Chapter 139: Juelin Chong

Setting aside Elder Wen, Ruan Xing began to ponder the meaning of these words. Elder Wen said these were the original words of Guangyou Xianjun, and she believed this; the old man had no friendship or enmity with Qintai He, and now that they were both trapped here, there was really no need to lie to her.

It was just... the contradiction she didn't understand appeared.

The key was left by Guangyou Xianjun more than twenty years ago, and Elder Wen had been in Nanzhou for over thirty years. Moreover, Guangyou Xianjun died after saving Qingping Xianzi. Could it be that Guangyou Xianjun had been to the Juelin Zhidi before Qingping Xianzi's incident?

More importantly, besides telling the Qintai Family to take the key to retrieve the remains, he hadn't given any instructions. He hadn't said where the dangers in the Juelin Zhidi were or how to deal with them.

Since he understood the Juelin Zhidi and had mentioned it to his disciple, how could he not tell the Qintai Family?

It couldn't be that he was intentionally trying to trap the Qintai Family, could it? According to the time he left the key, Qintai Gu's father had not yet suffered from Qi deviation and was in seclusion preparing to break through to the Transformation Stage. If he had truly succeeded in breaking through to the Transformation Stage, then wouldn't he be the only one willing to use the key to retrieve his son's remains?

Hiss—

Ruan Xing gasped.

Goodness, the more she thought about it, the more wrong it felt. Why did this group of people still have to scheme against each other even after cultivating to become immortals?

Her brain hurt from thinking, yet she still didn't understand why.

However, the original male lead was able to obtain the Xianjun's inheritance and come out alive, which proved that the Juelin Zhidi was not a dead end. Even if the key was useless, she could still think of other ways.

Just as she was trying hard to think, she suddenly heard a rustling sound.

Looking up, she saw that the sky had already turned dark.

Ruan Xing secretly thought to herself, "Oh no," her Illusion Technique was about to wear off.

In order not to perform a "person changing into another" act in front of Elder Wen, Ruan Xing made a prompt decision to turn around and prepare to leave.

Seeing this, Elder Wen called out to her, "Hey, where are you going?"

Ruan Xing turned her head and said as a matter of course, "Of course, to find other Cultivators, tell them the truth, and look for clues to get out. Since you think it doesn't matter whether you get out or not, you can just stay here."

"How naive. Even if you tell them, they won't believe you," Elder Wen sighed. "However, if you want to go, I won't stop you. But I forgot to tell you one thing just now: there is a creature in this Juelin Zhidi called the Juelin Chong. They are born at sunset and die at sunrise, feeding on human souls. But they have no eyes or ears, so to avoid them, you only need to find an enclosed place and keep your Divine Sense contained without letting it wander, and they won't discover you. I've looked around for a long time and only found this intact house. You should stay here for the night and leave tomorrow morning."

So the creature that attacked her that night was called a Juelin Chong.

Ruan Xing had actually thought of a way to deal with them. After all, that woman had survived for nine days without incident. The only reason she could think of was that the woman had subconsciously looked for a house to shelter from the wind and rain, and thus, by a stroke of luck, had not been harassed by the Juelin Chong.

And that night, the sound of the Juelin Chong was originally some distance away from her. When she sent out her Divine Sense to check the situation, the Juelin Chong suddenly became abnormally active and came toward her direction. So she realized that Divine Sense had no effect other than making the Juelin Chong even more excited, which was why she had prepared this large wooden box that could isolate Divine Sense.

Not only could it hold the Sword to smuggle that young boy whose body hadn't fully developed when entering the space-time rift, but it could also hold her, this little girl, to hide from the attacks of the Juelin Chong when night fell. It was perfect. It was just that it hadn't been tested yet, so she didn't know if the wooden box would actually hold up.

But with Qintai He's height and build, he definitely wouldn't fit inside. She had to leave Elder Wen's line of sight to dispel the Illusion Technique on her body.

Ruan Xing intended to ask a few more questions before leaving.

She questioned, "Didn't you say that no creatures can survive in the Juelin Zhidi?"

"That's right. Strictly speaking, the Juelin Chong is not a creature because it has no consciousness and contains no energy within its body. Neither Divine Sense nor the naked eye can see it, yet it can be touched and can attack. All creatures in the world have a developmental process and parents, but the Juelin Chong appears at sunset and turns to dust at sunrise, which truly defies common sense. Therefore, my master believed that it is not a creature, but a product."

Elder Wen suddenly made a joke, "Perhaps this entire Juelin Zhidi is a large-scale array, and the Juelin Chong is the effect of the array to clear everything within it."

Of course, such a massive array could not possibly exist. From the terrain Ruan Xing had glimpsed from mid-air several times, the entire Juelin Zhidi was almost boundless. Even for a Xianjun, laying out an array required following basic principles.

And without Spiritual Power, how could an array produce an effect?

This theory didn't hold up, but Ruan Xing had obtained new information.

So the thick layer of dust on the ground was the corpses of the Juelin Chong. No wonder there was no sun or moon, no wind or rain here, yet there could be so much dust.

It was all the ashes of the Juelin Chong! Ruan Xing suddenly felt that her shoes were a bit dirty; she didn't know how many insect corpses she had stepped on under her feet.

Fortunately, she couldn't see what the Juelin Chong looked like. Based on the tactile sensation when they attacked, she predicted they were winged crustaceans with slender bodies and hard beaks, roughly the size of a basketball. If her Sword pierced their skulls, there would be a harsh sound similar to fingernails scratching a blackboard.

This could be considered the first danger of the Juelin Zhidi. The Juelin Chong were not invincible; without using Magic Art, she could kill dozens of them with her Sword based on her physical fitness alone. It was just that there were simply too many in the end, and after she was injured, the Juelin Chong began to devour her soul, which was why she felt that pain that didn't seem to come from her body when she finally died.

With the physical fitness of a body reshaped at the Nascent Soul Stage, killing a thousand or eight hundred would surely be a breeze, but the Juelin Chong were endless and inexhaustible. Even at the Nascent Soul Stage, it would be difficult to survive under such circumstances.

So the saying that one should not enter without reaching the Transformation Stage was not false. Perhaps the Transformation Stage really had the means to deal with the Juelin Chong; she just didn't know it yet.

Ruan Xing looked at her large wooden box. She already knew how to avoid the Juelin Chong from Elder Wen, so there was no need to test whether the large wooden box was useful.

So, should she leave to find other places, or give up this Simulation? After pondering for a moment, Ruan Xing made a decision. As long as the space-time rift was still there, she had many Simulations to try, but if she missed this time, she might find it hard to encounter Elder Wen again. After all, this place was so big, and her landing point was different every time.

Thus, she took out a key and placed it in her palm.

"Then, one last question." Ruan Xing stared at Elder Wen and asked, "Do you know what this is?"

Elder Wen's expression changed instantly.

(End of chapter)