Noon the next day.
A scorching crosswind swept over the parched plain. Apart from a few dead trees and crisscrossing fissures, there was little else in sight.
Xie Jinhuan stood on the Gobi flats. Even through his shoes, he could feel the searing ground beneath him, as though he were standing at the mouth of a volcano about to erupt.
Coal Ball's black fur already made the heat hard to bear. Now, remembering the days of hauling water back and forth as a beast of burden, Coal Ball stood on his shoulder, shaking its head incessantly to signal-let's go back, let's go back. What was there to stick around for...?
Nangong Ye had spent a month or so here with the Demoness last year. Now he walked up to a six-foot-wide fissure and pointed at the sword marks on its rocky wall.
"She and I sparred around here last year and accidentally collapsed the ground, uncovering this opening. It's bottomless inside. We went looking several times but found nothing..."
Xie Jinhuan came over to examine the opening. Below the fissure lay a slope that looked only forty or fifty feet deep, but he could feel the hot air rushing into his face.
The Ghost Wife, who followed him like his shadow, emerged as well and casually looked down.
"This does connect to the source of the Yang fire, but it's quite far away. Let's go."
With A Piao confirming that this was an entrance, Xie Jinhuan wasted no time. He left Coal Ball on standby aboveground in case someone ambushed them on their way out, then jumped into the opening first.
Rattle, rattle~
As he slid down the steep incline, the light around him dimmed. It felt as though he had plunged headfirst into a heated brick bed. The air