52: Chapter 52 Remains in the Stone Chamber

The moon had already shifted to the west, roughly at the hour of Yin. The horizon had yet to pale, but the night wind already carried a hint of chill—that characteristic coldness before dawn.

The withered branches of the old locust tree swayed in the wind, their shadows dancing on the ground like a pile of interlocking joints.

Jiang Yan found an empty room in the backyard and poured out everything he had gained that night to organize it.

There were thirty-four Spirit Stones obtained from Zhou Tai, a damaged High Grade Flying Sword of the first rank, a High Grade small shield of the first rank, a Condensing Spirit Pill, and an antidote pill.

From the secret chamber of Prince Yongs Mansion, he had obtained silver thread grass, blood-blood flower, about twenty Spirit Stones, flame gold, and golden thunder bamboo.

He sorted everything into categories: Magical Artifacts with Magical Artifacts, Medicinal Pills with Medicinal Pills, and Materials with Materials. They occupied their own corners in the Storage Pouch, neatly arranged.

The harvest was not small. Especially the purple pattern gold, a second-rank material that was rare to see even within a Sect.

The flame gold was a High Grade first-rank material, and the golden thunder bamboo was a Medium Grade first-rank material; both were excellent Materials for refining handy Magical Artifacts.

However, he was still far from the resources needed to reach the Late Stage of Qi Refining—he only had three peiyuan pills left, and their grade was not high enough. With his current cultivation level, the spiritual power he could gain from swallowing them was already very limited.

He sat cross-legged in the empty room. Moonlight leaked through the gaps in the window lattice, painting several silvery-white thin lines on the floor.

With government offices and aristocratic families in several consecutive cities being robbed, even if news was delayed, the capital would sooner or later send more personnel to investigate.

Cao Xiong and Meng Tong had already returned to the palace. They had searched Qingzhou for over ten days and returned empty-handed, but that did not mean they would give up just like that.

Coupled with the fact that the cloud ship would arrive in just over three months, and a Foundation Establishment Elder would come in person, the window of time left for him was narrowing day by day.

He took the purple copper token out of his Storage Pouch and flipped it over in the moonlight.

It was the size of a palm and felt slightly heavy in the hand. The symbols he could not understand were arranged in a ring, and the grooves had been gripped so many times that they were polished smoother than the raised parts.

Refined by a Cultivator above the Foundation Establishment stage, the Restriction was extremely simple but the engraving technique was extremely seasoned. Its function was singular—authentication, used for entering an Immortal Cave or breaking a Formation.

When Li Xuan died, he hadn't even touched his Medicinal Pills, nor had he taken his Magical Artifacts; he had simply gripped this token tightly.

Jiang Yan flipped the token over and back to look at it twice, then put it away.

He made a decision. He would first go to Luzhou to find the stone chamber where Li Xuan had passed away, and then leave the Jin Kingdom.

The oil that could be squeezed out of the Jin Kingdom had been squeezed dry; staying any longer would mean risks outweighing the benefits.

In any case, his current harvest was enough to improve his cultivation and combat power. Rather than risking his life continuing to loot in the Jin Kingdom, it was better to first explore the clues left by Li Xuan.

He had an intuition—the things hidden behind that purple copper token were more valuable than the flame gold and golden thunder bamboo combined.

Jiang Yan stood up and pushed open the door.

A line of fish-belly white had just appeared on the eastern horizon. Gray, hazy light seeped in from above the courtyard wall, gilding the withered branches of the old locust tree with a blurry silver edge.

The first rooster crow came from the distant streets, followed immediately by a second and a third, rising and falling in succession, waking Yongzhou City from its slumber.

His figure flickered as he vaulted over the courtyard wall and disappeared into the depths of the alley.

Behind him, Prince Yongs Mansion was still immersed in the final moment of silence before dawn. In the secret chamber beneath the ancestral hall, several Talismans burned out silently, and flames surged from the ground, consuming all traces into ash.

The mountains in Luzhou were not high, but they were dense.

The official road ended at an abandoned logging trail. The road surface was crisscrossed with gullies washed out by rain, and half-dried mud accumulated in the ruts left by cart wheels.

Jiang Yan walked into the mountains along the logging trail, the gravel making crisp, cracking sounds under his boots.

The mountain forest in late autumn was already more than half bare. The pine trees were still green, but the green was dark, and the pine needles were covered with a layer of dusty grime.

Three streams. He counted in his heart.

The first stream flowed down from the mountainside, churning out a string of white foam in the crevices of the rocks.

The stones at the bottom of the stream were covered in moss, making them slick to step on.

He crossed the stream by stepping on the stones protruding from the water. His boot soles were stained with water, leaving several dark footprints on the rocks, which were washed away by the stream in the blink of an eye.

The second stream was wider, and the current was more rapid.

After crossing the third stream, he turned left into a pine forest.

The pine forest was very dense; the canopy blocked the sky so that only fragmented gray-white light remained. The ground was covered with a thick layer of pine needles, which felt soft and spongy underfoot, like treading on a rotting carpet.

The scent of pine resin permeated the forest, mixed with the fishy sweetness of soil and rotting leaves.

Squirrels scurried between the branches overhead, occasionally dropping a few pine cones that made a dull thud as they hit the withered leaves.

The cliff Zhou Tai mentioned was at the end of the forest.

The ochre-red sandstone cliff rose more than ten zhang from the ground. An old pine tree that had been struck by lightning extended from the top of the cliff.

The pine tree was split down the middle; one half was scorched black and dead, while the other half leaned precariously against the cliff wall, with a few withered yellow pine needles still hanging on the branches.

The bark on the dead half had already carbonized, and when touched with a finger, black dregs fell off with a rustling sound.

Several withered vines hung down from the top of the cliff, tangled with the dead branches of the pine tree, swaying gently in the wind.

Jiang Yan stood at the foot of the cliff and spread out his Divine Sense.

Vines densely covered most of the cliff wall. The dark green leaves were impenetrable, looking completely integrated with the surrounding mountain rocks.

But in his Divine Sense perception, behind the vines was a clear spatial boundary—the rock wall receded inward, extending about a zhang deep.

Any further in, he could not probe anything.

On the walls of the stone chamber remained a layer of extremely thin Restriction, very weak, so weak that it might dissipate on its own at any time.

But this layer of Restriction stubbornly blocked the penetration of his Divine Sense.

Zhou Tai had not touched this Restriction. He could not have moved it either—with the strength of a Qi Refining Stage 2 Divine Sense, he would have barely been able to discover this Restriction, let alone break it.

He drew his Flying Sword and slashed across the vines with the tip of the blade.

A faint hissing sound occurred as the sword edge cut into the vines, and viscous sap poured out from the cut.

The vines broke in response, revealing a rock crevice behind them, which was very narrow.

He pushed the vines aside and squeezed in sideways.

The stone chamber was not large, about a zhang square. The ground was covered with a layer of fine sand and soil, which crunched and rustled underfoot.

The chisel marks on the walls were rough, with the traces of the chisel following one after another, uneven in depth.

The smell of dry dust was mixed with a trace of the extremely faint scent of decayed bones that had completely dried out, like opening an old book that had been left for too long.

The desiccated corpse leaned in the corner directly opposite.

Zhou Tai had said that the desiccated corpse was sitting against the wall.

Now that a few more years had passed, the corpse was completely dehydrated.

The skin clung to the bones, presenting a dark brown, translucent state, like a specimen sealed in old wax for over a hundred years.

The skull was slightly lowered, with the chin resting against the chest, and the two eye sockets were deeply sunken, staring hollowly at its own knees.

The withered fingers were curled in front of it, maintaining the posture of clutching something before death.

But two of the finger bones had been broken—the damage caused when Zhou Tai took the token—and the broken phalanges were scattered beside the desiccated corpse, ghastly white, like a few pieces of withered branches casually discarded.