man always kept a certain distance from disciples of other sects. Now that he had found his junior brother, he immediately stepped forward and said goodbye to them. When he came back, however, he stared at the female cultivator beside Song Yuanxi. His gaze carried a faint trace of probing, and at the same time, he remained vigilant.

“Junior Brother Song is so simple. This female cultivator looks shrewd at a glance. How did they end up walking together? Could Junior Brother Song have been tricked?”

The more He Man thought about it, the more he felt something was wrong. He consciously pulled Song Yuanxi behind himself. “May I ask who this is?”

Song Yuanxi quickly made the introduction. “This is Senior Sister Ling Wushuang from Tianyi Sect. The reason I was able to get out of Heartless Lake safely is all thanks to Senior Sister Ling saving me. She was also very generous and provided Tianyi Sect’s special secret method for finding people. That is how I was able to find you so smoothly, Senior Brother.”

As for the matter of the Kunpeng egg, Song Yuanxi took the initiative to hide that part. For one, the matter of him being bait was a little embarrassing. For another, he was under threat from Ling Wushuang’s sword energy, and she did not want a third person to know of the Kunpeng egg’s existence.

He Man nodded to Ling Wushuang in thanks. “He Man of Xuantian Sect thanks Junior Sister Ling here for saving my junior brother. Once we leave the secret realm, I will certainly repay you generously.”

“Silver and goods have both been settled. There is no need for thanks. Farewell.” Ling Wushuang considered the transaction complete and turned to leave.

Song Yuanxi and He Man became companions again. The two headed toward the center of the secret realm. The journey was relatively peaceful, and Song Yuanxi could not help gossiping as he asked, “Senior Brother He, what cultivation level is Senior Sister Ling?”

“Fifth level of Qi Refining, and her aura is unstable. I imagine she advanced not long ago.”

Song Yuanxi gained another point of confusion in his heart. This was becoming more and more inconsistent with the plot in the book. Sword Cultivation, the emotionless Dao, low cultivation… was this still the female lead?

“Could I have read a fake novel?” Song Yuanxi could not help complaining.

Unfortunately, this was his first time coming into contact with novels, and he did not know that there was a saying in the world of transmigrating into books: “The original plot is for reference only; everything depends on actual circumstances.”

Only many years later, after discovering more and more so-called bugs in the book, did Song Yuanxi finally truly understand: “The original novel misled me.”

Half a month later, the two finally arrived at the center of the secret realm and met up with Jiang Lanyi, Du Tianyu, and the others.

At this moment, Song Yuanxi discovered that people from other sects and forces were also gathered all around. They each formed their own camp, clustered together in waves. From time to time, they whispered among themselves; from time to time, they walked around and exchanged information. They seemed calm on the surface, yet there was a tense atmosphere everywhere.

“Senior Sister Jiang, what is going on?” Song Yuanxi leaned close to Jiang Lanyi and asked softly.

“Tushan Secret Realm opens once every fifty years. Each time it opens, a secret treasure emerges. In the past, there would be movement only three months after the secret realm opened, but this time, for some unknown reason, there was an abnormal change ahead of schedule.”

Jiang Lanyi pointed to the very front, where a hazy stretch of Gobi faintly overflowed with flowing light. “That is the source of the secret treasure. When the light is at its brightest, the secret treasure will emerge.”

Song Yuanxi looked at that stretch of Gobi. It was bare and, aside from glowing, had nothing at all. Could a secret treasure grow out of this? Even if a secret treasure did grow out, there was only one of it, and so many people would fight over it. There would definitely be casualties.

Next Chapter >