"Master Bell chickened out in style! An old bell thousands of years old truly knows how to live with an open mind, after all!"
Xu Ying inwardly praised the bronze bell's pragmatism, musing, "The female ghost knew the master of Qinyan Cave? In that case, she didn't come to Qinyan Cave to kill us, but to reminisce about an old acquaintance."
He blinked. "She said this was an ascension sanctuary—what did that mean? And what are the Cangwu Abyss and the ageless immortal?"
From within the palace came the young woman's voice, exceedingly ethereal, as if drifting from atop the clouds: "Are you alive or dead? If alive, where have you gone? I have searched Shenzhou from end to end, so why can I find no trace of you?"
She stepped into the black coffin, and the lid slid shut. Whistling with chains, it flew out of the White Jade Palace and sped out of Qinyan Cave, leaving only a sorrowful voice echoing throughout the cavern abode:
"Did you ascend, or did you pass away? Why is it that upon awakening three thousand years later, I am the only one left in this world...?"
Xu Ying breathed a sigh of relief. If the maiden in the coffin had been slightly more observant, she might have spotted the bronze bell resting on the watery bottom, and in her wrath, perhaps she would have obliterated Demon King Xu and Demon King Niu together with it.
Suddenly remembering the bronze bell, Xu Ying hurriedly moved to fish it out.
Yet the bell seemed to have thrown a tantrum. It sank into the water with a gurgle, refusing to come up no matter what.
Having tried several times without success, Xu Ying grew annoyed and snapped, "If you're so tough, go pick a fight with that female ghost! What kind of capability is it to bully me?"
The bronze bell was indeed a coward, having no courage to risk its life against the maiden in the coffin. It flew out of the water, dumped a sloshing cascade of water from within itself over Xu Ying's head, and, as if this deed had exhausted all its gathered strength, it dropped back down and followed clattering right behind Xu Ying's heels.
Xu Ying chose not to bicker with it. Circulating his vital qi and blood, he steamed his clothes dry and followed Yuan Qi toward the White Jade Palace.
Before the palace, Xu Ying stopped and looked up.
On the lintel of the White Jade Palace, characters were carved. They differed from any script used in the world today, resembling the trails left by tadpoles crawling haphazardly through mud, or perhaps bird claws stamping chaotic prints across fresh snow.
Yuan Qi remarked, "Don't bother looking. Neither my grandfather, my father, nor I could read the characters on this lintel across three generations. I have no idea what this place is called either."
Xu Ying wore an odd expression. "It reads 'Mud Pill Palace Grotto-Heaven'—five characters."
Yuan Qi asked in bewilderment, "You can read the script here?"
He was utterly astonished. Three generations of the Niu family had read widely and possessed profound erudition, yet they had never deciphered the writing above the door. Xu Ying was a mere commoner from the countryside; how could he recognize such a script?
Xu Ying had a strange look in his eyes. "I've never seen this kind of writing before. But strangely enough, the moment I saw it, I naturally knew what it meant and how to read and pronounce it. It's as if..."
He furrowed his brow. It was as if these characters had long been engraved in his mind!
Yet racking his brain, he was certain he had never learned or seen such script before!
Yuan Qi was baffled. Recalling Xu Ying's various strange behaviors, he asked, "Ah Ying, have you ever suffered amnesia?"
Xu Ying burst out laughing. "I've definitely never lost my memory! How could I? I've been sharp since childhood, and my memory is extraordinarily clear. I can even remember when I was ten months old!"
His heart ached faintly. He could recall every single detail of the fire in Xujiaping, even the sight of his parents perishing in the blaze!
He wanted to forget those memories, yet try as he might, he never could.
Yuan Qi blinked, thinking, "You can't even remember your own parents' names correctly, which proves your memory isn't reliable at all. Did someone bash his head in before?"
The bronze bell rolled once on the ground, clearly just as skeptical of Xu Ying's memory.
Xu Ying studied the peculiar characters on the lintel. His heart suddenly stirred; retrieving the *Mud Pill Hidden Scenery Qi Refinement Technique*, he looked up at the characters once more, pondering, "'Mud Pill Palace Grotto-Heaven' and 'Mud Pill Hidden Scenery Qi Refinement Technique' both share 'Mud Pill.' Could there be a connection between them?"
The Mud Pill secret depository was precisely one of the Six Secret Depositories of the Human Body. Opening any one of these secret depositories allowed one to become a Nuo master. And the secret depository mastered by the Zhou clan, a Nuo master family, was none other than the Mud Pill!
The Mud Pill secret depository held immense attraction for Xu Ying, bordering on an obsession!
Up ahead, Yuan Qi called for him to enter. Putting away his stray thoughts, Xu Ying stepped into the palace. He saw bookshelves everywhere, row upon row of neatly arranged tomes.
Yuan Qi had claimed his family came from scholarly heritage with deep ancestral learning, and indeed it was true!
"Three generations of our Niu family have lived here for over three hundred years, collecting countless ancient texts," Yuan Qi declared proudly. "Every ancient book that could be found in Lingling is here, and I've read them all."
Xu Ying felt both admiration and a touch of shame; compared to this snake demon, he was truly illiterate and uncultured.
Suddenly, Yuan Qi's expression changed drastically. He cried out, "Ah Ying, I suddenly feel the vital qi and blood in my body turning into transformative power—I'm probably about to transform into human form!"
His vision had blurred, dead skin clinging to his pupils and turning his eyes cloudy white—an unmistakable sign of molting.
Yuan Qi hurriedly slithered into a chamber within the White Jade Palace, shouting, "Don't wander around while I'm in secluded cultivation! Mount Wuwang has turned into Mount Wuwang of No Folly, and even I don't know the layout of the mountain now!"
He had to find a safe place to shed his old skin before he could take human shape. If he delayed, he might suffocate to death inside the old skin!
Xu Ying walked up beneath the jade wall and looked up to examine it.
The woman from the coffin had stood in this very spot, reminiscing about her old acquaintance before the jade wall.
Carved upon the wall was a wondrous mountain, steep and towering, piercing high into the clouds with a majesty that looked down upon all the mountains of the realm!
As a snake catcher, Xu Ying ran around day after day hunting strange snakes—what mountain had he not seen? Yet he had never laid eyes on the mountain depicted on the jade wall!
This peak was lofty and perilous, reaching into the clouds; Lingling had no mountain so tall!
Let alone Lingling, perhaps no such magnificent mountain existed anywhere in Shenzhou!
Xu Ying's heart stirred, and he softly recited, "'South of the Xiaoxiang, the Cangwu Abyss. Beneath Mount Jiuyi, the ageless immortal.' Could the mountain in the carving be Mount Jiuyi?"
"Yet Mount Jiuyi isn't nearly this tall!"
Xu Ying's mind was filled with doubts. He had visited Mount Jiuyi several times; while picturesque, its peaks were not high and could not possibly be the mountain in the carving!
Then again, if Mount Wuwang could turn into Mount Wuwang of No Folly, could the true form of Mount Jiuyi be the wondrous mountain depicted in this wall?
"A pity Yuan Qi is in seclusion; otherwise, we could go check Mount Jiuyi."
Xu Ying was also rather fatigued. Choosing a chamber, he settled in. He had been fleeing for his life these past few days, leaving him thoroughly exhausted, yet his mind was too agitated to sleep right away. He decided to take a book from a shelf to read.
After reading barely two or three pages, Xu Ying's head tilted sideways, and he drifted into a sound sleep.
He slept for a long time. When Xu Ying blinked his drowsy eyes open and woke from his dreams, he felt his vital qi and blood surging with vitality. A strange vitality and activity permeated Qinyan Cave, steadily boosting his cultivation. After just one night's sleep here, he could feel a noticeable advance in his cultivation!
"Truly a grotto-heaven and blessed land!"
Suddenly, Xu Ying caught an unpleasant odor on himself, likely the foul rot clinging to him from passing through the Underworld.
Yuan Qi remained in seclusion, still not awake.
Stepping outside the palace, Xu Ying stripped bare and jumped into the pool in front of the palace.
"Huh, a few hairs have sprouted down here." Xu Ying looked down, somewhat puzzled, and muttered to himself, "Strange hairs growing all over the place. Might as well pluck them off."
He vigorously scrubbed away the grime. Touching the spots where he had previously been injured, his gaze fell upon a stalk of lingzhi grass on the bank, and he froze.
"No, that's not right!"
Stunned like a wooden chicken, Xu Ying murmured after a long pause, "Is the vitality of Qinyan Cave healing me, or is my own vitality healing me? Is the strange energy in Qinyan Cave truly vitality?"
He had seen how vegetation grew wildly under the influence of vitality and life force, yet the lingzhi grass on the bank had not grown out of control.
In other words, the vitality radiated by Qinyan Cave was not genuine life force; the power healing the scars on Xu Ying and Yuan Qi did not originate from Qinyan Cave, but from within themselves!
"The mysterious power in Qinyan Cave can stimulate our own vitality and life force!"
Xu Ying's eyes flashed. Where did the vitality and life force in the human body come from?
"The Mud Pill secret depository," he whispered.
The Mud Pill secret depository held the body's life force, and this White Jade Palace was named the Mud Pill Palace. Earlier he had merely suspected some connection between Mud Pill Palace and the Mud Pill, but now he understood.
"The mysterious power in Qinyan Cave can stimulate the Mud Pill secret depository!"
Sitting in the water, Xu Ying muttered to himself, "That's right, the Mud Pill secret depository. All I need to do is trace the path the mysterious power of Qinyan Cave takes after entering my body, and I can seek the dragon and fix the position, locating the Mud Pill secret depository within the human body! But I don't have any wounds on me..."
Reaching this realization, he abruptly raised a finger, puncturing his own thigh with a burst of force!
Blood gushed from his thigh. Xu Ying endured the pain and instantly focused his mind. Beneath his eyelids, divine light surged, and his divine sense manifested once again!
Pushing open the gate, he entered the Realm of Xiyi within his body.
Within his internal world, faint currents of air seeped in from the outside. These faint currents were none other than the mysterious power seeping into his body from the mud pool!
Attracted by a mysterious place within him, these faint currents flowed in the same direction.
"Just as I thought!"
Xu Ying's divine sense took flight, following those currents as it soared outward!
His divine sense streaked like lightning, whistling through the expanse. It climbed higher and higher, passing his heart and lungs—which were as immense as inverted mountains—yet it still did not halt!
Following the currents, he traversed and roamed through the Realm of Xiyi, reaching places he had never attained before, uncovering even more wonders of the human body.
Looking up, he saw what resembled the interior of an unfathomably colossal pagoda, layered and orderly, flanked by the towering mountains of his heart and lungs.
Whistling forward, his divine sense soared over the mountains of heart and lungs, tracking the currents through layer upon layer of majestic pagodas. Ahead, a gleam of light suddenly emerged; drawing near, he discovered a jade pool as vast as lakes and seas!
Above the jade pool hung a divine bridge!
Dazzled and spellbound, Xu Ying followed the currents across the divine bridge. Looking up, he saw an unimaginably enormous sun hanging in the sky, blazing with roaring flames!
Beside the sun was an impossibly massive moon, radiating a cold brilliance that shone in unison with the great sun!
"To think there are so many unexplored places inside my body!"
Xu Ying's divine sense passed between the sun and moon, surging skyward alongside the currents to reach a vast, unfathomable expanse within the Realm of Xiyi!
A chaotic region inside his brain.
His divine sense hovered before the chaotic qi of his mind. At the center of this chaotic qi lay a primal mass, resembling an enormous, perfectly round egg floating amid the chaotic haze.
The mysterious energy from the pool drilled directly into this primal round egg, disappearing without a trace, whereupon his physical life force was stimulated to heal his bodily injury!
"Inside this primal round egg is the Mud Pill secret depository of the Six Secret Depositories!"
Xu Ying steadied his mind. The Mud Pill secret depository was right before his eyes; without relying on any Grand Nuo to seek the dragon and fix the position, he had located this secret depository all on his own!
"Yet finding it is one thing; opening it is quite another!"
Just as this thought crossed Xu Ying's mind, the chaotic region of his mind suddenly rippled with faint tremors.
He glanced toward the source of the ripples, utterly dumbfounded.
A bronze bell had barged in from who-knew-where, wobbling as though drunk. It flew over the chaotic qi and came to rest right beside the primal round egg.
The bronze bell gave a hard nudge, trying to shove the primal round egg aside. Seeing that it wouldn't budge, the bell had no choice but to settle down where it was.
On its wall remained a deep handprint; it was precisely the bronze bell that had been trailing behind Xu Ying's heels!
Only now did the bronze bell notice Xu Ying's divine sense hovering nearby. The bell and Xu Ying's divine sense stared at each other, plunged into dead silence.
Silently, the bronze bell lifted off and flew out of this region of his brain.
Xu Ying waited a moment. The bronze bell sluggishly drifted back, saw that Xu Ying's divine sense was still there, and finally confirmed it hadn't seen things.
"Young man, you're here too?" the bronze bell boomed like a grand ceremonial chime.
Xu Ying's divine sense flared in outrage. "What do you mean 'I'm here too'? This is my brain, all right? How did you get in here?"
"Through the Yuzhen acupoint at the back of your head," the bronze bell replied honestly. "Your vital qi and blood cultivation improved, so my injuries also had a chance to mend a bit. Seeing that you weren't carrying me along, I decided to come in and take a seat first."
Ever since entering Qinyan Cave, Xu Ying's injuries had healed and all manner of hidden ailments in his body had been cured, leaving his vital qi and blood more vigorous than ever. The bronze bell had seized the chance to siphon more of his qi and blood, recovering its mobility ahead of time.
It had planned to slip into Xu Ying's mind to steal more qi and blood to nurse its wounds, never expecting to run straight into the owner, which made things rather awkward.
Xu Ying did not press the matter, asking instead, "Why are you near my Mud Pill secret depository?"
"This is the Mud Pill secret depository?" The bronze bell was quite surprised. Flying several laps around the primal round egg, it clicked its tongue in wonder. "No wonder I couldn't budge it. I entered your mind through your Yuzhen acupoint; I had no idea this was the Mud Pill secret depository."
Xu Ying explained how he had tracked the mysterious energy of Qinyan Cave, seeking the dragon and fixing the position until he found this place. "The mysterious energy enters here, and my physical life force is stimulated, which proves this must be the Mud Pill secret depository."
In the bronze bell's era, there was no concept of the human body's secret depositories. Puzzled by his words, it remarked, "Why would the Mud Pill Palace Grotto-Heaven possess mysterious energy capable of stimulating the Mud Pill secret depository? Strange indeed."
Xu Ying replied, "Isn't it completely normal for a grotto-heaven and blessed land to possess mysterious spiritual qi and spiritual power?"
The bronze bell sneered, "Do you take grotto-heavens and blessed lands for cabbages growing all over the place? There is a fixed number of grotto-heavens and blessed lands, each with a profound history. While this is indeed an ancient cavern abode, it is utterly impossible for a grotto-heaven to exist here! The master of this place calling it the Mud Pill Palace Grotto-Heaven was merely flattering himself."
Xu Ying pondered, "If this mysterious energy in Qinyan Cave isn't spiritual power or spiritual qi, that makes it strange. This power is most likely not naturally formed..."
His eyes suddenly lit up, and he chuckled. "I could follow where the mysterious energy went to find the Mud Pill secret depository, so I can also trace where it came from to find the source!"
Chapter 21