Destiny

Nie Li took Ye Ziyun with him and raced onward, dodging the ordinary Green Arm Giant Apes along the way.

Night deepened.

If they kept going, they could easily run into danger.

"Let's make camp here!" Nie Li said, looking at Ye Ziyun.

Though they were surrounded by the pitch-black night, Ye Ziyun showed far more courage than an ordinary girl. Her clear eyes gazed into the depths of the woods, where a shadow fell within her view.

"What's that?" Ye Ziyun asked, puzzled.

"It looks like a building!" Nie Li frowned slightly. It was probably a ruined structure.

"Let's go take a look!" Ye Ziyun started toward it. Being alone with Nie Li made her a little nervous. After all, this was the first time she'd been with a boy in the dark of night. Though she trusted Nie Li not to do anything to her, her heart couldn't help pounding wildly. She tried to shift their attention elsewhere.

Nie Li followed behind Ye Ziyun as they headed over.

"This might once have been a statue," Nie Li said. He couldn't tell what it had depicted; it had already crumbled into pieces.

Traces of a civilization from before the Dark Era still lingered here.

"What kind of writing is this?" Ye Ziyun asked, looking at Nie Li.

At the base of the statue stood a stone tablet. Nie Li brushed away the dust and, in the faint light of the moon, made out the words. "This is the writing of the Divine Empire. It says: 'Those who obey me shall be granted honor; those who defy me shall surely perish.' What arrogance!"

The words must have been left behind by some tyrant whose power and influence had once reached their height. But so what? He and his empire had ultimately been swallowed by the surging tide of demonic beasts. A peerless hero of his age had turned to a heap of yellow earth, leaving behind only these broken statues.

"Nie Li, how did you learn the writing of the Divine Empire?" Ye Ziyun was curious. Only a handful of people in the City of Brilliance knew even a little about it.

"How did I learn it?" Nie Li gave a wry smile. How could he tell her that in his previous life, he'd spent over a hundred years studying the scripts, cultivation techniques, and ancient texts of every era and empire on the Sacred Spirit Continent inside the Book of the Temporal Demonic Spirit?

"If you don't want to tell me, forget it!" Ye Ziyun pouted.

Nie Li shrugged. It wasn't that he didn't want to tell her; she simply wouldn't understand even if he did.

Ye Ziyun walked around the statue, preparing to examine another section of the ruins, when she suddenly let out a startled cry.

Nie Li saw the ground where Ye Ziyun stood rapidly collapsing. His expression changed. Realizing something was wrong, he leapt toward her, but the ground crumbled even further, and a powerful force from below dragged them both down.

Below them seemed to be a bottomless abyss.

How could there be a place like this in Ancient Orchid City? Nie Li clung tightly to Ye Ziyun and drew a sword, driving it into the stone wall beside them.

The sword plunged into the wall, then snapped with a crack. The stone here was too hard!

What kind of place was this? Nie Li tried to see what lay below, but the darkness was so complete that he couldn't make anything out.

Taking advantage of the brief slowdown in their fall, Ye Ziyun swiftly pulled a rope from her Spatial Ring and looped it around a jutting outcrop in the wall. With a thud, the two of them caught the rope and came to a stop against the rock face.

Ice Spider Demon Silk—no wonder it was so tough!

Nie Li breathed a sigh of relief. He could feel waves of suction rising from below, but they had managed to stop themselves for the moment.

"Nie Li, where are we?" Ye Ziyun asked nervously. They were dangling in midair. The wall was too smooth to climb, and they couldn't see the bottom.

"I don't know either," Nie Li replied with a wry smile. He had no idea there was a place like this inside the Ancient Orchid City Ruins. Ye Ziyun had never mentioned it in his previous life, either.

They had accidentally stumbled into a secret realm within Ancient Orchid City!

Recalling what had just happened, Nie Li suddenly understood. The words he'd read were the "key" to entering this place!

"We can only go down," Nie Li said. There was no way up; the wall was far too slippery to climb.

Nie Li looked up and saw Ye Ziyun's lively eyes beneath the moonlight, her slightly curled lashes, and her flawless, crystalline skin. She was breathtaking in a way that defied description. Her pink lips looked as if they'd been brushed with a delicate layer of rouge. The two of them were pressed tightly together, and he could feel the soft curves of her chest against him as the faint fragrance of a young girl drifted his way.

Ye Ziyun also felt how intimate their position was, and her cheeks instantly flushed crimson.

"Don't move! I'll go down first!" Ye Ziyun hurriedly said.

Seeing how awkward and reserved Ye Ziyun looked, Nie Li couldn't help thinking of the early days of their closeness in his previous life. A tenderness rose from the depths of his heart. Without the slightest hesitation, he slipped an arm around her waist and smiled. "Hold on to me. We'll go down together!"

Nie Li was going too far!

Ye Ziyun felt his right hand brazenly cupping her bottom. She was mortified and furious, but if she struggled, they might both fall!

Nie Li, you scoundrel! You lecher! Ye Ziyun cursed him angrily in her heart, but there was nothing she could do.

Seeing her embarrassed, indignant expression, Nie Li smiled faintly. The softness beneath his hand sent his heart swaying; he couldn't help giving her a couple of squeezes. Ye Ziyun's bottom was already beautifully rounded. In a few more years, it would surely become even fuller.

"Nie Li, if you dare move again, I'll fight you to the death—we'll both fall!" Even Ye Ziyun, normally so graceful and refined, couldn't take it anymore. She furrowed her brows and glared at him.

"All right, I won't move!" Nie Li laughed. He remembered how Ye Ziyun had acted when she lost her temper in his previous life. She was exactly the same. Slowly, bit by bit, he let out the rope, and the two of them descended together.

After more than ten minutes, Nie Li finally set one foot on the ground. Reluctantly, he let go of Ye Ziyun, feeling a sudden emptiness.

Ye Ziyun gritted her teeth and began silently exploring their surroundings. She'd never let anyone take such liberties with her before—not in all her life. What made it even more infuriating was that Nie Li, standing beside her, acted as though nothing had happened, pretending to look around.

The more she thought about it, the angrier she got. Ye Ziyun raised her foot and stomped hard on the top of Nie Li's.

"Ow!" Nie Li sucked in a breath and hopped around, clutching his foot.

Seeing his exaggerated reaction, Ye Ziyun couldn't help bursting into laughter. "If you misbehave again, I'll make you pay!"

With Ye Ziyun smiling, she looked all the more radiant and captivating. Nie Li stared blankly for a moment. Her smile really could make fish sink and geese fall from the sky!

Noticing Nie Li's strange gaze, Ye Ziyun quickly looked away. Her cheeks warmed slightly, and for some reason, her heart began beating a little faster.

"Let's hurry and find a way out, or we'll never get out of here!" Ye Ziyun said hastily.

"All right!" Nie Li composed himself, took a torch from his Spatial Ring, and lit it. By its light, he carefully examined their surroundings. They seemed to have fallen into some kind of underground palace. Five or six passageways led away, their destinations unknown, like the branches of a vast, deep maze.

The maze was clearly enormous.

Nie Li found a line of writing on the rock wall beside them.

"The resting place of Kong Ming's spirit!" Nie Li murmured, then exclaimed, "This is the tomb of Emperor Kong Ming of the Divine Empire!"

"Emperor Kong Ming?" Ye Ziyun looked puzzled.

"That's right." Nie Li nodded slightly. "He was the most mysterious emperor in the history of the Divine Empire. It was strange enough for an emperor to use 'Ming' in his title. When he was middle-aged, he left the Divine Empire and passed the throne to his son. The legends say he had already reached an astonishing level of cultivation and possessed an undying body. Later generations could never find his tomb. I didn't expect him to have been buried here."

"Can someone really cultivate an undying body?" Ye Ziyun asked, looking at Nie Li.

"No. That's only a legend. Even those who cultivate beyond the Legendary rank can live only two or three hundred years. In the end, no one can escape the cycle of heaven and earth!" Nie Li said with a smile.

"A realm beyond the Legendary rank? What kind of realm is that?" Ye Ziyun was even more puzzled. In her mind, Legendary rank was already the strongest there was.

"You'll find out someday." Nie Li smiled and shook his head, saying no more.

Ye Ziyun was baffled. Had Nie Li really seen beings more powerful than those at the Legendary rank? He should have never left the City of Brilliance, just like her. Had he only read about it in a book? Though curious, Ye Ziyun didn't press him further.

"This should be a maze. There may be traps and mechanisms, so be careful. Only step where I've stepped," Nie Li told Ye Ziyun.

Though she was annoyed that Nie Li always spoke to her in such a commanding tone, as though he were much older than her, Ye Ziyun still obediently nodded. "Mm!"

Even Nie Li didn't realize that, because Ye Ziyun was still so young, he felt protective of her. That was why his tone differed from the way he'd spoken to her in his previous life.

"There are five or six passageways here. Which way should we go?" Ye Ziyun looked at the shadowy tunnels around them.

"It's simple. We should head north. Given Emperor Kong Ming's destiny, his tomb must face south, with its back to the north!"

"Why?" Ye Ziyun asked, puzzled. "Why must Emperor Kong Ming's tomb face south?"

"That's written in the Book of Destiny from the age of the Divine Empire. Every destiny has things that complement or counteract it, including tombs, houses, and so on. The people of the Divine Empire believed in all that," Nie Li said with a smile.

The Book of Destiny from the age of the Divine Empire, Ye Ziyun thought. Just how many books had Nie Li read?

"Then which way is north? We're underground. How can we tell the direction?" Ye Ziyun asked.

Nie Li gave a faint smile. "That's easy to tell. The Sacred Ancestor Mountain Range runs north to south. We can determine the direction just by looking at the patterns in the stone. This way!" He strode toward one of the passageways.