112: Chapter 112 The Stones Can Sing

That scorching heat burned its way along her fingertips right into her marrow.

Xia Lengbai let out a muffled groan; her knuckles tightened from the excruciating pain, but she stubbornly refused to pull back.

She even leaned forward, allowing more of the Tomb Guardian Seal's clear radiance—now like a bursting ice-blue stream—to gush recklessly toward the center of that scorching indentation.

"Are you trying to die?"

Shen Xiao barked, and before she could react, his left hand shot out like lightning, firmly pinning her slender yet iron-taut shoulder.

At the same time, from the nearly exhausted Silver Pattern mark within his Dantian, he squeezed out the last few wisps of brilliance—finer than spider silk.

They were not an attack, but rather transformed into the thinnest, sharpest probe, piercing alongside the force of his fingers into the dizzyingly complex edge of the indentation.

Feedback flooded back in an instant.

It was not an energy shock, nor was it a spiritual corruption.

It was an extremely precise, cold "sense of structure."

The Silver Pattern threads seemed to have probed into the interior of a magnificent, ancient machine that had been miniaturized to the extreme yet had lain dormant for eons.

Beneath the "skin" of the indentation lay grooves, rune slots, finer than the thinnest strand of hair.

They were parched and dim, yet they maintained a breathtaking order.

At this moment, the clear radiance of the Tomb Guardian Seal pouring in from Xia Lengbai was resonating at a specific frequency with these channels, which had been silent for who knows how many years.

Hum...

A faint vibration, yet one that drilled straight into the marrow, emanated from within the indentation and from deep within the rock beneath their feet.

The entire passageway, with its ancient chisel marks winding and converging from all directions, seemed to be tugged by the same invisible thread, simultaneously lighting up with a dim glow like a candle in the wind.

The light outlined complex trajectories, like an ancient neural network that had instantly awakened only to instantly exhaust itself.

"Stop!"

Shen Xiao's voice was resolute, carrying an unquestionable severity.

The hand pressing on Xia Lengbai's shoulder exerted sudden force—not crudely, but with a clever leverage—that, combined with the final pull and guidance of the Silver Pattern threads, forcibly peeled her hand away from the scorching heat, even though it had already adhered to the indentation and the skin of her palm was almost being sucked in.

The supply of clear radiance was forcibly cut off.

The humming resonance stopped abruptly.

The network of faint light that had just illuminated the rock wall rapidly dimmed and extinguished, like charcoal doused with cold water, returning to dead silence.

However, the temperature at the center of the indentation did not drop along with it.

Instead, it became even hotter.

The focus of that scorching "gaze" shifted from Xia Lengbai's palm to the rune slots that Shen Xiao's Silver Pattern threads had just probed.

The extreme heat caused the rock wall to take on an eerie dark red color; those channels, finer than hair, now seemed like red-hot branding iron patterns deeply seared into the interior of the rock.

What made Shen Xiao's heart tighten even more was that, through this scorching light, he faintly "saw" a deeper structure within the indentation.

It was not a physical entity, but a phantom outlined by residual energy, where more and more complex miniature gear-like wheels were interlaced, biting into each other; they were stationary, yet exuded a cold, precise sense of order that was suffocating.

It felt like the core of a miniaturized, long-stalled time machine.

The Light Cocoon was trembling violently.

Its ice-blue light flickered on and off, and the emotions it transmitted were no longer a simple warning or excitement, but a chaotic vortex of contradictions that almost threatened to tear it apart—panic, pain, deep-seated fear, mixed with a near-insane, sharp, needle-like "longing."

Its "gaze" was locked onto the depths of that scorching indentation, its stream of consciousness intermittent but clearly directed.

Xia Lengbai stood in place, her fingertips slightly pale from the previous excruciating pain and the backlash of the forced interruption.

She stared at the red marks remaining on her palm, then looked at the still-scorching indentation, her tightly pursed lips revealing a stubborn calmness.

She did not refute Shen Xiao's rough interruption.

The next moment, she took a deep breath, raised her right hand, and splayed her fingers.

The clear radiance of the Tomb Guardian Seal remaining in her palm no longer gushed out like a torrent, but was compressed and stretched by her with astonishing control, transforming into an extremely condensed ice-blue light needle as fine as an ox hair.

The light needle gently touched the starting point of a rune slot on the edge of the indentation.

The movement was as gentle as touching the most fragile glaze.

The clear radiance flowed slowly along the delicate channels, like pouring into a riverbed that had been dry for ten thousand years.

Wherever it passed, the dim channels were lit up, glowing with a gentle yet resilient ice-blue light, completely different from the scene when it was injected violently before.

The light needle wandered along the trajectory of the indentation, activating one connected channel after another.

Click.

An extremely faint yet crystal-clear sound of a mechanism engaging came from deep within the indentation.

All the rune slots lit up by the clear radiance needle suddenly retracted their light; instead of dispersing, they gathered together toward the very center of the indentation.

The ice-blue light rays intertwined and overlapped, finally outlining a complex, three-dimensional phantom that was clearly missing a key part against that scorching dark red background.

The shape was like a precise keyhole.

No, it was more like the phantom of an "interface" for some complex device, nested layer by layer, but the core was a distressing blank.

"It needs a 'key'."

Shen Xiao stared at the incomplete three-dimensional phantom, his voice hoarse.

The fragmented descriptions of the "Chronicles of the Nine Heavens: Kunlun Ruins Chapter" that he had skimmed through back then now flooded his mind.

This was not the original main plot; Lin Yun had never set foot here.

There were only sporadic records mentioning:

"In the deepest part of the Kunlun Ice Abyss, in the land of the echoing remnants of the Old Era's agreement, there is a Secret Realm that Seals the remains of the ancient 'Listeners.' To unseal it, the Gravekeeper Bloodline is required as a guide, and a specific 'information rhythm' is required as a key; both are indispensable."

Gravekeeper Bloodline... Xia Lengbai had it.

Specific "information rhythm"... What was it?

He turned his head abruptly to look at Xia Lengbai, then looked at the Light Cocoon that was trembling violently, its consciousness almost solidified and pointing directly at Xia Lengbai.

It was not spiritual power.

It was "information."

Was it a specific... memory? Or... a fragment of authority?

Xia Lengbai met Shen Xiao's gaze; she was startled at first, then, as if she understood something, her face turned pale in a "whoosh," even more so than when she was injured just now.

Almost subconsciously, her left hand covered the position of her heart—there, under her clothes, was not a heart, but an invisible "void."

It was an unhealable scar of detachment left behind after Shen Xiao had forcibly seized part of her destiny value and memories related to Lin Yun.

A sharp, missing "sense of emptiness" constantly reminded her of the part that had been snatched away.

The trembling of the Light Cocoon reached its peak.

A stream of consciousness mixed with extreme pain and determination rushed toward Shen Xiao and Xia Lengbai without reservation.

It no longer pointed to the indentation, but was firmly "nailed" to the Tomb Guardian Seal on Xia Lengbai's palm that had once pressed against the indentation, and the "void" of memory in her heart.

The meaning of the consciousness was vague yet surging: That place... what is missing... is a part... of it...

At the same time...

Creak... Creak...

The sound of heavy, slow rock grinding, like rusted gears being forcibly twisted, came from the darkness deeper in the passageway.

The sound was not loud, but it carried a weight that crushed the Soul, and every sound made the rock beneath their feet tremble slightly.

It was as if a giant of unimaginable size was being... disturbed and awakened from its long-sealed slumber by the commotion here.

Guided by Shen Xiao's Silver Pattern mark, Xia Lengbai's fingertips hovered, the light needle trembling slightly, aiming at the central blank of the incomplete keyhole phantom.

She looked at Shen Xiao, her eyes filled with inquiry and a certain ignited, reckless determination.

Shen Xiao, however, suddenly raised his hand—not to stop her, but to step forward himself, his right hand pressing into the air above that scorching three-dimensional phantom.

The Silver Pattern glowed for the last time, not as an attack, but as a simulation.

He attempted to input a "frequency fluctuation" into the blank of the keyhole—a simulation of a wisp that was extremely faint, yet shared the same origin as the Tomb Guardian Seal's clear radiance, while carrying a more ancient and desolate quality.

The phantom trembled violently.

The "creaking" sound of rocks grinding in the depths suddenly accelerated and intensified, turning into a low, angry roar, as if its territory had been violated.

It was already right at hand.