This lingzhi was roughly the size of two palms, uniquely shaped, and a deep purplish brown from cap to stem.
As Wang Yu drew closer, an exotic fragrance met his nostrils. Breathing it in, he felt his chest ease considerably, accompanied by a soothing, refreshing coolness in his mind.
*A rare treasure!*
*An absolute treasure!*
Wang Yu reached the end of the underground river, cut the lingzhi free with his sword, slipped it into his traveling pouch, and fastened it at his waist.
There was no rush to consume the lingzhi just yet; his priority was to investigate this ancient site and see what lay hidden here.
Wang Yu walked back and forth along the underground river once more. Finding no other lingzhi, he gave a light leap, clearing more than a zhang with ease to land on the opposite bank.
This side opened into a far vaster expanse. Torch sconces hung along the surrounding stone walls, though the torches had long since burnt out.
Wang Yu plucked a torch from the wall and tested it with his fire striker. To his surprise, it caught flame. The crackling torch flared to life, instantly illuminating a subterranean cavern that had been sealed away for who knew how many ages.
*Whoosh—*
The torch flickered in the faint draft. Wang Yu observed that the space spanned roughly twenty to thirty zhang across. Aside from the sconces, there were carved stone pillars and pedestals, neatly dressed stone walls, stone steps, and more.
"This was probably a natural cavern inside the mountain, merely renovated and refined. Even so, the sheer labor involved was no small feat."
Wang Yu touched a waist-high stone pedestal carved with simple decorative patterns. Atop it sat an extinguished brazier, seemingly once used to hold burning torches as well.
"Why would this place need so many torches?" Wang Yu glanced left and right, then caught sight of what looked like chiseled marks on a side wall.
Stepping closer, he raised the torch to inspect the rock. To his amazement, the inscriptions carved into the wall were Chinese characters, accompanied by a human meridian chart.
*Holy shit?* Wang Yu was genuinely stunned. *Actual martial arts manuals? Wuxia novels didn't lie to me after all!*
*What kind of secret manual is this? The Great Shift of the Universe, or the Taixuan Scripture?*
Wang Yu's heart skipped a beat, and he leaned in to study it intently. Yet after reading only a short passage, his excitement cooled.
Truth be told, while the mental cultivation method etched on the wall would count as first-rate out in the martial world, it was far too weak for him. Not only did it pale in comparison to Flowing Fire Reflection and the Ice and Snow Divine Art, it fell far short of Flowing Springs of the Icy Mountain, failing to even touch the Xiantian realm.
Right at the end of that mental method's inscriptions, the opening lines of another manual began—this one a saber technique.
Wang Yu's gaze flickered. He circled the chamber at a brisk pace and discovered that the walls were covered with martial arts manuals: four internal cultivation arts and eight barehanded and weapon disciplines in total.
Among the internal arts, two touched upon the Xiantian level, and among the external arts, only a single whip technique caught Wang Yu's eye.
As for the rest, they were merely better than nothing.
Moreover, whether internal or external, these manuals were either sinister and bizarre or vast and rugged, heavily steeped in an unmistakable steppe style. None suited Wang Yu's taste.
Circling to the far end of the cavern, Wang Yu noticed a gentle slope of stone steps. At the top, set into the wall, was a fairly concealed stone door.
Wang Yu placed his hand against it and shoved.
*Creak—*
A grating, tooth-grinding screech sounded as the stone door slowly gave way.
It was a door mounted on a central pivot. The stone slab was not particularly thick, and it bore no hidden mechanisms, relying purely on raw human strength.
Naturally, an ordinary person could never budge it; one needed to be a martial arts master at the very least.
As Wang Yu pushed the stone door open, a dusty draft drifted out, carrying no scent of decay. Clearly, no one had lived here for ages, yet air still circulated freely with the outside world.
Wang Yu stepped through to the other side and pulled the stone door shut behind him. He realized that this door sat right in the middle of a corridor, seamlessly blended into the rock walls. Without meticulous inspection, it was nearly impossible to detect.
"That chamber was a secret room for passing down arts, as well as an escape route." Wang Yu finally understood. No wonder martial arts were carved into its walls, and a tunnel led straight out to the cliff face.
Yet if even the martial arts preserved in the heritage chamber failed to tempt him, there was likely nothing better ahead.
Wang Yu explored both directions of the corridor.
One end opened into a chamber comparable in size to the heritage room, housing what appeared to be a sacrificial altar. Carvings lined the walls, but they were murals rather than martial manuals.
The other end branched into several distinct stone chambers, seemingly used as living quarters, along with a reception hall for guests. Scattered tables, chairs, and beds stood inside, all thoroughly rotted away with time.
At the far exterior end of the passageway, Wang Yu found the exit to the outside world sealed with earth. However, over the years of wind and rain, patches of soil had sloughed away, leaving scattered fissures that let in rays of daylight.
Seeing that the layer of soil was not very thick, Wang Yu could not be bothered to crawl all the way back through the cliffside tunnel. He rolled up his sleeves and dug directly through, quickly clearing an opening large enough for a person to pass.
Bracing his feet, Wang Yu ducked low and squeezed out through the hole.
Sunlight washed over him once more. Wang Yu looked back and saw what appeared to be an ordinary mountain rock face. Along the base grew man-high sod and brush, allowing the earth sealing the entrance to blend seamlessly into the terrain without a trace of an opening.
Just then, the clamor of shouts and the clashing of weapons drifted from a distance. The battle was clearly still underway.
Sword in hand, Wang Yu sprinted forward, rounding the spur of the mountain in moments to arrive at the mouth of the canyon.
Xiongnu soldiers lay strewn across the canyon entrance. Inside, Atuke, Huona, Tasa, Ardai, Paliya, and even Mayila were locked in fierce combat.
Atuke and Liu Hanyong fought deadlocked, while the others battled the remaining Xiongnu warriors, already cutting down more than twenty men.
Wang Yu: "..."
"Ardai!" Wang Yu swept into the canyon. A single slash of his longsword sent blood spurting from the throats of two Xiongnu warriors, dropping them in their tracks.
"Brother Zhao!" Ardai cheered upon seeing Wang Yu arrive from the outside. Her curved blade threw off flakes of dazzling light, driving the Xiongnu soldiers before her into panicked howls.
"Didn't I tell you to break out and call for reinforcements?" Wang Yu asked.
Atuke laughed heartily. "Why does Prince Zhao look down on us so? Without Qiao Riyan, how could a hundred or so Xiongnu soldiers ever be enough for us to kill?"
Atuke, Huona, and the rest were fierce warriors in their own right, boasting solid martial prowess. Moreover, trapped in the narrow canyon, the Xiongnu could neither form ranks nor loose volleys of arrows. On top of that, Ardai, Tasa, and even Paliya and Mayila were skilled in martial arts, far from helpless maidens.
In the thick of the melee, they had not fallen into a disadvantage at all.
Liu Hanyong was dueling Atuke when he caught sight of Wang Yu entering from outside. His heart nearly shattered in terror.
Wang Yu had returned alive and well from the exterior—which meant Qiao Riyan...
Liu Hanyong dared not let the thought finish. Jerking his blade back, he spun around to flee, only to find Wang Yu blocking the canyon entrance.
For Liu Hanyong, the sun was setting. Soon, only heavy, ragged gasps echoed through the canyon.
Earlier, when Wang Yu had pursued Qiao Riyan into the canyon, the Xiongnu soldiers had surged in after them, clashing violently with Atuke's party.
Later, Wang Yu had returned from the canyon's exterior, coincidentally cutting off every last Xiongnu officer and soldier inside.
As a result, not a single Xiongnu warrior escaped.
When the slaughter ended, Atuke and Tasa bore several wounds, but all were superficial flesh cuts that left bone and sinew untouched. The entire hundred-man unit of Xiongnu warriors, however, lay dead in the gorge.
Liu Hanyong had swung his blade wildly in self-defense to break through, only for Wang Yu to send him to his grave with a single strike of Lone Shadow in the Golden Haze.
***
"Here." Wang Yu retrieved his own Kangwei Sword and returned Ardai's longsword to her.
"Brother Zhao!" Ardai did not take the weapon. Instead, she threw herself into Wang Yu's arms, hugging him tightly.
Wang Yu blinked, looking over her shoulder to see Atuke and Huona grinning broadly, Paliya and Mayila offering teasing smiles, and Tasa wearing a complicated expression.
Having witnessed Wang Yu's martial arts firsthand, the last lingering resentment in Tasa's heart had vanished.
This was a true hero!
"Brother Zhao, did you kill Qiao Riyan?" Ardai slipped out of Wang Yu's embrace. Her cheeks flushed red, yet she showed no embarrassment, only a trace of worry that slaying Qiao Riyan might provoke Qiulin Ji's wrath.
"I don't know." Wang Yu shook his head.
Atuke and the others gathered round, Huona hauling along a tightly bound Aishake beside them.
"You don't know?" Atuke asked in confusion. "Did he escape?"
Huona chimed in, "I've been to this canyon before. Isn't it a dead end?"
Ardai shook her head. "It's not a dead end. Brother Zhao came back from the outside."
Everyone turned to Wang Yu, who recounted how he had pursued Qiao Riyan up the cliff face, crawled through the tunnel into the mountain's belly, and ultimately watched Qiao Riyan leap into the rushing underground river to be swept away.
Huona immediately spoke up. "Such a turbulent underground river must connect to the Qulin River!"
The Qulin River was the great river flowing north of the White Qiang Royal Court, the mother river that nourished this entire grassland.
Atuke said, "Let's search downstream for him!"
Huona shook his head. "So much time has passed. Who knows where he's been washed by now?"
Curious, Ardai asked, "But Brother Zhao, how did you come back from the outside? Did you climb over the cliff?"
"No, I haven't finished," Wang Yu said, shaking his head. "On the opposite bank of that underground river, there were signs of artificial renovation. Several martial arts were carved into the walls, and there were traces of people having lived and held sacrifices there."
Atuke and Huona gasped in stunned realization. "The Sacred Ground of the Heavenly Qiang Sect!"
Wang Yu blinked. "What kind of place is that?"
"The Heavenly Qiang Sect was an ancient sect of our Qiang people," Ardai explained. "Later, when foreign enemies invaded, all the masters in the sect rode out together to do battle. In the end, every last one died, and the sacred ground was lost.
"The martial arts of both the Black and White Qiang originate from the Heavenly Qiang Sect. It is said that the Heavenly Qiang Sect once possessed Xiantian-level arts, but after the sacred ground was lost, those techniques disappeared as well."
Atuke continued, "For over two hundred years, the Black and White Qiang have tried to reconstruct those arts. The Black Qiang pieced together Burial Bone Secrets, while the White Qiang restored the Heavenly Ardor Art. Yet neither is said to match the original heritage of the Heavenly Qiang Sect."
"Over two hundred years..." Wang Yu clicked his tongue. "The foreign enemy that the Heavenly Qiang Sect faced couldn't happen to be..."
Atuke nodded, making no effort to avoid the subject. "Yes, it was the Central Plains dynasty of two hundred years ago. Not only was the Heavenly Qiang Sect wiped out, but even the Western Qiang tribe was shattered into the Black and White Qiang."
Chapter 117