The Yellow Bell in Su Yun's mind continued to turn as usual, while the map in his mind constantly shifted its orientation. Suddenly, his spirits lifted, and he said in a low voice, "Found it! Keep moving!"
Just then, a ringing filled his ears, and pain like needles stabbed into his brain!
The ringing lasted for a moment before fading. Yet that brief pain had already drenched Su Yun in cold sweat, his clothes soaked through.
He opened his mouth, but could not hear his own voice!
There was only absolute silence around him, utterly devoid of sound!
"The powerful aura emanating from Dragon Burial Mound is suppressing our qi and blood. First it robbed us of sight, and now it has robbed us of hearing!"
Su Yun steadied himself. "Next, it will likely rob us of touch, taste, smell, and perception. If all six senses are stripped away..."
He suddenly bit through his lip. The blood in his mouth carried both a fishy and sweet taste, while the pain told him that his taste, touch, smell, and perception were all still there.
"Hua Erge and the others felt someone touching the backs of their heads. That was an illusion caused by qi and blood suppressing their sense of touch. It wasn't some ghostly creature feeling us up in the darkness!"
Su Yun took out the Immortal Rope and swiftly tied up Flower Fox. There is absolutely no mistake in my Yellow Bell. The sun has not set yet! We still have time to get out!
Flower Fox struggled for a moment. Su Yun anxiously gestured to him, and only then did Flower Fox stop struggling.
Su Yun then tied up Qingqiu Yue. She did not struggle; she had already lost her sense of touch and could not feel herself being bound.
Without touch, hearing, or sight, she was at the mercy of others.
"The reason we hallucinated being touched is because the aura surging from Dragon Burial Mound oppressed our nerves and began cutting off our sense of touch."
Su Yun, too, felt as though something were touching him. His sense of touch seemed to be growing sharper and sharper, but that was merely an illusion. His touch was also slowly fading away.
More cold sweat broke out on his forehead. He groped around and found something, barely recognizing it as Li Xiaofan.
He tied up Li Xiaofan, and at that moment, his sense of touch vanished as well.
"Hu Buping!"
Su Yun opened his mouth and shouted, but he could not hear a thing. He groped about, yet could feel nothing at all!
"Qi and blood! Right, I can still sense Bu Ping's qi and blood!"
Su Yun desperately activated Great Furnace Transformation, stirring up his qi and blood with all his strength. Using his heart to sense his surroundings, he finally saw one shadow after another in the darkness through his "vision" of perception.
Su Yun found Hu Buping and reached out to grab him, but could not tell whether he had actually caught him.
He could only rely on his experience of tying things up and his perception of qi and blood to bind Hu Buping.
Once that was done, he tied the four Fox Demons onto his back and continued forward.
"I can no longer feel my legs. I can't feel my hands either. Even the bloody taste in my mouth is fading."
Su Yun licked the wound on his lips, but he could no longer find the spot he had bitten.
His sense of taste and smell had been completely crushed away by the suppression of qi and blood.
With five senses gone, he felt like a corpse, walking through pure unknown.
He did not even know whether he was climbing uphill or descending, whether he had reached the edge of a cliff, or whether he was walking into the mouth of some demonic monster!
"I must leave Dragon Burial Mound before I lose my perception. If my perception disappears too... then everything is over."
Su Yun could no longer feel his body. His perception was slowly fading, and he could only mechanically move his legs along with the turning of the Yellow Bell, following the map in his mind as he kept advancing, returning to the broken cliff.
Boundless darkness stretched around him. Only the Yellow Bell and the map in his mind remained lit. Only his perception of the auras of Flower Fox and the other Fox Demons told him that they were still alive.
Su Yun kept walking. After an unknown length of time, the qi and blood of Flower Fox and the others vanished from his mind.
His perception grew fainter and fainter.
Su Yun continued onward. "There is still time. It is not dark yet. No matter what that Strange Object is, as long as daylight remains, it cannot come out!"
Relying on his last shred of conscious will, he told his body to keep moving forward. Though he could no longer feel his legs, he believed his body would continue onward under the control of that will.
After a long while, Su Yun stopped. The Yellow Bell and map in his mind told him that a cliff lay ahead!
He had already left Dragon Burial Mound!
"Why?"
Su Yun fell into panic. Immense terror utterly crushed his heart. It was as if he had once again become that child who had discovered himself locked inside a tiny "house." I left Dragon Burial Mound. Why have my five senses still not returned? Could it be that I never moved at all? Could I still be inside Dragon Burial Mound?
He was on the verge of collapse. The final conscious will supporting him was disintegrating.
Just then, the qi and blood of Flower Fox and the others appeared in his "vision."
Su Yun froze. Then he sensed the bloody taste in his mouth, and pain came from his lips. Feeling slowly returned to his body, and the absolute silence in his ears gradually faded. Faintly, he heard the funeral suona from Niu Family Village, playing "A Hundred Birds Paying Homage to the Phoenix."
He felt the weight on his back. He felt his legs.
The terror in his heart turned into hot tears, pouring from his eyes. Warm tears wet his cheeks.
Trembling, he stretched out his left foot and cautiously probed forward. There was nothing ahead.
It was precisely the cliff, exactly as shown on the map in his mind!
Su Yun stood at the edge of the cliff, tears covering his face, yet he burst into laughter.
Flower Fox and the others on his back were awakened by his laughter. Their six senses returned, and only then did they see that Su Yun had tied them up tightly and was carrying them on his back at the edge of the cliff, with an abyss below.
One more step forward, and they would be smashed to pieces!
The four Fox Demons did not dare move in the slightest.
Suddenly, Su Yun stepped forward and walked along the edge of the abyss. Flower Fox and the others were terrified beyond measure, while Hu Buping let out a piercing scream. This time, no one covered his mouth.
Yet Su Yun's steps remained as steady as Mount Tai. He was always only one step away from the abyss.
Walking by the abyss as though treading level ground.
Without realizing it, his temperament had become a little more composed.
He walked back and forth twice before finally stopping, setting down the four foxes from his back and untying the Immortal Rope.
The four Fox Demons were limp and weak, lying by the cliff and gasping for breath.
The last rays of the setting sun spilled down upon the youth's face, warm and gentle, dispelling the chill of Dragon Burial Mound.
The sky darkened, and the sun set.
Night arrived.
A long, melodious dragon's roar drifted from Dragon Burial Mound—clear and resonant, lingering. It seemed to conceal the loneliness accumulated through countless years, making one feel sorrowful without knowing why.
The dragon's roar made people vaguely envision a true dragon roaming alone through the Starry Sky, crossing an endless journey from one planet to another in search of its mate.
Su Yun was about to throw out the Immortal Rope and leave when he heard the dragon's roar. He paused slightly. "That sound... Erge, is that the dragon's spirit in the valley?"
Flower Fox rose and looked into the valley. Twilight had not fully fallen. He saw an azure divine dragon glowing with dim light as it flew through the air, slowly circling its own tomb and weaving between the trees.
The Dragon Spirit flew as it let out long cries, as if recounting the solitude of crossing the vast Starry Sky.
"It's that Dragon Ghost."
Flower Fox gritted his teeth. "It must have been that thing just now, suppressing us until we lost our six senses and nearly died in Dragon Burial Mound."
"That is strange."
Su Yun frowned, his expression odd as he muttered, "If the Dragon Spirit is still in the valley, then who did Jiao Shuao of The Whole Village Eats take away?"
Flower Fox came to realize it, his eyes widening and his mouth falling open.
The other three little foxes each climbed up, seeing the same horror in one another's eyes.
That was right. Who had Jiao Shuao taken away?
The Dragon Spirit was still in the valley, lingering beside its own bones. Then that rustling sound beside Jiao Shuao definitely had not been the dragon's Spiritual Nature.
In this valley, besides the divine dragon's Spiritual Nature, there was only one other thing!
"The Strange Object that fell together with the divine dragon!"
Hu Buping blurted out, crying, "The Whole Village Eats thought he had taken away the Dragon Spirit, never realizing he had taken away that Strange Object!"
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