Not familiar, but definitely a voice she had heard before.

Not familiar, but definitely a person she had seen before.

Hearing this voice that suddenly rang out by the lakeside, Jian Chou’s first reaction was an uncontrollable shudder. She instinctively turned her gaze toward the space in front of her, and thus fell into a kind of wonderfully indescribable daze.

It truly was him.

The youth who had handed her a snow lotus by the holy lake behind the temple all those years ago.

His stature was still not very tall, as if he hadn’t grown even half an inch taller in these twenty-some years, still looking like he was sixteen or seventeen years old. His features carried a few traces of youthful immaturity, his two eyes narrowed like two bright crescents on the horizon. His pale fingers held that small bundle of blue larkspur, and in his posture and expression was an indescribable, natural feeling as if he could merge with his surroundings.

Jian Chou gazed at him, and he also gazed at Jian Chou.

Neither of them spoke.

At this moment, transformed into the eerie blue-purple lake bottom, that pair of clear yet weathered eyes simply gazed at them with gentle tranquility, neither urging nor anxious.

In the gloomy night, there was a cacophony of noise.

For now, no one had noticed the abnormality of this holy lake behind the temple that was usually deathly silent. From top to bottom, almost everyone’s attention was on the earth-shaking great formation overhead.

How many years had it been since they’d seen such a strange and magnificent scene?

Sky Walker Mother Yang Jin concealed her form and quietly passed between two rows of patrolling monks. After hiding behind a pillar of a great hall at the very edge of the temple, she raised her head to observe the magnificent formation that had suddenly changed in the high sky.

Human power gathered toward heaven, heavenly power descended toward humans.

This holy sacrifice formation had clearly begun its most crucial transformation, about to transfer the power absorbed from the holy sacrifice!

It was just that when she opened her palm to look at the spirit pearl, it was still a crystal-clear snow-white orb without the slightest movement. She didn’t know what progress that friend Jian Chou, who had gone to the holy lake to search for the Holy Son, had made.

Her two delicate eyebrows furrowed slightly tighter in the darkness.

Yang Jin flipped her hand and gripped the spirit pearl back into her palm. After staying behind this pillar to observe the nearby situation, she would look for a suitable opportunity to continue approaching the main hall, the Hall of Saints.

But unexpectedly, she hadn’t been observing long when she was directly scared speechless!

She actually saw Liao Kong!

And not in some corner or dark, hidden place, but swaggering openly, wearing a red monk’s robe, with a different string of prayer beads around his neck, holding a pale blue conch shell that came from who knows where, brazenly walking among a group of Tantric monks, heading toward the direction of the temple!

How, how was this possible?

Had she mistaken him for someone else?

But she still recognized that face of little monk Liao Kong. Not only was it identical, even the expression in his eyes and brows hadn’t changed in the slightest. It was just that because he had changed into the attire of a Tantric monk, he looked somewhat strange.

The person was still the same person.

For a moment, Yang Jin was somewhat dumbfounded. In all her years of cultivation, this was the first time she had seen such an unreasonable scene, and she couldn’t react for quite a while.

But on Liao Kong’s side, he suddenly sensed something.

He had originally been pretending to walk among these twenty-some Tantric monks, passing by this great hall in front, but when passing by that enormous pillar, he actually directly turned his gaze over and looked straight at Yang Jin with one glance.

Yang Jin was simply horrified!

In this instant, she almost couldn’t control herself and was about to be directly exposed, about to first kill this monk who looked exactly like Liao Kong.

But the next moment, the other party winked at her.

His expression held some helplessness, and also a bit of “I didn’t expect it could actually be like this” small excitement, and of course also meant to indicate his identity to Yang Jin.

It was Liao Kong, absolutely no mistake.

But the more she confirmed the other party’s identity, the more Yang Jin felt her head was in a muddle: What kind of joke was this, mixing in so brazenly? So brazenly walking together with Tantric monks? Moreover, she was a great cultivator of the Void Refining stage. Never mind a Liao Kong who had just reached the Out-of-Body stage, even Jian Chou, who was also a great cultivator of Void Refining, might not necessarily be able to accurately discover her hiding place. But Liao Kong looked over with one glance, without the slightest hesitation or doubt, as if he had known she was hiding here all along…

It must be that those high monks of the Chan sect had secretly given him several mysterious magical artifacts…

Mm.

It must be like this.

Hiding behind this pillar, Yang Jin thought for a long time.

But Liao Kong didn’t dare say a word. His ability to mix into this group of monks was already a fortunate coincidence, so at this crucial moment he only gave Yang Jin a look, then followed those twenty-some Tantric monks as they walked away toward the front.

The Hall of Saints was right below the center position of the entire great formation. That thin golden light column descending from the sky had already become much thicker, and even the chanting from the mandala below the holy mountain had become much louder.

When had the faithful ever seen such a strange phenomenon?

Just in the moment of the formation’s transformation, they became excited, their devotion in their hearts deepened by several degrees, accelerating the operation of the formation and making the light column within the formation even more pure.

Yang Jin watched Liao Kong’s retreating figure, knowing that now the arrow was on the string and had to be released. Although she couldn’t figure out how Liao Kong had managed to mix in among the Tantric monks without being discovered, she could just attribute it to the good fortune he had accumulated as a person of three lifetimes of goodness.

At a critical moment, she couldn’t worry about so much.

She didn’t have Liao Kong’s good luck, and naturally didn’t have such foolish boldness either, so she still followed her original old method of approaching the center of the formation.

Already, few people could see the Hall of Saints clearly at this moment. This highest and most magnificent great hall on the snowy holy mountain was completely shrouded by the golden light descending from the sky, like the most untouchable dwelling of gods and saints in this Buddha land.

Dharma King Baoyin sat in the midst of this dwelling.

The formation drawn on the ground of the Hall of Saints had also turned completely golden, and even floated up from the ground as the formation operated. Line connected to line, quickly curving into a huge golden Buddha lotus.

The golden color on the ground and the golden color in the sky reflected each other.

The golden lotus on the ground became a lotus platform under Dharma King Baoyin’s seat, while the golden waterfall hanging from the sky fell into the open black eye in his brow!

It was clearly magnificent power, but when it entered that spiritless black eye, it was like a grain of millet entering the vast sea, not worth mentioning at all, without the slightest excessive reaction.

Dharma King Baoping was also one of the Three Treasures Dharma Kings. He knew in his heart what the purpose of this holy sacrifice was, so his gloomy face was grave on the outside, and his eyes held a kind of excitement and fanaticism that was difficult to suppress.

He was withered and aged.

His sagging facial skin was covered with wrinkles, each wrinkle like a ravine, with traces of filth faintly hidden in the ravines. His squinting eyes were heavily pressed down by drooping eyelids and two gray-white eyebrows, as if he couldn’t see. Though he sat cross-legged in this hall, at first glance, he still seemed dried up and thin like a narrow bottle.

A string of prayer beads made from virgin bones hung between his palms, each bead carved into the shape of an evil spirit. As his lips opened and closed chanting Buddhist scriptures, they constantly rotated with his moving fingers.

But at a certain moment, they suddenly paused.

As if he had vaguely heard something or felt something from the surrounding noise and commotion, Dharma King Baoping’s pale eyebrows twitched and suddenly furrowed.

Having reached the middle stage of Void Refining, he possessed enormous spiritual consciousness that could cover the entire snowy region. Though he usually didn’t release it, and in such a sensitive and crucial moment didn’t dare release it to attract the attention of other great cultivators from the sects of Jiushijiu Zhou, at this kind of time, covering the entire most crucial holy mountain with his spiritual consciousness was still something he could do.

The holy lake behind the temple had been silent for hundreds of years, but just now…

The spiritual consciousness covering that area had clearly moved slightly. But when he carefully adjusted and refocused his attention to sense it, the lakeside was again empty of everything.

No, something was wrong…

Dharma King Baoping almost immediately looked toward Dharma King Baoyin, about to say something, but at this time, how could Dharma King Baoyin in the formation still perceive the slightest movement from the outside world?

He had completely turned into a sculpture, motionless.

The one accepting the most magnificent power of this holy sacrifice was naturally not himself. At this moment, his body was just like a container, a channel, to allow these powers to be transmitted to where they should be transmitted. But even so, it required him to exert all his mental strength to maintain it, and even endure the pain of his body nearly bursting apart!

Black qi and golden light alternated and floated on his face, creating an eerie sight.

Dharma King Baoping’s brows furrowed even tighter.

Ever since they had summoned the Holy Son from the hundred lifetimes of reincarnation, hundreds of years had passed. At the time, no one had expected that the Holy Son would actually stand with the Old Tantric side, even causing a terrible bloody storm in the snowy region, and then from about eighty years ago, he became increasingly difficult to see. In these twenty-some years, he hadn’t shown even a trace of himself.

This was absolutely abnormal, always making people feel like there was a fishbone stuck in their throat, a thorn in their back!

At such a crucial moment, any slight unusual change could represent unusual clues and trigger unusual consequences.

And this time, they had to be absolutely foolproof.

The current plan should have been implemented twenty years ago, but unexpectedly they encountered that female cultivator from Yashan who came to stir up trouble and had another wave of conflict with the Old Tantric and Chan sects, so it was forcibly postponed until today.

In his narrow eye slits, heavy gloom surged up.

Dharma King Baoping rose and gestured to the other senior masters guarding this formation eye, then holding that string of prayer beads, he walked around the Buddha statue that was also submerged in golden light, heading toward the back hall, and also toward the holy lake behind the hall.

Almost simultaneously, the youth standing by the holy lake also raised his head to look toward a certain direction of the back hall of the Hall of Saints.

The lake was completely cold, the lakeside all ice and snow.

The youth in snow-white monk’s robes showed no trace of any artifice on his body, naturally merging with heaven and earth as if he were one with them. He stood barefoot, the wind blowing his snow-white hood. When he looked up, his eyes held several traces of dark blue depths.

Jian Chou immediately noticed his action but didn’t follow his gaze to look back. Instead, she only looked at him calmly and rationally.

The youth clearly felt that her reaction was different from what he had expected.

At this moment, he smiled: “Someone is coming, and you don’t even look back?”

“This holy mountain and temple has always been covered by the spiritual consciousness of great cultivators, never interrupted. If the spiritual consciousness of the incoming person could detect my intrusion and the Holy Son’s appearance, I’m afraid what’s coming now would definitely be a fatal strike, rather than the master of this spiritual consciousness himself.”

Jian Chou stood by the lakeside, sizing up the youth.

“I don’t have such great ability to completely hide under the most careful investigation of a cultivator of the same level, so I assume the Holy Son must have already acted to help. Why would I need to look back?”

Jiye gazed back at her, and that trust and affection in his eyes almost undisguised, surged out all at once, making the smile at the corners of his lips become more genuine.

The blue larkspur trembled lightly between his fingers, carrying a faint, subtle fragrance.

He looked at her, and also seemed to look through the present her at the endless infinities of her hidden behind her. In the depths of his dark ink-blue eyes, countless mysteries were reflected: “You humans are truly too wonderful. The you of this moment is even more interesting than the you I’ve understood from the myriad fragments of the future…”