Chapter 49: Confrontation

A-Yan held A-Xi tightly in his arms. Wrapped entirely in this unfamiliar blue glow and intertwined patterns, he could see nothing at all, able only to hear the voices echoing from beneath the high platform.

"She is the Ancestor of All Phenomena, Ye Minwei!"

Wei Jing's words reverberated through the cavern, repeating a hundred times as if spoken by a single, massive chorus. A-Yan, who had previously been trembling with fear at the sight of Wei Jing's monsters, froze entirely at this name.

He also recalled Yun Chuan saying that Wei Jing was a spirit bandit.

The heavy door on the high platform had slammed shut once more, trapping him and A-Xi inside. The vast cavern echoed incessantly with the sharp, grinding sounds of stone being clawed, alongside the bizarre, piercing laughter and pained shrieks of the monsters. Blinding blue light flared fiercely, pulsing without pause. The high platform shuddered as fragments of rock continually broke away from the ceiling, crashing down around A-Yan and A-Xi.

It felt as though the world had turned upside down, plunging them into a terrifying nightmare.

Yun Chuan’s voice rang out again: "A-Xi is Dream Nine. There must be Dreams Six, Seven, and Eight as well. You raised these children just to extract nightmares from them? Did you turn them all into madmen? Was it you who drugged A-Xi and robbed her of her voice?"

Wei Jing replied coldly, "Why is the Ancestor of All Phenomena so agitated? Compared to your skill in refining millions of souls into pristine crystals, I bow to your superior mastery."

Down in the cavern, wherever Ye Minwei had passed, the spiritual veins were now scarred in a dazzling, chaotic mess. When a monster lunged and pinned her against the wall, she slashed her hand across the stone surface behind her, and a surge of blue light erupted from the wall right behind the creature. The monster shrieked in terror and dodged the violent burst of spiritual energy. Ye Minwei added two swift strokes, and the blue light halted abruptly right before her, reversing its trajectory to strike the monster once more.

She panted, "I did not refine humans into soul crystals. Calculating it now, the total spiritual energy generated by a single successfully cultivated practitioner, when converted into a crystal, would require at least thirty-two individuals to match. Since one person can accomplish the task alone, why sacrifice thirty-two? That makes no logical sense."

Ye Minwei rolled and landed on the ground. As the monsters charged at her again, the floor beneath her feet erupted with a ring of blue spiritual blades that soared straight toward the ceiling, forming a barrier around her. For the moment, the monsters could no longer approach.

She bent over, catching her breath, her hands covered in fine stone dust. The carving stone in her grasp was almost entirely worn away.

Wei Jing stood outside the barrier of light with a dark, brooding expression. "While exchanging blows with me just now, you were calculating all of this?"

"It was not difficult," Ye Minwei replied, her voice slightly hoarse.

She had just traversed the entire area, committing every single spiritual vein pathway she encountered to memory. Combining that with the data she had gathered the other day when witnessing the human-refining process, she had deduced the result in roughly the time it takes for an incense stick to burn.

Though she could not remember her past life as a mortal, she was certain she was not some idle fool seeking trouble for no reason. A cost-to-benefit ratio of one to thirty-two was absurdly wasteful. Such an inefficient and labored design could never have originated from her own hands.

Therefore, her soul crystals had not been forged from human lives.

*That's wonderful,* she thought. *I am not a monster.*

Since she was not a monster, she could return to find Wen Ci and Xie Yuzhu.

Naturally, she had simultaneously been calculating how to disrupt the spiritual veins—enough to destroy the cavern while harnessing the explosive release of energy for her own use.

Wei Jing spoke with an enigmatic tone, "Truly the foremost intelligence in this world. No wonder His Highness..."

Before he could finish, he folded his arms and stood outside the light barrier, gazing gloomily at Ye Minwei.

"The carving stone in your hand has worn away. At the rate you are consuming spiritual energy, that soul crystal will soon be completely depleted. Without the crystal, even the most exquisite spiritual vein circuitry is utterly useless. I shall simply wait for you right here."

Ye Minwei simply discarded the carving stone, which was now too small to grip properly, dusted off her hands, and shouted up toward the high platform, "A-Yan! Look at the soul crystal on the table! You must leave this place before it completely burns out!"

Her voice cut sharply through the clamor and chaos, reaching A-Yan's ears. Panicked, A-Yan scrambled to his feet and instinctively steadied the stone table that had been enclosed within the protective barrier alongside them. At the center of the table, the blue light surging within the soul crystal was turbulent and erratic, resembling a beating heart—and more than half of it had already dissolved.

A-Yan’s gaze quivered, a primal dread welling up inside him as the sight of the light recalled the ominous, eerie blue glow from the night his parents died and his entire village vanished.

A heavy rumble sounded overhead. Looking up, he saw a massive boulder detach itself from the ceiling, plunging directly toward him and A-Xi. He immediately hunched over to shield A-Xi. The rock slammed into the blue barrier above their heads, shattering into countless fragments amidst a violent collision before scattering all around them.

This vicious, all-devouring blue light had saved his life and A-Xi's once again.

Clasping A-Xi tightly, A-Yan felt a chaotic storm of emotions burst from his throat into a choked cry. He collapsed to his knees, weeping uncontrollably, overwhelmed by utter despair.

Where were they supposed to go?

The refugee camp? Wei Jing had been there; it was no longer safe. His home village? It was nothing more than ruins now. Beyond the exit just ahead? It was swarming with guards.

A-Yan had no destination. Despite the vastness of the world, it seemed there was nowhere left for him and A-Xi to go.

Amidst the turmoil raging in his mind, A-Yan inexplicably recalled the first time he met Yun Chuan. She had been wearing a clean, pale blue dress, standing with her back to him amidst the dusty haze of the setting sun. Then she had turned her head to look at him, holding a bag of persimmon cakes and asking if he wanted to taste one.

He had refused, but A-Xi had jumped up and grabbed one immediately. In the end, he took one too, and the three of them sat quietly in the corner of a wall, eating persimmon cakes while watching the sunset.

He had told Yun Chuan that he wanted revenge one day, that he would hunt down the spirit bandits who murdered his parents, as well as Ye Minwei.

Yun Chuan had asked him why he wanted to kill Ye Minwei.

He had simply repeated what everyone else was saying: that Ye Minwei was the Ancestor of All Phenomena, that she had invented the spiritual instruments, and that without Ye Minwei, there would be no spirit bandits. These mystical arts had existed peacefully in the world for thousands of years, and it was only because of her that they spread, unleashing widespread disaster.

Perhaps whenever natural and man-made disasters struck, people needed someone to blame, and Ye Minwei was hardly innocent.

Yun Chuan had said, "Yet, when someone wields a blade to murder another, would you seek revenge against the blacksmith who forged the weapon?"

"That is not the same thing! She isn't just a blacksmith; she is an accomplice who incites murder! She is the most hateful of all! Those spirit bandits only harmed the people of Qizhou, but she has harmed everyone in the world! Didn't she know what kind of consequences her creations would bring?"

Back then, he had leaped to his feet, burning with righteous indignation. Yun Chuan had only looked at him quietly before replying, "Perhaps... she truly did not know?"

Before he could retort, Yun Chuan had turned her head away to continue eating her persimmon cake, adding, "Besides, there are far too many people in this world who wish her dead, and every single one of them has a very valid reason."

"Then she deserves to die!"

The sunset at that moment had been a blazing orange-red, casting a warm glow over Yun Chuan's face and eyes. She had said nothing more, merely pulling another persimmon cake from her tunic and asking if he wanted another.

That was actually the first time in his life he had ever tasted a persimmon cake.

Ever since his parents passed away, he hadn't tasted anything so sweet—so sweet that he couldn't bear to finish it all at once.

Kneeling on the trembling high platform amidst the roaring crash of falling debris, A-Yan wondered: *Why?! Why is Sister Yun Chuan actually Ye Minwei? Why is Master Wei Jing a spirit bandit? Was A-Xi driven mad and mute by Master Wei Jing? Who on earth is my enemy, and who is my benefactor? Who is good, and who is evil? What on earth is wrong with this world?!*

And why would Yun Chuan save someone who wanted to kill her?

He couldn't help but think: *Perhaps... perhaps Yun Chuan truly never intended to harm anyone? Could she really not have known?*

If he and A-Xi left now, what would happen to Yun Chuan? Wei Jing had just said that once this blue stone was exhausted, Yun Chuan would have no way to fight back.

Would Yun Chuan... die?

*—Trust is handing someone else the right to deceive you.*

*—I feel you have your reasons. Because I believe in you, it doesn't matter if you deceive me.*

*—You must have strong convictions and a resolute will.*

For a brief, bewildered moment, A-Yan looked at the soul crystal on the stone table, which was on the verge of melting away completely. Gritting his teeth until they clicked, he hugged A-Xi, trembling all over, and closed his eyes as if making a desperate gamble.

The next instant, he and A-Xi vanished from the high platform.

The cavern shook violently as the blue light flared intensely. Ye Minwei heard the footsteps of guards rushing toward the outer perimeter, though none dared step inside.

She stood at a stalemate with Wei Jing. Just as he had predicted, the blue light on the high platform grew increasingly unstable, fluctuating between bright and dim—the unmistakable sign of a nearly depleted soul crystal.

Ye Minwei raised her head to look at the high platform, seemingly waiting for the crystal above to burn out entirely. Her robes fluttered wildly in the surging blue luminescence like a blossoming blue flower, yet her expression remained serene, her fingers constantly tracing patterns at her sides.

These bizarre monsters, the intricate and convoluted spiritual veins, and the perilous, life-threatening crisis seemed entirely incapable of wringing a single trace of fear from her.

Wei Jing thought: *This Ancestor of All Phenomena is truly composed, possessing inscrutable, ghost-like methods.*

He stared at Ye Minwei with deep, fathomless eyes, as if calculating something in his mind.

The blue light on the high platform finally extinguished. The surging spiritual energy within every vein across the cavern faded accordingly, and the blue barrier before Ye Minwei dropped abruptly, revealing her dark, ash-grey eyes.

Wei Jing’s monsters closed in around her. "Ancestor of All Phenomena, what other tricks do you have left?"

Before Ye Minwei could reply, a burst of blue light abruptly erupted from the high platform once again, spreading outward in a split second.

The barrier materialized in front of her once more, causing Wei Jing's gaze to narrow as he leaped back several paces, nearly scorched by the erupting spiritual current. Ye Minwei looked just as surprised as Wei Jing, as if completely caught off guard.

"Sister Yun Chuan!"

A earth-shattering cry rang out from the high platform. Ye Minwei looked up and saw a cyan carving stone hurled down from above. The stone traced a high, sweeping arc through the air, piercing the spiritual barrier to land squarely in her outstretched hand.

A-Yan shouted from the high platform, "I went and grabbed a bunch of those blue stones and carving stones!"

"What are you doing?" Ye Minwei asked.

"I... I... I still owe you for A-Xi's medicine! Don't you need these? Without them, you... you'll die, won't you?!" A-Yan yelled at the top of his lungs.

"Didn't you say you wanted to save me and A-Xi?! I have to save you first so you can save us!" He had learned Yun Chuan's twisted yet sound logic to perfection.

Wei Jing glanced up at the high platform, his demeanor suddenly softening as he spoke to Ye Minwei through the blue glow, "Ancestor of All Phenomena, if we continue this stalemate, there will be no end to it. How about we make a deal?"

Ye Minwei looked at him.

Wei Jing stroked the golden bell at his waist and said, "As you rightly noted, this is a spiritual instrument that greatly enhances one's mastery of nightmare arts. It was acquired by the Prince of Laiyang from the ghost market and handed to me for use. Since he bestowed the Dream-Binding Bell upon me, he also bound us with a Life-Binding Pact. I am forbidden to defy his commands and must obey his arrangements."

A Life-Binding Pact was a mystical immortal art voluntarily entered into. Both parties to the pact were bound to strictly uphold its terms; any violation would result in instant death, serving as an unbreakable oath.