Inside the bamboo building, Li Nanzhu gently placed the cold teacup back on the table, the porcelain meeting the sandalwood with a crisp clink.
"Master, in the corridor leading to the alchemy room, we encountered some... things that defy common sense."
Xiao Yan's fan stopped mid-air, and even the azure light flowing across its surface stagnated for a moment. Suisui poked its head out from Li Nanzhu's shoulder, its bone claws scratching uneasily at her lapel.
"Be specific," Xiao Yan said in a deep voice.
"The rock walls were covered with moving blue mycelium. At first, we thought it was just moon-fluorescence fungus," Li Nanzhu dipped her fingertip into the tea and drew patterns on the table. "But we soon realized something was wrong. The mycelium was as thin as hair, entirely ghostly blue, and it actively coiled around living things."
Xiao Yan's fan frame gently pressed against her finger. "Fungi naturally grow."
"But these are different," Li Nanzhu shook her head. "They secrete a blue mucus, they can regenerate instantly where they're broken, and they parasitize through a person's eyes. What's even more bizarre..."
She paused for a moment and pulled a piece of fabric stained with blue from her sleeve. Fortunately, she had thought this thing was too strange and wanted to bring it back for Feng Yi to see; she hadn't expected to find a breakthrough here with Xiao Yan.
"This is a piece from my Seventh Senior Brother's sleeve. It turned into this after only touching a few spores."
The moment the fabric was spread on the table, it actually curled slightly like a living thing.
Xiao Yan used the tip of his fan to lift the fabric, his brow furrowing slightly. "Go on."
"The most terrifying things were the fungal corpses," Li Nanzhu's voice lowered. "The bodies of cultivators wrapped in mycelium had their chest cavities filled with spore sacs. Once controlled by the mycelium, they could even attack people like living beings."
The fan frame suddenly snapped with a crack. Xiao Yan stared at the blue stain on the fabric, which had a metallic luster. "This is absolutely not a naturally occurring fungus."
Seeing this, Li Nanzhu recounted the entire escape process once more. She described it in great detail, not omitting the metallic rust that appeared after Suisui chewed on the mycelium, or the eerie mural they had seen in the final stone chamber.
Xiao Yan's expression grew increasingly solemn as she spoke. By the time she finished, his brow was knit into a tight knot.
"That is not right. Although its characteristics are very similar to the thousand-change mushroom, the thousand-change mushroom I cultivated absolutely lacks such aggression."
He stood up and paced inside the bamboo building, his azure robes swaying lightly with his movements. "The true thousand-change mushroom only mimics the spiritual energy attributes it comes into contact with. It is impossible for it to parasitize living things, let alone control corpses. Furthermore, that mural has nothing to do with me. How could it appear in my cave dwelling for no reason?"
"The weathering marks on the stone mural suggest it is at least several thousand years old," Li Nanzhu said gravely. "And this isn't the only strange occurrence. While we were in the Forest of Demonic Beasts, we encountered an evil cultivator controlling a pack of iron-toothed rats."
"It was the iron-toothed rats that triggered the cave dwelling's restriction?" The tip of Xiao Yan's fan skimmed across the surface of the tea, creating ripples.
Li Nanzhu nodded in agreement and explained the evil cultivator's methods for controlling the iron-toothed rats, as well as the strange red light in the sky when the cave dwelling opened.
After hearing this, Xiao Yan's brow furrowed even tighter.
"If that is the case... the anomaly could only have occurred during the five hundred years I was asleep..." He tapped the table lightly. "Otherwise, after I woke up, it would have been impossible for anyone to tamper with this place."
"Master, you didn't know about these things in the cave dwelling?"
"If it is truly as I suspect..." The fan frame in his hand suddenly turned into dust.
"They banked on my confidence in the restrictions..." Xiao Yan pressed his knuckles against his brow until they turned pale, his voice sounding as if squeezed through his teeth. "And they banked on the limited power of this sliver of my divine soul..."
Li Nanzhu noticed Xiao Yan's state was not right, and Suisui also quietly crawled over, its bone claws tugging at his sleeve.
Seeing this, Xiao Yan let out a long breath and stroked Suisui's head comfortingly before continuing.
"I originally set this place up as an ordinary cave dwelling, with no defensive measures and no spiritual energy fluctuations. In the cultivation world at that time, no one except a cultivator at the peak of the Soul Transformation stage could have detected that I placed my inheritance here. This was to avoid drawing attention."
He turned to look out the window, his voice low. "Only after I woke up would I occasionally open the cave dwelling to let people in to receive the inheritance. But in this past millennium..."
At this point, Xiao Yan showed a bitter smile. "Not a single person was able to reach the cave dwelling core, and I did not have enough power to investigate further. Later, I fell into a deep sleep until your arrival."
Li Nanzhu connected these clues and felt even more terrified. She seemed to have stumbled upon some incredible secret. How did those evil cultivators find out about something that only a peak Soul Transformation cultivator could detect?
More importantly, the ability to set such a restriction showed that Xiao Yan had, after all, once been a peak Soul Transformation cultivator. It was impossible for such a brilliant figure to have no record in history books. Who exactly could erase the traces of Xiao Yan's existence and cause a cultivator of such level to perish?
"If my guess is correct," Xiao Yan's finger unconsciously traced the rim of the cup, "the most likely scenario is that those evil cultivators obtained the thousand-change mushroom I originally cultivated and returned it to the cave dwelling after modifying it."
A green light flickered from his fingertip, outlining the pattern of a twisted mushroom in the air. "They intend to block my inheritance."
Li Nanzhu suddenly thought of a key question. "But if that's the case, why didn't the evil cultivators come and take it for themselves? Wouldn't that be better?"
"They wouldn't dare." Xiao Yan let out a light laugh, but his laughter carried a chill. "When I was alive, those scoundrels wouldn't even dare to look up at me! They wouldn't dream of getting even half of my inheritance."
He swept his sleeve, and the medicine shelves in the bamboo building vibrated in unison. "My restrictions specifically counter the aura of evil cultivators. They can't even enter the outskirts of the cave dwelling, which is why they resorted to such lowly methods."
His words could not hide his contempt for evil cultivators.
Li Nanzhu nodded thoughtfully but soon had another doubt. "Since no one has discovered the cave dwelling for a thousand years, why did they suddenly cause such a stir this time?"
She counted on her fingers to analyze. "And if they really wanted to stop us from obtaining the inheritance, shouldn't they have just blocked us directly? But since entering the cave dwelling until now, we haven't even seen a shadow of an evil cultivator..."
Xiao Yan also fell into deep thought upon hearing this, his folding fan unconsciously tapping against his palm. The bamboo building fell silent for a moment, with only the rustling of bamboo leaves outside the window.
"Unless..." Xiao Yan suddenly spoke, then shook his head. "No, it's unlikely..."
Li Nanzhu quickly pressed him, "What did you think of, Master?"
"I was thinking..." Xiao Yan said pensively, "Perhaps those evil cultivators didn't refuse to stop us, but... they couldn't."
Li Nanzhu's heart suddenly skipped a beat.
This idea of being 'unable to stop them' immediately reminded her of Cang Dongqing.
This was the child of fortune's opportunity, so the evil cultivators were unable to interfere? But that didn't seem right either. Evil cultivators were always at odds with the sects, with countless blood feuds between them.
This 'unable' seemed more like the push of the plot...
Even if this inference sounded very reasonable, Li Nanzhu still felt that this conclusion was wrong.
She knew in her heart that this was because she was missing the most important piece of the puzzle, and that piece was likely the secret Xiao Yan was hiding from her.
Xiao Yan saw Li Nanzhu fall into deep thought and was in no hurry to speak. Only when Li Nanzhu looked up again did he continue. "You said there was a red light when the cave dwelling opened, but after that, there was no sign of the evil cultivators..."
After some thought, Li Nanzhu mused, "Master, are you saying that the evil cultivator might have already..."
"Died? Been seriously injured? Or trapped somewhere?" Xiao Yan shook his head. "These are all just guesses."
He turned to face Li Nanzhu squarely. "But one thing is certain—those modified mycelia are absolutely not naturally formed. The person capable of cultivating such an evil thing..."
Rate on N.U.
