Chapter 355: The Dried-Up River, The Land of Ghosts and Demons

Behind the hidden door lay an extraordinarily narrow secret passage, barely wide enough for a person to squeeze through, just over a meter high — utterly impossible to stand upright in.

It slanted downward at an extreme gradient, only slightly better than vertical, its bottom impossibly smooth, like a slide.

Tang Luo leaned his body back and, going with the momentum, slid down, gliding continuously along the passage.

"Let's go, let's go." Ao Yulie called out to Fei Yuan Shisan and Yu Kongyuan, then likewise darted into the secret passage.

Yu Kongyuan didn't hesitate either; hugging Xiaotian Quan, she entered the same way.

However, while Tang Luo and Ao Yulie went down as if sitting on a playground slide, Yu Kongyuan tumbled twice after rushing in, was swatted by Xiaotian Quan, and only then recovered a sliding posture — quite a sorry sight.

"Young Master!" Fei Yuan Shisan followed close behind.

The remaining eight people exchanged bewildered glances, none choosing to recklessly plunge into this pitch-black passage after Tang Luo's group.

Given that bizarre situation just now, who had the courage to blindly give chase? Did they not want their lives?

To be fair, these people could be considered bold from high skill, but they weren't stupid — whether that mysterious, enigmatic Scripture-Fetcher or that white-haired man, neither was someone they could afford to provoke.

In a different setting and environment, they could have stayed to the side and watched, seeing if they could fish in troubled waters.

A secret passage like this — only a fool would enter.

The group decisively turned and walked out of the inner hall, then halted their steps.

Because outside the inner hall, on the other side of the pool, a group of Tianhe Shrine Superiors were approaching.

Their bodies twisted eerily, arms elongated to about two meters, waving wildly in midair, clutching wooden sticks, knives, swords, long spears and such weapons, staring fixedly at them.

————

Inside the passage, Tang Luo and the others continued sliding; the gradient had already greatly decreased, and their speed was slowing as well.

It wouldn't be long before they stopped.

This wasn't good news, because this secret passage was most likely prepared by the Scripture-Fetcher for himself.

A child could stand upright and run through here, but Tang Luo's group absolutely couldn't stand straight.

He seemingly hadn't considered the problem of growing up later either.

From the few words the Scripture-Fetcher let slip, he seemed to want to gather a hundred fairly strong experts, after which he would leave Tianhe Shrine.

Who knew if he was actually going to fetch scriptures.

Thinking for a moment, Tang Luo reached out and stabbed to the side; his left hand pierced into the wall beside him as if into tofu, and he halted.

His other hand extended, drawing a talisman in the void; a blood-colored Flight Talisman took shape, and he slapped it onto himself.

Tang Luo's body instantly floated up, as if an invisible little cart remained beneath him, and he shot forward rapidly.

Honestly, it was a bit strange.

Before long, the secret passage had become completely parallel to the ground.

In the pitch-black passage, Yu Kongyuan stumbled forward running, Xiaotian Quan leading the way ahead.

Behind her was Fei Yuan Shisan, hunched over, taking small quick steps.

Ao Yulie was ahead of them, his figure already lost to sight.

Although the secret passage had no branching paths, it had quite a few turns.

"Seems we've lost him." Yu Kongyuan stopped, panting.

"Young Master, rest a bit. Master Xuanzang will be fine." Fei Yuan Shisan said.

Before Yu Kongyuan could answer, a streak of white light flashed through the dark passage ahead.

"Relax, don't be tense. The passage is still quite long; I'll send you across." Ao Yulie's voice came from behind.

Accompanying it was a gale strong enough to blow a person off their feet.

Fei Yuan Shisan and Yu Kongyuan instinctively shut their eyes, hearing nothing but the howling wind by their ears.

The sensation of weightlessness was utterly miserable.

Who knew how long passed; Yu Kongyuan felt she was about to faint, then her body sank and she was set back down on the ground.

Another sloped sliding passage; the group continued sliding downward, faint light visible ahead — the secret passage's exit was right before their eyes.

Soon, Yu Kongyuan slid out, but found nothing underfoot — the secret passage's exit was actually on a cliff face?

Yu Kongyuan plummeted downward, then another whirlwind blew up, suspending her in midair.

This time it wasn't as uncomfortable as before, making Yu Kongyuan feel as if she had landed on a soft cushion.

"Young Master..." Fei Yuan Shisan also appeared beside Yu Kongyuan.

A weight settled on Yu Kongyuan's head; Xiaotian Quan steadied himself, then lay down on her head.

"What ghost place is this?" Ao Yulie descended with the two, landing on the ground.

The passage exit was a full hundred meters above the ground.

You have to understand, Tang Luo's group had gone all the way down along the passage, then proceeded forward, then finally another downward slide.

Tianhe Shrine was built on a high mountain, yet even it couldn't withstand them "walking" down like this — at the end they were still a hundred meters above the ground.

So their current location should be in some valley far lower than the surrounding terrain.

"Ghost Prison!" Yu Kongyuan said, "This place is the Ghost Prison."

Looking up at the sky, overhead was a white, misty expanse — the surrounding "cliffs" couldn't be seen at all, no telling how high they rose.

In the Yu Kong Clan's records, the Ghost Prison was perpetually shrouded in white mist.

"Ghost Prison, huh?" Ao Yulie surveyed the surroundings; behind them was the cliff they'd emerged from, far to the left and right were more "towering into the clouds" cliffs, rising vertically.

No way up could be found at all, unless one could fly.

Ao Yulie could fly, so he was steady as a mountain; seeing Tang Luo standing in the distance only steadied him further, and he strode over that way.

He hadn't taken a few steps when the ground gave way beneath his foot.

The ground here wasn't as hard as imagined; many patches were fine, dense sand, one patch left, one patch right — numerous sand pits.

Large and small, blended seamlessly with the nearby ground, almost impossible to distinguish.

Ao Yulie pulled his sunken foot free, shook it off, flung away the sand clinging to it, and walked over to Tang Luo's side.

He saw Tang Luo staring at a massive stele that looked to be about one-third sunk into the ground.

"Master, this is..." Ao Yulie began, but stopped halfway through.

This stele looked somewhat familiar — ancient, exuding an aura of age.

Its top was missing a slanted third, the characters already gone.

On the exposed middle section, the visible characters were somewhat blurred, yet Ao Yulie still recognized them — it was the character "Sha" (Sand).

Not the "Sha" of this world, but the script of the Mountains and Seas Realm, the one Ao Yulie knew best.

Tang Luo reached out, gripped the stele, and yanked it upward, revealing the portion that had been sunk below ground.

"Flowing Sand River!" Ao Yulie cried out in shock.

The characters on this shattered massive stele were precisely the three words "Flowing Sand River".

Flowing Sand River — three thousand fathoms of Weak Water deep, goose feathers cannot float, reed flowers sink to the bottom. It was also the first place Tang Luo encountered Sha Wujing.

"Before the Great Upheaval, Wujing was not at Spirit Mountain's Leiyin Temple." Tang Luo said.

"So this world really was reformed after the Mountains and Seas Realm shattered..." Ao Yulie's tone carried a sigh; though he had guessed it long ago, only now, seeing the stele, was it truly confirmed.

The Mountains and Seas Realm — most likely it no longer exists at all.

To Ao Yulie, this was tantamount to having no home left; his emotions surged and fell, impossible to put into words.

"Never expected the Ghost Prison was actually formed from a part of the Flowing Sand River?" Ao Yulie said. "Third Senior Brother — he definitely stayed here before."

That stele — Ao Yulie had now fully recognized it; back when they crossed the Flowing Sand River, the stele they saw was this very one.

After countless ages and the cataclysm of heaven and earth, the inscription was blurred beyond recognition, yet it had fortunately survived.

Composing himself, Ao Yulie asked: "Master, where did that little ghost run off to?"

"Just up ahead, not far — seems to be waiting for us, looking quite confident." Tang Luo smiled, set the stele down, and walked toward that "Scripture Seeker's" direction.

The former Flowing Sand River, now the Ghost Prison.

The bottom was not entirely desolate; only the area where Tang Luo's group had just entered was somewhat barren.

As they advanced, the surrounding vegetation grew much lusher; before long, a deep valley — or rather a black river — appeared ahead underfoot.

The water surface stood about ten meters above the "bank".

Cutting off the path ahead, one could see continuously flowing black water, water vapor rising and churning, exuding a chill.

On the opposite bank stood that tiny Scripture Seeker, a pair of snake pupils glowing with red light, extremely striking in the incomparably dim environment.

Coldly sneering straight at Tang Luo's group.

A good several hundred meters wide, no bridge — for ordinary people, crossing would be no easy feat.

"Master, let me go." Ao Yulie volunteered.

"Mm." Tang Luo nodded.

Ao Yulie stepped forward, hovered above the black water, and flew toward the Scripture Seeker.

That Scripture Seeker seemingly hadn't expected Ao Yulie to fly, was greatly startled, and retreated two steps.

Ao Yulie flew forward unhurriedly; when he reached the halfway point, the rushing sound of the water below suddenly grew loud.

The black water churned up white waves, and a massive black-red snake burst from the water, its bloody maw opening wide, lunging to bite Ao Yulie.

This snake's body was enormous; its jaws gaped — never mind a single person, even that bear and the aerial-transformed human-faced eagle trapped together could be easily swallowed in one gulp.

Most bizarre of all, on this black-red giant snake's body, there actually grew several pairs of human hands and feet.

Compared to the snake's colossal frame, at first glance they looked like wriggling flesh buds.

Ao Yulie glanced down, his figure suddenly shot upward, transforming into a streak of light that vanished.

Before the black-red giant snake that had snapped at empty air could fall back into the black water, a dense fog surged, and a dragon claw plunged down from the sky, seizing the black-red giant snake.

The massive snake body, before this dragon claw, instantly became a pitiful little worm.

A majestic, ferocious dragon head emerged from the mist, and facing the black-red giant snake, let out a dragon's chant!

The black-red giant snake thrashed wildly; as the dragon claw lifted, the snake body completely broke free of the black water, writhing madly in midair, entwining around the dragon claw.

Large amounts of viscous black-red blood sprayed from the giant snake's mouth, scales, and even its burst eyes.

After a short, true dragon's roar, the snake body coiled around the dragon claw went completely limp — the giant snake had become a dead snake.

Ao Yulie gave a shake, flinging the snake corpse onto the cliff wall to the side.

A thunderous boom accompanied by a slight tremor — the giant snake was smashed into a blur of mangled mud, leaving an "abstract painting" on the rock face.

"Huu—" Exhaling a breath, Ao Yulie resumed human form and landed beside the Scripture Seeker.

That Scripture Seeker sat dumbly on the ground, face dull, expression full of shock.

"I'm satisfied — will you come with me, or shall I swallow you in one gulp?" Ao Yulie asked, looking at the Scripture Seeker.

In a foul mood, a mere little worm dares open its mouth at this true dragon?

The outcome was naturally incomparably miserable.