So, the Bee Queen, along with Xiang Lanzhi and Xiang Zhen, all withdrew together to hide nearby, taking the immobilised Qin Fujun with them as well.
In front of the memorial archway, only the four of Yu Qing’s group who had originally entered together remained, continuing to bang on the door.
The commotion of the door-knocking could not be heard at all from the outside world, or rather, by the Spirit Valley guards stationed outside.
At the bottom of the abyss, the face of the Vine Demoness emerged once more from the chopped-up, root-only remains of the tree trunk, swelling and bubbling forth. She sensed the fluctuations of plant and wood essence in the air above.
She knew what caused those fluctuations, knowing that someone was knocking on the door inside the Immortal Residence.
Was it that young scholar knocking? She suspected it was.
No one had knocked for nearly two days before this, so logically, once the others realised the great door could not be forced open, they should have stopped wasting their effort. This sudden resumption of knocking after two days of silence made her feel it was very likely that young scholar.
This judgement contained both her rationality and her wishful thinking. She longed for Yu Qing to emerge, yearning for him to bring out the Earth Origin Immortal Dew that haunted her dreams.
This greed caused two new branches to sprout from her bare wooden stump, growing strong like a pair of arms, reaching upward to embrace the misty sky. But after extending for a short distance, they stopped, slowly retracting back.
Rationality and fear suddenly overcame her greed once more. Two or three days had already passed, and with so many experts having entered, could that young scholar still be safe and sound?
Additionally worried that people from Kunling Mountain might be watching from the cliff above, her extended arms slowly withdrew, and even the human face that had emerged smoothed back over, returning to the appearance of a bare tree trunk.
Nan Zhu had been knocking on the door beneath the jade memorial archway for a long time, yet the great door remained completely unresponsive.
Those watching secretly, such as Xiang Lanzhi and his group, naturally harboured all sorts of suspicions.
The three of Yan Yao, also hiding in secret, were equally puzzled.
After knocking for so long with no sign of the door opening, let alone them, even Yu Qing and his companions were starting to lose confidence. But they could not easily give up. Xiang Lanzhi was watching them, and the condition for sparing them was precisely that they open the exit gate.
If the door could not be opened, would they not face punishment?
Because of this, there were some things Mu Aotie felt he had to say. After repeatedly observing their surroundings, he used the clamour of the door-knocking as cover and whispered to Yu Qing, “While putting out the fire, that fellow Old Seven took the opportunity to pick the gourd from the tree.”
“Hm?” Yu Qing was taken aback. He slowly turned his head to look at Nan Zhu, then waved to Baili Xin, signalling her. “Switch, you go knock for a bit.”
Baili Xin immediately went over to swap places. Nan Zhu, being quite considerate of the fairer sex, quickly insisted he was not tired.
Yu Qing could not stand it and went over directly, grabbing Nan Zhu and dragging him aside, sending Baili Xin to take over the knocking.
Pulling Nan Zhu to one side, Yu Qing asked in a low voice, “You picked that gourd?”
Nan Zhu whispered, “Isn’t this one of the reasons we came in here in the first place? If we don’t hand over the gourd, I doubt they’ll easily return my gold ingot either.”
Yu Qing bared his teeth. “Return it my foot! Things have already escalated to this point, what is there to return? That Vine Demoness is more than likely up to something. There’s a very good chance she’s deceived us. Besides, whether there’s a problem or not, once we get out, we’ll have to find a way to do away with her. If we let her confront us, word will spread that we’ve been finding Immortal Residences one after another, and that would be a huge disaster. By then, even if we say we don’t know the locations of the other Immortal Residences, nobody will believe us. You’ve tasted the flavour of harsh interrogation before.”
Nan Zhu said, “Don’t lose your temper. She deceived us, so we just don’t give her the gourd, and that’s that. Old Fifteen, think about it. Something she’s been longing over for so many years out there must be a treasure. If we didn’t take it, wouldn’t we be wasting heaven’s kind intention?”
“Kind intention my arse,” Yu Qing cursed. Then he lowered his voice again, looking exasperated, and asked, “Did you also steal something from her person?”
Nan Zhu immediately looked at Mu Aotie and instantly guessed that Mu Aotie had reported him.
Mu Aotie’s expression was fearless.
“You can’t really call it stealing, I just helped myself along the way,” Nan Zhu muttered. He raised his sleeve, squeezed whatever was inside, and gestured to Yu Qing. “It’s not convenient to show it here. Once we’re out, we’ll examine it carefully. Anything carried on one’s person is bound to be no ordinary item.”
Yu Qing’s white teeth gritted so hard they ached. He realised this fellow was bolder than anyone whenever there was something to be greedy about. Was this still the timid fat man who had been so frightened by the authorities that he hid back in the mountain? He almost wanted to pounce over and give him a beating, and through gritted teeth he said, “Nan the Fatty, are you out of your mind? We haven’t even gotten out yet, our lives are still in their hands, and you dare to take their things? The moment they realise something is missing, they’ll immediately guess we took it. Are you trying to get us all killed?”
This was precisely why Mu Aotie was worried, so he had to give Yu Qing a heads-up, fearing that if something went wrong, they would be caught completely off guard.
Nan Zhu reached out and patted his belly, signalling for Yu Qing to calm down. “Old Fifteen, look at you, it’s not that serious. I personally administered the Heart-Melting Pollen, and I made sure it was thorough. Without that assurance, how would I dare to act? Right now they can’t jump around too much on our hands. Even if they notice, there’s nothing they can do to us. I don’t believe Xiang Lanzhi would help them out with this.”
Yu Qing laughed out of anger. “And what if we can’t get out? There are still two capable subordinates hiding out there. Can this pollen threaten them for a lifetime? Sooner or later, the place where the Heart-Melting Pollen grows will be destroyed by them.”
“I still kept a bit of pollen as backup here.” Nan Zhu touched the position of his belt, adopting the tone of a senior elder, speaking earnestly. “I didn’t plan to threaten them for a lifetime either. Didn’t we leave a backup plan with Old Second Gao? If the items can’t be brought out, I wouldn’t have taken them. Relax, it will be fine.”
Yu Qing stared blankly, momentarily rendered speechless, and in the end could only grit his teeth and say, “The next time you do things like this, you’d better give us a heads-up in advance.”
Nan Zhu pursed his lips slightly, thinking to himself that if it was discussed in advance, it would become a collective decision, and then whose would these items be?
Somewhat displeased, he countered, “Or how about this, I’ll take all the things back right now and return them to them?”
“You…” Yu Qing pointed at his nose, and after a long while, he finally ground out through his teeth, “These items had better not be important, had better not provoke them, and had better not cause any unnecessary complications.”
“Nothing will happen, and if something does happen, I’ll bear it alone,” Nan Zhu said very straightforwardly, patting his chest. He did not want to belabour the point any further, turned around and ran off, worried that Baili Xin might be getting tired, and went over to fawn over her and actively take over again.
Mu Aotie tugged at Yu Qing’s sleeve again, signalling for Yu Qing to walk a bit further away with him. Only then did he purse his lips toward Baili Xin’s direction and ask, “When do we strike?”
Before entering, they had already agreed that once they got here, they would not let Baili Xin leave alive.
The anger in Yu Qing’s heart just now instantly vanished without a trace. He fell silent. The events of last night surfaced in his mind again. After a long while, he sighed and said, “Throughout this journey, she has done her best to help us out. Let it go. If we really kill her, it truly won’t be easy to explain to Old Seven.”
Mu Aotie immediately looked stunned, wondering what on earth was going on. That was not what had been agreed before entering. He had no choice but to advise, “This woman approaching us is definitely not that simple. Keeping her around might become a future calamity. If you’re worried about Old Seven, then let me be the one to bear the blame.”
Yu Qing scratched his cheek. “Forget it, let me observe a bit more before deciding.”
Mu Aotie felt this junior brother was someone who could make up his own mind, so since he said so, he silently nodded.
Just then, a barely noticeable shadow flashed through the air, clearly swerving to avoid Mu Aotie, and landed on Yu Qing’s shoulder.
The newcomer was none other than Big Head.
“Oh?” Both senior and junior brothers were quite surprised.
Yu Qing was especially delighted. He could not help but reach out and grab it in his hand, exclaiming repeatedly, “Big Head, where did you go off to, wandering around for so long before coming back?”
It had been missing for so long that he had already prepared himself for losing Big Head. He had not expected to see it again here, and he felt doubly overjoyed.
He estimated that Big Head had been unable to find them anywhere and had come to the exit to look around, which was how they happened to meet.
Big Head twisted its neck toward Yu Qing, then swiftly turned around and spat a few sparks toward Mu Aotie.
Yu Qing was taken aback, not knowing what it meant. This should have been Big Head’s way of expressing dissatisfaction, but why was it dissatisfied with Old Nine?
Mu Aotie remained as calm as a light breeze and drifting clouds. He slowly raised his hand and brushed off the sparks, flicking away the small burn holes they had made on his clothes. With a blank expression and too lazy to argue, he slowly turned around and walked away, heading over to Nan Zhu’s side to confer and mutter with him.
Yu Qing immediately noticed that the reactions of those two were somewhat furtive, especially Nan Zhu’s behaviour. Knowing Big Head was back, he actually managed to restrain himself from coming over to look. Under normal circumstances, he would have come over to chatter nonsense for a while. Yu Qing vaguely felt that those two fellows might be hiding something from him.
But since he had no idea what it was, he could only speculate in secret.
About one shichen later, it was Mu Aotie’s turn to take over knocking on the door. Nan Zhu finally could not hold back and ran over to nag Yu Qing. “Old Fifteen, how much longer do we have to keep knocking? This method probably won’t work. I’m afraid we’ll have to rely on Old Second Gao’s hope after all. Wasting our energy is pointless, let’s take a rest.”
Yu Qing’s face was dark. “Sooner or later they’ll realise things are missing from their person. It’s best if we leave before they notice. Keep knocking. Don’t stop until daybreak.”
Hearing this, Nan Zhu became somewhat embarrassed. He said “fair enough” twice in a row and quickly hurried over to Baili Xin’s side, not daring to complain about hardship or tiredness any more.
Yu Qing’s gaze shifted from this senior brother back to the great door being struck. He believed that as long as the Vine Demoness outside was still there, if they kept striking continuously like this, the Vine Demoness would surely understand.
His judgement was correct. After the time reached the latter half of the night, the face of the Vine Demoness emerged once more from the wooden stump at the bottom of the abyss, which resembled a great tree trunk. She looked up at the sky above, filled with shock and uncertainty.
She could sense that the great door of that Immortal Residence in the void was being knocked upon non-stop. A normal person would not keep knocking incessantly if they could not open it. Therefore, she strongly sensed who the person knocking was, with a certainty of nine out of ten.
This made her heart extremely anxious. Had those fellows already obtained the Earth Origin Immortal Dew?
Such thoughts had already surged through her mind countless times.
In the end, desire proved too hard to suppress, and she found a reason to persuade herself.
So what if the disciples of Kunling Mountain on the canyon saw her rise up? When she had risen up before, had she not been discovered? It would be nothing more than the same as before.
Moreover, she could first check the situation. If things inside the Immortal Residence were not right, she could simply choose not to open the great door.
With this reasoning in mind, she no longer hesitated. Two vine branches rapidly grew from the wood and strengthened, like arms embracing the sky above. They intertwined together within the mist, rising once more in the form of a vine dragon, and with a whoosh, burst through the fog of the abyss.
Under the bright, clear moon, her vigorous form was clearly visible.
Lu Youming, who had been keeping watch nearby, suddenly turned his head. The Kunling Mountain disciple who had been sitting cross-legged in meditation nearby also stood up and pointed over.
Lu Youming was filled with mixed surprise and delight. He raised his head to watch the vine dragon ascending into the sky and said in a deep voice, “Go quickly and send a secret report to the Sect Master!”
“Yes.” That disciple swiftly flashed away.
The unfurling vine dragon reached its position. Where its tentacles pointed, an illusion of a jade memorial archway appeared in the void.
Behind the jade memorial archway were four people. Baili Xin was currently in the midst of continuously striking the empty air. Seeing only these four inside, the vine dragon’s tentacles immediately reached toward the illusory scene, and ripples of void waves instantly appeared in the empty air.
Baili Xin, knocking behind the archway, also sensed the anomaly and swiftly stepped back. Yu Qing and the others naturally noticed as well, seeing the circular ripples spreading out in rings across the mirror-like void.
Xiang Lanzhi and the others in hiding watched with wide eyes.
The lurking Yan Yao and the others also widened their eyes in shock.
Yu Qing suddenly flashed urgently behind Mu Aotie and whispered a few words into his ear from behind.
Mu Aotie silently nodded to indicate he understood.
Suddenly, a hole expanded from the centre of the rippling inside the great door. The centre of the hole spread outward like waves, revealing the night sky of the outside world.
After breaking the illusion, the vine tentacles extended rapidly, resting on the steps beneath the jade memorial archway. The tips of the branches swiftly twisted and concentrated, forming the shape of a standing figure. Yu Qing flashed over and landed there.
The silhouette of Ferrywoman formed from the intertwining branches immediately reached out her hand, her tone urgent. “Where are the items? The items I want, give them to me quickly!”
Although she held Yu Qing and the others’ secret and was not afraid they would refuse to hand them over, she still could not wait to get them in the first instant. There was no way around it. They were simply too important to her. The moment she got hold of them, this world would be hers, and no one could bind her again.
Yu Qing tilted his head to signal. “Old Nine, give them to her.”
Having said that, he passed by Mu Aotie, brushing shoulders with him, and jumped down from the steps.
The Ferrywoman immediately looked at Mu Aotie, and her hand extended toward him as well, showing just how desperate she was.
The flashing figure of Mu Aotie reached into his sleeve as if to retrieve something.
But Yu Qing, who had just jumped down the steps, had already drawn his sword in mid-air. A flash of cold light cut through the air. With both hands gripping the sword, he swung with a slash, severing the vine bridge directly.