Chapter 376

Chapter 376: Pointing to the Border

Outside the teahouse, night rain stretched on without end. Streetlights shimmered on wet stone, and above the distant high-rises floated an illusion of immortal mountains and auspicious clouds. Spirit cranes—real or fake, hard to tell—glided between neon and rainclouds. Ornate flower boats drifted between buildings while silk-and-bamboo music carried through the storm. The cityscape from a faraway alien world lay beyond the awning’s edge, vivid and yet strangely out of reach.

The black-robed cultivator cradled a cup of hot tea, unaware that it had sat on the table for a long time without cooling. In his muddled state, he kept recalling and pondering, answering one question after another from Immortal Yuan Ling.

“We don’t know who that enemy is,” he said. “Benefactor says it left, but sometimes he suddenly flies into a rage and says it’s still wandering nearby, hiding in the shadowspawn of stars, hiding between the orbits of worlds. He says people are foolish and never see the danger right in front of them…”

Immortal Yuan Ling’s tone stayed patient, guiding him along. “And the emperor lord’s legacy?”

“The emperor lord’s legacy… is hidden in a very deep place. You have to pass through layer after layer of illusion. You can’t go there straight from the real world, but there are many cracks in the real world that lead down into that depth.

“Nethermoon?” He nodded slowly. “Yes, Nethermoon has one. The grand void spiritual axis has one too. Chilling Light and Cold Spike have them as well, but the passages over there aren’t very stable.

“Yes… they’re scattered across the entire Featherwing starfield…”

The rain thickened. Beyond the awning, the night drizzle swelled into a downpour, then something closer to a storm. Water poured from the sky like an overturned sea, hammering the teahouse awning with a thunderous roar. Sheets of rain blurred the view until the flower boats and canopy boats vanished, and even the neon towers became nothing but smeared silhouettes.

It was as if the whole world had narrowed to this alien storm. Endless darkness, endless rain. The small teahouse and its awning became the only place anyone could stand.

In that tightening atmosphere, the black-robed cultivator’s answers grew more and more muddled. After who knew how long, he stopped mid-ramble and stared blankly out past the awning.

“The rain’s gotten heavier,” he murmured. “It feels like it’s been raining forever… You’re from outside the rain. Do you know what a place with no rain looks like?”

Immortal Yuan Ling acted as if he hadn’t heard him. He used the opening to press deeper. “Where Yun Qing Zi lives now—does it rain like this too? Does he live in Shu Ji as well?”

The cultivator’s brows knitted together, as if the memory itself weighed on him. Distant thunder rolled low through the storm.

“Benefactor… isn’t in Shu Ji, but nearby. It really does keep raining where he is. He… he sometimes goes to Shu Ji, but he never—”

A deafening crack of thunder tore through the night with blinding light.

For an instant, the alien cityscape flashed in the lightning, unstable and brittle, as if it might collapse at any moment. The cultivator froze. The light washed his face bone-white, and his pupils shook violently.

In that same instant, Yu Sheng swore he heard a furious roar buried inside the thunder, and he almost saw a pair of raging eyes in the lightning under the night sky. A terrifying pressure descended with the storm, rushing straight toward the teahouse.

But Immortal Yuan Ling had expected this.

Before the interrogation began, he already knew a mighty expert had planted a restriction deep in the cultivator’s mind. As the heart probe dug deeper, no matter how exquisite the Heart Questioning Pavilion was, that restriction was bound to be triggered sooner or later. So the moment he sensed a wisp of Yun Qing Zi’s intent rising from the depths of the man’s spirit, he struck out with a palm.

The palm thrust seemed to hit only air, yet it shook the entire space. The teahouse and the world beyond it trembled. The endless night rain shattered and vanished. The alien street flickered into view for a breath, and then the neon towers silently receded and toppled, returning to the misty mountain woods and muddy path.

The woods retreated again, transforming into a boundless swamp.

The bright teahouse dulled back into the shabby roadside tea stall. In the corners, Yuan He and Yuan Hao rose at the same time and pointed outward with spell gestures.

In the rain mist beyond the awning, a blurry figure emerged, as if it had been shaken loose by their combined force. Yun Qing Zi’s intent appeared too abruptly, too sharply.

The figure glanced into the awning. Though it was only a sliver of intent separated from the true body, that one look pressed down on everyone with near-physical weight.

And whether it was an illusion or not, Yu Sheng felt that gaze settle on him.

[Can a restriction left in the cultivator’s mind even recognize me?]

His surprise lasted only a heartbeat. Before he could do anything, the figure in the mist dissolved.

Across the table, the black-robed cultivator swayed. The emptiness in his eyes gradually cleared. Even with Yuan Ling and the others blocking the worst of the backlash, the brief impact still inevitably woke him.

“The rain finally stopped…” he muttered.

The decades-long mind-trapping illusion created by the Heart Questioning Pavilion withdrew in silence. The misty scenery and the little roadside tea stall vanished. The world snapped back to the empty cell with a single bed.

The black-robed cultivator sat on the bed. Yu Sheng, Irene, and Yuan Ling stood facing him.

“Your benefactor doesn’t seem to trust you much,” Immortal Yuan Ling said, casual as ever. “That restriction he left in your mind is vicious.”

The cultivator was silent for a few seconds. In the moment he woke, he understood what had happened. He knew he’d spilled plenty—some he should have, some he shouldn’t have—and his face visibly dimmed. At last he only shook his head.

“We did it willingly.”

“Still pretty tough,” Irene grumbled from Yu Sheng’s shoulder, crossing her arms. “I was slow just now. If my hands were faster, I would’ve tied up that shadowspawn that popped out at the end, and we could interrogate it directly.”

“You’re tough too,” Yu Sheng said, shooting her a sideways look. “When that thing showed up, you were shaking like a leaf.”

Irene went red with indignation. “I-I was feeling battle intent! Battle intent, you know! Do you even know what that is?”

The cultivator ignored their bickering. He wore the air of someone who had already given up. After a moment, he let out a long sigh.

“I’ve told you everything I know. Do what you want with me afterward. Kill me, carve me up—whatever.”

“That won’t do.” Immortal Yuan Ling’s voice stayed even. “The Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain is a righteous sect. Even sentencing you requires we confirm your other crimes and punish you by your offenses.”

Then his tone shifted, subtle but sharp. “And you really told us everything? Not necessarily.”

The cultivator snapped his head up, glaring. “What else do you want to ask?!”

“For example, which entrance you used to enter that otherworld. For example, how many entrances it has, and where they’re distributed. For example, whether you have a way to control and consistently enter a specific scene within it. For example, how many of you there are, and what your next plan is.”

Immortal Yuan Ling’s face was stern and severe. “Those are the real priorities next.”

The cultivator’s body went rigid. He clenched his teeth and said nothing.

Immortal Yuan Ling wasn’t surprised. He nodded as if it were expected. “Mm. If you answered every time I asked, it would save a lot of trouble, but you’d lose face. We do have to follow procedure.”

At the word procedure, the cultivator’s face twitched.

Immortal Yuan Ling turned toward the doorway. “Lin Lang, send someone to prepare the next round of elixirs. Make sure the young master takes his medicine on time this afternoon.”

Outside the door, the young woman answered, “Yes, Master.”

—

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

Even after they came out, Irene kept craning her head back toward the pavilion as if she expected something to happen.

Yu Sheng felt a twinge of annoyance. “What are you looking at?”

“That guy’s expression at the end was kind of hopeless,” Irene muttered, clinging to Yu Sheng’s shoulder. “I feel like at first he wanted to hold out until you used the honey trap… then he found out this place is basically a pharmaceutical factory…”

“What are you even talking about?” Yu Sheng nearly choked. He flicked her forehead. “All right, stop staring. There aren’t going to be more results today.”

Only then did Irene reluctantly look away.

Beside them, Immortal Yuan Ling had been thoughtful the entire walk back. Now he finally broke the silence. “This interrogation confirmed quite a few earlier guesses.”

“Yeah.” Yu Sheng let out a slow breath. “Like that Yun Qing Zi. So there really is an Elder Senior behind all this. Next, do we need to find him? With his mental state… I have a bad feeling he’s about to do something big.”

Immortal Yuan Ling didn’t answer. He turned instead and looked at his senior brother—Xuan Che’s elder senior uncle.

The other man blinked. “Why are you looking at me?”

“You’re more familiar with the Shu Ji region,” Immortal Yuan Ling said. “That heretical cultivator mentioned that Yun Qing Zi isn’t in Shu Ji, but nearby. And in the final stage, the Heart Questioning Pavilion drew out some illusion arts. Do you have any leads?”

Yuan Hao thought for a long moment before he spoke. “I’ve been to Shu Ji a few times. It’s a planet where the equatorial regions get rain year-round, but the polar regions are quite dry and cold. But if you’re asking whether there’s somewhere nearby that’s suitable for seclusion and also rains all year… I honestly don’t know.”