477: Place of Great Peril
During the battle between Crimson Blood Sect and Nine Abyss Sect, Jiang Mo and Yun Qingyue had frequently operated around Mount Xuanyin. They had even witnessed the birth of the fierce beast firsthand and knew secrets unknown to others, yet they had never realized that an underground palace was hidden beneath Mount Xuanyin!
The direction Jiang Mo pointed to wasn't wrong—the place where the hidden forces had appeared was indeed one of the entrances to the underground palace. But it was also where troops were stationed, with people coming and going constantly, making infiltration difficult. So Yun Qingyue didn't choose that entrance to the underground palace. Instead, following the traces left by You Yi, she found another entrance without much effort—more concealed and safer.
"He truly is talented," Jiang Mo sighed, though unfortunately, they didn't know whether he was alive or dead now.
Yun Qingyue didn't respond to this sentiment, as now wasn't the time for conversation. She glanced back at Jiang Mo, who immediately raised a finger to her lips, indicating she would remain silent and not speak further.
The two then slipped into the underground palace through that entrance. Either because the entrance was too well-hidden or because those at Mount Xuanyin were overly confident, there was no one guarding it. So they successfully entered the underground palace, where the first thing they saw was a stone chamber. The chamber was empty, without doors or windows, appearing at first glance to be a sealed space.
Jiang Mo immediately knew there must be a mechanism in this stone chamber, but not understanding such mechanisms herself, she could only move closer to examine it. Unfortunately, despite her cultivator's methods, not only could she not find the mechanism, she couldn't even find a seam in the door.
Yun Qingyue helplessly pushed aside the eager but incompetent Jiang Mo. Through some unknown method of investigation, she quickly found the mechanism.
With the precise infusion of spiritual energy, a hidden door appeared in the previously seamless wall. Jiang Mo pushed it open effortlessly. However, the stone door made considerable noise when opening, and in the vast quietness of the underground palace, the sound traveled far like muffled thunder, frightening Jiang Mo so much that her heart nearly stopped.
She grabbed Yun Qingyue's hand and started running: "Quick, someone might come investigate."
Yun Qingyue only had time to hastily close the stone door before being pulled away by Jiang Mo. Initially, Jiang Mo led Yun Qingyue in their flight, but later, since Jiang Mo truly didn't know the way and didn't understand mechanisms, Yun Qingyue took over the lead.
The two moved swiftly, like a gust of wind as they darted through the underground palace, passing through numerous areas in a moment.
Fortunately, there weren't as many people in the underground palace as they had imagined, and the noise from the stone door opening hadn't alerted anyone. After their false alarm, they found themselves in a long corridor.
Jiang Mo looked around, feeling somewhat lost: "Where do we go next?"
The underground palace was quite extensive, and after Jiang Mo's random running while pulling Yun Qingyue along, she had no idea where they were. Their main purpose was to find Tan Xin, but without any clues, would they have to conduct a systematic search? It was obvious they didn't have that much time, so Jiang Mo quickly suggested: "Why don't we catch someone and interrogate them?"
Yun Qingyue helplessly reminded her: "We haven't even encountered anyone since entering the underground palace." Having said this, she ignored Jiang Mo and looked around, then began to calculate something, muttering under her breath.
Jiang Mo knew her suggestion wasn't good, so she didn't dare disturb Yun Qingyue, obediently keeping quiet and waiting for results.
A moment later, Yun Qingyue suddenly looked up and pointed to the right: "This way, ten li east is the most ominous location in this underground palace." Tiandao Sect had soaked Tan Xin in a blood pool—clearly, they had malicious intent. Heading toward the most dangerous place made sense.
Jiang Mo trusted and agreed with her senior sister, following Yun Qingyue without hesitation. However, the paths in the underground palace were complex and convoluted, and they couldn't fly in a straight line, so with Jiang Mo's poor sense of direction, she quickly lost her bearings. Fortunately, Yun Qingyue was leading the way this time. Her senior sister's spatial imagination seemed exceptionally strong, never showing the slightest sign of disorientation in such an environment.
The ten-li distance took them nearly an hour to navigate through the winding underground palace.
Upon approaching their destination, before Jiang Mo could feel relieved about finding the place, she suddenly felt a viscous, oppressive force surging toward her. She instinctively grew vigilant, nearly bristling with alertness as she cautiously surveyed her surroundings.
Yun Qingyue seized the opportunity to grasp her hand and give it a squeeze, then raised her hand to point forward, indicating that she should remain calm.
As it turned out, this oppressive feeling wasn't directed specifically at Jiang Mo but was an instinctive reaction, causing her to become wary of her environment. While this certainly warranted caution, it didn't necessitate seeing enemies in every shadow, and this pressure actually helped point them in the right direction.
Jiang Mo let out a breath, gradually adapting to the environment, though her heart still felt inexplicably stifled and irritable. She initially wanted to use voice transmission but thought better of it, ultimately using the most primitive method to write in Yun Qingyue's palm: Is it just ahead? What should we do next, rush in directly or try to gather information first?
Yun Qingyue felt a slight tickle in her palm, then saw Jiang Mo writing these words stroke by stroke. She was momentarily distracted, then grasped Jiang Mo's hand in return and wrote: No rush, let me check the situation first.
After writing this, Jiang Mo watched as Yun Qingyue took out a small puppet from her storage ring.
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Using puppets for reconnaissance was a common technique among cultivators; only the inexperienced little tiger was unaware. However, when it came to puppets, the small one in Yun Qingyue's hand clearly couldn't compare to the Puppet Heart that Jiang Mo possessed, so ultimately, Jiang Mo became the one controlling the puppet for reconnaissance.
The Puppet Heart was a very special treasure. After refining it, one didn't need to find materials to craft puppets. The Puppet Heart would absorb spiritual energy on its own, then form puppets using available materials based on the environment. For instance, in a desert, it would create a sand puppet; in an ice field, an ice puppet; in water, a water puppet; and in fire, a fire puppet.
The underground palace had nothing special, just plenty of rubble, so the Puppet Heart absorbed spiritual energy and quickly used these fragments to form a palm-sized small puppet. Then, under Jiang Mo's control, it tiptoed forward.
Events proved that Jiang Mo and Yun Qingyue's decision to halt was correct.
Through the rubble puppet's perspective, Jiang Mo could see that beyond the corner ahead, at the end of the path, was a stone cave. Night pearls were embedded in the walls around the cave, illuminating the entire area brightly.
The rubble puppet stealthily approached, and upon reaching the cave's exterior, it suddenly felt a sweep of divine sense coming toward it. Fortunately, it reacted quickly enough, immediately flattening itself against the nearby stone wall. The already lifeless rubble puppet instantly blended with the wall. The divine sense didn't detect anything unusual and quickly swept past, but it gave Jiang Mo—or rather, the puppet's controller—quite a scare.
After learning of the situation, Yun Qingyue immediately set up a barrier around them that prevented divine sense detection, blending them with their environment.
Meanwhile, Jiang Mo controlled the rubble puppet to advance again. This time was much smoother, with no one detecting anything unusual or releasing divine sense to investigate, so the puppet slipped along the wall and into the stone cave.
The cave's entrance connecting to the outside wasn't large, causing Jiang Mo to initially mistake it for a chamber-like place. But after the puppet slipped inside, her field of vision suddenly expanded, revealing that the stone cave was a hidden paradise!
Stepping through the entrance, the first thing to catch her eye was the dome ceiling soaring several dozen zhang high, with fine holes scattered across it, seemingly connecting to the outside world. As the puppet ventured further, she discovered that it wasn't walking on solid ground but on a stone bridge. Naturally, there was considerable space beneath the bridge, but what flowed below wasn't water but a dark red liquid emitting a terrible stench...
The rubble puppet was just that—a puppet. Although it shared its vision with its master, the puppet itself had no sense of smell or taste. So, from a distance, Jiang Mo couldn't actually smell that terrible stench, but with just one glance, she recognized the blood pool beneath the stone bridge.
However, compared to You Yi's initial description, the blood pool in this stone cave was clearly much larger.
Yun Qingyue felt Jiang Mo's hand suddenly tighten its grip on hers. She raised her eyebrows quizzically, silently asking: What's wrong?
Jiang Mo first shook her head, then mouthed the words "blood pool" to her senior sister. Having said this, she temporarily suppressed her discomfort and continued controlling the rubble puppet, which slithered to the edge of the stone bridge and lay flat.
The prone puppet looked even more like a pile of rubble, so when another divine sense swept by, it still didn't detect anything unusual. Meanwhile, the puppet lying at the bridge's edge had an unobstructed view of what was below—a dark red sea of blood churning without wind, appearing extremely viscous. Tendrils of black demonic energy surged up from the blood pool, penetrating the dome ceiling and extending directly to the sky.
Initially, the rubble puppet didn't discover anything, only seeing the ominous-looking blood pool beneath the stone bridge. Later, it was Jiang Mo's sharp eyes that noticed a black chain attached to the nearby black stone wall.
Jiang Mo's gaze followed the chain, staring for a long time before finally glimpsing a human form soaking in the pool during a moment when the blood sea churned—through the thick, viscous blood, Jiang Mo couldn't clearly see the appearance of the person in the pool, but they had come for Tan Xin, and there was little doubt about who was soaking there.
Soaking in such a place, even for a Buddha's Disciple—how could the little monk possibly be alright?!