The space at the bottom of the staircase was far bigger than Ye Zichen imagined. After Qing Lan and Cang Xiong appeared, he and Gu Luolin had rushed right, the direction Qing Lan told them to go in. So far, they’d seen nothing but towering stone pillar after stone pillar.
As for the path Qing Lan told them to keep an eye out for, never mind a hall or tunnel, they hadn’t even seen a fork in the road.
But Ye Zichen trusted what Qing Lan had told him. If Cang Xiong had told him there was a tunnel on the right, Ye Zichen might have suspected him after running for so long without seeing any sign of it. He would have thought Cang Xiong was toying with him.
But Qing Lan was the steadiest of the three yao emperors of the pagoda, and he was the one Ye Zichen had the best impression of.
Since Qing Lan told him his fortune was waiting for him to the right, he proceeded with assurance.
“Is it really okay for us to run like this? It seems the fighting is intense over there,” said Gu Luolin, taking quick steps to keep up with Ye Zichen. Her eyes flashed with concern.
When he craned her neck and listened, even though they were quite a distance from the stairway now, they could still hear blasts and impacts emanating from afar.
It was obvious that Cang Xiong and Qing Lan were already fighting the Thousand-Faced Yao Monarch, and furthermore, that the battle was vicious.
It seemed Gu Luolin was the dutiful sort, but then, there was absolutely no need to worry about Cang Xiong and Qing Lan.
Remember, when Ye Zichen first entered the fourth layer, they told him…
Even against a transcendent, they could save his life.
It was true: the Thousand-Faced Yao Monarch was a force to be reckoned with. But against Qing Lan and Cang Xiong, he couldn’t stir up any waves at all.
“Don’t worry about them. Never mind that there are two of them; even one-on-one, they’re more than the yao monarch can handle,” said Ye Zichen with a laugh. His divine sense was continuously surveying their surroundings.
Outside, he was worried others would discover him if he used his divine sense, but in here, there was no need to worry about that. If you wanted to enter, you needed to activate the power of all five elements within the blank scroll; there was no other way to open the secret passage.
Ye Zichen dared not guarantee that of all those in the mausoleum, only he cultivated the Grand Dao of the Five Elements. After all, at the imperial level, any further breakthroughs were incredibly difficult. It was entirely possible that, after getting stuck, some experts might try their luck at a different path and dabble in the five elements.
But there was a difference between dabbling and specializaition. Even if other experts had gleaned enlightenment into the five elements, there was no way they’d researched it as extensively as Ye Zichen.
Furthermore, Ye Zichen had done a little this and that to the scroll. Unless someone was more proficient in the five elements than him, there was no way they could break through. This was preparation to ensure that nothing went wrong after he entered the tunnel.
As for the yao monarch who’d accompanied them in, he’d have a hard enough time just staying alive. There was no way he could catch up to Ye Zichen now.
“That’s true.” Gu Luolin recalled the punch Cang Xiong swung when he first appeared, then nodded, as if it were obvious. Even her father, Gu Xuande, would struggle to match Cang Xiong’s explosive destructive power, but to her dad, the Thousand-Faced Monarch was nothing but an ant. That implied the monarch couldn’t outdo Cang Xiong either. Thinking about it, he was rather pitiful; he was a glorious yao monarch, an expert of his generation, and he’d prepared so thoroughly, but now, he was essentially doomed.
“Hey, didn’t you say that the yao monarch wasn’t a match for either of them? That middle-aged man just stood there the whole time. Is he really that strong?” Gu Luolin suddenly tilted her head and asked.
“He….” Ye Zichen hesitated, then nodded forcefully.
Just how powerful an expert was Qing Lan? Ye Zichen didn’t actually know; he hadn’t spent much time in the pagoda’s fourth layer, and he’d interacted with Cang Xiong the most. Ye Zichen had watched Cang Xiong unleash his power a few times, but he still had no objective handle on his true strength.
If he had to describe Cang Xiong’s cultivation boundary, he could only say one thing….
Profound and inscrutable!
No wonder Qing Lan said that Cang Xiong could protect Ye Zichen even against a transcendent, albeit only once. The power Ye Zichen had seen Cang Xiong unleash was fiercer than anyone else Ye Zichen had seen.
But even more shockingly, he used nothing but pure, unadulterated, raw power.
He didn’t call upon any dao, he didn’t form any connection with heaven or earth. It was just a pure display of explosive physical power.
When he thought about Qing Lan….
Ye Zichen had never seen Qing Lan in action, but when he considered how respectful Cang Xiong and that wantonly arrogant firebird were to him, it seemed obvious that Qing Lan’s cultivation was above theirs.
At their level, conduct alone wasn’t enough to convince them. The only thing that could really influence them was cultivation!
To tell the truth, Ye Zichen dared not think too deply about it. Cang Xiong was already so strong, so just how powerful was Qing Lan?
“He seems to know the yao monarch,” said Gu Luolin.
“He does, and their relationship isn’t simple, either.” Ye Zichen didn’t hide it. He told Gu Luolin a simplified version of their story. He’d heard all of this while facing Yuchi Kong and Huangfu Youming, because he’d gone into the pagoda and mentioned the yao monarch in passing. Qing Lan had told him about their past.
“That yao monarch really is no good. He actually swallowed up his benefactor, just to increase his own cultivation?” Gu Luolin’s eyes flashed with disdain. Ye Zichen couldn’t help but nod his agreement.
After confirming their direction, Ye Zichen kept on forging ahead.
His conversation with Gu Luolin was nothing but a little interlude, something to liven up their monotonous journey.
Ye Zichen was still focused on his hunt for good fortune when Gu Luolin asked, “What is that man called?”
This time, Ye Zichen came to a stop. He took a good hard look at Gu Luolin’s face, making her rather uncomfortable.
“What are you doing?” Gu Luolin pouted her lips.
“It seems you’re quite interested in him?” She’d seemed curious about Qing Lan ever since he first appeared. Even when they left, her gaze had lingered on Qing Lan. Ye Zichen had noticed, but he’d chosen not to bring it up.
The way she’d asked about him earlier seemed like normal curiousity, but now, she was asking about his name in particular. This seemed a little strange.
“Why do you care? I just want to know, so just tell me, okay?” Gu Luolin scrunched up her nose and snorted.
Ye Zichen didn’t want to linger on this topic any longer, so he said, “Qing Lan!”
As soon as he spoke, Gu Luolin’s eyes widened. Her eyes had been big to begin with, but now they were perfectly round. Her little mouth opened a little, and despite herself, she glanced back at where they’d come from.
“Why are you so surprised?”
“I’m not?” Gu Luolin turned away and tried to cover it up, but her control over her emotions was rather poor.
She thought that, if she turned away, Ye Zichen wouldn’t be able to see through her. But although she didn’t know it, her entire body, from her features to her limbs, all revealed her deep shock.
Ye Zichen wasn’t the type to pry. If Gu Luolin didn’t want ot tell him, he wouldn’t push her. Besides, the path Qing Lan told them to take was more important right now.
“How much further?” In the blink of an eye, an hour passed. Gu Luolin had never walked so far in her life; it seemed they’d traversed half the planet by now. Her feet were even starting to blister.
Her head drooped listlessly as she tagged after Ye Zichen. He, meanwhile, was still cuatiously surveying their surroundings.
“We didn’t go the wrong way, did we?” pouted Gu Luolin.
“No way. The concentration of elemental essences is increasing; we’re definitely headed in the right direction,” said Ye Zichen, his eyes flashing with certainty.
The further they went to the right, the livilier the five elements within Ye Zichen became. His pores were all open and greedily sucking in elemental power.
Qing Lan was right; the fortune Ye Zichen was after was in here.
But Qing Lan’s accurate instructions gave Ye Zichen quite a shock; they’d had to travel a full two hours to get this far, yet Qing Lan had sensed this place the moment he left the Yao-Sealing Pagoda.
He really was terrifying.
“How much longer do we have to go? I can’t move anymore!” Gu Luolin scrunched up her brows and sat on the ground, then crossed her arms. “I won’t go any further! I won’t! We’re surrounded by elemental essences; one look and I can tell this was prepared for you. There’s nothing in this for me! Why should I follow you around like an idiot? If you want to keep going, go by yourself! I don’t want to go any further! I want to rest here!”
She sat on the ground and through a fit, but Ye Zichen actually understood this reaction.
She’d been pampered from a young age, and at her cultivation, she’d long since learned how to fly. It was even possible that her feet had never touched the ground before; walking this far really was hard on her.
But Ye Zichen couldn’t just leave her here; this place was simply too huge.
If they split up, finding her would be like searching for a needle in the ocean. Ye Zichen didn’t want anything to happen to the girl, so he had to keep her at his side at all times.
Besides, if he really did leave her behind, when her parents came looking…
“You can’t say that!” Ye Zichen squatted beside her and said comfortingly, “Although you don’t cultivate the Grand Dao of the Five Elements, you do cultivate wind, don’t you? Wind is one of the five elements! Don’t tell me this place won’t help you at all?”
“I’ve already condensed the dao heart! More elemental essence won’t help in the slightest,” she pouted.
“It’s true that this place is full of the dao of the five elements, but that doesn’t mean all the fortune contained here is related to the elements. We’ve already come this far; it’s possible we’re almost there. There’s no rule saying who can and can’t inherit the fortune. It’s possible it might choose you! If you become a transcendent, when you go back, not even your mom and dad will be a match for you! When that happens, you’ll have really become a grown-up; you won’t be a kid in their eyes anymore.”
Inexplicably, Gu Luolin blinked.
The first part of Ye Zichen’s attempt to persuade her didn’t draw her interest at all. Transcendence? She had no great desire for that. No, what interested her was the second part…
Becoming a real grown-up!
She’d longed for that for as long as she could remember!
“Fine, I’ll just grit my teeth and bare it. I’ll accompany you a while longer.” Gu Luolin clapped her hands and got back to her feet. She looked around at the elementally-charged, seemingly endless space. “But how much longer do we have to go?”
“Not far…” Ye Zichen squinted and laughed. “Unless my senses deceive me, we’re almost there!”
