Chapter 334: In the Bag

This was the first quarrel that broke out.

The master and disciple were twisting each other. Every meeting between the two ended unhappily with neither side willing to back down.

Meng Li continued to insist on pushing his own ideas. He spent his days and nights in the library in a venting manner, searching through that cave again and again, swearing to figure out its true appearance and find a way to unlock the fate of the sect.

But the deeper he understood and the longer he studied the Way of Arrays, the heavier the despair brought by this ancient array pressed on his heart.

Such a thing that was almost impossible to solve... Master said it guarded the things of the Immortal Court. Meng Li now completely believed it.

He remembered "Winter Solstice in Ding, Summer Solstice in Gui," thinking that the Star Worm was walking slowly like an annual ring, but he couldn't find its traces at all in the places he calculated, and it suddenly appeared in places he was caught off guard... It was a mess.

He also walked past the back door of the great hall without a word in front of his master, but all he saw were wind, snow, and cliffs, and he couldn't find the way to enter the tomb hall at all.

Qu Zhoufu didn't rush to talk to Yang Yan, just spent these days quietly. Meng Li gradually began to feel that the old man was worried about some other things.

After realizing this, he felt a stunned disbelief. The ancient array that fatefully gripped the throat of the Jianmen was right in front of him. Did the old man have anything else more important to worry about?

On the night Meng Li was about to turn twenty, facing the young man's questions, the old man sat in front of the hall, looking at the night sky quietly, and said softly: "He is coming back."

"... Who?"

"Haven't you been recognizing him for a long time?" Qu Zhoufu smiled softly. "In that sealed stone cave... don't you feel that you are very similar to him?"

"... Who is he?"

Qu Zhoufu's face slowly drooped, his voice hoarse: "A traitor to the sect."

He looked at the sky: "Little Meng, you say you don't want to bear this fate, but have you thought about... the consequences after the things guarded by Hushan Jianmen are discovered by outsiders?"

The old man's sharp gaze looked at him, like ice sticking to a warm heart. Meng Li's chest tightened suddenly.

His body froze in place.

The ancient secret guarded by such a strange array, the trigger for the so-called "Immortal Court descending into the world," if it were leaked... what kind of people would covet it?

Meng Li often went out. He had seen the world.

He never doubted that one day he would climb to a high enough position to hold Hushan Jianmen high... but he also knew that for many people, the current Hushan Jianmen was just an ant that could be crushed with one finger.

"In fact, for the past thousand years, it has been as if it were invisible," the old man didn't continue. He looked at the mountain cliff, as if seeing the huge bronze body within it. "It was only from your grandmaster's generation that its need for Qi suddenly became so obvious, so it was immediately detected."

"... Who? Who knows our secret now?" Meng Li felt his throat was a bit dry.

"Huan Si Lou," Qu Zhoufu said softly. "He sold the news to Huan Si Lou."

A suffocating silence.

Pei Ye didn't need to verify it in detail to know that Meng Li had heard of this name. At this moment, the man's body had tightened into a stiff iron.

But the next moment, he seemed to have grabbed a straw, his expression relaxed suddenly, and he looked at the old man.

—The strange and evil ancient array suddenly no longer looked hideous. At this moment, Meng Li was extremely grateful for the power of this array technique.

"There is a way, Master," Meng Li's voice was slightly hoarse. "You have mastered the method of awakening the Star Worm... right?"

Of course, it should be right.

No matter who set up this ancient array, it should have the ability to guard the destined thing... and no matter how precious that thing was, this array should have the strength relative to its status.

And the entire Hushan Jianmen was cast into one body by this Star-Embracing Array, so it should have the ability to resist foreign enemies.

Meng Li looked at the old man with hope. Qu Zhoufu was silent, and a strange smile suddenly appeared at the corner of his mouth. It was like helplessness and bitterness, and it was like nostalgia... Meng Li even felt a flash of pride.

"Haven't you been looking for this array?" Qu Zhoufu stood up and sighed, lowering his head. "Then I'll show it to you."

"..."

The master and disciple opened the door lock behind the hall and walked out.

Their figures were drowned in gray mist, and 'Yang Yan's' body stopped once again before the surging mist.

Pei Ye gently raised his hand to press on this mist and closed his eyes. Meng Li's vivid figure was outlined in his mind. When he opened his eyes, he had already left Yang Yan's body and stood on a narrow, gray mountain road.

His body was more powerful than ever, and he had grown much taller. He had already recognized this senior brother, but he was still far from being able to control his body.

Now he began to receive the man's field of vision.

Behind him was the back door of the great hall, and in front of him was a high cliff of nearly twenty zhang, looking down like a high wave pressing down.

Meng Li had really tried to climb up, but reaching the summit was just empty, only looking back at Hushan, which looked more and more like a cage.

Now the old man in front of him didn't take him to leap up, but stumbled to the giant rock that looked like a house, stretched out his hand, and bronze like a small snake probed out from his palm.

This body watched this scene stiffly. Cold metal broke through flesh and blood like this, stained with fine blood, and drilled into the rock. After a moment of silence, a movement that made him suffocate came from the mountain body.

It was as if a twenty-zhang-tall giant beast was waking up in front of him. In reality, there wasn't much sound, only Pei Ye could clearly feel the huge wriggling within it.

After only a few breaths, the copper touch extended by Qu Zhoufu seemed to have received something. The rock split and the cave opened, and a passage cast in bronze opened before the two.

"If you become the master, this will be implanted in your dantian," Qu Zhoufu retracted the copper touch from his palm and smiled hoarsely.

But Meng Li clearly had no leisure to answer. This body stepped onto the bronze ground somewhat stiffly. This was... the abdominal cavity of the Star Worm.

It turned out that the tomb hall had no entrance at all, only by relying on the guidance of the Star Worm could people enter here.

The shock brought by such a magnificent scene was indescribable. Thousands of years ago, an unknown person used unimaginable great power to cast such a majestic and precise bronze creation. At the end of this abdominal passage, one could faintly glimpse the palace that was as high and open as a god's kingdom.

Simple, high, strict, mysterious, silent... The ancient aura of a thousand years, the bronze worm body like the sky climbed on the walls, crowding toward the center. Just a glimpse in the tube was enough to make one suffocate and tremble.

Yes, it had guarded this palace for countless days and nights like this, from ancient times to the present. As long as Hushan Jianmen hid here, Huan Si Lou could neither take away the secret treasure nor hurt anyone.

Wasn't the sacrifice of Hushan Jianmen for thousands of years for this?

Pei Ye could almost see the man's thoughts at this time. Without the old man wasting any words, after coming here, he stood with his master for the first time.

Then they really reached the end.

Pei Ye looked up, feeling that everything had fallen into silence. This body froze to death in an instant.

It was indeed a palace like a miracle, more than ten zhang high, as long as an arrow's flight, and wide enough for thirty horses to run together.

It was undoubtedly a pilgrimage road. On the dome of this road, the winding worm body was coiled and entrenched, and the figures below were like ants.

But now...

"We couldn't have come in here originally..." Qu Zhoufu said softly, stepping lightly into this palace, his footsteps echoing in the dead silence. "But twenty-seven years ago, someone experienced the same anger, pain, and despair as you... Later, he ended all this."

The old man's hoarse voice was a light indifference after frankness. Pei Ye looked at everything in front of him silently. The Star Worm's body was gray and brittle section by section, like dry mud. Sensing the entry of outsiders, it struggled and twisted its body, but could not leave the dome at all.

Rust spread like moss in this great hall. All solemnity faded its mystery, revealing a gloomy and ordinary appearance.

Only at the center end, some bronze still maintained a mysterious dark light. In the offerings of them, a white jade pendant like an eye floated there, as if waiting for its master.

"He didn't have a way to get it for the time being, so he said... just deposit it here first," Qu Zhoufu said hoarsely. "This is the result of what you want to do being done by someone else... A thousand-year-old legend, just something in the bag."

After a silence that was unbearable to endure, Meng Li squeezed out a hoarse byte from his throat: "Then, why are you still..."

"Why continue to feed it?" Qu Zhoufu said. "Because it is slowly repairing itself; because, perhaps they will never find a way to get it; and also because, if I don't continue to feed it, what else can I do?"

"I'm just an Eighth Life who is about to die, Little Meng."

"Then, what are we struggling for?" Meng Li said in a low voice. "Since they have already decided to come, since the Star Worm didn't have time to repair successfully."

"It was originally like this," Qu Zhoufu looked at him. "But now, we have a new hope."

"What?"

"You."

"..."

"It's you, Little Meng," Qu Zhoufu said softly. "You are too excellent. Counting back how many generations, countless people couldn't learn the three chapters of sword and blade in their entire lives, let alone at your age."

"... What does this represent?"

"This is the cliff that stops him," Qu Zhoufu said softly. "He spent forty years and couldn't pass it, so he could only leave the other half of this ancient pendant here."

The old man looked at him: "Empty blade, real sword, is the foundation of 'General Scripture of Dao Void and Bright Reality'."

Pei Ye watched his body walk up and arrive before this ancient pendant. Qu Zhoufu followed behind and taught him how to open it with the second chapter of the sword and blade.

Pei Ye had seen the empty appearance of 【Illumination of the Nether】. One side was a hard and regular spherical depression. Pei Ye now knew that the bead had been placed there; the other side was a regular hollow square, and he didn't know what had been placed there.

Now, before Meng Li, the side with the bead was empty, but on the square side, a group of dark, soft, and glue-like substances was still floating inside. Once the eyes touched it, they were taken away. It was a small group, but it was as deep as if it contained the entire starry sky.

Meng Li slowly stretched out his finger and pointed at this square cage. This dark group bit him, and then Pei Ye lost his perception of this body.

【Illumination of the Nether】 was thorough in everything from the level of spirit and mystery, but it failed to record the experience of this body at this moment. But Pei Ye could roughly see that he was experiencing a trial.

This darkness climbed out of the cage and sank into Meng Li's body little by little... Success.

Pei Ye lowered his head to observe here. Besides a few lines of destroyed characters on the bronze pedestal, there were no other clues he could understand.

'Meng Li' raised his hand and looked at it in a daze. Pei Ye sighed with some fatigue and pulled the time directly to the back.

In the gloomy great hall, the master and disciple broke out into a more intense quarrel again.

When Meng Li got this strange book and absolute scripture, Pei Ye had already guessed the old man's thoughts, which was exactly the confusion and torture Yang Yan suffered in the end.

"We can act it out, Little Meng," Qu Zhoufu said in a low voice. "In these days, everyone knows that we have almost turned against each other... You killed me, I hurt you, and you were caught in the dungeon by the lineage of Sun... They have been waiting for this opportunity long ago. The sect is in turmoil, people will believe all this. After Huan Si Lou leaves, you can leave at any time—at least you can win three days of blank space, and you can swim into the crowd without a trace."

Meng Li laughed hoarsely: "Are you so sure they will chase Zhang Xiaoyan?"

"..."

"'General Scripture of Dao Void and Bright Reality' won't be trapped, and the scripture master will never be discovered by anyone when he wants to kill someone," Qu Zhoufu said in a low voice. "Zhang Xiaoyan left quietly from the secret path, they will believe it. After they can't catch Zhang Xiaoyan, and then get the news that you left silently, they will discover that they were lured away—"

"They will catch Zhang Xiaoyan," Meng Li interrupted him expressionlessly.

"..."

"Qu Zhoufu, you are talking nonsense!!" Meng Li shouted angrily. "If Huan Si Lou really believes that Zhang Xiaoyan took the strange scripture, will they not be able to catch a fool of the Fifth Life?!"

"... Then you go faster," Qu Zhoufu said softly, without any expression. "So that after they find out there is nothing on Zhang Xiaoyan, you are still acting in the dungeon."

Meng Li gritted his teeth and smashed the table in front of him with a punch.

The muddy yellow tea splashed on his eyebrows. The man panted heavily. After a long while, he said in a low voice: "Neither of us needs to die for anyone... Master, if you must die... then save Zhang Xiaoyan."

Pei Ye came out of 【Illumination of the Nether】 again. This time it wasn't the interruption from the outside world; he clearly felt the fatigue that his mind and spirit could hardly bear.

The cool air of the autumn night poured into his nose and throat. Pei Ye took a deep breath to replace the turbid Qi in his chest and abdomen, his head still jumping with dizziness.

Pei Ye pressed his forehead and said hoarsely: "Little Cat, what time is it?"

"End of the Zi hour," the black cat said. "How is it?"

Pei Ye was silent for a while and told it what he saw in the pendant: "This is the second time I have seen the strange technique absolute scripture. Bing Lu was a bead, and this one was a ball of soft mud."

The black cat thought: "This is not important now... We must figure out the origin and use of that bead—didn't you see anything else later?"

"No need to see anymore," Pei Ye said in a low voice, pinching his head. "After finishing it tomorrow, I will regress to 'that person'."

"Black Robe?" the black cat said softly. "But we still don't know who he is. How do you lock onto him in 【Illumination of the Nether】... passing through Qu Zhoufu's tributaries one by one?"

"No need... I will see his appearance very soon," Pei Ye said, pinching a jade bead in the cage and raising his head gently.

"... What?"

At the edge of the sky, a green shadow was swooping down.

Pei Ye took over 【Flowing Wind】, removed a small tube from its leg, which contained an extremely thin roll of paper.

"Piaoqing's letter," Pei Ye said in a low voice.

He gently unfolded it, his gaze sweeping over the beautiful handwriting, and a finely drawn painting was printed below.

Every detail was revealed, and the spirit and form were both present. It must have taken a lot of time and energy to draw such a painting, especially when the content only existed in the description and recollection of a young girl.

With the joint efforts of the witness, the sorcerer, and the painter, they began to imprint the girl's memory onto paper from the second day, striving not to lose anything.

It only took more than three days.

Before leaving, Pei Ye had asked the girl for this painting in advance.

At this moment, he lowered his head to look:

Frozen lake surface, high and steep snow-capped mountains, frost forest hanging with light, snow eaves dripping with ice. A handsome youth stood in this realm, expressionlessly flicking his hand, nailing the long sword in his hand to the ground with a clang.

Pei Ye recognized this scene; it was exactly the martial arts arena where the youth ran out when he first opened his eyes in Yang Yan's body.