Chapter 400

Chapter 400: Between the Rain Curtains

One sentence from the local fox, Ling Long, plunged everyone into silence. Even Immortal Yuan Hao—who had weathered countless storms—looked momentarily stunned.

No one spoke. After a beat that felt far too long, Irene absentmindedly reached over and poked Foxy’s tail. A sharp crackle snapped through the fur, and the sound finally shattered the eerie quiet.

“Hey, don’t shock me—” Foxy jerked her tail back, bristling as she came to her senses. She was usually the one zapping other people. Being the one who got zapped clearly offended her dignity. She turned and fixed Ling Long with a hard stare. “Did you just say that immortal is called Yun Qing Zi?”

“Y-yes,” Ling Long blurted, startled by the reaction. She looked around, panicked, as if she’d just said something unforgivable. “That voice said that’s who he was. My great-uncle and I both heard it…”

“Hold on. Let’s sort this out,” Irene cut in, raising a hand as she organized her thoughts. “You and your great-uncle saw some illusion arts, heard a voice, and that voice told you its name was Yun Qing Zi. Then it said there was a ‘chance’ here, and you two came over. Right?”

Ling Long nodded quickly.

“And it didn’t give you any proof?” Irene pressed. “Nothing at all?”

“…No.”

“And you just believed it?”

Ling Long’s ears twitched. She opened her mouth, then hesitated, suddenly unsure of her own memory.

Immortal Yuan Hao spoke at the same time, his voice low but sharp. “This is exactly what makes it suspicious. Why would you trust words delivered through illusion arts? And under what circumstances did you see those illusion arts?”

Ling Long frowned, trying to recall. The longer she searched her memory, the more her expression drifted, as if her thoughts were sliding away from her grasp. Doubt crept into her eyes, and when she spoke again, her voice had turned uncertain.

“We… suddenly saw them. The illusion arts, the voice. It was a few days ago, I think. No… I can’t remember clearly.” She shook her head, confused and frustrated. “I don’t even know why we believed it. Looking back, it’s strange, but at the time my great-uncle and I set out without hesitation. I…”

Her gaze unfocused. Her breathing grew shallow. It was like her mind was sinking into fog.

Immortal Yuan Hao reacted instantly. He lifted a hand and pointed. “Clear Mind!”

His voice wasn’t loud, but the words carried a force that hit like a hammer. In an instant, layered rune-spells surged forward and slammed into Ling Long’s consciousness. A phantom boom rang out—and the jade-faced golden fox girl jolted awake, snapping out of that hazy, contaminated state.

The fog that had clung to her for days scattered in a heartbeat. Her expression flickered—confusion, then dawning horror—and fear finally spread across her face.

Immortal Yuan Hao’s eyes darkened. He’d been right.

“You and your great-uncle had your minds contaminated by Yun Qing Zi’s consciousness,” he said grimly. “Good thing we caught it early, and your great-uncle sensed the danger in time. Otherwise, the two of you would likely have ended up like those black-robed cultivators.”

Irene’s eyes widened. “Wait—so those people in black are serving Yun Qing Zi because their minds were contaminated like this?”

“I can’t say it’s all of them,” Immortal Yuan Hao said, his tone heavy, “but from what we’ve seen, at least some are.” His gaze settled on Ling Long. “Did you encounter Yun Qing Zi’s illusion arts at the Grand Void Spiritual Axis?”

“No,” Ling Long answered quickly. “It was at Nethermoon.”

“…Close enough.” Immortal Yuan Hao nodded. “Nethermoon is very close to the Grand Void Spiritual Axis.” He watched her carefully. “What about the exact time? You truly can’t remember anything?”

“I can’t,” Ling Long admitted, rubbing under her ear as she tried to force the memories into place. “When I tried just now, these past few days felt… hazy. Like my words and actions were fine, but it doesn’t feel like I actually lived them.”

She swallowed, then stiffened. “Wait—I think I remember something. My great-uncle and I were probably watching the news when it happened. I remember a message popping up… it said Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain temporarily sealed its mountain-protection formation because of a large-scale mechanism failure!”

Zheng Zhi, who’d been listening quietly, reacted first. “Oh—was that when the Demon Suppression Tower had an incident?”

Immortal Yuan Hao nodded, and something in his expression clicked into place. “Yes. That makes everything line up.”

Ling Long blinked, still struggling to follow.

Immortal Yuan Hao explained what had happened in recent days at the Grand Void Spiritual Axis, Nethermoon, and elsewhere. He avoided the Demon Suppression Tower’s internal secrets, only sharing what could be made public.

The more Ling Long heard, the more stunned she looked. By the end, something finally caught up with her. She stared at Immortal Yuan Hao as if seeing him for the first time.

“Wait… who are you people?” she asked weakly.

Immortal Yuan Hao’s mouth curved. “You finally remembered to ask.” He gestured to himself. “Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain—Yuan Hao.”

Ling Long blinked, then blinked again, trying to connect the name to the weight everyone had been treating it with.

Half a minute passed.

Then her eyes rolled back. “Oh—”

She collapsed.

Irene sprang up. “Hey! This fox just fainted!”

Chaos exploded instantly. Foxy lunged and caught Ling Long before she hit the ground. Immortal Yuan Hao pulled an elixir from his robe. Irene waved a hand like the whole thing was a bother. “Why are we making this complicated?”

Then she hopped straight onto Ling Long and started zapping her.

Crackle-pop. Sparks danced.

The jade-faced golden fox—who should have woken up after a quick faint—was promptly electrocuted into a deep coma.

Within moments, the place was as lively as a construction site, full of the usual frantic, energetic chaos of the “Hotel” organization.

Yet amid the scrambling, Luna stood quietly in the corner like an elegant doll statue. She watched the endless curtains of rain beyond the old factory, cold steel still and unreadable. No one knew what her mind was doing behind that expressionless calm.

After a long while, she seemed to sense something. She lifted her gaze toward a point in midair.

…

Yu Sheng rose from murky darkness with Ascend and opened his eyes just as he returned to the world of the living. At the boundary between life and death, he saw the edge of Soul Wilderness drowned in a downpour.

A blond girl in shining armor stood in the rain with her twelve knights, waiting for him.

“You even came out to greet me?” Yu Sheng laughed. His figure solidified in an instant as he stepped onto the wilderness and walked toward Luna and her band of knights.

Luna started talking the moment he reached her, words crackling out like popcorn. “Ugh, the short one is way too loud. She makes a fuss about everything, and when you’re not around nobody can keep her in line. I figured I might as well come out here and wait for you with the knights. I’m on standby ‘outside.’ Irene shocked that local fox unconscious, then she was the one panicking and screaming. Nobody else dared touch her. Irene’s discharging electricity all over right now—Foxy brushed her once and started yowling…”

“Wait, wait, wait—slow down,” Yu Sheng said, waving both hands. He was used to Luna squeezing out three words in ten seconds. Every time she spoke at full speed in the wilderness, it took him a moment to recalibrate. “What do you mean she shocked the local fox unconscious? What’s this about discharging electricity? What’s it like outside right now? And what’s with this heavy rain? You know I died kind of suddenly this time…”

Luna paused. For a heartbeat, it looked like she might say that Yu Sheng usually died suddenly anyway—then she remembered that twice, he’d died by her own hand, and she swallowed the thought.

“Ahem.” She cleared her throat, awkward. “The fight outside is over. The Hermitage Order priest is dead.”

Yu Sheng had looked calm a second ago. Now he jolted. “What? Dead? That guy was a nightmare. Did Immortal Yuan Hao step in?”

Luna spread her hands. “Irene killed him.”

Yu Sheng went blank. “…Huh?”

“It’s complicated,” Luna said flatly, in the calm tone of someone who’d adjusted to the pace of Hotel life. “Right after you dropped dead, she got struck by lightning too. It lasted about half a minute—and she got fully charged. Then she fired a light cannon at the Hermitage Order priest, about two meters across. It happened so suddenly she didn’t have time to hold back, and nobody else reacted in time. Afterward, the scene was very clean. We didn’t find the enemy’s body.”

Yu Sheng stared at her, trying to fit that sentence into reality. “Then is it possible that—”

“No,” Luna said immediately.

Yu Sheng froze for two seconds, then let out a long sigh. “Then I guess there were no survivors.” He rubbed his face, resigned. “Well… we can’t be picky. Winning is still a good thing. That was a nasty enemy.”

Luna nodded. Then she lifted her gaze toward the rain spilling over the wilderness.

“The rain started just now,” she said. “When you ‘died.’ I thought you’d know what that meant.”

“Is that so…” Yu Sheng murmured. He reached out, letting the raindrops fall across his palm, his expression turning thoughtful.

The rain touched his skin with a brief chill, but no water gathered. The grass bent under the downpour, blades darkening—only to dry again in the blink of an eye. Beneath it, the gray-black soil showed no sign of turning to mud.

This rain felt like illusion arts crossing dimensions… yet it wasn’t fully illusion. It interacted with the wilderness, but the interaction was limited and fleeting.

Yu Sheng frowned. From the endless rain, he suddenly sensed something else—something like information.

“…This is part of Shu Ji?”