Wang Cang Hai continued, his voice steady:
“Master Lian Ji took me into the monastery’s inner sanctum and led me to the Scripture Repository.
There, he retrieved a copy of the Earth Treasury Sutra written in the Jurchen script.
He pricked my wrist again, using more of my blood to reveal the hidden text.
Then, he summoned a monk who was fluent in Jurchen to transcribe and translate the text for us.
For an entire night, the monk worked tirelessly.
I lost so much blood that I passed out.
And when I woke up—
The monk who had translated the scroll was dead.
He had died vomiting blood, his body completely drained.
Master Lian Ji, meanwhile, sat before me—his eyes red, his temples streaked with white.
Overnight, he seemed to have aged a full decade.
When I asked him what was written in the scroll, he handed me the translated pages and sighed:
‘Child, you have stumbled upon a treasure… but I fear it may be a curse rather than a blessing.’
I took the translated pages and read them.
The few lines I saw contained a secret so earth-shattering that I could hardly comprehend it.
But before I could finish reading, Master Lian Ji suddenly came to his senses, as if waking from a nightmare.
He snatched the pages from my hands and threw them into the fire, burning them to ashes.
Then, he turned to destroy the sheepskin scroll as well.
But I held onto the purple-gold box with all my strength—
And ran.
I ran for dear life, fleeing from the monastery.”
Qilin’s fingers curled tightly.
He pressed on.
“And then? Do you still have the ‘Records of Strange Tales from Dong Xia’?”
Wang Cang Hai shook his head.
“That night, as I ran through the dark, panicked and disoriented, I tripped and slammed into a tree.
I lost consciousness.
By the time I woke up at dawn, the purple-gold box and the sheepskin scroll—
Had vanished.”
Qilin’s stomach sank.
He gritted his teeth and asked:
“Then… what exactly did you manage to read before it was destroyed?”
Before Wang Cang Hai could answer—
A rushing wind roared from behind him.
A massive force surged toward them.
He reacted instinctively, dodging aside.
The four Mi Luo Tu, still bound together, had thrown their combined weight forward—
Hurling themselves at full force toward Qilin and Wang Cang Hai.
The impact carried the weight of ten thousand catties—
If it struck them head-on, it would be lethal.
As Wang Cang Hai dodged aside, the four Mi Luo Tu stone giants crashed directly into Qilin, slamming him with such force that he flew sideways out of the tunnel.
Midair, he spat out blood.
His body was flung into the unknown darkness beyond.
“Qilin!” Wang Cang Hai shouted in alarm.
Without a second’s hesitation, he leaped after him—so fast that he caught up with Qilin even before he finished falling.
Beyond the broken tunnel lay a vast, yawning abyss, shrouded in utter blackness.
The two of them plummeted—one after the other.
Yet even in the pitch-dark, Wang Cang Hai’s hands moved with uncanny precision—
He caught Qilin’s hand.
Tightly.
Just as they were about to be swallowed by the abyss, something long and rope-like suddenly snapped around them, halting their fall.
Wang Cang Hai reached out with his other hand to feel their surroundings—
But the moment he touched it, the tendrils wound around him instead, coiling up his arm and waist.
“Seems like vines,” Wang Cang Hai murmured.
“Nine-Headed Serpent Cypress,” Qilin corrected him, his voice low and weak.
That impact from the Mi Luo Tu must have injured his internal organs.
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