Everyone busied themselves cleaning the mud from their bodies, and no one paid Xinyun any mind at all — she could forget about anyone offering to help her up. She had no choice but to quietly crawl out of the marsh on her own. But the moment her legs finally cleared the marshland, something strange happened once again.
Almost the very instant she left the marsh, the entire stretch of marshland vanished in a flash, replaced once more by that same vast, empty white expanse, an unfathomable abyss with no visible bottom.
Xinyun found herself right at the cliff’s edge, and hastily scrambled to move away, terrified. In truth, she only knew what lay ahead of her — she had no idea why everything behind them kept vanishing like this, nor did she have any idea what might lie at the bottom of that abyss!
Everything here operated according to rules the Nanzhao musician himself had established, all those years ago. Faced with the unknown, how could she possibly dare to provoke it?
With the marshland gone, the mud on Jun Beiyue and the others’ bodies had also miraculously vanished as well. Everyone exchanged glances, somewhat startled, and yet, by now, they had all come to simply accept this bizarre new normal, no longer finding it particularly strange at all!
“Ha, is this meant to hurry us along?” Baili Weisheng said with a laugh.
Ziqing glanced ahead, spotting a small slope connecting to the second great mountain, leading directly up to its midpoint. Standing where they were, they could see the entire mountain, thick and lush with greenery.
And yet, having already learned their lesson once, Ziqing wasn’t about to let her guard down again. Heaven only knew what might be waiting for them at the summit this time.
“Let’s go. Everyone, be careful,” Jun Beiyue said flatly, taking Ziqing’s hand and leading the way at the front. With everyone’s martial arts stripped away for now, caution was absolutely essential!
The group continued climbing. Xuanyuan Lige and Xinyun, being spirits, naturally felt no fatigue at all, while Jun Beiyue and Baili Weisheng’s physical stamina remained impressively strong. As for Ziqing, there was hardly need to say — having recovered well from her injuries several times over, her spiritual strength far exceeded her physical endurance in any case. Still, she couldn’t help but reflect, with a touch of wry amusement, that everything she’d learned during her mercenary days was only now, at long last, truly proving its worth.
Before long, they reached the mountain’s midpoint, setting foot on the second great mountain, and continued climbing steadily upward, the vegetation thick and lush around them, the air remarkably humid.
And yet, none of them could have anticipated that, upon reaching the summit, everything would turn out entirely different once again!
All that lush vegetation, all that humid air — gone in an instant, vanished like passing clouds. The entire summit stretched out endlessly before them, so vast they couldn’t even see the third mountain in the distance — only an endless expanse of dull yellow. What could it possibly be?
A desert!
This wasn’t a mountain peak at all anymore — it was a boundless expanse of desert, stretching to the very horizon!
Save for Xinyun, Ziqing and the others all drew sharp breaths of shock, and almost in unison, they spun around to look behind them — but it was already too late. Just as before, everything behind them had vanished entirely, leaving nothing but that same bottomless abyss! Desert ahead, abyss behind — trapped, with no way forward or back!
Compared to the marshland before, this vast desert stretching out before them now was enough to plunge anyone into utter despair!
Without even a sense of direction to guide them, none of them had any idea how long it might take, once they entered this desert, to reach an oasis — or to reach the far side at all.
It wasn’t that they gave up easily — it was simply that everything before them offered absolutely no glimmer of hope. They knew nothing at all about this desert, and to venture into it recklessly would mean facing death without even understanding how it had come for them!
At this moment, Jun Beiyue, Baili Weisheng, and Xuanyuan Lige — all three men — stood with brows furrowed deeply, each knowing full well they had no way back, that they had no choice but to press forward into the desert, and each fully aware of just how grave their situation had become.
Having already learned her lesson, Xinyun said nothing this time, merely sneering coldly to herself off to the side.
There were five great mountains here in total, and already, by just the second one, things had grown this difficult — what on earth might await them further ahead?
Clearly, no one had any intention of rushing recklessly into the desert. Jun Beiyue sat himself down on a nearby rock, and seeing this, Baili Weisheng and Xuanyuan Lige found seats of their own as well.
Ziqing looked at them all, puzzled. “Doesn’t this all strike you as strange?”
“How do you mean?” Jun Beiyue asked.
“Everything here was created by the Nanzhao zither master — the rules themselves were set by him. Why would he go to such lengths to make things so difficult for us? He’s the one who left the clues in the first place, leading us to come find him!”
This very question, in truth, was one Jun Beiyue and the others had already been pondering themselves — unfortunately, none of them had managed to work out an answer.
There was a persistent sense that everything here resembled a series of trials, designed to trap someone within — rather than something meant to guide them toward finding the deserted island at all.
And yet, it had been the Fusang divine wood that had brought them here in the first place, and only Ziqing had been able to fell that Fusang divine wood at all — surely, this direction couldn’t be wrong!
As everyone puzzled over this, Ziqing turned to look at Xinyun with furrowed brow, about to speak, when Xinyun beat her to it, saying timidly, “What zither master are you all talking about? What exactly is going on? Do you all know something about this?”
Everyone was too preoccupied to answer her question.
Ziqing kept her brow furrowed and didn’t press further — but Xinyun continued anyway. “Miss Han, do you all know what happened to the deserted island, all those years ago? Do you know the secret behind the wandering souls here? Please, tell me — why did I die, and yet still become a spirit trapped here?”
“I don’t know anything. Could you please let me have a moment of quiet?” Ziqing said, her voice sharp and deliberate, each word emphasized.
At this, Xinyun sullenly pressed her lips together and dared not ask anything further.
For a moment, the group fell into silence once more.
They weren’t in any hurry to enter the desert, because they had all come to realize that understanding the Nanzhao zither master’s true intentions might, perhaps, matter far more than rushing to cross these remaining mountains.
The trouble was, they knew far too little about the Nanzhao zither master himself. No matter how they turned the problem over in their minds, they simply couldn’t reconcile this apparent contradiction.
After a long while, in the midst of the silence, Ziqing suddenly stood up, crying out, “Perhaps it’s like this!”
“Like what?” Baili Weisheng asked urgently, unable to help but rise along with her.
“All of this is very likely the Nanzhao musician’s way of trapping someone in particular — keeping them from ever leaving,” Ziqing said, deliberately glancing toward Xinyun as she spoke, and sure enough, she saw Xinyun avert her gaze.
A cold smile touched Ziqing’s lips as she continued, “But I’m the exception. Just as I was able to fell the Fusang divine wood, here too, I may well be an exception — not bound by certain rules.”
At these words from Ziqing, everyone seemed to have a sudden flash of realization — this theory was, after all, entirely plausible!
“I really should have made you lie down in the marsh earlier, just to see,” Xuanyuan Lige said teasingly.
Ziqing gave a grateful smile. “Perhaps I truly wouldn’t have sunk at all.”
“So you’re saying you’ll lead us into the desert?” Baili Weisheng asked, still skeptical.
“There’s no path left behind us — unless you’d rather spend the rest of your life stuck here?” Jun Beiyue shot back. Baili Weisheng shrugged, joking that he supposed that could work too, though he clearly meant it only as a joke.
“Let’s go!” Ziqing said, stepping forward — but as she was about to set foot on the sandy ground, she paused for a moment.
At this, everyone turned their eyes toward her feet, waiting to see whether the exception would hold true.
Ziqing herself felt a flicker of nervousness too, slowly setting one foot down onto the sand. And yet… nothing changed at all. Ziqing glanced back at the others, and Jun Beiyue gave her an encouraging smile.
Before long, Ziqing stepped her other foot forward as well, standing fully within the desert now. At this moment… would a miracle occur?