The two Qin-Se Elders hovered high above the massive pit, the Se Elder as quiet as ever, while the Qin Elder explained how everyone would be descending into this great sinkhole.

Four entrances surrounded the sinkhole, each with a disciple assigned to guide the way. Without the Qin Elder’s explanation, no one would ever have noticed—the stone steps leading down were cleverly hidden within the coral covering the walls themselves!

Everyone listened intently as the Qin Elder repeatedly cautioned that, once inside, no one was permitted to touch anything or wander off on their own—everyone had to stay close to their assigned guide.

Time was limited, so no unexpected complications could be allowed. The crowd found this rather puzzling—high tide was still quite a ways off, so why would there be any need to walk so far once they’d descended?

Otherwise, why would he keep emphasizing the time constraint so insistently?

Xuanyuan Lige stood at the front, dressed in purple with silver hair, the blood-red brocade-wrapped Bloodzheng slung across his back—wherever he stood, he was impossible to overlook.

He paid little attention to whatever the two Qin-Se Elders were saying, his focus entirely fixed on the depths of the sinkhole, seemingly lost in thought about something.

And Baili Weisheng, who had kept himself discreetly hidden within the crowd the entire time, had shed his usual careless, laid-back demeanor entirely, wearing an unusually serious expression, his gaze likewise fixed unwaveringly on the pit.

After the Qin Elder’s repeated instructions, everyone finally began their descent into the sinkhole.

The moment they stepped onto the stone stairs, they immediately noticed how unusually humid the air within the pit was, carrying a faint, fishy scent. Ziqing, hand in hand with Jun Beiyue, walked beside him, marveling inwardly at how truly extraordinary this terrain was.

Everyone present was a practiced martial artist with considerable stamina, and it wasn’t long before the entire group reached the bottom of the sinkhole!

Looking up from the depths below, one genuinely felt as though standing at the very bottom of a mountain valley!

At the base of the sinkhole lay an enormous sea-water lake—this, it turned out, was the lowest point on all of Liuxian Isle, so low it pierced straight through the earth’s surface to reveal seawater beneath!

So this was the true origin of the name “Sea Valley,” after all!

Though it wasn’t quite what she’d imagined, Ziqing still couldn’t help marveling. “This terrain is truly remarkable.”

“Couldn’t make out much in the darkness earlier,” Jun Beiyue said quietly. The moment they’d arrived, the first thing he’d noticed wasn’t the stunning scenery at all, but the fact that the Jiao guard he’d encountered that morning was nowhere to be seen.

Given how enclosed this terrain appeared, the Jiao people were likely hidden somewhere beneath the sea-water lake itself.

The glow of the luminous night pearls lining the walls was nearly blinding to everyone’s eyes—this place was, quite simply, a coral wonderland.

The lake water was extraordinarily clear, yet impossibly deep, its bottom nowhere in sight. What could be seen, though, was layer upon layer of vividly colored, iridescent coral clusters beneath the surface, stacked endlessly one atop another, extending downward without end, all the way to the ocean floor.

No one could quite tell whether this was some illusion created by the overlapping terrain and coral, or whether the lakebed truly looked exactly like this in reality.

Around the lake’s edge lay a ring of flat ground. Everyone’s attention had been entirely captured by the coral, but once the Qin Elder pointed it out, the crowd finally noticed that this ring of flat ground was, in fact, lined with a circle of stone benches.

Strangely enough, these stone benches were carved into bizarre, oddly irregular shapes—utterly incomprehensible at first glance!

Yet two people present understood at a single glance exactly what they were seeing—none other than Ziqing and Xuanyuan Lige!

This entire ring of stone benches had been cast in the shape of symbols from ancient zither notation!

Among them were the commonly used “abbreviated notation” from classical scores, and the far rarer “gongche notation.”

“Abbreviated notation” was a system of recording music characterized by writing down the fingering techniques for both hands—concise in form, yet complete in meaning, economical in text yet comprehensive in sound.

“Gongche notation,” meanwhile, used special symbols to record pitch and tonal variation.

Though Ziqing recognized both of these notation systems, she wasn’t truly fluent in either.

She had studied through several sections following Lishang before, and unlike the first three hundred segments recorded in today’s standard “text notation,” those later passages had been recorded using precisely these two ancient notation methods instead!

She recognized them, but hadn’t mastered them. Lishang was an extraordinarily difficult piece—she still had a great deal of work and study ahead of her before she could master its remaining sections.

Though there was some connection here, Qinse Valley had, after all, always been a family devoted to the art of the zither across generations—it wasn’t particularly surprising that these two notation systems would appear here.

Everyone gradually settled down to sit. The Se Elder, who had remained silent this entire time, glanced up at the sky above the valley, then down at the lake water, and finally spoke. “Everyone, the true wonder of the Sea Valley lies not in this coral-filled sea lake, nor in this lowest point of the land, but in…”

At this point, the Se Elder deliberately paused, leaving the sentence unfinished, and instead continued, “Today, it is our great honor to invite you all here. Touring the Sea Valley is one purpose, but listening to its music is the true reason. Everyone, this old man won’t waste any more words—the wonder of the Sea Valley… please, listen closely, and clear your minds!”

At these words, though somewhat puzzled and unsure exactly what the Se Elder meant, everyone nevertheless held their breath and settled into stillness, listening intently.

Within the vast Sea Valley, once silence fell, all that remained was the sound of wind—soft, intermittent gusts, never too strong.

The crowd waited, curious and tense, listening closely—but for a long while, they heard nothing at all.

Seeing the two Qin-Se Elders sitting with eyes closed in quiet meditation, no one dared make a sound, simply continuing to wait.

Ziqing sat beside Jun Beiyue. Though both of them remained alert, neither followed the crowd’s example of closing their eyes and listening intently.

Jun Beiyue’s gaze drifted, without particular intent, toward Xuanyuan Lige across from him—a flicker of suspicion crossing his eyes. This man seemed genuinely serious, his eyes closed just like the two Qin-Se Elders. Could he possibly know something?

Not far off, Baili Weisheng, too, had somehow drifted up to the front row without anyone noticing, looking utterly distracted, his attention fixed entirely on the coral sea-lake, as though he simply had to see something through to its conclusion.

Everyone waited, and waited—but aside from the sound of wind, there was nothing at all.

Ziqing couldn’t help but furrow her brow, about to speak up—when suddenly her gaze froze, and her entire body went rigid at once.

Good heavens!

What was that she’d just heard?!

An impossibly faint sound—but for someone as acutely sensitive to sound as she was, even the faintest trace was more than enough.

It was unmistakably the sound of a zither, drifting up from within the coral sea-lake itself—but the sound was so faint, so ethereal, she couldn’t yet tell what kind of instrument it came from, nor whether it was a proper melody or simply idle, random notes.

But one thing was absolutely certain—that sound was coming from somewhere within the coral sea-lake itself.

Ziqing was stunned, and it was precisely this that stunned her—never mind how this zither player had managed to play underwater at all!

What struck her most was the tone of the music itself. Though she still couldn’t tell if it was a proper melody, the timbre of the sound was, remarkably, identical to what one would hear from a zither played on dry land.

Sound traveled far faster through water than through air, after all—the same sound, transmitted through water versus through open air, ought to differ noticeably!

How had this zither player accomplished such a thing? Could he possibly have calculated the density of the water, the exact speed at which sound traveled through this particular lake, and adjusted his strings and tuning precisely to compensate, achieving the very effect they were hearing now?

Such a calculation—even in the modern world, with every manner of instrument and device available—might well be impossible to achieve!

Just how astonishing must the skill of this zither player, hidden somewhere within the coral sea-lake, truly be?

By now, the music had grown steadily louder, audible to nearly everyone in the hall—and nearly everyone sat frozen in stunned silence!

They weren’t professional musicians, of course, and certainly hadn’t noticed as much as Ziqing had. But this melody, drifting up from the depths of the coral sea-lake, had captured them all completely nonetheless.

This piece of music—it was so, so unbearably sorrowful!