45: Chapter 45: The Valley of Thousand Miasma

Leaving Ye Family Village at noon on the second day, the road began to change.

First, the trees on both sides became scarce, and later, the grass thinned out too.

The ground was exposed—cracked yellow earth with grey gravel embedded in the fissures.

Further ahead, the air became thick with something.

It wasn't fog—fog is white, but this was grey, tinged with a hint of blue.

It looked like the color of burnt spirit money that had been soaked in water.

Qin Wu coughed on the road.

"What is this smell—"

"Miasma." Lu Chen stopped.

His perception robe glowed slightly in the miasma—not as a warning, but as a reaction, as the Inverted Tower stone inside the robe was reacting to the miasma.

"Do not circulate your Qi. Miasma has a penetrative effect on Spiritual Qi—the more you circulate your Qi, the more you will inhale."

Qin Wu hurriedly dispersed the Qi in his Dantian.

The miasma drifted onto his skin—it didn't hurt, nor did it itch, but there was an indescribable discomfort.

It felt like something was gently scraping against the outside of his skin; it couldn't break through, but he knew it was scraping.

Lu Chen closed his eyes.

Ink-gold Spiritual Qi traveled up along his grey-lined Meridians, past his heart, past his throat, to his brain.

His Mental Energy magnified tenfold—probing into the valley through the miasma.

The miasma wasn't Qi; it was fragments—Mental Energy fragments so fine they were almost invisible.

Each piece was wrapped in a thin layer of residual emotion—not complete emotions, but the dregs of emotions, like bean dregs after the oil has been pressed out; there was no oil left, but it still smelled of beans.

The Grey Spirit Root reacted to these fragments—not with repulsion, but with recognition.

The ink-gold Spiritual Qi in his Dantian stirred gently—as if it had encountered something familiar.

"These fragments were left behind by Grey Spirit Root Cultivators." Lu Chen opened his eyes.

"Not just one person, but several. They fought here—or cultivated here, and their Mental Energy was shattered and mixed into the miasma."

Qin Wu looked ahead.

"How long did they fight—to shatter into this state?"

"A long time, perhaps hundreds of years."

There was a stone tablet at the entrance of the valley, toppled and half-buried in the soil.

Lu Chen crouched down and wiped the dirt off the face of the tablet.

The carved characters were already blurred, but the top two characters were still recognizable.

"Mo Wen."

They were the same characters carved on the stone slab in the Inverted Tower.

Beside the stone tablet was a small path that hugged the cliff wall and extended inwards.

The path was very narrow—only wide enough for one person to pass sideways.

There were man-made carvings on the cliff wall—not words, but arrows, one every dozen steps, all pointing inwards.

"He is leading the way." Qin Wu touched the arrows on the cliff wall.

The carvings were fresh—the stone dust hadn't been blown away by the wind yet.

"Carved at most two days ago."

Two days ago, only two days had passed since the incident at Ye Family Village.

The person wearing the bamboo hat knew Lu Chen would come—he had seen the clues of Senior Bai Jie on Ye Yuan, or perhaps he had sensed the resonance of the finger bones in the Thousand Miasma Valley—there was a connection between Li Xuanyi's finger bones.

They walked along the path for the time it takes to burn an incense stick.

The road turned at a cliff, and around the bend was a cave.

The entrance wasn't large, just enough for one person to crouch and enter.

A bamboo pole was placed outside the entrance, with several medicinal herbs drying on it—all the same herb: thin leaves, purple stems, roots with mud, the main ingredient for Soul Returning Powder.

A voice came from inside The Cave.

"Come in."

Two words, and the voice sounded like rust—not old, but unused for too long, as if each word was being scraped from the depths of his throat.

Qin Wu gripped his sword hilt, but Lu Chen shook his head, then bent down and entered The Cave.

It was brighter inside The Cave than outside, not from sunlight, but from dozens of glowing stone fragments embedded in The Cave walls.

Each fragment flickered with a very faint golden light—Lu Chen had seen this kind of light before, the deep golden light in the finger bones—but the light in these fragments was much fainter, diluted.

The Cave ceiling was high, about three zhang, and in the middle of The Cave was a flat rock with a person sitting on it.

The bamboo hat was pulled very low, and the grey robes were washed to a white, with the hem torn in several places, revealing thin, bony ankles underneath.

Breathing sounds came from under the bamboo hat, very slow, with a gap of three heartbeats between each inhalation and exhalation.

"You came."

"The arrows you carved—"

"Not because I was afraid you wouldn't find it." The man in the bamboo hat looked up, revealing a chin below the rim of the hat—skin pressed against bone, and a sparse beard.

"I was afraid I would forget myself, forget how to walk back to this cave."

He pushed the bamboo hat behind his head.

His face was so thin it was almost just a skeleton, and his eye sockets were deeply sunken, but his pupils were very bright—thirty percent brighter than a normal person's—the trace of Grey Spirit Root Spiritual Qi remaining in his eyes.

"You are Lu Chen." He said. "Senior Bai Jie's line told me—you have his Qi on you."

"The sixth finger bone."

"Yes. Number Six." The corners of the bamboo-hat man's mouth moved—not a smile, but a twitch, like muscles that hadn't been used for a long time were suddenly commanded.

"He gave the finger bone to you. Dantian—how many do you have now?"

"Three."

"The fourth, the fifth, the sixth. And a bone core—"

"The first one. Qingniu Ridge."

"Qingniu Ridge—" The bamboo-hat man's eyes flickered.

"That was the tenth one divided by Master before he passed away—he broke the tenth one into bone fragments, and a bone fragment is also a finger bone, so that counts as one. You have four."

Qin Wu stood at the entrance of The Cave, his hand not leaving the sword hilt.

"Who are you?"

"Li Xuanyi's fourth Disciple—Shen Xi." The bamboo-hat man said.

"Senior Bai Jie is my Junior Brother. Number Two, Qin Buyan, is dead. Number Three has been missing since escaping from the Cave of Ten Thousand Desires. I am Number Four. Number Five—you have met."

"What about Eldest Sister?"

"She—" Shen Xi paused.

"Remains in the Cave of Ten Thousand Desires. It's not that she doesn't want to run; it's that she can't. Her Dantian was sealed at the bottom level of the Cave of Ten Thousand Desires."

"Who sealed it?"

"The Sect Master of the Hehuan Sect." Shen Xi gritted his teeth—not biting down hard, but his jawbones exerting all their strength to touch together.

"Three years ago, the Sect Master sealed the Cave of Ten Thousand Desires, claiming there was a Rebellious Disciple stealing treasures in The Cave, but in truth—the one stealing treasures was himself. The Sect Master wanted the research notes from the bottom level of the Cave of Ten Thousand Desires."

"The things Han Yuan wanted."

Shen Xi's eyes flashed.

"You know Han Yuan?"

"Ten Thousand Sword Sect. Grey Spirit Root. Jian Wushuang."

"Jian Wushuang's matter is not urgent." Shen Xi pulled something from his bosom—a black bone, the size of a fingernail, with the character "Seven" carved on the surface, and no light inside.

"The seventh finger bone you want. Empty."

"It's empty—and you still kept it?"

"Because an empty finger bone can also act as a key—the Seal at the bottom level of the Cave of Ten Thousand Desires requires the resonance of three finger bones to open.

This one of mine counts as one. The one Senior Bai Jie gave you counts as one. There is another one—inside the Cave of Ten Thousand Desires, in Eldest Sister's hands."

Lu Chen took the black, empty finger bone.

The moment the finger bone touched his hand—the ink-gold Spiritual Qi in his Dantian stirred; not resonance, but a response.

There were extremely fine cracks inside the empty bone—something was embedded in the cracks, not power, but words.

He probed inside with Spiritual Qi.

Eight characters were carved into the cracks.

"The Sect Master is dead. Someone has replaced him."

"You said at Ye Yuan's house—that there are people in the Hehuan Sect who do not bear the name Hehuan." Lu Chen tucked the empty finger bone into his bosom.

"What does that mean?"

"Three years ago." Shen Xi's eyelids drooped halfway.

"The Hehuan Sect Master took three Disciples into the bottom level of the Cave of Ten Thousand Desires, claiming it was to retrieve a medicine to heal the soul—the Sect Master's daughter's soul was dissipating, and he needed medicine to save her.

The bottom level was opened. The Sect Master went in. The Disciples waited outside for three days. The Sect Master came out—"

Shen Xi stopped, and his breathing changed—not faster, but shallower, as if something was pressing on his chest.

"The one who came out was not the Sect Master."

"Replaced?"

"Identical appearance. Identical voice. Identical cultivation—but not the same." Shen Xi's fingers were trembling, not out of fear, but the body's reaction when a memory he was about to forget was forcibly dragged out.

"Eldest Sister said—the moment the Sect Master came out, her Spiritual Root felt it. Not the same person. Not Possession. Not a disguise. It was—a shell."

"What shell?"

"A layer of an extremely thin shell wrapped around that person's consciousness. It swapped with whatever was inside the shell. The outer shell is the Sect Master. The inside is not.

Eldest Sister said—the source of that shell was something from the bottom level of the Cave of Ten Thousand Desires. Something buried seven hundred years ago."

"What thing?"

Shen Xi shook his head; it wasn't that he didn't want to say, but that he was about to forget.

He took a roll of parchment from his bosom—very old, densely packed with words written by burning with Spiritual Qi.

"Research notes. Records of the Cave of Ten Thousand Desires developing the potential of the Grey Spirit Root for seven hundred years—it's all on here. This is what Han Yuan wants."

Shen Xi shoved the parchment to Lu Chen.

"Take it. My memory is dissipating. If I leave it for a while longer—I will forget what this notebook is."

The parchment felt very light in his hand, but the density of the Spiritual Qi gathered inside was extremely high—like a thin sheet of iron.

"What is the price?"

"Help me stabilize my soul." Shen Xi said.

"Use your resonance. The finger bone of Senior Bai Jie is in your Dantian—his power can help me anchor my memory. It won't take too long—enough for me to record everything I just said, write it down, and then—"

"And then?"

"Then you go down to the Hehuan Sect. Go to the Cave of Ten Thousand Desires. The third key in Eldest Sister's hands—you must get it.

Take the contents of the notebook to the bottom level of the Cave of Ten Thousand Desires—the answer is in there. What the shell is. Who the Fake Sect Leader is. What exactly the thing buried seven hundred years ago is."

Lu Chen placed his hand on Shen Xi's shoulder.

A sliver of power from the sixth finger bone in his Dantian separated—an extremely fine sliver—and passed through his grey-lined Meridians into Shen Xi's body.

Shen Xi closed his eyes, his fingers tracing on his knees—not trembling, but writing.

He wrote dozens of characters—all "Shen Xi"—all his own name.

That was the first thing he was afraid of forgetting.