Disembarking

Back at the Medical Tent, everything was normal.

Li Weiyi secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

Cai Yutong, Gao Huan, Old Liu, and the others knew why Li Weiyi had entered the Graveyard Forest. They had been waiting outside, and when they saw him return, they assumed he had succeeded and hurriedly asked what had happened.

"That White Bone Demon is no trifling foe. She can already leave her grave. With my current strength, even after exhausting every means at my disposal, I could only stand evenly matched against her."

The worry on Li Weiyi's face was heavy. If he could not get rid of her, that meant she could act with impunity to a certain extent. If she truly attacked the Research Team Members, they would be impossible to guard against.

What was more, there was that camel-riding ghostly figure—whether its soul had scattered to the winds or not was still unknown.

"You're injured?"

Cai Yutong spotted the bloodstains on Li Weiyi.

"It's nothing."

Li Weiyi instructed, "Spread the word: no one is to enter the Graveyard Forest from now on. If you hear camel bells, put in earplugs immediately. Also, be on guard against Doctor Qi."

"What happened to her?"

Cai Yutong was worried about Qi Shanshan's safety.

After pondering for a moment, Li Weiyi said uncertainly, "She may have been possessed by the White Bone Demon!"

Cai Yutong's expression darkened. Though she had long anticipated that something might have happened to Qi Shanshan, this outcome seemed even harder to accept.

"She may not have been possessed. I feel that her condition is very strange," Li Weiyi comforted her.

"Brother Weiyi, the First Mate is awake!"

Qin Ke rushed out of the Medical Tent and shouted joyfully from afar.

Li Weiyi's spirits rose. All the worries and distracting thoughts in his mind vanished, and he strode quickly into the Medical Tent.

The two fellow disciples exchanged laughter and stories.

Zhao Meng sat up and said in distress, "Have I turned into a giant now? I look at least three meters tall, and my legs are nearly as thick as water barrels!"

"If I had any other option, I never would have lightly fed Senior Brother Flood Dragon Blood," Li Weiyi said.

Zhao Meng sensed the guilt in Li Weiyi's heart and immediately burst into laughter. "I think it's great! My whole body is overflowing with strength. Maybe I could catch a tiger barehanded. How about we fellow disciples spar a little? You brat, do you dare?"

Zhao Meng had not shed his skin, nor did his skin show any signs of becoming Spiritually Transformed.

It seemed that everyone underwent different changes after drinking Golden Crow Blood and Black Flood Dragon Blood.

Li Weiyi, for instance, had not changed in appearance at all.

Li Weiyi asked, "There's no need to spar. I have something important to ask Senior Brother. Do you still remember Senior Disciple Sister Jia Nan?"

At once, an incomparably beautiful figure he could never forget for the rest of his life surfaced in Zhao Meng's mind. "Why bring up Senior Disciple Sister all of a sudden?"

"I remember Senior Disciple Sister stayed with our sect for three years, but I was too young then and can't remember many things clearly. Where exactly was Senior Disciple Sister from? Why did she never return to the sect afterward? Did something happen to her?" Li Weiyi asked.

"Not three years. Two and a half."

Zhao Meng recalled every little detail from those days. "Senior Disciple Sister was closest to you. What a pity—you were too young back then to remember anything. If you'd been a little older, Senior Disciple Sister would definitely have been a woman you could never forget in your life. She was far too outstanding, not someone this mortal world ought to possess."

"Stop reminiscing about your youth. I'm asking about serious matters," Li Weiyi said.

Zhao Meng said, "Then tell me first—what is this about?"

"It can't be explained in just a few words."

Li Weiyi had asked about Senior Disciple Sister because the language used earlier by Qi Shanshan in red and the ghostly figure on the camel was the same as the language of Senior Disciple Sister's homeland.

Li Weiyi had been young at the time, but not so young that he remembered nothing.

He had learned that language from Senior Disciple Sister, which was why he could roughly understand the conversation between the two.

Zhao Meng said, "Master said that Senior Disciple Sister came from an ethnic minority overseas. After leaving the sect, she returned home. Later, I went to sea many times and searched through countries across the world, but no matter what, I could not find that mysterious ethnic minority."

"You never asked Master?" Li Weiyi said.

"I did. Of course I asked. But Master advised me not to pry, told me to give up the thought, and even gave me a thorough scolding. He said I was a dirt monkey from the mountains, unworthy of Senior Disciple Sister. I was wronged! I only wanted to see Senior Disciple Sister one more time. Don't you?"

"Of course I do! But I think we may be able to meet Senior Disciple Sister in this world." Li Weiyi's words carried deeper meaning, and in that instant, countless thoughts flashed through his mind.

Two days later.

Li Weiyi stood at the bow of the ship, gazing out at the crimson sea. His mood grew heavier and heavier.

He had entered the Graveyard Forest many times in search of Qi Shanshan in red and the ghostly figure named Yu Tuo Nan, but every search had come up empty. He guessed that the two fiends had hidden inside some grave mound to nurse their wounds.

There were too many graves. There was simply no way to dig them open one by one and search.

What if he unearthed a third fiend...

As the Bronze Ship sped onward, the coffins upon the sea grew more numerous and more densely packed, almost converging ahead into a shoreline of a sea of coffins. A vast black mass blocked even the shipping lane.

The ship's speed became slower than ever before, as though it were about to come to a complete stop.

The coffins came in all sizes, forms, and styles.

Some were hundreds of meters long, their black wood carved with demonic patterns and wrapped in chains as thick as basin rims. Who knew what kind of corpse lay buried within.

In some places, tens of thousands of coffins had piled together into "floating islands," sprouting purplish-red vines. No one knew where the vines' roots had sunk.

The entire sea of coffins was eerily silent.

Who knew whether it had always been this quiet, or whether it had only become so quiet after the Bronze Ship arrived?

Li Weiyi said to Gao Huan beside him, "Explain this. What place from myth and legend is this? Where did all these coffins come from?"

"Along the way, we must have seen not ten million coffins, then at least several million, right? And that's only what we saw."

"They seem to be driven by some unknown force, all gathering here."

Gao Huan's lips moved. After thinking it over, he said calmly, "Maybe they all fell from the macroscopic world, just like us... There are so many planets in the universe. Earth can't be the only one with life. Perhaps after those lifeforms were buried, they fell into the Microscopic World for some special reason!"

After Zhao Meng woke up, Gao Huan had been the first to drink Golden Crow Blood.

He shed his Mortal Shell and transformed into something like an Immortal Spirit, his entire body's skin as white as warm jade. Like Cai Yutong, his physical strength had increased considerably, enough to rival athletes in Peak Condition.

But...

He had shrunk by a huge margin.

He had only been 1.65 meters tall to begin with. Now, he was not even 1.5 meters.

Other than sharing the surname Gao, he had nothing whatsoever to do with being tall.

"Hey! Master Li, why is there a red figure on the sea below?" Gao Huan cried out in alarm.

Li Weiyi's eyesight was far sharper than his. Even from several hundred meters away, he could clearly make out that the figure leaping away across the Floating Coffins was Qi Shanshan.

She had actually gotten off the ship?

A pair of flaming wings of light grew from red-clad Qi Shanshan's back. Holding someone in her arms, she landed on a massive floating island of clustered coffins in the blink of an eye.

She looked back at Li Weiyi on the ship bow and pointed at Cai Yutong in her arms.

Then—

Without looking back, she rushed into the depths of the floating island of coffins and vanished into the gloomy mist.

"That was the red-clad White Bone Demon?"

"Dr. Cai was taken by her?"

"What is she trying to do? Leaving the Bronze Ship is no big deal for a skeleton like her, but how is Dr. Cai supposed to survive?"

Gao Huan hurried after Li Weiyi toward the Medical Tent and the broken Research Vessel.

"She did it deliberately. She wants to lure me off the ship."

Li Weiyi found the rope tied beside the Bulwark for drawing water. Clearly, red-clad Qi Shanshan had gone down from here.

How did she dare?

Did she know what this place was?

"Weiyi, this is terrible! Dr. Cai was attacked by Doctor Qi..."

Zhao Meng, Old Liu, and a group of others hurried over, their faces tense.

Li Weiyi said, "I know. They've already left the ship."

"When she left, she said something very strange. If Li Weiyi wants to know who he is, I can give him the answer. Tell him to come find me." Zhao Meng repeated every word exactly.

"Who am I?"

Li Weiyi frowned. He had never considered that question before. But with the appearance of the White Bone Demon and the so-called "Guardian Wife," everything had become shrouded in confusion.

Every person had to come from somewhere.

His hand clenched tightly around the rope, and he hesitated.

It was not that he dared not get off the ship. Rather, he knew there was an even more terrifying Ghostly Creature aboard, and he feared that if he left, Senior Brother and the others would meet with disaster.

Yet if everyone got off the ship, the road ahead would be unknown.

This sea of coffins was too sinister. No one knew how many dangers lurked here. Once the Bronze Ship sailed away, they would lose all hope.

"It stopped... The Bronze Ship seems to have come to a complete stop..." Gao Huan leaned over the Bulwark and looked down at the sea.

"Clang, clang!"

From the Graveyard Forest came the loud clamor of camel bells and wind, rushing rapidly toward the Bulwark.

"Watch out!"

Li Weiyi strode forward, mobilizing the hot and cold currents within his body and forming an Overturning Sky Palm Seal. He struck at the cloud of Nether Mist flying out from above the gravestones.

With a bang.

The terrifying force within the cloud of Nether Mist blasted Li Weiyi over the Bulwark.

The Humanoid Ghost Shadow rode astride a camel. Amid deafening camel bells, it vaulted high over the Bulwark and swung its Ghost Flag through the air at Li Weiyi's waist and abdomen, intending to knock him straight down and send him plunging to his death on the sea below.

With danger at its absolute peak, Li Weiyi had no time to care that he was falling through midair. He drew the Yellow Dragon Sword from his back and swung it up to block.

Bang!

Two forces collided head-on.

Li Weiyi's blood and qi churned within him, sending him plummeting even faster.

Worse still, the camel-bell chimes and the Ghost Flag came again. The Humanoid Ghost Shadow was utterly unafraid of falling, bent solely on putting him to death.

In this near-certain deathtrap, the springs in the soles of Li Weiyi's feet surged wildly. Airflow flooded all twenty-six of his Trace Meridians as he unleashed Yellow Dragon Ascends to Heaven.

With his first step, it was as though he had stepped upon a cloud of wind and qi, steadying his fall.

With his second step, he dodged the Ghost Flag and rose to the same height as the Humanoid Ghost Shadow.

With his third step, Li Weiyi appeared directly above the Humanoid Ghost Shadow's head.

In the Humanoid Ghost Shadow's astonished gaze, offense and defense had switched places.

"Die."

Li Weiyi raised his sword in both hands. Yellow light erupted from its edge as he brought it crashing down.