Zanxing’s gaze wandered between the two of them, her mind filled with thoughts.

Immediately after, Gu Baiying placed one hand on the palace door handle and pushed the door open forcefully.

Everyone instinctively gripped their spirit artifacts tightly, in case some demons or ghosts suddenly burst out from behind the door.

After the door made a deep, booming sound, it was slowly pushed open.

At first, it was just a small crack, then the black gap grew larger and larger, with the stale smell of dust wafting out from behind the door. It was as if this magnificent palace door hadn’t been pushed open by anyone for years. Some dim light filtered through from inside. Mimi let out an “awoo” cry, leaped up, and slipped through the door crack.

For a long while, no other sounds emerged.

Zanxing breathed a slight sigh of relief. Gu Baiying had already gripped his Embroidered Bone Spear and walked into the palace. She hurriedly followed.

This place was somewhat like the front hall of Taiyan Sect, but much more magnificent and imposing than Taiyan Sect. The entire palace was very spacious and seemed to have several levels. Exquisitely decorated lamps were placed on the walls and ground, emitting ghostly light that made the palace appear even more eerie and beautiful.

In the very center, stone blocks were arranged in a circle. At first glance, it looked a bit like a teleportation array, but probably wasn’t one. Scattered on the ground were some medicinal herbs, glowing crystal blocks, and talisman papers with unknown writings. Gu Baiying bent down to pick up a talisman paper and examined it, his gaze startled: “It’s an altar.”

“Is this the Serpent Witch Clan’s altar?” Zanxing looked around. “What are these murals depicting?”

On all four walls of the palace were colorful murals with very bold and vivid tones. Upon careful examination, they were the same as the totems they had seen on the city gate wall when they arrived. They meticulously depicted extraordinarily beautiful women holding blue and red serpents, gazing into the distance in the desert.

“There’s dancing here too,” Mendong pointed at the wall, “This depicts the Auspicious Serpent Festival, right?”

Indeed, the mural also showed scenes beside a blazing bonfire in the desert, with two snow-white camels pulling a magnificent carriage, a veiled woman looking back, and crowds fervently raising Divine Serpent Lamps above their heads while prostrating devoutly.

Besides this, there were scenes of women sitting on high seats with common people kneeling below, praying to her, or phantom serpents in firelight. The entire mural was indeed depicting legends about the “Serpent Witch Clan.”

However, Zanxing always felt something was strange. Was the Serpent Witch Clan this ostentatious? It seemed somewhat different from the Serpent Witch Clan’s style of conduct that Yinli had described.

“This mural seems to be painted with gold powder,” Tian Fangfang smacked his lips and began touching it with his hands, “I wonder if I could scrape off a bit to take with me. I thought no one except Li’er Kingdom’s royal family was this extravagant. Turns out it’s not that others are too rich—it’s that our sect is too poor.”

Zanxing was silent for a moment: “You’re being disrespectful to the Serpent Witch Clan’s mural. Be careful that the Divine Serpent doesn’t come out of the mural later to take you away.”

“Take me where?” Tian Fangfang asked happily, “To a place full of gold and silver like this? Amitabha, I’d welcome that!”

Mimi jumped in front of the mural and curiously used her claws to scratch at a corner of the painting. Zanxing looked up—honestly speaking, the artist who painted this mural was truly masterful. Not to mention that the marketplace streets were lifelike, even the clothing folds of every tiny figure were exceptionally detailed. After looking for a long time, one might even develop an illusion that this wasn’t a mural, but rather living people shrunk to palm-size and placed directly into this wall.

Just as she thought of this, she suddenly saw the Saintess in the mural—her eyes outside the veil moved slightly.

Zanxing was stunned, thinking she had seen incorrectly. Just as she was about to turn back and ask Tian Fangfang beside her, she saw that Tian Fangfang had one hand reaching toward the Saintess in the mural, his expression showing a strange obsession.

“Senior Brother!” Zanxing grabbed his back collar, trying to wake him up. But Tian Fangfang, who had just been joking and laughing with Zanxing, acted as if he hadn’t heard anything, staring straight at the mural and walking forward, as if he wanted to walk directly into the painting.

Zanxing thought this was bad and was about to swing her Panhua Stick when, in the next moment, a silver light fiercely stabbed forward. With a “crash,” the Embroidered Bone Spear split the mural in front of them in half from the middle. The Saintess’s head and body were separated by the silver spear tip into two sections, and a crack appeared abruptly on the painted wall.

As if awakening from a dream, Tian Fangfang’s gaze gradually became clear. When he saw the painted wall in front of him clearly, he was startled and pointed at the wall, shouting, “Who? Who scratched up the painting on this wall?”

“It was me,” Gu Baiying said with a cold face as he withdrew his Embroidered Bone Spear, his gaze still showing residual anger. “I told you to be careful, yet you were bewitched by such a low-level illusion technique. When we return to the sect, you’ll copy cultivation methods a thousand times as punishment.”

“What illusion technique?” Tian Fangfang looked at Zanxing in confusion, “What does Master Uncle mean? Was I bewitched just now?”

Zanxing sighed, “Senior Brother, you were just staring at this painting in fascination. No matter how I called you, you didn’t hear. What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Tian Fangfang hurriedly moved away from the mural upon hearing this. “Is this thing so evil?”

Meng Ying and Mu Cengxiao walked over. Meng Ying looked at the half-destroyed mural: “Master Uncle, this isn’t an ordinary illusion technique.”

Gu Baiying had been angered by Tian Fangfang’s carelessness earlier, which is why he said “low-level illusion technique,” but obviously, this illusion technique wasn’t something ordinary people could accomplish. Most cultivators were unwilling to study illusion techniques because such things were too easily seen through. Since each person’s inner world was different, the illusions they saw would be different too. If many people faced the same illusion together, the person casting the illusion technique would easily be exposed.

And at least right now, everything they all saw was consistent.

“Is this something Mo Sha created?” Mendong hid behind Meng Ying, “Master Uncle, we won’t be in danger, will we?”

“Weren’t you saying that Dou Niang definitely couldn’t be a bad person, and that we were all being overly suspicious?” Zanxing deliberately teased him, “What’s this? Now you know to be afraid?”

“Who’s afraid?” Mendong’s face flushed red, “I’m afraid that since you don’t have any yuanli now, when Mo Sha appears later and captures you, Master Uncle will have to trouble himself to save you!”

This child was just stubbornly unlovable. Zanxing couldn’t be bothered to argue with him. Mu Cengxiao walked to the mural, crouched down, and touched the very bottom corner of the mural, murmuring, “There seems to be something here.”

Everyone was stunned.

While Mu Cengxiao was speaking, he had already reached out to peel back the corner of the mural. At first, he only peeled back a small corner, but gradually, the peeled corner grew larger and larger, revealing the charred stone wall underneath.

“This is…” Meng Ying gripped the long sword in her hand tightly.

The original four walls of the palace had looked very smooth, with the wall surfaces roughly wrapped in textiles, on which paintings were done with pigments mixed with gold and silver. But Gu Baiying’s earlier spear thrust had split the entire wall surface in two, and the textiles wrapped extremely tightly on the wall surface had now curled up at one corner, which Mu Cengxiao happened to notice.

After that layer of golden, incredibly peaceful and lively mural was torn away, it revealed the completely different charred wall underneath. This was a stone wall without any decoration, as if it had been burned by a great fire, showing blackened colors.

“There seems to be a painting on this too,” Zanxing noticed that on the stone wall underneath, there were also some white painted patterns.

Mu Cengxiao moved quickly, and in just a moment, he had removed the textile covering above, so the stone wall underneath was completely exposed to everyone’s view.

Like having magnificent outer clothing removed, without the vivid murals, the palace instantly became sinister and terrifying. Some crude patterns were painted on the walls, obviously not as refined as the outer colorful paintings. They seemed to have been hastily painted by someone in very urgent circumstances, allowing only a rough glimpse of the general shapes.

The innermost painting should depict a woman, as she had long hair and held two long serpents in her hands.

Meng Ying spoke: “This should be depicting the Saintess of the Serpent Witch Clan.”

This “Saintess” stood on a high slope, spreading her arms and wielding those two long serpents outward. Not far away, a monster with a blue face and fangs prostrated on the ground, seemingly injured by the Saintess. In the distance within the city walls, many common people were praying with their hands pressed together.

“This…” Zanxing carefully chose her words, “seems to be a scene of the Saintess protecting the people of Wu Fan City.”

In the second painting, further along, the monster had been defeated, and the people hiding in the city carried the monster’s corpse back. Some people surrounded the Saintess, seeming very grateful to her.

“This monster doesn’t look like much,” Tian Fangfang stroked his chin, “but the Saintess is quite heroic and righteous.”

Then, in the third painting, the scene began to change. This Saintess seemed to have settled down here. She sat on a high seat, and a woman dressed like a commoner knelt before her, seeming to be desperately pleading for something. She held a baby in her arms—the baby’s eyes were tightly closed, and a pile of gold was placed in front of her.

“I think I understand this one,” Mendong pointed at the painting. “This woman’s child must be sick, and she’s asking the Saintess to help cure the illness.” As Mendong spoke, he became puzzled again, “Does the Serpent Witch Clan’s Saintess also know medicine? Shouldn’t this be something to find a doctor for?”

Zanxing’s heart stirred as she looked at the fourth painting. Sure enough, in the fourth painting, the woman was left holding the baby with open eyes, while the gold remained at the Saintess’s feet.

“I’m afraid it’s not healing.” Having confirmed her suspicion, Zanxing spoke, “It’s a transaction.”

Meng Ying frowned. “A transaction?”

“Previously, in Li’er Kingdom, Yinli told me that he made a deal with a serpent witch from the Serpent Witch Clan. The serpent witch helped the merfolk transform their fish tails into human legs, and the price was taking away their demon core.”

“The serpent witches of the Serpent Witch Clan only make equivalent exchanges,” Zanxing looked at the woman in the mural. “She’s not healing—she’s just making a transaction with this woman. She made the woman’s child recover, and as the price of the transaction, the woman paid gold.”

“Using gold to exchange for the child’s recovery from illness. This is the transaction.”