Chapter 140
Xing Chun praised Zhongli Shan as he walked, then asked him why he kept hiding such impressive sword techniques.
Zhongli Shan answered honestly: "I'm not proficient yet."
Using it frequently would be embarrassing if something went wrong.
Upon hearing him say he wasn't proficient, Xing Chun immediately stopped moving forward and looked up at the high walls of sea waves: "By not proficient, do you mean it might collapse halfway through my walk?"
Zhongli Shan said expressionlessly: "That's right."
"Then I'd better..." Xing Chun turned to go back, but Mei Liangyu grabbed him and pulled him back: "If it collapses, I'll hold it up for you. Stop talking nonsense and get in the water."
Just as Xing Chun pinched his nose with one hand, Mei Liangyu stuck a bright yellow talisman paper on his forehead, written with cinnabar red in enchanting, indecipherable curse patterns.
Mei Liangyu said: "The deep sea is bone-piercingly cold. Living people can't survive at that temperature. This is a Taoist Four Seasons Rest Talisman for warmth and cold protection. I modified it slightly, barely enough to sustain us down there for half an hour."
Xing Chun lifted the talisman paper hanging over his nose and glared at Mei Liangyu: "You modified a Taoist talisman?"
Mei Liangyu slapped one on his own head with a sound, unconcerned: "Ghost Way School also writes talismans. What's wrong with modifying them?"
He turned to put one on Zhongli Shan too, but Zhongli Shan stopped him first and did it himself.
Xing Chun turned to look at Zhongli Shan: "Half an hour, that's about how long the star arrays outside will last too. What about you, Little General Zhongli?"
Zhongli Shan felt somewhat helpless at the teasing in his words: "Half an hour, it won't collapse. Don't worry."
After entering the sea, Mei Liangyu led the way while Xing Chun and Zhongli Shan flanked him on both sides, simultaneously watching the water currents and trying to avoid the spinning sea whirlpools.
If they accidentally got caught in one, they'd be finished.
Not to mention whether they could survive in the violent underwater springs, even if they were lucky enough not to be killed by the Five Elements energy inside the whirlpools, they wouldn't know where the seawater would wash them.
Except for Taiyi's islands, the surroundings were endless ocean.
If they were carried by sea whirlpools to some desolate place, it would be no different from death.
Six Mysterious Wood grew in the deep sea, never seeing sunlight, suffering extreme bitter cold, and growing under seawater pressure, so it didn't grow tall.
Mei Liangyu had previously shown the other two what Six Mysterious Wood looked like in books.
It resembled sea coral, tree-like in shape, fire-red in color, vivid and authentic fire-red. It was a color that could only be seen with the naked eye, a color that no pigments in the world could reproduce.
At first glance, Xing Chun mistook Six Mysterious Wood for sea coral, until he saw the book's description: one Mysterious Wood grows only six branches, with fine soft down on the branches. The down is poisonous, but harmless to touch with hands. It only takes effect if bitten, protecting itself from being eaten by sea creatures.
Its uniqueness lay in its strong poison resistance. It could avoid corrosion in any harsh environment, but was also very difficult to polish and craft into other tool shapes.
Harvesting was also troublesome. There were many better choices than Six Mysterious Wood.
Mei Liangyu had come here once years ago with the Wenyang family brothers. At that time, all four major Mechanism families mobilized, hundreds of people in grand procession, well-prepared, with some going underwater and others receiving on the sea.
Why those four families went underwater to find Six Mysterious Wood back then, Mei Liangyu didn't know. He only remembered that he was discovered halfway through his secret dive and was pulled out of the water, only able to stay on shore.
Before departure, Mei Liangyu confirmed the location of Six Mysterious Wood with the Wenyang brothers once more, ensuring he hadn't remembered wrong.
At this time, the deep sea was pitch black. Mei Liangyu's modified Four Seasons Rest Talisman could not only provide warmth but also illumination. Light circles surrounded the three men, lighting their way forward. Ahead, magnificent light faintly flickered, and approaching closer, they discovered it was a large coral forest.
Red coral was densely packed throughout the forest. The underwater stone walls were covered with strangely shaped, variously colored coral, mostly peach pink, pink, and fire red, which could be considered treasures among corals.
When approaching them, one could feel the Five Elements energy flowing between heaven and earth. These corals were affected by this influence, making their colors extremely vivid, like pearls in the sea, glowing and shining.
Six Mysterious Wood was not only clever but also cunning.
It would evolve poisonous down to protect itself and also liked to hide among coral groups to conceal itself.
Mei Liangyu made a gesture, indicating it was in this area and they needed to search.
The three separated, each responsible for different directions and areas, entering the coral forest sea to search for traces of Six Mysterious Wood and Silver River Water.
When on shore, Mei Liangyu's three had already discussed:
Silver River Water resembled dewdrops, crystal clear, colorless and odorless. To unknowing eyes, it would definitely be mistaken for a rather large dewdrop.
When the Thirteenth Realm instructors and Saints searched the dormitories earlier, they used green bamboo rods called "River Detection Sticks," soaked in special medicines from the Medical School and Agricultural School, specifically designed to test for Silver River Water's toxic reactions.
Silver River Water's toxicity was excessive. The River Detection Sticks could sense the toxicity from just a few inches away.
For Nian Qiuyan to take Silver River Water from Inverted Moon Cave, he only needed to break off a palm-sized branch of Six Mysterious Wood, then press this branch into the Silver River Water. The dense down on the branch would absorb and lock the Silver River Water onto the down, coating the entire branch with heavy dewdrops.
That branch of Six Mysterious Wood would become visibly moist, water-laden, with a drooping quality.
Though the naked eye could distinguish the difference, the three still prepared River Detection Sticks, since they needed to find Six Mysterious Wood in the coral sea where almost everything visible was vivid fire-red.
Broken branches of Six Mysterious Wood would lose their vitality after a few days, and the down on the branches could no longer preserve Silver River Water, so Mei Liangyu guessed Nian Qiuyan would hide the Silver River Water in the sea's forest.
That night, when the Saints couldn't find Silver River Water on Nian Qiuyan or in the dormitories, it also verified his guess.
Nian Qiuyan might have broken off quite a bit of Six Mysterious Wood, wanting to forge his own box capable of containing Silver River Water, but this was difficult for one person to accomplish and would take too much time.
Before he could complete it, Mei Liangyu gambled that the Silver River Water was still in the deep sea beneath Mechanism Island.
Three figures shuttled through the coral sea radiating magnificent light. The light and shadows refracted in the water were breathtakingly beautiful, but Mei Liangyu and the others had no mind to appreciate this scenery, only hurrying to find Six Mysterious Wood and Silver River Water.
After an unknown amount of time, Xing Chun had swum to near the edge of the coral sea. Looking back, he felt somewhat lost. After staring too long at the colorful, densely packed coral before him, he fell into confusion: have I already searched this place or not?
Xing Chun poked the River Detection Stick into the gaps between large coral clusters. He heard Mei Liangyu's whistle using Five Elements Living Arts, reminding them they had only a little time left. If they couldn't find it, they had to surface and leave, unable to stay long.
After responding with his own whistle, he looked down and discovered the tip of the green bamboo rod pulled from the coral gap had turned black.
This indicated sensing the presence of Silver River Water's toxicity.
Xing Chun's eyes widened. He hurriedly bent down to approach this cluster of coral while making the whistle sound for finding Silver River Water, summoning his two companions over.
Before the three men was a small mountain piled up from various colored and shaped corals. In the middle section of the mountain, large peach-pink umbrella-shaped corals overlapped each other. The Six Mysterious Wood was hidden beneath the umbrella-shaped coral.
Zhongli Shan and Mei Liangyu extended River Detection Sticks from different directions into the gaps. When they pulled them out again, they could see the blackened tips, both detecting Silver River Water's toxicity.
The three cooperated to knock away the coral concealing the Six Mysterious Wood, revealing dozens of Six Mysterious Wood clustered closely together below.
The fire-red branches were slender and curved, smaller than the largest Six Mysterious Wood recorded in books, seemingly still in their growth period. Mei Liangyu's three immediately spotted the branches with a drooping quality, their fine down moist and crystalline, appearing wet even when viewed underwater.
Xing Chun gestured to the two others, indicating this was it: break it off and take it away?
Zhongli Shan also indicated they needed to hurry, time was running out.
Mei Liangyu acted, the sharp curved dagger from his sleeve nimbly cutting the Six Mysterious Wood preserving the Silver River Water. This branch was even smaller than his palm, but he had no time to examine it closely. After getting the item, he began surfacing to leave.
The surrounding other Six Mysterious Wood were too close together, branches intertwined. When Mei Liangyu took it, he inevitably caused these branches to collide. The fine down wrapped with Silver River Water shook, dropping some particles that stuck to Mei Liangyu's clothes.
As Mei Liangyu swam, these microscopic down particles also floated and sank around him. In an unnoticed accident, down carrying Silver River Water drifted along his hair into his ear.
The branch part Mei Liangyu held wasn't contaminated with Silver River Water. Fearing accidents during the surfacing process, he put this branch of Six Mysterious Wood into his mechanism box.
Since the Six Mysterious Wood's down wrapped the Silver River Water airtight, putting it in the mechanism box at this time was fine.
While surfacing, Mei Liangyu was still thinking: the Silver River Water was found, but there was no evidence proving Nian Qiuyan did it.
Should he give the item to the academy to settle the matter and prevent the academy from continuing their investigation and eventually tracing it to Nian Qiuyan, or should he give the item to Nian Qiuyan and ask him why he did this?
While still thinking, Mei Liangyu suddenly felt severe brain pain. This pain came suddenly and fiercely, making the veins on his temples bulge.
The Four Seasons Rest Talisman also failed. Bone-piercing cold instantly engulfed Mei Liangyu's entire body, making him lose his surfacing strength and sink.
Below were the bright, warm coral sea lights. The refracted light and shadows in Mei Liangyu's eyes seemed like cut-up scenes, and when the figures in the scenes moved, countless whispers also appeared in his ears.
In the same sea area, what appeared before his eyes was a different version of himself.
What Mei Liangyu saw while falling was his childhood self and the white-clothed man who led him underwater together.
He heard the man's gentle, laughing voice say: "The sea is connected. It can take you anywhere. Whether it's Taiyi's sea or Yan Kingdom's sea... they're all the same."
Zhongli Shan noticed Mei Liangyu's abnormality and hurriedly swam toward him, grabbing him. Seeing Mei Liangyu's tightly furrowed brow and scattered gaze, he knew something was wrong. Just as he was about to examine Mei Liangyu's Five Elements energy, he saw Xing Chun, who had been swimming at the front, suddenly turn back.
Xing Chun had a look as if he'd seen a ghost, his eyes full of terror, frantically gesturing to the two men.
Zhongli Shan couldn't make out what Xing Chun's gestures meant. When he looked up, he saw the suddenly distorted seawater. Above and below them, irresistible, insurmountable suction suddenly appeared, pulling from top to bottom, creating a whirlpool from within the sea that dragged them toward the seabed, forming a sea whirlpool.
The two star arrays on the sea surface disappeared when time ran out, and the high walls of waves split by sword energy also suddenly collapsed. Seawater crashed down heavily, and chaos returned to the skies above this sea area.
Thunder rolled continuously, waves came one after another, swallowing and concealing all traces.
Only the black-winged, white-headed sea eagle circling in the air still remained stationed there, not departing.