Just then, footsteps suddenly sounded outside the door, followed by urgent yet courteous knocking.
"Buddha's Chosen, may I ask if my junior brother is here with you?"
At those words, the Demon Venerable, who had been laughing happily inside the room, suddenly stiffened. Then demonic qi surged, and he vanished from the room.
In an instant, Wu Fei was the only one left in the wooden cabin. He could not help chuckling. The protagonist had come to him as the Demon Venerable Yin Fan, so naturally, the neighboring cabin was empty. Presumably, the Heavenly Sword Sect disciples had gone looking for Jing Fanyu, found him absent, and come here.
Reining in his smile, Wu Fei went to open the door. Liu Yuexuan, Qi Gu, and three others were all there. The moment the door opened, before he could speak, Liu Yuexuan suddenly stepped forward. Only after seeing that no one else was inside did she let out a breath, though what it meant was unclear.
"Junior Brother Jing isn't here with me." Wu Fei calmly took a step back, the hem of his robes brushing lightly against the wooden door.
Qi Gu said, "Sorry to disturb you, Buddha's Chosen. We found our junior brother's room empty and thought he was here with you. But if he isn't, where could he have gone?"
"Let's split up and look for him," Wu Fei said after a brief moment of thought. Then he glanced at Liu Yuexuan. "Fellow Daoist Liu, will you wait in the cabin, or..."
"I'm going to look for Senior Brother Jing too!" Liu Yuexuan interrupted him.
Qi Gu said, "Rest assured, Buddha's Chosen. Junior Sister will be with me."
At night, the great inheritance tomb was especially dark and terrifying. With no way to absorb the spiritual qi in the air, it was all the more dangerous.
Only cultivators like Jing Fanyu, who absorbed even ghost qi into his body, or Wu Fei, who could use his exquisite heart to separate out pure spiritual qi, dared walk outside alone.
In the darkness, Wu Fei's white Buddhist robes stood out conspicuously, and his destination was clear.
In the book, after being affected by the Seven Emotions Flower, Jing Fanyu had left alone. He had intended to find somewhere to regulate his breathing, only to stumble into ruins from High Antiquity. Fortunately, after tens of thousands of years, the formations, mechanisms, and other such things within the ruins had long since fallen into disrepair.
Barring anything unexpected, Jing Fanyu was most likely in those ruins.
The Buddhist beads were somewhere nearby, but the entrance to the ruins was rather well hidden. Wu Fei searched for a long time before finding the tree described in the book, which looked as though lightning had split it open.
The entrance to the ruins was a hundred meters due north of that tree. Wu Fei stepped onto the teleportation point, and with a flash of white light, his figure abruptly vanished.
When he opened his eyes again, Wu Fei looked around and also sensed the location of the Buddhist beads. Then his gaze stilled.
The Buddhist beads were right nearby?
In other words... was Jing Fanyu watching him from somewhere in the shadows right now?
Chapter 8: Finding the protagonist
After a little thought, Wu Fei understood. There was still a wisp of demonic qi Jing Fanyu had left on his face. Jing Fanyu must have detected him through it, but for some reason, he had not shown himself.
Since Jing Fanyu was not showing himself, Wu Fei could only pretend not to have noticed. He raised his head and carefully surveyed the scene before him, as though he had stumbled in by chance.
The ruins had endured tens of thousands of years. Though now dilapidated, they still carried an imposing sense of majesty. Presumably, tens of thousands of years ago, this place had been home to an extremely powerful faction.
Passing the mountain gate, Wu Fei stopped before a magnificent hall. It was one of the few buildings in the ruins that remained intact. Wind and sand had long since eroded the plaque above the door, making its inscription illegible.
It was probably somewhere the sect had held meetings or the like.
The hall was extremely spacious. An eight trigrams diagram was carved into the center of the wall directly ahead, with a tray beneath it.
Wu Fei's gaze fell on the tray, which seemed to have once held something, and he walked closer. A distinct mark was clearly visible on the stone tray.
Someone had entered the ruins before him and taken what had been inside the hall, and...
It must have been quite recently.
Placing his hand on the tray, Wu Fei closed his eyes and carefully sensed the cultivator's aura lingering there. A moment later, his eyes abruptly opened, his tone slightly hesitant.
"Junior Brother Jing has been here..."
Not long after speaking, once he sensed the Buddhist beads gradually moving away, Wu Fei let the puzzlement fade from his face. With the hint of a smile, he looked in the direction Jing Fanyu had left, his gaze deep and sharp, as though he had set his sights on prey.
Within the vast ruins, a cultivator in blue brocade robes entered the medicinal garden, only to find that it was still guarded by puppets whose cultivation was no lower than the Nascent Soul Realm.
Tall, black puppets emerged from every corner of the medicinal garden and surrounded the blue-robed cultivator, who was struggling to fend them off.
This was the scene Wu Fei found when he followed the traces Jing Fanyu had left to the medicinal garden.
His gaze sharpened slightly. The Buddhist beads flew from his hand, separating in midair into individual bodhi seeds glowing with golden light, each striking at one of the many puppets surrounding Jing Fanyu.
The puppets' attention was entirely on Jing Fanyu, and they were unprepared for Wu Fei. Caught off guard by the Buddhist beads' sudden attack, they were knocked half a step back.
Jing Fanyu seized the chance to break free of the encirclement. Then Wu Fei grabbed him and took him out of the medicinal garden.
Only after they were a hundred meters away from the medicinal garden and looked back to see that the puppets had retreated did they breathe a sigh of relief.
"Junior Brother Jing, why are you here?"
"Senior Brother Wu Fei, why are you here?"
They spoke at the same time, then both paused, unable to keep amusement from their eyes.
"Fellow Daoist Qi and the others found you missing from your room, so we split up to search," Wu Fei continued. "I entered these ruins by chance and happened to discover traces you had left, so I followed them all the way here."
Wu Fei seemed to have forgotten that he was still holding Jing Fanyu's wrist. Jing Fanyu noticed, but pretended otherwise, saying with a faint smile, "Sorry to have troubled you, Senior Brother Wu Fei. I was cultivating in my room when I suddenly had a premonition and came here. But I left a letter in the cabin. Did Senior Brother Qi and the others not see it?"
Premonitions were deeply mysterious things that no one could clearly explain.
At least, on the surface, Wu Fei believed him.
"Perhaps Fellow Daoist Qi and the others didn't notice the letter you left," Wu Fei suggested, before turning to the puppets from earlier. "There seemed to be something odd about those puppets?"
After tens of thousands of years, most of the formations and buildings in the ruins had fallen into disrepair, yet these puppets were still completely intact.