Facing Ziqing’s questions, the Zizhu Great Beast held nothing back — after all, this woman appeared, at least for now, to remain rational, and posed no existential threat to the poisonous-beast world.

Besides, she seemed to understand very little about any of this herself. Wasn’t she supposed to be one of the isolated island’s people?

With that question in mind, the Zizhu Great Beast answered Ziqing’s inquiries quite generously. “This is the place where the Nanzhao isolated-island people once cultivated their Gu. There weren’t nearly this many poisonous beasts here originally — it was the isolated island’s people who, generation after generation over the course of a hundred years, gradually cultivated this many.”

“Was this place built specifically to cultivate human Gu?” Ziqing asked, startled.

“No, no, no!” The Zizhu Great Beast quickly denied this, gesturing for Ziqing to stay calm. “This place has never once been used to cultivate a human Gu — it was always used for cultivating poison-Gu creatures. It was only later that one of the Gu-cultivators discovered a method for cultivating human Gu specifically. At the time, this discovery alarmed the Nanzhao royal house greatly, and before the secret could spread any further, the Nanzhao royal house killed every single Gu-cultivator here. I happened to be hiding nearby at the time, and I overheard them speaking of destroying the gateway entirely.”

“Destroying the gateway? Is this place truly located beneath the desert?”

This was the one thing Ziqing simply couldn’t reconcile — an underground world beneath the desert could conceivably support all kinds of vegetation, could conceivably teem with life. But how could there possibly be a genuine sky above it?

This defied all logical explanation!

Yet at these words, the Zizhu Great Beast, too, seemed startled. “Beneath the desert? We’re located beneath the desert?”

“Aren’t we?” Ziqing shot back.

“I honestly don’t know. Not a single poisonous beast in this entire world knows where the gateway is located. Every time the isolated-island Gu-cultivators arrived here, they simply appeared out of nowhere. And later… later, the Nanzhao royal house released a great many fierce beasts into this world, attempting to wipe us all out. To this day, I still can’t figure out where those beasts were even brought in from.”

The moment the Zizhu Great Beast finished speaking, the Nine-Tailed White Fox beside it let out a cold laugh. “Heh, if we knew where the entrance and exit were, do you think we’d still be sitting here waiting helplessly to be slaughtered?”

Waiting helplessly to be slaughtered?

That wasn’t wrong at all. If anyone ever succeeded in cultivating a human Gu here, the entire poisonous-beast world would face utter annihilation.

Put plainly, this poisonous-beast world was, in essence, nothing more than a private Gu-cultivation ground for Gu-masters — every single beast here existed purely because of that cultivation process.

Ziqing understood this perfectly well, of course.

“The Nanzhao royal house tried to wipe you all out?” She still didn’t fully understand this part, but it was clear this matter had some connection to the isolated island.

“After the royal house discovered the secret of the isolated island’s human-Gu cultivation, we truly have no idea exactly what happened next — I was still very, very young back then…”

The Zizhu Great Beast continued, its tone tinged with deep emotion. “There weren’t nearly as many poisonous beasts here back then — even first-tier beasts were scarce, let alone special-grade ones. I watched with my own eyes as my master was killed by the royal house’s shark-warriors. By the time I rushed forward to help, those shark-warriors had already vanished without a trace. From that day on, no Gu-cultivator from the isolated island ever came back here — not until about a hundred years ago, when a group of Gu-beasts, bred and trained by the Nanzhao beast-clan, suddenly appeared, attacking every poisonous beast on sight, trying to wipe us all out!”

The Zizhu Great Beast paused, then gave Ziqing a cold, mocking smile. “You humans, sometimes, can be utterly foolish. Did no one ever stop to consider that poisonous beasts have the longest lifespans of any creature? Hundreds of years had already passed by then — the poisonous-beast world was nothing like it had once been. And yet they still thought they could wipe us all out with a mere handful of Gu-beasts? Truly, they brought that suffering entirely upon themselves.”

Ziqing remained unmoved by the Zizhu Great Beast’s mockery. She fell silent for a long moment before finally saying flatly, “So you’re saying… you have no idea what actually happened to the isolated-island people out there in the world above?”

“It certainly can’t have been anything good — otherwise, how could it be that not a single soul has come here in all these hundreds of years?” The Zizhu Great Beast grew somewhat agitated.

“So none of you know where the exit is?” Ziqing asked again.

The Zizhu Great Beast nodded honestly.

Ziqing couldn’t help but let out a bitter laugh. She understood now — she finally understood everything!

This poisonous-beast world wasn’t simply some space beneath the desert at all — it was, in truth, an entirely separate dimension, a sealed-off realm with no true connection to the Longyuan continent whatsoever!

If her guess was correct, there had likely once been multiple entrances to this poisonous-beast world, but the Nanzhao royal house had destroyed all but one — the single entrance remaining beneath the desert, one that even the Nanzhao royal house itself likely couldn’t destroy.

That entrance was, without question, the true secret Mingsha Mountain had been guarding all along.

That massive tornado hadn’t been the true key to opening the gateway to the poisonous-beast world at all — the true key had been the specific moment in time: the day of the Sand Sacrifice Ceremony, the year, month, hour, and moment of Jiazi, all aligned at once!

As for seals of this kind, Ziqing knew there were only two ways to break them: through human effort, by someone who understood how to undo the seal; or through the power of heaven itself — that is, waiting for that exact, specific moment in time to come around again.

In other words, to leave this place, one either had to break the seal by force, or simply wait — wait for the next cycle, for the next Jiazi year, Jiazi month, Jiazi hour to arrive once more.

Waiting for that moment, for Ziqing, was nothing short of an impossible fantasy — that day lay hundreds of years in the future.

The only real option left was to wait.

To wait for that old crone to open the seal herself!

Ziqing lowered her head, and the longer she thought about it, the darker her expression grew, an invisible wave of fury radiating from her body, leaving the several special-grade beasts around her uneasy, not daring to speak — inexplicably, they all found themselves feeling an urge to submit to this woman.

Silence fell over everything. The big foolish bear had already, without realizing it, drifted into unconsciousness. Ziqing sat perfectly still atop its head, and from a distance, she looked exactly like some ancient, unchanging statue, receiving the reverence of the four beasts before her.

Then, suddenly, Ziqing lifted her head, a flash of hatred flickering through her eyes.

“Do you want to leave this place?”

None of the four special-grade beasts answered her. Ziqing wasn’t in any hurry, sweeping her cold gaze over each of them in turn, finally letting it rest on the Zizhu Great Beast’s face.

To everyone’s surprise, the Zizhu Great Beast suddenly let that enormous qilin head burst forth from its fluffy body once more, letting out a thunderous roar: “Vengeance…”

The sound crashed down like something falling from the heavens, deafening and overwhelming, sending Henggong Fish, the Roaring Hare, and the Nine-Tailed White Fox all prostrating themselves on the ground at once, bowing their heads in reverent, devoted submission!

Ziqing stood atop the big foolish bear’s head, towering above them all, clad in her purple robes, her long black hair whipping wildly in the wind. In her eyes burned a cold, proud defiance, as though she looked down upon all creation itself, upon heaven and earth alike, holding nothing in awe.

She said nothing, simply gazing down coldly upon the Zizhu Great Beast.

The Zizhu Great Beast was utterly overwhelmed by this woman’s presence — even its own former master, all those years ago, had never carried the kind of sovereign’s aura this woman radiated now.

This woman — it felt as though she had been destined all along to come to this world of poisonous beasts, as though she were the very new sovereign they had all, without knowing it, been waiting for.

“New Sovereign!”

The Zizhu Great Beast prostrated itself before her without conscious thought, bowing in devout reverence.

“New Sovereign!”

Though the voice wasn’t loud, it echoed through the silent expanse of heaven and earth, resounding throughout the entire poisonous-beast world, like the tolling of some ancient bell, piercing through time itself, reverberating in this very moment.

In an instant, the Roaring Hare, Henggong Fish, and the Nine-Tailed White Fox all prostrated themselves before Ziqing as well, acknowledging her as their new sovereign. Countless reverent, devoted cries of beasts rang out from every direction, echoing from the forests and mountains all around.

The long-dormant world of poisonous beasts had, at last, in this very moment, come alive.