Chapter 91: Encountering Danger

Cheng Xi was busy until late at night, and Baohua stayed with her the whole time.

"Xixi, it's raining."

Hearing Baohua's voice, Cheng Xi reached out and pushed open the window.

A fine drizzle fell, and the night was deep and dark.

The entire Academy was shrouded in mist and rain; the lanterns hanging in the courtyard swayed with the wind. In the distance, some sound seemed to drift over, but when she listened closely, there was nothing, as if it were merely her hallucination.

Cheng Xi leaned against a soft pillow by the window, stood up after a long while, and asked, "Baohua, did you hear any sound?"

"It sounded like laughter?"

"Laughter?"

Baohua nodded upon hearing this, "It seems it's gone again."

Cheng Xi then knew she hadn't misheard; there was indeed a sound in the rainy night.

"I need to go out for a trip, you guard the house." Cheng Xi said, looking at Baohua.

It was rare for Baohua to be so restless and uneasy, "I want to go with you."

Cheng Xi shook her head, "This kind of weather is not a good thing for you."

"I am inherently of yin nature," Baohua argued.

"But the aura of the Dragon Scale on your body has not yet fully converged; following me into the mountains will make it easy for Demons to detect you, and you will only hold me back."

Baohua:...

"Be good, I will be back very soon."

"Alright then, come back early."

Cheng Xi nodded, jumped directly out of the window, and waved her hand. The newly made Flying Magic Treasure floated in mid-air, and she flew onto it, disappearing into the night sky like a shooting star.

Baohua felt a bit envious; that little boat looked very comfortable, and she wanted one too.

Cheng Xi had borrowed an Instrument Furnace from Chi Laicheng and used materials traded from the Ji Family to refine the Flying Magic Treasure, the Du'e Boat.

She sat inside the cabin, shielding the wind and rain outside.

Cheng Xi gathered spiritual power at her fingertips, and the bronze bells on the Du'e Boat emitted a crisp sound. The curtain of rain condensed into a water film outside the array, reflecting the night and shimmering with a faint blue light. She flipped her hand to take out the Compass, and the tortoise-shell needle was pointing toward Mihun Ridge in the northwest.

Suddenly, the boat shook violently, and the candlelight inside the cabin turned a greenish-blue in an instant. Cheng Xi pinched a seal to stabilize the magic treasure, only to see purple mist rising from the mountain ridge ahead, staining even the torrential rain an eerie dark red. This was the omen of the Purple Jade Spirit Plant, which had not appeared in three hundred years, maturing, but the mist clearly contained Soul-Devouring Incense.

"You are certainly willing to pay a high price." Cheng Xi sneered, took a veil from her Storage Bag, and tied it on. As the Du'e Boat landed in the mountain stream,

A silver-bell-like laugh came from the purple mist: "Is this fellow Daoist also here for the Purple Jade Spirit Plant?"

The thick mist split open, and a woman in red walked out, a jade pendant carved with the Ji Family crest hanging at her waist.

"Since it is an item of the Ji Family, I shall not..."

Before she could finish, the woman in red suddenly transformed into a fox shadow. Cheng Xi backhanded twelve Copper Coins, forming an Eight Trigrams Array in the air. The fox Demon's sharp claws struck the golden light, emitting a piercing shriek, and the mist instantly condensed into ice spikes to attack.

The Du'e Boat automatically deployed a defensive barrier, and Cheng Xi took the opportunity to bite her fingertip, using blood as ink to draw a Barrier-Breaking Talisman on the hull. As the golden light surged, the surrounding scene dissipated like fading ink, revealing a ground full of grim white bones—all skeletons holding Purple Jade Spirit Plant.

"Soul-Devouring Illusion Array?" Cheng Xi's heart tightened.

The fox Demon's true form spoke in surprise from the shadows, "Eh? You actually know this array."

"Where is Ye Wujin?" Cheng Xi looked toward the sound, asking as she gazed at that red figure.

"How bold, to dare address our Young Master by name!"

The torrential rain poured down like a celestial river, and Cheng Xi's toes tapped on the wreckage of the Du'e Boat. The nine tails of the red-clothed fox Demon stretched out under the night sky, each fox hair shimmering with purple crystals formed by the Soul-Devouring Incense.

"Does the little girl think she can win just by breaking an illusion array?" The fox Demon's fingertips bloomed with mandalas, and a blood-colored barrier suddenly rose over the entire Mihun Ridge.

Li Zhi'an's voice suddenly came from afar, "Xixi, this is the Blood Sacrifice Demon-Sealing Array of the Mountain Demon tribe!"

The torrential rain steamed into mist around Cheng Xi, and the phantom of incomplete phoenix wings appeared behind her.

"Court death!" The fox Demon shrieked and slapped her chest, spitting out an inner core wrapped in black flames that swept toward Cheng Xi.

Li Zhi'an arrived on the wind, his Long Sword transforming into a meteor shower that slammed fiercely into the Demon-Sealing Array. The blood-colored barrier emitted a crisp shattering sound, and the three tails of the red-clothed fox Demon snapped off in response.

At this moment, Cheng Xi seized the opportunity and thrust her Qingluan Hairpin directly into the core of the inner core. A crisp sound like shattering porcelain rang out between heaven and earth, and the black-flame inner core cracked with spiderweb patterns.

The fox Demon's inner core was damaged, and blood spurted from her seven orifices. At this moment, Li Zhi'an's Long Sword delivered the final blow, and the fox Demon's true form exploded into a blood mist.

The Altar deep within Wanxing Mountain was shrouded in a deep darkness, with only the array in the center emitting a mysterious faint light, its Rune flickering.

Ye Wujin, in a black robe, stood tall and straight upon the Altar, his aura restrained yet subtly exuding a chilling sense of oppression. His eyes were tightly closed, fine beads of sweat seeped from his forehead, and his hands moved rapidly to form seals as he chanted.

"Taixu Golden Pupils, activate!"

Ye Wujin opened his eyes abruptly, and in an instant, two golden rays shot out from his eyes, slicing through the night sky like sharp blades. These Taixu Golden Pupils were an ancient divine technique, possessing the power to perceive all things in heaven and earth and to see through falsehoods.

With the activation of the Golden Pupils, the space around the Altar seemed to distort, and phantoms of countless stars appeared in the void, their light flickering and intertwining.

Golden light appeared in mid-air, and Cheng Xi and Li Zhi'an locked eyes with dark expressions, rushing toward the location of the light almost simultaneously.

Ye Wujin's fingertips traced afterimages in the void, and the golden light patterns traveled along the trajectories of the stars, weaving into an arcane star map on the dome.

The Bronze Tripods at the four corners of the Altar suddenly hummed and trembled, and the Star Sand that had been silent for a thousand years in the tripods shot into the sky, condensing into the phantoms of the Twenty-Eight Mansions in the night sky.

Cheng Xi's toes tapped across the craggy Star Meteorite, the Qingluan Hairpin piercing through the curtain of Star Sand, and Li Zhi'an's scarlet cloak snapped in the gale, with the wails of vengeful spirits following where his Sword edge passed.

Ye Wujin suddenly let out a muffled groan, and wisps of blood leaked from his golden pupils. The bronze floor tiles in the center of the Altar began to crack, and some heart-stopping fluctuation came from beneath the ground.

Cheng Xi's pupils constricted—under Ye Wujin's black robe, blood-colored patterns were faintly visible, spreading from his neck toward his heart.

A brilliant light surged in Li Zhi'an's eyes, and his Long Sword suddenly shifted direction, slashing toward the Altar: "So the Seal is here!"

The moment the Sword Qi touched the ground, seventy-two Star Meteorite pillars lit up simultaneously, and ancient Sanskrit chanting resounded through the mountain stream. Cheng Xi's Qingluan Hairpin was faster than the sword light, the golden hairpin striking the Azure Dragon star position of the seventh pillar, and the entire great array suddenly reversed.

The instant the two forces collided, the bronze floor tiles under Ye Wujin's feet shattered with a boom. He stumbled backward, and the star map reflected in his golden pupils suddenly twisted into a blood-colored vortex. The crisp sound of chains snapping came from deep underground, and a darkness thicker than the night was seeping out from the cracks.

"You..." Ye Wujin's voice was hoarse like metal grinding, and the blood-colored patterns under his skin had spread to his eyelids, "have awakened... the Red Eye..."

"What is the Red Eye?" Cheng Xi asked, looking at Li Zhi'an.

Li Zhi'an had no time to reply; his Long Sword plunged straight into the center of the vortex, fiercely shattering the vortex that was about to open.

At the same time, he backhanded Cheng Xi and threw her away from the edge of the vortex with force, but at this moment, one of his own feet was swallowed by the vortex, and half of his body sank in rapidly.