Qilin Hall had just introduced themselves as passing travelers. The rescued princes had already come into contact with them, but Xie Yucheng—the one who had been lured away earlier—had not. He therefore asked the people beside him,

“Who are they?”

The guard lowered his head.
“Reporting to Your Highness. According to people from the Seventh Prince’s side, they are wandering martial practitioners. They came into the mountains to look for a lost cultivation manual. They seem to know a bit about geomancy. They already ran into Prince Ding and the Fifth Prince on the way here. We do not know much about Prince Ding’s side, but the Fifth Prince was indeed rescued by the man in purple among them.”

Xie Yucheng snorted.

“Geomancy? Just a bunch of charlatans. But judging by how Fifth Brother looks, he’s probably taken it seriously.”

He watched as Xie Yuheng stepped forward again to speak with the people from Qilin Hall, then turned his head away in disdain.

“Speaking so humbly to people of such a low class—he really is the son of some small, insignificant empress. Completely unpresentable.”

Every word of Xie Yucheng’s muttering was heard clearly by Luan Ling, whose spiritual perception covered an exceptionally wide range. Not only his voice, but the voices of everyone nearby were distinctly audible in her mind.

A guard of Xie Yukang:
“So… the kid from earlier—Prince Ding really just let him go?”

Xie Yuhe:
“Let’s go over there with Xie Yuheng and take a look.”

A guard of Xie Yuling:
“This subordinate failed to protect Your Highness. Please punish me.”

Xie Yujin:
“It smells so good over there… Should we go eat with them?”

Zhuyin:
“Junior sister.”

Ahem.

Luan Ling looked in Zhuyin’s direction, embarrassed.
Sorry—my spiritual sense latched onto someone familiar.

Xie Yuyan also smiled faintly in their direction. In the mortal world, he no longer looked as scheming as he did in the Heavenly Realm. Instead, he wore a carefree, almost thoughtless façade. Perhaps that was a necessary skill for someone born into the imperial family.

No wonder Luan Qingchen could never do this sort of thing. Up in the heavens, once he decided he did not want to do something, there was no formality or system that could force him to.

Just as Luan Ling thought of her elder brother, she suddenly felt a sharp stab inside her head. The pain blurred her vision for an instant. When she raised a hand to her forehead, Si Zhuo also turned to look at her.

He quickly checked the surroundings, but sensed no remaining demonic aura.

“Did that demon just now manage to hurt you?”

His voice reached her ears.

Luan Ling shot him an annoyed look.

“Hurt me? With that level of demonic aura, even if it ripped out your dragon tendons, it still wouldn’t be able to hurt me.”

Si Zhuo raised an eyebrow.

“As long as you can still talk. I almost thought you weren’t pretending to be weak just now—that you were actually injured by that thing.”

Luan Ling clicked her tongue. The pain had lasted only an instant and never appeared again. Although she felt uneasy, there was no way to investigate it for now. She could only move forward and observe.

Zhuyin had already been to Luoyi Mountain once before. She was the first to discover that something was wrong here.

It was normal for a mountain to have spirits and demons. However, the magnetic field of Luoyi Mountain was extremely chaotic. Near the outskirts it was still manageable, but the deeper she went, the more strangely mixed the energies became. She could sense souls, demonic aura, devilish aura, and even immortal aura all at once.

All of them were tangled together.

For so many different kinds of energy to coexist in one mountain was abnormal. Whenever she tried to cleanse the area, the chaos would quickly return. Unable to understand the cause, she requested Qilin Hall to come investigate.

The camp where Xie Yuyan and the others were stationed was only the starting point. They had not yet entered the true gateway. Once they reached the real entrance, Qilin Hall’s mission would officially begin.

“Demonic aura, devilish aura, and immortal aura…”

Luan Ling pondered.

“Is Luoyi Mountain really this complicated?”

“Rather than what happened here in the past, the fact that these auras cannot be cleared seems to be a signal in itself,” Li Xiao analyzed.

“Even if it were an aura left behind by a Divine Lord, it would only be a trace of energy, not some kind of imprint. It shouldn’t be impossible to remove.”

Si Zhuo said,
“Someone set up a formation or cast a spell here. We just don’t know the purpose.”

Luan Ling frowned.

“Who would do something like this? Leaving behind all these mixed auras doesn’t seem helpful for cultivation. Could there really be some kind of treasure? If we can decipher what’s hidden inside these auras, maybe we can find it.”

Si Zhuo only let out a light laugh.

“What treasure could compare to the collections of the Eastern Sea? At best, they’re just mortal trinkets.”

“That’s not necessarily true,” Luan Ling objected.
“If it’s something left behind by an immortal of the Heavenly Palace, it might not be inferior to what your Eastern Sea has.”

Si Zhuo replied lazily,

“There are only a handful of immortals in the Heavenly Palace. Are you talking about the Heavenly Empress? The Heavenly Emperor? Or Luan Qingchen and Luan Yu? Don’t tell me you mean yourself. After all, the last time someone descended to the mortal world and left a mark in the palace, a certain someone didn’t even remember it.”

Luan Ling punched him on the shoulder.

“Nonsense! When these auras appeared in Luoyi Mountain, I probably wasn’t even born yet.”

“For now, we can only go in and see for ourselves.”

Luan Ling continued,

“But there’s something strange about this mission. Why weren’t we sent through Penglai this time?”

Li Xiao said,

“Not every mission has to go through Penglai, right? Sometimes when I go down with Master Dugu, we descend directly.”

“That’s because those were temporary assignments,” Luan Ling replied.
“I’m a walking encyclopedia of heavenly regulations. Normally, any mission involving more than three people has to be filed through the Heavenly Court’s official channels. Even if not through Penglai, it should still be through some other passageway to the mortal realm. Descending directly usually means either a Divine Lord or Immortal Lord is carrying out an emergency mission, or…”

Both Luan Ling and Situ Meng suddenly looked a little panicked.

Li Xiao immediately waved his hands.

“Let’s not say it, let’s not say it. How could that be? Master Dugu said the application was approved. It’s probably just that the situation on Junior Sister Zhuyin’s side was urgent, so they couldn’t be bothered with all the formalities.”

“But when we came down this time, I really felt like something was… kind of sneaky,”

Situ Meng said nervously, making things worse the more he analyzed it.

“And the immortal aura in Luoyi Mountain—could it be that…?”

Li Xiao also began to feel uneasy—especially when he realized he couldn’t reach Dugu at all.

“Damn it. Why isn’t Master answering?”

Si Zhuo stepped in to stabilize the situation.

“Because it’s midnight in the Heavenly Realm as well.”

Oh.

They had almost forgotten—they were clearing out the troublesome demons and wandering spirits around the area while the mortals were asleep.

“Forget it. Let’s stop scaring ourselves. We’re immortals, after all. And we should trust Master Dugu. How could he possibly send us into—”

Before Luan Ling could finish, she turned around and saw a monster with a head of crimson octopus tentacles standing right behind her. She nearly fainted on the spot.

Si Zhuo raised his hand and slapped a moisture-replenishing talisman onto Li Xiao’s face. Li Xiao jolted awake, scratched his head, and said,

“Ah, sorry. I fell asleep standing again.”

Luan Ling accused him helplessly,

“Senior brother, do you know that sometimes you’re more terrifying than the demons?”

“I know, I know.”
Li Xiao laughed awkwardly.

“It’s getting late anyway. How about we clean up around here first and then go back to keep watch? I’ll handle meditation and make sure I don’t nod off!”

“Forget it,” Luan Ling said.
“I’ll take the first watch. The hours around midnight are the most dangerous. I’m the most suitable one to supervise.”

“Alright. With great power comes great responsibility. Then it’ll be you first, junior sister. Si Zhuo takes the second watch, Ah Meng the third, and I’ll take the last. If you get sleepy, let us know.”

Li Xiao patted Luan Ling on the shoulder and yawned.

“I don’t know why, but ever since coming to the mortal world, I’ve been even sleepier than in the Heavenly Realm. There must be sleeping powder in the air down here.”

Situ Meng supported him as he nearly tripped over a tree branch.

“Senior brother, maybe you just ate too many carbs tonight?”

“I didn’t eat that much…”

Back near the camp, Si Zhuo glanced at Luan Ling and said,

“Call me when midnight is over.”

Luan Ling tilted her head up at him.

“Don’t worry. You won’t be getting out of work.”

Si Zhuo gave her one more look, then entered the tent.

Meditation required absorbing the essence of heaven and earth, so Luan Ling did not return to the tents they had set up. She cultivated outside instead. In the eyes of the mortals across the way, they were nothing more than wandering mystics anyway—staying up late and acting strangely hardly seemed out of place.

Yet during this meditation, Luan Ling truly discovered that something in the mountain had changed.

This disturbance had not revealed itself during their patrol earlier. As midnight deepened, it emerged like a signal, drawing her perception toward it.

Come back…
Come back…

From the disturbance, Luan Ling sensed an eerie call.

It came from deep within the mountain range—very far away from where she was. And yet, strangely, it felt extremely close to her spiritual awareness.

Unable to understand what it was, she sent her consciousness forward.

Her body could not go, but her spiritual sense could.

Her awareness traveled through the mountain range, crossed countless ridges and peaks, and followed the disturbance step by step to its source.

There, she saw a vast valley—trees, rivers, towering peaks…

And then—

Lightning.

The lightning struck her.

Luan Ling had experienced the pain of heavenly tribulation lightning before, but when this bolt descended, the agony was even worse than the nine tribulation bolts she had once endured.

Even though it was only her spiritual consciousness that had been struck, the moment the lightning hit, her awareness was violently forced back into her body.

When she raised her hand to wipe away the liquid at the corner of her mouth, she realized—it was blood.

What on earth was hidden in this place, that could attack her physical body directly through nothing more than a strand of divine consciousness?

Unease rose in Luan Ling’s heart.

And yet, at the same time, she found it strangely baffling.

Despite the fear, she still felt an urge to walk into the depths of the mountain. It was as if something important was waiting for her there—something she needed to resolve.

What important matter could there be, other than subduing demons and exorcising evil? For a moment, Luan Ling could not think of anything else she might be meant to do.

Whatever.

She would go in and see.

If even immortal aura had once lingered there, it meant immortals had come before. If immortals could enter, then so could they.

And if it were truly some place so dangerous that even immortals had perished, then however unreliable Master Dugu might be, he would never send them in alone.

Just as Luan Ling was thinking this, she suddenly felt a gentle, warm current rise within her injured body. Soft, ethereal flute music drifted to her ears.

She lifted her eyes.

Although she could not see her senior sister’s face, she had already received her intent.

Her senior sister might not be able to acknowledge them openly, but she had never neglected any one of them.

Still—

Why didn’t senior sister need to sleep?

Was practicing the flute really more effective than meditation?