“Fellow Daoist Xue,” Meng Qi stood up.
“Fellow Daoist Xue,” Li Che also stood.
“We can’t save him… we must not…” Xue Chengxuan murmured repeatedly, his eyes growing redder and redder.
Meng Qi and Li Che exchanged a glance, seeing a trace of surprise in each other’s eyes.
“The Thousand Emperor Bell?” Li Che muttered to himself.
“Thousand Emperor Bell…” Even Qiao Ran, who was standing aside, looked at Xue Chengxuan in surprise.
This young man, who was hailed as the future leader of the Feng Alliance and considered its most talented disciple, also held the reputation of the Western Realm’s number one medical cultivator of their generation. Always appearing graceful and composed, Xue Chengxuan’s bearing never failed to match his status and reputation. But now, the same young man was completely unsettled, muttering the same sentence over and over again as if possessed, clenching his hands and shivering. His eyes were redder than before, the blood-red color completely obscuring his pupils, making it impossible to see his irises.
Meng Qi tilted her head slightly upward; Xue Chengxuan appeared to be undergoing some intense torment. Veins popped on his forehead, his face was pale, and beads of sweat dripped from the tip of his nose. “Can’t… save…” He seemed to mumble to himself, more than to anyone else, repeatedly saying the same thing, “Can’t save him…”
“Thousand Emperor Bell?” Li Che asked uncertainly.
“Thousand Emperor Bell…” Qiao Ran’s face showed obvious astonishment as he watched Xue Chengxuan. Both he and Li Che had been almost unaffected by the sound of the Thousand Emperor Bell, and both knew Xue Chengxuan well. At this moment, they stared wide-eyed, surprised and astonished, at this young medical cultivator who suddenly behaved so unlike himself.
“Thousand Emperor Bell…” Meng Qi raised her head slightly, recalling what Ling Ji and Yun Qingyan had said—the masterpiece of the greatest refinery master from ancient times, this artifact awakened the deepest resentments and desires in a person’s heart, making them completely unable to control themselves. Meng Qi always trusted Yun Qingyan unconditionally, but she also felt that something was off here. “When I heard the bell, indeed, my mind was filled with murderous intent,” Meng Qi tilted her head, “But that intent faded quickly.”
“After I met Li Che, the last bit of hostile feeling also dissipated, and the sound of the Thousand Emperor Bell no longer affected me.” She furrowed her brows. “If it really were an artifact left by an ancient refinery master, it shouldn’t have been so easy to resolve given my current cultivation level.”
“You think something is off?” Qiao Ran also asked.
“You said you didn’t hear the bell at all?” Meng Qi asked back instead, turning to look at him, her gaze clear and steady.
“Right,” Qiao Ran nodded. “We were on the other side and really didn’t hear the bell at all.”
“Just now, Senior Ling Ji…” Meng Qi raised her hand, pointing in the direction Ling Ji had left, “went that way,” she said. “That’s exactly where you came from. If the Thousand Emperor Bell truly exists, your group should have been the first to be affected.”
“Right.” On the way here, Qiao Ran had also seen his master dashed through the sky.
“So you mean… this isn’t the Thousand Emperor Bell?” Li Che looked up at the sky, his mind racing with countless thoughts. To begin with, he wasn’t even familiar with refinery cultivation, nor had he heard about or seen the Thousand Emperor Bell, so the legends surrounding this ancient artifact had a lesser impact on him compared to someone like Qiao Ran. Unlike Li Che, Qiao Ran had grown up in a prosperous sect where stories from ancient times were plentiful.
“If it’s not the Thousand Emperor Bell…” Li Che murmured, turning to look at Meng Qi. The blue-robed girl stood tall, her gaze flickering slightly as her slender fingers gently traced her robe, clearly deep in thought.
Disrupting one’s mind, invoking the urge to kill, causing even a composed man like Xue Chengxuan to become extremely paranoid… Meng Qi’s fingers moved faster and faster, and as thoughts raced through her mind, a name suddenly flashed. She abruptly turned to meet Li Che’s gaze. He was also turning to look at her, his eyes clearing with a realization: “Luoxin tree!”
After leaving the Starfallen Sea, Meng Qi mentioned about the Luoxin tree to Li Che. The leaves of a Luoxin tree could cause hallucinations, making one unable to discern reality from illusion, even unable to differentiate what’s real and what’s not. Whoever was behind the current chaos was certainly an ancient power, who could also combine Luoxin tree leaves with other spiritual medicines to create even more potent illusions. This place, the minor Ten Absolutes Mountain, though only part of the ancient Ten Absolutes Mountains, has indeed been passed down from ancient times and has stood through millennia. Having a Luoxin tree illusion array here would be perfectly normal.
Li Che clearly had the same thought, his expression turned grave. Meng Qi lowered her eyes and glanced toward the ground where the disciple from the Duankong Sect was still unconscious. Xue Chengxuan’s eyes remained bloody red, and he continued to mutter something under his breath. She looked back toward the lower part of the city wall, through the flashes of sword light and spell explosions, where Yun Qingyan stood tall in his white robe, and she could almost see a faint smile on his face.
Which of these are real? And which are illusions?
Meng Qi’s hand also began to tremble slightly. She thought of Lin Yan from the Starfallen Sea, who retained barely a tenth of her strength but was still so powerful that she could easily handle the top talents of Three Thousand Worlds like Pei Mufeng and the others. Whoever they were, figures behind the scenes of this minor Ten Absolutes Mountain might be even stronger than Lin Yan.
…
“This little girl is starting to get scared, hehe.” Just then, at the peak of a very high mountain within the Ten Absolutes Mountains, a man sitting cross-legged on the edge of a cliff suddenly chuckled lightly. His appearance was youthful, but his eyes held an ineffable depth as if they were carrying eons of vicissitudes. He lazily sat on the cliff’s edge, his hair casually tied back. The mountain wind howled past, lifting his robe and hair, making him look as if he might be blown off the cliff at any moment. However, no matter how the wind blew, he remained firmly seated on the rock, as steady as a boulder.
Beside the man, a tiny sword about the length of a finger circled around him rapidly, like a shooting star. “You’re going to lose,” he said, turning his head back with a clearly delighted tone, his voice tinged with laughter.
“That’s not certain yet,” replied a figure in a green robe standing behind him. The green-robed cultivator also appeared very young, but his hair was pure white. His white hair was held up by a simple bamboo pin, revealing his slender neck. Beside the green-robed cultivator floated a small, black three-legged cauldron. The body of the cauldron was simple and unadorned, marked only with a few plain-looking patterns, as if casually etched. The entire little cauldron looked very unremarkable as it spun around the man.
With a carefree laugh, the green-robed man continued, “Since she has inherited the Five Spirits Cauldron and obtained the medical notes left by Xiao Yan, there must be something special about her.” His tone was confident: “Moreover, you all saw her performance in the Apricot Forest. Xiao Yan chose her as her successor, and I trust her judgment.”
“Oh? You think so? Then we shall wait and see!”
“Huh, just wait!”
“What’s all the noise about?!” Not far from the two stood a young woman in red, “We won’t know what will happen until the very end. It’s been hundreds of years since anyone has set foot on the peak of the Ten Absolutes Mountains. If this continues and the Ten Absolutes Mountains collapse, all the efforts and millennia of dedication he put into this plan will be destroyed in an instant, and I don’t see how you could face him then!”
“If the Ten Absolutes Mountains collapse, we will surely perish and be completely obliterated from this world. In any case, we won’t be able to see him then.” The white-robed man spoke with a carefree grin: “I’ll meet my own end, why should I worry about the flood that follows?”
The woman in red, upon hearing the words “In any case, we won’t be able to see him,” flashed a complex look in her eyes. She snorted lightly, no longer speaking to the man in white.
“Don’t mind him,” the green-robed cultivator came over to her side, whispering comfortingly: “He’s always like this.”
“I know.” The woman in red pursed her lips and nodded. She casually tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, a trace of sadness flickering in her eyes as she gazed into the distance. “But he’s not wrong, it’s been ten thousand years… How much longer can we wait?”
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Now I am eager to get into these ancient people’s business