Lu Changfeng drew a deep breath, and a series of fine, crisp cracks rang out through his bones-it was the Bone-Shrinking Skill recorded in the Nine Yin Manual.
His body abruptly shrank, and he slipped like a loach into the opening, which was barely a foot across.
The passage was dark and cramped. Its walls were layers of rock Zhang Mingqian had "peeled away" with his earth-traversing power over the past twenty years. The cuts were smooth, yet still retained the rough texture peculiar to stone.
Using both hands and feet, Lu Changfeng climbed upward like a slithering snake, moving swiftly.
After he had climbed some seventy or eighty feet, the walls suddenly changed.
Dark red lines began to appear in the hard, cold stone.
Those lines were as fine as hairs, yet densely packed, like blood vessels in the rock. Farther up, they grew increasingly dense, gradually converging into finger-thick roots-they were actually the roots of a Blood Tai Sui!
Lu Changfeng could not have been more familiar with this spirit plant.
It was where he had first learned of the spiritual energy revival.
They were dark red throughout, their surfaces covered in fine veins, with liquid faintly visible flowing slowly within. Most unnervingly, every root trembled slightly, like the pulse of a living creature.
Lu Changfeng inwardly sensed trouble.
This Blood Tai Sui's roots pierced layer upon layer of soil and stone from above, extending all the way to the passage walls. Unlike the underground spirit plants that could not grow beyond their caverns, it could very well allow someone possessing the Jumang bloodline to sense disturbances underground through these roots, using the main body above.
The Jumang bloodline was recorded only in legends. No one had ever seen it.
In books, it was said to "communicate with