"Wha…" Feng Huiming was now truly caught up in astonishment.

"How is this possible?" he said in disbelief, "Impossible, no way… there’s no way."

"What’s got you so surprised?" Ning Huaishan was originally about to follow Wu Xingxue, but seeing Feng Huiming’s expression, he changed his mind.

He halted in his steps and turned around. Narrowing his eyes to observe Feng Huiming’s expression, he said: "This secret ground of your family’s wouldn’t have any booby traps, would it? Oh wait, no, no, there’ll definitely be traps, or else why would it be called a secret ground. But by the looks of you, I’m thinking…"

Ning Huaishan licked his sharp canines and hooked Feng Huiming’s shoulder with one hand.

At first glance, this position seemed somewhat friendly, but his fingers were crooked and clawlike, extremely close to Feng Huiming’s neck.

Ning Huaishan was nowhere near as threatening as his City Lord, but his fingertips rapidly turned greenish black. Upon seeing them, anyone who knew anything would know this represented a poison technique already refined to fruition.

As long as he wanted, his entire body, even the tips of his hair, could pack extreme toxicity.

"You!" Feng Huiming flipped his hand over to stab him, but ended up glimpsing his dark green fingers, and immediately froze.

Of course, under normal circumstances, Ning Huaishan couldn’t have grabbed someone such as Feng Huiming so easily, but as it happened, the latter’s excessive surprise gave him an opening.

"Eh?" Xing Huaishan was right up next to him, and asked in a rascal manner: "Elder, just confess, why are you so shocked? I just can’t figure it out. I’d just thought that sudden thunderbolt was a prohibition your family had set up to protect the secret ground, but given your expression… doesn’t seem like it."

"If it was really set up by your family, then just one wrong move and it’d be broken by my City Lord—" Ning Huaishan paused. Although he really didn’t like immortals, for the sake of boasting he added, "—and the Tianxiu Immortal, like it was nothing. Anyways, was that thunder some kinda—"

Hooking his arm, Ning Huaishan forced Feng Huiming’s head down: "—touch it and you die thing?! Hm?!"

After asking, he violently exerted force underfoot.

With a crunching sound, the gray stones on the Feng estate ground cracked.

The next moment, restraining Feng Huiming, Ning Huaishan went dozens of meters in one step amidst the continuous crunching sound. In a wink, he’d dragged Feng Huiming alive to the front of the tower.

"City Lord!" Ning Huaishan flung Feng Huiming before Wu Xingxue and Xiao Fuxuan, impishly tattling: "This guy’s harboring murderous plans, and was found out by me!

"Oh," Wu Xingxue answered softly, "No wonder he seemed kind to us."

After all, he was a dignified elder of the Feng Sect. For him to just confess after being interrogated multiple times and then take the initiative to take them to his sect, it would be more strange if he hadn’t set up any little ambushes.

His expression was still quite calm at the moment. From Ning Huaishan’s perspective, that meant that his mood was extremely poor.

Feng Huiming also sensed it. As though somewhat intimidated, he defended himself: "I wasn’t. I just hadn’t expected that you two would be so impatient as to go straight over without me opening the path."

Ning Huaishan sneered, not believing his words.

Feng Huiming had faced a setback amidst his prior shock. After all, a massive thunderbolt recoiling was something he’d simply never seen before, something utterly unheard of. Let alone the secret ground even being able to open its own gate…

After he defended himself, he stared unswervingly at Wu Xingxue and Xiao Fuxuan: "You two… or just you… which immortal from Immortal Capital are you really?"

Of course he already knew Xiao Fuxuan’s name. Reasonably speaking, even if Tianxiu had come here, it wouldn’t have been this extraordinary. In that way, there was only a single unknown, and that was the other personage.

A notion vaguely flashed through his mind, but he didn’t have the time to work it out clearly. He just listened as Wu Xingxue spoke out: "Me? When have I ever said that I’m an immortal?"

Feng Huiming was stunned. That notion that’d vaguely flashed by vanished like smoke, because upon hearing these words, he finally perceived the foul devilish energy flooding steadily off the other’s body.

Thicker than that of any devil he’d ever crossed.

Feng Huiming: "???"

After letting out these words, Wu Xingxue no longer bothered with Feng Huiming.

His gaze fell within the tower’s wide-open gates, and that queasy sense of unease grew more distinct, to the point that he could detect an intermingling of both familiar and strange auras—

There was something exceedingly familiar here, once connected to his very veins. But now, this thing has also become exceedingly strange…

The tower’s gates were black, quite tall and heavy, like two solid chunks of black iron. Within the gates, it was arranged like a normal pagoda, with an offering platform and praying mats for sitting cross-legged in deep contemplation. Candle lamps were suspended on high from its four corners, their flames suffused in a dark red; flickering in the wind, they hazily illuminated the tower’s interior.

Their glow was rather disconcerting; one look was enough to bring about anxiety.

Ning Huaishan pulled a face and tugged at his collar, mumbling: "This shithole’s making me break out in a sweat."

There was a faint fragrance emitted by the candles. It wasn’t unpleasant; in fact, it smelled pretty nice. But taking in a few whiffs would make one woozy.

Xing Huaishan turned his head to fan his nose, feeling a spell of stuffiness.

He kicked Feng Huiming and asked: "What are these lamps?! Smelling ’em is making me sick!"

Feng Huiming tightly pursed his lips without raising his eyes.

Ning Huaishan again spoke: "I’m asking you!"

Feng Huiming then gritted out: "Drugged candles. Won’t do any damage."

This time his thoughts were extremely chaotic.

He’d originally calculated that these three would die in front of the tower, but now that plan had come to naught, and he’d allowed them to effortlessly open the great gates of the tower.

Now that it’d come to this, he couldn’t claim to "know what he was doing"; he’d really led wolves into the fold. And moreover, among these three people, two were devils.

Those guard disciples would certainly comply with the Sect Leader, and before long the Sect Leader would catch up. Feng Huiming simply had not expected that the scene would become so very unsightly, making him look like a traitor to the Feng Sect.

He kept on thinking of methods to dispose of these three.

"Drugged candles? Now what drug did you put in the candles?"

Ning Huaishan kicked him again. Feng Huiming appeared to just swallow his anger and take it: "Of course, there was a reason for them to be drugged."

Letting out a snort, Ning Huaishan grumbled: "You’d best not be playing any tricks."

Letting out a snort, Ning Huaishan grumbled: "You’d best not be playing any tricks." He had a sudden slight regret inside—it would’ve been better if he hadn’t duped Yi Wusheng into leaving. He was an expert in poison, but Yi Wusheng had made his name on medicinal drugs. At a time like this, he’d’ve been more useful; maybe he’d’ve been able to identify the drug by smell.

Unlike him… each time he tried medicine, he looked like he was a little sick in the head.

Ning Huaishan quietly rolled his eyes and resigned himself to sticking his head into the tower. Looking like a moron, he took a few deep breaths, nearly on tiptoe to get close enough to the lamps.

It was the first time Wu Xingxue had seen him like this, simply bewildering.

Before he could inquire, Ning Huaishan pulled back, looked at the green-black color slowly receding from his fingertips, and said: “City Lord, it shouldn’t be poison. It’s not deadly."

From their Zhaoye City people’s perspective, poison would take instantaneous effect, and whatever wasn’t fatal wasn’t considered poison; at most, it was a little trick that manifested a slight disturbance.

Feng Huiming said: "Of course it’s not poison. My humble cultivation sect, what would we be doing poisoning our own lamps? The number of people who know about this secret ground can be counted on one hand, do you think we’d light them to poison ourselves?"

He knew this much rhetoric full well; if he said these lamps were completely harmless, then anyone with the slightest brainpower would know he was lying. But with this straightforward and comprehensive explanation, he evidently had another move up his sleeve.

"Oh, your sect is that stupid? It’s a secret ground, and you’d actually leave the gates wide open without any defense?" said Ning Huaishan petulantly.

Feng Huiming’s complexion appeared rather disheveled. Making a reluctant expression, he waffled a while before saying ambiguously: "It should indeed not be considered poison. At most, these drugged candles will make people who barged in a little drowsy…"

"Only a little drowsy? Doesn’t seem like it," said Wu Xingxue, rubbing his fingers together.

Before, if he’d wanted to make a killing move, all the internal energy in his body would coalesce in his palms; it was nearly a sort of instinct. But now, he’d circulated it twice through, and his internal energy still wouldn’t assemble at his fingers; it was like trying to grasp scattered sand.

Feng Huiming took in the movement of Wu Xingxue’s fingers, then glanced at Xiao Fuxuan.

He understood better than anyone, that apart from making people dizzy, the most significant thing about these lamps was their ability to weaken internal energy. In this state, what of an immortal’s ocean-like might? If he couldn’t assemble it, then what difference was there between him and their mortal realm cultivators?

Sure enough, he saw that the Tianxiu Immortal was also frowning.

Feng Huiming was overjoyed inside: Success!

Even if Tianxiu didn’t say anything, he was also thinking that, subjected to the drugged candles’ influence, he couldn’t assemble his internal energy.

But only having one’s internal energy affected would just make their powers not quite as strong; it wouldn’t be enough to turn the tables in Feng Huiming’s favor right then and there. The other side had three people, while he was only one; the situation against him.

Everyone knew this.

And Feng Huimeng needed everyone to know this.

This way, these three wouldn’t take him for a threat, and would still go inside the tower.

And once they go inside the tower, it’ll be over for them.The most frequent places in this tower’s secret ground that he and the Sect Leader went to were the first and second floors. These two floors used a bit of the divine arbor’s remnant strength, drawing from its cycling between life and death, its half-withering half-flourishing appearance to extrapolate—

The first floor was "flourishing," of blazing yang. Within, ordinary people would face an unbearable dry heat. Drenched with sweat, their hearts would burn incessantly. If they stayed long, their meridians would burst, and if more severe, their entire body would explode to death.

The second floor was "withering," of extreme yin. Bitter cold to the marrow, were an ordinary person to stay inside, all their meridians would abruptly contract and freeze, no longer able to circulate.

It was common for a cultivation sect cultivator’s internal energy circulation to veer off track due to a momentary slip, at which point they’d face qi deviation or the like. Sometimes they would feel extremely cold, sometimes extremely hot. The higher their cultivation base, the more difficult to suppress the veering off track.

At a time like this, these two floors would become exceptionally good places to go into seclusion.

Among the Feng Sect’s successive generations, cultivators requiring the use of these two floors were almost none. Of the previous generation, there was only the Sect Leader, and in this generation, there was only Feng Huiming.

Each time they entered, he’d still have to keep a special spirit protection tablet under his tongue to cut the divine might of these two floors by half, at which point he could just barely withstand it.

For others, even Feng Shulan who was second only to him, entering this place could only result in a miserable death.

Feng Huiming was plotting like this—

These three were having difficulty condensing their internal strength; their brute force was all gone, rendering them no different from mortal cultivators. Even if they were at the level of the Sect Leader, or even a little stronger than the Sect Leader, without spirit protection pills, they would still be dead.

He was thinking as much inside, but what came out of his mouth was: "There’s something odd about the secret ground today—"

It actually, earth-shatteringly, led the way for a foul devil.

"—Since it’s like this, not even I can guarantee what hazards may appear upon entering."

This could pass as a warning.

"If you three still want to go in and look, let’s first take my Feng Sect’s special-made spirit protection pills."

Feng Huiming said all the words he ought to have said, which he personally thought was already an extreme display of benevolence. He pulled three golden pills from a brocade sachet at his waist and stretched his palm out to those three.

Even like this, he knew through and through that these three would absolutely not take them.

If it were him, he wouldn’t have taken them either. After all, who knew what drug someone who mixed his truths up with lies would procure?

Sure enough, he watched as Ning Huaishan took one peep at those golden tablets and said: "I’m not taking it, if I’m screwed over after taking it who’ll I go complain to."

The Tianxiu Immortal also said coldly: "No need."

As for Wu Xingxue…

This devil tossed out an “Enjoy it yourself’ and crossed over the threshold, into the high tower.

Feng Huiming put the spirit protection pills back behind him. Inside his head, he sneered and said: It’s hard to persuade wretched ghouls with kind words, what does it matter whether you’re immortal or devil? Trespassing as you like is unacceptable!

While no one was paying attention, he stuck a spirit protection pill under his tongue and followed Xiao Fuxuan into the tower.

Just to hear a resounding bang—

The black iron gates slammed shut!

The candlelight inside the tower flickered, and the blazing yang force derived from the divine arbor’s relics swiftly began circulating like a deep sea maelstrom.

Despite sucking on the spirit protection pill, Feng Huiming still felt a spell of heart palpitation. His tongue firmly pressed down on that little pill as though grasping a life-saving raft.

Because he knew full well, that without this spirit protection pill, he’d be swept up in the blazing yang force, and would explode to death without any resistance.

Ning Huaishan wiped his temples to say: "It’s getting hotter and hotter, I’m dripping with sweat."

Feng Huiming looked on coolly from behind them, thinking to himself, hot is right, once the sweat comes death isn’t far, as long as I start counting…

One, two, three… When Feng Huiming’s count reached four, it came to a sudden halt.

He heard a strange sound—like the lowing hiss of an invisible tide swapping in from elsewhere.

Upon careful analysis, he snapped his head upward.

That "tide" was coming from none other than, what seemed to be… upstairs?!

The first floor was the blazing yang of the divine arbor’s flourishing aspect, and the second floor was the extreme yin of the divine arbor’s withering aspect. That tide-like sound was the extreme yin divine force having already activated…

How could it be?

We’re clearly still on the first floor! What’s it to do with the second floor???

Feng Huiming was still racking his brains when he heard the second floor’s divine force striking down from above—

Kaboom!

A portion of the tower’s first floor’s ceiling fractured in response, cracking a large hole wide open.

Feng Huiming: "What the…"

This secret ground’s tower had been in the Feng Sects for generations, yet here and now, it had actually blown itself a massive hole???

It was now that he finally began to feel ridiculous.

But it wasn’t over yet…

Because he saw, having once been on the second floor, the extreme yin force wrapped itself in a grayish blue, chill mist, and upon striking down, it collided together with the first floor’s circulating blaze of yang force.

For a split second, they flared into a mountain-high tidal wave, tuning everything over.

Feng Huiming felt as if the spirit protection pill under his tongue cracked open and disintegrated. The sour, bitter taste spread out from the base of his tongue and chilled him to the core.

A flash went across his mind. He felt that his time of death had arrived, and all he could do was ensure these three were buried along with him…

The divine forces grew wild, rushing madly toward Wu Xingxue.

Feng Huiming thought: This will be today’s first victim.

He abruptly took two steps back lest he be splashed full of blood when the other’s body exploded. But, that divine force that had surged like the tide, upon touching that devil, suddenly went calm and thinned down…

Just like a waterfall gushing down from a mountain’s summit and falling into a rocky pool hemmed in by a mountain path, it became a burbling stream.

That torrent—No, that pliant stream of divine might nigh-obediently entered the devil’s bloodstream, and the devil’s veins neither bulged nor ruptured.

In fact, his expressions even improved…

"…"

Feng Huiming could feel his almost a hundred years of cognition shattered into slag—either he’d gone mad, or this tower had gone mad.

When he recovered, he found that his entire body was standing in the corner, gaping dumbstruck.

The devil accepted all the divine force, lowered his head to look at his hands, and then turned his head to say to the Tianxiu Immortal: "And you, were you affected? I felt that a portion seemed to have flowed over to your end through the internal energy.”

Feng Huiming: "???"

He didn’t understand how someone could use their own ability to receive the divine arbor’s remnant power. He understood even less what manner of thing could then draw it into another person’s.

Even if you’re a heaven-sent prodigy that won’t explode—The other person won’t either???

Indeed, the other person did not explode.

Not only did he not explode, that internal energy dispersed by the drugged candles had even seemed to come fucking back!

He watched as the Tianxiu Immortal tried moving his fingers, and that mountain-like overbearing pressure once again slammed down.

The entire tower shook under the impact. Feng Huiming slid further down in silence: "…"

As Feng Huiming was on the verge of insanity, Wu Xingxue turned out to be of quite another mind.

He perceived the divine force in his body with a strange sort of long-lost feeling, as though he’d once given up this piece of himself in some nameless place, and hadn’t the chance to take it back until today. But, there was a certain, "things remain yet people change" element to it.

Although his blood vessels hadn’t ruptured and killed him, the fusion wasn’t particularly agreeable. The divine force equipped him with abundant internal energy, but also chilled him to the extreme.

It was like his initial devil calamity period had been aggravated.

Now, Wu Xingxue’s body manifested a contradictory state—His complexion hadn’t the pallor of before, but his fingers were a blue-tinged

For a moment, he felt like all the bones in his body were steeped in ice water, the extreme cold blunting his five senses so he couldn’t hear clearly and his eyesight dimmed…

In his eyes, all that remained of the lamps in the room were a few pinpricks of light, like distant stars in the frigid night.

Wu Xingxue’s expression hadn’t changed, appearing as stable as a mountain. In Feng Huiming and Ning Huaishan’s view, he was nearly at peak condition.

But he quieted a moment, using his internal energy to say: “Xiao Fuxuan.”

“Hm?” answered the other. Because the sound was in his own body, it became the most apparent sound now before him.

Even though his senses had abruptly declined, he could still sense Xiao Fuxuan’s presence.

Without showing a hint of this decline in his senses, Wu Xingxue said: “Feng Sect said this place is a remnant shadow of the divine arbor. I don’t think a remnant shadow could have this sort of divine force. This place ought to have something else far beyond a shadow, such as…”

He blinked, pondering within the gradually encroaching darkness and silence: “Such as remnants of branches or the like. Can you sense them?”

"I’ll try."

Xiao Fuxuan heard his words, then swept his eyes left and right.

The divine arbor’s power was also partially melded into his own internal energy.

Ordinarily speaking, a strange divine force should have been mutually repulsed, but for some reason, that bit of divine force was entirely compatible with him, almost gently so.

As he cautiously perceived the divine arbor’s aura, he probed the tower. Before long, he knit his brows.

—If there really were fragments of branches hidden somewhere, the divine arbor aura would be densest in that place, far beyond that of other places.

But Xiao Fuxuan couldn’t find that so-called “densest place.” Rather, he sensed that every single nook and cranny was more or less the same.

Xiao Fuxuan contemplated, then lifted his gaze upward.

Past that massive hole that’d opened up, he could see the second floor’s ceiling. There was another, third floor above it.

A third floor…

Xiao Fuxuan thought it over, then raised a hand to sweep his sword aura out.

Golden light pierced through the massive hole—

With another loud boom, the entire tower began to shake again.

Splintered wood beams and fragments tumbled down. Feng Huiming slid down even further.

He looked with a measure of alarm at that floor’s ceiling. With a wet swallow, he exhorted: “You can’t!”

Fingers still lifted, Xiao Fuxuan’s pupils darted briefly at him. Due to his knitted brows, he didn’t appear at all patient.

Feng Huiming promptly added: “You really can’t, the second floor’s ceiling can’t be moved! The third floor can’t be entered!”

This time, the words he said were indeed sincere.

Because subconsciously, he was so scared he couldn’t bother with scheming.

“Why can’t it be entered?” said Xiao Fuxuan.

“You’ll die,” Feng Huiming said, “The third floor and above is forbidden ground.”

The tower’s third floor and above were forbidden ground, a place even he truly didn’t dare tread. It was said that therein lay remnants of the sealed divine arbor.

The closest Feng Huiming had gotten was a time he’d been brought over by the Sect Leader. He’d vaguely heard some very strange voices from above, and was curious for a time. With an additional outbreak of pride, he stealthily went up the stairs.

He remembered standing on the staircase and stretching his arm out to push open the third floor’s door, when he suddenly felt a tickle at his neck.

At first, he thought it was his own hair sweeping over, but subsequently realized that couldn’t be right. That day, for convenience, he’d coiled the ends of his hair up back, so they couldn’t have swept past the back of his neck.

He turned his head to look, and saw that it was indeed a lock of hair… a lock of long hair hanging down from the ceiling.

At the time, Feng Huiming was violently startled, and craned his head to look up.

From the outside, this secret ground’s tower was stacked tier upon tier, no different from a normal pagoda. But the inside was different; the third floor and above were all connected, not separate floors.

When Feng Huiming lifted his head, he just felt that the tower was incredibly tall, the ceiling a pitch-black expanse that inclined along with the tower’s form.

Posture tense, he cautiously snapped a flame in his palm, and raised his hand to illuminate it.

And saw tree branches pale as human bones stretching out from cracks above the high doorway, criss-crossed and gnarled, extending down from the tower’s ceiling.

The branches were like a dense net, and there were countless dead people inside the net.

And that lock of long hair was dangling down from among them…

He gaped in shock for a moment, then felt a chill through his heart!

He lowered his head to look, and discovered that his own insides had been touched at some point. After a moment, that stretch of fabric was punctured and smudged with blood.

Immediately hence, the pale branches stretched out from inside his body like germinating sprouts.

Later on, whenever Feng Huiming remembered that day, he always felt as though he’d died in that tower.

That feeling of his blood suddenly stopping, the full-body chill, he never wanted to experience it again in his life.

The Sect Leader said: That is the price for spying on the divine arbor.

In the end, upon recounting this to Xiao Fuxuan, he saw Tianxiu eyeing him coolly. After a while, he indifferently opened his mouth to say: “Trivial.”

Feng Huiming: "???"

He still wanted to say more, but heard a sound from Tianxiu’s sheath. Hundreds of golden beams of light flooded the tower like the midday sun.

Feng Huiming looked up, his first reaction being: It’s over, the tower’s gonna collapse.

The moment this thought emerged, he could hear words amidst the loud, splintering rupture of wood.

Those words accompanied the internal energy, emanating distinct and clear next to Wu Xingxue’s heart.

“The divine arbor was originally born on the peak of a mountain range, covering over twelve miles in fallen blossoms, though those who saw it were few in number. Because, each glance had its price.

“This so-called price, was but mankind’s unavoidable plight.”

The entire second floor turned to ruins with these words. Not only that, the entire tower swayed on the verge of collapse.

Feng Huiming subconsciously looked toward the third floor he’d never dared peep into, but the place seemed like just a fathomless dark tunnel. Apart from the dust and decay on the wind, it was empty. There was nothing there.

Neither any so-called divine arbor remnants, nor anything else having to do with the divine arbor.

Feng Huiming was taken aback at first, then felt his heart inundated with an absurd feeling.

An empty tower had scared him for a hundred years?

That can’t be right.

If it really was an empty tower, then whence came the divine force of the first two floors?

As this doubt reared its head, he saw Tianxiu scanning across the utter void of the tower. As though suddenly recalling something, his face sank. He then closed his five fingers—

The sword aura that had swept out surged violently. A series of splintering cracks burst out as countless rifts crawled across the columns and beams of the tower.

One by one, those finely crafted wooden beams exploded under the sword aura, and one by one, they collapsed.

It wasn’t until those wooden beams had smashed to the floor that Feng Huiming realized, those wooden beams were half empty, embedded with something inside…

That something was at last exposed under Tianxiu’s powerful might. It was branches, wrapped in white jade essence.

No wonder, when they’d searched before, they could sense the divine arbor’s aura in all directions.

As it turned out, it was concealed within the tower itself.

To be more precise, someone had used the branch fragments to construct this tower.

Those branches wrapped in white jade essence fell to the ground, coated in dust. At that moment, an all-encompassing phantom revealed itself.

It was a nigh-unfathomably massive tree towering into the sky, its canopy like clouds or mist, like a sunset haze piercing through a blue sky. Countless petals floated down from the tree, like a great midwinter snow.

Wu Xingxue stood there beneath that delusory plume, amidst fallen bloom.

At this point, he couldn’t actually see, hear, or sense it clearly. But the moment that phantom image enveloped him, dusty matters of the past flashed through his mind.