Bao Gu opened her eyes, and it took her a while to adjust to the dazzling sunlight.
Sore all over, Bao Gu climbed up from the ground to see that everything around her had turned to dust. The countless bones beside her had also become bone powder, and the eerie greatsword had mysteriously disappeared. The phrase “Xuantian is immortal, the legacy is everlasting, Xuantian is immortal, the legacy is everlasting” still echoed faintly in her mind.
Not daring to linger in this strange place, Bao Gu rubbed her aching forehead and dragged her sore body to find a way down the mountain.
There were several paths down the mountain, one of which was the one she had taken to come up. She had lost her way, and returning the same way did not guarantee finding an exit, especially since the eerie forest she had passed through on her way here made her feel like it harbored great danger. She was lucky to have made it through safely and did not want to risk her life by going back. Her axe had turned into a pile of dust, and without a weapon to defend herself, and with a mysterious old crone lurking outside the bamboo forest, she estimated that returning to that forest would mean certain death.
Surrounded by towering mountains, the landscape was vast and boundless. In the mountain range to her side, she could faintly see the traces of flying eaves and cornices, as well as the reflection of sunlight on glazed tiles, both of which were very close, separated only by the sea of bamboo beneath her feet. Bao Gu chose to take the path towards the mountain range with the palace-like buildings.
This path down the mountain was much wider than the narrow one she had ascended, which was only wide enough for a single carriage, and it was also more severely damaged. The road surface and foundation were destroyed, and signs of battle were everywhere. This path was wider than the widest road in Qing Shan County. Even though the road was ruined and overgrown with bamboo, the remnants of stones and bricks with various patterns could still be seen among the bamboo.
Following the traces of the old road and climbing down the lush green bamboo, Bao Gu did not find it difficult. When she reached a gently sloping open area, she almost slid down, much faster than when she had climbed up. Fearing that she would lose her way in the dense bamboo sea, she carefully followed the traces of the old road.
It was not until the sun had shifted westward that Bao Gu reached the edge of the bamboo sea.
At the end of the bamboo sea path, she saw a tall stele: “Bamboo Sea Forbidden Area, No Return for Those Who Enter.” Behind the towering stele was a field of ruins, and on one of the fallen giant steles were carved the words: “Sacred Land of Lingyun.”
She climbed over the ruins and exited the bamboo forest, passing through a chaotic area overgrown with shrubs, and entered a forest full of ancient trees and vibrant life. She saw a footpath almost submerged by weeds. She followed the path and after nearly half an hour, she suddenly heard voices.
Bao Gu quickened her pace and ran forward, ignoring the pain in her body.
Soon, she saw a wide road lying across the forest of towering ancient trees, with people riding giant beasts rushing past on the road, and others flying by on swords in the sky.
Bao Gu burst out of the path and the first thing that caught her eye was a road wide enough for six carriages to run side by side.
“Who goes there?”
“Who are you?”
Voices called out, and Bao Gu turned to see a pavilion at the intersection of the small path and the main road, where several young disciples dressed in the attire of Xuantian Sect were looking at her. They were neither dressed as outer disciples nor as true disciples, so Bao Gu guessed they were inner disciples. She said, “Fellow disciples, I am Bao Gu from Lingyun Peak.”
“Bao Gu? Ah, the one Immortal Yu Mi took in as an exception, the one with the five useless roots? How did you become a wild person?”
“Hey, so this is what the legendary Bao Gu looks like, huh, are you Bao Gu or a wild person?”
“I think she looks like a tiger! That tiger skin outfit is not bad.”
“Are you injured?”
A group of young disciples jumped down from the pavilion and surrounded Bao Gu, looking at her with surprise and curiosity at her extremely disheveled appearance.
Bao Gu was covered in dust, with a pale and pitiful face, and a look of having been through a lot.
Bao Gu said, “I went hunting and got lost. I’ve been wandering in the mountains for several days before I got here. Where is this?”
The disciples laughed at the idea of getting lost while hunting in the sect.
An older disciple said, “Alright, stop laughing! Do you really want to challenge Immortal Yu Mi? Since she’s Immortal Yu Mi’s disciple, give her some face. Can’t you see she’s injured?” He then said to Bao Gu, “Today is the fifteenth, the day of the lecture. Immortal Yu Mi usually spars with Senior Brother Nanyi until dark after attending the lecture by the Elder of Transmission. You can surely find her at the square outside the Hall of Transmission, and she can take you back to Lingyun Peak.” After speaking, he turned and waved to a large eagle perched in the pavilion, saying, “Take Bao Gu to the Hall of Transmission.”
The large eagle flew down beside Bao Gu.
Bao Gu looked at the eagle with confusion and asked the young disciple, “Ride the eagle there?”
“Yes!”
The young disciples laughed again when they saw that Bao Gu did not even recognize the sect’s flying mount.
Ignoring their laughter, Bao Gu climbed onto the eagle’s back and sat down. The eagle flapped its wings and took off with Bao Gu into the sky.
One of the young disciples turned to look in the direction of the path and suddenly asked, “Bao Gu, did you come from the direction of the Death Bamboo Sea?” That path only led to one place, and that was the Death Bamboo Sea.
Hearing “Death Bamboo Sea,” Bao Gu remembered her ordeal from the day before and was suddenly overwhelmed with sadness. She held back her tears and called out from the air, “I almost died in there—” As she spoke, the eagle had already carried her high into the sky.
The group of young disciples by the pavilion instantly changed their expressions.
One of them said in disbelief, “She’s bluffing, right? She came out of the Death Bamboo Sea alive?”
Another pointed behind him and said, “This path only leads to the Death Bamboo Sea, nowhere else. If she didn’t come from there, where else could she have come from?” This place was a major thoroughfare for the various peaks, naturally guarded by disciples, and they had to be vigilant against any disciples who might trespass into the forbidden area of the bamboo sea and lose their lives.
The group of young disciples suddenly looked as if they had seen a ghost, still finding it hard to believe that Bao Gu had come out of the Death Bamboo Sea. After all, that place was rumored to be so sinister that the disciples of Lingyun Peak had nearly gone extinct because of it.
※※※
The eagle flew very fast, and what would have taken a long time to climb by foot was reached in just a moment.
Bao Gu flew over several majestic palaces and arrived in front of an even more imposing one. In front of the palace was a huge square crowded with people. Bao Gu saw Yu Mi, dressed in a flowing fairy dress, in the middle of the main hall, sparring with a young man dressed as a true disciple, their swordplay fierce and intense. Thinking of her own near-death experience and the injuries she had suffered, and seeing her sister completely unaware and sparring with someone here, Bao Gu was overwhelmed with sadness and cried out, “Sister—” and could no longer control her tears, bursting into loud sobs.
Yu Mi, in the midst of the fight, suddenly heard Bao Gu’s cry, and her mind was shaken. In that moment of distraction, her opponent closed in. Yu Mi quickly parried with her sword and retreated, calling out, “Hold on!”
The handsome young man she was sparring with sheathed his sword and smiled, “Is Sister admitting defeat?”
Yu Mi ignored him, turned her head to look around, and saw a small figure in distinctive tiger skin clothes and a wolf skin hat, looking very disheveled, falling off the back of the eagle that had landed. Bao Gu! It really was her! Yu Mi sheathed her sword and leaped gracefully to Bao Gu’s side, asking, “Bao Gu, how did you get here?” She looked down at Bao Gu, who looked like she had just crawled out of the ashes and was crying her heart out, her eyes filled with confusion.
Bao Gu was crying so hard that tears carved two small channels through the dust on her face.
Yu Mi frowned and said, “Stop crying!” But in the next instant, she was hugged tightly by Bao Gu, who had just gotten up, and the crying was right in her ear, making her eardrums ache. Bao Gu’s body was filled with the smell of wolf and tiger fur, and an indescribably unpleasant odor, making Yu Mi frown.
Perhaps because Bao Gu was crying so pitifully, Yu Mi held her breath and gently patted Bao Gu’s back like comforting a child, then reached out to pull Bao Gu away from her embrace. But Bao Gu was holding on so tightly that Yu Mi had to grasp Bao Gu’s wrists and forcefully pull her away. Seeing Bao Gu’s face so pale that there was hardly a trace of blood, she instinctively checked Bao Gu’s cultivation and meridians, and her expression changed drastically, asking, “What did you eat to damage your meridians like this?!”
After venting her grievances through her tears, Bao Gu gradually stopped crying and said with a sob, “Sister, I didn’t eat anything wrong!” She wiped the tears from her face with her dirty hand, sobbing, “Sister, you don’t care about me, I almost died!” Her face, smeared with dirt and tears, instantly turned into a tear-streaked cat.
Yu Mi glared at Bao Gu thinking: Who didn’t care about you? How did I not care about you? I’ve never seen a second disciple as good as me! She said sternly, “Stop crying, tell me slowly, weren’t you training in the forest? How did you end up here?”
The fellow disciples gathered around, curious about this five useless roots disciple that Yu Mi had kept hidden from everyone. Many whispered among themselves, not daring to laugh too loudly, after all, Immortal Yu Mi’s fierce reputation was well known, and she was about to break through to the Golden Core stage at any moment. Lingyun Peak was sparsely populated, and the current peak master had been in seclusion for five years. Once Yu Mi broke through to the Golden Core stage, even if she couldn’t become the head of a peak, she would be the acting peak master. Even if just in name, her strength and position were enough to suppress her peers.
Bao Gu replied, “I got lost!”
Yu Mi scolded softly, “What a disgrace!” She asked, “How did your meridians get so damaged? What did you eat?” Judging from the extent of Bao Gu’s meridian damage, it seemed she had received a large amount of power in an instant, but her own cultivation was insufficient to withstand it, causing her meridians to be injured. This situation was extremely dangerous; a slight mishap could lead to the complete rupture of all meridians and instant death, or even worse, an explosion of the body. If someone in the middle or later stages of Foundation Building encountered such meridian damage, they would not be afraid and could recover after a few months of care. But for Bao Gu, with her little cultivation, damaged meridians were as good as being crippled, and healing would be extremely troublesome. What made Yu Mi most angry was that Bao Gu had somehow eaten something that damaged her meridians, and yet her cultivation was still only at the first stage of Qi Refining…
The spiritual treasures that could cause meridian ruptures had not even allowed Bao Gu to advance a minor stage, which was simply…exasperating to the point of feeling powerless.
