Jiang Li followed the gravel path Lin Yuan had pointed out earlier that morning, carefully avoiding the wooden-faced patrolling disciples. She moved with a light tread, like an inconspicuous shadow drifting across the island. The aftereffects of the previous night's madness still made her stomach churn—the turbid qi core, forcefully condensed within her dantian, felt like a spark ready to ignite at any moment. Every step she took sent a searing pain through her meridians.
She had to find out where this power—the very thing Cang Yaochen viewed as filth—was leading her.
"The Pavilion of Whispers."
Jiang Li looked up at the massive stone hall built against the mountainside, its upper half piercing through the clouds. The doors were tightly shut, and the stone steps were slick with green moss. From the crevices drifted the stale, musty stench of decaying paper.
As Jiang Li slipped into the hall, she had no idea that on the other side of the bamboo forest, at the edge of the Severance Cliff, Cang Yaochen was watching the scene ahead like a ghost.
Cang Yaochen remained hidden behind a barrier of Buddhist light, his breathing imperceptible.
He had originally intended to search for the secrets of the Mirror of Truth fragments, but shortly after leaving, he had crossed paths with Lin Yuan. Lin Yuan's behavior was bizarre—his stride was precise as if measured by a ruler, and every so often, his head would turn mechanically from side to side, as if receiving some remote command.
Cang Yaochen followed him stealthily to the cliff's edge.
There stood the Great Elder. The withered old man stood with his back to the cliff, his robes fluttering violently in the howling wind.
"Great Elder, Junior Sister Jiang is not on the island," Lin Yuan knelt on the ground. His voice was clear and refined as always, yet it possessed a bone-chilling flatness, devoid of any emotional fluctuation.
"Has that Holy Monk sensed anything?" The Great Elder turned around, a venomous glint flashing in his well-like eyes.
"No," Lin Yuan lowered his head. "Junior Sister said that last night she only helped him change his clothes and apply medicine. The monk seems to have believed her; he is currently in a state of shameful self-reflection."
Cang Yaochen tightened his grip on his prayer beads. The faint lingering embarrassment from "being touched" was instantly replaced by horror—it turned out that Lin Yuan was monitoring them.
The scene that followed made Cang Yaochen's pupils contract sharply.
The Great Elder raised a withered finger and tapped Lin Yuan lightly between the eyebrows. A thin strand of golden light sank into Lin Yuan's skull. In that instant, Lin Yuan's body convulsed violently, his eyes rolled back, and a broken, guttural sound escaped his throat.
Cang Yaochen saw it clearly—the tiny remnants of doubt in Lin Yuan's eyes were ground to dust by that golden light. With a wave of his hand, the Great Elder even wiped away the last flicker of affection for Jiang Li buried in Lin Yuan's soul.
When the golden light faded and Lin Yuan raised his head again, his face bore an incredibly standard, "gentle" smile.
"It is time to deliver the medicine to Junior Sister," Lin Yuan said with a smile, his tone as warm as a soul-less puppet.
Cang Yaochen closed his eyes. He realized this island was deeply wrong. He had to find the secrets hidden within this sect as quickly as possible—and Jiang Li's true identity. The Mirror of Truth! Only by knowing its secret could he understand everything.
Inside the Pavilion of Whispers, the light was dim. Only a few stray beams of the setting sun filtered through the high windows, casting mottled shadows across the dense bookshelves.
Jiang Li searched frantically. The turbid qi core within her seemed to have an instinctive resonance with these ancient objects. Finally, her fingertips stopped at a tattered scroll titled Records of the Island's Depths.
The pages were brittle, releasing a puff of dust as she turned them.
"...The Origin of the Chaos Jade lies submerged at the confluence of the island's dark rivers; it cannot be reached without the 'Holy Seal' as a guide. The Holy Seal is a covenant of the Buddha..."
Jiang Li's heart skipped a beat. She looked down at the burning Red Sand Mark on her wrist. A Holy Seal? Is it this? No, that can't be right; this was planted by Cang Yaochen.
Just as she was about to look closer, the heavy sound of footsteps descended the spiral staircase from the second floor.
The hair on Jiang Li's neck stood on end. Without time to think, she squeezed like a startled cat into the gap between two towering iron-wood bookshelves. The space was packed with discarded scroll paintings, so narrow it was suffocating.
The footsteps stopped outside the shelf, less than half a meter away.
"Great Elder, the array at the Sacred Altar is beginning to crack," said the Second Elder, his voice laced with an irrepressible anxiety.
"What is the hurry?" the Great Elder's voice followed, cold as a snake sliding over skin. "Once we have confirmed the girl's identity and her internal power matures, we will push her into the Sacred Altar. The Mirror of Truth will naturally recognize its master. As for that monk... if he truly is the reincarnation of a Buddha God, the prophecy shouldn't be wrong... We shall wait and see."
Jiang Li pressed against the cold, damp stone wall, not daring to move an inch.
A powerful divine sense, like a fine wire brush, began combing through the room inch by inch. The Great Elder's boots stopped right outside her bookshelf.
"Hmm?" The Great Elder let out a puzzled grunt. He seemed to have sensed a faint trace of a living presence.
He slowly reached out a withered, claw-like hand and began to pull aside the crowded scrolls on the shelf.
Through the gaps, Jiang Li could see the Great Elder's murky, murderous eyes. His finger was less than an inch away from her nose. A bead of cold sweat slid down her temple and hit a discarded scroll with a tiny thud.
In that instant, the turbid qi core in Jiang Li's body sensed the threat of death and prepared to erupt instinctively. If it exploded, she would not only be exposed but likely killed on the spot.
Just as the Great Elder was about to see Jiang Li in the shadows, a shrill whistle sounded from outside the hall.
"Report! Senior Brother Lin Yuan has collapsed in the forest!"
The Great Elder's reaching hand froze. He retracted his divine sense and snorted with disgust. "Useless trash. Can he still not handle the divine power shock after his memory was wiped?"
The footsteps hurried away.
Jiang Li slumped in the shadows, gasping for air. her clothes were soaked through with cold sweat, clinging to her back with a bone-chilling frost. She realized that nothing here was simple. She had been watched from the moment she entered the sect—perhaps even earlier...
When night fell again, a dead silence once more blanketed the bamboo huts of Juling Island.
Jiang Li and Cang Yaochen returned to the corridor at almost the same time.
Lin Yuan stood smiling between the two rooms. Dressed in his pale green robes, his smile was as warm as jade. He even thoughtfully handed Jiang Li a bag of fresh spiritual fruit.
"Junior Sister, you worked hard today. The Elder says that tomorrow is the Great Cleansing Ceremony; you should rest early. You too, Master."
Jiang Li looked into Lin Yuan's hollow, lifeless eyes that were trying so hard to simulate "warmth." A chilling sensation crawled from her tailbone straight to the top of her head. She instinctively looked at Cang Yaochen in the next room.
Cang Yaochen stood in the shadows, his face half-hidden. His collar, fastened tight and without a crease, made him look like a desireless ice carving. He sensed Jiang Li's gaze but did not respond. Only as he pushed his door open did his finger flick a nearly invisible wisp of Buddhist light into the air, sealing both their doors and windows.