Xie Bai followed the direction of Li Dong's voice and saw a dark doorway under the stone wall next to the cold pool. The entrance looked only about a person's height, mostly blocked by vines creeping on the rock wall, and the other half was intermittently illuminated by the flickering firelight surrounding the cold pool.

Li Dong lifted his hand and pulled aside the vines, revealing two large characters engraved on the stone wall next to it - "Changshi."

"Hey, hold on before going in, sir. Who knows if there might be some sinister trickery inside." Li Dong saw that Xie Bai seemed to be ready to step forward and quickly raised his hand to stop him.

Yin Wushu seemed uninterested in this stone cave. He kicked the corpses of the demon beasts on the ground while raising his hand to collect the fires surrounding the cold pool. Forming a fist-sized fireball, he directly threw it towards Li Dong, saying, "What sinister trickery? Let's have a look."

When he said this, he didn't even bother to glance back at the entrance of the cave, but squatted down, flicking his fingers to flip over the corpses in the air, sweeping them all into the bottom of the drained pool.

"They are all Gu eagles, Yin Gu eagles resembling leopards and Yang Gu eagles resembling eagles." Even though Yin Wushu didn't really touch these corpses with his fingers, after he finished stacking them, he subconsciously clapped his hands as if he could still feel the filth in the air.

Li Dong glanced down at the cold pool and remarked, "Oh! No wonder, it's a joint operation of the Air Force and Navy!"

Xie Bai: "..."

"But aren't Gu eagles supposed to stay nestling in Luwu Mountain and never move?" Li Dong rubbed the fireball in his hand and continued, "Could it be that they've learned migratory habits in recent years and started traveling north to south?"

Yin Wushu turned his head to sweep his gaze across the entire valley, clicked his tongue, and said coldly, "How much effort did they spend gathering from their old nest to this eerie place? What's the point? Just throwing away their lives."

Because the fire dragon circling the cold pool had been completely extinguished, this area, except for the faint light in Li Dong's hand, was basically devoid of any other light, appearing somewhat dim and unclear. Xie Bai glanced at Yin Wushu and saw half of his face illuminated by the faint light, while the other half was hid in shadows, his expression carrying an indescribable meaning.

Yin Wushu narrowed his eyes and paused for a moment, then regained his usual expression and turned to beckon Xie Bai over, saying, "I've piled them up for you, come and collect them."

Xie Bai: "..."

This action reminded Xie Bai of Old Li, the chef at the Forensic Center's canteen. After mixing the cat food for his cats every day at noon, he would call them over in exactly the same way, with gestures and expressions almost identical.

Xie Bai looked at Yin Wushu expressionlessly until he put down his hand and stopped gesturing. Only then did Xie Bai step forward and jump into the cold pool.

Yin Wushu remained on the shore and quipped humorously, "If I refuse to let go of my hand, will you just stand there?"

Xie Baili paid him no attention.

The mud at the bottom of the cold pool was exceptionally soft from being saturated with water. When Xie Bai landed, he was so light that he didn't even leave footprints.

Because he had done the job of collecting demon corpses too many times, and the origins of these Gu eagles corpses were clear, and the cause of death was even clearer, he could even skip the inspection and directly suck all the flesh and bones clean, leaving nothing behind.

Just as he was about to get up and go ashore, he suddenly remembered that Yin Wushu had mentioned a certain mark in the sacrificial array, similar to the one carved in the snow where Yin Wushu had found him when he was less than four years old.

Last time, before he could see the mark, Yin Wushu had completely defaced it, but this time, he only made one cut with his sword, and although the sacrificial array was broken, it wasn't severely damaged. Perhaps he could still see the original appearance of the mark.

Xie Bai glanced at the soft mud with various marks in front of him, and sure enough, he found a circular totem-like imprint in the center. The totem had a deep groove cut by the blade in the middle, but it didn't affect the overall pattern.

He raised his hand to trace the pattern in his palm and felt that the mark resembled a combination of the sun and an animal face.

"Why are you squatting there without moving? Did you absorb too much and have a stomachache?" Yin Wushu stood on the shore, talking nonsense.

Xie Bai rolled his eyes silently, stood up, and jumped back to the shore. He extended his hand with the pattern drawn on it in front of Yin Wushu's eyes and asked, "Is this the mark you mentioned earlier?"

Yin Wushu glanced at it and nodded, "Yes."

 

Having got the answer, Xie Bai wiped away the illusion in his palm and walked briskly to Li Dong's side. Without hesitation, he reached out and separated a portion of the fireball, holding it on his fingertips, and strode into the Changshi Cave.

"Hey, sir, you—" Li Dong barely uttered a few words before being interrupted by Xie Bai entering the cave, saying, "There's no demonic aura here, so where's the sinister trickery?"

Yin Wushu followed Xie Bai into the cave with a nonchalant expression, adding, "If there were any tricks, they wouldn't have been used during the fight just now. Using them now would be pointless. Ghost-summoning?"

Li Dong, with his hands tucked into his sleeves, sniffled timidly, "Okay, I'm silly."

Biological versus feral was indeed different...

Oh no, that's not right! Long-term raised versus short-term raised is indeed different... oh, that's not it either!

As he was rambling in his mind, he also followed into the cave.

Upon entering, they found that the Changshi Cave was not large at all. It had a narrow stone passage that could only accommodate one person at a time. After walking five or six steps and turning a corner, they could see a simple and rustic circular chamber. There was only a stone platform inside, which served as a bed but was somewhat short, probably only enough for one person to sit cross-legged on and meditate.

The setup resembled something left behind by a cultivator.

Xie Bai carefully examined every corner of the chamber with the small fireball held on his fingertips, not even missing the joints between the walls and the floor.

Finding his intense interest in the Changshi Cave somewhat puzzling, Li Dong asked, "Sir, is there something wrong with this place?" Since there were no ambushes and the layout was so straightforward, why scrutinize every inch of it as if afraid of missing some crucial information?

After circling the entire chamber and not even sparing the unpolished walls a glance, Xie Bai wrinkled his brow, stood in the middle of the chamber, looked up at the ceiling, and said, "When I was in the old temple, I had a dream. I dreamt of some past events, including a fragment from a book."

He tapped on the ground with his foot and continued, "Quite coincidentally, the author of the book said they encountered a black-robed person followed by a white tiger in the Changshi Cave."

"In the Changshi Cave?" Li Dong exclaimed, "Isn't this it? That's indeed quite a coincidence. But what happened to that black-robed person afterwards?"

Xie Bai shook his head, "I didn't manage to read the rest. I was startled awake by the sound of the old temple's door opening. But I always felt that whatever comes after is important. Because before waking up, it seemed like I caught a glimpse of what came next, but I couldn't remember it when I opened my eyes."

Li Dong: "..."

After twitching his lips for a moment, probably feeling it wasn't quite right, he coughed and added, "I understand, I often experience that too, where I instantly forget upon waking up."

Yin Wushu glanced at him and remarked, "That's because you're stupid and have a poor memory."

Li Dong: "..." Isn't this differential treatment a bit too obvious?

After Yin Wushu finished speaking, he turned to Xie Bai and asked, "Do you remember the title of the book?"

Actually, Yin Wushu knew that Xie Bai's intuition had always been very accurate, so he didn't see any problem with Xie Bai attaching importance to the book. Instead, he looked serious and wanted to help Xie Bai remember.

Xie Bai furrowed his brows, looked down at the ground for a moment, and after some thought, he looked up and said, "I didn't pay attention to the title at the time, I just glanced at it briefly. If I remember correctly, it's a four-character title, with the last two characters being 'Suo Yu.' (NT: trivial talk). The cover was very old, and the handwriting inside was somewhat faded and written very hastily, like a manuscript."

"This information is a bit lacking." Yin Wushu frowned after hearing what he said. He thought for a moment and added, "Where did you find the book?"

Xie Bai opened his mouth, hesitated slightly, and said: "Lantern Festival."

Yin Wushu: "Lantern Festival? Which time?"

Xie Bai looked away: "It was the fifteenth day of the first lunar month when I just learned how to turn the Yin Corpse Qi into an entity."

Yin Wushu was stunned for a moment. After a while, he softly said "Ah" and whispered with a clear face: "That time you made me Yuanxiao with stuffing." When he talked about this, his expression suddenly softened from seriousness, and then he laughed and said: "The smell was simply..."

Xie Bai glanced at him expressionlessly.

Yin Wushu paused, coughed, and said, "Actually, it was not bad."

Li Dong's eyes widened and he looked at the two of them back and forth with a blank look on his face. He did learn a lot after entering Taixuan Dao, including the fact that Yin Wushu had raised Xie Bai for more than a hundred years.

But when he was incorporated into Taixuan Dao and worked with Yin Wushu, Xie Bai and Yin Wushu had lost contact, and Yin Wushu was not in a good mood whenever the Yin guest was mentioned, so Li Dong actually always thought that the two of them did not get along well. It was not a particularly harmonious relationship, otherwise they wouldn't have been stiffly apart for so many years.

But various recent details seem to have been refreshing his understanding.

For the first time today, he knew... that a cold scumbag like the Yin guest could actually make sweet Yuanxiao for people! Just thinking about it felt... so scary!

Yin Wushu and Xie Bai did not dwell too much on the past, because they knew that the current peaceful coexistence was just an appearance that could be maintained and would be broken at the first glance. Mentioning the past was not a pleasant thing for them now.

"The only stall with books that day was the one set up by the stork demon." Yin Wushu obviously remembered all the scenes at the time. After Xie Bai mentioned this, he continued: "The stork demon is still there. You can see him in the demon market every year. Maybe he still has an impression of the books he collected."

After all, demons had much better memories than ordinary people.

"Ah! Speaking of which - at night tomorrow, the sea channel will be opened in the Northern Sea Demon City!"  Li Dong slapped his thigh and reminded.

Yin Wushu said "hmm" and looked at Xie Bai: "It's just right. Let's go directly to the stork demon and ask. It would be great if we could find that book."

 

End of Arc 1

 

Translator : DarNan