Chapter 350: Snake Swallowing Insect

"To have survived even this."

"My heart is congenitally on the right side," Sui Zaihua said casually. His entire skeleton was laid out completely flat. He had been about thirty-some years old when he died, standing at the second layer of the Mystic Gate Jade Staircase; he could be called young and promising.

"But this fact did not save my life," the old man said.

In that instant, the man's first thought was absolutely not to feign death.

In a fit of rage, he turned back with a desperate effort. Two friends of similar age and similar paths were locked in a life-and-death struggle at this moment, but after only four exchanges, Qu Zhu once again coldly thrust his sword into his chest. At the same time, the sound of a ghostly cold wind stopped abruptly behind him. Sui Zaihua's heart shrank; a cold palm had already pressed against his back.

His skin tore like a thin bubble, and blood soaked his clothes in an instant. Sui Zaihua stumbled two steps, mouth agape, and fell silently, like a tattered cloth bag.

"To have survived even this?"

"I stepped into the Mystic Gate."

"."

Sui Zaihua lowered his head and smiled: "That was truly the feeling of stepping firmly on both banks of the Yellow Springs. They took everything with them, and in that hour, I felt myself simultaneously growing stronger, dying, and freezing."

"In the end, I was very lucky to grasp that wisp of Mystic Qi first, and fortunately, my heart pulse did not completely collapse," Sui Zaihua said. "I just lingered on like that."

"I remember this cold case caused quite a stir at the time," Wu Dong said. "The prefecture office couldn't find the real culprit, and neither the Immortal Platform nor Kongdong found many clues—at that time, the 'Joyful Death Pavilion' was still hidden very deep underwater."

"Yes," Sui Zaihua said. "I couldn't wait there to slowly freeze to death. I went to find some things that hibernate, drank some hot blood, and kept fainting and waking up. Eventually, I was taken home by a hunter's family and raised for half a month, which counts as having survived."

The old man continued: "After I could move somewhat, I returned to the valley, but the avalanche had already buried everything... I did not return to the prefecture city, because after thinking on the bed for half a month, I was certain that this butcher's knife had been swung from the prefecture office. Knowing they hadn't found my corpse, they would definitely have prepared traps and countermeasures."

"You could have come to the Immortal Platform at that time."

"It is a pity I did not know the great name of Police Inspector Wuhe back then."

"At that time, I was still the Yan Inspector."

Sui Zaihua lowered his head and smiled.

"In short, I didn't trust anyone at the time, carrying only a belly full of fire. I returned to Bowang again, starting from Qu Zhu's residence, and dug up the traces of his connection with the Joyful Death Pavilion." The old man stretched his long arms. "The things that followed are all in the case files. They originally intended to still send the 'surviving' Qu Zhu into the prefecture office as a trade for killing Inspector Yu. Qiao Changyue wanted to spare no effort to promote Qu Zhu upward... It's a pity that since I had survived, they had to temporarily abort this plan."

The old man spoke of crawling up from the abyss and solving the case with a single sword while dragging his wounded body very lightly, perhaps because in the years that followed, he himself had been trying hard to fade this memory.

"Later, I killed Qiao Changyue, and this matter could no longer proceed," Sui Zaihua said. "And Qu Zhu... since this matter was thwarted, he must have completely entered the Joyful Death Pavilion. For these years, I have been paying attention to news of the Joyful Death Pavilion, just to find him."

"Any progress?"

"The progress is Cao, Sun, and Liu," Sui Zaihua smiled. "However, I think he is not 【Cao】."

Wu Dong looked at him.

"This is what I want to tell you about the 'Play Master' you encountered in Bowang," Sui Zaihua retracted his calm expression. "The Shaolong Joyful Death Pavilion has its powerful Play Master, long before Qu Zhu entered the Joyful Death Pavilion."

"You mean Qu Zhu did not enter the power-holding layer? He is a solid, powerful Que."

"This is my deduction," Sui Zaihua looked at him calmly. "Besides these four colored masks, the Joyful Death Pavilion Play Master perhaps has a shadow."

Wu Dong narrowed his eyes.

"You know, the Joyful Death Pavilion has a kind of faceless play-ghost," Sui Zaihua said softly. "They have no relatives, no friends, and have cast off their old identities, disappearing completely from this world from then on, becoming a tool for slaughter, or someone else's impersonator."

"."

"I have been paying attention to the traces of the Joyful Death Pavilion all these years, yet among the ambiguous clues, this Play Master's whereabouts have always been elusive, with no gap to exploit."

"So you mean Qu Zhu became this shadow?" Wu Dong said. "Willing to erase his own face, mold himself into someone else's appearance, and help someone else live for twenty years?"

"Seeking skin from a tiger, one must always pay something," Sui Zaihua said. "I think he doesn't care about these things; after all, the Joyful Death Pavilion's goal is the same as his. Perhaps he even feels a sense of camaraderie."

He smiled.

"Then... he has been in the Joyful Death Pavilion for twenty years. Can we find the traces of the Joyful Death Pavilion through him?"

"Not for the moment, but I want to offer a guess that should not be passed to six ears." Sui Zaihua looked at him.

Wu Dong narrowed his eyes.

This sentence was not even spoken, but Wu Dong seemed to have understood.

"I will mail it." He stuffed that short note into the letter tube as well.

——

Within the Zhao You, Seeing Pei Ye sat quietly waiting.

Seeing Pei Ye knew this was a critical departure.

The man who was about to set off looked back one last time at this thing that had bound his life. From this day on, he did not return for ten years.

In these ten years, the valley of Hushan still saw spring depart and autumn come, no different from the years of the past, only two children, four or five years apart, grew up day by day in the forest and by the lake.

They walked, were mischievous, learned to read, practiced Wu Gong... When the smaller one was almost taller than the table, that figure appeared once again in this valley.

He was not alone, and they did not notify Qu Zhoufu.

The man, already at the second layer of the Mystic Gate, stepped into this place as if taking something from a bag, and he was not the strongest one.

Seeing Pei Ye slowly stood up. The moment he saw them, he knew where he had gone these ten years.

Pitch-black, heavy robes, like a mass of shadow, revealing only a vivid play-mask under the hood. There were four people in total: one purple-colored 【Sima】, one plain face, one white face, and Qu Zhu, who wore a simple, unpainted green mask. Each of them carried a rather thick, pillar-shaped cloth bundle, and they stood simultaneously upon this high cliff.

Seeing Pei Ye watched with a cold expression, his heart beating slowly. "Joyful Death Pavilion," this mysterious and hidden organization, now had its entire upper echelon revealed before him.

So this was the thing the "Joyful Death Pavilion" had been secretly plotting for over twenty years.

It was just that they, like Tianshan, could not find its location, until ten years ago, when Qu Zhu, who walked out from here, and they were like two tentacles searching for each other, finally connecting on a certain day.

No words appeared. The four black robes were like four silent ghosts, quietly arriving outside the cliff of the Tomb Hall, untying the things they carried and placing them on the ground. Seeing Pei Ye could see that the things inside were not cast as one, but bundled together from many individuals, heavily stirring up light snow dust.

Afterwards, the three play-masks slowly retreated, leaving only the green mask standing before the cliff.

So it was still he who found the method to solve it.

The Joyful Death Pavilion was not the answer to unlocking everything; it remained only a cloud ladder. Qu Zhu had obtained enough support from their hands to face this flawless Immortal Array.

It was still a deep night of chaotic wind and blowing snow. Qu Zhu stood quietly at the very front, looking up at this high cliff.

Seeing Pei Ye did not know what kind of seeking he had experienced in these ten years, nor did he know what other traces he had left in this world... For a person of such brilliant talent to be obsessed and forge ahead for one thing, he must have accomplished many astonishing great deeds.

But everything was reduced to this night before the mountain cliff.

Qu Zhu suddenly raised his hand, seemingly wanting to take off the green mask on his face. In that instant, Seeing Pei Ye resonated with the man's emotion of wanting to face it as he was back then, but the hand stopped in mid-air. Qu Zhu paused, lowered his arm, and bent down to untie the cloth bundle in front of him.

Seeing Pei Ye's body suddenly stiffened.

Those were bundles of... swords.

Qu Zhu turned and untied the remaining three cloth bundles; they were all bundles of identical swords.

It was just that they were extremely "simple," possessing every part a sword should have without the slightest error, but at the same time, there were no extra idle strokes.

The hilt had not been polished for a better grip, the guard was just a simple diamond shape, only the blade had been forged and polished to be incomparably tough. The entire sword had a cold abstraction that was simple to the extreme.

But they were indeed of top-tier quality, sixty-eight in total. Qu Zhu arranged them neatly on the ground, end to end. Seeing Pei Ye did not know what he wanted to do; this process involved no participation of True Mystic Qi.

But when the first sword and the last sword were connected, a familiar sense of perfection appeared once again. However, this arrangement lasted only two breaths. Qu Zhu stroked them one by one, and after completing the verification, he stood up and turned his head. The sixty-eight swords behind him were lifted by True Qi.

He took the first one, stroked it lightly, and raised his hand to throw it into the rock beside him. It was truly a good blade, entering the stone as if cutting through rot.

The process that followed was like a quiet stroll.

Qu Zhu walked down the cliff, traveling through this valley he had been away from for ten years. After a long absence, he looked up at every tall tree, stroked every mountain rock still in his memory, while casually throwing swords in the places he passed.

Some pierced through tree trunks, some stuck into mountain rocks, some sank into the lake water, some were just thrown on the ground... Every position seemed to have been pondered in his heart a thousand times, so when it truly arrived, there was only an almost casual precision.

Walking past the sword field, passing the razed courtyard, looking from afar at the snow-covered grave mounds on the peak, and brushing past the bronze hall standing in the darkness, the black robe walked through the entire valley step by step.

When he came up from the other side of the mountain and returned to this high cliff, only one sword remained in his hand.

He inserted it beside the first sword.

The four fields were quiet. Qu Zhu grasped the hilt of the first sword and slowly injected True Qi.

There was no sound; the four people just stood silently, and there was no Mystic Qi or array patterns... But the swords slowly sank into the stone.

In the entire valley of Hushan, sixty-eight swords, at this moment, the mountain rock seemed to turn into water, and the swords seemed to turn into ink, sinking in quietly just like that.

After ten years of absence, the forty-year-old man had truly replicated the miracle of the Immortal.

But this was only the beginning. The next moment, these swords floated out from the rock in front of him like flowing water. There was no True Qi lifting them; they were like obedient spirits, floating in front of the man on their own.

No mobilization was needed, just as leaf buds would grow into prisms and flower buds would scatter and open; now, it was also some inner adherence that made them naturally go to the places they should go.

At this moment, Seeing Pei Ye truly felt the profound beauty of the Array Path. In the hands of a master whose attainments had returned to simplicity, it was not the shining, flowing Mystic Qi, not the rigid blockade and explosion... Everything was natural; there was no need to add any special power, for Heaven and Earth itself were already full of wonders everywhere.

Sixty-eight swords, as if turning into a sundial standing in front of him, formed four layers of sword rings.

The first three layers had hilts facing inward and blades facing outward, nested layer by layer, as if cast dead in the air. The first layer had four, the second layer twelve, the third layer twenty-eight. The fourth layer had twenty-four swords chasing each other head to tail, flowing slowly around the outside of the three layers.

Seeing Pei Ye watched this scene in a daze, suddenly understanding where that familiar sense of perfection had come from.

What flowed in these swords was clearly that array diagram the man had drawn seventeen years ago, after months of sleepless nights, feeling wildly happy.

Now the night was cold. Qu Zhu raised his head quietly. In the flow of the sword array in front of him, a silent illumination penetrated the dark clouds and wind-snow, spilling down.

Starlight.

Everything became incomparably harmonious.

Only the cold starlight of ten thousand years could be injected into such a uniform and beautiful shape, and only such a sword shape, simple to the extreme, could run parallel with starlight.

Next, Seeing Pei Ye widened his eyes in a daze, speechless.

There was nothing more beautiful than creation and birth.

Qu Zhu slowly stretched out his hand. When a certain sword on the periphery flowed over, he pressed it lightly and pulled it outward.

"The movement of Heaven and Earth, the stars bestow their spirit," Qu Zhu recited softly.

And so, under his hand, the entire sword array was moved, and sword after sword flowed out. They ran parallel casually, yet never collided, flowing into a river of swords, or rather, a snake of swords.

Qu Zhu raised his hand. Under the starlight, the "living creature" formed by the silver blades swam around him. It had no head, tail, eyes, or ears, and one could absolutely not see its sinews, bones, or blood vessels, but it was lively and agile, like a newborn infant.

Seeing Pei Ye was almost speechless before this eerie, cold, and ultimate beauty. The four black robes had no reaction. Qu Zhu patted lightly, and this sword snake turned its head and sank back into the mountain rock, as if nothing had ever happened.

Then, the man silently repeated everything he had done back then.

Precisely finding that massive bronze body, and this time there was no need to carve that array pattern again, because as he raised his hand, silver light was already swimming over in the bronze wall like fish. Just like seventeen years ago, in the insensitivity of the Star Insect, a portal for passage was opened, leading to that high and vast divine hall.

It was still as high and divine as the firmament, with Immortal-Saint-like creatures climbing on the high walls and dome. From such a perspective, whether those who walked in were of the Vein Realm or the Mystic Gate had no influence at all; four black ants walked slowly below.

Perhaps ten years of time was nothing more than a few breaths to it. The giant object that had "just" been startled awake once discovered the intruders countless times faster than last time.

This time, one could clearly feel its activity. Almost the moment they stepped into the hall, the sound of grinding between gold and iron echoed "clack-clack" in this space.

Seeing Pei Ye had once held a doubt for a moment—a guard that couldn't even crush an intruder of the Eighth Life in one strike, why not try to crush it with brute force?

Now the answer was laid out before him like a precise instrument. It had the ability to sniff out the strength of the intruders, thereby deciding how much of the massive energy in its body to mobilize.

Now, facing the four who entered, the entire hall resounded with a tsunami-like wind!

Not relying on arts, not relying on combat, in pure collision, what kind of power could crush four Mystic Gate experts in one strike? The bronze body descending agilely was displaying the answer before them.

The air emitted a wail of explosion, and the entire hall was forced to produce a violent wave capable of crushing sinews and bones. Seeing Pei Ye couldn't capture this green shadow at all. When billions of tons of bronze were faster than the sword light of 【Holding New Corpse】, it was disaster itself.

The three play-masks stopped their steps simultaneously. 【Sima】 held the sword hilt, and the aura of 【Que】 had been suddenly stimulated. Even separated by several zhang, Seeing Pei Ye could see the obvious tightening of these three bodies.

Only Qu Zhu was still walking forward slowly.

He seemed to be walking in an invisible world just like Seeing Pei Ye. The violent waves before his eyes tore and flipped his black robe, and the green shadow that covered the sky and sun was smashing down on him first, but the man seemed unaware. He looked from afar at that still beautiful jade pendant on the high platform, walking toward it step by step.

The mountain-like collision smashed down from above his head, and the ground was stirred up with dozens of zhang of airflow.

Then it froze in place.

Everything seemed to have been pressed on a pause button. Silver-white, fish-like light appeared on the surface of this insect body like Li Chen. Inside it, the starlight power accumulated from time immemorial exploded at sixty-eight joints.

This sacred giant object, which had been arrogant and indestructible for thousands of years, wrinkled and disordered like folded paper at this moment. The entire Hushan was wailing, the lake water surged, the mountain cliff collapsed, and half of the Star Insect's body cracked and stiffened, solidifying on the hall from then on.

Qu Zhu never looked up from beginning to end. He arrived before this high platform, and the jade pendant floated quietly here, just like seventeen years ago.

"Long time no see," he sighed lightly, his voice already a bit old and hoarse.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 351 =====