Chapter Ninety-Three: Conversation in the Coffin

Gu Jiaer stared blankly, her mind full of question marks.

What did I even do?

Is it not allowed to look at you for a second?

What, being handsome makes you superior?

Preposterous. If this had been anyone less handsome, and they dared speak to this young lady like that, I would have slapped them dead on the spot...

Still, for this fellow to make it all the way here, his strength was clearly no weak matter. Could it be that after we left three hundred years ago, he awakened right afterward?

Even if his talent were astonishing, he should at most be at the Nascent Soul stage, right? Why did he look as though he were only at the Foundation Establishment stage?

And this crystal coffin...

Gu Jiaer, who had only just steadied her nerves, seemed to remember something. Her eyes widened in sudden realization.

"Xu Zhe, what did you do? Why... why are we able to stay inside this crystal coffin?" she asked in belated shock.

"I didn’t do much. I just opened the lid, pulled you in, and then closed it again," Xu Zhe said calmly, though his brow had already begun to furrow.

The two of them were too close now, face to face. Gu Jiaer's breathing was rather quick, and wisps of warm air kept brushing his face, making him uncomfortable.

Sigh. How annoying. I should have left her outside.

Gu Jiaer did not notice the four words written plainly across Xu Zhe’s expression: I am unhappy. She remained somewhat dazed, even a little adorably foolish, still hearing his words echo in her mind.

Opened the lid, brought me in, then closed it again?

That simple?

When had this crystal coffin become so good-tempered, letting someone approach it, let alone touch it?

"You're lying to me, aren't you? You must have some method for refining this crystal coffin!" Gu Jiaer looked at Xu Zhe suspiciously, refusing to believe what he had just said.

Xu Zhe blinked and replied with composure, "I never lie. What happened when you entered this place back then?"

"Back then..." Gu Jiaer recalled the scene from three hundred years ago, and her face instantly turned pale again.

She recounted how, after the thirteen of them entered the Valley of Buried Immortals, they were first ambushed by several crocodile-headed serpents. One person died on the spot, and Gu Jiaer and several others were also gravely wounded. In blind panic, they fled into this cave, only to run into a few gold-devouring ants.

After joining forces to drive them away, they finally reached the palace and saw this crystal coffin.

But just as they were about to step closer for a look, the coffin suddenly rose into the air and struck one of them cleanly across the legs, blasting him into a cloud of blood mist.

Wang Jianguo rushed in to save the man, only to be struck by the coffin as well and suffer severe injuries. Fortunately, he still managed to pull the man out and retreat some distance from the palace, after which the crystal coffin stopped pursuing them.

Their misfortune did not end there. The gold-devouring ants they had just driven off summoned a great host of reinforcements, and a black storm of countless ants descended upon them. Their group fell into chaos and scattered in all directions.

Gu Jiaer had very bad luck and chose the wrong direction. She dashed straight through the village and out of the cave, only to realize she had charged directly into the ants’ nest.

By then it was too late to run back. The retreat had already been blocked by the gold-devouring ants, and with her injuries, she had no choice but to set up a formation at the entrance beneath the cliff, planning to escape only after recovering.

Yet when her injuries finally healed, she still found no chance to leave. The ants in the abyss grew denser and denser, until in the end she fell into a state of prolonged dormancy.

Later, as the temporary formation failed, she no longer dared to use anything infused with spiritual energy, fearing it might awaken the ant swarm. So she remained in the cave, waiting for Wang Jianguo and the others to come back and rescue her.

She had never expected that this wait would last more than three hundred years. With no spiritual energy to replenish her, and no daring to cultivate for fear of causing too much disturbance, her vitality and divine sense had gradually been drained away.

Had Xu Zhe not appeared today, she would probably have exhausted herself completely and died in the cave within another ten days or so.

After hearing all this, Xu Zhe also fell into thought.

When they had approached the crystal coffin back then, they had actually been attacked?

So Wang Jianguo's Ten Thousand Phenomena Jade Tablet must have been dropped there while rescuing someone?

But he had also approached the crystal coffin, and now he was lying inside it. Why was he completely unharmed?

And from Gu Jiaer’s description, they had apparently never seen those villagers back then. No wonder. The remains and bones in the village did not look like they were the work of only the last three hundred years. At the very least, they must have been there for a thousand years or more.

"Earlier you said the small cave where you were trapped had its exit blocked by the Primordial Yang Golden Mist, so you couldn't get out. Then how did you get in before?" Xu Zhe asked.

There was nothing wrong with Gu Jiaer’s story. Only this point was a small loophole.

If she could force her way in through the corrosive mist at the beginning, why could she not get out later?

"Because the protective suit got chewed up by the gold-devouring ants, and the antidote pill Li Chuangang gave me was not nearly as effective as I expected, so I simply couldn’t get through that poisonous mist. Has that mist been named now? Is it called the Primordial Yang Golden Mist?" Gu Jiaer asked.

"Protective suit?" Xu Zhe was startled.

"Yes! A kind of protective garment specially developed by the Celestial Arms Pavilion. With that, plus Integrated Stage cultivation and an antidote pill, you can stay in toxic mist for dozens of days without issue. Didn’t you wear one when you came in? Or did the Celestial Arms Pavilion develop a new treasure to resist the mist?"

"This... I’m not really clear on the Celestial Arms Pavilion’s affairs," Xu Zhe said, shaking his head. "But the Primordial Yang Golden Mist is not truly poisonous, so the antidote pill should have had no effect. It was probably the protective suit that did most of the work, and with your Integrated Stage cultivation, you would still have had some self-healing ability."

"So that’s how it is. I never expected that in just three hundred years, people would already have figured out these poisonous mists... no, wait, they’re called the Primordial Yang Golden Mist." Gu Jiaer nodded in sudden understanding.

"You’ve misunderstood. They..." Xu Zhe shook his head. If the people of Azure Gift Continent could really understand the nature of the Primordial Yang Golden Mist, no one would still dare to come in here now.

But this issue was not important, and there was no need to explain it in detail.

"What did I misunderstand?" Gu Jiaer asked in confusion.

"Nothing. Hurry up and absorb some spiritual energy and recover a bit," Xu Zhe said.

"All right. By the way, are you injured too? Your cultivation seems to be only at the Foundation Establishment stage," Gu Jiaer asked casually.

"Injured... I suppose so," Xu Zhe said.

He had shattered his Golden Core, which certainly counted as injury, and a severe one at that—serious enough to require starting cultivation all over again.

"No wonder," Gu Jiaer said with a nod. It was perfectly normal for cultivation to fall after an injury. Otherwise, how could someone at mere Foundation Establishment possibly reach a place like this, even with a protective suit? That would be impossible.

So at the very least, he had to be at the Nascent Soul stage.

Then that meant this handsome young man must have awakened right after we left three hundred years ago.

To reach the Nascent Soul stage in only three hundred years—what a genius.

Handsome and clever too. No wonder, even before he awakened, those girls in his class kept mentioning him from time to time.

Gu Jiaer made this self-assured deduction and was just about to close her eyes to recover when—

"Wait a moment."

Xu Zhe suddenly stopped her.

"I almost forgot to ask: what did you go into the Valley of Buried Immortals for back then? And who were the other eleven people?"

"Oh, right. How could you not know about that? Li Chuangang and the others should have told you," Gu Jiaer said, equally stunned.

"Back then, we heard that Wang Jianguo and Li Chuangang had obtained some clues related to that deserted island from the past, and that there might even be a chance to return to Earth. But many people were not interested. Only we went to ask them about it."

"What clues?" Xu Zhe asked at once, suddenly interested.

He also wanted to know just who had been behind that deserted island back then.

After all, the ferocious beasts there were not something ordinary cultivators could have assembled so completely, especially not on Earth.

"I don’t know," Gu Jiaer said helplessly, shaking her head.

"Since the moment I awakened, I already noticed that everyone had become suspicious of one another, increasingly wary, and relations kept worsening. Li Chuangang and Wang Jianguo suspected some people were plotting something, but others suspected there was something off about the two of them as well. Still, from my dealings with them, I would rather believe Li Chuangang and Wang Jianguo. However, the two of them were worried that among us there might be a spy sent by their mortal enemies, so they did not reveal the important clues in advance, though they did allow us to travel together from the start."

At this point, Gu Jiaer looked at Xu Zhe in confusion again. "It was Wang Jianguo and the others who led us into the Valley of Buried Immortals. Li Chuangang stayed behind. Didn’t he tell you all this?"

"I have not seen him since I awakened," Xu Zhe said, shaking his head, his expression solemn.

If one person awakened every hundred years, then some of them must surely have been framed or harmed along the way. Add to that the rumors and whispers, and it was only natural that those who awakened later would be wary of those who came before.

Thinking carefully, even he himself—apart from Chu Xiaotong—would not necessarily trust others easily now, including Gu Jiaer standing before him.

So Xu Zhe found Gu Jiaer’s account of everyone’s worsening relations quite reasonable.

But if that was the case, should not Li Chuangang and the others have come to find him even earlier?

Xu Zhe felt somewhat puzzled.

"You have been awakened for so long, and he still hasn’t come to see you?" Gu Jiaer asked in astonishment.

She found it unbelievable. Back then, Wang Jianguo and Li Chuangang often mentioned Xu Zhe, always calling him Brother Zhe.

Now that Xu Zhe had been awakened for so many years, why had Li Chuangang not gone to find him?

"Maybe he has been too busy," Xu Zhe said with a faint smile.

It had indeed been more than two months since he awakened, which was a long time, yet Li Chuangang had not so much as sent word. Times had changed; people and things alike were no longer what they had been.

"Then..." Gu Jiaer frowned at that, lost in thought.

After that, she told Xu Zhe the names of the other eleven people who had traveled with them.

There had been thirteen in total. Aside from Wang Jianguo and herself, there was another flight attendant named Wu Wanyi, who was very close to her.

The remaining ten were all classmates of Xu Zhe. Four of them were close friends with Wang Jianguo, while the other six had come after hearing there were clues about the deserted island.

Xu Zhe also took out a notebook and pen, changing the entry for "Flight Attendant B" to "Wu Wanyi," and marked all thirteen names to show that they had entered the Valley of Buried Immortals.

As for whether any of those eleven had ever returned to the Four Great Continents, he would need to ask around only after leaving before he could know.

"What are you writing?" Gu Jiaer asked.

"Nothing. Just making a note of some things."

"Then keep your movements smaller..." Gu Jiaer’s face reddened again.

In a situation like this, you’re still writing things down?

I suspect you’re doing this on purpose, pretending to write so you can deliberately rub against me with your arm.

Hmph, scumbag.