The two walked through the abyss-like underground palace passageways. Initially afraid of hidden traps, they dared not move quickly. Yet after half a shichen of uneventful progress, the path remained as tranquil as the most secluded alley in Fallen Blossom Town.
Beneath this calm, however, lay an almost eerie silence.
After another half shichen, they began sprinting at full speed. With their cultivation levels, unleashing their qinggong could have carried them across a territory five times the size of Paradise Palace. Yet even after most of another shichen, they were still trapped in the endless tunnels.
Occasionally, they passed smooth iron walls engraved with ancient patterns, level cast-iron floors, and dimly glowing Night-Shining Pearls. The vast, towering passageways seemed to stretch on forever. After walking for so long, Cai Zhao even began to feel as though she had left the mortal realm, wandering instead as a lonely ghost through the underworld.
More despairing were the scattered skeletal remains clad in tattered clothing—silent testimony that none who entered this underground palace ever left alive.
"This one took their own life," Cai Zhao pointed at a skeleton a few steps away. "A single slash nearly severed their neck. To have such resolve... yet still be driven to despair enough to end it all."
Mu Qingyan's gaze darkened. "Better to end it while you still have strength than suffer the fate of those two corpses we saw earlier."
The memory turned Cai Zhao's stomach.
Earlier, around a corner, they had come across two bodies lying a few steps apart. At first glance, nothing seemed unusual—until Mu Qingyan's sharp eyes noticed teeth marks on the bones. The dark stains on the ground were unusually large, suggesting massive blood loss. When they lifted one corpse's clothing, they found human finger bones near the abdominal area...
All signs pointed to one conclusion: driven by extreme hunger and thirst, one had resorted to cannibalism.
Yet even after consuming their companion's flesh and blood, they still couldn't escape, ultimately perishing in this prison.
"Promise me one thing," Cai Zhao said, bile rising in her throat. "If you ever get hungry enough to consider eating me, kill me first."
Mu Qingyan untied a pouch from his waist. "Now that you mention it, I am a bit hungry. Let's have some rations." Before leaving Fanghua Yishi, the elders had prepared water skins and dry provisions for each of them, just in case.
Cai Zhao stared in disbelief. "How can you even think of eating in a place like this?"
"Of course I can." Mu Qingyan broke off a piece of dried food and handed it to her, offering enthusiastic encouragement. "Think about that cannibal earlier. To survive, they drank blood and ate flesh—even swallowed the finger bones of a corpse when starvation drove them mad. Now that's perseverance! We can't afford to lose heart either!"
"..." Cai Zhao gritted her teeth. "Shut. Your. Mouth."
Then she rushed around the corner and vomited.
Mu Qingyan blinked in surprise before silently following. He helped the pale-faced girl back, guiding her to sit against the wall. "Honestly, this really isn't so bad. Back when I—"
"If you mention that pulp of rotten flesh under Sacrificial Immortal Cliff again, I'll bite you!" The girl bared her teeth threateningly.
"...Then at least drink some water." Mu Qingyan handed her the water skin, displaying rare consideration as he changed the subject. "Seems we're trapped in a maze.""It seems so." Cai Zhao took a sip of water. "The formations in this underground palace are formidable. The marks we left along the way earlier were completely useless. Some marks we encountered repeatedly, while others disappeared entirely. At every fork, we tried both paths, only to end up converging at the same point. The worst part is, we can't even find our way back to where we first fell in. Sigh, if only there were some traps or mechanisms here."
Mu Qingyan chuckled. "Are you complaining that the journey has been too smooth and looking for some excitement?"
Cai Zhao shook her head. "It's not that I mind the smoothness. It's just that when I was young, my grandfather told me that human capabilities are limited. Any mechanism created by man ultimately has its limits, whereas places without any mechanisms at all are the most treacherous. Take the Sky Piercing Peak of Nine Conch Mountain, for example—no mechanisms whatsoever, yet countless heroes have been trapped there over the past hundred years."
"The builder of this place clearly understood this principle. This underground maze is constructed in an endless, seamless loop. Once you enter, you're trapped until you die. If there were mechanisms, I might be able to find a flaw by following them." She grew increasingly frustrated. "Speaking of which, why did your ancestor go to such lengths to build this place? Did the Demonic Cult have too much money to burn back then?"
"...The sect's historical records don't mention why Patriarch Mu Donglie built this underground palace," Mu Qingyan mused. "However, after he left, rumors spread within the sect that he left behind secret manuals and treasures here, though nothing ever came of it."
"So these people all came searching for treasure?" Cai Zhao glanced at the skeletons and frowned. "What do 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 too?"
Mu Qingyan replied, "We can't keep wandering endlessly, or we'll end up like these bones—exhausted and starved to death."
He stood up, examined the iron wall, then took a deep breath and pushed both palms forcefully against it. The wall emitted a deep, resonant hum, and two palm-shaped indentations, about three to four inches deep, appeared where his hands had struck.
Cai Zhao was astonished. Mu Qingyan's internal strength was clearly superior to hers—she wondered how much he had held back during their previous fights.
"What are you doing?" she asked. "Didn't you say this iron wall is at least three feet thick?"
Mu Qingyan withdrew his palms and circulated his qi. "Since there's no way forward, we'll break through the wall to find another path. I want to see what lies behind it." With that, he struck the wall again with both palms. A low rumble echoed through the tunnel, but the wall only dented further.
Cai Zhao leaned in to inspect it. "This won't work. This iron wall is forged from refined steel—it's highly malleable. You won't be able to shatter it like this." She drew the Bright Sun Blade and handed it to Mu Qingyan. "Use this to cut through the iron first, then try striking it again."
Mu Qingyan took the blade and followed her suggestion.
After three heavy strikes, the cuts made by the Bright Sun Blade were torn open by Mu Qingyan's palm strikes, revealing a hole the size of a human head—and behind it, solid bedrock.
Cai Zhao gasped. "Black Tortoise Altar granite? Good heavens, three feet of iron backed by granite. This patriarch really had too much time on his hands."
Mu Qingyan struck the hole once more. The granite cracked and splintered slightly, but the rock behind it remained unmoved.Cai Zhao stopped the continued strikes. "These granite blocks might be part of the mountain itself. Do you really want to shatter the entire mountain? Forget it, let's try the iron wall on the left. I want to see if there's granite behind this iron wall too."
Just as she was about to swing her blade at the iron wall, the blade suddenly halted mid-air, and she let out a surprised sound.
Mu Qingyan found her reaction peculiar and asked what was wrong.
Cai Zhao reached out to touch the patterns on the iron wall. "We didn't notice before, but these aren't just patterns. Come take a look—doesn't this resemble a map?"
Mu Qingyan stepped closer to examine it. Amidst the intricate designs of flowing clouds and bats, there was a pattern shaped like the Bagua (Eight Trigrams). Upon closer inspection, this Bagua lacked the Yin-Yang polarity but was instead filled with layers of winding, twisting lines that strongly resembled a map.
Cai Zhao studied the pattern repeatedly. "According to this diagram, this underground palace should be octagonal, with eight sides, just like the Bagua. The place where we fell earlier might have been the edge of the palace, but after walking for so long, we still don't know where we are now. Hey, what's this?"
She pointed to a hollow pentagonal shape at the center of the Bagua—a perfectly symmetrical pentagon with each side of equal length.
"I don't know," Mu Qingyan shook his head.
Cai Zhao turned to look at him. "Why are you so tense?"
Mu Qingyan frowned. "We've seen this pattern more than once along the way."
"Right," Cai Zhao agreed. "But we never paid attention to it before."
"I don't think it's a map, for two reasons," Mu Qingyan said skeptically. "First, if I intended to trap people in this underground palace, I wouldn't draw them a map. Second, even if I did draw a map, I wouldn't scatter copies of it everywhere along the way."
Cai Zhao blinked. "Maybe the former sect leader Mu Donglie had a completely different temperament from yours? Maybe he was kind-hearted and generous?"
Mu Qingyan shot her a glare. "When we get out, I'll have you read our sect's historical records to see what methods and temperaments those ambitious and capable former sect leaders had. Then you'll realize how rare and precious I am, so 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?" Mu Qingyan continued to pour cold water on her idea.
Cai Zhao waved her small hand. "That's not the only problem. There's also this confounding Bagua—it has no markings for the Yao lines. So is this the Fuxi's Primordial Bagua or King Wen's Later Heaven Bagua? If it's the Primordial Bagua, then Qian is south, Kun is north, Li is east, and Kan is west. If it's the Later Heaven Bagua, then Li is south, Kan is north, Zhen is east, and Dui is west. We already don't know our current location, and if we can't even confirm the Bagua's orientation, there's no way we'll ever get out."
Mu Qingyan suggested, "Why don't we go look at other murals? There might be differences."
Cai Zhao agreed.
So the two set off again, this time carefully examining the patterns on the murals along the way.
Every mile or so, the iron walls were adorned with large carvings—auspicious clouds and lotus clusters, flowing clouds and bats, or pomegranate blossoms entwined with branches. Then, every two clusters of patterns, the Bagua diagram would appear amidst three large decorative clusters.They walked twenty miles in one go and discovered that although the surrounding patterns varied greatly, the central Bagua diagram remained identical. Even Mu Qingyan began to believe it was a map.
Cai Zhao looked at the Bagua diagram before her and sighed softly. "Look, there's a bloody handprint on this Bagua diagram." She turned and pointed at the gray skeletal remains leaning against the wall opposite them. "It seems this fellow also realized the Bagua might be a map, yet he still died trapped here. Hmm, what are you looking at?"
Mu Qingyan was staring intently at the skeleton on the ground. "Don't you think this person's bones are... incomplete."
Cai Zhao quickly examined them and indeed noticed the anomaly. "The bones of his left shoulder and arm are missing, and his ribs are shattered. Ah, this is... this is..."
The left side of the skeleton was pressed against the wall. Upon closer inspection, there was an extremely fine seam running vertically down the iron wall where it leaned—something impossible to notice without climbing up for a detailed look. The deceased's left shoulder and arm had disappeared beyond this seam.
Clearly, half of his body had been caught in some mechanical trap within the iron wall.
Overjoyed, Cai Zhao immediately drew her blade and struck at the seam. The Bright Sun Blade was exceptionally sharp and thin, and with her full strength behind the swing, the blade slid perfectly into the narrow gap with a swift "shua" sound.
Just as the two prepared to pry open the seam together, they suddenly heard the familiar sound of iron chains rolling nearby.
"Trap!" Mu Qingyan shouted sharply. With one hand, he grabbed Cai Zhao, and with the other, he forcefully struck the iron wall, using the recoil to propel them backward like springs.
At that very moment, dozens of small holes opened in the iron wall where they had just stood, and arrows began shooting out rapidly. Each arrow was about half a foot long, their tips gleaming a sinister blue—clearly poisoned.
The mechanism launching the arrows was incredibly powerful, driving them deep into the iron wall like iron spikes, nearly burying them completely.
Mu Qingyan dragged Cai Zhao back another twenty feet, initially escaping the arrows' range. But then the floor beneath them flipped over, revealing a bed of sharp, densely packed iron spikes.
Mu Qingyan had no choice but to slap the ground with his palm, using the force to leap upward toward the ceiling, intending to hang from the beams until the arrows stopped. However, before they could reach the top, more holes opened in the ceiling, unleashing another volley of poisoned arrows like a torrential downpour.
With nowhere left to flee and on the verge of being riddled with arrows, Cai Zhao shouted desperately, "Strike the wall with the mechanism!"
Mu Qingyan mustered all his strength and slammed into the wall. Expecting it to be as thick and reinforced as before, he was shocked when the iron wall split open with a loud crash, revealing a large gap.
The two immediately leaped through the opening.
Having exhausted their momentum mid-air, they crashed heavily onto the floor inside.
Wary of further traps, Mu Qingyan helped Cai Zhao up quickly. As they surveyed their surroundings, they found themselves in an astonishingly grand hall. Sixteen massive crystal lanterns, each the size of a tabletop, hung from the walls, burning with golden mermaid oil that seemed capable of lasting eternally.
A realization struck Cai Zhao. "This is the pentagon at the center of the Bagua map—the heart of the underground palace!" she exclaimed.
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