Chapter 34
Chapter 34: A Trip Down
Through Bai Wen’s search, Juan Bu found the truth—and went cold all the way through.
This wasn’t just a “quiet canyon.” This was an extreme yin land.
And he had chosen it for Hu Qing.
He wanted to slap himself.
How had nobody in Canyon Realm noticed something like this? Extreme yin was rare, yes. Precious, yes. Yin and yang depended on each other. Yin itself wasn’t evil.
But extreme yin?
Extreme yin was deadly to Hu Qing.
Worse, it had been hidden perfectly. No aura leaked out. The area was rich with spiritual qi, calm, silent, and deep—too deep. It had waited and waited until someone disturbed it.
Now Hu Qing was here, forcing a breakthrough, and whatever lay below had started to stir.
Juan Bu’s thoughts turned frantic. What if there was an old corpse, an old ghost, something buried down there—something that could seize Hu Qing’s body?
He swallowed hard and blurted, “Qing, we should move. Now.”
Hu Qing forced one eye open, barely a slit. Her gaze said clearly: Are you out of your mind?
“Qing, I only just realized,” Juan Bu rushed on. “This is an extreme yin land. The yin qi below could be thicker than the spiritual qi around us. If even a thread gets into you, you’re finished.”
Hu Qing’s expression turned murderous.
Juan Bu panicked harder. “Don’t move. I—I’ll have the thunder dragon and Bai Wen carry you. We’ll leave right now.”
Hu Qing gave a tiny nod. She couldn’t even speak through the strain.
The spirit skiff was right beside them. Bai Wen and the thunder dragon swam in and coiled around Hu Qing, tails bracing to lift.
They strained.
Nothing.
Juan Bu’s voice came out dry. “Um. You can’t move.”
Hu Qing’s eyes flew open. “Of course I can’t move! Let go!”
They loosened immediately.
Hu Qing tried to rise with sheer stubbornness—hips, legs, core, everything. She didn’t budge a hair.
For one ridiculous second, the image that flashed through her mind was her backside stuck in a toilet.
She shook her head hard. Not now.
The truth was painfully obvious.
She was being pinned by the extreme yin land.
“Bai Wen, thunder dragon,” Juan Bu said desperately, “go down and look—”
Hu Qing cut him off. “What are they going to see?”
She flicked her hand, releasing the workers. “Emotionless Thread. Xue Sha.”
Emotionless Thread and the Xue Sha pearl floated out, both radiating reluctant resentment. They drilled straight down into the ground.
Less than ten meters later, they popped back out.
Blocked.
They tried again. Same result.
It was as if the extreme yin below was sealed inside a closed formation.
Hu Qing’s temper snapped. “You think you can slack off? If I die, I’ll destroy you even with my last breath!”
That finally got their attention.
Emotionless Thread and the Xue Sha pearl dove down again. This time they stayed longer.
They still came back empty.
They couldn’t get in.
Hu Qing’s chest heaved with anger. She abruptly found herself missing Wu Ling Man.
Then she forced herself to breathe. “Enough. I’ll deal with it later. Right now, I need to get through this.”
Her spiritual power was already surging too hard. Her spiritual platform wavered. If she lost control now, it wouldn’t matter what was below—she’d be dead anyway.
Juan Bu flailed for anything useful. “Thunder dragon, move. You counter yin.”
The thunder dragon coiled around Hu Qing like a living ring.
Bai Wen tried to stay close too, but Juan Bu barked, “Go outside. Guard. Don’t let anyone wander in and ruin everything.”
Bai Wen hesitated, then slid beyond the outer formation.
Emotionless Thread and the Xue Sha pearl retreated into Hu Qing’s sea of consciousness without a word. Juan Bu ground his teeth. Immortal weapons, and yet when he needed them most, they acted like spoiled, lazy children.
As for the Devil Emperor token—if it could hide any deeper, it would.
Juan Bu was left with one bitter conclusion: Hu Qing needed a spirit pet. Something with real combat power that could be trained and relied on.
Anything but adopting another “son.”
Hu Qing, meanwhile, was calmer than he was.
Scorching Sun Blaze sat in her sea of consciousness—a blaze born from solar essence. This extreme yin land could be as vicious as it wanted; it wasn’t going to out-yang Scorching Sun Blaze.
Unless… it produced a yin fire of the same level.
Hu Qing’s mouth curved faintly. If that happened, she’d take it.
She pressed both hands onto the spirit crystals and drove the formations harder.
Spiritual qi in the air began to spiral visibly, twisting into shell-like patterns that latched into the formation lines. Gold fire radiance poured off Hu Qing’s body, painting the canyon walls with light.
For a moment, the darkness looked like it had been set on fire.
Juan Bu’s heart lurched. He’d forgotten to set up an isolation grand array.
Then he grimaced. Even if he had, it wouldn’t have mattered. If tribulation lightning came, it would shatter everything anyway.
The light didn’t spread far. Canyon walls swallowed it. No one above noticed.
Hu Qing slipped into a state beyond awareness.
In her sea of consciousness, her half-transparent soul rose slowly into the air, seated cross-legged like her physical body. Scorching Sun Blaze cast a soft glow over it, and her soul began to shine with a pale white light.
Her space, Emotionless Thread, the Xue Sha pearl, the Devil Emperor token—all of them retreated to the edges and stayed perfectly still.
Her sea of consciousness smoothed into a mirror, reflecting a red sun and a floating soul.
Outside, her meridians and dantian shattered and rebuilt in the first wave of advancement. The Nascent Soul in her dantian grew, its features sharpening.
Then her acupoints crackled again. Spiritual power pooled, spun, and accelerated until it became a whirlpool of force that swallowed more and more, tearing and remaking her inner pathways a second time.
Hu Qing didn’t feel pain anymore.
She didn’t feel anything.
She drifted.
Juan Bu’s nerves frayed. That thread of extreme yin aura kept appearing more often, like a heartbeat under the stone.
Come on, he begged silently. Tribulation lightning—come now.
Nothing.
Hu Qing’s body went through a third cycle. A fourth. A fifth.
No lightning.
Juan Bu’s mind spun. Was there no tribulation below Spirit Immortal in Canyon Realm? Was Canyon Realm’s Heavenly Dao that stingy?
Then a colder thought struck him: it wasn’t that there was no lightning.
It was that they had chosen the one place the lightning wouldn’t touch.
Hu Qing drained the surrounding spiritual qi dry. She pulverized spirit stones and spirit crystals into powder. She pushed until her body burst into a blood-soaked mess.
And still, no lightning came.
When she finally woke, her body had already repaired itself. The ground around her was bone-dry. Beneath her palms was only the soft grit of spirit stones and spirit crystals ground to dust.
“What…” Hu Qing rasped. “Did I break through?”
Juan Bu’s voice was strained. “There was no tribulation lightning. I—how am I supposed to know? How do you feel?”
Hu Qing forced herself to check.
Her body felt light, full, powerful.
But in her dantian, the Nascent Soul was still there—still Nascent Soul Stage.
If anything, it looked… smaller.
More refined. More delicate. Its features were sharper, cleaner.
And its eyes were still closed.
Hu Qing’s brow furrowed. “What is this?”
She shifted—then stopped.
She still couldn’t move.
The extreme yin land still had her pinned.
Hu Qing pulled out a lightning talisman and an earth-escape talisman and sent them down together.
The lightning talisman died without a sound.
Silence stretched.
Hu Qing lifted her eyes, jaw setting hard. “We have to go down there once.”