Chapter 100

The still ocean water was split into two without any prior warning, an infinitely deep abyss nearly a hundred zhang wide made in the middle. The huge ship plunged headfirst into the depths, emitting a rumbling sound in midair like it was going to fall apart, sounding like someone’s teeth were rattling.

Kneading his ears, Yan Zhengming waved his hand to retract the Stone Seed into his sleeve. The two each mounted their swords, then stopped perilously above the crevasse.

There was no wind, nor waves. The water bobbed right up and right down, but its rate of flow was so slow, it was unnatural, simultaneously supporting a frigid seawater wall, its lifeless ripples the spitting image of paint.

The two midair swords shivered involuntarily, as if intending to throw off their masters and flee solo at any time.

Cheng Qian gathered true essence into his eyes, then looked down. The gap’s end could not be seen.

“Senior, you said that your lousy boat would find the Site by itself according to its pure qi, yet it ended up finding a ditch?” he had to mock, finding something funny in this pain.

Yan Zhengming glared at him. “How would I know about this? Furthermore, why the hell would I come to this hellscape for no good reason? Don’t put all the blame—“

“I’m all to blame, it’s all me, okay?” Cheng Qian hurried to cut him off. “Now, what? We’re leaving, right?”

“What do you think? Are you going to be stuck in this ditch for the new year?” Yan Zhengming slightly adjusted his wooden sword’s height, then grabbed Cheng Qian’s wrist in warning. “Don’t let go of my hand.”

The two were utterly cautious as they flew forth on their swords, trying to get some distance from the pit before the released the Stone Seed again, but something bizarre happened — the abyss seemed to be alive.

It resembled a unmeasurably deep mouth with a black hole for an open throat as it chased after them relentlessly. They flew up higher, only for the water and the chasm below them to also swell in suit. They flew forwards, and the chasm became the moon in the sky; where the people went, the ravine also went.

Time slightly elongated, fuzziness appearing before the eyes.

If this goes on, our true essence will get drained, and we won’t be able to escape this place, Cheng Qian thought to himself.

He turned his head to see that one side of the abyssal seawater wall was extremely oppressive, looking like it was soon about to collapse and crush them underneath it.

A feeling of suffocation steeply arose in his chest due to the oppression. Shuang Ren suddenly shrieked; snow-bright swordlight flashed as it was quickly irrigated with Tide Swordplay swordwill. The retaliating Swordplay fearlessly swirled up the tsunami-like Beiming water, and the originally static surface of the sea started blustering up into a huge, pitch-dark tide, ice fragments tiering up on its fringes, which produced eye-piercing white in the black water as it pelted down upon the stifling sea wall.

There was a crash, the massive sound seeming to deafen all of the Sea of Beiming. A chill went through his heart — there was something under the sea wall!

Thus, without counting them, he raised huge waves in quick succession, turned them into tower after tower of soaring icebergs, and continuously rammed them into the wall.

Yan Zhengming automatically blinked as he felt the water vapor in the air solidify into bits of ice, then brush past him like little knives.

He stroked the back of his neck, sensing that Cheng Qian was pretty enormously tolerant of him, actually.

Following several such direct collisions, the entire outer surface of the wall broke apart. The thin water curtain appeared to get pulled by some unknown power, shifting it to the sides to reveal a gigantic natural iceberg in its middle.

It was flat, as if shaved, and stretched on for a thousand li, not a hint of a crack anywhere on it. It was unclear what it encased, but it refused to come up to the surface, hiding half-sunken, half-floating in the black water.

Was this the Da Xue Mystic Site?

Could it be that the legendary Site of no fixed location was actually under the Sea of Beiming?

Yan Zhengming pressed on Cheng Qian’s sword-wielding hand. “You’ve sure come across a huge dead rat, my blind cat,” he murmured.

They were both beyond bewildered. The next moment, countless delicate swords from the primordial spirit flew out of Yan Zhengming’s sleeves like raindrops, then descended upon the icy layers of unknown depths. The sharp sword tips struck against the thick ice, the chaotic noise of metal and stone ringing out; the majority of the swords bounced back into the air, turned into pure qi, then went back into Yan Zhengming’s inner sanctum, but a few of them sunk into the ice.

The spirit swords contained thousands of strands of his spiritual consciousness, and as soon as any of them vanished, he would immediately detect it. “Here,” he said, tugging at Cheng Qian.

Following the sword copies, the two quickly found the area where the blades had stuck in — beneath the inconsistent illumination of the black sea, there was a small cave less than one human tall in the massive ice chunk.

Cheng Qian did not shun the cold, reaching out to explore the inside of a smooth notch in the cave. Icicle bits immediately billowed and pointed at his palm, looking like a group of tiny blades standing erect on the ice’s surface.

“Someone made this,” he said. “See? There’s still residual sword qi in the gap… ah?”

His hand abruptly paused. A thin current of bloody qi flew out from within the icicles, passed through his finger, then recklessly rammed into his body-protecting true essence. It was only remnant qi, already quite weak, and yet it still had the viciousness to want to fight him.

“A demonic cultivator?” He took back his hand in slight surprise.

Could it be Tang Zhen?

With one glance at him, Yan Zhengming knew what he was thinking. “It isn’t Tang Zhen. This sword qi is old, yet still so violent; it’s plain to see that the one that made this cave had to have been a powerful demonic cultivator, whose base was definitely no lesser than yours. Tang Zhen wouldn’t have been off the mountain for a long enough time, and if he had a base like this, he would not have ended up like that over a merely injury from a fierce beast.”

Once he brought that up, a thought flashed through Cheng Qian’s mind.

The Yao Empress had been heavily injured by the Yao King back then; adding that onto her having been an auspicious bird, she and the beast had been innately at odds, so her nearly getting chewed by it had been within reason. Cultivators with some backing power that were out of the sect, however, should have always had common goods for subduing yao, warding off evil, and healing on them; even the softest of them, Li Yun, would not have suffering any losses coming across that beast, to say nothing of the fact that Tang Wanqiu had been around.

Unless…. at the time, Tang Zhen’s cultivation base had been far inferior to Li Yun’s, to the extent that the siblings hadn’t even had primordial spirits.

“You want to go in and see?” Yan Zhengming asked.

Cheng Qian nodded, turning sideways to enter the human-made ice cave.

He had wanted to repeat his move from the Ten-Party Array; a cluster of fire jumped out with a flick of his fingers for illuminate, but this trick didn’t work at all in the ice cave. After the flame was ignited, it rapidly died and went out, and the same went for repeated tries. Apparently, the Site did not tolerate any light.

Yan Zhengming placed his hand on his, then drew a night pearl out of his Bag of Holding like a rich guy. “Something’s off with this place. Save your strength.”

The artificially-made passage was extraordinarily narrow and long, various chopping marks of sabres and axes vaguely able to be see. Clearly, it had not been a lone person that had come here. The people that had opened the cave were either a team of shorties, or they just didn’t make the tunnel very high in order to conserve energy; the two of them had to bow their heads to walk through it, the pressure of which made one very irritable.

Yan Zhengming could feel the hair on top of his getting messed up by the ice. “When we get out of here, you’re going to have to comb out my hair again,” he said in displeasure.

Cheng Qian felt exasperated. “As you wish. I promise that I’ll brush along your fur.”

They went along with bowed heads and backs arched like cats’ for a full fifteen minutes, and only then did the narrow passage come to its end. Even So, the breaths suspended in their chests did not have time to get breathed out.

This was the entry of the real Da Xue Mystic Site; a wide clearing suddenly opened up before them, and they discovered that there was something very peculiar with this entirely different world.

The night pearl Yan Zhengming held started flashing on and off like it was possessed, then eventually put itself out.

There not being any light shouldn’t have been important, as blinded primordial spirit cultivators would still have spiritual consciousness, which could easily sweep out for a few li around. However, Yan Zhengming quickly found out that it had become oddly difficult to place his consciousness outside in this place. He blinked forcefully, the ice particles congealed upon his lashes falling straight down, and in that split second, he felt the piercing cold.

With his cultivation base, cold and heat had long been unable to encroach upon him, and a sword cultivator’s body was a bit sturdier than other cultivators’, as well. His typical complaints about temperature were purely him starting shit.

Yet, the chill here was different, causing him to have a split second of misperception, as if he had suddenly lost his cultivation base and turned into a powerless mortal once more.

Cheng Qian’s hand was too cold, while Yan Zhengming’s skin was already too frozen to feel anything. He could barely even sense Cheng Qian’s existence. Spiritual consciousness met with difficulty in sweeping his surroundings, he was barely able to clearly ‘see’ the space three chi below his feet, and no matter the distance, his senses seemed to be getting frozen still by the ice.

Just recently, he had still been whining about that long corridor of ice being too narrow to lift his head up in, but now, he felt that this place was way too big. For a short time, he got the illusion that he was standing on the very edge of the world, neither living nor dead, accompanied only by this unmatched loneliness and cold, dithering here all by himself…

All of a sudden, the back of his hand got pinched hard. “Don’t let your mind wander here,” Cheng Qian whispered.

Jolting, Yan Zhengming took a few intense gasps. The icy air went straight into his lungs. It was like he had just come back alive from a deathland.

Following that, he discovered another awfully terrible thing — the very moment he got distracted, a wisp of cold qi had penetrated his inner sanctum, freezing it entirely. Those pieces of true essence, ever-surging and resembling sharp swords, were deathly still from the cold. Had it not been for Cheng Qian’s interruption, his primordial spirit would have almost unconsciously left his body.

“It’s too cold,” Yan Zhengming whispered, returning to his senses. “Was the ice pool in Mingming Valley this cold?”

Cheng Qian was obviously more adapted to this than he was. As he led Yan Zhengming in a cautious walk forward, he used deliberately heavy footsteps to break the silence here. “Mn. A different thing, but the same result. Keep talking to me, or it’ll be easy to qi deviate.”

“How was it like, in your years there?” Yan Zhengming chased after.

“The pool was very cold. When cold gets to a certain extent, one will hallucinate inside it, making it especially easy for the primordial spirit and physical form to separate,” the other replied, completely placid. My soul had just entered Spirit Concentration Realm when it entered the Spirit-Collection Jade, and my primordial spirit was cultivated within it, so it intangibly regarded the jade as its body. Since it wasn’t my natural one, though, there was always some area that was incompatible with my soul. I had to use the cold of the ice pool to break apart, then wear in my corporeal body and primordial spirit , again and again… to use an analogy, it was like woodworking. Material needs to be continuously cut and worn down before things can join together snugly.”

Others said that he was wooden, and he himself actually saw himself as a chunk of wood that could be scoured and whittled away as seen fit — how painful it had to have been, for his primordial spirit and the Jade to grind each other down. Yan Zhengming felt like his heart was being torn apart after thinking about this for but a moment, grasping the other’s ice-cold hand and saying nothing.

Cheng Qian kept going without a care. “That’s why I’m guessing that Tang Zhen had to have been here before, else he wouldn’t have thought of using ice pools to forge… what is this?”

As he was talking, Shuang Ren’s tip suddenly bumped into something, making a light ding.

“Watch out. Don’t be reckless with where you step,” Yan Zhengming said, after which he brought out another night pearl. The objects were big and round-looking, each and every one of them with enough value to buy a whole city, yet he didn’t hesitate to scoop them out by the handful like candied beans.

The pearl was like a messed-up candle flame being blown by wind. The instant it came out of the Bag of Hoarding, it flickered like its life was at stake, then rapidly began to dim. But, it managed to illuminate the ground at their feet, at the very least.

By the faint light, Cheng Qian saw that what he had just run into was a human skeleton, which neither of them had swept over with their spiritual consciousness. It was too similar to an ice sculpture, able to completely blend in with the ice walls surrounding it, as if it had been growing there for all time.

Right when he had crouched down and reached out to touch it, his hand got smacked away by Yan Zhengming, who then pasted a handkerchief onto him.

“…”

He reluctantly took it, thinking that there had to be hundreds or even thousands of handkerchiefs pre-prepared in this guy’s bag, for them to be able to hold up against his ruination.

“Are they actual human bones?” Yan Zhengming asked.

“They should be.” An ominous premonition suddenly rising within him, Cheng Qian’s heart started jumping wildly for no real reason. He tried to calm himself. “It’s been too long. They’re frozen solid.”

Yan Zhengming came in close to size it up. Noticing that there was a short knife at the skeleton’s side, he had Cheng Qian break it off from the big, icy lump, then shift away the frost on its handle. There was a familiar insignia engraved on it.

“A Nightmare Traveler,” Cheng Qian provided. “I saw a lot of these symbols when I went to Zhaoyang.”

Even further in, several similar skeletons laid all around on their backs. No fatal wounds were visible on their bones, and the way there were laid out at crooked, random angles made them look like a bunch of bamboo pols that had gotten bowled over by heavy wind.

Very odd.

The slightly taut string in Cheng Qian’s heart pulled to its tightest.

“Strange,” Yan Zhengming whispered. “Why would these demonic cultivators not stay nicely in Nanjiang, but run all the way here to meet their fates?”

“Don’t talk. Be cautious.”

As soon as he said that last word, a sudden scream came from the previously dark and deathly silent depths of the Site, like a sharp knife sticking straight into one’s eardrums. He only sensed a buzzing in both of his ears, as if someone had punched him hard on the temple, and like his three hun and seven po were quickly going to be shaken loose.

The world spun for a spell. He was nearly unable to stand. Before he could react properly, a gust of astral wind rose up from flat ground without warning.

Yan Zhengming fetched him back, turned around at flying speed, then protected him behind himself.

“Senior, you…”

The other quickly drew in a breath, injured somewhere unknown. “I’m fine. My original packing is overall more durable than the one you broke into later — go, quick!”

The two retreated back down the road in a sorry state. As if his soul hadn’t yet returned to its spot, Cheng Qian’s sight was nearly blurred; he subconsciously supported himself against the wall, only for it to not feel right under his hand. Slightly laboriously, he looked over at it using the unknown amount of night pearls in Yan Zhenming’s hand, and came to be directly opposite of a pale, dead face.

“…”

He almost shoved out with a palm to smack his counterpart into bits.

Yan Zhengming shot out one night pearl, adding force to it. The pearl let out a miserable shriek, unable to withstand the true essence of a sword cultivator, and promptly exploded into a flying puff in midair.

The entire space around them instantly lit up. Apart from the skeletons, the area filled all around with floating ‘people’ of various appearances, all sorts of men, women, youths, and elders therein, each one pale-faced and lifeless. They were kept in poses of being directly frozen in midair, feet dangling, the spitting image of a group of silent, hanged ghosts.

In spite of Cheng Qian’s bravery, he couldn’t help but suck in a cold breath. For a moment, the roiling in his chest got even more uncomfortable. It wasn’t until the burst night pearl faded out again that he whispered, “Ghosts…”

This place was so awfully cold, that in addition to the physical body, it could freeze one’s true essence, and even soul.

“The Soul-Devouring Lamp was here before,” he said. “It got hit by a strong wind, and all the ghosts inside it got blown out, all of which became frozen here before they could flee… where is the Lamp?”

As a qualified, wealthy landlord, after Yan Zhengming released him a little, he brightened the place up again. “Look.”

A skeleton was in the corner. Once the frost covering it was lightly swept off, a fiery red feather was seen stuck between two ice-encased ribs, looking especially eye-catching amongst the ice.

“Do you think that’s Tang Zhen?” Yan Zhengming asked.

Was it?

A cultivator that had not yet entered Primordial Spirit Realm had suffered untold trials to come to the Sea of Beiming and find the Da Xue Mystic Site, or, for some unknown reason, had entered it alongside these demonic cultivators, or had simply found the hole they left behind and felt his way along, then just-so-happened to encounter the Lamp in this place, just-so-happened to get injured and die by that astral wind, yet his soul had entered the Lamp by mistake…

But, a hundred years ago, the Tang Zhen that Han Yuan and he had encountered on the coast of the East Sea… was that not a primordial spirit?

A scary hunch arose in Cheng Qian’s mind. At the same exact time, the rumbling in his ears got louder and louder — they were temporarily apart from the astral wind, but its side-effects remained. He almost couldn’t stay standing, gently leaning his side against the ice wall, doing all he could to press his forehead against its surface, and resisting the groan that nearly slipped from his mouth. The upheaval of his soul was too painful, almost as much as the severance of his primordial spirit from when he refined the wooden sword.

His temples were quickly soaked, either because of cold sweat, or melting ice.

While they fell into an ice cave on their end, the group that had already speedily gotten to Shuzong were instead feeling a bit toasty.

Shuzhong had many mountains. Upon coming here, the White Tiger Estate disciples responsible for opening up the path were always involuntarily on-edge, because the layers of these forests were likely to hide arrays. Also, since they were in the air, their opposers would be slightly more concealed, and could set up an ambush without anyone knowing.

Nian Dada held an old book as he sat on a low-flying horse, carefully studying every single word. All of a sudden, someone next to him casually read the book’s title aloud. “Reincarnation Records…”

Nian Dada jumped in fright, the book almost flying out of his hands, whereupon his limbs went into a scramble to catch it. Somewhat flustered, he looked at Han Yuan, who had come over to him at some unknown point in time. “F-Fourth uncle…”

Han Yuan shot him a look, but didn’t make things hard for him. “Whose reincarnation are you wanting to look for?” he asked placidly.

Nian Dada tried, with difficulty, to relax a little. “My father’s.”

“Ah. Where was he from?”

“Mingming Valley…” After blurting that out, Nian Dada immediately corrected himself. “That doesn’t seem right, actually. He used to be a wandering cultivator of the East Sea. In his youth, he was lucky enough to be selected for entry into Azure Dragon Island’s Lecture Hall, and when he entered the Dao, he then roamed the world to practice on his own after… it was only after a hundred years that he settled down in Mingming Valley, and changed his name.”

“Azure Dragon Island…” Han Yuan said expressionless after hearing this. “So, this level of chance fate can still be. I’ll give you a suggestion: when you have the time, you should look in the vicinity of the East Sea. No need to thank me.”

The legendary demonic dragon, who had nearly stabbed a hole through the sky, speaking so calmly to him stunned Nian Dada for a minute. “O… okay?” he stammered.

“Primordial spirit reincarnations are generally like this. The soul returns to its hometown or whatever… it’s useless, though. Humans in reincarnation get their cultivation and memories emptied out, so they’ll have no idea who they are, and will only barely manage to maintain the appearance and innate personality they had in their previous lives.”

Nian Dada revealed a cautious hope on his face.

Han Yuan side-eyed him, sneering. “Don’t scramble to be happy right now. Think about how you’re going to keep your own little life, first!”

Nian Dada was startled. The White Tiger Hall disciple leading the way in front suddenly let out a shrill alarm; demonic qi was seen to shoot straight into the sky in a distant forest, blocking their group’s way.

Han Yuan’s body appeared to swiftly switch owners, his entire person appeared to have a terribly no-good charisma. Black qi overflowed from his panlong robes, making that four-legged monster seem to be on the verge of showing up at any time.

“Don’t make a big deal out of nothing,” he said, red light flashing in those slender eyes. “Those idiots think that I’ve already claimed Beiming, so they want to step on my corpse and cause pandemonium.”

He laughed coldly. In the midst of Li Yun’s startled exclamation, he rose suddenly, sweeping into sky like a tornado. “And they haven’t yet seen what trash they are in the reflection of their own piss!”