The mist swirled, water splashed and churned, and the Great Black Dog skimmed the surface on its paws, running across the waves like a black arrow, shooting onto the bank at full speed.

“What’s happening? Why are they moving?” It was in a sorry state, glancing back over its shoulder.

Damn this cursed dog — it truly deserved a beating. Ye Fan almost went over to shove it back in, eyeing it sideways.

“Young one, you really are dishonorable — just now you didn’t help me at all, just stood on the bank watching the show.” The Great Black Dog bared its teeth, looking back.

“I was going to make a move — just to give you a good thrashing.” Ye Fan stood on the bank, looked it over a few times, then glanced back at the blurred shapes moving beneath the water. “What exactly did you see down there?”

The Great Black Dog knew it was in the wrong and did not press the matter further. It circled the lake, muttering something under its breath.

“What are you saying?”

“I saw celestial maidens — every one of them flawlessly beautiful, capable of toppling kingdoms. They moved even me to pity. Shall we go down together and take a look?” the Great Black Dog said.

“If even you were moved to pity, they can’t possibly be celestial maidens. More likely a pack of large female wolves.”

“Woof woof — young one, are you tired of living?” The Great Black Dog’s stub tail stood straight up.

“Alright, stop trying to bite me. My legs are already covered in your tooth marks.” Ye Fan quickly placated it. He was still counting on it to find the Scripture of the Western Emperor, and didn’t want to provoke it into a rage.

All around the lake, the spiritual energy was so dense it could scarcely dissolve — almost condensed enough to form liquid. It was the cultivation holy ground that cultivators dreamed of.

The water shimmered with reflections, mist drifted in wisps, and everything beneath the surface remained blurred. Several human silhouettes slowly receded into the lake’s depths.

Their figures were rigid, draped in rough hemp robes, black hair streaming loose. Beneath the water they were terrifying — like water ghosts, deeply unsettling.

“Are they all corpses?” Ye Fan asked carefully.

The Great Black Dog wore an expression as dark as ink. “What rotten luck. This is clearly an immortal lake — a place where unrivaled celestial maidens once bathed. I came down here in high spirits to search for sacred objects, and instead I found… truly foul fortune.”

“You had good things in mind and wanted to keep them for yourself, then when you encountered something sinister you called me down to keep you company?” Ye Fan glared at it.

“Let’s go down together — maybe we’ll manage to find something valuable.” The Great Black Dog tried to coax him.

“I’m not going. I have no interest in corpses.” Ye Fan refused.

“Young one, you’ll regret this. This is Yaochi’s most important site. If it weren’t for the corpses, I’d want to collect all this water…”

In ancient times, this pool had been famous throughout the world — the most renowned immortal pool in the Northern Region. Its spiritual energy gathered in dense swirls, and sources had even crystallized within the pool itself.

Drinking this pool’s water over a long period could extend the lives of ordinary people. For cultivators, the effects were even greater. The women of Yaochi were known for their purity and ethereal grace — this was connected to the pool. Over decades and centuries, it could slowly refine one’s constitution, leaving the body flawless and unblemished.

Yaochi’s water was also the finest source for refining medicine. Even some great sects and sacred grounds would make special trips here to draw water when refining precious divine pills.

“The materials the Western Queen Mother used to forge her supreme-grade weapon were excavated from this very immortal pool. If we go down, we might still find something.” The Great Black Dog tried to tempt him.

“Stop dreaming. If there were anything left, would it still be here now?” Ye Fan scoffed.

A supreme-grade weapon placed the most extreme demands on its materials. A Great Emperor possessed an extraordinarily long lifespan — far longer than ordinary cultivators — yet even searching the entire world over the course of one lifetime was not necessarily enough to gather all the necessary components.

Sacred objects like phoenix-blood scarlet gold appeared perhaps once in a thousand lifetimes — things of chance, beyond seeking. And to forge a supreme-grade weapon, one needed precisely these most precious materials forged since the dawn of creation.

For this reason, since ancient times, whether lost or still existing, the total count of supreme-grade weapons in the Eastern Desolation had never exceeded a handful.

“You never know — perhaps a piece of rare celestial material truly was left behind.” The Great Black Dog’s eyes gleamed.

“Yaochi has already moved away. Even if something was here, it would have been swept clean long ago. How could anything possibly have been left for you?” Ye Fan was unmoved.

“What do you know? This pool is mysterious — it was because of this very pool that the Western Queen Mother founded her sect here. Who knows what else may lie beneath it? I suspect that what people call ‘Yaochi’s flying immortals’ was triggered by this pool.”

“There truly is something down there — corpses, as you’ve seen. What more is there to investigate?”

“Why did Yaochi leave? Why are there so many corpses in the pool? Don’t you want to find out?” the Great Black Dog said, dissatisfied.

“If I had sufficient power, I’d want to excavate the Primordial Ancient Mine and dig open all nine sacred mountains in the ancient forbidden zones. But right now, all I want is the Scripture of the Western Emperor. I’m not looking for trouble.”

“If you don’t come down with me, you can forget about the Scripture of the Western Emperor for the rest of your life!” The Great Black Dog bared its teeth.

Damn this cursed dog — now it was even threatening him. Ye Fan cursed it inwardly.

The lake water was warm. Water splashed and sparkled like jade. The spiritual energy was overpowering, seeping of its own accord through one’s pores and into the body.

“The people of Yaochi bathed in this water every day — how could their cultivation not advance rapidly? I might as well, once I’ve gathered enough sources, come here for a closed-door retreat. I’d certainly make rapid leaps in progress.” Ye Fan marveled.

“See? Now you understand the benefits. Would this Emperor steer you wrong?” The Great Black Dog struck a proud pose.

“Stop being so smug. Get in the water — I’ll follow close behind you.”

“Let me rest and recover my spirit a bit more before going in. I feel a little unsettled.” The Great Black Dog was clearly anxious.

“Have you sneaked in here before?” Ye Fan closed his eyes to enjoy the spiritual energy and asked the treacherous Great Black Dog.

“I’d have liked to, but unfortunately never had the chance — I only heard about it. So today I intend to savor it fully.”

“I suppose only the important figures of Yaochi could enter this pool?” Ye Fan asked.

“The supreme-grade weapon the Western Queen Mother left behind was always kept submerged in the pool to serve as a suppressing force. Ordinary people truly could not enter — only the Queen Mother, the Sacred Maiden, and the Supreme Elders were permitted. However, the water could be drawn out and offered to other disciples for use.”

“A supreme-grade weapon kept submerged at the bottom of the pool year-round?” Ye Fan was inwardly startled.

“Unfortunately, it was taken away by Yaochi’s people. What a shame!” The Great Black Dog was deeply covetous.

Water swirled. The Great Black Dog sank down, and Ye Fan followed. They descended over a hundred meters before slowly approaching the lakebed.

“What the—!” Ye Fan felt his scalp go numb. Beneath the lake, dense and packed, were the bodies of young women — countless of them.

This was no immortal lake. This was clearly a burial pit. There were several hundred bodies in total, filling the center of the lake, piled one upon another.

Those arms like pale lotus roots, those long and slender jade-like legs — they still bore a faint sheen, yet every body was rigid, showing not the slightest sign of life.

The female corpses, each with hair streaming loose, faces pale as death, dressed in white hemp robes bearing Yaochi’s insignia, their hair swirling like serpents in tangled disarray — in the dim lakebed, the sight was deeply unsettling.

No wonder the Great Black Dog had been frightened into bolting for the surface on its first dive — and had then tried to coax him down to share in the misery.

This was clearly an immortal lake, yet this was the scene within it. It truly sent shivers down one’s spine.

Inside the immortal pool, there were no fish, no aquatic plants — only dead silence. Apart from the corpses, nothing else existed.

“You go look for treasure. I’ll wait here,” Ye Fan transmitted via spiritual sense.

“I feel somewhat uneasy,” the Great Black Dog muttered.

More than a dozen corpses slowly floated upward and drifted toward them — they moved with the water’s currents, not of their own accord, yet even so it made the flesh crawl.

The corpses’ surfaces were coated in a wax-like layer. They had long since become wax cadavers. Yet even so, they should not remain undecayed indefinitely — this left Ye Fan puzzled.

“Are you searching for treasure or not? If not, let’s go look for the Scripture of the Western Emperor.” Ye Fan urged.

“Young one, go have a look at the wounds on the corpses. How did they die?” the Great Black Dog transmitted in a thoroughly unscrupulous manner.

“Why don’t you go yourself?” Ye Fan wanted to punch it.

“Those are all celestial maidens — every one beautiful beyond compare. Looking at them, you’d feel gratified. When I look at them, I feel terrified.” the Great Black Dog said.

“I want to smack you on the head!”

“Damn it, is that any way to talk?”

In the end, Ye Fan and the Dark Emperor dove down together and examined the corpses. After careful observation, however, not a single wound could be found on the bodies of the several hundred Yaochi disciples — there was no way to determine what had killed them.

“Stop looking. We can’t stay here long — something is wrong.” Ye Fan urged.

“I want to understand why Yaochi retreated. It may have something to do with this pool.” The Great Black Dog was insistent.

“If you could actually figure that out, the trouble would truly be enormous. All of Yaochi’s people fled from this place. If the two of us actually discovered some clue, that would be nothing short of seeking our own deaths.” Ye Fan said solemnly: “Go find the treasure — or else we’re leaving immediately.”

The Great Black Dog was also somewhat rattled. Even as confident as it was, just thinking of an entire sacred ground abandoning this place made it waver inwardly.

“What reason could have driven the most powerful sacred ground in the Eastern Desolation to retreat?”

The Dark Emperor sank to the lakebed and began searching everywhere, hoping to chance upon some celestial material. But after half an hour of commotion that churned the lakebed into murky turbidity, all it found were a few jade hairpins.

Suddenly, Ye Fan felt a chill run down his spine. He spun around — directly behind him, in the heap of female corpses, black hair was swirling wildly in all directions.

In a flash, in a trance-like state, he thought he saw a pair of deep, eerie eyes crack open — shooting out a cold, haunting light through the stacked layers of corpses.

In the dim, dark lakewater, Ye Fan’s scalp went numb. He stomped hard against the water and shot upward.

Above, drifting corpses were moving. The hair of one body coiled around his ankle. He gave a powerful shake, broke free, and burst through the water’s surface with a splash, landing on the bank.

The lake water shuddered, and almost in the same instant the Great Black Dog shot out as well — scrambling and lunging — with three female corpses tangled around its stub tail.

“Young one, help me!” The Great Black Dog charged up the bank like its tail was on fire.

On its stub tail, the hair of three corpses was wound around it, dragging them onto the shore.

The Dark Emperor gave a mighty thrash of its tail and finally shook them loose. The three corpses, exposed to the air for only a moment, dissolved in an instant into three pools of liquid.

Ye Fan felt a wave of nausea wash over him. He had just been soaking in that pool, and now he was seeing this.

“There seems to be something down there. What did you just see?” The Great Black Dog asked, its face dark.

“I thought I saw a corpse open its eyes — though thinking carefully about it now, it might have been two pearls embedded in the lakebed. Why don’t you go back down and take another look? After all, you still want to find treasure.” Ye Fan was equally unscrupulous.

“Damn it — I’m done looking!” The Great Black Dog gave a fierce shake of its fur. Water droplets flew in every direction, yet its body remained lustrous black and slick, repelling every drop. “That immortal pool has become a ghost pool. There’s definitely something down there. Yaochi’s flying immortals — I’d say those are flying ghosts.”

“How did so many corpses end up in there? Yaochi’s people should have properly buried them. Why would they throw them into the immortal pool?” Ye Fan could not understand it.

“Who knows. Maybe someone else threw them in. I absolutely refuse to go back down!” the Great Black Dog said, getting rattled.

Ye Fan and the Dark Emperor moved away from the immortal pool. Looking back from a distance, mist churned and coiled above it. Whether from the power of suggestion or something else, it no longer felt pure and sacred — it now felt eerily sinister.

This inner sanctum was flanked by beautiful peaks. Many grand palace halls stood here, enduring to this day and still imperishable, their interiors housing profoundly deep Dao patterns that would allow them to endure for ages yet.

Ye Fan walked into one of the great halls. Jade stone paved the floor — smooth, lustrous, and utterly free of dust. Despite the long ages that had passed, the hall possessed a purifying quality that kept it spotless, unstained by even a speck of grime.

Tap… tap… tap…

In the vast, empty hall, only his own footsteps echoed — spreading far and wide into the stillness.

Creeeak—!

Boom, boom, boom—!

He pushed open a doorway that had not been opened in countless ages. The great hall resounded with the sound, as if he had stepped into the Yaochi of ancient times.

Standing here, one seemed to feel the grandeur of those bygone days — a gathering of beautiful celestial maidens, transcendent above this earth, shimmering with dazzling radiance beneath this canopy of stars.

Ye Fan stood still for a long moment before continuing forward, passing through one great hall after another.

Inside the tall, vast palaces, there was nothing — hollow and empty, holding only the stillness and solitude that the ages had left behind.

Ye Fan found nothing at all. There was no chance of discovering anything worthwhile.

The Great Black Dog wandered and explored, passing through more than a dozen great halls one after another, and in the end returned empty-handed as well.

“Does Yaochi have a medicinal field? All these years have passed — if it still exists, perhaps rare divine medicines have grown there.” The words had barely left Ye Fan’s lips when the Great Black Dog shot forward, transforming into a streak of dark light, moving as fast as it possibly could.

“This wretched dog — completely unreliable!” Ye Fan cursed and gave chase, keeping close behind. If not for the movement technique he had trained under the old madman, he would have been left in the dust entirely. The Great Black Dog sprinted forward, kicking up a gust of black wind in its wake.

After a full twenty-some li at a dead run, they arrived at a lush, verdant area. Only then did the Great Black Dog slow and begin circling through the mountain range.

“Dark Emperor, you really are unscrupulous. The moment you heard ‘medicinal field’ you ran faster than a rabbit — but now why aren’t you running anymore?” Ye Fan teased.

“Is this Emperor really so dishonorable? I was waiting for you. We’ll look together.” The Great Black Dog said.

“As if you’d be so considerate. You couldn’t find anything, could you?” Ye Fan walked up to join it.

This stretch of mountain terrain was full of life — green plants grew everywhere. But there were no medicinal plants, and not a trace of medicinal fragrance drifted through the air.

“Strange — never mind the rare and precious heavenly materials. How is it there isn’t even a single ordinary medicinal herb?” The Great Black Dog murmured so softly it was nearly inaudible.

A black line appeared on Ye Fan’s forehead. This cursed dog had indeed found nothing and had not been waiting for him out of goodwill after all.

In the end, the Great Black Dog sighed with a mournful air: “Too thorough. Yaochi’s people moved away the entire medicinal field.”

On closer examination, one could see that the open expanse ahead contained a perfectly square pit of enormous size — even the topsoil itself had been taken away.

An ominous premonition rose in Ye Fan’s heart. Could the Scripture of the Western Emperor also have been dug up and taken away? Even though the Great Black Dog had repeatedly assured him before they came that Yaochi’s people would never disturb that sheer cliff face, he now felt uncertain.

“Hurry and find the Scripture of the Western Emperor. If the scripture is also gone, I’ll have the urge to kill someone…”

“Don’t worry. No one can understand those scripture texts. Not even Yaochi’s successive generations of Queen Mothers would necessarily have recognized them. Even if the words were placed right before someone’s eyes, they wouldn’t be able to make anything out. They were created as the Western Queen Mother attained enlightenment — outsiders simply cannot see what they truly are. No one knows she was the one who carved them there.”

“Then how do you know about it?” Ye Fan was suspicious.

“What kind of existence is this Emperor? I personally heard this secret spoken by someone!” The Great Black Dog held its head high with an air of supreme pride.

Reluctantly leaving the medicinal field behind, they swiftly made their way toward a range of mountain peaks.

In this place, not a single blade of grass grew. Sheer cliff faces rose everywhere, and the mountains were entirely made of bare stone with no soil whatsoever — nothing but great boulders throughout.

The moment they entered the mountains, Ye Fan was struck dumb. Carved into a stone wall was the figure of a woman, giving one the feeling that the Dao had crafted her naturally into the stone. Though it was merely a carving, it possessed a wondrous quality of Dao following nature and man and heaven becoming one.

“This is only a carved image — it contains no martial technique, nothing but a standing posture. Why does it give one the feeling of ‘the Dao and the self becoming one’?” Ye Fan was truly astonished.

“Let’s move on. There should be many more carvings in these mountains. You can take your time studying them if you wish.” The Great Black Dog urged him on.

Ye Fan moved forward with reluctance, yet the image kept surfacing unbidden in his mind.