Long Feiye’s group remembered clearly that this cliff was completely sealed off besides the exit tunnel right above.
“After him!” Long Feiye cried. Like everyone else, he didn’t want Bai Yanqing to run away.
Gu Qishao was the first into the cave-in with Gu Beiyue following after him. Long Feiye and Han Yunxi brought up the rear. But they didn’t get far before running into total darkness that robbed them of all direction. It was even impossible to fly back up, as a terrible pressure had suddenly appeared to press them ever downwards.
Just what was below?
Long Feiye protectively held onto Han Yunxi while Gu Qishao wrapped everyone up with his vines to make sure the quartet stayed together. Rather than falling, it felt as if they were being pressed into some array formation, but both Long Feiye and Gu Beiyue recognized this was no such thing. No one could explain where they were descending to. Who knew how Bai Yanqing was doing now?
Was he familiar with this place?
With no threats coming from their surroundings, Han Yunxi relaxed her guard slightly and murmured, “Bai Yanqing shouldn’t have known about this place, or else he’d escape much earlier.”
“Princess, this subordinate was watching him just now and didn’t see him activate any switches. This…might simply be coincidence,” Gu Beiyue hastened to add.
“No matter where this is, it’s still the Poison Sect grounds! Poison lass, you’re a descendant of this place, but you don’t even know your own turf?” Gu Qishao teased.
Before Han Yunxi could retort, she exclaimed in surprise, “Lil Thing…”
“What is it?” Long Feiye was rather tense, assuming the creature could help her break through.
Instead, Han Yunxi explained, “Lil Thing is feeling awful. It’s crying…”
Han Yunxi had sensed Lil Thing before this, but the creature had been very happy. She could even imagine it jumping up and down in Bai Yanqing’s poison storage space. But now she only felt feelings of abject sorrow and misery.
What was wrong with Lil Thing? Even if Bai Yanqing had escaped, Lil Thing wouldn’t be this sad!
“What’s going on with that little toy?” Gu Qishao asked curiously. Yes, in his eyes Lil Thing was so tiny it might as well be a toy.
“That little fellow, could it…have some relation with this place? It recognizes it?” Gu Beiyue asked with concern.
“Possibly,” Han Yunxi agreed.
Perhaps Lil Thing’s emotions had affected her, but Han Yunxi was starting to feel morose as well. She silently hoped that they wouldn’t end up somewhere terrible.
—
Currently, Lil Thing was in tears. It had already changed back to its squirrel form and curled up into a furball, shedding tears in the dark, empty poison storage space. Its sorrow pervaded the entire space, making it seem even small, lonely, and powerless. It had lived for far too long–enough to forget its own history, its own parents, and how it grew up. It’d forgotten how it came into existence and why it was locked up in the Poison Sect’s forbidden grounds.
It had never thought back on these things. It only knew that if it followed Mama Yunxi, it was supposed to protect her for a lifetime. It knew if it liked the gentlemen, it would like him for a lifetime.
But its lifetime always went on forever and ever. If a day came when both Mama Yunxi and the gentleman stopped existing or went away, it would still like them. Even if it lived for ages and forgot everything else, it would still remember them.
But when Bai Yanqing fell into the pit, they came closer and close to that familiar aura. It didn’t even need to try to remember those memories it’d forgotten on purpose.
In its memories, it was still very, very young. Its snow wolf form was only the size of its current squirrel body since it was only a cub. It was a divine beast worshipped by the Blood Wolf Tribe, never dying, never decaying. It lived in the Poison Sect’s mountainous forests and feared nothing.
But one day, a man used a strange power to kill all of the snow wolves. It hid itself in the Skypit to avoid the calamity. It never understood why it liked the Skypit so much, or why it would wait there for its master. As it turned out, the Poison Sect’s Skypit had saved its life! In the fragmented memories, it recalled swords slashing while covered in the blood and the bodies of snow wolves falling left and right until the ground was littered with their corpses. It was scared to death by the sight and didn’t dare to make a peep. Turning tail, it had ran deep into the Skypit to escape.
That slaughter took place a long time ago, long before the Poison Sect even existed!
After the Poison Sect was established, its forbidden grounds covered the entire mountain. The Skypit belonged to the snow wolves and housed a tribe that worshipped them. They called themselves the Snow Wolf Clan and possessed the power to activate the poison storage space. Cultivating with that space would greatly improve their poison skills.
After the snow wolves were all slaughtered, they changed their names to hide in the Poison Sect’s forbidden grounds, rarely showing themselves. They set up the wordless stele in the western woods as a memorial to the snow wolves, then raised an altar to make yearly sacrifices to it.
Thinking back to this, Lil Thing’s tears streamed down as its body trembled. It recalled everything. It was the one who told the Blood Wolf Tribe the secret of the Poison Gu human, then led them to the Skypit to dig out the ten types of poison plants. The Blood Wolf Tribe had eaten those plants before gaining undying bodies of their own. Those plants took 300 years to flower and another 300 years to bear fruit.
The Snow Wolf Clan raised those plans in the glazed walls surrounding the sacrificial altar and Bai Yanqing had used them to cultivate his own undying constitution!
Later on, the Snow Wolf Clan’s numbers dwindled while Medical City took over more of the forbidden grounds. They established the Poison Sect, which laid claim to all of the back mountain. A woman of the Snow Wolf Clan secretly married the leader of the Poison Sect, bringing both sides under one banner. Together, they oversaw the Poison Sect’s forbidden grounds. With the Snow Wolf Clan’s assistance, the Poison Sect began to plant toxic plants in the ground and develop itself.
Lil Thing gradually grew up as well. Since it could directly communicate with the Snow Wolf Clan, it also used their poison storage spaces to cultivate itself. It used to be their god, but eventually turned into the Poison Sect’s poison beast and gained a nasty reputation.
But in the end, all of its owners died of old age. It had seen countless masters leave him, causing it to hide away in pain. Yet after one of these episodes, it returned to see that the Poison Sect had been utterly decimated. The people of Medical City tried all means to capture it, so it simply went back to the Skypit to wait. One day, it was running though the mountains when it spotted two orphans of the Poison Sect. One of them was Bai Yanqing, while the other was unknown.
Still Lil Thing was sure that the mysterious second figure possessed the pure bloodline of the Blood Wolf Tribe. Bai Yanqing was only a descendent of the Poison Sect’s direct, a mix of Blood Wolf and Poison Sect bloodlines.
The Blood Wolf Tribe changed their names to Snow Wolf Clan first, then intermarried with the Poison Sect and became simply “Poison Sect.” The so-called descendants of the Poison Sect were simply mixed-blood heirs from the intermarriage of the Poison Sect and Snow Wolf Clan. That was why they possessed the poison storage space ability. However, the later generations had no idea pure-blooded Snow Wolf Clan members existed! Their poison storage spaces were far superior to that of mere Poison Sect descendants.
Lil Thing detested the mixed-blood Poison Sect descendants!
Back then, it’d rejected Bai Yanqing and picked the Snow Wolf Clan person, but was rejected. It had no choice but to continue its lonely days in the Skypit. Later on, Mama Yunxi and the gentleman showed up.
By now, Lil Thing had recalled its entire history. It slowly raised its head and transformed back to its snow wolf form before howling mournfully. Although it couldn’t see what was going on outside, it smelled that same familiar scent that gave it fear. This tunnel was part of a realm establishd by the Snow Wolf Clan. Both Snow Wolf Clan and Poison Sect direct bloodline descendants could access its door with their blood. It extended to the area below the sacrificial altar where the snow wolves were buried. When the mysterious power slaughtered them all, Lil Thing’s father, mother, and kin were all buried here in a sealed space where they could rest in peace.
Lil Thing had no idea when it forgot this, but it knew the memories had simply been buried. If it had truly forgotten, it wouldn’t remember them now. It was simply because the memories held too much sadness that it’d chosen to hide them away. If Bai Yanqing hadn’t fallen in by accident, it might have never recalled them at all.
Gradually, Lil Thing quieted down. It waited for Bai Yanqing to reach the burial grounds. More than ever, it wanted Mama Yunxi to rescue it. It desperately wanted…to see the place where its kin wee buried. If “home” was a place where there was father, mother, and family, then this would be its final home.
—
Bai Yanqing was the first to land on the ground. As soon as his feet touched the earth, the darkness was replaced by a grassy field and a distant snow mountain. Despite his body full of wounds, his mind was clear. He knew that this had to be some sort of sealed realm or an array formation. It was impossible to see things like the sky underground.
He was rather bewildered by it all. All these years, he had searched through every nook and cranny of the Poison Sect but never knew this place existed. What was it? Simply an illusion, or an array he couldn’t crack? Still there was no time for guesses.
He looked around and saw a patch of forest, then ran to it immediately. Since Long Feiye’s group was guaranteed to chase after him, he had to find someplace to hide. However, Bai Yanqing was soon stunned by the sight inside the woods!
Endless wordless steles stretched out before him, identical to the one at the sacrificial altar. The only difference was that each stele had a pair of fangs hanging from the top.
This was a cemetery!
