He Lingchuan was awakened by a seagull.
Leftovers from last night's meal still sat on the table. A sneaky seagull had hopped in through the window and was gorging itself on large chunks of meat and fish.
He Lingchuan had been jolted awake by the clatter of a knocked-over cup, and the next moment, he clutched his head and groaned aloud.
His head ached fiercely.
Startled, the seagull squawked and beat its wings, fleeing the scene of the crime—though not without carrying off several strips of dried jerky.
He Lingchuan opened his eyes only in time to catch the swaggering silhouette of its departure.
It wasn't a hangover; he hadn't drunk any liquor last night.
The agony was several times worse than any hangover, as if someone were driving a mallet into his forehead with heavy thuds. His reflexes were sluggish, and his limbs felt weighed down with lead.
What was going on? Last night, he had entered the Panlong World.
Every time he returned from the Panlong World, he would be revitalized and bursting with vigor.
Why was this time an exception?
He carefully retraced last night's events. He had merely escorted Lu Xun from Baisha Port back to Yuheng City. Along the way, they had fought a vicious battle against Fu Shanlie, and he had sustained serious injuries.
Wait, serious injuries?
Could it be because of that fight?
To say nothing of injury, how many times had he died in the Panlong World? Hadn't he returned fully restored every single time?
As he was pondering, the door was shoved open with a bang, and Dong Rui strode in. "The sun's already scorching your backside, and you're still not up? Don't we have real business to handle today?"
Yet the moment the words left his mouth, Dong Rui was taken aback by He Lingchuan's complexion.
"Whoa, what did you do last night? Why do you look so awful?"
He Lingchuan's face was a sickly greenish-pale, shadowed with dark rings under his eyes—gaunt, sallow, and thoroughly worn out.
Did this look like someone who had just woken up from bed? Damn it, he looked more like an addict who hadn't slept for ten days and nights, sneaking around every night getting up to mischief!
At that thought, Dong Rui couldn't resist mocking him. "Did you take on five girls at once at the Jinhuan Brothel? Aren't we capable!"
"Your limit is only five?" He Lingchuan gave him a look reserved for hopeless underachievers. "Your shortcoming... is pretty short."
"Pah!"
He Lingchuan fetched some medicine for nourishing the spirit and replenishing qi from his pocket, gulped down four or five pills at once, and only then hauled himself up to pour a cup of water.
The moment he stood, he felt dizzy and unsteady on his feet, while a dull ache throbbed in his right shoulder.
No way? Subconsciously, he pressed his right shoulder. There was no wound, yet the sensation of pain was entirely real.
Was it psychosomatic, or actual nerve pain?
"Are you up for this?" Dong Rui eyed him skeptically. "Looking like a ghost like that, you ought to lie down and sleep for seven days and seven nights before getting up again." Rather than heading out to brave the wind and waves at sea.
"Cut the chatter."
He Lingchuan went to the latrine. On the way, he pinched the divine bone necklace and ground his teeth at it. "Was it you, ungrateful wretch, who stripped away my soul protection?"
He racked his brain, but he hadn't encountered anything extraordinary over these past few months. If the Panlong World's rules had suddenly changed, it could only be related to that venture into the Panlong Desert two or three months ago!
He shook the necklace. "I fed you the divine artifact's lid and an avatar of a god! Why are you turning against me instead?"
The divine bone necklace, of course, gave no response.
After he finished washing up and walked out, his haggard appearance was plain for all to see.
Qiu Hu asked in surprise, "My Lord, what happened to you?" What could have occurred overnight?
Zhu Daniang, however, remarked thoughtfully, "Did someone hook your soul?"
He Lingchuan's mind stirred. "What do you mean?"
"Your cultivation is accomplished, and you haven't fought anyone, so you shouldn't be in such an exhausted, thoroughly withered state," Zhu Daniang said. "You have plenty of enemies. Could someone have targeted your soul in the dead of night? A nightmare, for instance."
He Lingchuan's thoughts stirred again.
Only he knew that a nightmare couldn't harm him at all. Besides, he held a nightmare under his control; creatures like that understood souls best of all, so why not just ask it?
Dong Rui nodded in agreement. "Right, right, your condition is a 'wounded spirit'—more likely than not, someone is cursing you from the shadows."
"I understand. Let's take care of our business first."
He Lingchuan was the leader of the party. Once he spoke, the others fell silent, and even Dong Rui dropped the subject.
"Where are we heading now?"
He Lingchuan felt a twinge of regret. He had originally planned to find an eatery and feast on fresh seafood. In inland cities, "freshly hauled live catch" was a prized advertising slogan, but here it was just everyday fare.
In Blade Harbor, if anyone's seafood wasn't flopping alive before hitting the wok, you could spit right in their face.
Yet right now his head was splitting, and he had no appetite.
Checking the hour, he thought a moment and asked Qiu Hu, "Can you row a boat?"
Qiu Hu shook his head honestly. Tao Ran piped up from the side, "I can. My family used to fish by the lake."
He had just returned from Bailie.
"Then go to the docks and charter a boat—make sure it's swift and sturdy." He Lingchuan turned to Dong Rui. "You stay on shore."
"Huh?" Dong Rui immediately looked disgruntled. "Why?"
After being old companions sharing trials and hardships for so long, going out to sea for fun without taking him along—how was that right?
"Your constitution is too weak for where we're going; you won't hold up." The man was a chronic recluse who rarely exercised; his physical endurance fell far short of He Lingchuan and the others, to say nothing of Zhu Daniang.
Dong Rui pointed to his own nose. "I'm weak?"
The countless souls slain by his hand would beg to differ!
This time Zhu Daniang spoke up: "With just a little sea swell, you were puking your guts out."
"...Where on earth are you guys going?"
"To a natural yin fiend ley line. Can you endure yin fiend energy?"
Dong Rui considered it and kept quiet.
He Lingchuan asked the little monkey on his shoulder, "Lingguang, can you make pills to ward off the effects of yin fiend energy?"
Lingguang scratched the back of his head. "I can only reduce the invasive damage of the yin fiend by about seventy to eighty percent. But the pill lasts only six hours, and you can only take a second dose once. To take another after that, you have to wait twenty-four hours."
That meant it could be effective for twelve hours in total. "All right, prepare the medicine."
With his personal apothecary back, things were much more convenient. During their earlier voyage by sea, whether it was Dong Rui's seasickness, a passenger's acute illness, or a sailor suddenly vomiting blood, Lingguang had handled them all.
Fortunately, supplies were plentiful in Blade Harbor, and the medicinal ingredients Lingguang needed were not obscure. The group gathered everything after visiting just two apothecary clinics.
As for He Lingchuan, he took the opportunity to find a spot to rest and even ended up dozing off, though he didn't dream.
His head throbbed; even a nap brought little relief.
Before long, Lingguang finished refining a cauldron of pills, named "Fiend-Cleaving Pellets."
By then Zhu Daniang had arrived, and Tao Ran had rented the vessel. The group briskly left Dong Rui behind and set sail from the harbor into the sea.
Target: westward.
It was a large fishing boat capable of carrying twenty to thirty people. The hold could store fish or sleep passengers, but the fishy stench was overpowering, and none of them cared to go down below.
Tao Ran couldn't sail her alone, so the others had to lend a hand.
The wind and waves on the open sea were rough, leaving even Tao Ran somewhat flustered, but fortunately everyone was quick on the uptake. Under his instruction, they were soon handling the craft in decent order.
On the distant horizon, the faint outline of an island emerged. He Lingchuan pointed toward it. "Head there."
Indeed, the outermost islands of the Yangshan Archipelago actually faced Blade Harbor across the water, not very far away at all.
Steering the oars, Tao Ran said, "Young Master, when I rented the boat earlier, the boatman heard we were going to the Yangshan Archipelago and warned us to stick to the coastline and never venture deep into the islands. He said we'd best reach Heiye Island to rest before dark; otherwise, it would be extremely dangerous."
Those were his exact words. The boatman wasn't worrying about them, but about the chartered boat.
When the fiendish energy erupted, it would overflow onto the sea surface. Among the Yangshan Archipelago, only several outer islands were spared from the fiend energy's influence; Heiye Island was one of them, serving as an overnight resting and restocking post for travelers.
"Boats often run into storms and get swept into the depths of the archipelago. Very few ever make it back out."
He Lingchuan laughed it off. "Don't mind him. Steer straight for Longji Island."
What else had he come here for?
"...Yes." The Young Master truly never took the beaten path.
As for the scenery at sea, He Lingchuan and the others had long grown tired of it during their long sea journey.
The ocean was nothing but water; stared at for too long, it became monotonous.
Yet the islands were lush and green, like pearls studded across the sea. As the boat slowly approached, a kaleidoscope of island scenery came into view: sheer cliffs, white waves lapping sandy shores, trees swaying in the breeze, and various seabirds wheeling overhead—a vibrant display of life.
The scenery here was picturesque; even just as a sightseeing excursion, it would be well worth the trip.
However, the party soon noticed that the deeper they ventured into the archipelago, the fewer birds they saw, and the quieter their surroundings grew.
Even the sea surface ceased to ripple, and the air grew thick with an oppressive stillness.
"Behind the small island we just passed, two boats are concealed," Qiu Hu suddenly said. "They've been trailing us all the way."
There were no merchant vessels in these waters; it could only be pirates who had fixed their sights on them.
With interwoven islands and dense foliage, the area offered natural hideouts where pirates came and went freely.
They might not necessarily strike for plunder, but they wanted to see what He Lingchuan's group was coming in for.
He Lingchuan knew what was happening. "Ignore them. Keep moving forward."
After advancing several hundred more zhang, the silhouette of the mountain range on Longji Island came faintly into view. The two pirate boats behind didn't dare follow any farther, halting in their tracks.
Any farther ahead, the fiend energy was thick. Did these newcomers not know, or were they simply seeking their own deaths?
At any rate, the pirates followed no further and turned back.
He Lingchuan cast a glance backward. Across the vast, empty sea, not a trace of another boat could be seen.
There was only their small craft, sailing alone toward Longji Island.
By this time, a massive swath of dark clouds had drifted across the sky, blotting out every ray of sunlight from the water's surface without letting a single sliver through.
At this point, they were less than two hundred zhang from Longji Island.
Zhu Daniang suddenly said, "Look over there!"
Following the direction of its raised foreleg, everyone looked ahead and saw wisps and tendrils of gray mist drifting forward, spreading outward along the water's surface, about to engulf the boat in moments.
The gray mist seemed draped in a heavy, ominous dread that sent goosebumps prickling up the back of every cultivator aboard.
Their primal instincts screamed a warning:
Danger!
Was this the yin fiend energy? He Lingchuan gave a decisive command: "Take the pills."
Everyone, including Lingguang, fished out a Fiend-Cleaving Pellet and swallowed it down.
Faced with heavenly majesty and earthly fiend energy, it was best to show proper deference.
Dozens of breaths later, the gray mist billowed over, enveloping the entire small boat.
Bereft of sunlight, the temperature on the water plummeted. Everyone felt a piercing chill seep into their bodies, as though they were stepping into a subterranean karst cavern that never saw the light of day.
In just that short span of time, frost actually formed along the ship's gunwales.
Chapter 887