Where Am I?
When Bao Gu regained consciousness, she found herself in an exceptionally strange place. There was neither sky nor earth. If she were drifting through the cosmos, there should have been stars, yet there were none. If this was a void where nothing existed, why could she clearly feel dense spiritual energy from heaven and earth circulating around her? Perhaps the spiritual energy here was simply too concentrated, shrouding everything in mist.
What shocked her most was the omnipresent sword intent and aura of the Xuantian Sword. In the past, that aura had been released from within her own body. Now it curled around her as though enveloping her. She released her divine sense and found that this world was boundless. Even with her cultivation at the Tribulation Transcendence stage, her divine sense could not reach its end.
Could it be that I failed to withstand that heavenly tribulation, was struck to death, and my divine soul fled into the Xuantian Sword?
At that thought, Bao Gu hurriedly looked toward her body, only to see herself lying in a pitch-black expanse of mist dense with spiritual energy. There was no sky above or ground below; she simply lay there. What she “saw” was not something perceived by her eyes, but her own form reflected directly in her mind.
What happened?
Where was Senior Sister?
Bao Gu’s heart jolted. She was lying in a place where spiritual energy had grown so dense that it had condensed into spiritual mist. Did Senior Sister know?
Senior Sister… Nether Shadow City…
As the thought arose, the scenery of heaven and earth around Bao Gu began changing at lightning speed. In the next instant, she appeared at the gates of Nether Shadow City, where Yu Mi stood with a bewildered, helpless expression, as if the world were vast and she had no idea where to go.
Bao Gu had never seen Yu Mi like this. She rushed up to her.
“Senior Sister, what’s wrong?”
Yu Mi remained standing there blankly, as if Bao Gu were nothing but air and Yu Mi could not see her.
Bao Gu cried out anxiously.
“Senior Sister, can’t you see me? Senior Sister! Senior Sister!”
“Martial Uncle!”
Bao Nianhui’s voice rang out. Standing on a flying sword, she hurried to the city gate and came to Yu Mi’s side.
“Are you going out to travel again?”
Yu Mi returned to her senses.
“Mm. If anything happens, contact me through a voice-transmission jade talisman.”
Bao Nianhui nodded lightly. After a moment’s thought, she said:
“Master is blessed by heaven. Everyone says she has an immortal destiny. Martial Uncle, just think of it as waiting a thousand years for her.”
Yu Mi replied:
“I’m fine. I’ve endured more than five hundred years of hopeless separation. With something to look forward to, why would I be unable to wait a few hundred or even a thousand years?”
At the thought of Bao Gu’s habit of shouldering every burden herself, a bitter smile touched the corners of Yu Mi’s lips. She sighed softly and said to Bao Nianhui:
“Go back.”
Her divine sense detected someone watching her from behind. When she turned, she saw Qingying standing there.
“Qingying, I’ll leave Nianhui in your care…”
Before she could finish, Qingying suddenly stepped in front of her and began circling her, her eyes half narrowed as if she were desperately searching for something. Then, without warning, Qingying summoned the Heaven-Refining Cauldron and brought it down over Yu Mi.
Bao Nianhui was startled when Qingying suddenly summoned the Heaven-Refining Cauldron and tried to cover Martial Uncle with it. She cried out:
“Senior Sister, what are you doing? Just because Master isn’t here, you’re beating up Martial Uncle? You’d better be careful—when Master comes back…”
Qingying cast Bao Nianhui a glance, and the look immediately made her fall silent.
Seeing the cauldron descend toward her face, Yu Mi hastily pulled back and flew away. Just as she was about to ask what was happening, she saw Qingying plunge her head into the mouth of the Heaven-Refining Cauldron, apparently searching for something inside.
Qingying searched for a while but found nothing. Scratching her chin, she looked around in confusion and called tentatively:
“Cheap Master? Master, are you there?”
Bao Gu was overjoyed and hurried up to Qingying.
“I’m right here! Can you see me?”
With one hand gripping the cauldron and the other scratching her chin, Qingying said:
“I have a feeling Cheap Master is right in front of me.”
Bao Gu was indeed standing right in front of her. She could clearly see the reflections in Qingying’s pupils, yet her own image did not appear in them.
Yu Mi’s heart began pounding at Qingying’s words. She instinctively took them seriously, but then reconsidered.
“How could that be? Bao Gu was sent into the Immortal Burial Grounds by our Master’s wife.”
Qingying called out:
“It’s precisely because she’s in the Immortal Burial Grounds that I can only say I feel Cheap Master is right in front of me. But… I can’t be certain. I was a Golden Immortal once, after all. I can sense a presence like Master’s!”
She raised her little finger and pinched off a tiny sliver.
“It’s only the tiniest trace of a feeling, but I just feel that she’s here.”
Yu Mi could barely contain the pounding in her heart.
“You’re saying Bao Gu is here? Where?”
Qingying replied:
“Probably somewhere around here! I can’t really explain it. It’s just a feeling.”
Bao Nianhui was completely bewildered by Qingying’s mysterious rambling.
Qingying summoned the Xuantian Sword again and swept it around the area, then peered into the Heaven-Refining Cauldron. At last, she cried out in frustration:
“This blasted cauldron! These blasted restrictions imposed by the laws of the Heavenly Dao!”
It could not even contain a drifting wisp of consciousness that barely qualified as half-immortal!
Angrily, she grabbed the cauldron by one of its legs and shook it, waving her little paw.
“Cheap Master, go back and lie down. Don’t come bouncing out again!”
With that, she turned and walked toward the city.
Yu Mi grabbed Qingying.
“Explain yourself! Qingying! Is Bao Gu really here?”
Qingying rolled her eyes.
“Even if she were here, you still wouldn’t be able to see her. Her body is in the Immortal Burial Grounds. Even if she could drift all the way here, she would still be in a different state of existence from us.”
“What do you mean?”
Qingying thought for a moment.
“Have you heard the old saying that a mortal’s soul returns on the forty-ninth day after death?”
Yu Mi frowned.
“Bao Gu isn’t dead.”
Qingying gave Yu Mi a contemptuous look.
“I never said she was. I’m only using that as an analogy. When someone dies, their soul leaves their body and this world, going to whatever world it is meant to go to. But if the departed soul thinks of its family, the attachment in its heart lets it return on the forty-ninth day. Though two worlds lie between them, that thread of attachment and resonance brings it back in an instant.
“But what returns is a soul, while those who remain alive are people. People cannot see souls. You call this being separated by yin and yang. In truth, it is simply that the living and souls exist in different states of existence and in different worlds.”
Yu Mi asked uncertainly:
“Then you mean Bao Gu…”
If Bao Gu’s divine soul had returned, there was no way Yu Mi could fail to see her.
Qingying rolled her eyes again.
“Just assume she fell asleep in the Immortal Burial Grounds and, unable to stay still, sent her consciousness out for a visit.”
After saying this, she waved at the empty air and once more headed toward the city, only to be grabbed by Yu Mi again.
Yu Mi looked pleadingly at Qingying.
“I want to see Bao Gu.”
Qingying cast Yu Mi a sidelong glance and forced herself to be patient.
“The Immortal Burial Grounds is a world resembling the Immortal Realm, built by harnessing the power of a grand feng shui formation. Its structure is similar to that of the Immortal Realm, but immortal energy drifts through the Immortal Realm, while spiritual energy fills this realm.
“Put simply, it is a small pseudo-Immortal Realm constructed within this world through a feng shui formation. The laws governing that world are different, and so is its state of existence. If Cheap Master came to you while retaining the state of existence she has in the Immortal Burial Grounds, you wouldn’t be able to see her.”
She turned and looked toward the empty air behind her.
“Hey, Cheap Master, you’re seriously injured, and your divine soul is so weak. If you keep wandering around like this, aren’t you afraid you won’t find your way back, and your consciousness will become a stray remnant soul drifting through heaven and earth?”
Yu Mi’s heart clenched at that. Qingying’s words frightened her; she was terrified that Bao Gu might suffer another mishap. She looked toward the place Qingying was watching.
“Bao Gu, I don’t know whether you’re here, or whether you can hear me. Go back. Rest and heal properly. I’ll wait for you to return.”
Speaking to the empty air made Yu Mi feel as though she were speaking to a dead spirit. Her chest tightened and her eyes burned. She was afraid that if Bao Gu saw her grief, she would be even less willing to leave and something else might happen, so she forced it all back and put on a smile.
“Don’t worry about me. You know what kind of person I am. I’ve been used to living freely. With no one here to rein me in, I’ll actually be even freer.”
Bao Gu had never restrained her. She had only silently protected Yu Mi from behind and waited for her, allowing her to do whatever she wanted and venture wherever she pleased.
“I’ll wait for you to recover and come back.”
Bao Gu watched Yu Mi with heartache. How could she fail to see the sorrow, pain, and worry in Yu Mi’s eyes? She had never imagined that her injuries were severe enough for her to be sealed inside the Immortal Burial Grounds to heal. Bao Gu did not want to leave Yu Mi, but she knew that if she stayed, Qingying would be able to sense her presence and tell Yu Mi, causing Yu Mi to worry. From what Qingying had said, remaining here would not benefit Bao Gu either.
Bao Gu floated in front of Yu Mi and wanted to kiss her lips, but passed through Yu Mi as though passing through air. More precisely, Yu Mi stood right before her, while Bao Gu herself was even more insubstantial than air. Bao Gu sighed silently and could only leave. The instant she formed the thought of leaving, the scenery and aura around her changed again, and she found herself back where she had been, once more wrapped in the aura of the Xuantian Sword.
Qingying sensed that the faint connection had disappeared and called to Yu Mi:
“She’s gone!”
Seeing Yu Mi’s eyes grow slightly red, Qingying leaned close to her face.
“Cheap Martial Uncle, you can cry now. Master can’t see you.”
Yu Mi’s eyes grew hot, but she forcibly held the tears back. She took a deep breath and forced her emotions under control.
“I’m not that fragile! Knowing that she can still come out and wander around, I can rest easy now.”
Bao Gu had not quietly dissipated into nothingness, and her injuries were not so severe that even her soul had fallen into slumber. The fact that she could come this far to wander around meant that her condition could not be too bad. The heavy stone weighing on Yu Mi’s heart finally lightened somewhat, and her mood improved considerably. After thinking for a moment, she said to Bao Nianhui:
“I’m going back to the Xuantian Sect.”
She glanced around one more time, clearly reluctant to leave, then took to the wind and flew away from Nether Shadow City.
Bao Nianhui waited until Yu Mi had gone far away before asking Qingying:
“Hey, Senior Sister, you were lying to Martial Uncle, weren’t you? Master really did come haunting us just now!”
Qingying stared at her.
“H-Haunting?”
Qingying curled one finger, about to rap Bao Nianhui on the head, but then remembered how weak Bao Nianhui was. She feared that even a little force might crack the girl’s skull and kill her, so she withdrew her hand and sneered:
“You silly thing! It was only her consciousness wandering out of her body!”
Bao Nianhui asked in disbelief:
“Master really came here?”
Qingying ground her teeth.
“Don’t question the sensing ability of this Great Luo Golden Immortal!”
Bao Nianhui looked Qingying up and down, her expression full of contempt for her Senior Sister’s boasting, then turned and left.
Qingying naturally understood what that look meant, but she could not be bothered to argue with her foolish Junior Sister. She lightly scratched her chin and followed the direction in which Cheap Master had instantly retreated. Her Cheap Master had withdrawn far too quickly, almost ten thousand li in an instant, but Qingying still caught a trace of her. She followed that faint feeling, but before she reached the destination, she suddenly realized that she had entered the Naughty Little Fox’s territory and stopped dead in her tracks.
The Naughty Little Fox had buried Cheap Master in her own territory, so she surely intended to guard her personally. Qingying was confident she could search without touching the feng shui formation of the Immortal Burial Grounds, but what if the Naughty Little Fox thought she might damage the formation, grew angry, and came after her? Thinking of the Celestial Fox royal clan’s methods and how impossible they were to deal with sent a chill down her spine.
Just then, she sensed a powerful divine sense sweeping over from deep within the demon domain. Terrified, she turned tail and ran!
