Chapter 589: Epilogue: Three Lives Hall

I turned my head and met Liu Junyan's anxious eyes.

Those vertical pupils stared at me unblinking, filled with immense demonic power, as if they could draw away my soul.

The next moment, I slapped Liu Junyan's head with one palm.

True qi shattered his skull, blood mixed with brain matter flowing down his forehead, a particularly gruesome sight.

My heart remained calm, I raised my hand and struck down again with a palm.

This time, Liu Junyan's whole head had been moved, yet he still stood like a statue on the iron chain bridge, and a voice came from the severed neck: "Xiao Jiu, we've been tricked..."

I gripped both sides of the iron chain with my hands, lifted my foot, and kicked the headless corpse hard downward.

This time my foot carried inner force; the instant my toe touched the headless corpse, I flicked it outward, surely able to kick the headless corpse completely away!

Just now, when I locked eyes with that thing, I already spotted the flaw.

Liu Junyan indeed has vertical pupils; the color of those pupils is indeed amber, but long ago a golden ring had already formed around the pupils.

Even Xingchen inherited this trait.

Therefore I was certain that thing just now was meant to confuse me, and I attacked without mercy.

The iron chain shook violently, and a muffled groan came from below.

I looked closely and saw that Liu Junyan's entire upper body had indeed been kicked away by me, his stance unstable, as if he were about to fall from the iron chain bridge.

I instinctively loosened my grip, hooked my feet firmly onto the chain, leaned back, and grabbed one of Liu Junyan's legs.

At that moment Liu Junyan's whole body had already been inverted; once he left the iron chain bridge, an unknown punishment awaited him.

The iron chain bridge continued to sway.

Earlier, Liu Junyan had been stabilizing the bridge with his spell.

When I kicked the headless corpse for the last time, the iron chain bridge began to sway again, showing that Liu Junyan was distracted then and could not keep the bridge stable.

Even if I had kicked harder, it wouldn't have made Liu Junyan so passive.

This can only mean one thing: at the moment I kicked Liu Junyan for the last time, he was also immersed in the illusion.

Only now did I truly realize how much this trial tests one's state of mind.

I can detect the illusion, discern the phantom at once, and not be misled in mind.

But the problem is, the illusions here are not necessarily pure; they are a mixture of half-truth and half-false.

One can tell them apart but cannot separate them; danger lurks everywhere.

A bolt of lightning struck down, jumping over my and Liu Junyan's bodies, leaving them numb and painful.

I gritted my teeth and shouted: "Āyàn!"

At the same moment I exerted force with my hand, Liu Junyan did a carp flip, and we both landed back on the iron chain bridge.

A scare but no danger.

I caught my breath and asked: "Āyàn, what did you just see?"

Liu Junyan replied: "I saw many things that had happened before; they were all illusions."

"Yes, all illusions." I pressed on, "Which phantom caused your mind to waver?"

Liu Junyan hesitated before saying: "It was in the Linghai Forbidden Ground, when I sent you back to Cangwu Mountain and personally pushed you out..."

My heart clenched tightly.

That was a long time ago.

Later I returned from Cangwu Mountain and talked with Liu Junyan a lot, yet I never thought to ask him about his feelings after seeing me off.

I always thought he was a person of very steady mind, not swayed by such a temporary parting.

But I never expected that moment to become a scar buried deep in Liu Junyan's heart.

Once that scar is uncovered, it will cause an indelible pain.

"I personally pushed you out, but I could not guarantee you would walk out of Cangwu Mountain; every second of that time was, to me, a slow slicing. Xiao Jiu, if you don't return, I am the executioner who killed you."

"Āyàn, you're really foolish."

I lowered my head and gave him a bitter smile.

But I could no longer see Liu Junyan's expression; before me rose a mist of water vapor.

"It's all in the past." Liu Junyan said, "Xiao Jiu, no one can ever separate us again."

Yeah, no one!

We share life and death together.

The road ahead became even more arduous, layer upon layer of illusions incessantly assaulting our nerves.

Perhaps after experiencing that little incident just now, it actually strengthened our resolve; we each broke through, and no further mishaps occurred.

At the final stage, Liu Junyan gave me a boost from behind, and I was almost lifted up by him.

I almost laughed and cried; was Liu Junyan afraid I couldn't climb up?

Soon we stood steadily outside the cave dwelling of the Nineteen Grotto-Heavens.

On the lintel of the semi-arched gate, the four large characters "Nineteen Grotto-Heavens" were carved.

On each side of the gate stood a stone figure.

The stone figures were eight feet tall, wearing armor and holding weapons, like heavenly soldiers and generals.

Passing through the gate and climbing the steps, we soon stood outside the Three Lives Hall.

In the center of the courtyard facing the hall's main gate stood a huge, oddly shaped stone, before which stood an equally huge incense burner.

Inside the burner, blue smoke curled upward, and the air floated with a pleasant fragrance of incense.

As I walked past that boulder, I deliberately glanced at it; the stone was bald, with nothing on it.

As soon as I stepped into the Three Lives Hall, I saw an old peach tree as thick as a thigh standing in the center.

The peach tree's branches were many, yet oddly, no leaves grew on them; countless gorgeous peach blossoms vied to bloom on the branches.

These peach blossoms are not decorations; they are real, because I smelled a faint peach blossom fragrance.

Red threads were tangled all over the peach tree; if I didn't know better, I would have thought this place was the Old Man Under the Moon's shrine.

After looking around, I didn't see any Yuānyāng Tóngxīn Suǒ, nor any other door.

It couldn't be wrong.

"Xiao Jiu, above."

At that moment, Liu Junyan suddenly spoke up to remind me, and I hurriedly looked up.

I saw that on the beams of the Sānshēng Diàn, countless iron chains were tightly wound together, and faintly I could make out the shapes of some locks between the chains.

Those Yuānyāng Tóngxīn Suǒ were like the beating heart and pulse of the Sānshēng Diàn, merging into one with it.

I looked around again, then reached out to grope everywhere inside the Sānshēng Diàn.

The furnishings inside the Sānshēng Diàn were simple; I and Liu Junyan had checked every suspicious spot, yet we never found the mechanism to release the Yuānyāng Tóngxīn Suǒ.

If there is no mechanism, are we supposed to fly up and pry the Yuānyāng Tóngxīn Suǒ out from between the iron chains?

Never mind whether we could budge it; this also doesn't make sense.

As I was feeling anxious, my peripheral vision swept over the huge stone outside the Sānshēng Diàn's door, and suddenly inspiration struck—could the mechanism be on that huge stone?

Thinking that, I had already rushed out, wanting to find the mechanism on the huge stone or around the incense burner, but still found nothing.

At last, I took out that key and pressed it against the huge stone.

The huge stone boomed, and immediately two names appeared on its face: Wang Fanchen, Yu Nian……