Longzang

Chapter 111 What If I Don't Exist

After passing through the front hall, Wei Yuan headed towards the main hall. The main hall was ten zhang high, but only a small portion of it had collapsed, making it quite conspicuous in the vicinity. The distance from the front hall to the main hall was a full five li. Wei Yuan and Xu Wan'er didn't feel anything, but Xu Wenwu was complaining bitterly about climbing the slope.

The main hall's doors were still standing, but only half were intact; the other half had collapsed to the ground. Entering the hall, Wei Yuan was immediately plunged into darkness. The interior was extremely dark, without candlelight or lamplight, illuminated only by a sliver of light filtering through the broken roof. The sunlight was blocked by the main peak, making the hall exceptionally eerie; anything beyond a short distance was completely invisible.

The air was filled with a damp, putrid smell, but Wei Yuan could not sense any life force, not even the insects that were everywhere in the witch realm.

At the far end of the main hall stood a statue, only a small portion of which remained; the area above the knees was broken into pieces scattered all over the ground. The statue was carved from stone, but not from a single piece; it was pieced together from dozens of fragments.

This statue is over four zhang tall. With the skills of immortals, finding a complete stone several zhang in size wouldn't be difficult, let alone over ten zhang; carving it would be even easier. The Lan Shen Palace has had many powerful deities throughout its history, so why is the main statue so shabby? Shouldn't it at least be ten zhang tall?
On each side of the main hall stood eight statues, each about ten feet tall. However, except for one, all the statues had been smashed, leaving only empty platforms. The surviving statue stood in a corner; it was a woman, extremely alluring, and even now, covered in moss, she still possessed a certain charm. However, the goddess's features bore a resemblance to those of a woman entwined with a giant serpent.

Except for the fact that the statue was not stained with blood, the main hall at this moment was exactly the same as the illusion that Wei Yuan entered when he met the woman in red.

Wei Yuan's heart suddenly stirred. He slowly turned around and saw the figure of the woman in red step out from Xu Wan'er's body, bow to him, and say, "This humble woman is Yun Feifei. I greet you, Senior Brother. May I ask how you are addressed?"

Wei Yuan said, "You don't know who I am?"

At this moment, the woman in red had solidified into a lifelike figure. Xu Wenwu, standing beside her, stared in disbelief.

Seeing that Wei Yuan's tone was unfriendly, she was not annoyed, but explained softly, "I only know that a senior brother from Taichu Palace will be coming, but I don't know who it is."

"Then how do you know I come from the Primordial Palace?"

"I do have some tricks up my sleeve, but they're not exactly sophisticated, so I won't go into them."

Now face to face, Wei Yuan could more clearly sense the strong incense and prayer power emanating from the woman in red, and he guessed that she must have known this through divination using prayer power.

Wei Yuan didn't beat around the bush and asked directly, "Where is the opportunity?"

"Once I arrive at the Taichu Palace and meet the Immortal Lord, I will present this opportunity with both hands. This opportunity is of great importance, and it is not convenient to tell you about it now. You only need to escort me to the Taichu Palace."

Wei Yuan frowned slightly and asked, "Don't you still have your senior brothers and sisters? Where are they? Also, who are the people chasing you, and who are they?"

"The ones chasing me are mainly from the Wu Clan, and the main one is a Great Wu who is skilled in blood curses and is very powerful. I accidentally got a little bit of a curse on me, and I have been suffering a lot these days. Moreover, as long as I leave the Lan Shen Palace within a thousand miles, he will immediately notice me. So I only dare to leave with my senior brother when he comes."

The Great Witch of the Witch Clan is equivalent to a True Person of the Human Clan. No wonder even with Yun Feifei's strength, which allowed her to injure a True Person of the Human Clan, she was forced to hide and dare not show herself.

"My eldest brother and junior brother are also here; they've been protecting me the whole time. I'll have to trouble you to take them with you, but once we're out of the Witch Clan's territory, just escort them to Hanyang Pass. There's also my third senior sister; we fought side-by-side and managed to escape. She should have already passed Hanyang Pass. Now, there are only the four of us left in the entire Lan Shen Palace." At this point, the woman in red was on the verge of tears.

But Wei Yuan remained unmoved and coldly said, "You still refuse to reveal your true face? Are you trying to test me?"

The woman in red said softly, "Junior sister, how could you have such courage?"

Regardless of her boldness, Wei Yuan had no intention of following her plan. The Incense and Divine Path possessed many strange and unpredictable methods, and Yun Feifei was clearly a difficult character to deal with. However, Wei Yuan possessed numerous Immortal Lord-level abilities and was not afraid at all. Wei Yuan sensed the array plate with his divine sense; there were several points of causal light within the main hall alone, the largest of which was right beneath his feet.

Now that Yun Feifei had revealed herself, she naturally couldn't escape the Immortal Lord's karmic investigation; all places nearby with karmic entanglements would be exposed. Wei Yuan immediately let out a cold laugh, ignoring Yun Feifei, and walked straight towards the ruins of the main statue. There was a point of light at the left foot of the statue; although not the largest, it was still quite conspicuous. He planned to use this to test Yun Feifei first.

Although the karmic connection beneath the main hall was the greatest, Wei Yuan felt a chill run down his spine just thinking about it, and instinctively didn't want to get close. Coupled with the results of his previous divination using immortal techniques, Wei Yuan had to be extra cautious.

Yun Feifei's expression changed immediately, and she said, "Senior Brother! What are you trying to do?"

"What do you think?" Wei Yuan walked up to the ruins of the statue and chopped off its left foot with his sword!

The left foot of the statue appeared to be a natural stone block, but there was a hollow inside. After Wei Yuan cut it open, a small jade statue about a foot long rolled out of it.

Wei Yuan caught the jade statue and examined it closely. The jade statue was entirely emerald green, depicting a woman with a large snake coiled around her. The snake held a small token, about an inch in size, in its mouth. The token was exquisitely carved, emanating a lively Daoist aura, indicating a very high grade. Only now, after being removed from the statue's left foot, did the jade statue begin to emit Daoist fluctuations. Previously, no matter how many times Wei Yuan scanned it with his divine sense, he had always felt it was just a solid stone, containing nothing inside.

When Wei Yuan first arrived at the main hall, he scanned the entire hall with his divine sense, but he only scanned the two broken statues once before subconsciously assuming that the remains were fine and not checking them further. Looking back now, he realized that he had been unknowingly influenced by methods such as the power of incense and prayers.

Fortunately, the Immortal Lord's methods overwhelmed everything, allowing the token to appear in the world.

Yun Feifei exclaimed with delight, "So this token was hidden here!"

Her surprise didn't seem feigned, but Wei Yuan had noticed the fleeting change in her expression as the statue walked away. Wei Yuan asked with a smile, "What's the use of this token?"

Before Yun Feifei could answer, her expression suddenly changed drastically! Then, ignoring Wei Yuan, she rushed out through the gap in the collapsed hall, looking shocked, angry, and somewhat panicked.

Xu Wan'er wanted to follow him out, but then looked back at Wei Yuan, hesitating and not moving, as if waiting for Wei Yuan to make a decision.

Wei Yuan sneered inwardly. This Yun Feifei was still pretending! Since entering the Shattered Realm, every single person he'd encountered was a master of acting; not a single one was easy to deal with. He hadn't met a single one as honest and upright as himself. Wei Yuan called to Xu Wan'er and followed Yun Feifei out through the gap in the main hall, following the scent she left behind to a roofless house. Both Wei Yuan and Xu Wan'er were Foundation Establishment cultivators, moving with lightning speed; in a single step, they vanished without a trace, leaving only Xu Wenwu in the eerie hall.

Xu Wenwu looked around and felt increasingly haunted by ghostly figures. It was as if countless eyes were watching him in the darkness, and a soprano voice was faintly singing something in the air. It felt like someone was blowing on the back of his neck, and it was getting colder and colder. The darkness itself began to writhe.

Xu Wenwu had read the story of the giant snake scholar and the seven young ladies, and had thoroughly enjoyed it back then. But now, recalling it again, his feelings were completely different. In particular, the face of the standing goddess statue was remarkably similar to the woman in the reliefs of the front hall, and she was now smiling at him. Xu Wenwu felt a chill run down his spine, sensing that this woman was lusting after him.

Xu Wenwu felt weak all over, his legs gave way, and he almost couldn't stand. He realized then that this world was extremely dangerous, and that dominating it would require extra effort. Back in his previous world, he had long since given up on trying, but simply hadn't had the chance.

Fortunately, it was Wei Yuan who was destined for dominance, not Xu Wenwu. Xu Wenwu was very self-aware, knowing he was only capable of being a king's advisor, not an emperor for all time. He didn't actually have any grand ambitions; in the future, when Wei Yuan ruled the world, he would simply be a king with his own territory, a king of equal rank. The world was vast, and Xu Wenwu wasn't greedy; a fertile land of seven or eight thousand miles would be enough for him to make a living.

Once he has his fiefdom and becomes second only to the emperor, he'll be busy. Xu Wenwu has quite a plan; then, he'll have to build all sorts of extravagant feasts, from wine pools and meat forests to leopard-like chambers and bathing pools. Besides his tireless work in governing the country, he won't be lacking in intellectual nourishment either. He'll need to seize at least a few hundred scholars and lock them in the imperial library to write novels. Those who write well will be rewarded, while those who don't will be locked in a dark room and given only water. Xu Wenwu believes that no matter what kind of scholar they are, if they go hungry for three days, their inspiration will surely flow freely.

Thinking about all this, Xu Wenwu wasn't so scared anymore.

At this moment, Wei Yuan pushed open the door and entered the abandoned house. He saw a bed in the room, and on the bed lay a woman with her eyes closed, her face pale, and a faint bluish-black aura lingering within her skin. Her clothes were half-undone, her outer skirt pulled down to her ankles, revealing a pair of shapely, snow-white legs, and a patch of snow-white skin on her chest.

As soon as Wei Yuan saw her, he recognized her as Yun Feifei's true form based on her spiritual aura.

There were two other men in the room. One of them looked to be in his thirties, with a sinister look in his eyes. He was holding a throwing knife, the blade of which was covered in blood. In the corner was a young cultivator, with delicate features and a handsome appearance.

The young cultivator pressed his hand to his abdomen, blood flowing continuously from between his fingers, and said in a trembling voice, "Senior Brother! How could you do this to me!"

The woman in red, seeing the disheveled woman, turned icy cold and demanded, "What are you doing?"

The eldest brother looked at the woman in red, his gaze softening with bitterness, and said, "Feifei, I watched you grow up since you were little. After you came of age, we were always in love, and Master was willing to let us be together, until... until the junior brother came."

The woman in red said, "My junior brother and I are completely innocent; there's nothing between us."

The eldest brother suddenly erupted, shouting, "You're still lying to me! Do you think I didn't know that the way you looked at him changed over those years? You two always went on missions together and trained together. Later on, even Master stopped mentioning what happened between us! Everyone wanted you to be with the junior brother, and nobody helped me! Why? We had been together for sixteen years, and he had only been here for a few months!"

The woman in red sighed and said, "Senior Brother, it's not what you think..."

The eldest disciple suddenly laughed loudly, saying, "You're still lying to me! I know why. You're after his family background and his surname, Xu! Even Master is a sycophant, trying to curry favor with the Xu family!"

The blood from between the fingers of the junior brother next to him was flowing more and more, and his breath was gradually weakening. He was becoming more and more panicked.

Hearing this, he hurriedly said, "Senior Brother, I only stumbled upon your good deed by accident. Since you like Senior Sister Yun, then I'll give her to you! I was just sent by my elders to infiltrate the Lan Shen Palace to get that item. I'm actually not interested in Senior Sister, and my family would never allow me to marry a woman of unknown origin from the mountains. I... I was just putting on an act when I said those things to her!"

The eldest brother seemed intrigued, and asked suspiciously, "Is that really so?"

The junior brother hurriedly said, "If I'm lying, may I be struck by lightning! Senior brother, I'm badly injured, please save me. If you spare me, I'll ask my father to arrange a marriage for you with a cousin so you can marry into the Xu family!"

The eldest brother hesitated even more, glancing at the woman in red, then at his true form lying motionless on the bed, and said, "But what about me and your senior sister..."

"Senior Brother, you've already made your move, so it's bound to end badly anyway. Might as well go all the way! You've taken her body, so you won't lose out. If she's sensible enough to hand over that old geezer's secret, then we'll make her our concubine. If she's not sensible enough, my family has plenty of ways to make her talk, and then we can send her to a brothel or just sell her to the West."

The woman in red was furious: "Junior brother, I treated you with utmost sincerity, and Master favored you greatly. Is this how you repay us?"

The junior brother was growing weaker and more anxious to heal his injuries. He said fiercely, "A wild woman from a small village sect, doesn't she even know her own background? How dare she try to enter my Xu family?"

The eldest brother's expression shifted between light and dark, but upon hearing the red-clad woman's last words, his face turned deathly pale. He exclaimed, "Fine! So you really are interested in him! Then I have nothing more to say. Today, I will fulfill my long-cherished wish!"

As he spoke, he walked towards the woman on the bed and reached out to tear her clothes.

The woman in red flew into a rage and shouted, "You're asking for death!"

The eldest brother sneered, grabbed the woman's collar on the bed and slowly pulled it open, saying, "I've already dug up the Soul-Guiding Box you secretly buried. Now, every bit of your willpower you use is less. You still want to kill me? Go ahead and try! It's a pity that the old ghost was secretive and died too quickly. Otherwise, if I had obtained that book, 'Seven Star Reincarnation,' and made your primordial spirit into a physical form, I would have had many more ways to play with you!"

At this point, Wei Yuan finally couldn't stand it anymore. He coughed and said, "Are you guys treating me like I don't exist?"

The eldest and youngest disciples turned around at the same time, staring at Wei Yuan as if they had seen a ghost, and asked in unison, "Who are you? When did you come in?"

Wei Yuan was speechless. These two really thought he didn't exist.

(End of this chapter)