Secrets Hidden in the Murals

"Sang Ying, you're finally awake! You scared me to death!"

Sang Ying was helped to sit up. Before she could even comfort Fang Chi, her first reaction was to examine her limbs.

These hands were still so slender and small, the hands of someone who hadn't yet grown up.

My hands were calloused, but they weren't as strong and powerful as in my dreams.

"What's wrong? Still having trouble distinguishing between reality and dreams?" Fang Chi patted her shoulder when he saw this. "I was confused when I first woke up too. I was wondering where my awesome big sword had gone, and then I realized that I was just dreaming."

There was a hint of disappointment in her voice; it seemed she really liked the knife, which was a head taller than her.

"Perhaps it's not a dream," Hai Tingzhou interjected.

Sang Ying looked in the direction of the sound and found him busy cleaning the dust off the stone wall.

It was at this moment that Sang Ying realized they were no longer on the steps where they had lost consciousness, but inside a stone chamber.

The stone chamber didn't look very big, and the stone walls on all four sides were carved with some indistinct patterns.

Hai Tingzhou was eager to study it, so he specially cleaned away the dust covering it, and the patterns on the stone wall slowly became visible.

Fang Chi couldn't understand what was drawn on the screen, but she could understand Hai Tingzhou's words. She asked, "What do you mean? What is this if not a dream? Could it be that I really was a dragon in my past life?"

Cultivators don't have the concept of past lives or present lives; at least in the Twin Orchid Realm, death is death. At most, those with stronger souls might become ghost cultivators.

Hai Tingzhou replied, "Even if it's a dream, we can't possibly have the same dream twice, right? So I guess we've been pulled into an illusion, and what we're seeing are other people's memories."

Before Sang Ying woke up, the two of them had already gone over the contents of their dream.

Fang Chi knew that Hai Tingzhou was the young master of the Azure Dragon Clan who was obsessed with formations, while Hai Tingzhou also realized that Fang Chi was the young lady of the Golden Dragon Clan who liked broadswords.

At this point, Fang Chi couldn't help but ask, "And you, Fellow Daoist Sang Ying, who were you in the dream?"

She still firmly believed it was just a dream, even though everything in the dream felt incredibly real.

"Me?" Sang Ying was dazed for a moment before uttering three words, "Bai Qinglong?"

Their gazes instantly fell back on her, and Hai Tingzhou even ignored the murals, joining Fang Chi in moving closer to her.

"You're that Young Master Bai, the Young Master Bai who sacrificed himself for the formation?!" Hai Tingzhou looked at her, his hands itching to reach out and touch her.

After all, he greatly admired Bai Qinglong of the White Dragon Tribe when he was in the illusion, but because of shyness, he only managed to exchange a few words with her.

Fang Chi was much more straightforward than him; he immediately grabbed Sang Ying's shoulders, wanting to pull her into his arms.

Fortunately, Hai Tingzhou intervened strongly, and she failed to succeed.

"It's you! I knew it was you! Sister, your swordsmanship is amazing!" As someone who had fought against "Bai Qinglong," no one knew better than her how superb her Swordsmanship was.

It was only at this moment that Sang Ying finally separated herself completely from Bai Qinglong.

The illusion had a profound impact on her; when she sensed the meager Spiritual Power within her body, which belonged to the Foundation Establishment Realm, she even felt somewhat lost.

However, Sang Ying quickly recovered, believing that one day she too could possess such power!

Having probably been lying down for a while, Sang Ying's legs and feet were getting numb. She slowly got up and moved around a bit, and her gaze was involuntarily drawn to the stone wall.

"How did we get here?" If she remembered correctly, she had fainted on the stone steps leading to the underground palace.

Fang Chi replied, "I don't know either. Anyway, when I woke up, we were already lying here."

Hai Tingzhou nodded repeatedly, indicating that he had experienced the same thing as Fang Chi.

Sang Ying frowned, suppressing the strange feeling in her heart.

As they spoke, Hai Tingzhou had already cleaned the stone wall. Because the murals on it were very fragile, he was very careful and it took a lot of effort to clean it up.

The murals are clearly visible, depicting figures and cities. There are connections between the various murals, clearly indicating that they record a story.

Hai Tingzhou, who was in charge of cleaning the mural, was naturally the one among the three who knew the story best. Seeing the curiosity in the other two's eyes, he explained, "It seems to be a painting about repaying a debt of gratitude and making a promise."

"It's said that one day, a huge creature fell from the sky into a fishing village by the sea. The people there had never seen anything like it before and were terrified, daring not to touch it. One of the fishermen bravely treated the creature's wounds and, after discovering that it was born in water, carefully returned it to the sea."

"Although that big creature didn't survive long after being returned to the sea, it repaid the fishermen's kindness by giving them many marine treasures, as well as its... pelt?"

The last character carried a strong sense of uncertainty, as the mural was severely damaged, making it difficult for Hai Tingzhou to see clearly.

"Then, the fisherman used the treasure to rebuild the village and became the village chief. The giant creature protected the village until its death. Finally, one day, the giant creature could no longer move and returned to an island, where it rested in peace. Before it died, it made a promise with the fisherman."

Hai Tingzhou painstakingly deciphered this information from the fragmented murals.

Sang Ying focused her gaze on the first mural, on the "giant" that seemed to be descending from the sky. Looking at its slender form, Sang Ying suddenly asked, "Do you think that giant creature is a dragon?"

The two people who had been arguing about the contents of the murals fell silent and gathered around the first mural.

"This really does look like a dragon." Fang Chi reached out and touched the "big thing" on the mural.

However, the three people in front of the mural disappeared the next second.

All that remained in that stone chamber was the lingering echo of Fang Chi's voice.

The quiet stone chamber soon welcomed new guests.

The young man at the head of the group looked somewhat disheveled, clearly having just gone through a fierce battle. The woman in white following behind him appeared dazed and slightly timid.

She unconsciously raised her hand to touch her forehead; not long ago, she had been killed by a Devil Creature's claw that cleaved down from here.

"Fuyun, come here and take a look. There are some murals here." Hai Pingge called to her, Su Fuyun quickly stepped over.

When they followed the dragon's roar to the altar, they ran into those Nascent Soul Cultivators.

Hai Pingge's followers, in an effort to buy time for him to enter the underground palace, had all perished at the hands of the Nascent Soul Cultivator. Su Fuyun's Beast Ring also fell off during the dodge.

At this moment, she had no way to save her life and could only obediently follow Hai Pingge.

Even though she knew that the other person was Xuan Jingshan from her dreams!