Chapter 56
The light was completely blocked by the heavy coffin lid. It was pitch black, and only each other’s breath and heartbeat were the most distinct presences in this small space.
There was a wisp of the unique incense smell of a Daoist temple or a Buddhist temple in the stone coffin, mixed with the faint, cool scent of plum blossoms from Mo Jiangxue’s body. Xie Qingzheng twitched her nose and smelled it clearly.
Her back was pressed against the cold stone coffin, and her front was pressed tightly against Mo Jiangxue’s body.
Their breaths intertwined, as if with a hint of moisture. An indescribable ripple was stirred in her heart.
She could feel the other’s warm breath lingering by her ear. The warmth of the other’s body came through the thin clothes, not as cold as usual, but warm and soft, a stark contrast to the hard, cold stone coffin behind her.
One cold, one hot, a world of ice and fire.
Her heart pounded like a drum, and her body also grew hotter and hotter. She thought, Master must be able to feel it too.
But she dared not think about what her master was feeling.
Mo Jiangxue carefully felt around in the stone coffin. There were no words or arrays on the inner walls of the coffin. She put her long qin and veiled hat into her storage pouch to make a little more space for them.
Xie Qingzheng tried to keep her hands proper to avoid any unnecessary contact.
But in this small coffin, even the slightest movement was infinitely magnified. Every breath, every heartbeat, and even the slight rustle of their clothes were exceptionally clear.
Xie Qingzheng suddenly felt extremely thirsty, but she didn’t really want to drink water. Her back was soaked with sweat. At this moment, she really wished she could also turn into some object and hide in the brocade pouch in her master’s bosom, which would be better than now, being in such an awkward and uncomfortable situation.
It was always like this. Whether in reality or in a dream, as long as they were a little closer, her body would react before her mind.
When she was still rational, she would always think that she would be content just to watch her master from afar and accompany her.
But once their physical distance shortened, the out-of-control rhythm of her heartbeat and the heat of her body would always crush her rationality. She would start to want more, to want to destroy this peace, to want to destroy this relationship, to want to close the distance between them, to want to knead the other into her own body, to become one with her.
She had betrayed her master and her ancestors, disregarding human ethics. She was ashamed of herself for having these blasphemous thoughts.
She raised her hand to cover her face, trying to erase those presumptuous thoughts from her mind.
“Move a little.” In the darkness, she suddenly heard her master’s voice transmission.
There was so little space. How was she supposed to move?
As she was thinking, her master suddenly wrapped an arm around her waist and, with a slight force, her body became light, and she was instantly moved on top of her master.
Now they didn’t have to be squeezed together on their sides… but her whole body was pressing down on her master. Her head was almost buried in her master’s chest, and all sorts of strange thoughts popped into her head. How could her master’s body be so soft? Would she be crushing her?
What time was it to be thinking about these things…
Xie Qingzheng frowned slightly and propped herself up a little.
She didn’t dare to look at the person under her. She reached out and helped to feel around on the coffin wall to see if there was anything unusual.
The rustling sound from outside the Nuwa temple was also exceptionally clear. A few light thuds, thuds, thuds, like paper being slapped on the wall one after another, made one’s hair stand on end.
Mortal temples enshrined gods. Even an abandoned temple with no incense and no believers, ordinary evil spirits would not dare to approach. Therefore, when Xuanmen people camped out, they mostly liked to find some temples.
A place without evil spirits was the “cleanest” place for Xuanmen cultivators.
Xie Qingzheng secretly prayed in her heart: Goddess Nuwa, at this moment, I am your most loyal believer. Please don’t let those paper figures in…
She was also a little curious. Nuwa was the goddess of creation. She had heard that most of the people in the Miao region believed in Nuwa. Why would this temple be abandoned? And it was very strange that there were three circles of high walls around the temple, and a stone coffin in the main hall.
The walls were more than two zhang high. Ordinary common people could not get in at all.
Why not let ordinary common people worship? Could there be something strange in the temple?
Suddenly, another sharp whistle came from outside the temple.
Xie Qingzheng held her breath and thought to herself: That person has appeared again.
The sound of the paper figures slapping the wall suddenly disappeared. It was quiet outside the temple. Xie Qingzheng wanted to release her spiritual sense to probe, but she was afraid that that person would discover that they were hiding in the temple.
Just then, Mo Jiangxue transmitted her voice, “There is indeed a mechanism.”
Xie Qingzheng didn’t know which mechanism Mo Jiangxue had moved, but she saw the bottom of the coffin suddenly flip over, revealing a passage. The two of them fell down at the same time.
The strong feeling of falling forced her to subconsciously wrap her arms around Mo Jiangxue’s waist. When her hands touched that soft and slender waist, her heart trembled, and she suddenly realized and quickly withdrew her hands.
She didn’t know how deep this passage was. She circulated the spiritual energy in her body to avoid being smashed into a pulp.
After falling for a long time, when her feet landed on solid ground, it was still pitch black.
She released her spiritual sense to probe. The passage was empty, with no one in it.
Except for the two of them.
Although a cultivator’s senses were clear and night vision was not a big deal, she still habitually lit an ever-bright talisman.
A too-dark environment would always remind her of the feeling of being blind.
The passage was winding and twisting, up and down, and could only accommodate two people side by side. The floor and the walls on both sides were the same gray-white stone bricks as the three circles of walls outside.
The people who had built the walls and the people who had built this passage seemed to be the same.
Xie Qingzheng held the ever-bright talisman and asked Mo Jiangxue beside her, “Master, how did you know there was a mechanism in the stone coffin?”
Mo Jiangxue said coolly, “I was just trying my luck, guessing.”
Xie Qingzheng: “Alright… good luck.”
Mo Jiangxue added, “It wasn’t a complete guess.” She asked Xie Qingzheng, “What are the three evils of Xiangxi?”
Xie Qingzheng had done her homework and answered without thinking, “Corpse-herding, Gu art, and the fallen flower cave maiden.”
Corpse-herding meant that the deceased would have their fallen leaves return to their roots. Gu art had both poisonous gu that could harm people and herbal gu that could save people. This time, when they went to the Immortal Cult, they wanted to see if there was a gu method to suppress the poison.
As for the fallen flower cave maiden…
“Falling into a cave” had two names in the Miao language. One was “zhua ding pa lue,” which meant to sink from a flat ground. The other was “liao gun ba,” which meant to have one’s soul fall into a cave.
The fallen flower cave maiden referred to a legend that when a woman passed by a cave, she disturbed the cave god, who took her soul. The woman would then become dazed, mad, and talk to herself.
Her anxious family would find that cave, set up an altar to offer incense and burn paper, and beg the cave god to release their daughter.
If the woman got better, the family would think it was the cave god’s grace. If the woman remained mad until she died, the parents would also go to the side of the cave, make a paper figure, and write the woman’s birth date on it, to show that they had married their daughter to the cave god and to ask for the cave god’s protection.
Xie Qingzheng said, “Will there be a cave god in this cave? Even if there is a cave god, the one who can take souls and absorb spirits is also an evil god. They built the Nuwa statue on top of this cave. I wonder if it was to suppress that evil god?”
With that, she warily placed her hand on the sword at her waist.
Mo Jiangxue said nothing.
The passage gradually went up. She didn’t know how much further they had to go. Xie Qingzheng passed the incantation for the Myriad Manifestations Steps to Mo Jiangxue.
Mo Jiangxue learned it in one go.
Xie Qingzheng was slightly taken aback. She had originally thought that it was already very good for her to learn things in two or three tries. She had not expected her master to be a true genius.
She was about to say a few words of praise when, for some reason, she suddenly thought of a hexagram book she had read in her leisure time. One of the hexagrams was “too clever, easy to die young.”
She shook her head and pushed aside this inauspicious hexagram. What a strange thought.
The two of them both used the Myriad Manifestations Steps and walked in the passage for a long time.
Mo Jiangxue suddenly stopped and stood in front of a stone brick, staring at it.
Xie Qingzheng prepared to draw her sword and asked in a low voice, “What? Is there really an evil god?”
Mo Jiangxue shook her head. “There is the breath of a living person.”
Xie Qingzheng: “Where?”
Mo Jiangxue: “In the wall.”
She reached out and lightly slapped it. The stone brick cracked, and she took off a stone brick. Xie Qingzheng saw that it was hollow inside.
She quickly followed suit and took off the stone bricks one by one. In the hollow wall, a few familiar faces gradually appeared.
It was A-Yan and the group of rogue cultivators from the day.
Xie Qingzheng heard their faint breathing. It seemed they were all still alive.
After dragging them out of the wall one by one, Xie Qingzheng transferred true qi to A-Yan and lightly patted her on the cheek.
Mm, this was the touch of a living person’s skin.
A-Yan coughed a few times and slowly woke up. She saw Xie Qingzheng’s face, whimpered twice, and hugged her emotionally.
Xie Qingzheng patted her on the shoulder, comforted her for a few sentences, pushed her away, and asked, “Why are you here?”
A-Yan’s peripheral vision caught sight of Mo Jiangxue’s appearance. She was taken aback and did not answer.
Mo Jiangxue did not have her white gauze hat on. The bright fire talisman illuminated her clear and otherworldly face. The firelight was clearly an orange-red warm color, but on her face, it was as cool as moonlight.
A-Yan said in a daze, “Have I ascended to the upper realm and seen an immortal?”
Xie Qingzheng lightly patted her on the forehead. “No, you were buried in a wall and almost went to see the King of Hell!”
A-Yan came to her senses, looked at the Flowing Frost Xiao at Mo Jiangxue’s waist, then at Xie Qingzheng, and this time, she had completely guessed the identity of the two of them. “Cloud Melody, Flowing Frost, Mo Jiangxue… she is the guest elder of the Xuanji Sect, and you are her disciple?”
Xie Qingzheng nodded. “That’s right. But let’s not talk about that for now. Tell me why you are in the wall.”
A-Yan said in a daze, “I’m not sure either. Our group was originally heading back, but we got lost. We passed by this Nuwa temple and were curious, so we went in to take a look. As a result, we all fainted… My spiritual sense could vaguely feel that I was somewhere, but I couldn’t get out, couldn’t open my eyes. I struggled for a long time, and when I woke up, I saw you…”
Hearing this, Xie Qingzheng instantly guessed a possibility: Could it be that someone had deliberately led the two of them, master and disciple, into this Nuwa temple?
During the day, they had been cautious and had not gone in. So that person had detained this group of rogue cultivators and had even sent out paper figures to chase them, leading them into this Nuwa temple.
But why did they want them to enter the Nuwa temple?
Mo Jiangxue stepped into the hollow wall, slapped the wall on the other side, then took off a stone brick, narrowed her eyes, and looked outside. She said, “We’ve reached the Immortal Cult’s main altar.”
Xie Qingzheng let out a cry and said in surprise, “So that person was kind enough to lead us out of the maze forest and even buried A-Yan and the others here to tell us the location of the main altar? So mysterious. Why didn’t she just show herself and tell me the location of this passage directly?”
It was so convoluted, making her heart pound. It also made her very curious about what that person was like.
Mo Jiangxue looked at Xie Qingzheng, her eyes deep, her expression very cool. “She wanted to give you a surprise.”
A-Yan said, “That’s a flirting tactic! And she even used us as a tool to offer flowers to the Buddha… how hateful!”
Xie Qingzheng frowned slightly. “What kind of surprise is this… I think it’s clearly a tease.”
A-Yan said, “Little Immortal Master Xie, let me tell you. According to the tropes of the storybooks I’ve read, that person will definitely dress up beautifully and rush out to save you when you’re in danger. Then she’ll let you know that a certain person was the one who sent you flowers in the maze forest and guided you. After a few times, you’ll easily fall for her!”
Xie Qingzheng glanced at A-Yan sideways. “With my master by my side, what danger can I be in?”
Hearing this, Mo Jiangxue withdrew her gaze, her eyes rippled slightly, and her expression even seemed to soften a little.
Author’s Note:
Mo Jiangxue: She’s hitting on you.
A-Yan: She really is trying to hit on you, to make you afraid, to make you tremble with fear, and then to surprise you.
Little Xie (unmoved, with eyes only for her master): No, she’s clearly teasing me!
