Escape from the Forbidden Zone, the Madman on the Right

"Run~"

The hoarse, dry voice echoed through the cave. This was the first time Gu Baishui had heard the monster speak. It was grating and dry, like metal scraping against stone.

The Green-Robed Youth on the stone platform was silent for a long while, seemingly not expecting the monster to speak human words. For a moment, he did not know how to respond.

"Run where?"

"Down the mountain... escape... the Forbidden Zone..."

"Why?"

"Something wants to kill you... and me..."

Gu Baishui froze for a moment, staring uncertainly at the monster that had come through the curtain of rain. "Something wants to kill me? Not you?"

The towering Red-Haired Monster did not answer. Instead, it gazed at Gu Baishui with lifeless gray-white eyes and slowly nodded.

The turn of events was completely beyond Gu Baishui's expectations.

It was obvious that this unseen Red-Haired Monster was the thing that had left him a message in the ancient books.

And yet it showed no malice toward him now. Instead, it was warning him of an imminent, unknown danger.

Gu Baishui furrowed his brow. He grew more puzzled, and more wary.

This was the Great Emperor's Forbidden Zone, and he was one of the last four disciples of the Gravekeeper Lineage.

By all rights, there was nowhere on the entire continent safer, or better able to protect Gu Baishui, than this Forbidden Zone.

But the monster was still urging him to leave. That meant... the danger came from inside the Forbidden Zone?

Gu Baishui tilted his head. He was about to ask something else when he suddenly stiffened, remembering the eerie figures he had seen last night.

Besides the Red-Haired Monster at the cave entrance, Gu Baishui had seen two other people.

One was the "Eldest Senior Brother," whose face he could not make out, but who held the Purple Ultimate Immortal Cauldron.

The other was the one he had seen before passing out... the Little Junior Sister?

If the Red-Haired Monster had never meant him any harm, could the danger have come from those other two?

Perhaps its appearance had only been a warning.

"Buzz~"

The Bronze Mirror in his chest suddenly trembled. Wisps of scorching heat spilled out of it, searing Gu Baishui's chest.

Gu Baishui fell silent. He reached into his chest with his right hand but did not take out the Bronze Mirror.

His hair was standing on end; he knew exactly what this meant.

It meant that one of his senior brothers or junior sisters was already very close to the cave where he was.

Close enough to be right at his doorstep, but without showing themselves.

"Who is it~"

"Boom!!"

The youth opened his mouth, but his voice did not carry far. The cave, packed with books, collapsed with a thunderous crash.

The earth shook, and rain poured down.

A colossal purple cauldron, terrifyingly huge, fell from the sky and smashed the hill surrounding the cave into ruins.

The purple cauldron hovered silently in the pitch-black night. Thousands upon thousands of rays of light poured down like waterfalls, their power terrifying beyond measure. In an instant, they crushed the entire hill into chunks and dust.

Clearly, the mysterious master behind this ancient, massive cauldron did not want the Green-Robed Youth inside the cave to come out alive. That was why they unleashed their full strength from the very first strike.

They even treated the terrifying restrictions inside the Great Emperor's Forbidden Zone as though they were nothing.

The youth buried beneath the ruins caught only a glimpse of brilliant, ancient purple before it tore the Red-Haired Monster at the cave entrance to pieces.

Gu Baishui had no power to fight back. All he could do was run for his life.

Taking advantage of the last instant before the cauldron descended, he activated the Teleportation Formation beneath him, concealed under the books, and was transported to the outskirts of the Great Emperor's Forbidden Zone.

Then he ran for his life.

Just as the Red-Haired Monster had said, he fled the Forbidden Zone, fleeing the place he had lived in for half a century, but which had suddenly become unfamiliar to him.

Through the torrential night rain, a disheveled youth in a Green Robe stumbled toward the mountains beyond. He did not dare look back, and he could not turn back.

In the shadows not far from the ruins, a slender figure stepped out from beneath the trees and raised their right hand. A small, ancient purple cauldron passed through space and landed in a clean, pale palm.

The figure's eyelids twitched slightly as they turned to look into the distant night rain. They watched with their own eyes as the youth, like a beaten dog, fled the Great Emperor's Forbidden Zone, but did not pursue him.

The figure only gently turned the purple cauldron in their hand.

Amid the night rain falling from the sky, a gray-white bolt of lightning, carrying terrifying power, came crashing down and struck a certain youth squarely on the Crown of the Head.

Gu Baishui's body stiffened. Then he toppled straight into the Luo River at the entrance to the Great Emperor's Forbidden Zone, his life or death unknown.

But he had still escaped into the night rain.

He had escaped this terrifying Great Emperor's Forbidden Zone.

Three days later, a battered corpse floated to the surface in a pile of rocks beside the Luo River. The current swept it into the gap between two round stones, wedging it there.

But the place was remote, with deep forests along the bank, so no one noticed the corpse.

When night fell, hazy moonlight spilled down from the sky. The corpse suddenly twitched, then sat up without a sound.

A tattered Green Robe hung from the corpse. Its eyes were vacant, its face haggard.

He sat by the river in silence all night, soundless and wordless.

Only when dawn came the next day did he come back to himself. He dragged his feeble body into the woods along the bank and vanished from the Luo River.

Another half month passed. In a dilapidated temple in the wilderness, a young man's voice came out, muffled and indistinct.

"My Second Senior Brother once read a book called Geniuses on the Left, Madmen on the Right."

"My Second Senior Brother said there are both geniuses and madmen in a crowd, with a line dividing them. The geniuses stay silent on the left side of the line, while the madmen sing and dance on the right."

"But in the end, only they themselves know whether they're madmen or geniuses. Some geniuses cross that line when danger comes, pretending to be madmen. And some madmen occasionally disguise themselves as normal people and slip in with other groups."

The Linen-Clad Girl, warming herself by the fire in the temple, looked a little helpless. She nodded perfunctorily. "So are you a genius or a madman?"

"I'm a beggar, and so are you. Otherwise, we wouldn't have ended up in this broken temple, stealing offerings to eat."

Gu Baishui's hair was disheveled, and he was covered in dust. Still, compared with the grimy little beggar across from him, he felt he was the more presentable one.

The Linen-Clad Girl scratched her head and said to Gu Baishui with utmost seriousness, "I'm not a beggar. I told you very clearly: I'm going to Luoyang to find my family."

"Find your family, I know. But it's nearly ten thousand li from Qingting to Luoyang. Aren't you afraid of running into bandits or robbers, traveling all that way alone as a little girl?"

The Linen-Clad Girl shook her head and wiped the dust from the tip of her nose. She explained to the talkative oddball, "I'm a cultivator, one of those immortals from the legends. You know what an immortal is, right?"