"You still want to make a wager with me?"
Yan Yin Zi raised an eyebrow, his appetite for a bet stirred. With a flick of the wine flask in his hand, he turned it from solid to insubstantial. Then he studied Chen Cuo and shook his head. "A little strange, perhaps, but hardly remarkable. Do you know how many Restrictions guard an Immortal School's Secret Realm? How could ordinary mortals enter and leave it at will, let alone set foot inside?"
"Oh? Is that truly so?" Chen Cuo smiled without exposing him. Before Chen Cuo had taken charge, the Great Hua Secret Realm had been riddled with holes. Ordinary woodcutters and hunters had wandered in by accident and put down roots there, much less cultivators.
Besides, he had governed the Secret Realm for years. Though he had shared much of its Authority with Nanmingzi, the Taihua Leader, few could match his understanding of it. He knew that calling its former state "long neglected" would be flattering. It had been a house with drafts blowing through every wall.
If he had not wanted to meet his Venerable Master openly, Chen Cuo knew at least nine ways to enter the Secret Realm. But he would hardly embarrass an elder of his own Master's Sect to his face. In the end, he merely smiled and said no more.
"Judging by that look, you don't believe me..." Yan Yin Zi found his smile somewhat irritating and was about to continue when a voice interrupted him—
"Since a fellow Daoist has come from afar to visit, how could we refuse to see him? Junior Brother, let him come in."
At the sound of that voice, Chen Cuo's gaze flickered. Long-buried memories rose within him, along with longing and nostalgia. But his cultivation had reached such