Chapter 643

Zuju lowered its head toward the puppet, its nose tip so hot that the hair curled: "If you dare to play me for a fool..." "Do you think I have nothing better to do than come here to play with you?" He Lingchuan interrupted it, "Even if I fail, I'm the one who's unlucky; what loss can you have? The worst result is that you continue to stay here playing with mud; at most, you eat a little less, how is that any different from usual?"

Zuju erupted with a large amount of white steam; who knew if it was from anger.

But in the end, it dug a small piece of solid rock from its chest, kneaded it in its claw for a long time, and then took a long breath at it.

With a muffled 'thud', this thing landed in front of the puppet.

"Here, take it."

Seeing the puppet wanted to wrap it in his clothes, it added: "It's not hot."

The flames and heat had been sucked away, and only a black stone ball remained by the puppet's feet.

He picked up the stone ball; it was only warm to the touch, just the temperature of a hand warmer.

But the cracks on the surface of the stone ball would occasionally emit a trace of red light.

"This is a seed of earth fire, and also my clone." Zuju walked back to the magma pool and dived down, disappearing, its voice still echoing, "Keep it with you; as long as you don't leave the territory of Lingxu City, I can talk to you."

The puppet walked quickly back to the surface.

When he left the stone cave, the clear water gurgled and rose back up quickly.

In just a few dozen breaths, the pool was full of hot spring water again.

The cave dwelling gate was closed.

The puppet followed the original path up the mountain and returned, finally walking across the stone bridge and arriving at Heavenly Jade Peak.

With his mind captured, there was no fear; instead, he passed the Crucian Carp Back without any effort.

He stood there blankly, surrounded by tourists coming and going, still clutching that piece of earth fire seed.

But it was now just a dull gray round stone, and no one noticed it.

Suddenly someone bumped into the puppet from behind, and this stone disappeared.

The puppet gave a start and suddenly woke up.

What happened?

He only remembered that strange youth blocking his way and asking for help. How, in the next second, was he on Heavenly Jade Peak? He scratched his head inexplicably, only to feel that a few strands of his hair were scorched and curled.

Strange, can hot springs scorch hair?

Regardless, he was safe for the time being. The man clenched his fists; he had to go down the mountain immediately and settle the score with that pair of murderous dogs!

And a few zhang ahead, He Lingchuan followed the crowd with his hands behind his back, looking very leisurely.

Just now, as soon as he approached the puppet, the spirit bone necklace heated up.

This gluttonous thing had taken a fancy to the earth fire seed again? However, He Lingchuan had snatched that round stone egg from the puppet's hand and stuffed it into the Soul-Sucking Mirror immediately.

Yes, the Soul-Sucking Mirror had been greatly replenished several times, and the Soul Village world inside the mirror had been partially repaired. Without affecting its operation, it could hold a little bit of something.

He Lingchuan didn't stuff the stone egg to the spirit bone necklace for fear that the Great Fang Hu would digest it if it ate it.

The Soul-Sucking Mirror didn't have that ability; most importantly, it was obedient, and He Lingchuan could store and retrieve it at will.

Afterward, he heard Zuju's voice coming from the mirror.

Of course, only he could hear it.

"This is... Soul Village?" Zuju was a bit surprised, "You brat, you don't even show your face?"

Zuju hadn't taken it to heart that this "cooperator" had sent a puppet down to the cave dwelling. Its true body was hidden underground, but the earth fire seed it gave to He Lingchuan was its eyes and ears; as long as He Lingchuan kept it with him and talked to it, Zuju would naturally know what he looked like and where he was.

Who knew that this main person would hide on Heavenly Jade Peak and throw the stone into the Soul Village with lightning speed. This inexplicable Soul Village was full of paper people flying around, and it couldn't see a single living thing.

Yet it could still talk to He Lingchuan through the mirror.

The existence of the Soul Village also cut off its positioning sense. It only knew that the earth fire seed last appeared on Heavenly Jade Peak, but with tourists weaving like a loom, who exactly took it? "Sorry." He Lingchuan said softly, "You are suppressed by the Spirit Gathering Array and still have to guard the gate for the Heavenly God; I suppose you have no choice at times. I'd better be cautious."

This was a euphemism for "I'm afraid you'll betray me."

Zuju hummed, not too repulsed.

The more careful the cooperation partner, the greater the probability of success.

The Tiangong guarded against everything, just guarding against it contacting the outside world. Look, they couldn't guard against it after all, right? There is no reason for a thief to guard for a thousand days.

Late that evening, He Lingchuan used practicing as an excuse to decline Fu Shanyue's banquet and Jiao Yu's playing, locking himself in his room.

The door was tightly closed, and he casually set up a barrier before speaking to the mirror: "I want to have a word with Zuju."

Before long, the turbid voice of the Xushan Mountain Spirit came from the mirror:

"I'm sleeping; you'd better have something important."

"Let's verify the intelligence on the array." He Lingchuan said softly, "The plan needs to be perfected."

When he first came to Lingxu City, he only had two goals in his mind. As he got more and more intelligence, the plan slowly took shape.

He called this the Xushan Plan.

Zuju let out a long yawn: "Speak."

"The Spirit Gathering Array is not an original creation of the Tiangong; the concept of the Big Dipper array was first proposed by the Great Return Sect. In the medieval period, spiritual energy was constantly decaying, and the Great Return Sect wanted to gather the spiritual energy within five hundred li for its own use, but unfortunately, their Big Dipper array was set up many times and never succeeded."

"To borrow the power of the stars, the array on the ground must echo with the stars in the sky and be coordinated in pace." Zuju could be considered a veteran of the Great Return Sect and had the most say in this matter, "In the ancient period, the Great Return Sect used the Spirit Gathering Array; after the world-shaking catastrophe, the star patterns were chaotic, and most importantly, the nine stars of the Big Dipper became ten, with an extra hidden Heavenly Luo Star. The array couldn't correspond to heaven and earth, so it couldn't take effect."

"But the Tiangong successfully created the Spirit Gathering Array because it used the array eye to correspond to the Heavenly Luo Star and put the relic of an ancient spider demon into the array eye as a medium to communicate with heaven and earth." He Lingchuan pondered carefully, "The spider's abdomen naturally carries a star map, corresponding to the stars in the sky in real-time, without the slightest error. With it sitting in command, the Tiangong didn't even need to deduce the changes of the stars when making the array."

Before coming to Lingxu City, he still felt strange: this number one city in the world has every treasure, so why must it snatch Zhu Xiuer's relic? Are the powerful people here really greedy for treasure and snatching it regardless of anything?

Now he knew the wonderful use of the spider molting.

Zuju was surprised: "How do you know?" This brat wasn't completely unprepared, was he? "Very few people know the origin of the spider molting; even the officials responsible for building the array eye back then only knew it was an ancient strange object, and fewer than two supervisors could accurately state the function of the 'spider molting'."

"Then I guess I was lucky to ask those two people." He Lingchuan breathed a sigh of relief. Zuju had confirmed his deduction; Zhu Xiuer's relic was indeed in the array eye.

With a clear goal, the next step would be easy to handle.

Zuju shook its head: "Over the past ten years, one died of illness, and the remaining official died suddenly. Seven days after he died, someone sneaked onto Xushan and was caught."

Meaning, an intruder had tortured and killed the informed official, extracted the array information, and then sneaked into Xushan? He Lingchuan's heart stirred: "Do you know the origin of the intruder?"

Zuju asked instead of answering: "Are you in the same group as him?"

"Not at all." He Lingchuan sighed, "To tell you the truth, my information comes from the victim, which is the owner of that relic."

If he wanted to cooperate well with Zuju, he had to show sincerity to the other party and couldn't just talk nonsense.

For example, telling part of the truth.

Zuju was very surprised: "Ha? That mother spider is still alive?"

Apparently, it had also heard of Zhu Xiuer's name.

Considering that both were ancient great demons, it was not excluded that they had some old friendship in the past.

"Free and easy with a territory, living quite well." He Lingchuan touched his nose, "But it has always been concerned about the relic that was snatched away, and it is wanted itself, so it is not easy to step into Beijia, so it entrusted me to find a way to retrieve it."

"First the Wood Spirit Venerable, then the mother spider; judging by your voice, you aren't old, yet you've already helped quite a few old guys do things?" Zuju hummed, "Since that's the case, you should know where the difficulty of breaking the array lies?"

"The location of the array eye?" He Lingchuan asked it, "I heard that it is usually covered by the array and only manifests when the Heavenly Luo Star shines. Hmm, even you can't find it?"

"What the Tiangong guards against is me." Zuju sneered, "If I could smash the array eye, what would they use to suppress me? Not finding it is secondary; the Tiangong has to ensure that I can't touch the array eye, even if I'm already bound by the array!"

That bunch of brats in the Tiangong are truly cautious.

He Lingchuan sighed: "So, the array eye is in the sky?"

Yes, when he heard the Nightmare repeat Zaifu Kua's intelligence, he was very surprised by this point.

Probably very few people in the world know that the main body of the Spirit Gathering Array is on the ground, composed of nine mountain peaks including Heavenly Pivot Peak, but its array eye floats in the air, with no fixed whereabouts!

"Correct. The Heavenly Luo Star is a hidden star, and the array eye corresponding to it has always been hidden in the void." Zuju said, "Only when the Heavenly Luo Star lights up will the array eye manifest."

If it were on the ground, it could find the array eye even if it dug three hundred feet!

"Unless the Heavenly Luo Star lights up, you can't find the array eye in the sky above Xushan at all."

"I remember that every autumn and winter, the Heavenly Luo Star shines for a long time?" He Lingchuan asked it, "What about the array eye? Does it just hang in the sky?"

"How is that possible?" Zuju sneered, "You can't see it."

"Why?" He Lingchuan asked further, "Is it still hidden in the void, or is it already floating in the sky, just invisible to the naked eye?"

Zuju stopped making a sound.

For such a key question, how could He Lingchuan let it play dumb, so he asked again.

Only then did Zuju say unwillingly: "Anyway, in the ten-plus years since the Spirit Gathering Array was built, I have only seen it twice."

It couldn't be seen before, so naturally, there was no way to start.

"Both in the recent period?"

"In the last four months."

He Lingchuan understood; it was those two times when the aura of the Great Fang Hu leaked.

In other words, Zuju didn't know what state the array eye was in during the autumn and winter seasons.

(End of chapter)