The pair walked through the abyss-like underground palace passageway. Initially, fearing traps and mechanisms, they moved cautiously. However, after half an hour of uneventful progress, the passage proved even more peaceful than a secluded alley in Luoying Town.
Yet, beneath this tranquility lurked an almost eerie silence.
After half an hour, they began to sprint and leap. With their level of cultivation, they could have covered an area five times the size of Jile Palace using their lightness skills. However, even after nearly an hour, they remained in the tunnel.
The smooth iron walls occasionally carved with ancient patterns, the level cast-iron floor, the softly glowing night pearls, and the spacious, grand passageway of the underground palace seemed endless. As time passed, Cai Zhao felt as if she were no longer in the mortal realm but a wandering soul in the netherworld.
More disheartening were the scattered skeletons in tattered clothes lying along the passage, suggesting that those who entered the underground palace had no hope of survival.
“This person committed suicide,” Cai Zhao pointed at a skeleton a few steps away. “One slash, and they nearly severed their neck. Such strong resolve, yet they became desperate enough to end their own life.”
Mu Qingyan’s eyes darkened. “Ending one’s life while still having strength is better than the fate of those two corpses we saw earlier.”
Mentioning this made Cai Zhao nauseous.
Earlier, around a corner, they had encountered two corpses lying several steps apart. At first glance, there was nothing unusual, but Mu Qingyan’s sharp eyes noticed teeth marks on the bones. The unusually large black stains on the ground suggested massive bleeding. Upon lifting the clothes of one corpse, they found human finger bones in the abdominal area.
All signs indicated that one person, in extreme hunger and thirst, had resorted to cannibalism.
Yet even after consuming their companion’s flesh and blood, this person still couldn’t escape and eventually died of starvation here.
“Promise me something. If you get extremely hungry and want to eat me, knock me out first,” Cai Zhao said, feeling sick to her stomach.
Mu Qingyan lowered his head and untied his waist pouch. “Now that you mention it, I am feeling a bit hungry. Let’s have some dried food.” When they left Fanghua, Uncle Cheng had prepared water skins and dried food for everyone, just in case.
Cai Zhao looked at him incredulously. “How can you eat at a time like this?”
“Of course, I can,” Mu Qingyan said, breaking off a piece of dried food for her and encouraging her warmly. “Think about that person who resorted to cannibalism. To survive and escape, they not only ate flesh and drank blood but eventually, in their madness from hunger, even swallowed the finger bones of the dead. Such determination! We mustn’t lose heart either!”
“…” Cai Zhao stared at him. “You… just shut up.”
Then she ran to the corner and vomited.
Mu Qingyan looked stunned. He quietly walked over, helped the pale-faced girl back, and sat her down against the wall. “This isn’t that bad. When I…”
“If you mention the pulpy rotten flesh at the bottom of Jixian Cliff again, I’ll bite you!” The young girl bared her white teeth fiercely.
“…Here, drink some water first.” Mu Qingyan handed her his water skin, showing rare empathy. Changing the subject, he said, “It seems we’ve fallen into a labyrinth.”
“Indeed, we have,” Cai Zhao replied after taking a few sips of water. “The formation in this underground palace is incredibly powerful. The marks we left along the way have been useless. We’ve encountered some marks multiple times, while others have disappeared completely. At intersections, we’ve tried both paths, only to end up in the same place. Worst of all, we can’t even find our way back to where we first fell in. Sigh, if only there were some traps or mechanisms.”
Mu Qingyan smiled. “Are you finding this journey too smooth? Looking for some excitement?”
Cai Zhao shook her head. “It’s not that I find it too smooth. It’s just that when I was young, my maternal grandfather told me that human capabilities are limited. Any mechanism created by humans will eventually have an end. On the contrary, places without any mechanisms are often the most treacherous. Take the Chadian Peak of Mount Jiuli, for example. It has no mechanisms to speak of, yet over the past hundred years, countless heroes and outstanding individuals have perished there.”
“The person who built this place clearly understood this principle. This underground labyrinth is constructed with endless cycles, and seamlessly designed. Once you enter, you can only be trapped to death. If there were traps or mechanisms, I might be able to find a flaw by following them.” The more she thought about it, the more frustrated she became. “By the way, why did your ancestors go to such great lengths to build a place like this? Did your devil cult have too much money to spend at the time?”
“…Our cult’s historical records don’t mention why Cult Leader Mu Donglie built this underground palace,” Mu Qingyan said thoughtfully. “However, after he left, rumors circulated about secret manuals and treasures hidden in the underground palace, but nothing came of it.”
“So these people all came looking for treasure?” Cai Zhao looked at the skeletons, frowning. “What should we do now? Judging by these bones, they’ve been dead for at least a hundred years. Are we going to end up as skeletons here too?”
Mu Qingyan replied, “We can’t keep moving forward endlessly, or we’ll end up like those skeletons, dying from exhaustion and starvation.”
He stood up, examined the iron wall, then concentrated his energy and pushed forward with both palms. The iron wall emitted a low, deep rumble, and where his palms struck, two hand-shaped impressions about three to four inches deep appeared.
Cai Zhao watched in awe, thinking that Mu Qingyan’s power was indeed greater than hers, and he must have held back significantly in their previous fights.
“What are you doing?” she asked. “Didn’t you say these iron walls are three feet thick?”
Mu Qingyan gathered his energy again. “Since moving forward seems hopeless, we’ll break through the wall to find another way out. I want to see what’s behind the iron wall when it cracks.” With that, he struck the wall again with both palms. A low rumble echoed through the tunnel, but the wall only sank in a bit more.
Cai Zhao moved closer to examine it. “This won’t work. The wall is made of refined iron with excellent ductility. You can’t shatter it by striking.” She drew out the Yanyang Blade and handed it to Mu Qingyan. “Try cutting the wall first, then hit it again.”
Mu Qingyan took the blade and followed her suggestion.
After three deep, low rumbles, the gash made by the Yanyang Blade was indeed torn open by Mu Qingyan’s palm strike, revealing an opening about the size of a human head and exposing solid rock behind it.
Cai Zhao exclaimed, “Basalt granite? My goodness, three feet of iron wall backed by granite. This cult leader had too much time on his hands.”
Mu Qingyan struck the opening again. The granite cracked and crumbled slightly, but the rock behind it remained unmoved.
Cai Zhao stopped him from continuing. “This granite might be part of the mountain itself. Do you plan to shatter the entire mountain? Let’s try the iron wall on the left. I want to see if there’s granite behind that one too.”
Just as she was about to swing her blade at the iron wall, she suddenly stopped mid-strike and let out a puzzled “Huh?”
Mu Qingyan looked puzzled and asked what was wrong.
Cai Zhao ran her hand over the patterns on the iron wall. “We didn’t notice before, but these aren’t just decorations. Look, doesn’t this resemble a map?”
Stepping closer, Mu Qingyan examined the design. Amidst the intricate patterns of flowing clouds and bats, an octagonal shape resembling the Eight Trigrams was embedded. Upon closer inspection, this octagram lacked the typical yin-yang poles. Instead, it was filled with layers of winding, intersecting lines, strikingly similar to a map.
Cai Zhao studied the pattern repeatedly. “Based on this diagram, this underground palace should be octagonal, mirroring the Eight Trigrams. The place where we fell earlier might have been near the edge. We’ve walked for so long, yet we don’t know our current location. Wait, what’s this?”
She pointed to a hollow pentagon at the center of the octagon – a perfect, regular pentagon with equal sides.
“I don’t know,” Mu Qingyan shook her head.
Cai Zhao turned to look at her. “Why are you frowning?”
Mu Qingyan’s brows furrowed. “We’ve seen this pattern more than once along the way.”
“True,” Cai Zhao replied, “but we didn’t pay attention before.”
“I don’t think it’s a map, for two reasons,” Mu Qingyan said skeptically. “First, if I intended to trap people in an underground palace, I wouldn’t provide a map. Second, even if I did create a map, I wouldn’t place it everywhere along the route.”
Cai Zhao blinked. “Perhaps Sect Leader Mu Donglie had a completely different nature from yours? Maybe he was kind-hearted and generous?”
Mu Qingyan rolled her eyes. “When we get out, I’ll have you read the sect’s historical records. You’ll see what methods and temperaments those ambitious former sect leaders had. Then you’ll realize how rare and precious I am. Cherish me while you can!”
“…Alright then,” Cai Zhao scratched her ear. “But I still think this looks like a map.”
“Even if it is a map, it’s useless. Do you know where we are on this map right now?” Mu Qingyan continued to pour cold water on the idea.
Cai Zhao waved her hand dismissively. “That’s not the only problem. There’s also this tricky Eight Trigrams with no line markers. So is this Fu Xi’s Early Heaven arrangement or King Wen’s Later Heaven arrangement? If it’s Early Heaven, then Qian is south Kun is north, Li is east and Kan is west. If it’s Later Heaven, then Li is south Kan is north, Zhen is east and Dui is west. We don’t know our position, and we can’t determine the trigram orientations. There’s no way we can find our way out like this.”
Mu Qingyan suggested, “Why don’t we look at murals in other places? There might be some differences.”
Cai Zhao agreed.
So they set off again, this time carefully examining the wall paintings and patterns along the way.
Every mile or so, there were large areas of carved patterns on the iron walls – auspicious clouds and lotus designs, flowing clouds and bat motifs, and pomegranate blossoms with intertwining branches. Then, after every two sets of patterns, the Eight Trigrams diagram would appear among three large pattern clusters.
They walked for twenty miles, discovering that even though the large pattern clusters varied, the Eight Trigrams diagram at the center remained identical. At this point, even Mu Qingyan began to believe it might be a map.
Cai Zhao looked at the Eight Trigrams diagram before her and sighed softly. “Look, there’s a bloody handprint on this diagram.” She turned and pointed to a gray skeleton leaning against the opposite wall. “It seems this poor fellow also discovered the diagram might be a map, yet still died here. Hey, what are you looking at?”
Mu Qingyan stared intently at the skeleton on the ground. “Don’t you think this person’s bones are a bit off?”
Cai Zhao hurried to look and indeed noticed something strange. “This person’s left shoulder and arm bones are missing, and the ribs are shattered. This is… this is…”
The skeleton’s left side was leaning against the wall, and where it touched, there was an extremely thin crack running from top to bottom, nearly impossible to notice without climbing up for a close look. The deceased’s left shoulder and arm had disappeared into this crevice.
Half of the body had been caught in some kind of mechanical trap within the iron wall.
Excited by this discovery, Cai Zhao quickly drew her sword and struck at the crack. The Yan Yang blade, sharp and extremely thin, coupled with her forceful strike, made a swishing sound as it slid perfectly into the wall’s crevice.
Just as they were about to join forces to pry open the crack, they heard a familiar sound of rolling iron chains around them.
“Not good, it’s a trap!” Mu Qingyan shouted. With one hand, she grabbed Cai Zhao, and with the other, she forcefully slapped the iron wall. Using this borrowed momentum, her body sprang backward like a coiled spring.
At that moment, dozens of small holes suddenly appeared in the iron wall where they had just been standing. Arrows began shooting out with a rapid swish-swish-swish. Each arrow was about half a foot long, with eerily blue arrowheads, clearly poisoned.
The mechanism of firing the arrows was incredibly powerful. The arrows embedded themselves deeply into the opposite iron wall, almost to their fletching.
Mu Qingyan dragged Cai Zhao backward about 70-80 feet, seemingly out of the arrows’ range. However, the iron plates beneath their feet suddenly flipped, revealing densely packed, sharp iron spikes underneath.
Mu Qingyan had no choice but to push off the ground with a palm strike, leaping towards the ceiling, intending to hang from the rafters until the arrows stopped. However, before they could reach the top, more than a dozen holes appeared in the ceiling, raining down poisoned arrows like a violent storm.
Seeing no escape from the arrow barrage that threatened to turn them into pincushions, Cai Zhao shouted with all her might, “Hit the wall with the mechanism!”
Mu Qingyan used all her strength to crash into that wall. She expected it to be like the previous ones – extremely thick iron backed by giant stones. To their surprise, with a loud clattering sound, a large gap opened in the iron wall.
The two immediately leaped through the opening.
Having exhausted their strength with multiple mid-air maneuvers, they no longer had the power to land gracefully and fell heavily onto the floor inside.
To avoid triggering more traps, Mu Qingyan quickly helped Cai Zhao to her feet. As they looked around, they discovered they were in an incredibly vast and majestic hall. Sixteen crystal pools, each as large as a table, hung from the walls. Golden whale oil lamps burned in these pools, seemingly able to last for ten thousand years without extinguishing.
Cai Zhao’s heart leaped, and she exclaimed, “This must be the pentagon at the center of the Eight Trigrams map – the very heart of the underground palace!”