Chapter 207
Chapter 207
I quietly pulled Liu Junyan back to our room, leaving the two of them alone.
That Hui Moqiong… he really knew what he was doing.
After all that commotion, it was nearly three in the morning. I was so tired I couldn’t stop yawning.
Liu Junyan lay beside me for a while. Just as I was drifting off, I felt him lean over and press a light kiss to my forehead.
“Things have quieted down outside. You go ahead and sleep. Moqiong and I are going to check the rear courtyard.”
They were going to find the weak point in the Pawnshop’s Seal.
I nodded and let Liu Junyan get to work. I didn’t follow him.
There couldn’t be any major problem with the Pawnshop’s overall Formation. Otherwise, Liu Junyan and the others would have discovered it long ago, and it never could have kept out so many powerful beings.
The buildings throughout the Pawnshop, including the Great Locust Tree in the Front Courtyard, were probably all positioned on Formation nodes. Damage to any one of them could throw the whole thing off.
Liu Junyan had already been planning to renovate the rear courtyard, but we’d been so busy these past few days that the work hadn’t started yet.
Now that this had happened, strengthening the Formation could no longer wait.
Hui Moqiong knew Lu Ban Craftsmanship and understood this sort of thing, so I left them to it.
For some reason, I felt unusually tired today. My body was heavy, and I couldn’t muster an ounce of energy.
Not long after Liu Junyan left, I sank into a deep sleep.
“Ah Li…”
“Ah Li, you came back, didn’t you?”
“I sensed your aura — the aura that belongs to the Cangwu Nether Seal alone. You must have come back, didn’t you?”
“Since you came back, why did you leave? Ah Li, can you really bear to abandon me?”
“…”
His every word was laden with grief, like a mournful plea.
At first, all I could see was darkness.
When my eyes finally adjusted, I dimly made out a figure standing amid endless, windblown yellow sand.
My heart lurched. Had I been dragged back to Yellow Springs Road again?
“Meow…”
Before I could struggle to escape on my own, the Black Cat’s cry cut through the dream. A crushing pressure immediately weighed down on my chest, jolting me awake.
The Black Cat was standing on my chest, kneading me with its front paws while staring intently at me with its dark green eyes.
As soon as it saw that I was awake, it tipped sideways and settled into my arms.
I sat up, turned on the light, and gently stroked the Black Cat.
It truly was remarkably perceptive.
If not for it, I would inevitably have been tormented again.
That man really knew how to seize every opening. The moment I fell asleep without Liu Junyan beside me, he appeared.
It seemed that whenever Liu Junyan wasn’t around, I would have no choice but to sleep with the Black Cat in my arms.
The Black Cat wasn’t used to me fussing over it. Before long, it jumped off the bed and left.
I leaned against the headboard, but I couldn’t fall asleep again.
Thinking back on the dream, the man had said he sensed that I had returned.
Liu Junyan had told me that the Paradise Beyond the World lay right next to Cangwu Mountain. It wasn’t strange that the man had been able to sense my aura.
But what exactly was the Cangwu Nether Seal?
Even the name made it sound extraordinary.
Before Liu Junyan and I decided to enter the Netherworld Realm, we’d made extensive preparations and brought many things with us.
Two items had been especially unusual. One was the jade pendant Hu Yulin had given me, and the other was the Black Lump I’d been awarded on Lunar New Year’s Eve.
That journey into the Netherworld Realm had gone exceptionally smoothly thanks to the powerful protection of Tang Xun’s destined partner.
After we returned, I stuffed everything we’d prepared back into the secret compartment, saving it for next time.
At that thought, I rolled out of bed, opened the secret compartment, and took everything out to inspect each item.
When I picked up the Black Lump, I froze.
Originally, there had been nothing remarkable about it. It had simply looked like a black cube. But at some point, tiny patterns had appeared across its surface.
I moved closer to the light for a careful look, tracing the patterns with my finger. To my surprise, they resembled the roots of some kind of plant, countless fine strands tangled together in a dense, intricate web.
Plant roots…?
For no apparent reason, a dull ache began around my shoulder blade.
It had been a long time since I’d felt this pain — not since I reclaimed Fengwu and resumed my cultivation.
At first, I thought it was because the Black Cat had stepped on my ribs earlier.
But when I pressed my fingers over my two lowest ribs, a fragment of memory I’d all but discarded suddenly came rushing back.
I had once gone to the hospital for a CT scan.
The doctor had told me that the two lowest ribs in my chest were in a bizarre liquefied state.
Yet inside those liquefied ribs, countless fine strands resembling plant roots were intertwined, holding my ribs together.
Yes. That was exactly how the doctor had described it.
Comparing that to the patterns on the Black Lump, I felt as though some crucial piece of information was on the verge of surfacing.
This Black Lump had to be the Cangwu Nether Seal that person had mentioned.
The Underworld Emissary had specifically warned me to bring the Black Lump with me when I entered the Underworld. So this was why.
The Black Lump would react whenever it approached Cangwu Mountain.
It would undergo subtle changes.
I simply didn’t know what those changes meant or what it would eventually become.
I only had a gut feeling that it was extremely important.
I turned it over and examined it again and again, but ultimately couldn’t make out anything else. With no other choice, I returned it to the hidden compartment and concealed it there.
The back courtyard bustled with activity early the next morning.
Hui Moqiong was directing a group of workers as they raced to repair the buildings in the courtyard.
Liu Junyan, however, was gone from the Pawnshop again.
Li Qingying said he’d left first thing that morning without saying where he was going.
He’d mentioned yesterday that he had some personal business to deal with. Could he have gone to Linghai Dragon Palace to see Lord Xiao?
He’d been so busy, and with that little incident last night, I hadn’t even gotten the chance to tell him about the Ice Silkworm or the Black Lump.
The Black Lump was especially important since it was connected to Cangwu Mountain. I needed to talk to Liu Junyan about it as soon as possible.
Uncle Huo arrived at around nine.
He had come once before, on the third day after we’d returned to the Pawnshop, but he’d only checked on Snow Phoenix and left after confirming there was nothing seriously wrong with her.
This time, he once again got straight to business.
To our surprise, Snow Phoenix woke up just as Uncle Huo finished changing her dressing.
Her two tiny eyes darted this way and that as she looked around.
The moment she spotted me, she flapped her wings and tried to fly over.
Unfortunately, one of her wings had been torn too badly for her to get airborne. She still needed time to rest and recover.
I walked over, crouched down, and held out my hand.
Snow Phoenix stepped directly onto my palm on her slender little talons. Opening her beak, she called, “Sister…”
After that one word, however, all that came out were birdlike chirps.
Uncle Huo said, “It’ll take time. The fact that she can speak at all is already remarkable. Once the tear in her wing has healed, she’ll still need to attempt a test flight. You’ll have to put extra care into this, Shopkeeper Xiao Jiu.”
I promised I would and told Uncle Huo not to worry.
After seeing Uncle Huo off, I turned around and found Snow Phoenix perched on the back of the couch, staring at me.
As she watched me, her entire body suddenly began to tremble. Her wings swept forward and clasped together, wrapping around her whole body. The posture gave me the strange impression that she was devoutly worshiping something…