Wenren È and Yin Hanjiang saw the palace transform into a cavern before their eyes. Yin Hanjiang automatically drew his sword, standing in front of Wenren È.
The completely oblivious Baili Qingmiao gathered up the silk that had been binding her and, after examining her surroundings, asked, "These seniors, where is Master Qingxue? Argh!"
She had felt something cold brush her ankle and jumped to her feet, igniting a light talisman as she did. By its illumination, she could now see that the ground by her feet was crawling with snakes, the smallest with the thickness of a rice bowl and the largest over a meter in width.
The cavern was vast, and a faint breeze blew through it. The serpents were entwined together, completely covering the ground.
Wenren È held down Yin Hanjiang's hand before he could unleash his sword, and said calmly, "Don't act yet. I feel that... they don't intend to attack."
"Ahh! I'm scared of snakes!" Baili Qingmiao's cultivation was still suppressed and she couldn't fly. She only hopped about on the ground, tears streaming from her eyes.
In the book, Wenren È slew all the snakes upon seeing them, causing the blood to attract more beasts and putting the two in a worse situation.
Now that he had seen the spiritual realm transform from a palace to a cave, Wenren È held back from striking immediately. "Don't be so frantic," he said to Baili Qingmiao. "Stand still in an empty space and the snakes will probably leave you alone. If you attack them, you'll bring trouble."
Baili Qingmiao was obedient and planted her feet on the ground, enduring her fear. The thickest snake immediately began slithering toward her. Baili Qingmiao wanted to scream and attack it, but remembering Wenren È's words, she controlled herself and stood her ground. Once she calmed, she saw the huge python rub its head lightly against her leg like a dog, even wriggling the tip of its tail a bit.
Baili Qingmiao: ...
"W-what's going on?" she said, trembling with her back pressed against a rock wall.
Wenren È and Yin Hanjiang were standing opposite to her and could clearly see the wall behind her open a huge yellow eye with a slit pupil. The eye swiveled about until it saw Baili Qingmiao, at which point it narrowed as if in a smile.
Wenren È: ...
Yin Hanjiang: ...
Now that they were calm and refrained from attacking the beasts, they could clearly see the affection they showed toward Baili Qingmiao.
"Before you entered the spiritual realm, did you have any thoughts of what it would be like?" Wenren È asked Baili Qingmiao.
"I did fantasize a little," Baili Qingmiao said, leaning against the wall and completely unaware that the large eye above her head was now shifting downward. "If it's a spiritual realm, it ought to be a grand golden palace, all the objects within the palace would be rare treasures, the ordinary animals living in the courtyard would be divine beasts spoken of in legends, like the Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Black Tortoise, and Vermillion Bird, or something like that... huh? Why are you looking at me like that?"
Even Yin Hanjiang, who ordinarily only paid attention to his master, couldn't help but give Baili Qingmiao an odd look.
The place they had entered was precisely Baili Qingmiao's fantasy. It also only appeared when she was unconscious, and when she woke up, all traces of it would vanish and the environment would become a terrifying hellscape. Though these beasts clearly liked Baili Qingmiao, and if no one attacked, all they would do was try to get closer to her.
"A fantasy realm, huh..." Wenren È muttered. Then he said, "Then, if there was a medicine that could save your shixiong in the palace, what would it be?"
"A blooming lotus in one of the courtyard's ponds, I guess, its seven-colored jade lotus heart would be able to cure shixiong... Senior, how come it feels like the wall behind me is moving?"
Probably like that one at your feet, it's trying to rub its head against you, just its head is kind of big, Wenren È thought.
"Where would the spiritual realm's exit be?" Wenren È asked.
"I imagined the palace would be surrounded by white fog, and since it's a part of the immortal realm, it must have a powerful array surrounding it, preventing us from leaving, but the mist would be thinner at the back door of the palace, and it would act as a passage back to the Golden Coast Cliffs... senior, this is all just my daydream, why- why are you asking all this? I seem to be stuck on something. What's on the wall behind me?"
Nothing again, just she seemed to be leaning against a tongue, which was sticking to her.
"Baili Qingmiao, knock yourself unconscious," said Wenren È. "After you open your eyes again, you'll be at the Golden Coast Cliffs, and Elder Qingxue will be there."
"Really?!" Baili Qingmiao hesitated for a moment, then decided, "Since I'm so weak, I wouldn't be of any help to these two seniors even on my feet. Here I go, then."
Saying that, she stopped her breath and sealed her senses, her consciousness sinking deep into her dantian, and fell unconscious like flipping a switch.
The minute she lost awareness, their surroundings returned to the scene she had imagined.
"Venerable, could this spiritual realm actually be created by Baili Qingmiao's mind?" Yin Hanjiang asked in astonishment, slinging her over his shoulder. "Was the cavern real, or this palace? Or are neither real?"
"There's one more possibility, that both are real," said Wenren È. This time, he strode into the courtyard and plucked a lotus that hadn't existed last time, extracting its heart.
The four ordinary-looking divine beasts made no move to stop him, still amusing themselves in their own ways.
"We've gotten everything we want. Time to go," Wenren È said to Yin Hanjiang. "Let's find the back door she mentioned."
They came to the back door and found that the mist was indeed thinner here, and seemed passable.
Yin Hanjiang tried to rush to the front, to test the route for his master, but Wenren È held him back.
"We'll go together, back to back, and carry Baili Qingmiao together," Wenren È said.
"Understood!"
Back to back, with one shoulder supporting Baili Qingmiao, and their free hands holding each other's, they cautiously walked through the fog.
After walking for an indeterminable length of time, through white fog that gave them no sense of distance, they suddenly smelled the salt of the sea breeze. Following the wind for a few more steps, the fog parted and left them standing on the cliff's edge, with the golden sea before them.
Now that his vision was filled with something else beside white, Yin Hanjiang set down Baili Qingmiao and turned to look at Wenren È's familiar face. Only then did he breathe a sigh of relief and plop down onto the ground.
"Protector Yin, why're you so tense?" Wenren È said, sitting by his side at the cliff edge. He didn't get why Yin Hanjiang had relaxed the instant he saw him, and had never seen him act improperly like this before.
"I was afraid that it wasn't only Baili Qingmiao's fantasies that were realized in the spiritual realm, and that my thoughts would be too. This subordinate was just overthinking things."
"What were you thinking?" Wenren È asked.
Yin Hanjiang bowed his head and didn't answer. He had walked back to back with Wenren È along the whole path, and could only touch his icy fingertips. Yin Hanjiang had feared that when they exited and he turned around, he would find a corpse behind him.
When Yin Hanjiang was five years old, he had woken up in a mass grave, and fumbled around in it searching for his mother and father. His legs were broken, and the weights of dead bodies pressed down around him. After searching for some time, he realized the clothes of the body lying atop him were patched in a familiar way, and recognized them as his mother's. Back then, he didn't understand death clearly, and only hugged the corpse and cried. Ignoring the pain of his injuries, he turned the body over, and found a rotten face crawling with maggots.
Yin Hanjiang roughly shook himself out of his memories. He felt he was pathetic for thinking of these things. Over a hundred years had already passed, and ordinary people would've lived out their entire lives, yet he still couldn't move on from his memories as a five-year-old child.
The Venerable would not become a corpse. Wenren È was the strongest person in the cultivation world. There wasn't anyone who could kill him.
Wenren È grabbed one of Yin Hanjiang's hands and found his palm covered with sweat. Cultivators had already transcended mortality. They could sustain themselves without food and escape the cycle of reincarnation, and would only sweat out of extreme fear. If Yin Hanjiang was unwilling to say, Wenren È couldn't guess his thoughts. He only felt that Yin Hanjiang's later madness in the book hadn't come out of nowhere after all.
These days, he paid more and more attention to Yin Hanjiang, and realized that there seemed to be a bottomless pit in Yin Hanjiang's heart. If his heart couldn't be at peace, Yin Hanjiang would never be able to reach Mahayana.
"It seems when we have free time in the future, I should take you drinking so you can relax and vent a little," Wenren È said. "And at that time, you should tell me what you were thinking. How about it?"
Yin Hanjiang's expression seemed strained. He didn't wish for the Venerable to understand him better.
Wenren È could order Yin Hanjiang to speak, but he had no wish to force him, and instead said, "In that case, I'll let you set the time. Whenever you want to speak, this Venerable will be there to hear it."
While they spoke, a person climbed up the cliff from the ocean-Qiu Congxue.
She had been unable to use spiritual energy in the ocean, and it had taken her a long time to swim back and climb to the top.
Seeing that her arm still hadn't regrown, Wenren È asked, "How long were we gone?"
"Less than two hours," Qiu Congxue replied. "Did the Venerable meet with any threats while in the spiritual realm?"
Wenren È had no intention of telling her. He slapped Baili Qingmiao, who seemed to always be losing consciousness one way or another, awake, and placed both the Seven-Colored Lotus Heart and the Shattered Mountain Meteorite before her. "I had assumed the Shattered Mountain Meteorite was fated to me, but it seems that was just wishful thinking. These two both belong to you, and it's up to you to decide what to do with them."
"How can you let me have everything?" Baili Qingmiao said, waving her hands. "I didn't do anything and was a burden the entire way. I'm just grateful that you didn't give up on me. The Shattered Mountain Meteorite naturally belongs to you. As for the lotus heart... will you please treat it as this disciple borrowing it for now? In the future, I will surely repay you."
"It's the opposite," Wenren È said. "Treat it as this Venerable borrowing this."
"This Venerable?" Baili Qingmiao said, cocking her head.
Copying the book's events, Wenren È took out a token of the Xuanyuan Sect Master and handed it to her. "This is this Venerable's token. If you are in need in the future, you can exchange it for one favor from this Venerable, no matter what it is."
Baili Qingmiao accepted a token that resembled a tiger tally with both hands, and couldn't help but ask, "May I inquire after your name?"
"This Venerable is Wenren È."
Hearing him, Baili Qingmiao was panicked into dropping the token, and stammered at Qiu Congxue, "Master Qingxue, this- this senior is the- the demonic sect leader."
"Why are you so flustered?" said Qiu Congxue. "You and I together are no match for him, so don't think about being a hero."
Her composure helped Baili Qingmiao calm down as well. If Wenren È had wanted to kill her, he could do it by lifting a finger.
"Sect Master Wenren, I cannot accept your token," Baili Qingmiao said with a shake of her head. "The righteous and demonic sects are in opposition to one another, and each side inflicted heavy casualties on the other during the Great Sect War. My sect master was deeply injured by you and is still unconscious, and my shixiong had his Nascent Soul taken by one of your subordinates. I will not forget all the aid you've given me, and in the future, if possible, I will be sure to repay you. But from now on, I can no longer be in contact with you, and even less can I keep your token."
Baili Qingmiao bowed to Wenren È in farewell and offered the tally back with both hands.
"Don't be so hasty. You'll have use for it." Wenren È didn't move to accept it. "And the righteous and demonic paths are not so black and white as you were taught. When the day comes that Shangqing Sect turns on you and tries to harm and imprison you, you can decide whether or not you need it."
"Why would my sect turn on me?" Baili Qingmiao said, mystified.
Wenren È didn't answer, only vanished into a streak of crimson light and flew off with Yin Hanjiang, leaving Qiu Congxue and Baili Qingmiao staring blankly after them.
Before his departure, Wenren È had transmitted to Qiu Congxue, "Delay your return by a few days, so that it takes longer to get the medicine to Hè Wenzhao."
Now that he gave Hè Wenzhao and the blood demon some time to act, he wondered what would happen this time around.