Chapter 20

Chapter 20: Yue Zuan

No one dared move.

Hong Qi Sheng had been beheaded right in front of them. His head rolled across the ground and came to rest by Meng Han’s feet.

Feng San Chu stared, horrified, throat locked, too afraid to speak.

Meng Han looked just as grim. His lips barely moved as he breathed, “Foundation Establishment Stage…”

Everyone went pale. Hearts hammered up into their throats.

The Liao siblings shook so hard their bones seemed ready to rattle. They all understood the same thing: there was a real chance they were going to die here.

Cold sweat soaked Zhao Chun’s back. The roaring in her ears drowned out everything else.

Then, without warning, the world went dark—as if someone had dropped a curtain over their eyes and thrown them into endless night.

“Senior Brother Meng!”

Feng San Chu’s voice cut through the darkness, sharp with panic.

Meng Han answered at once, low and controlled. “Don’t move. We’re probably trapped inside some kind of imprisoning artifact.”

He paused, listening. Then, louder, “If anyone’s still here, speak.”

“I’m here,” Zhao Chun said. “Zhao Chun is here!”

The Liao siblings answered too. A moment later, a woman’s shaking sob rose from the dark. “I’m Hong Qian. My mother and I are both here!”

So it really had been aimed at the Hong Family. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have dragged those two along.

And if it was targeted, then maybe—maybe—there was still room to bargain.

Zhao Chun drew a careful breath and clung to that thin thread of hope. If the other side feared the Ling Zhen Sect, even a little, they might listen.

Feng San Chu spoke quickly, first doing his best to steady the Hong mother and daughter, then turning to the rest. “Senior Brother Meng is a formal disciple of the Ling Zhen Sect, and he’s close to breaking through to the Foundation Establishment Stage. That senior won’t dare make things too difficult for us—not with Senior Brother Meng here, and not with the Ling Zhen Sect behind us.”

Meng Han didn’t respond. Only his slow, heavy breathing filled the darkness.

Zhao Chun’s unease deepened. The longer the silence dragged, the less she believed Feng San Chu’s optimism.

Time passed—how long, she couldn’t tell. Then a faint point of light flared in the dark.

Candlelight.

As soon as it steadied, a metallic stench flooded Zhao Chun’s nose—rust, thick and wet. They weren’t in open air at all. They were in a cramped, sealed room.

Two white candles burned along the walls. Wax had pooled thickly around their bases, nearly two fingerbreadths deep. Underfoot, their shoes splashed in a shallow puddle. Zhao Chun looked down, and in the dim light she realized what it was: dark, almost sticky blood.

Even seasoned cultivators would have felt their breath tighten at a scene like this. For the Hong mother and daughter, it was unbearable. They screamed and covered their faces, stumbling in blind terror, shuffling their feet again and again—desperate for clean ground that didn’t exist.

Zhao Chun and the others had no attention left to steady them. Every nerve in her body went taut. If anything moved—if anything came at them—they would have to strike first.

“Relax, everyone.”

No one appeared. The voice came from nowhere, old and calm, filling the chamber as if the stone itself had spoken.

No one relaxed.

Spiritual energy gathered in dantians. Breath held. Muscles coiled.

The unseen speaker let out a short, sharp laugh, delighted by their fear. “Terrified, are you? A bunch of pigs.”

Meng Han clenched his fists and stepped into the candlelight, bowing. “Senior, may I ask who you are? We are disciples of the Ling Zhen Sect, from Secluded Valley. Senior—”

“I know exactly who you are.” The voice turned amused, almost lazy. “You’re Ling Zhen Sect disciples. And what does that have to do with me?”

At those words, Zhao Chun felt the last of her hope drop like a stone.

“As for me?” The voice went briefly distant, edged with something like loss. “Maybe I once had a name that mattered. It doesn’t now.”

Then the tone flipped—too bright, too eager. “Let me see… such good little dolls. And there’s even a pair of blood siblings.”

Liao Little Yi made a small, choked sound and shrank behind her brother, eyes wide with terror.

“Don’t be afraid,” the voice said, almost gentle. “No one’s getting away.”

And then, with cheerful anticipation, “Let’s start with an appetizer.”

A small opening in the ceiling yawned wider, as if a mouth had opened.

The Liao siblings vanished.

One breath they were there—clinging to each other, sobbing—and the next they were simply gone.

The opening closed again with a soft, final twist.

A chill spread through Zhao Chun so fast it felt like her blood had turned to ice. She didn’t know whether the siblings were alive or dead—but even if they lived, nothing about that voice promised anything but horror.

Feng San Chu stood rigid, staring, hands locked around his own wrists as if that would keep him from screaming. His face had drained white.

Only Meng Han remained frighteningly still. He shut his eyes, brows drawn tight, forcing himself to think. To find a way out.

Time crawled. The chamber stayed dim, the candles sputtering softly. Zhao Chun refused to close her eyes, but holding herself at that pitch of readiness for so long was torture. Eventually exhaustion won. Her thoughts blurred, then slipped into darkness.

When she woke, neck stiff and limbs heavy, she realized the others had fallen asleep too.

Only Meng Han was still awake, shoulders against the wall, eyes open and watchful.

“You can rest,” he told her quietly. “Close your eyes. Save your strength.”

Zhao Chun swallowed and shook her head. “Senior Brother, you should rest. I already slept once.”

He was their pillar. If he fell, there would be nothing left.

Meng Han studied her, surprised in spite of himself. “For such a little girl, you’re braver than the rest.”

Was she brave?

No. She was terrified.

Who wasn’t afraid of dying?

She had lived in this world for less than 11 years. The first 10 had been muddled, half-asleep. Only after stepping onto the immortal path had she made friends, found things to care about—things she couldn’t bear to lose.

She had broken through to the second level of the Qi Refining Stage at an age when most children still played in the dirt. She wasn’t some peerless genius, but she believed she could go farther. Higher. Dying here, in this blood-stinking hole—

She couldn’t accept it.

“Fear won’t help,” she said, voice hoarse but steady. “I don’t want to die. So I can’t afford to be afraid.”

Meng Han tipped his head back and made a faint, incredulous sound. “No wonder Junior Brother thinks so highly of you.”

Silence stretched between them. Then he let out a quiet laugh—half bitter, half amused. “A future without limits… as long as you live long enough to see it.”

Zhao Chun didn’t answer. She sat cross-legged on the cold stone and forced her breath into a steady rhythm, guiding spiritual energy through her meridians to keep herself from shaking apart.

The candles crackled—the only sound in the room. Without it, the silence would have crushed her.

Then the ceiling-mouth twisted open again.

Blinding white light poured down, merciless. In the sudden brightness, there was nowhere to hide.

The unseen voice returned, thick with satisfaction. “Two with triple spirit roots. Now that’s a proper feast. Heaven truly favors me—such blessing, delivered right into my hands.”

Triple spirit roots.

Zhao Chun and Meng Han.

They met each other’s eyes for one sharp heartbeat—and then a violent pulling force seized them, dragging them toward the opening.

The world warped. Light and shadow smeared. Zhao Chun’s mind spun and stuttered.

A few breaths later, her feet struck solid ground.

Her vision cleared.

They were in a rough stone cave, sparsely furnished. A dusty meditation cushion sat in the center. Shelves lined one wall—some toppled, scattered in a chaotic heap.

An old Daoist with yellow brows stood before them, hunched. His skin was sallow, stretched tight over bone. Dark circles bruised his eye sockets; his pupils were cloudy. He was so gaunt he looked like a skeleton wearing a thin layer of flesh.

Zhao Chun’s gaze snagged on the dirt beneath the fallen shelves. Half-buried in gray dust were several small spheres—familiar.

She flicked her eyes to Meng Han.

He’d noticed too. His voice tightened. “You’re a disciple of Changhui Sect?”

The old Daoist laughed, low and cold. “Sharp eyes. But I left that sect long ago. I’m no longer Changhui Sect’s anything.”

“You’re Yue Zuan,” Meng Han said.

Zhao Chun saw the color drain from his face in an instant. A flash of fear—rare, raw—crossed it.

Yue Zuan.

The Changhui Sect’s outcast.

People said he had stolen a secret technique, murdered fellow disciples, and consorted with evil cultivators. For that, the sect had crippled his cultivation and exiled him into the Small World.

And now he stood here—in the Heng Yun World—right in front of them.

“I abandoned Changhui Sect!” Yue Zuan snapped, straightening with sudden fury. He was only about as tall as Zhao Chun, yet his eyes burned with the stubborn hatred of a man who had clung to life by his teeth. “They didn’t abandon me.”

Then his anger ebbed as quickly as it came, replaced by weary impatience. He leaned in, voice flattening. “Enough. You’re going to die anyway. Talking won’t help you.”

“The siblings you took,” Zhao Chun demanded. “Where are they?”

Yue Zuan tilted his head, studying her as if she were an object. “Little girl. Why ask questions that don’t matter?”

He lifted a hand and set it on her shoulder.

Even through cloth, an icy chill seeped into her skin.

“Come,” he said softly. “I’ll take you to see them. You can keep your Senior Brother—and your Senior Sister—company.”

Meng Han moved like a sprung bow, fist swinging toward Yue Zuan’s face.

Yue Zuan flicked his sleeve.

The force knocked Meng Han back as if he’d punched a stone wall. Before Meng Han could regain his balance, Yue Zuan summoned a coil of glowing golden rope from thin air and snapped it around him. It lashed his wrists and ankles, binding him tight.

“I can’t take your life yet,” Yue Zuan said almost casually, turning back to Zhao Chun. “Stay where you are.”

“Once I finish with this little girl,” he added, voice brightening with a sick sort of anticipation, “I’ll find you a proper fate too.”