365 A Fake World
Perhaps a crossdresser from another world could present themselves like this. “I was cultivating in the mountains and had just advanced. In a moment of excitement, I forgot the taboo and practiced… and ended up here,” She Wanshan explained, his expression earnest.
“Wuji Mountain is a prominent sect in Qingzhou, a branch of the True Path sect. It should have considerable knowledge about this unusual place, right?” Qin Huai probed further.
“Yes… I do have some knowledge,” She Wanshan admitted, maintaining his bitter smile. “The only thing I know is that this strange place kidnaps people. It happens every ten years, and it lasts for a year. During this period, any prodigy under the age of thirty with three or more patterns or two complete patterns and king’s force, will be drawn into this place upon displaying their power.”
She Wanshan and Qin Huai walked to a tree a few miles away from the beast carcasses. On hearing these revelations, Qin Huai quickly asked, “Has anyone from your sect made it out of here?”
“Yes,” She Wanshan confirmed. “However, the grandmaster who escaped couldn’t remember anything about this place upon his return. His talent, comprehension, and realm remained unaffected. It’s just that…” he trailed off, “other than occasional absent-mindedness, he seemed to have lost something from his soul,” he added in a jesting tone. “Over a thousand ancestors from our sect have entered this place. Very few have come out, and none retain any memories of it.” His eyes reflected his confusion.
“How long has this place existed?” Qin Huai posed his next question.
“I don’t know. This anomaly existed even before Wuji Mountain or even Qingzhou were established,” She Wanshan replied.
Qin Huai sighed, disappointed. He had thought that meeting a disciple from a major sect would help unravel the secrets of the bronze land. However, even those who had escaped from Wuji Mountain couldn’t recall what had transpired on it.
How then, he wondered, did the old man from the Storm Tower have this knowledge? This thought flashed through his mind.
“Brother Zhou, let’s go find the others,” She Wanshan suggested, rising to his feet. “My senior brothers entered a few months ago. Given our current lack of leads, we might as well look for them first. They might have some clues.”
Qin Huai hesitated momentarily, weighing their respective strengths. Even if She Wanshan found several allies to ambush him, he was confident that he could escape. Furthermore, he had a secret weapon — the flame longevity technique. Even Wen Zonghao, an expert in the visceral prefecture realm, couldn’t resist it, let alone those in the bone pattern realm.
“Alright.” Qin Huai nodded. Thus, they both ventured deeper into the forest.
“Brother Zhou, how long have you been here?”
“Only a month,” Qin Huai lied, adding a few extra days to deceive She Wanshan. “I walked for five to six days before reaching the edge… Given my speed, this bronze land must be at least three thousand miles in length,” he added.
“That’s even bigger than Qingzhou City,” She Wanshan remarked, taken aback.
Without any leads, they chose a random direction and continued their journey.
“Brother Zhou, there’s a body here!” She Wanshan pointed to a hole in a tree.
Qin Huai hurried over. Inside the tree hole, a skeleton rested peacefully. However, unlike other skeletons, its bones had a peculiar luster, adorned with strange, flickering bone patterns
“King’s force!” they exclaimed in unison, followed by a heavy silence. Even a prodigy with the king’s force was trapped here?
Despite Qin Huai having braced himself for this possibility, witnessing the final resting place of those who had truly cultivated the king’s force was still quite sobering. A pang of sadness washed over them.
Another month passed. During this time, neither Qin Huai nor She Wanshan encountered a single soul. Neither did they come across the flashing bronze land they saw upon their arrival. A sense of despair started creeping into their hearts. They both sat on the ground, lost in thought.
“Are we not even able to find a single living soul, let alone a way out?” She Wanshan mused dejectedly, gnawing at his roasted meat. He then vigorously slapped his face, trying to snap out of his despair.
“You can do it, Wan Shan! You’re the future Lotus Flower Peak Master!” He pulled himself back to his feet, eyes brimming with renewed determination. “The future Lotus Flower Peak Master will not be defeated by such minor setbacks!”
On the sidelines, Qin Huai observed She Wanshan’s fluctuating moods, his own expression remaining placid. Over the month, She Wanshan had gone through these emotional outbursts at least ninety times, so he had grown accustomed to it.
“Let’s continue,” Qin Huai decided, finishing his roasted meat and glancing at the nearby dissolving corpse.
She Wanshan also looked over at the same time. The sight of the melting bones filled both their hearts with a complex mix of emotions.
They were aware that the meat they consumed was peculiar. How could they not know that there was something strange about this meat? However, without it, they would have probably starved in this desolate place.
“This really is a dead-end,” She Wanshan mused, his face creasing with worry. “Brother Zhou, do you think that after eating this for a month or two, we’ll start to dissolve like these giant beasts?”
“That’s not possible,” Qin Huai rejected the idea. “Otherwise, how could we have come across these remains?”
“But… there were too few remains,” She Wanshan pointed out. “Think about it. This strange place has existed for a long, long time… It has been around for thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of years. Every ten years, hundreds of thousands of prodigies are likely drawn in, right? Then, these remains should have piled up like mountains by now… Where did the rest of the bones go?”
She Wanshan’s questions poured out like torrential rain.
“Maybe they weathered,” Qin Huai suggested, though he too found this explanation dubious.
There was no wind in this world. The temperature remained constant despite the sun’s rising and setting. All in all, the world around them seemed eerily artificial.
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