The principle of “strike the leader first” proved itself perfectly in the world of poisonous beasts.

Ziqing knew that if she’d continued that reckless fight to the very end, she too would have become the ruler of all these beasts — but the price of doing so would have been transforming herself into a mindless, walking-corpse human Gu.

The current outcome, as it stood, was already the best possible result.

Her body, though not the strongest it could be, was already more than formidable enough.

With no understanding at all of the seal, finding the exit was, without question, an impossible task — and the Zizhu Great Beast had already told her not to waste her effort; it had searched for hundreds of years without success.

For now, what Ziqing needed to do was rest and recover, carefully nurture her pregnancy, and wait for the Gu-cultivator to come.

Since that woman had chosen to cultivate her into a Gu, and since she clearly knew that the seal on the gateway to the poisonous-beast world would open at the exact moment of Jiazi year, Jiazi month, Jiazi hour, drawing in this being immune to all poisons — then that old crone must know exactly how to enter the poisonous-beast world herself.

Cultivating a human Gu took, at the very fastest, a hundred days, at the very slowest, a year — she would come eventually, without fail.

Ziqing sent the Nine-Tailed White Fox and Henggong Fish off to help her search for the Wuzheng, and had the Zizhu Great Beast carry the unconscious big foolish bear back to the cave — she still had some questions she wanted to ask the Zizhu Great Beast.

The big foolish bear had been badly wounded this time, and seeing it like that, Ziqing’s heart ached, though she had no idea how to help it heal.

Ziqing tossed out a single line: “If it doesn’t survive, I won’t hesitate to let myself become a human Gu.”

These words startled the Zizhu Great Beast so badly that it immediately abandoned its dignity as the world’s foremost special-grade beast and personally began licking the big foolish bear’s wounds clean. Ziqing sat off to the side, watching, and without realizing it, sank deep into thought.

The secrets of the poisonous-beast world, the secrets of the isolated island — once so tangled and complex — now, looking back, seemed perfectly clear.

The root cause of it all was the human Gu.

The isolated island’s Gu-cultivators had, through their research, developed the method for cultivating a human Gu — and that very discovery had brought a catastrophe of annihilation down upon their entire clan.

Back when the Nanzhao royal house had killed the Gu-cultivators within the poisonous-beast world and sealed off every gateway leading into it, they had surely turned their hand against the isolated-island clan itself as well — which was precisely why the mystery of the isolated island’s overnight disappearance remained unsolved to this very day.

The Zizhu Great Beast, despite having lived so long, had remained confined to the poisonous-beast world the entire time, with no knowledge whatsoever of what had happened in the world above.

And history, it seemed, had always been carefully suppressed by the Nanzhao royal house. To truly understand how the isolated island had vanished, one would have to start from the Nanzhao royal house itself.

One thing, at least, was certain: the isolated island’s people had not been wiped out entirely.

Otherwise, she herself wouldn’t exist.

Had the Nanzhao royal house massacred the isolated island’s people outright, or had they simply sealed the island away, just as they had sealed off the poisonous-beast world?

Was the isolated island a lost island somewhere in the sea, its location simply unknown — or was it, like the poisonous-beast world, an entire realm trapped within some kind of barrier?

Where, exactly, was the isolated island?

Countless questions swirled through Ziqing’s mind, one after another!

Just then, the Zizhu Great Beast finished tending to the big foolish bear’s wounds and hopped over to Ziqing, asking earnestly, “Master, do you know what happened to the isolated island at the hands of the Nanzhao royal house?”

Ziqing shook her head helplessly, and asked in return, “Do you know where the isolated island is? Where the original clan people lived?”

The Zizhu Great Beast shook its head as well — it had never once left the poisonous-beast world since the day it was born; how could it possibly know where the isolated island was, or what it looked like?

“The isolated island has always been a complete mystery — where it is, how it vanished, how many of its people are still alive — no one knows any of it,” Ziqing said flatly, leaning back against the big foolish bear, continuing on. “All I know is that when the isolated island fell, there was one person from the island who had managed to blend into the Nanzhao royal court as a court musician, and he escaped that disaster.”

At this, the Zizhu Great Beast’s ears perked up immediately, listening with rapt attention.

“He composed a piece called ‘Lishang,’ hiding the secret of the isolated island within the music itself, scattering fragments of it across several of the ruins connected to the isolated island, hoping to preserve this secret for future generations to one day uncover. Unfortunately, the Nanzhao royal house eventually caught wind of this. They couldn’t be certain whether Lishang’s secret truly lay hidden within those ruins, nor whether that musician had also left behind knowledge of the poisonous-beast world itself — and so the Nanzhao royal house destroyed every ruin connected to the isolated island that could be destroyed, and stationed guards to watch over the ones that couldn’t be — including Mingsha Mountain.”

Ziqing recounted all this slowly, as though telling a story.

All of this, Ziqing had pieced together herself, weaving together what she’d learned in the ancient Nanzhao music cave with what Jiao Cha had once told her.

She believed that the musician who had composed Lishang must have known he could never stand against the Nanzhao royal house alone, and so had resorted to this deeply veiled method — hiding the secret within Lishang itself, scattering it across the ruins.

She had to be grateful for such painstaking, careful concealment — otherwise, the moment the Nanzhao royal house discovered him, those clues would surely have been destroyed long ago.

Lishang itself held no secret of the poisonous-beast world, and had no connection to Mingsha Mountain at all — clearly, that musician had hoped future generations would uncover these secrets and find the isolated island, but hadn’t wanted anyone to ever find the poisonous-beast world.

“Master, and what about you? Where do you come from?” the Zizhu Great Beast asked earnestly.

Where did Ziqing come from?

“From inside my mother’s belly, of course!” Ziqing laughed, resting a hand on her own belly, a faint, gentle smile crossing her face.

Her mother, Madam Ci, must surely have been one of the isolated island’s people. Madam Ci had once been rescued on the shores of Liuxian Island by Jue Mingzi — Xuanyuan Lige’s own master — from the Qinse Valley.

Lishang, along with the Wuzheng and the Blood Zither, had all been things Madam Ci had brought with her.

Why had she appeared on the shores of Liuxian Island in the first place? Had she suffered some disaster at sea, or had she escaped from the isolated island itself?

Why had she been carrying Lishang, and two ancient zithers, with her?

These mysteries — not only Ziqing, but Jun Beiyue and Xuanyuan Lige as well, had all investigated at length, and yet everything had been buried forever with the deaths of Jue Mingzi and Madam Ci, known to no one at all.

And yet, even without knowing these secrets, Ziqing believed she could still find her way to the isolated island.

Because the secret lay within Lishang itself!

She and Jun Beiyue had once agreed that once the war ended, they would go to Yaoshun Island together to uncover the secret of that totem — but now that the war had ended, everything had changed entirely.

Whenever her thoughts turned to Jun Beiyue, even the slightest connection to him, Ziqing found herself choosing to look away.

She didn’t want to dwell on it — perhaps out of fear that the grief would overwhelm her into giving up entirely, or perhaps out of fear of trapping herself in an endless dead end, or perhaps simply out of fear that the more she thought about it, the more disappointed she would become.

She chose to look away, burying the pain deep within her heart.

And yet, the sorrow etched so plainly on her small face couldn’t be hidden entirely, leaving even the Zizhu Great Beast puzzled, sensing that its new master had grown somehow dimmed, still alive and yet without any true vitality.

Such an expression was, frankly, unsettling to see.

“Master, have you ever considered… what if your child turns out to also be…” The Zizhu Great Beast had, in truth, wanted to ask this for quite some time.

Seeing that Ziqing didn’t answer, it continued, “Master, that Gu-cultivator out there — isn’t she also from the isolated island?”

At these words, Ziqing finally understood exactly what the Zizhu Great Beast had been so worried about all along.

No one could know when another being immune to all poisons might once again emerge among the isolated island’s descendants — but there were now, evidently, more than a few who knew the secret of cultivating a human Gu.

That old crone, all the way from the Xiongnu, had somehow come to know the secret of human-Gu cultivation, and was herself a Gu-cultivator. In this world, how many more Gu-cultivators might there be, unknown even to Ziqing?

The moment another being immune to all poisons appeared, danger would surely follow close behind.