Apart from bubbles, there was nothing in the water.
No impurities, no silt, no water plants.
Strangely enough, he could breathe with ease, as natural as a fish in water, without the slightest feeling of suffocation.
Yet inside, he was infuriated. This sort of hazardous work—scouting the path for others—was something he would never normally do. He had only been knocked in here when the residual force from the Gale Army commander struck him earlier.
Simply put, his cultivation was too low.
Back when he had lorded it over everyone in Blackwater City, he hadn't realized it. But then he had encountered Nian Songyu and National Preceptor Sun, and later ventured into Panlong City. As perils crept ever closer, his meager cultivation felt increasingly inadequate.
If only he were a bit stronger.
His body sank swiftly. Directly beneath him lay pitch-black darkness, like a bottomless pit.
Just a breath before he plunged into the boundless dark, He Lingchuan seemed to catch sight of a dark red figure.
The thing appeared immense, looming faintly around him; what little of its body was visible seemed cylindrical.
Well, shaped like a water bucket, but magnified countless times over.
Most importantly, this thing moved!
Unfortunately, before He Lingchuan could take a closer look, darkness enveloped his vision.
...
When he opened his eyes again, his surroundings had changed once more.
He was standing beside a small brook. The clear water barely covered the tops of his feet, and the sand and gravel below were clean. A tiny river shrimp was launching an assault on his boot.
Along the bank, alligator weed and wild radish greens were a cheerful, lush green. Not far away, curls of chimney smoke rose from a few farmsteads.
He Lingchuan patted his clothes and discovered they were dry, not soaked at all by the bloody water from the cistern pool. It seemed that had merely been a passageway.
He climbed out of the creek valley and onto a low slope. The moment he looked up, he froze.
Before him stretched a plain brimming with life. Vast swaths of wheat were sprouting green shoots. The trees lining the fields were somewhat sparse, but the tallest among them stood thirty to fifty feet high.
Huts for watching the fields were dotted here and there, and He Lingchuan even spotted a waterskin hanging from the fork of a nearby tree.
Farther off, a broad, rushing river divided two plains.
On the far side of the river, the terrain rose far higher than here, looking from a distance like a colossal crocodile crouching by the water's edge.
Most importantly, the outline at the edge of the plateau was distinct and strikingly familiar.
Could that be... the Chipa Plateau?
He Lingchuan hopped down the slope and headed in the direction of the Chipa Plateau.
The sky was brilliant blue, the clouds pure white, and the air rich with the moist scent of soil and green grass. Walking through this pastoral idyll felt utterly refreshing.
Especially for someone who had just come from a desolate desert city.
Yet the more serene it felt, the more eerie it became.
He Lingchuan walked straight ahead for several hundred yards, passing through a village of a hundred households along the way, without encountering a single living soul.
The village was certainly not small.
From the open fields to the cottages, everything was hushed. He deliberately checked house after house; all were deserted. Yet in one kitchen, coarse flour buns had just been steamed, rising with billowing plumes of hot vapor.
He didn't dare eat one, but he took out a bun and pinched it. It was soft and piping hot.
Where had all the people gone?
Passing another wheat field, a white butterfly came flitting toward him.
He Lingchuan reached out to touch it, and his fingertip passed right through its body.
Nothing at all.
An illusion?
He spotted a green grasshopper in the wheat and poked it with his finger; that, too, was empty air.
These living creatures were all phantoms.
Yet the wheat stalks felt completely real. He pinched off a shoot and chewed on it; it was slightly astringent and bitter, exactly the taste fresh sprouts should have.
Just then, a rustle came from the wheat field, and a living figure darted out.
Startled, He Lingchuan drew his saber halfway before realizing the newcomer was actually a sand bandit.
This man was the second cousin of Situ Han's brother-in-law, nicknamed Maotao—Hairy Peach—a moniker earned by his scrawny frame and dense, bushy beard.
Catching sight of He Lingchuan, he blinked in surprise, then rejoiced. "Eldest Young Master, you're all right!"
"Where is everyone else?" He Lingchuan looked around, finding only this single companion. "And why is one of the life flames on your shoulder missing?"
"The National Preceptor took it and placed it on a candle," Maotao said with a sour face. "Then he shoved me down. Where are we? The Panlong... Wasteland?"
Anyone with eyes could see how bizarre this place was. "Is this place fake? An illusion?"
"Yeah." He Lingchuan instantly deduced National Preceptor Sun's intention. "They used you to scout the way, so they should be coming down soon."
The two walked on together. He Lingchuan asked him, "When you crossed over... no, after you fell into the pool, did you see anything?"
"Just pale red bloody water. It didn't choke me. Then in the blink of an eye, I ended up here."
"Nothing else?"
Maotao thought carefully. "Nothing. Did you see something, Young Master?"
He Lingchuan shook his head.
Had he been seeing things when he glimpsed that colossal unknown entity in the pale red water?
After walking for well over an hour, the two finally drew close to the Chipa Plateau.
Before them, the river flowed gently, roughly thirty feet wide, neither hurried nor sluggish. He Lingchuan knew this was likely the moat of Panlong City, yet it was nowhere near as deep or wide as what they had seen before.
Following the riverbank west for another half hour, Panlong City finally came into view.
"Th-that..." Maotao let out a breath. "That's Panlong City?"
Panlong City sat in the exact same spot, at the lower pass of the Chipa Plateau. But it appeared nowhere near as grand as the one in the desert.
The walls were neither as high nor as thick, and the battlements lacked even the crocodile-tooth stakes.
When the two approached the natural bridge, they saw its deck was paved with bluestone, several slabs cracked, their fissures packed with moss and grime.
Crossing the bridge, the city gate remained in place, but the doors were not made of iron fir—just ordinary thick wooden doors plated in iron.
The defensive toughness of such a fortress wasn't much better than Blackwater City's.
Beneath the city gate, however, stood two figures waving toward them.
Nian Songyu and Sun Fuping.
He Lingchuan frowned inwardly at the sight of them, but stepped forward wearing an expression of surprised innocence. "How is it only the two of you? Where are the others?"
"The Gale Army spirits brought reinforcements. Commandery Governor He stayed behind with the men to hold off the enemy outside the cistern pool," Sun Fuping said. "This is Gale Army territory; we cannot fight them here."
Otherwise, it would be certain death.
It sounded reasonable enough, but He Lingchuan's heart gave a lurch. He knew he had to be exceptionally cautious now, yet his face showed only discontent. "The old man is truly unfair, ditching me here all by myself."
Sun Fuping did not even bother replying to that, asking instead, "By the way, how long have you two been down here?"
"About... four hours?" He Lingchuan turned and pointed behind him. "I ended up in a village over that way and climbed out of the river."
Sun Fuping's expression shifted slightly. Nian Songyu pointed at Maotao. "How could that be? I jumped down right after this fellow. He was only a few dozen breaths behind you!"
The National Preceptor pondered. "The four of us came down one after another, yet the times we appeared here differ. That means the flow of time is distorted. As expected, this place is not merely an illusion."
Indeed, anyone coming down here would initially define it as an illusion.
Chapter 46