The small world of Immortal Cuixuan consisted of only two mountain peaks, one upright and one inverted, with nothing else besides.
Li Fei hovered around the inverted mountain peak for a long time, carried by clouds. The familiar aura of the Yimin Tomb called to her. She wanted to go, yet dared not. Unconsciously, she circled the Three Bodies repeatedly.
She had already seen the entrance. In the middle of the inverted mountain body’s gap stood a hall identical to the one in Suli Valley, with two pitch-black bronze oxen guarding the entrance.
This Yimin Tomb would no longer be empty. It must be filled with the corpses of overseas Yimin. Could there be… corpses of her kind?
When she came to her senses, she had already landed on the edge of the mountain gap. The familiar aura enticed and tempted her. Li Fei involuntarily flew inside, only to stop abruptly halfway. She wasn’t sure if she would remain unscathed after viewing the Yimin Tomb. This was an Immortal’s small world; any anomaly would be immediately noticed.
Lei Xiuyuan, who had been silent beside her, suddenly flew past her straight towards the interior. Surprised, Li Fei called out to him several times, but he never looked back. She had no choice but to follow him into the mountain gap.
A great hall floated within the gap, its doors tightly shut. Two enormous bronze oxen stood guard at the entrance. On the side of one ox was a stone tablet, its front covered in incomprehensible characters, while the back was inscribed with “Overseas Thousand Continents Ten Thousand Islands Yimin Tomb.” Lei Xiuyuan stopped before the hall doors, placing his hand on them with uncharacteristic hesitation.
Li Fei stared at the doors, unconsciously walking over and placing her hand on them as well. The aura from within was so familiar and nostalgic that it captivated her entire consciousness. She pushed instinctively. The heavy doors creaked open with a harsh sound, revealing a crack.
A clear but not cold, warm but not cloying fragrance wafted through the crack and into her nostrils. Li Fei had never smelled such a scent before, yet it made her whole body tremble for reasons she couldn’t explain.
As the doors slowly opened completely, they revealed several duck egg-sized pearls embedded in the ceiling, illuminating the interior brightly. The spacious hall was filled with crystal coffins of various sizes. Whether due to frequent cleaning or not, both the hall floor and the crystal coffins were spotless.
Lei Xiuyuan once again quickly passed her, not even glancing at the outer crystal coffins as he strode towards the depths of the hall.
Li Fei’s attention was entirely elsewhere. She took a deep breath, enveloped by the strange fragrance. She had never smelled anything so comforting, yet it was elusive – neither cold nor warm. The longer she breathed it in, the more a sense of familiarity and nostalgia inexplicably rose in her heart as if she should be intimately acquainted with this scent.
She slowly approached one of the crystal coffins and looked down, startled by what she saw. Inside lay an extremely tall person, at least half a body taller than a normal man. His skin was dark, and his physique extremely robust, covered only by a thin, soft silk cloth. Most terrifying was his face: while the other five features were no different from a normal person’s, between his brows was a single eye. This lone eye was several times larger than a regular human eye. Though open, it was lifeless, presumably because the person was already dead.
Beside his head was a bronze plaque with only two characters in seal script: “One-Eye.”
Is this… an overseas Yimin?! He had a human body and features, yet was so bizarrely formed. The “One-Eye” on the bronze plaque – was it because they didn’t know his name or race, so they merely described his characteristics?
The neighboring crystal coffin also contained a dead person, but much shorter in stature. The names were equally strange: “One-Hand,” “One-Foot,” “Long-Arm”… Some were even more bizarre, covered in hair or with human bodies and beast heads, each more inconceivable than the last.
Li Fei felt her heart was about to leap out of her throat. She felt no familiarity with these Yimin; rather, she felt somewhat horrified. If the coffins had contained terrifying monsters, she might not have felt so chilled to the bone. But they all looked so human-like, with either peculiar facial features or limbs vastly different from normal people, which was truly unsettling.
Were these her kind? Surely not. She rejected this idea without hesitation, knowing it instinctively without need for reason.
The alluring fragrance grew stronger, so familiar and intimate. She felt she should be able to name it instantly, yet for some reason, she couldn’t recall.
Li Fei, as if summoned, walked towards the two crystal coffins placed at the very back. Lei Xiuyuan stood before one of them, motionless as a statue.
Just as she was about to approach, she suddenly heard Riyan’s aged voice: “You fool, where have you run off to?!”
Li Fei turned to see Riyan, who had disappeared earlier, now standing beside her. He looked extremely nervous, even a bit enraged. His snow-white fur stood on end, and his nine long tails thrashed violently, making him appear even larger.
“I smell Qingcheng’s scent! What have these dregs done to him?!” His voice had never sounded so urgent and angry.
His words fell on her ears but didn’t register in her mind. Li Fei merely glanced at him before slowly walking back toward the two crystal coffins.
Lei Xiuyuan stood before the coffin on the right, gazing intently. A faint golden light seeped from his hair and skin, and even his pitch-black eyes had turned a dark gold color.
Li Fei didn’t notice. She approached the coffin on the left and saw it was lined with a layer of pure white brocade. On the brocade lay a black horn, three to four inches long and extremely slender.
The bronze plaque in the coffin bore three characters: “Yaksha Horn.”
So this was the Yaksha Horn? The one severed by Immortal Qingcheng years ago? Indeed, it was sealed within the Yimin Tomb!
The alluring fragrance wafted subtly from the crystal coffin on the right. Li Fei felt something surge within her, both familiar and strange. She unconsciously moved closer and saw that Lei Xiuyuan was staring at a single snow-white human bone inside the coffin, seemingly an arm bone. The bone was lustrous and white as if carved from jade.
The bronze plaque in the coffin bore only two characters: “Unknown.” It seemed Wuyue Yan’s ancestors had obtained Yimin’s arm bone but didn’t know what it was.
Li Fei stared at the arm bone, vaguely recalling something. But the images that suddenly appeared in her mind were like a mirage, shattering in an instant. The fragrance grew so intense it seemed to have gained sentience, lingering before her reluctantly. She even felt that the scent was emanating from this very arm bone – how could a bone have such a fragrance?
Suddenly, a long, mournful howl like that of a wild beast came from nearby. Li Fei’s dazed mind snapped back to reality. Was that Riyan?!
She quickly walked over and was shocked to see a figure standing in the depths of the hall! Riyan stood beside him, howling furiously to the sky, tears rolling down his pale green eyes. The fox was trembling violently.
Li Fei’s heart raced as she approached. She saw an old immortal standing in the depths, wearing the plainest green robe. His eyes were sunken, his face withered, looking like a corpse. The terrifying part was that his chest was still rising and falling slightly – he was still alive?!
Riyan wailed miserably, “Qingcheng! Qingcheng! If you had known it would come to this, do you regret your decision back then?!”
Li Fei exclaimed, “Is this… the old Qingcheng?”
Wasn’t he said to be the most brilliant immortal in Wuyue Yan’s legend? Didn’t he sever the Yaksha Horn? Why was he now in this state of neither living nor dead in the Yimin Tomb?! She examined his face closely, but his features were truly indiscernible, almost skeletal. What cruel torture was this? Keeping him barely alive until now?!
Riyan kept trembling. He sighed deeply, unable to bear the sight anymore. He turned his head away, his voice defeated: “They probably still want to extract information about the overseas lands from him. Little girl, end this journey for him!”
Li Fei was even more shocked: “End it for him… you want me to kill him?”
Riyan suddenly stood up, his fur bristling as he roared, “Why hesitate?! How can you stand by and watch him suffer such torture?”
Li Fei was about to speak when Riyan flew out. His mournful howl echoed in the distance, sounding like a cry, a wail, a chant – as if he had gone mad.
Li Fei looked at Immortal Qingcheng with uncertainty and fear. He looked so miserable, truly chilling. Was this the handiwork of Wuyue Yan’s immortals? Although she had long known that the so-called immortals of this world had no true concept of good or evil, seeing such a cruel scene with her own eyes still made her hands tremble.
She couldn’t bring herself to kill him. This was Immortal Cuixuan’s small world, and Immortal Qingcheng was placed in the Yimin Tomb. Only she and Lei Xiuyuan had entered. If he died, they would be held responsible.
Li Fei closed her eyes and said in a trembling voice, “I’m sorry… I can’t help you…”
The next moment, a skeletal hand suddenly gripped her wrist like an iron ring. Li Fei almost jumped in shock. She stared as the corpse-like old immortal raised his head, his skull-like face even managing a smile at her, seeming both gratified and relieved.
A dim black light suddenly gathered in his palm, followed by a thin black booklet falling at Li Fei’s feet. He gently squeezed her wrist, then his hand went limp and fell. His entire body seemed to lose all strength, slumping to the ground. The extremely faint sound of breathing could no longer be heard.
Dead?!
Li Fei slowly picked up the black booklet and quickly flipped through it. To her surprise, it was completely blank, without a single character. What was this booklet about? Was it for her? How did giving her the booklet result in his death?!