5: Chapter 5 Who's actually sitting in this cell?

The thought flashed through Shen Xiao's mind, only to be ruthlessly suppressed.

Now was not the time for idle thoughts.

He could feel himself being carried on a stretcher by two Law Enforcement Hall Disciples, moving through a long, gloomy corridor.

The air was thick with a scent that mixed dust with some strange spice—it smelled like sandalwood that had lingered for years, tinged with a faint, metallic tang of blood.

On the stone walls lining the corridor, a moonstone emitting a pale, ghastly halo was embedded every ten paces. Their dim light stretched shadows out, long and thin, like phantoms.

Footsteps echoed through the empty corridor, clattering in a monotonous, oppressive rhythm.

Soon, they stopped before a heavy Black Iron gate.

Mo Feng stepped forward and lightly pressed the token in his hand against a groove on the gate.

"Hum!"

A low humming sound resonated as the dense runes on the Black Iron gate lit up one by one, then quickly dimmed.

Accompanied by a teeth-grinding creak, the gate slowly opened inward, stirring up a cloud of dust.

Behind the gate was a stone chamber roughly ten zhang square. The four walls were bare, save for the ground and walls, which were carved with even more complex Restriction runes, forming a massive, interlocking Spirit-Locking Formation.

"Get in."

Mo Feng's voice was devoid of any emotion.

The two Disciples unceremoniously carried the stretcher into the stone chamber, then, as if dumping trash, flipped Shen Xiao directly off the stretcher onto the cold stone floor.

With a muffled "thud," Shen Xiao felt the back of his head make solid, intimate contact with the ground. The pain nearly made him break his act on the spot and open his eyes to curse.

He endured the dizziness and continued to maintain his half-dead, "severely injured" appearance.

Xia Lengbai followed closely behind, her gaze never leaving him, as if afraid he might vanish into thin air.

"This is the Earth-grade room of the Spirit-Locking Pavilion. The Formation is connected to the Sect's ley lines; any fluctuation in Spiritual Qi will be detected by us." Mo Feng stood at the entrance, looking coldly at the two in the room.

He casually pulled a pitch-black Black Iron key and a jade bottle from his robes and tossed them directly to Xia Lengbai.

"This is the key and the Sect-made 'Blood-Coagulation Pill'; it's enough to keep him alive. Junior Sister Xia, since you volunteered, you should know the rules. Guard him properly and don't cause any trouble. Otherwise, even as a Personal Disciple, the Law Enforcement Hall's rules will not be bent for you."

The warning in his words was heavy.

His gaze was more like a warning to a she-wolf guarding her food: don't touch the cheese you shouldn't.

Xia Lengbai silently caught the key and the jade bottle, nodding.

Mo Feng took a long look at her, then swept his gaze over the "unconscious" Shen Xiao on the floor. The greed and calculation deep in his eyes were barely concealed.

Finally, he snorted coldly and turned to leave.

The heavy Black Iron gate slowly closed again. Accompanied by the clanking of chains falling into place, the stone chamber plunged into total darkness and silence.

The last few rays of light vanished; the only source of light remaining was the dimmest moonstone in the corner.

Almost the second the gate was fully locked, a sudden change occurred!

"Crack!"

A crisp cracking sound rang out in the silent stone chamber, jarringly loud.

Shen Xiao glanced over with the corner of his eye, struggling to see that Xia Lengbai had, without hesitation, crushed the jade bottle in her hand!

That precious Medicinal Pill Mo Feng called the 'Blood-Coagulation Pill,' along with the shards of the jade bottle, fell from between her fair fingers, shattering into dust on the floor.

It wasn't over yet.

She reached into her sleeve and produced a palm-sized bronze Formation Plate covered in complex patterns. With a surge of Spiritual Qi, she pressed it directly onto the inner wall of the stone chamber!

"Hum!"

A pale blue light barrier instantly spread from the Formation Plate, like an inverted bowl, completely enveloping and sealing the entire stone chamber from the inside.

Countless fine runes swirled on the light barrier, cutting off all aura and prying eyes from both inside and out.

What the hell? Double insurance?

Shen Xiao's heart sank.

This woman hadn't just locked everyone else out; she had completely locked herself and him inside as well.

Who, exactly, is serving time in this prison cell?

He decided to stop pretending. He struggled to sit up from the floor, his back against the cold wall. Every movement tugged at his "wounds," making him gasp in pain.

"Junior Sister Xia, what is the meaning of this?" His voice was hoarse, carrying a perfectly measured note of weakness and vigilance. "Sealing the stone chamber—are you trying to silence me and keep the secrets on me all to yourself?"

Xia Lengbai did not answer.

She just stood there quietly. The pale moonstone light illuminated half her face, flickering in the light and shadow, making her naturally cold, pretty face appear even more eerie.

She walked toward Shen Xiao, step by slow step.

Her heeled Sect-issued boots clicked against the stone floor—"tap, tap, tap"—like the second hand of death, striking against Shen Xiao's heartbeat.

Closer, even closer.

A scent, mixed with the fragrance of orchids and a faint, bloody tang, washed over him.

She stopped in front of Shen Xiao, looking down at him from above, and then slowly opened her left hand, which she had been clenching tightly since they disembarked.

Her palm was a mess of mangled flesh.

Three blood holes gouged out by fingernails were shocking to behold. Fresh blood mixed with upturned flesh, matching exactly the locations of his three most severe "wounds": his back, his wrist, and his Dantian.

Shen Xiao's pupils constricted.

The next moment, Xia Lengbai made a move that made the hair on Shen Xiao's body stand on end.

She crouched down and pressed that blood-drenched palm, squarely and precisely, onto the hideous, unhealed wound on Shen Xiao's chest, the one slashed open by Black Crow's wing.

Blood pressed against blood, wound pressed against wound.

A wet, sticky sensation, accompanied by a sharp pain, instantly spread through his entire body.

"Hiss..." Shen Xiao couldn't help but groan.

"Your fate is the first variable I have witnessed with my own eyes."

Xia Lengbai's face was very close; her voice was as soft as a dream, but the breath she exhaled carried a sickly heat.

"Your pain... it makes me feel like I'm still alive." Her beautiful eyes were fixed intensely on Shen Xiao, swirling with chaos, paranoia, and a trace of ecstatic joy at having found someone of her own kind. "Instead of a chess piece."

Her mental state was extremely unstable!

Shen Xiao made an instant judgment.

Cognitive dissonance caused by the plundered memories, combined with the Awakening to her fate as a "chess piece," had pushed her to a critically dangerous tipping point.

Fortune favors the bold!

A crazy idea formed in his mind.

"A chess piece?" Shen Xiao endured the stinging pain in his chest, a miserable smile appearing on his face, while a look of desperate, scorched-earth madness ignited in his eyes. "So you already know... Fine. Since we are both chess pieces, why not struggle one last time on this chessboard!"

He suddenly reached out and grabbed Xia Lengbai's wrist, which was still pressed against his chest.

Her wrist was cool and slender, forming a stark contrast to the burning heat of her palm.

"I have a secret technique: using blood as a guide and soul as a sacrifice, I can peer into Karma and trace the truth before I die! Do you dare to look with me and see who exactly is manipulating us from behind the scenes!"

His tone was stern and fierce, as if he were truly about to unleash some forbidden technique that would destroy them both.

Xia Lengbai was clearly bluffed by him.

Now is the time!

Shen Xiao roared in his heart and secretly activated the [Soul-Searching Technique (Incomplete Manual)] he had just obtained!

He did not have enough cultivation to forcibly search her soul, but he could gamble!

Gamble that this incomplete Soul-Searching Technique could pry open Xia Lengbai's already unstable Sea of Consciousness!

A strand of Divine Sense, finer than a hair, like the most treacherous poison needle, snaked along their clasped arms and silently pierced toward Xia Lengbai's Sea of Consciousness between her brows!

Just like a drop of water falling into a pot of boiling oil!

Shen Xiao's insignificant Divine Sense, along with the 10% of memory fragments he had previously plundered from Xia Lengbai, actually produced a violent resonance and conflict within her Sea of Consciousness!

Xia Lengbai's body stiffened abruptly, and her eyes instantly lost their focus.

Countless tampered and twisted fragments of fate exploded in her mind!

She "saw" it!

She saw herself in the North Sea Ice Abyss, desperately saving a severely injured man, treating his wounds, blocking a fatal blow for him...

But that face... the face that should have belonged to the Child of Destiny, Lin Yun, twisted and changed deep within her memories, until finally, it clearly became the face of Shen Xiao before her!

Who was she saving? And who was she hating?

Was it Shen Xiao who stole the Opportunity that should have belonged to Lin Yun?

Or was the concept of "Lin Yun" created solely to steal everything that belonged to "Shen Xiao"?

The massive cognitive dissonance was like an invisible hand, ruthlessly gripping her Divine Soul!

"Ah!"

A shrill scream echoed through the stone chamber. Xia Lengbai's eyes rolled back, and her body fell backward limply, completely unconscious on the ground.

It worked!

Shen Xiao's eyes erupted with unprecedented brilliance; he no longer bothered to pretend.

He didn't hesitate in the slightest, immediately releasing Xia Lengbai, crossing his legs, and sitting down right where he was.

"System! Refine it for me!"

With his mind unified, he sank all his focus into his Dantian, fully activating the System panel, and began to frantically refine the millennium cold marrow that had been lying dormant for so long!

The violent, extreme cold energy erupted within his body like an iceberg that had been silent for ten thousand years!

This time, there were no sword embryo fragments to oppose it. It was like a monarch returning home, surging unbridled through his Meridians, which had long been simulated as dilapidated by the "Hidden Breath Pill."

Repair! Reshape! Expand!

Wherever the freezing cold Qi passed, his dried-up Meridians were like riverbeds finally receiving rain after a long drought—rapidly stretched, widened, and reinforced!

His Spiritual Qi, originally only at the Foundation Establishment Initial Stage, climbed steadily at a terrifying speed under the infusion of this pure energy!

The vortex in his Dantian spun frantically; the Bottleneck of his cultivation was broken through as easily as if it were made of paper!

Foundation Establishment Initial Stage... stabilized!

Just as Shen Xiao was about to strike in one go to impact an even higher level, another unexpected change occurred!

A wisp of extremely pure cold marrow Origin Qi, which he had already fully refined, seemed to reach a certain saturation point and actually began to escape from all the pores of his body!

This Qi did not dissipate; instead, as if it had found a vent, it uncontrollably surged toward the unconscious Xia Lengbai beside him!

"Ice Soul Immortal Physique!"

Shen Xiao was startled, and he understood in an instant.

Xia Lengbai's Physique and the millennium cold marrow were a match made in heaven!

After losing consciousness, her body had instinctively begun to whale-swallow this pure cold Qi, which was a potent tonic for her!

He saw a thin layer of frost rapidly condensing on the surface of Xia Lengbai's body. Her originally pale complexion actually showed a hint of rosiness, and the aura around her rose violently, showing faint signs of a Breakthrough!

"Crack—!"

An extremely faint, crisp sound suddenly came from the direction of the stone chamber entrance.

Shen Xiao's heart tightened, and he whipped his head around to look.

He saw that the blue Seal Formation Plate that Xia Lengbai had previously set up had cracked, forming a nearly imperceptible fissure because it could not withstand the impact of their converging Spiritual Qi!

Almost at the same time, a voice suppressing suspicion and greed passed through that fissure and transmitted in, cold and sinister.

"What is happening inside? Why is the Spiritual Qi rioting!"

It was Mo Feng! He hadn't gone far at all!