Chapter 375

Chapter 376: Pointing to Border

Outside the teahouse, the night rain fell without pause. Streetlights shone on the slick pavement, and above the far high-rises floated a mirage of immortal peaks and rosy clouds. A Spirit Crane of uncertain truth glided between neon and rain clouds, and a richly decorated Flower Barge drifted slowly between towers. Through the rain came elegant music of strings and flutes. Past the edge of the awning hung a hazy light screen; the alien city beyond looked vivid yet far away.

The Black Robed Cultivator held a cup of hot tea. He never noticed that the tea had sat on the table for a long time without cooling. Lost in a fog of memory and thought, he answered one question after another from Immortal Yuan Ling.

He murmured: “We do not know who that ‘enemy’ is. Our benefactor said it has left, but sometimes he suddenly bursts with Thunder and says that thing is always circling nearby, hiding in the shadow of stars and among their orbits. He says people are dull and never see the danger right in front of them.

“Sovereign’s Legacy is hidden in a very deep place. You have to pass through layers of illusion. You cannot go there straight from the real world, but there are many cracks in reality that lead down deep. Nethermoon? Yes, Nethermoon has them. The Grand Void Spiritual Axis has them too. The stars Chilling Light and Cold Spike also have them, but the passages there are not very stable.

“Yes, they are spread across the whole Featherwing star domain.”

The rain thickened. Night drizzle turned to a downpour, then to something like a storm. The cloudburst poured from the sky like an upside down sea. It hammered the teahouse awning with a roar like thunder. The rain curtain blurred the distant view. In the rain, the Flower Barge, the Canopy Barge, and the Automaton Bird flying through the city all vanished into haze. Even the neon-lit towers became abstract outlines in the sheets of rain.

It felt like the whole world had been reduced to this alien storm. In the endless dark, only rain kept falling. The little teahouse and its narrow awning were the last foothold in the world. In this uneasy air, the Black Robed Cultivator’s answers grew even more dazed.

After who knows how long, he stopped rambling and stared blankly beyond the awning.

He muttered: “The rain is heavy. It feels like it has been raining for a long time… You came from outside the rain. Do you know what a place without rain looks like?”

Immortal Yuan Ling acted as if he had not heard and guided him instead: “Does the old senior Yun Qing Zi live where it rains like this? Does he live in Sentinel Silence?”

The Black Robed Cultivator’s brows slowly drew together, as if the act of remembering weighed on his mind. With his hard effort to recall, low thunder rolled in the storm outside the teahouse.

He said with difficulty: “The benefactor is not in Sentinel Silence, but near it. It rains all the time where he is too. He sometimes goes to Sentinel Silence, but he never…”

A sudden, violent thunderclap split the storm and the long night. A blaze of lightning and the shock tore the view apart. For a heartbeat, the alien city trembled in the flash as if it would collapse.

The Black Robed Cultivator froze. The lightning washed his face pale, and his eyes shook hard.

In the next second, Yu Sheng felt as if he heard a roar inside that burst of thunder and saw a pair of furious eyes within the lightning. A terrible pressure fell from the storm and rushed straight at the teahouse.

But Immortal Yuan Ling had expected this. Before the questioning began, he knew a mighty figure had set a restriction deep in the man’s heart. As the Heart Probe dug in, even the fine working of the Heart Questioning Pavilion could not keep that ban from being triggered for long. So when he saw a wisp of Yun Qing Zi’s will rise from the depths of the Black Robed Cultivator’s mind, he thrust out his palm at once.

He pushed into empty air, yet the whole space seemed to shudder. In an instant the boundless night rain blew away. The alien city flashed once more, then the neon towers slid backward, toppled without a sound, and turned back into the first scene of misty mountains and rain, a muddy path. Then the forest retreated again and became an endless marsh.

The teahouse became a shabby roadside tea stall. In the corner, Yuan He and Yuan Hao rose together and formed seals, pointing into the rain beyond the awning.

Out in the gauzy rain, a hazy figure bulged into view, as if it had been shaken loose by the three senior brothers. A wisp of Yun Qing Zi’s will surfaced just like that.

The blurred figure glanced toward the awning. Though it was only a wisp cut off from the body, that single look still pressed on them like a solid weight.

Yu Sheng was not sure if it was his imagination, but he felt the figure’s gaze settle on him at the end. [Can a restriction left in the Black Robed Cultivator’s heart still recognize me?] He was startled for a moment, and before he could respond, the misty figure slowly faded away.

Across the table, the Black Robed Cultivator swayed. The fog in his eyes cleared. Although the three had shielded him from the killing bite of the heart ban, that brief impact still jolted him awake.

He muttered: “The rain has finally stopped.”

The decades-long trap of the Heart Questioning Pavilion’s illusion dispersed without a sound.

The misty view and the small roadside stall vanished. The room turned back into an empty cell with only a bed. The Black Robed Cultivator sat on the bed. Yu Sheng, Irene, and Yuan Ling stood facing him.

Immortal Yuan Ling said casually: “Your ‘benefactor’ does not seem to trust you much. The restriction he left in your hearts is very strong.”

The Black Robed Cultivator was quiet for a few seconds. In the instant he woke, he already understood what had happened. He knew he had said a great many things he should not have. His face went visibly gray. After a short silence, he only shook his head: “We all volunteered.”

Irene perched on Yu Sheng’s shoulder and muttered: “Still stubborn. I was just a bit slow. If I had moved faster, I would have tied up that shadow at the end and we could have questioned her directly.”

Yu Sheng glanced at the little Doll and said: “You were shaking when that shadow appeared.”

Irene flushed with anger: “That was fighting spirit. Do you even understand fighting spirit?”

The Black Robed Cultivator ignored the noise around him. He carried a mood of giving up on himself. He sighed and said: “I have told you everything I know. Do as you wish with me. Kill, flay, whatever.”

Immortal Yuan Ling said evenly: “No. Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain is a righteous sect. Even if we judge you, we must make all charges clear and set the punishment by the crime.”

He shifted the tone and added: “And have you truly told us ‘everything’? I doubt it.”

The Black Robed Cultivator looked up at Immortal Yuan Ling with anger: “What else do you want to ask?”

Immortal Yuan Ling’s face was stern and his voice firm as he said: “For example, which ‘entrance’ you used to enter the Otherworld. How many entrances the Otherworld has and where they lie. Whether you have a way to enter a specific ‘scene’ in the Otherworld on purpose. How many of you there are and what your next plan is. These are the key points.”

Hearing the chain of questions, the Black Robed Cultivator’s body tightened visibly. He clenched his teeth and kept silent.

Immortal Yuan Ling did not seem surprised. He nodded without expression: “If you answered when asked, that would save trouble, but it would not look right on your face. We do need to go through a process.”

At the word “process,” the Black Robed Cultivator’s face twitched. Immortal Yuan Ling turned toward the doorway and said: “Lin Lang, send someone to prepare the next round of elixir. This afternoon, feed our young master his medicine on time.”

A young woman’s voice answered from outside the door: “Yes, master.”

…

A moment later, Yu Sheng and Immortal Yuan Ling’s group left the cell and returned to the courtyard outside the Heart Questioning Pavilion.

Even once they were out, Irene kept looking back.

Yu Sheng felt it was odd and asked: “What are you looking at?”

Irene whispered over his shoulder: “His last look felt a little hopeless. I think he first planned to hold out until someone tried a honey trap, but who knew this place was a drug factory instead.”

Yu Sheng almost choked and pushed her back: “What are you even talking about? Enough, there will not be any more results today.”

Irene finally pulled her gaze back. At the side, Immortal Yuan Ling had been thoughtful since earlier. He broke the silence and said: “This questioning confirmed many of our earlier guesses.”

Yu Sheng exhaled and said: “Yes, about Yun Qing Zi. It really is an old senior guiding this from behind. Next we should find him. Given his state of mind, I feel he is about to make a big move.”

Immortal Yuan Ling did not answer. He looked over at his eldest senior brother, Xuan Che’s Elder Senior Uncle.

The latter blinked: “Why are you looking at me?”

Immortal Yuan Ling said: “You are familiar with the area around Sentinel Silence. The Evil Path Cultivator just said Yun Qing Zi is not in Sentinel Silence but nearby. Add the bits of Illusion Arts we drew out in the final stage. Do you have any ideas?”

Yuan Hao thought for a while, then said slowly: “I have been to Sentinel Silence a few times. Near the equator it rains year-round, and both poles are quite dry and cold. But if you want another place near that star that is good for hiding and also rains all the time, I truly do not know.”