Those who knew the truth departed quietly, while those who didn’t continued to labor desperately at Mingsha Mountain.

Year after year passed, and now the year’s end approached, with the Spring Festival drawing near!

In years past, Mingsha Mountain would surely have been the liveliest place across the entire Longyuan Continent — but this year was nothing like before.

Mingsha Mountain had long since been destroyed, Akebachu no longer existed. That catastrophe had claimed countless lives at Akebachu, and ever since, no one regarded this stretch of desert as sacred ground any longer — everyone avoided it like the plague.

If not for that disaster, in a few more days one might have heard the singing sands again — but now, all that filled this place was the ceaseless howl of wind.

At the very spot where damp sand had first been unearthed, a massive hole had now been dug, wide enough to hold about three people, its depth swallowed entirely from view.

Digging through sand was unlike ordinary excavation — it required the utmost care, or the whole effort could collapse in an instant. The sand-diggers were lowered down slowly in hanging baskets, filling each basket with sand before hauling it back up.

The deeper they went, the harder the sand became, less prone to collapse, and gradually they began unearthing solid soil rather than pure sand.

Yet still, nothing had been found.

At this point, everyone had come to a halt, because they had now reached the exact depth Xuanyuan Lige had specified.

“Could the measurements have been wrong? There has to be something down there — didn’t they say the entrance lies right beneath the deep pool?”

Young Beast Master voiced his anxiety aloud, though everyone else felt a hundred times more anxious than he did, all remaining silent, staring fixedly at the sand pit.

What now?

The Nanzhao royal family surely wouldn’t lie about something of this magnitude — faced with a man as reckless and willing to go to any lengths as Xuanyuan Lige, the Nanzhao royal family couldn’t afford the consequences of deception.

Could the measurement really have been wrong after all?

Three thousand zhang beneath the pool — that was where the entrance lay.

Three thousand zhang was a terrifyingly deep distance, an enormous undertaking. Though the time invested had been relatively short, the manpower and resources poured into it had been considerable.

It seemed unlikely they simply hadn’t dug far enough yet.

Amid everyone’s silence, Xuanyuan Lige spoke up calmly. “Re-measure it.”

As he spoke, he immediately fetched a measuring rope and leapt down himself. But the moment he descended, Young Beast Master and Situ Haonan followed almost simultaneously — fortunately the opening was wide enough to hold all three of them, or Young Beast Master and Situ Haonan might well have fought each other to the death over who got to go down first!

At a moment this critical, who knew what might go wrong down there — how could they possibly let Xuanyuan Lige descend alone?

Young Beast Master wasn’t about to trust him unsupervised, and Situ Haonan trusted him even less!

Yelu Qianqian and Yingzi were itching to go down too, but with the passage already too cramped for another person, the two of them could only stand guard above, ready to back up Situ Haonan at a moment’s notice.

At a single glance from Yelu Qianqian, all the soldiers snapped into a state of readiness.

This was Xijing territory, after all, and Yelu Qianqian, as the local power here, still held considerable advantage.

Yet down in the sand tunnel, the atmosphere was nowhere near as tense as it was above ground. Xuanyuan Lige, seeing Situ Haonan and Young Beast Master follow him down, showed little reaction at all.

Whether it was Young Beast Master’s wariness or Situ Haonan’s, he was well aware of it, and paid it no mind whatsoever.

Having already staked everything on his reckless gamble to negotiate with the Nanzhao king, he certainly wasn’t afraid of these two men!

He’d already made up his mind long ago — if Ziqing had been cultivated into a human Gu, he would destroy the entrance to the world of poison beasts and remain by her side there forever.

If she wasn’t a human Gu, he would rescue her and stay by her side forever after.

It was as simple as that!

As long as Ziqing was safe and well, he would dare bring her out, and he wouldn’t fear Nanzhao mobilizing troops or the world descending into chaos — he would absolutely unleash every last poison beast if it came to that!

That was simply the kind of man he was!

He could let go gently, and watch her find happiness elsewhere.

He could just as easily return with overwhelming force, and protect her completely.

Xuanyuan Lige had come down to re-measure, and also to survey the conditions below. The sand-diggers had dug a deep pit within the massive excavation, yet even within that shallow pit, there was nothing but sand and stone.

This result was deeply unsettling.

Xuanyuan Lige crouched down, gently rubbing the sand and stone between his fingers, while Situ Haonan and Young Beast Master both stood with furrowed brows, each lost in their own thoughts.

Even to an untrained eye, it was clear there was nothing here — beyond this point lay solid bedrock, impossible to conceal an entire world of poison beasts within!

And moments earlier, the experienced sand-diggers had already confirmed that no living thing could possibly exist any deeper than this.

Even accounting for a barrier realm, its entrance couldn’t possibly be located in a place like this!

Situ Haonan’s brow furrowed tighter and tighter. He couldn’t bear to imagine it — if this lead ran cold, where else could they possibly search for Ziqing?

The Nanzhao king had sworn there was a world of poison beasts down here, and yet the reality before them showed nothing at all!

Xuanyuan Lige remained crouched there in silence for a long while before finally rising, tying the measuring rope to a wooden stake driven into the ground. Paying no attention to Situ Haonan or Young Beast Master, he simply shot straight upward, leaping out of the sand tunnel.

Young Beast Master followed close behind, and though Situ Haonan was reluctant to accept any of this, he had no choice but to follow suit.

Xuanyuan Lige pulled the measuring rope taut and vertical, and everyone turned to look at once — the markings on the rope still showed a full three thousand zhang. The earlier measurement had been correct.

Finally, Yelu Qianqian could no longer hold back. “What do we do now! What’s going on here? Weren’t we told it was right down there? This is a complete lie! What do we do now?”

The lead was gone!

After all this digging, just when hope seemed within reach, the trail had gone cold.

Yelu Qianqian gripped Situ Haonan’s hand tight, so devastated she wanted to cry. It wasn’t that they hadn’t tried hard enough — it was that no amount of effort would help, when they didn’t even know what to try anymore.

All that fervent hope, all that burning determination — extinguished in an instant, as though doused by a bucket of ice-cold water.

Yingzi kept his head bowed, silent as a grieving mute, a sight that pained anyone who saw it.

For a moment, the entire group fell utterly silent, the mood turning heavy and grim.

Young Beast Master said nothing either, his eyes darting about restlessly, his expression complicated. But Xuanyuan Lige was the stillest of all — he still hadn’t let go of the measuring rope, staring blankly at the three-thousand-zhang marking, his usually calm gaze now unfocused, distant.

Never mind how this had happened — the real question now was, what were they supposed to do?

The Nanzhao royal family surely wouldn’t lie about this — which left only one possibility: even the Nanzhao royal family itself didn’t fully understand what had happened, and had been mistaken as well.

Yet the hidden chamber that had once existed, the deep pool entrance, and that mysterious force that had dragged Ziqing down during the tornado — all of it had been undeniably real.

Could it be that even that final entrance had been destroyed after all?

Was the world of poison beasts now entirely without an entrance, sealed off forever, with no one able to enter, no one able to leave?

If there hadn’t been so many concrete clues — the hidden chamber, the force Situ Haonan had described — perhaps everyone might still cling to some hope even now.

But nothing was more devastating than discovering despair right in the middle of hope.

In the heavy silence, Yelu Qianqian finally couldn’t hold back any longer, breaking into soft, choked sobs…

They’d all reached the same conclusion at once — if they couldn’t find the entrance, that could only mean the entrance itself had been destroyed too.

Situ Haonan held her close, letting her cry, turning his head away so he wouldn’t have to look at Yingzi, feeling utterly drained in this moment.

But just as the air grew suffocating with despair, Xuanyuan Lige suddenly let out a muffled grunt, spat out a mouthful of fresh blood, and collapsed to his knees!