Li Nanzhu was awakened by the clicking sounds of Suisui's skeletal claws.
She rubbed her eyes to find Suisui sprawled over an open jade box. Its claws were clutching several pills, and it had three bottles of spirit-feeding pills tucked into its ribs, sneakily stuffing them into her clothes.
"You little glutton," she chuckled, poking its skull. "Even when you're stealing food, you remember to save some for me?"
The soul fire in Suisui's eye sockets flared up, and it tilted its head as if feigning ignorance.
Li Nanzhu turned and saw that Zhu Yinxi had already woken up and was sitting cross-legged in the corner, regulating his breathing.
"Good morning, Second Senior Brother," Li Nanzhu greeted him softly, afraid of waking the others.
Zhu Yinxi opened his eyes and nodded slightly. "How are your injuries?"
"Much better." She moved her shoulders; the soreness from yesterday's flight had mostly faded.
She turned to look at Duan Xianxing and Liu Qingyang, who were still fast asleep.
Duan Xianxing was lying spread-eagle, still clutching that bottle of 9-turn soul-returning pills, with a suspicious glistening liquid at the corner of his mouth. Liu Qingyang was leaning against a medicine shelf, a satisfied smile still plastered on his face.
"Let them sleep a bit longer," Zhu Yinxi said softly.
Li Nanzhu nodded understandingly. Neither of them brought up organizing the pills. It would have been fine if it were just the three of them, but Liu Qingyang was an outsider after all.
Even though they were now close enough to have shared a life-and-death experience, and Liu Qingyang likely wouldn't mind if they organized everything first, the pills were precious. Sorting them beforehand might raise suspicions of embezzlement. It was better to wait until everyone was awake before distributing them.
She was about to meditate for a while when she heard Suisui's clicking sound again. Li Nanzhu thought it was stealing more pills and was about to catch it for a lecture when she saw Suisui lying at the base of a medicine shelf, its claws constantly scratching at something.
"Suisui?" Li Nanzhu whispered. Suisui's tail wagged, and the jingling of its bells seemed to signal her to come over.
It lay on the ground, its tailbone pointing to a hidden compartment at the base of the medicine shelf that almost blended into the floor.
"Click, click!" the little skeleton tapped the ground urgently.
Li Nanzhu leaned down to check. As her fingertips touched the hidden compartment, she was suddenly struck by a jolt of electricity.
"Hiss—" She jerked her hand back, a clear scorch mark appearing on her finger.
Zhu Yinxi's flute was instantly positioned in front of her. "There's a restriction."
"Whoa! What's this?" Duan Xianxing's messy head suddenly popped up between them, scaring Suisui so much it jumped three feet in the air, sending the spirit-feeding pills hidden in its ribs clattering all over the floor.
"A restriction that can make little junior sister suffer? It must be something good!" Duan Xianxing reached out to touch it.
"Stop!" Zhu Yinxi's flute accurately tapped his wrist. "Do you want to turn your hand into a roasted pig trotter?"
Duan Xianxing shook his head hastily. Only then did Zhu Yinxi withdraw his flute and carefully examine the hidden compartment. Eventually, without anyone seeing exactly how he did it, he struck a certain point with a surge of spiritual energy, and the restriction automatically unraveled, revealing what was inside.
It was a box, its surface rusted, but with intricate runes faintly visible.
Zhu Yinxi drew his flute again and lightly pried open the lid. With a click, the box sprang open, revealing twelve crystal-clear, diamond-shaped crystals neatly arranged inside.
Duan Xianxing immediately leaned in again. "Whoa! Could this be the legendary..."
"Highest-grade spirit stone crystals," Zhu Yinxi interrupted. "One of these is worth a thousand high-grade spirit stones."
Duan Xianxing's eyes practically turned into the shape of spirit stones. "We're rich! We're rich!"
Zhu Yinxi helplessly held back the excited Duan Xianxing. "We'll distribute them once everyone is awake."
On the other side, Liu Qingyang was also awakened by the noise. He rubbed his bleary eyes and sat up. "What are you—" Before he could finish, Duan Xianxing pounced on him and shook him. "Liu Qingyang! We found a huge treasure!"
Liu Qingyang was shaken so hard his head spun. He nearly slapped him. "Even if it's a huge treasure, I won't be able to see it if you shake me to death!"
Duan Xianxing let go sheepishly, but his eyes remained glued to the spirit stone crystals.
Li Nanzhu noticed Suisui quietly using its claws to hook a crystal and hide it in its ribs. She quickly pinched its neck bone. "Hand over the stolen goods."
The little skeleton's soul fire flickered, and it reluctantly spat out the crystal, making a wronged clicking sound.
"Let's take inventory of everything first," Zhu Yinxi decided, then turned to Duan Xianxing.
"And," he used his flute to gently tap away Duan Xianxing's hand as he tried to sneakily touch the crystals, "these twelve crystals are for public use. No one is allowed to embezzle them."
An hour later, the four of them were sitting in the center of the alchemy room.
Various pills, alchemy handbooks, and spirit stone crystals were sorted into categories on the ground. Suisui squatted on Li Nanzhu's shoulder, its soul fire dancing curiously.
"So many..." Liu Qingyang couldn't help but gasp. Even as the son of the Water Moon Sect's leader, he had never seen so many precious pills.
"First of all," Li Nanzhu spoke first, "I don't want the foundation establishment pill."
The three of them looked at her in unison. Zhu Yinxi and Duan Xianxing didn't have much of a reaction, but Liu Qingyang asked hesitantly, "The quality of this foundation establishment pill is quite good. Are you sure you don't want it?"
"I want to break through using my own strength," Li Nanzhu replied firmly.
In the original book, Cang Dongqing relied on pills to reach Foundation Establishment, which resulted in an unstable foundation. It took her a long time to stabilize her cultivation again. She would not repeat that mistake. Moreover, she had a feeling that once this trial in the Forest of Demonic Beasts was over and she returned to the sect, she could prepare to charge for the Foundation Establishment stage.
Zhu Yinxi simply nodded. "As you wish."
After all, no one from the Five Elements Dao Sect used foundation establishment pills; they all broke through on their own. His little junior sister's refusal was within his expectations.
The distribution process was unexpectedly harmonious.
Although Liu Qingyang was very envious of the pills, he still wanted to stick to the initial agreement of only taking twenty percent of everything they found.
Until Zhu Yinxi pushed the pills toward him.
"This...?" Liu Qingyang looked up in shock, only to find the three of them looking at him with smiles. Duan Xianxing slung an arm around his shoulder again.
"We've been through life and death together now. No need for these formalities. You contributed a lot in this cave dwelling!"
Zhu Yinxi also nodded. "Take them."
Seeing Liu Qingyang's conflicted expression, Li Nanzhu spoke up. "Our agreement was for you to take twenty percent of what we found in the Forest of Demonic Beasts. But we aren't in the forest right now; this is an ancient cultivator's cave dwelling, so naturally, we split it equally. If you really feel bad about it," Li Nanzhu smiled, "then after we leave the cave, everything we get from the forest can belong to us."
Duan Xianxing added, "Except for the star-patterned iron, of course."
"...Thank you." Liu Qingyang blushed, a rare occurrence. After a low-voiced thanks, he accepted the items.
Fortunately, there were plenty of pills. There were even four bottles of the rare 9-turn soul-returning pills—exactly one bottle for each person.
The spirit-feeding pills were all given to Suisui since it loved them so much. Besides, Suisui had put in a lot of effort when facing the mycelium.
As for the alchemy handbooks, since Zhu Yinxi was the one who found them, Liu Qingyang didn't say much. Zhu Yinxi took them directly. Although he wasn't an alchemist, his third junior brother was. He could use these handbooks to see if he could fix his brother's brain, which always wanted to add weird things to his pills.
Finally, the eyes of the four people and the skeleton fell upon the twelve highest-grade spirit stone crystals.
The atmosphere turned slightly silent as they gathered around the twelve crystals.
Duan Xianxing rubbed his hands, his eyes shining. "Since we're all so familiar with each other, why don't we... draw straws?"
Zhu Yinxi gave him a flat look. "Distribute based on need."
Li Nanzhu nodded and looked at Liu Qingyang. "Fellow Daoist Liu, what do you think?"
Liu Qingyang cleared his throat, sounding a bit embarrassed. "Actually... I only need two. You guys can split the rest."
"No way!" Duan Xianxing immediately objected. "We agreed to split everything equally!"
Zhu Yinxi thought for a moment and said, "How about this: each person takes two first. The remaining four will be for common use, and we'll discuss it if there's a need later."
Everyone agreed. Thus, Li Nanzhu, Zhu Yinxi, Duan Xianxing, and Liu Qingyang each took two spirit stone crystals, with the remaining four temporarily kept by Zhu Yinxi.
Suisui watched them finish with longing eyes, its claws tugging at Li Nanzhu's sleeve. Its soul fire flickered as if asking, "Where's mine?"
Li Nanzhu smiled and stroked its skull. "You can't even use spirit stones. Be good, I'll find you something else later."
Suisui clicked once and shrunk into her embrace aggrievedly.
With everything finally distributed, the four of them began looking for an exit.
The entire alchemy room was enclosed; except for the door they entered through, there were no other exits. Liu Qingyang guessed there must be some hidden mechanism or compartment that would reveal the exit, and the other three agreed. They scattered to search the room.
Li Nanzhu remained the least anxious. After all, the original book mentioned how Cang Dongqing found the exit: a loose stone brick in the corner. Pushing it would reveal a teleportation array.
However, she didn't walk there immediately. Like the others, she pretended to search the walls and shelves first before slowly moving toward the southeast corner. She had observed that only that stone brick showed faint signs of being loose.
"This place seems a bit strange..." she said softly, pressing lightly on the stone brick.
The brick depressed as expected, and the ground suddenly began to vibrate. An ancient teleportation array slowly rose from the floor, its patterns complex and profound, with four indentations in the center.
"A teleportation array!" Duan Xianxing's eyes lit up. "Little junior sister, how did you find it?"
Li Nanzhu feigned confusion. "I just... felt like this spot was different."
She obviously wouldn't tell the truth.
Zhu Yinxi gave her a thoughtful look but didn't ask further. He crouched down to examine the array. "It needs four highest-grade spirit stone crystals to activate."
Li Nanzhu quietly breathed a sigh of relief. It was exactly as the original book described; this hidden teleportation array required four crystals.
"Good thing we kept four as spares." Liu Qingyang smiled, clearly happy to be able to leave.
The only one unhappy was probably Duan Xianxing.
"Why is it so expensive!" Duan Xianxing wailed, staring at Zhu Yinxi's storage bag. "Can't we use something else instead? This is really expensive!"
He had originally thought that if they didn't need the four crystals, he could get another share after they left. But before that thought could even fully form, his dream was shattered.
"Don't you want to get out?" Li Nanzhu sighed helplessly. Her Seventh Senior Brother was great in every way, but he was so poor he couldn't bear to part with anything... Fine, she wouldn't bicker with a broke sword cultivator.
"It's just a bit too risky," Zhu Yinxi frowned. "Who knows where it will teleport us."
Li Nanzhu, however, knew very well that in the original book, Cang Dongqing used this very teleportation array to leave and reach the next area.
She cleared her throat. "Anyway, there might still be pursuers outside, and we can't get out that way. We can't just stay trapped here until we die. We might as well take a gamble."
Zhu Yinxi sighed. They really didn't have any other options. He took out the four crystals decisively, ready to place them in the indentations.
Liu Qingyang seemed to notice something and suddenly stopped Zhu Yinxi. "Wait, this array..." He pointed to a nearly faded mark on the edge. "It looks like a one-way teleportation."
Li Nanzhu's heart skipped a beat—the original book hadn't mentioned that!
"You mean we can go but can't come back?" Zhu Yinxi's movement paused.
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