The White Tower's Elusive Movements

Pang Jian had come for the fourth Phoenix Bone.

There was one Phoenix Bone in Blackwater Pool and another in Insect Valley. Since Lake Heart Island was also a forbidden zone, there should be a Phoenix Bone there as well.

He had experienced the wonders of Phoenix Marrow firsthand. Knowing there might be more of it formed on Lake Heart Island, he had naturally come to try his luck.

"Who's controlling the Heavenly Spirit Pagoda?"

Su Yuntian looked around, but saw no one appear. He hesitated again.

He and He Rong didn't know much about the secrets hidden in the Phoenix Bones. They were afraid that the person directing the Heavenly Spirit Pagoda might strike hard when they went onto the island.

"This place is very close to the Boundary Wall at the northernmost edge of the Cenji Mountains."

Pang Jian looked past Wulan Lake toward the towering mountain ranges behind it. His gaze seemed to try to pierce through the mountains and reach the unfamiliar world on the other side.

That was the northernmost part of this land known as the North Qi Fragmented Land.

The Extreme North lay right beside the Boundary Wall in the northern part of the Fourth Realm. It was also the source of the spreading Ghost Mist.

Beneath the sky,

Wulan Lake remained pale blue. Framed by the steep mountain peaks behind it, the lake made for a breathtaking scene.

But as they watched the White Tower howling ceaselessly above Lake Heart Island, where flowers bloomed in profusion, their expressions grew solemn.

According to legend, every Heavenly Spirit Pagoda from the Yin Spirit Temple had been built from heaps of grim white bones.

In the Third Realm above, the Yin Spirit Temple hardly ever dealt with other sects and forces. It never recruited talent from the Seven Great Families, either, maintaining its air of mystery.

Su Yuntian, He Rong, and the others knew little about the sect, which only deepened their awe of it.

After staring at the White Tower on the island for a long while, the two men began to hesitate again, wondering whether they should go ashore.

Reading their thoughts, Luo Hongyan decided they should make the most of what they had. She took the initiative and asked, "You two, could you have your subordinates weave a bamboo raft for us?"

Thinking of how she had refused every item they'd scavenged along the way, Su Yuntian felt guilty and said, "Certainly."

He then sent subordinates loyal to the Su Family to cut bamboo nearby and weave rafts from whatever materials they found.

"We should leave."

He Rong spoke up suddenly.

Watching the White Tower drift through the air, he couldn't shake the feeling that something indescribably eerie hung over the flower-covered island.

Even standing at the water's edge, he found Wulan Lake's water bitterly cold. It made him deeply uncomfortable.

"The fourth Phoenix Bone is on that island. Aren't you curious about what's there?"

Luo Hongyan glanced at the two of them. An idea struck her, and she said softly, "If you don't want to go yourselves, you can send two subordinates to investigate."

He Rong's eyes brightened.

He immediately gave the order, sending the He Family servants to cut bamboo as well and weave a few more rafts.

"The Heavenly Spirit Pagoda keeps drifting around. What's it doing?" Su Meng asked curiously.

Su Yuntian and He Rong shook their heads. They knew the Heavenly Spirit Pagoda symbolized the Yin Spirit Temple, but not what it actually did.

"It's searching souls."

Luo Hongyan quietly gave them the answer. She stared at the drifting White Tower and said, "Within a certain range, it can sense any living thing with a soul. Spirit Sha, ghosts, wraiths—those with only a spiritual form and no flesh and blood—are absorbed and imprisoned by it."

Her voice was cold as she spoke.

Pang Jian felt a quiet stirring of curiosity. Ever since they arrived at Wulan Lake, he'd sensed that something about Luo Hongyan had changed.

The girl's gaze on the floating White Tower held a hidden hatred—and a deep wariness.

It was as if she had suffered inside the tower.

"Could it be because of the Yin Spirit Temple cultivators' corpses in that pile of rocks, the ones that led to so many deaths and injuries in the Ning Family?"

Pang Jian recalled the pile of boulders they'd encountered upon first entering the Cenji Mountains.

Many of the corpses there had worn Blood Moon robes. They had misled Han Duping, leading to the Spirit Sha attack on the members of the Zhou Family and the Ning Family.

The deeper he thought about it, though, the more suspicious it seemed.

The Yin Spirit Temple's Heavenly Spirit Pagoda now floated over Wulan Lake in the northern part of the Cenji Mountains. Yet the Yin Spirit Temple cultivators who had arrived aboard it had died in a gorge at the southernmost edge, dressed in Blood Moon robes.

The two locations were hundreds of miles apart.

Uneasy, Pang Jian watched the White Tower as it drifted to and fro, quietly keeping his guard up.

Before long, the servants of the Su and He families had woven several bamboo rafts. At Su Yuntian and He Rong's command, four men paired off on two rafts and headed for the island in the middle of the lake.

He Rong called out, "Report to us immediately if you find anything!"

The four men, their hearts full of unease, nodded on the icy lake. They looked fearfully toward Lake Heart Island, convinced that the flower-covered island was crawling with horrors.

The rafts crept slowly across the lake.

Pang Jian narrowed his eyes slightly, turned his gaze away from the island, and studied the water before him.

The pale-blue lake was clear, yet there were no fish or shrimp in it. Nor was there any buzz of mosquitoes or flies along the shore.

Whenever he'd come to Wulan Lake before, it had never been like this.

In the past, if he watched the lake for a while, he could spot fish swimming by and wild animals prowling nearby. Sometimes, he'd even run into hunters from Linshan Town.

Now, it was as if all life in and around the lake had vanished. The whole world lay utterly silent.

Pang Jian fell quiet. Su Yuntian and He Rong said nothing, and Luo Hongyan fell silent as well.

After a brief stretch of dead silence,

the two rafts reached Lake Heart Island. The four Qi Refining Realm cultivators jumped down and began exploring among the trees.

The Heavenly Spirit Pagoda on the island continued to howl. It seemed to fly right over their heads, without pausing at all.

Afterward, the others received no response.

Time slipped by. Half an hour passed, then an hour, but the rafts remained where they were.

The four who had gone ashore had vanished as if into thin air.

They didn't show themselves. Not a single shout came from the island. It was as if no one had ever set foot there.

"Little Brother Pang Jian, could you point me toward the best way out of the Cenji Mountains?" Su Yuntian drew a deep breath, his eyes resolute. "I've decided we're leaving!"

"Father, I want to go look around the island!" Su Meng pleaded softly.

"Enough!"

Su Yuntian's expression turned cold. This time, he didn't give in to her. His tone left no room for argument. "The Heavenly Spirit Pagoda is moving, and someone unknown is controlling it from the island. The people of the Yin Spirit Temple are an odd lot. They never associate with the other great sects. We shouldn't provoke them!"

He assumed a powerful Yin Spirit Temple cultivator was secretly controlling the Heavenly Spirit Pagoda and had killed the subordinates he and He Rong had sent ashore.

"We're leaving too!"

Seeing that his subordinates still hadn't returned, He Rong made the same decision. Both men looked to Pang Jian, hoping he could point out the quickest way out.

Pang Jian looked at Luo Hongyan.

Luo Hongyan stretched lazily and pulled the nearest bamboo raft toward her. "Let them do as they please."

Pang Jian pondered for a moment, then pointed in a direction. "Head along the base of that mountain. Don't try to climb over it. At your pace, if nothing goes wrong, you'll be out of the Cenji Mountains in seven or eight days."

"Thank you!"

Su Yuntian cupped his hands in a salute. Ignoring Su Meng's pleading expression, he pointed to the empty rafts and said to Luo Hongyan, "I can tell you two are sure to go to the island. I can only wish you the best of luck."

Luo Hongyan paid him no mind.

"Farewell!"

Su Yuntian then set off with He Rong and more than a dozen of their loyal subordinates, heading in the direction Pang Jian had indicated.

"The direction you pointed them in won't get them killed, will it?"

After they'd been gone a little while, Luo Hongyan's expression softened slightly, and her tone relaxed.

"The direction is definitely right, but you know as well as I do that danger lurks everywhere in the Cenji Mountains now. I used to take that route all the time without a single mishap. As for now, I can't say."

Pang Jian looked perfectly frank.

Seeing that Luo Hongyan didn't seem ready to set out just yet, he asked curiously, "Aren't we going to the island?"

Luo Hongyan dragged a bamboo pole through the water without looking up. "Let's watch a little longer. Maybe those four who went ashore will suddenly turn up and tell us something important."

Pang Jian, who had obtained quite a few spirit stones along the way, said nothing more. He let her keep watch by the lakeshore, found a quiet spot of his own, and began cultivating the Pot-Heaven Qi Cultivation Art.

Like the Blood Moon cultivators' spirit stones, the ones he'd obtained beside the Galaxy Alliance corpses were pure and flawless.

The spiritual energy within these spirit stones needed no cleansing or purification, nor did it need further refinement. Once it entered the vortex in his dantian, it flowed straight into his Spirit Sea.

His Spirit Sea, expanded to an unknown size, kept filling with spiritual energy. It felt broader and broader.

He had a large supply of spirit stones, and his body had been tempered twice by Phoenix Marrow, so his progress in the Qi Refining Realm was actually quite fast.

He had felt the spiritual energy fill the entire space above his dantian seven or eight times already.

According to Luo Hongyan, each time his spiritual energy reached fullness marked one minor level in the Qi Refining Realm. If so, his early accumulation might already have reached an impressive level.

He didn't know how long he had cultivated when he suddenly heard a jumble of footsteps coming from the direction he'd pointed out.

His eyes widened in surprise.

A moment later, Su Yuntian and He Rong returned along the way they'd come, with every one of their subordinates in tow.

"What happened to you? The direction I gave you was absolutely fine. If something went wrong... well, it had nothing to do with me!" Pang Jian hastily disclaimed any responsibility.

"Spirit Sha—and high-ranking ones, too! They attacked us. There were a lot of them, and they were hard to deal with. We had no choice but to retreat," Su Yuntian said awkwardly.

Pang Jian froze. He immediately thought of the Spirit Sha controlled by the Demoness in the pile of rocks and wondered if she was up ahead.

"There's danger in every direction anyway. We might as well go to the island with you!" He Rong gritted his teeth.

"Welcome back."

Luo Hongyan smiled softly and stepped onto a bamboo raft first. Then she reached out a jade-white hand, graceful as a lotus root, and invited Pang Jian over. "Come on. We'll go ahead and clear a path across the lake for them."