The next day, before dawn had broken, Gu Chengming woke very early.
It wasn't that he'd slept poorly the night before—quite the opposite. Ever since obtaining the "Dao Conduit," his mental state had been clearer than ever.
—Which, in a roundabout way, went to show that the Dao Conduit was good for one's health.
Gu Chengming sat cross-legged on his bunk and began analyzing the description and usage of this new CG.
Two abilities, one offensive and one defensive. "Borrow Fortune" could intercept a fellow Daoist's opportunity, while "Retreat" could let him withdraw to a position behind a fellow Daoist.
The method of acquiring Fellow Daoist Karma, however, was rather subtle.
The so-called condition was that the other party must sincerely, from the heart, acknowledge that "you are my fellow Daoist." The definition of "fellow Daoist" was already quite broad, and the "from the heart" clause left plenty of room for interpretation—one could say the literal description didn't truly convey the difficulty involved.
Gu Chengming thought it over and decided a test was in order.
Not because he was eager to accumulate Fellow Daoist Karma, but because he needed to clarify a few things.
First, to determine exactly how high the trigger threshold was, and whether the other party would notice.
He opened his eyes, his gaze passing through the cabin window toward the deck.
Dawn had not yet broken. The sky of the far north was a deep indigo, a few lingering stars hanging at the horizon, and there was already movement on the deck.
Chu Heng stood at the bow calibrating a compass, Jiang Yun crouched beside him, the two discussing their heading in low voices.
Gu Chengming's gaze lingered on Jiang Yun for two breaths.
—His test subject would be this man.
The reason for choosing Jiang Yun was simple.
The man had already made friendly overtures, so a foundation for the relationship was in place. Moreover, he was smooth and sociable by nature, and such people usually had a lower threshold for accepting the concept of a "fellow Daoist."
Most importantly, Gu Chengming wanted to probe this man's depths.
Yesterday Jiang Yun had offered tea and gifted a jade slip of his own accord, warm yet perfectly measured—a textbook case of "how a clever man makes friends," with nothing to fault.
Yet the Red Dust Phantom Body Formula's assessment of him had been: "This one forges good affinities with just a few words—quite the skillful hand."
The remark itself wasn't a warning, but the Red Dust Phantom Body Formula rarely commented on others. Since it had spoken up, that meant Jiang Yun had been filed into the "worth watching" column of its judgment system.
So rather than wait passively, it was better to take the initiative—to test the "Dao Conduit" while also getting a feel for the man's depth.
Gu Chengming rose, straightened his robes, and pushed open the door toward the deck.
"Fellow Daoist Gu, good morning."
Jiang Yun was the first to notice him, immediately greeting him with a smile.
Chu Heng nodded as well but said nothing more, keeping his head down over the compass.
"Fellow Daoist Jiang." Gu Chengming walked to his side and leaned casually against the railing. "Up so early?"
"Force of habit. Back at the Celestial Survey Bureau, Vice Envoy Chu held a morning meeting at the hour of the rabbit every day. Show up late once and you'd be copying out three survey maps as punishment." Jiang Yun shook his head with a wry smile, leaving Chu Heng rather helpless at the words.
Gu Chengming smiled.
The two chatted idly for a while, drifting from the climate of the far north to the distribution patterns of spirit veins. Jiang Yun was indeed effortlessly fluent in these specialized fields, and when he spoke of the art of surveying, enthusiasm shone in the corners of his eyes and brows.
Gu Chengming expressed a measure of curiosity and admiration at the right moments, and Jiang Yun grew more animated with every word, as though he'd found a kindred spirit.
Following the thread of conversation, Gu Chengming took out from his storage pouch the jade slip Jiang Yun had gifted him the day before.
"That treatise on earth veins you gave me yesterday, Fellow Daoist Jiang—I studied it carefully after I got back." He turned the jade slip over in his palm. "It truly has its unique insights, especially that section on the folding of deep spirit veins. Even in the Imperial Astronomical Bureau's archives, such material is rare."
At this, Jiang Yun's eyes brightened slightly, but he waved a modest hand. "You're too kind, too kind—it's merely the accumulated experience of several generations of my sect."
"As it happens, I have some information on the Northern Territory—consider it a return gift." Gu Chengming produced a jade slip he'd long prepared and handed it over.
It was a portion of the spirit-vein distribution maps of the far-northern permafrost layers, gathered with the aid of the Myriad Wonders Assembly during his time at Snowfall Pass. All content touching on the Night-Watch Bureau's military deployments had been stripped out, leaving only pure geological and spirit-vein information.
To the Celestial Survey Bureau, such intelligence did hold no small reference value.
Jiang Yun took the jade slip, swept it with a pulse of spiritual power, and at once his face lit with delighted surprise.
"Fellow Daoist Gu, this information is quite useful to our Celestial Survey Bureau. Many thanks!"
"You're too polite, Fellow Daoist Jiang." Gu Chengming smiled. "Out on the road, sharing what we have beats hoarding and hiding."
Jiang Yun solemnly tucked the jade slip into his robes and patted his chest. "This favor, Fellow Daoist Gu—I, Jiang Yun, will remember it. If ever you have need of anything, you have only to ask."
Gu Chengming quietly sensed inward—the "Dao Conduit" showed no reaction at all, leaving him somewhat doubtful.
"How long have you been at the Celestial Survey Bureau, Fellow Daoist Jiang?"
"Nearly eight years now." Jiang Yun sighed. "Started as a lowly errand clerk, followed Vice Envoy Chu across every spirit vein north and south of the Great Qian, crawled through every godforsaken mountain and cursed river there is."
"That's hard work."
"Not so much hard as it is endless—sometimes it feels like this job has no end."
A note of genuine resignation crept into Jiang Yun's tone. "We survey the spirit veins year after year, draw the maps year after year, yet when it actually comes to decisions that matter, no one listens to you. What the lords of the court care about is how many spirit stones can be mined from the ore deposits. As for how to preserve the spirit veins over the long term—that's just the Celestial Survey Bureau talking to itself."
Here he seemed to realize he'd complained too much, and hastily changed the subject with a laugh:
"Still, coming to Tianque this time is a wish years in the making. The spirit-vein structure of an ancient Secret Realm is utterly unlike the outside world. If I could obtain firsthand survey data, it'd be enough to live off for the rest of my life."
Listening to his words, Gu Chengming mulled things over privately.
Jiang Yun's complaints weren't necessarily all sincere, but the grievance over the Celestial Survey Bureau "being overlooked" really didn't seem to be an act.
Within the Great Qian's power structure, the Celestial Survey Bureau ranked low, wedged between the three great mountains of the Night-Watch Bureau, the Imperial Astronomical Bureau, and the Court of State Ceremonial—doing the hardest work yet earning the least credit. Such a position did tend to breed discontent.
Gu Chengming fell silent for two breaths, then spoke a seemingly offhand remark.
"Spirit-vein courses, Secret Realm coordinates, deep ore distributions—to the court these are just numbers on a report. But to certain factions less concerned with the rules, such survey maps are worth their weight in gold."
"You mean those smuggling merchants?" Jiang Yun frowned.
Gu Chengming didn't speak that name aloud, merely taking out another jade slip from his storage pouch.
What this jade slip held was far more sensitive than the spirit-vein intelligence of a moment ago—a list he'd seized from Pavilion Master Qian's hidden stronghold while cleansing the Myriad Gold Pavilion in the Northern Territory.
What the list recorded was not goods but a series of place names, and nearly a third of the locations on it were ones Gu Chengming had seen in the Imperial Astronomical Bureau's Records of Heavenly Calamities.
Those places were all high-risk zones the Imperial Astronomical Bureau had classified as "heavenly calamities triggered by spirit-vein imbalance."
In other words, this was a list of "target locations" filtered out by the faction behind the Myriad Gold Pavilion, based on intelligence obtained through some channel.
The reason he hadn't reported it directly was that the list itself didn't constitute ironclad proof—there was no name or mark of the Eternal Life Sect on it, only places and annotations.
But right now, it could serve as a touchstone.
"Fellow Daoist Jiang, take a look at this." Gu Chengming handed the jade slip over.
Jiang Yun was a little surprised, but out of the goodwill from Gu Chengming's earlier generous gift of intelligence, he asked nothing and simply took it, channeling spiritual power to scan it.
Gu Chengming wasn't looking at the jade slip; instead he was using the Red Dust Art to carefully sense the shifts in the other man's emotions.
The slip's contents weren't long—a single pass took barely a dozen breaths.
Jiang Yun's emotions rippled briefly—not the feeling of "seeing interesting information," but the reaction of "recognizing something."
"Fellow Daoist Gu, where did you come by this?"
His tone was level, but the direction of the question was off.
A normal technical official of the Celestial Survey Bureau, seeing a list of place names of unknown origin, would first react with "what's special about these places" or "what do you want me to analyze."
But Jiang Yun asked about the source.
What he cared about wasn't the list's content but its origin—which meant he already knew what those places on the list signified.
Gu Chengming's expression didn't change as he answered casually, "Seized it from a smuggling den while suppressing bandits in the Northern Territory. I thought at first it was just ordinary ore-survey records, but a few of the place names matched the Imperial Astronomical Bureau's Records of Heavenly Calamities, so I found it rather interesting."
"Let me take a closer look."
He lowered his head and went through the list once more.
And then, Gu Chengming felt a mysterious, profound karmic bond forge into being.
—Fellow Daoist Karma!
[Dao Conduit CG Unlock Progress +10]
Watching the popup that leapt up before his eyes, Gu Chengming fell into thought.
If Jiang Yun were a pure member of the Celestial Survey Bureau, his normal reaction to that list should have been "this intelligence is valuable for my research." But his reaction wasn't that.
This was the reaction of someone who had long known this information existed—someone who might even have been tracking similar leads for a long time—upon unexpectedly encountering a fellow traveler on the same road.
Which raised the question: why would a deputy of the Celestial Survey Bureau have long been following spirit-vein arrangements connected to the Eternal Life Sect?
Gu Chengming had no way for now to confirm the man's identity, but in any case, that strand of Fellow Daoist Karma probably couldn't be used lightly.
Gu Chengming sealed away this karmic thread, along with his suspicions of Jiang Yun, deep in his heart.
Afterward the two exchanged a few more inconsequential words before Chu Heng called Jiang Yun back to continue calibrating the route, and Gu Chengming leaned alone against the railing, watching the horizon slowly pale.
Dawn light finally broke through the far north's indigo canopy. The flying vessel skimmed steadily above the permafrost, and one by one those in the cabin woke, each beginning their final preparations before entering the Secret Realm.
Before anyone realized, it was mid-morning.
The flying vessel crossed the last stretch of permafrost hills, and the terrain ahead abruptly changed.
The white crystalline land vanished, replaced by a black wasteland.
That black wasn't the color of soil but of some dark stone paving the ground. The entire land looked as though it had been leveled by a giant scraper, unnaturally flat, with a few black stone pillars standing solitary here and there upon the wasteland, uneven in height—the tallest a good several dozen zhang, the shortest still more than a man's height.
Xu Huayi stood on the deck, her gaze sweeping over those stone pillars, and suddenly let out a soft "Huh?"
"What is it?" Zhou Hui leaned in.
"There are patterns on those pillars."
A faint spiritual light rose in Xu Huayi's eyes. "Not natural weathering—they were carved by hand."
She knit her brows. "They look like… boundary markers?"
"They are boundary markers."
Chu Heng's voice came from the bow. He set down the compass in his hand, his expression grave.
"These pillars are the sealing boundary markers of the far north's outer edge, set in the ancient era by several great powers working together to mark the extent of a certain heavenly calamity. Within the pillars, the spatial structure is no longer entirely stable."
He paused, then added, "From here on, the vessel's formation efficiency will steadily decline. At most another half a shichen of travel, and we'll have to abandon ship and go on foot."
At these words, everyone's expression turned a shade more serious.
Abandoning the ship to travel on foot meant losing their greatest advantage in mobility—and it meant that from this moment on, the fates of all nine people were bound together.
Lu Mingzhang snapped his folding fan shut and, rarely, spoke up of his own accord. "Vice Envoy Chu, once we enter the boundary-marker range, should each team's advance plan be reconsidered?"
"Although Tianque's outer region is relatively low in danger, the spatial structure is unstable—rifts and turbulence could appear at any moment. I suggest the nine of us divide into three groups, staying within communication range of one another but not too tightly clustered. That way we can support each other in danger, while avoiding being swallowed all at once by the same spatial rift."
He looked around at everyone, awaiting a response.
"Reasonable." Ma Xiao stated his position in a few terse words.
"No objections." Xu Huayi nodded.
Lu Mingzhang smiled. "The guest follows the host's lead."
Gu Chengming nodded as well. This plan was most advantageous to the Celestial Survey Bureau, hardest on the Night-Watch Bureau, and for the Court of State Ceremonial…
Gu Chengming shot Lu Mingzhang a glance—that smiling tiger had no objection whatsoever to the plan.
Since when were the people of the Court of State Ceremonial so easy to deal with?
But now wasn't the time to dwell on it. With the grouping settled, everyone returned to the cabin to sort their gear, sealing away unnecessary supplies aboard the vessel and carrying only lightweight combat and survival provisions.
Gu Chengming checked through his storage pouch, confirming his pills, talismans, and spare spirit stones were all present, then returned to the deck to wait.
Half a shichen later, just as Chu Heng had said, the vessel's formation output plummeted.
The rate of spirit-stone consumption climbed to three times normal, the protective light barrier began to ripple visibly, and the hull started to jolt from time to time.
After about a quarter of an hour of travel, Gu Chengming noticed some rather unusual signs.
Some were faint footprints, mostly buried under sand and gravel yet still dimly discernible in outline; others were marks left by blades hacking at the stone pillars, the residual spiritual power at the cut edges already extremely faint but not yet fully dissipated.
Those runes did not belong to the pillars' own sealing formations—they had been added later by someone.
"People have been here." He crouched, fingers brushing over the concealed runes. "And more than one group. These runes show at least three different styles of stroke, spanning from a few months to perhaps a year ago."
Lu Mingzhang stepped forward, his gaze flickering. "Wasn't Tianque only just opened?"
"Tianque's entrance only just opened," Chu Heng said, rising, his tone turning graver. "But Tianque's outer region has always existed—it's merely that one couldn't reach the core. The zones between these pillars weren't completely sealed off even while Tianque was closed. For cultivators of exceptional skill, operating in the outskirts is not impossible."
Having said this, Chu Heng was first to unfold his compass and begin calculating the spirit-vein courses ahead. Jiang Yun and Tao Yong followed closely, and the three quickly settled into their work.
Xu Huayi and Zhou Hui crouched beside a boundary marker studying the runes on it, murmuring to each other now and then, while Lu Mingzhang leaned against another pillar, his folding fan half-shielding his face, the very picture of detached ease.
Gu Chengming, meanwhile, was enduring an exceedingly subtle torment.
"Deputy Commander Gu! Look at the pattern on this pillar—doesn't it look like a dragon?"
Zhou Qingmu crouched beside a short pillar, tilting her head up and waving at Gu Chengming, her tone full of the curiosity and excitement one would expect from a young Chief Banner Officer setting foot in a Secret Realm's outskirts for the first time.
Gu Chengming walked over and glanced down—it had not the faintest thing to do with a dragon.
—Have you ever even seen a dragon? Just spouting nonsense, taking it for granted.
Oh, wait—she might actually have seen one.
"It does bear a certain resemblance."
"Right? Right?"
Zhou Qingmu stood, patted the dust off her knees, and fell in beside Gu Chengming with a beaming smile, her steps as light as if she were off to a temple fair.
"I've always been out running missions before—this is my first time this far north. Deputy Commander Gu, you're so worldly and experienced. You'll have to give me plenty of guidance from now on."
Gu Chengming: "…"
—Director Zhou, could you dial back this "casualness" of yours just a touch?
What left Gu Chengming even more helpless was that this "Chief Banner Officer Shen" truly had a flair for drama.
As they walked, she would deliberately lag half a step, staying slightly behind and to the side of Gu Chengming—the standard positioning of a subordinate to a superior.
When they came upon suspicious terrain, she would first glance at Gu Chengming's reaction before making her own judgment.
With her status and strength, there was no need whatsoever for her to take this risk in person. Even if she were worried about her own safety, sending a shadow guard to watch over her would suffice—why put herself in danger? If her identity were exposed inside the Secret Realm, that would be a fine mess indeed.
Clearly she had something she needed to handle herself.
Gu Chengming set the thought aside for now, and while everyone was busy with their own tasks, quietly drew near to Zhou Qingmu.
"Fellow Dao—… Fellow Daoist Shen."
"Mm?" Zhou Qingmu was crouched on the ground, using a short knife to pry loose a fragment of spirit ore half-buried in the dark stone. Hearing his voice, she looked up with a brilliant smile. "Something you need, Deputy Commander Gu?"
"Vice Envoy Chu said just now that once inside the boundary-marker range, we'll act in three groups."
Gu Chengming crouched beside her. "The three of us from the Night-Watch Bureau will naturally form one group when the time comes."
"Of course."
"A Secret Realm is perilous, and trust between groupmates is most crucial."
Gu Chengming's tone was earnest. "Deputy Commander Ma is steady and dependable, that goes without saying. But you and I, Fellow Daoist Shen, are working together for the first time and aren't yet familiar with each other. If we run into danger, lapses in coordination would be hard to avoid."
Zhou Qingmu tilted her head and blinked, seeming to ponder the meaning behind his words.
"So what Deputy Commander Gu means is—"
"What I mean is… this journey is fraught with unforeseeable peril. Since you and I are colleagues, ours is a bond forged in life and death. If you trust me, Fellow Daoist Shen, then from here on in the Secret Realm, I'll block the sword for you, and you'll guard my rear—how about it?"
"Well said, Deputy Commander Gu." Zhou Qingmu rose and extended her hand generously. "But of course! It's my honor to partner with you, Deputy Commander Gu. Let's look after each other from now on!"
Their hands clasped.
Gu Chengming silently sensed inward—
—The Dao Conduit showed no change whatsoever.
…As expected, it wasn't that simple.
The "Dao Conduit's" trigger condition was that the other party must "sincerely, from the heart, acknowledge the fellow-Daoist relationship." But Zhou Qingmu's identity at this moment was "Shen Jinghong"—she was forging a connection with Gu Chengming under a false identity.
Even if she truly did trust Gu Chengming deep down, beneath the shell of "Zhou Qingmu" her self-perception was that of "a superior secretly protecting a subordinate," not "the equal trust between fellow Daoists."
—It seemed hugging this thick thigh wouldn't be so easy after all.
Gu Chengming sighed inwardly and set the matter aside for the time being.
Meanwhile.
On the other side of the group, Jiang Yun was crouched beside a pillar, the compass in his hand spinning rapidly as he recorded spirit-vein data and conferred with Chu Heng in low tones.
"Vice Envoy, three li ahead there's an abnormal fold in the spirit vein—the deep structure looks as if it's been artificially altered."
"Mark it down, we'll examine it in detail later."
"Right."
Jiang Yun answered, and sunlight spilled through a gap in the clouds, falling upon his clean, handsome, amiable face.
Jiang Yun was not his real name.
To be precise, he had many names.
At the Celestial Survey Bureau, he was Jiang Yun, the diligent and dedicated deputy who had followed Vice Envoy Chu across the spirit veins for eight years—technically rock-solid, smooth in manner yet not off-putting, the sort of jack-of-all-trades that superiors liked and colleagues didn't mind.
At the Taihao Sect, he was a Third Realm peak disciple of passable but unremarkable aptitude—hardworking in cultivation, gentle in temperament, low in presence. When his fellow disciples mentioned him, they'd usually just say, "Oh, Junior Brother Jiang? Nice enough fellow."
And in the Eternal Life Sect—
His honored title was the Delirium Speaker.
Most skilled at bewitching the human heart.
There was a certain art to the origin of this title. The word "delirium" originally referred to speech uttered beyond the control of reason, and Jiang Yun's talent was precisely to find that one line of "delirium" buried in each person's heart, then to amplify, twist, and reshape it, until that person willingly walked the path he had laid out for them.
No coercion needed, no bribery needed—the target didn't even need to know they'd been bewitched at all.
He was merely making conversation.
What a wonderful gift.
A pity that lately, the room to exercise this gift had been rather cramped.
The story had to start from more than half a year ago.
At that time, Jiang Yun had been in quite a good mood.
The Harmonious Joy Sect project was proceeding smoothly, Sorrow-and-Joy had infiltrated into position, and the arrangements over at Jìntiān were advancing step by step. According to the original plan, once Sorrow-and-Joy had devoured the emotions of the entire body of Harmonious Joy Sect disciples, he would then step in personally.
He had even prepared his lines.
To those disciples who had lost their joys and sorrows, he would need only to say softly—
"You have not lost your emotions—you have been liberated."
"Emotions are shackles, the poison of the red dust, and the Eternal Life Sect can give you true freedom."
And then these thousand-some people would become the Eternal Life Sect's most devout believers.
Then something happened in the Capital—exactly what, Jiang Yun no longer cared to recall.
In short, a chain of butterfly effects had forced him to temporarily set aside the Harmonious Joy Sect project and rush to the Capital, spending several months putting out fires at the Celestial Survey Bureau.
The firefighting itself was hardly worth mentioning—nothing but wiping up messes, patching holes, and diverting attention. Fortunately, he'd cultivated eight years' worth of deep connections at the Celestial Survey Bureau and had a veteran's touch, so he managed to muddle through the Capital's mess in the end.
Jiang Yun heaved a long breath, thinking he could finally return to pushing the Harmonious Joy Sect project forward.
Then he received the news from Jìntiān.
Sorrow-and-Joy had been killed with a single punch, and the Harmonious Joy Sect plan was declared a total bankruptcy.
He passed through the four stages of denial, anger, dejection, and acceptance, which all boiled down in the end to a single line.
—How the hell is anyone supposed to keep playing this?
Now the Harmonious Joy Sect end was utterly hopeless, and his standing within the sect was precarious.
Of course, as one of the Eternal Life Sect's elders, Jiang Yun quickly composed himself and threw himself anew into the great cause of building up the Eternal Life Sect.
There had once been a brief discussion within the Eternal Life Sect about how to deal with the variable that was Gu Chengming.
The hawkish faction held that they should seize the chance while he entered the Tianque Secret Realm to simply kill him, but the Sect Master vetoed the proposal.
Given the combat record Gu Chengming had displayed thus far, the consequences of a failed assassination would be catastrophic—not only would it alert the enemy, but it might also expose all of the Eternal Life Sect's arrangements within Tianque.
That left only a return to his old trade.
The higher-ups had issued him new orders: probe Gu Chengming within the Tianque Secret Realm, and if possible, "win him over."
If he couldn't be won over, that was fine too—at the very least, drive a rift between him and the Great Qian.
The mission sounded difficult—after all, Gu Chengming's name rang loud these days; the three words "murderous demon" could hush a crying child at night, and there was even a rumor among the sect's upper echelons that the boy was very likely the reincarnation of some ancient old ghost.
But Jiang Yun wasn't worried.
This was Tianque. For this very day, the Eternal Life Sect had spent a full sixty years infiltrating the Secret Realm.
There they had constructed a "Dharma-Station" of their own.
"Fellow Daoist Gu, oh, Fellow Daoist Gu."
He murmured the address softly in his heart.
"This fellow-Daoist bond of ours has a long way yet to run."
"Jiang Yun? What are you spacing out for?" Chu Heng's voice came from up ahead.
"Coming, coming!"
Jiang Yun stood with a smile, patted the dust from his knees, and set the compass spinning again.
The group pressed on.
The stone pillars on the black wasteland grew ever denser, spaced ever more narrowly, as though some invisible force were herding everyone in a single direction. The concentration of spiritual power in the air began to fluctuate violently—now thick to the point of near-stagnation, now thin to the point of near-vacuum.
The needle of the compass in Chu Heng's hand spun faster and faster, and his pace slowed with it, until at last he halted before the tallest pillar.
"Just ahead is the entrance to Tianque." His voice was torn ragged by the suddenly rising wind. "Everyone close in—don't fall out of formation."
The nine swiftly tightened their formation, the distance between them compressed to within three paces.
The wind howled abruptly tighter.
In the gray mist far off, the outline of an illusory pavilion woven of pure white light flickered in and out of sight.
"We're here."
Space twisted, stretched, and folded before their eyes, like an ink-wash painting crumpled in a fist.
It was the first wonder of Tianque's outskirts, originating from a Dharma-Station: [Floating Life Words]
The group stepped into the Secret Realm, and everything before their eyes blurred.
Yet when their vision cleared, two people were missing from the group.
"Deputy Commander Gu and Miss Xu are gone!"
Chu Heng's brows knit tight, the compass in his hand whirling madly, its needle leaping about as if it had lost its mind. "The spatial structure here is completely scrambled."
Everyone startled—all except Jiang Yun, standing at the rear, who appeared to look about anxiously with the rest but was in fact quietly relieved.
It worked.
Sixty years of the Eternal Life Sect's infiltration was no child's play.
Here in Tianque's outer region, they had long ago set up several directional teleportation nodes, waiting only for a destined soul to step in.
And that place named "Jian Yu Zhai" was precisely what he had prepared for Gu Chengming.
Under the Dharma-Station rules of Jian Yu Zhai, the scene each person saw would change according to the desires or fears buried in their subconscious.
As the one who'd laid the scheme, Jiang Yun had absolute confidence in the dark side of human nature.
Gu Chengming? Suspected to be a patriarch of the Harmonious Joy Sect?
An old monster who'd lived for centuries, putting on a sanctimonious façade day to day while who knew how many filthy thoughts lurked within—all the more so a patriarch of a lust-gathering sect like the Harmonious Joy Sect.
In such an environment, his desires were sure to be magnified without limit, turning into the ugliest of bestial nature.
And Xu Huayi, as the onlooker, once she witnessed Gu Chengming's disgraceful display, their relationship would surely shatter in an instant—perhaps even turning them into enemies.
At the thought, a faint anticipation stirred in his heart.
On the other side, feeling the weightless sensation of falling, Gu Chengming could only feel speechless.
Why had something gone wrong again?
Fortunately, the ground was paved with some soft material that cushioned most of the impact.
He rolled over and sat up, beginning to survey the illusory surroundings.
Xu Huayi lay sprawled two paces from him. She pushed herself up off the ground, instinctively straightened her collar, then quickly scanned their surroundings.
It was a sealed stone chamber, its four walls built of a grayish-white stone, their surfaces smooth as mirrors—no door, no window, no exit of any kind.
"We've been teleported." Xu Huayi made her judgment quickly, then said with some distress, "The spatial turbulence at the Secret Realm's entrance must have swept us into some independent space."
Gu Chengming stood, patted the dust from himself, and likewise took in the surroundings.
The stone chamber wasn't large—by eye, perhaps three or four zhang across.
The spiritual patterns on the walls were ancient and intricate. From his limited understanding of formations, these markings seemed more like the outward manifestation of some "Dharma-Station."
He drew back his gaze and turned to look at Xu Huayi, only to find that her expression wasn't quite right.
And in Xu Huayi's line of sight, at the very center of the room, up at the dome, floated a line of large characters: [The Room You Cannot Leave Unless You ▉-rape Gu Chengming]
Xu Huayi's brain crashed for about three breaths.
After her heart passed through several layers of complicated emotions, she drew a deep breath and raised a hand to point at the dome.
"Fellow Daoist Gu, look…"
Gu Chengming followed her finger, and saw a line of large characters materialize at the very center of the dome.
[Please Enter Text]
? What the hell is this?
Seeing Gu Chengming fall silent, Xu Huayi seemed to misunderstand something. Gritting her teeth, she began pulling things out of her storage pouch.
A pouch of spirit stones, four bottles of pills, three magic implements, a stack of talismans, several jade slips.
The more she pulled out, the more there was, and the faster she went, until at the end she simply upended the storage pouch entirely—even shaking loose the Tianding Sect's secretly crafted protective jade talisman that she'd hidden away for three years, never able to bring herself to use it.
A small mountain of belongings piled up between the two of them.
Xu Huayi straightened up, drew a deep breath, and, not daring to meet Gu Chengming's eyes, said, "Fellow Daoist Gu! This is my entire fortune!"
Gu Chengming: "?"
"Just consider it for the sake of escaping!"
Xu Huayi tilted her head up, her tone full of grim resignation as if facing death. "There's really… there's really no other way!"
"If it's not enough, I'll pull out tens of thousands more spirit stones once we're back in the Capital!"
Having said this, she lowered her head, staring at the little mountain of spirit stones, not daring to look at Gu Chengming's expression.
Her ears were already red enough to drip blood.
In her understanding, the meaning of these words was—
"I know this request is outrageous, but we're trapped, and this is the only way, so please accept these things as compensation, and then we'll… we'll…"
She felt her hint was already obvious enough.
No—it had become so obvious it was practically spelling it out.
After all, she'd dumped out her entire fortune—the meaning was one step short of said outright!
Gu Chengming looked at the priceless heap of treasures at his feet, then at the still-blinking [Please Enter Text].
…What on earth did you see?
Do Tianding Sect people always just throw money at a problem when they can't decide what to do?
Just then, a dialogue box popped up before Gu Chengming's eyes.
[The Hundred Bones Resonance is wild with joy: Have I been reborn again?]
"?"
Now Gu Chengming knew what kind of room this was.
Tianque Secret Realm, the outskirts.
"It's confirmed." Jiang Yun held the compass, his tone heavy. "The spatial turbulence swept them into some independent node deep within the Secret Realm. Such nodes are usually sealed and very hard to locate from the outside."
Chu Heng's face darkened. "Can we tell whether they're safe?"
"Not for the moment. But independent nodes are generally the product of ancient Dharma-Stations—usually not directly lethal, more in the form of some trial or test. As long as they pass the trial, they should be able to break free."
"Then we—"
"We can only wait." Jiang Yun sighed. "A Dharma-Station node—outside forces can't intervene."
Everyone was consumed with worry, and Shen Jinghong's reaction was especially "intense"—her hand pressed to the hilt of her blade, as if she wished she could cleave open space and haul the missing pair out.
Jiang Yun shot her a glance, thinking that this Chief Banner Officer Shen's reaction seemed a bit excessive.
A Third Realm Chief Banner Officer, this tense over a superior's disappearance? And besides, what could a Third Realm even do?
But he quickly turned his attention back to more important matters.
Without any change in his expression, he activated the special sensing implement in his sleeve. Though it couldn't transmit sound, it could vaguely perceive the imagery inside the Dharma-Station node—like watching people through a pane of frosted glass, discerning only outlines and no details.
An image surfaced.
Two figures, one man and one woman, standing face to face.
Good—both Gu Chengming and Xu Huayi were there, still alive for now, the teleportation having gone off without a hitch.
Jiang Yun nodded to himself.
By the rules of the Dharma-Station, the stone chamber would give concrete form to each person's most intense innermost desire and display it, and what each person saw was different.
This was the first trap the Eternal Life Sect had tailor-made for Gu Chengming. By Jiang Yun's reckoning, Gu Chengming's true identity was very likely connected to some patriarch of the Harmonious Joy Sect.
As everyone knew, what did the Harmonious Joy Sect cultivate? The Great Dao of the Red Dust.
And what was the foundation of the Great Dao of the Red Dust? Desire.
Someone deeply versed in the Red Dust Art, who could thrive like a fish in water within the Harmonious Joy Sect—the desires in his heart could not possibly be anything upright and aboveboard.
And who was Xu Huayi? Direct disciple of the Tianding Sect, rising star of the Imperial Astronomical Bureau, the orthodox of the orthodox.
When an orthodox female cultivator witnessed with her own eyes the "true face" of her companion—
—Heh heh heh.
Jiang Yun suppressed his inner anticipation and kept watching.
In the image, the two figures stood facing each other for a while.
Then the female figure—Xu Huayi—began to make some sort of movement, seeming to pull things out from her person.
She pulled out a great deal, more and more, piling it all over the floor.
In the end, she emptied out her storage pouch entirely.
Then she straightened up, facing Gu Chengming, and Jiang Yun swiftly reasoned through the scene before him.
After seeing Gu Chengming's desire, Xu Huayi had pulled out her entire fortune and piled it before him.
An orthodox female cultivator, trapped in a sealed chamber, facing a male cultivator whose desire had been laid utterly bare, brought out everything of value she owned.
What other explanation could there be for this scene?
—She was begging for mercy.
She had seen Gu Chengming's unspeakable desire, been terrified, and was trying to trade her entire fortune for her own safety and chastity.
Which was to say, the desire the Dharma-Station had revealed of Gu Chengming was so horrifying that it made a Third Realm prodigy collapse on the spot, willing to squander her entire fortune to protect herself.
Ha ha—so, as expected, had Gu Chengming's bestial nature erupted?
I knew it, Gu Chengming—you were born a demon. Beneath that heart of yours pursuing justice hides the deepest malice of mankind. To you, killing is as natural as breathing, and ▉ing women as simple as dressing and eating.
Well then, let me have a look at what the desire deep in your heart truly is.
Using the sensing implement in his hand, Jiang Yun tugged at the Dharma-Station, drawing the intercepted image of Gu Chengming's desire before his own eyes.
Slowly, a few large characters began to surface.
[WALK! THE! HEAVENLY! EMPEROR'S! ROAD! AGAIN!]
"?"
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