Chapter 50: Drawn In

Ye Minwei and Wei Jing gazed at each other from afar across the blue light of the erupting spiritual veins. The entire underground cave rumbled with a thunderous roar. Wei Jing’s voice was not loud, and presumably, A-Yan and A-Xi on the high platform could not hear it either. This proposal of a contract existed solely between Ye Minwei and Wei Jing.

Because of this single sheet of the Life-Binding Pact, Wei Jing had been constrained by Qin Jiaze for many years, forced to act according to his commands. He had long grown weary of it, though he could not show it and had to suppress the feeling deep in his heart. Given how formidable Ye Minwei was—and with the Prince actively searching for her—she was truly the best candidate to help him regain his freedom.

His encounter with Ye Minwei was merely the result of him patrolling the subterranean palace after hearing a commotion at the Quiet Mind Pavilion, not by the Prince's order. Even if he let Ye Minwei go here, it would not constitute a violation of the Life-Binding Pact. Furthermore, ordinary guards and mansion soldiers dared not enter this place, and no one would ever know of the agreement between him and Ye Minwei.

Having made up his mind, Wei Jing felt certain that the bargaining chip he offered was immensely tempting; it was impossible for Ye Minwei not to be moved.

Yet, the young woman with fluttering robes behind the blue light showed no trace of surprise. After a brief moment of silence, she said, "You claim you were forced by circumstances and had no choice, so why haven't you returned the Dream-Weaving Bell to the Prince of Laiyang? According to the Life-Binding Pact, once you no longer hold the Dream-Weaving Bell, you will no longer need to serve him."

Wei Jing was stunned, not expecting the other party to ask such a question.

Ye Minwei pierced right through his veneer of excuses: "You were not forced by circumstances; you simply refuse to give up power."

"This world has always been governed by the law of the jungle where the weak fall prey to the strong. Who could ever willingly abandon power?" Wei Jing’s gaze was deep and dark.

He raised his arms to indicate the underground cave and said, "Does the Ancestor of All Phenomena truly wish to continue fighting me here? Although I do not know what hidden trump cards the Ancestor of All Phenomena still possesses, you can also see that I have not yet exerted my full strength either. This transaction is the best possible outcome for both you and me."

With that, he retrieved a jade brush from his waist. The brush seemed to glow with a faint blue light; it was the spiritual artifact used to seal the Life-Binding Pact.

"I can sign the Life-Binding Pact with the Ancestor of All Phenomena to guarantee that this transaction will definitely be honored."

Wei Jing waved the brush, writing the terms of the contract in the air. The words hovered, constantly leaping and shifting. Having finished writing, he tossed the brush across to Ye Minwei. Ye Minwei raised her hand to catch the pact-signing brush that crossed the barrier, and looked up at the high platform overhead.

"Very well," she finally agreed.

Ye Minwei also waved the brush, writing her own name in the air. Once the signature was finalized, all the floating characters rolled upward and merged together, transforming into two small paper scrolls that flew toward Ye Minwei and Wei Jing respectively. These served as the token of the Life-Binding Pact; if both paper scrolls were destroyed, the pact would become null and void.

Watching Wei Jing keep his promise and leave the underground cave with his monsters, Ye Minwei looked down at the Life-Binding Pact scroll in her hand and muttered, "When I created the Dream-Weaving Bell and the Life-Binding Pact brush, I certainly didn't intend for him to use them for this kind of business."

With a soft sigh, she squatted down and traced several long lines. Spiritual power surged forth, gathering around her to lift her up to the edge of the high platform.

A-Yan watched Yun Chuan—no, Ye Minwei—descending before him on a current of blue light. His eyes were filled with a mixture of joy and awe. He took a step forward, only to involuntarily take a step back, standing awkwardly in place while holding A-Xi.

Ye Minwei merely looked at him and asked, "Did you see what remained after the Azure Crystals melted away completely?"

A-Yan nodded. He reached out his hand, and resting in his palm were six small stones of varying colors and shapes. When he returned earlier, he had seen only these little stones left in the groove where the Azure Crystals had been, so he had taken them out and replaced them with fresh Azure Crystals.

Seeing the stones in his palm, Ye Minwei let out a long breath of relief. She cupped her hands before her brow and bowed deeply to A-Yan.

"Thank you."

A-Yan stood frozen in place, not knowing what to do.

Then, Ye Minwei withdrew the barrier protecting A-Yan and A-Xi. She picked up the remaining stones of the Azure Crystals from A-Yan's hand, tucked them into her bosom, and bent down to trace new patterns among the blue markings on the stone table.

The moment her hand stopped, all the spiritual vein patterns within the cave began to vibrate violently, as if a great building were about to collapse, and falling stones rained down like a storm.

Ye Minwei glanced down at the doomed underground cave.

Then, she took a step back, knelt on both knees, and prostrated herself toward the depths of the cave. Suspending her hands before her eyes, she lowered her forehead to the ground with a soft, dull thud.

A-Yan thought of how Yun Chuan had once told him never to kneel to her; she seemed to regard kneeling as something of great importance.

Yet at this moment, she was kneeling toward an empty underground cave, and there was no telling what exactly she was kowtowing to.

Rising to her feet, Ye Minwei scooped up A-Yan and A-Xi, and said, "Let's go."

The instant A-Xi wrapped her arms around Ye Minwei's neck, they vanished from this former human-refining furnace. Behind them, within the underground cave that resembled a sea of blue fire, all the spiritual vein patterns on the walls began to peel off like a cicada shedding its shell, crashing to the ground to turn into debris. The Azure Crystals on the stone table melted away at breakneck speed, and the high platform plummeted with a crash.

The thousands of lamentations and bitter cries that had once echoed here were buried beneath the falling spiritual vein patterns and the collapsed high platform.

The booming sound of the high platform's collapse reverberated far and wide throughout the subterranean palace. The disciples of the Canglang Sect, who had infiltrated the palace via sorcery, heard the deafening roar and turned their heads in utter shock toward the direction from which the sound came.

Blue Bamboo pressed against the wall and whispered to Hui Nanyi, "That side has been making noise ever since a moment ago, and the guards have been running over there. Now this blast sounds like the place caved in. Senior Brother, did your Mirror Water see anything? What happened over there?"

Hui Nanyi, however, wore a solemn expression and remained silent.

Mo Xiaoying only found it strange. She knew her eldest senior brother's abilities well; after the first sound came from that direction, Hui Nanyi's Mirror Water had headed straight for the spot, and there was no reason he hadn't seen what had happened.

"Eldest Senior Brother..." She was just about to press further when she saw Hui Nanyi raise his eyes and say, "She is here."

Mo Xiaoying was completely baffled. She and Blue Bamboo looked left and right, front and back, asking, "Who?"

"Ah, over there! How did she just appear out of thin air? That's really frightening..."

Accompanied by Blue Bamboo's voice, a slender figure walked out from the dim firelight at the end of the stone corridor. The newcomer appeared to be a young woman, covered in dust with multiple tears in her clothes. Both her face and attire bore bloodstains, making her look as though she had just returned from a fierce battle with someone.

Her pace was unhurried, seemingly because she was carrying a child in her arms and leading another by the hand, forcing her to move steadily and slowly at a child's pace.

This figure walked up to them, and the glow of the torches on the walls of the narrow stone corridor illuminated her features. Blue Bamboo cried out in astonishment, "You... are you that musician girl from earlier? Why did you suddenly vanish just now, and where in the world are you coming from?"

The musician girl indicated the little girl in the red padded jacket in her arms with her chin, briefly explaining, "It was because of her. However, A-Xi has traveled through space with people too many times tonight and seems utterly exhausted; she fell asleep again just now."

The little girl resting on her shoulder looked rather pale and was sleeping deeply.

The musician girl spoke as if she had no intention of making herself entirely understood. Seeing nothing unusual, she continued, "I am here to find you."

Hui Nanyi walked straight up to the young woman without asking any extra questions, simply saying, "What would you like us to do?"

Mo Xiaoying sensed something amiss, and Blue Bamboo spoke a step ahead of her, asking, "Eldest Senior Brother, do you know this girl? You actually addressed her as 'You'—is she some senior master? But she clearly has no spiritual power..."

Hui Nanyi signaled Blue Bamboo to shut up with a look.

The musician girl pulled the little boy she was holding by the hand closer and said to Hui Nanyi, "I want to entrust them to you. If you wish to investigate what the Prince of Laiyang's estate is doing, these two are living witnesses. You should be able to take them out of here and take good care of them, right?"

"Our Canglang Sect is not some..." Blue Bamboo started to protest, but before he could finish, Hui Nanyi reached out, took the two children from the girl's hands, and answered decisively, "We will."

Blue Bamboo swallowed the rest of his words in shock, turning instead to whisper to Mo Xiaoying, "How could Eldest Senior Brother agree so readily? We don't even know this girl's name yet!"

Mo Xiaoying muttered back, "Can you just keep quiet?"

Hui Nanyi asked the musician girl, "Do you have other important business to attend to by handing them over to the Canglang Sect?"

"I am going to find that Prince. I still have a friend in his hands, and a transaction to settle."

"Can you manage alone?"

"I don't know, but I have to try."

The little boy suddenly spoke up, "Sister Yun Chuan! The Prince has many spiritual instruments; he has a vault filled with over a dozen spiritual instruments! If you go looking for him... you..."

He looked up at the musician girl, his eyes full of worry. He seemed to want to warn her that it was dangerous, but the words failed to come out.

Mo Xiaoying gasped in astonishment, "What? More than a dozen? The Prince of Laiyang actually has so many spiritual instruments! Even for us, that would be difficult to handle. For you to go there alone is like walking straight into a tiger's den; you must think twice. Why not return to the sect with us immediately, report this to our master, and send reinforcements to rescue your friend?"

The girl named Yun Chuan pondered briefly and murmured, "The Canglang Sect..."

As if recalling something, she brushed her fingers back and forth across her sleeve twice, then held out her hand to Hui Nanyi: "Do you have any ownerless Mirror Water with you? Give me some."

In Mirror Water techniques, the water is consumed with use, so disciples always carry spares. Hui Nanyi did not hesitate; he immediately retrieved two slender bamboo tubes from his bosom, handed them to Yun Chuan, and asked, "Are these enough?"

Mulling over the scene, Blue Bamboo had an epiphany and muttered under his breath to Mo Xiaoying, "Did Eldest Senior Brother know all along that we'd run into this girl here? Could it be that he didn't come to help us at all, but came specifically for this girl?"

Before Blue Bamboo could puzzle the matter out, the entire subterranean palace suddenly began to shake, and the walls softened as if melting. Several notes of a pipa swept the collapsing walls aside, and the six of them quickly gathered together. Mo Xiaoying said, "I'm afraid the collapse over there is affecting the entire subterranean palace."

"No, when I destroyed that place..." Yun Chuan shook her head.

Blue Bamboo drew his sword and shouted, "Stop talking, let's get out of here quickly!"

They had set up a formation in the bamboo grove outside the Quiet Mind Pavilion, using Mirror Water as a medium to transfer into the subterranean palace. At this point, they could escape by using the Mirror Water to reconnect with the formation leading to the surface.

Yet in a split second, all the walls and the ground seemed to respond to some summon, suddenly beginning to melt. They rotted away into a marsh, and the group was instantly swallowed by the softening ground.

Amidst a world of pitch-darkness and the stench of damp earth, Ye Minwei felt herself being swept along by a torrent of mud. After colliding with several hard objects, a vine seized her arm and dragged her forcefully out of the mire. Tumbling twice after breaking free from the darkness, Ye Minwei found herself in a brightly lit space.

She, along with A-Yan, A-Xi, and the three members of the Canglang Sect, were all present. The one who had pulled her out was Blue Bamboo's Brier Technique. Judging from the stone bricks on the ground, they were still deep within the underground palace.