Chapter 162
Chapter 162
Yu Sui had been vigilant all night about whether anyone would come. She didn't dare move Situ Ling Kui to another location. During this time, she observed the Five Elements Energy within Situ Ling Kui's body with great focus, even ignoring the burning sensation from Strange Fire.
By now it should be dawn outside, and the Strange Fire burning had receded. Yu Sui covered her mouth and yawned. Just as she looked up, she heard the sound of breaking ice coming from deep underground.
She observed people in various places. The Mechanism School practitioners reacted fastest.
Murong Lie was still looking at the map to find a route when the sudden anomaly made him jerk his head up. Both the Great City Lord and Second City Lord of Northern Kun City were present, shouting loudly to ask what was happening.
The Mechanism School practitioner holding the Five Elements Energy detector also responded loudly amid the crackling sounds: "It's coming from underground! From the Coiling Dragon Stone Cave area!"
Among the sounds of ice layer fracturing and collision, there were inevitably splashing sounds of water. These water sounds made Murong Lie and others extremely sensitive, fearing it was a Sea Whirlpool assault.
"What's the Golden Conches' reaction?"
"Just in case, activate emergency mechanisms and monitor Sea Whirlpool movements comprehensively!"
"Have you found the route? Hurry down and take a look!"
"City Lord! We found it. If we connect the ice room with the next level down, we can see the Coiling Dragon Stone Cave at the bottom!"
There were too many Mechanism School practitioners below, and the scene was chaotic and noisy. Yu Sui focused her mind and chose to listen to information useful to herself.
After investigation, the people of Northern Kun City determined it wasn't movement caused by a Sea Whirlpool. Murong Lie looked at the map pensively: "Then there's a problem in the Coiling Dragon Stone Cave at the very bottom."
Baili Mo stood at the edge of the burning area, looking down below together with Situ Jin and others who had emerged from underground, pondering: "Did the Sea Whirlpool leave something else down there?"
"I don't know about that. Where's my Second Grandmother?" Situ Jin asked him.
"Second Grandmother went to find you. She should be underground. Didn't you see her?" Baili Mo asked strangely.
Situ Jin frowned: "We might have missed each other. I'll go down again to look later."
Baili Mo comforted: "The signal has been sent out. Second Grandmother will definitely come find you first."
"By the way, people from the academy and Water Vessel have arrived." Baili Mo turned sideways, his gaze looking toward the Spirit Bird behind them, where a second giant ship was docked.
"Water Vessel?" Situ Jin froze.
Yu Sui also froze for a moment.
Baili Mo nodded, saying slowly: "The flames left by this Sea Whirlpool are strange. They need to come examine them personally to reach conclusions and think of ways to eradicate them."
"Who came?" Situ Jin asked in a lowered voice.
"They haven't come out yet, so I don't know either," Baili Mo said.
Situ Jin's expression was thoughtful. With such a commotion from the Coiling Dragon Stone Cave below, the people on the ship would definitely come over soon.
There would certainly be academy Saints among those coming.
Situ Jin turned his head and said to Li Jin Shuang beside him: "Later there will probably be academy Saints coming over. If they recognize you, just say you came with me."
Li Jin Shuang glanced at him without answering.
Situ Jin blinked at her patiently: "Remember that?"
Li Jin Shuang responded with a sound.
She sensed that Situ Jin had no malicious intent and was much easier to deal with than Zhang Xiangyun.
……
Inside the underground city.
Hu Gui carried the Situ family Spirit Puppet he had stolen, hiding here and there in the secret passages. After spending considerable time, he finally met up with Lin Chenghai near the central hub.
Northern Kun City's mechanism central hub was filled with rotating gears of all sizes. They crisscrossed, creating long and short mechanism passages in the huge space.
Hu Gui wandered through the sea of mechanism gears, his figure flashing to distant places. He stepped on a massive mechanism gear, and the originally rapidly rotating gear stopped due to his presence.
He took down the Spirit Puppet from his back and placed it in a groove on the mechanism gear.
The Spirit Puppet remained motionless.
Hu Gui retreated to the ground and looked up at the large gear before him. Forged from bronze, it had grooves of varying depths on both sides. Apart from these grooves, everywhere else was carved with black curse patterns.
After seeing clearly the distribution of curse patterns on the gear, Hu Gui used Wind-Riding Techniques to rise above the gear, extending both hands filled with Five Elements Energy to modify the curse patterns.
Lin Chenghai suddenly flashed to below the gear, panting: "How come no one was chasing you? Did they all come chase me instead?"
"I hid well," Hu Gui said without turning back.
Lin Chenghai wiped his sweat and looked up at him: "What about that Situ family kid?"
Hu Gui said: "Released him."
Capturing Situ Jin was mainly to open the Situ family's forbidden area gates. The restrictions on the Spirit Puppet pit required Situ family blood relatives to open.
"Why only take one Spirit Puppet instead of more?" Lin Chenghai used shadow techniques to reach the top, standing next to the Spirit Puppet and examining it up and down, clicking his tongue: "I have to say, only the Situ family makes these things properly."
"No time," Hu Gui said with a calm expression. "Quite a few people snuck into Northern Kun City this time. For some reason, Taiyi Academy disciples also followed, apparently related to the young master."
Lin Chenghai raised an eyebrow upon hearing this, thinking of the little girl he had left outside: "Did you also encounter the young master's Junior Sister?"
Hu Gui remembered when he heard this.
When they were fighting in the passage and being pursued by Ou Rushuang's venomous creatures, not only was Li Jin Shuang struck out of hiding, but there was another person. This second person probably went with Lin Chenghai.
Hu Gui asked directly: "She followed you to Northern Kun City?"
Lin Chenghai nodded: "That little girl is good. She diverted Ou Rushuang, giving me time to regulate my breathing. She's also the young master's Junior Sister and told me many things related to the young master. She even said she and the young master have mutual feelings."
"Impossible," Hu Gui said coldly.
"Hey, how is it impossible?" Lin Chenghai raised an eyebrow. "Our young master is handsome, graceful, distinguished, and dashing..."
"She's Nangong Sui," Hu Gui said. "Nangong Ming's daughter."
Lin Chenghai froze: "Who?"
Hu Gui said: "The young master's Junior Sister is Nangong Ming's daughter, Nangong Sui. She came with the Li family girl to find the young master."
Lin Chenghai's mind took several turns before he understood what Hu Gui meant, and his expression became strange.
Hu Gui told Lin Chenghai about his encounter in the Spirit Puppet pit. After exchanging intelligence, they confirmed that the girl who kept saying "Senior, just call me Little Yu" was indeed Nangong Sui.
Lin Chenghai took a deep breath, then slowly crouched down, supporting his forehead with one hand, almost gritting his teeth: "This is outrageous! I was actually fooled by a little girl!"
"Though her strength isn't much, she has some cleverness. She seemed harmless, and I thought she was innocent and cute, so I spared her life. I never expected, never expected she would actually be... Wait, isn't Nangong Ming's daughter supposed to be an ordinary practitioner?"
Hu Gui said: "Since Chang Gen accepted her as a disciple, she must have some exceptional qualities. Nangong Ming has always liked spreading information that's hard to distinguish from truth. His daughter might not have been an ordinary practitioner from the start, just using this method to attract those wanting to seize Breath Soil into carelessly sending themselves to death."
Lin Chenghai stared wide-eyed, looking down at Hu Gui below: "Your Ghost Way School also has methods to let ordinary practitioners cultivate?"
Hu Gui: "As far as I know, no. But Chang Gen has lived who knows how many years. Whether he has methods, no one knows."
"That old monster." Lin Chenghai angrily clenched his fists, wanting to punch something, finally landing a punch on the gear, making the entire mechanism gear vibrate.
Hu Gui, who was modifying curse patterns, twitched his eyelid and looked up at Lin Chenghai: "Even if Nangong Ming's daughter is innocent and cute, she can't be underestimated."
He said this purely because of her father Nangong Ming.
Lin Chenghai snorted coldly: "If I had known she was Nangong Ming's daughter earlier, I would have killed her directly and brought the Breath Soil in her body back for Yan Manfeng to drink with his wine."
What a good opportunity that was! Killing that little waste below the Third Realm wouldn't have required even 20% of his power.
Lin Chenghai grew angrier the more he thought about it, cursing: "Such a cute girl! How could she be Nangong Ming's daughter? Comparing them, I could even accept her being that old monster's disciple. Now you tell me she's Nangong Ming's daughter, how could Nangong Ming possibly produce such a clean child?"
Having lived so many years, he still had good judgment in reading people, only blaming Nangong Ming's fearsome reputation for making him afraid to easily believe.
Hu Gui said indifferently: "The child indeed wasn't born by Nangong Ming, but by Su Xing."
Lin Chenghai cursed: "That Su Xing isn't anything good either!"
A child born from two bad seeds, how good could she be?
Hearing this, Yu Sui couldn't help blinking, staring silently at Situ Ling Kui's face for a moment before finally laughing softly.
Lin Chenghai was still cursing away when Hu Gui stopped him: "Let's handle business first. There was movement from below just now. The young master and others are probably trying to get out. Once we finish modifying the curse patterns here, we also need to go through the Coiling Dragon Stone Cave to exit."
Yu Sui had wanted to watch them modify the curse patterns longer, but she sensed someone coming to find Situ Ling Kui, so she had to move and change locations.
The Five Elements Energy within Situ Ling Kui had also been drained by Yu Sui. Without its entanglement, the jade bead's power within the Spirit Puppet gradually recovered.
After Yu Sui left far away, clarity returned to Situ Ling Kui's eyes. She sheathed her sword and surveyed the surroundings. She had no memory of the pause, with her memory still at the moment of combat.
Walking in the secret passage, Yu Sui looked down at the Five Elements Light Core in her palm with a thoughtful expression. She prepared to go to the Spirit Puppet pit but discovered Zhang Xiangyun and Luo Fu were still inside and hadn't left.
These two didn't refuse to leave but couldn't get out.
Once Situ Jin left, the pit's restrictions reactivated. People outside couldn't enter, and people inside couldn't leave. Zhang Xiangyun almost spat blood from anger. Time was already urgent, and now not only had they failed to find Mei Liangyu, they were also trapped.
Yu Sui ignored these two unlucky fellows and went to find Senior Brother first.
Yu Sui came underground following the map in Zhang Xiangyun's hands. She hadn't gone through the half-tower area destroyed by the Sea Whirlpool, so she hadn't seen those flames.
She had seen the sea fire through monitoring via Five Elements Light Cores.
Senior Brother was most likely in the Coiling Dragon Stone Cave at the very bottom. The fastest way down was through the sea fire. Yu Sui came to the passage opening destroyed by the Sea Whirlpool and saw those dying flames.
Even approaching closely, she couldn't feel the flames' temperature. They lazily occupied the stone wall edges, blocking the forward path. They seemed harmless, yet when others approached, they would suddenly intensify and instantly devour them.
Yu Sui stopped and looked down.
Because of Strange Fire, Yu Sui wasn't afraid of heat or other fires. Even fire materialized through Nine Schools Arts couldn't hurt her.
Yu Sui had always believed that in the fire element domain, Strange Fire was the most extreme.
By the same logic, as long as the flames before her weren't Strange Fire, they couldn't hurt her.
But Yu Sui had the same thought as Mei Liangyu. The flickering orange-red flames before her were like dead Strange Fire, Strange Fire stripped from World Destroyers' bodies.
What if it really was Strange Fire?
Yu Sui hesitated momentarily when extending her hand.
But she quickly dismissed the thought.
Strange Fire's greatest threat was that it would indiscriminately devour everything in the world and couldn't be stopped.
The flames before her clearly weren't like that.
Yu Sui extended her hand forward, her fingers passing through the weak flames without causing any reaction or suffering any burns. She pressed her palm downward onto the ground, and after a moment withdrew her hand. The flames that had been staying there, causing the Mechanism School families endless headaches, were easily extinguished by Yu Sui.
She stood up and peered down into the darkness below. Broken beams and half-shattered stone ceilings all had varying amounts of sea fire, blocking the Mechanism School families' path downward.
After confirming these flames posed no threat to her, Yu Sui used Wind-Riding Techniques to travel directly through the center destroyed by the Sea Whirlpool.
……
Coiling Dragon Stone Cave.
The ice layer shattered, the ground shook, all happening in the blink of an eye. Even Zhongli Shan and Xing Chun, who were hiding against the stone cave passage wall, couldn't escape being swept down below.
The seawater beneath the ice layer churned, rolling and creating waves that carried broken ice with splashing sounds, striking against the Buddha statues and stone walls.
Underwater was cold and dark, pitch black where you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. After Xing Chun and Zhongli Shan were swept down, they also couldn't hear the crackling sounds of ice shattering. Everything was quiet. The two ignited protective energy to resist the fierce currents, momentarily feeling like they were back in the Sea Whirlpool's center.
Where they couldn't see, waves crashed very high, repeatedly and urgently beating against the stone cave walls, almost overflowing the Buddha statues' tops.
Ice water soaked the walls, making the Buddha statues appear wet while also deepening their stone color.
Mei Liangyu was the first to fall into the ice layer depths. Broken ice pressed against his face, freezing him until he shivered. The depths below were unknown, leading to unknown destinations. At this moment, the currents spun rapidly, rolled, and beat, much like the experience of being swept into a Sea Whirlpool.
He was also the person closest to the chaos. Thick ice layers continuously exploded beside Mei Liangyu's ears. The sound spreading through Five Elements Energy underwater made his ears ring, his brain stop, and sharp ice shards pressed by the currents scraped across his skin. He could even taste some blood at his lips.
Mei Liangyu also lost consciousness momentarily, allowing himself to fall toward the dark depths. Only the sound of blood flowing remained in his ears, like rushing torrents.
He counted in his mind. When he reached three, consciousness returned and he reopened his eyes, wanting to float upward, but someone grabbed his hand.
Mei Liangyu was about to act when clusters of flames lit up in the pitch-black water, as if countless flowing fires fell into the sea, driving away darkness and cold together.
The person gripping his wrist was staring at him and blinked once. Mei Liangyu was stunned, somewhat unable to believe it, but when he saw bright firelight in Yu Sui's eyes, he immediately relaxed his hand, allowing Yu Sui to grab him and float upward.
The flowing fire illuminated the path, making even the girl's hair scattered around his fingers underwater become clear.
As soon as Yu Sui surfaced, she heard splashing water sounds. Waves were still beating against stone surfaces. She ignored this, grabbing the person she had just brought out to dodge the rising giant waves and swim toward shore.
Mei Liangyu's ears were still ringing. Yu Sui called to him: "Senior Brother."
He only blinked.
Yu Sui didn't know he couldn't hear. As she swam toward shore, she said many things. Getting no response, she puzzledly turned to look at Mei Liangyu: "Senior Brother?"
Mei Liangyu glanced ahead. The broken ice had sunk, causing water levels to rise and flooding the previous passage. There was no place to go ashore, with even the Buddha statues and niche walls mostly submerged.
He embraced Yu Sui's waist, lifting her to sit on the Buddha statue's curved wrist.
Yu Sui looked down at him: "Senior Brother, why aren't you responding to me?"
"Senior Brother's ears are injured and can't hear yet." Mei Liangyu hadn't withdrawn his hands, still holding her waist to keep her seated properly.
Yu Sui stared at him: "Then how do you know what I said?"
Mei Liangyu pressed his hand on her wet lips, wiping away the water: "I read your lips."
He didn't have time to ask Yu Sui why she was here and continued: "Don't go down yet. Stay on shore. I'll go find Chun and Big Shan."
Yu Sui grabbed his hand, signaling him to look behind. Mei Liangyu turned to see that Zhongli Shan and Xing Chun had somehow also emerged. The two were soaking in water without coming over, but had witnessed his actions completely. They were now staring at Mei Liangyu with strange gazes, as if silently asking:
We were in the water looking for you, what were you doing?
What were you doing above water?!