When Jie Fu Lian opened his eyes, he immediately wanted to close them and fall asleep again.
"Brother Fu!"
"Brother Fu!"
It was LingLing and Xian Li, the two female disciples who were already infatuated by Jie Fu Lian.
"You're awake!"
"Where are we?" Jie Fu Lian questioned, his voice low and a bit hoarse.
"We don't know," LingLing confidently replied.
"We all fell down and when we opened our eyes, we were already trapped in this cave," Xian Li was a bit more helpful as she narrated the details.
The two girls looked to be a bit scared and confused by the sudden turn of events but such situations weren't new for Jie Fu Lian and hence, not only was he able to remain calm but he was also able to quickly realize where they were.
He thought the disciples of the HuiXue sect were only using traps as an excuse to scare off the other sects from using the path, but now that the situation had turned out like this, it seemed that they weren't lying.
"This is all because of you!"
"How can you be so unreasonable?! If there is anyone to blame then it should be yourself!"
"If you are really disciples from the HuiXue sect, shouldn't you have sensed a trap? Or is it that you had already sensed it and purposefully led us here?!"
"Why would we need to do all that?! If you can't talk any sense then you better shut your mouth up."
The argument between the HuiXue sect and this small sect continued even more fiercely and Jie Fu Lian felt as if his head was about to be split open by these two chattering men.
"Sister Xian Li, who is that?" Jie Fu Lian frowned a little as he pointed at the two arguing men and asked.
"That's brother Huo Feng and the other is Duan Luoyang from the HuiXue sect. They are both considered to be disciples with a bright future ahead of them. Their cultivation realm is also not far from each other."
"Brother Huo Feng doesn't like disciples from the HuiXue sect," LingLing suddenly interrupted as she spoke up, "When he was a kid, he wanted to join the HuiXue sect but his skills and talent were never enough and every time he tried to take their entrance test, he failed. The humiliation left him with a deep grudge against the HuiXue sect and when he joined our sect, he swore on his life that he would become a great cultivator that even the HuiXue sect would have to look up to."
Jie Fu Lian suddenly remembered the time when he had also taken that entrance test.
He had taken it out of pure curiosity since the test was infamous for being hard to clear, but in the end, he had passed the test with ease on the first try itself and hence, he had lost all interest and never joined the sect.
If this Huo Feng had failed that test so many times then even Jie Fu Lian couldn't help but question just how untalented and useless this man was.
"That Duan Luoyang isn't so great either," LingLing continued with a sneer, "If it weren't for his master, Hua Tianshu, how could somebody from his origins even dream to be a disciple of HuiXue sect?"
"Ling Rong, that's enough," Xian Li suddenly scolded the woman strictly, "Don't say things that you might come to regret."
Ling Rong puffed her cheeks up and pouted but said nothing more, looking as if she had been done wrong.
"Their constant bickering has got me tired, I'll rest for awhile. Wake me when they actually manage to find the way out," Jie Fu Lian sighed as he leaned back on the wall and closed his eyes, really looking as if he was planning on sleeping.
"Eh?" The two girls looked to be a bit taken back by this reaction but in the end, they could say nothing more.
Ten minutes passed and yet, Huo Feng and Duan Luoyang were still shouting at each other.
Jie Fu Lian had wanted to sleep but with the constant bickering of the two men whose voices weren't even soft, how could he manage to sleep...?
Suddenly, somebody did Jie Fu Lian a favor and shut the two men up.
"Stop bickering. What's done is done. Find a way out."
Jie Fu Lian snapped his eyes wide open in shock.
That voice...
He could recognize it even in his sleep!
"Shizun, he started it first!" Duan Luoyang pointed at Huo Feng and whined.
Jie Fu Lian gulped as he looked at Duan Luoyang's so-called 'Shizun'.
"It doesn't matter who started it first. As a disciple of the HuiXue sect, is this how you deal with such a situation?" Hua Tianshu glared down at this Duan Luoyang as he asked, his voice slow and deep, pronouncing each word clearly and patiently.
Jie Fu Lian felt as if he had been struck by lightning.
Just how bad was his luck...?
Of all the people in the world, why did he have to run into this man whom he never wanted to meet again...?!
Hua Tianshu didn't seem to have noticed Jie Fu Lian. In fact, even if he had seen the man, at the moment, he would probably fail to recognize him.
At first, Jie Fu Lian had no interest in helping everyone get out of this cave, but now, his plans seemed to have changed.
If Hua Tianshu was here then he needed to get out as soon as possible.
With the sudden change in circumstances, getting out of this cave was now a life or death situation for Jie Fu Lian and he was not looking to celebrate his second funeral.
"If we walk around, we are bound to find an exit," Huo Feng confidently spoke.
'That's a dumb idea,' Jie Fu Lian thought in his mind as he shook his head with disappointment.
"Then why don't you just walk around and find the exit for yourself?" Duan Luoyang spoke up, not bothering to be polite anymore.
"If you're so great then why don't you find the exit?!"
Duan Luoyang rolled his eyes as he heard this and Jie Fu Lian could see the man slowly losing his patience.
If it weren't for Hua Tianshu standing right there, Jie Fu Lian was afraid that this Duan Luoyang might have already thrown hands at Huo Feng.
"I told you to stop arguing," Hua Tianshu once again interrupted the argument and this time, he coldly glared at Huo Feng who immediately shut up and looked away with fear.
"I'm going!" Huo Feng announced as he confidently headed deeper into one of the passages inside this cave.
With that man gone, it was finally a bit quiet in there, but Jie Fu Lian was no longer in the mood to sleep.
"Brother Fu, should we follow him?" Ling Rong asked as she clutched onto the man's arm.
Jie Fu Lian didn't give an immediate response, instead, he looked down at his arm that was being grabbed by the woman.
He never recalled their relationship advancing to such a level where she could grab onto him this carelessly.
As if noticing his gaze, Ling Rong chuckled awkwardly as she pulled her hand back.
"You can follow him if you want," Jie Fu Lian finally responded to the question that she had asked.
"Eh? Brother Fu isn't coming along?" This time, it was Xian Li who spoke up as she questioned.
"Unfortunately enough, I only follow handsome men," Jie Fu Lian replied with a thin smile.
The two girls looked to be shocked speechless as they heard this.
'That should get them off my back,' Jie Fu Lian thought in his mind.
"Brother Fu... Is quite funny," Ling Rong suddenly chuckled awkwardly as she tried to make it a joke, but Jie Fu Lian didn't say anything further and simply kept on smiling thinly.
"Ling Rong, let's go," Xian Li coughed as she spoke up.
Ling Rong nodded her head and the two girls got ready to follow after Huo Feng, however, they hadn't even managed to take ten steps, when Huo Feng returned from another cave passage.
For some reason, the devastation visible on Huo Feng's face was a bit hard not to notice. In fact, it wasn't just his face, even his clothes looked to be soiled as if he had rolled around in mud and returned.
"What is it? Didn't find the exit?" Duan Luoyang sneered.
Huo Feng glared at the man and his face turned red with anger, but he didn't say anything back to the man, which in itself, was pretty shocking.
Duan Luoyang suddenly got a bit worried and asked, "Did something really happen?"
"I walked," Huo Feng muttered out as he looked down at the ground.
"Huh?"
"I walked for ten days straight."
"..."
Jie Fu Lian wanted to laugh but he kept it in.
The ML is here!~
Hehe, Jie Fu Lian considers himself misfortunate but I think otherwise!
Thank you for reading and don't forget to support the author by voting, commenting and adding this book to your library!~
This was exactly why Jie Fu Lian always emphasized the importance of analyzing the situation first before making rash decisions.
This wasn't a cave, it was a summoning ground filled with multiple arrays.
Huo Feng was certainly lucky considering the fact that he was still alive.
If he had taken a different passage, he would have probably been caught under a different array that might have been fatal to him.
Jie Fu Lian sighed as he suddenly stood up and walked along the walls of the cave.
At first glance, it looked as if he was simply admiring the beauty of the rough stone structure.
Because of the sudden appearance of Huo Feng, who had presumably been walking for ten days, nobody paid any attention to Jie Fu Lian and that was exactly what he had wanted.
"Something inside this cave is disturbing my spiritual Qi," Duan Luoyang closed his eyes and sighed with a bit of irritation, "If it weren't for that, I would have already found a way out."
'You can't even see what's in front of your eyes. I'm afraid you wouldn't have been able to sense the problem even if you had full control over your spiritual Qi,' Jie Fu Lian wanted to mock the man as he heard Duan Luoyang's words but he kept it in and continued to act as if he was deaf to this conversation.
Hua Tianshu suddenly sighed, "Look around a bit closer."
It seemed that Jie Fu Lian wasn't the only one who had completely deciphered the situation they were in. However, just like Jie Fu Lian, Hua Tianshu was also not planning on spelling out the answer.
Since he was Duan Luoyang's teacher, it made sense that he wanted his disciples to find the answer for themselves.
Hua Tianshu looked to be quite patient, but unfortunately enough, the same couldn't be said about Jie Fu Lian.
He wanted to get out of here as soon as possible and in order to do that, he needed to make these bunch of thick-skulled disciples find their way out.
If they were given enough time, it was only natural that they would be able to find a way out, but time was something Jie Fu Lian couldn't afford to waste so he chose to force these disciples to find the answer.
"It's you!" Jie Fu Lian suddenly exclaimed out loud, pointing at a certain disciple from the HuiXue sect whom he had never met nor seen.
"Me...?" The boy pointed at himself with a bit of shock and confusion.
"It's you, isn't it?!" Jie Fu Lian started walking over towards the boy with hostility as he spoke, "You stole my turtle!"
"Eh?"
Everybody turned to look at Jie Fu Lian with great interest. Even Hua Tianshu was looking over at him with that same unbothered gaze that he always held in his eyes.
"Don't try to deny it! I remember your face very clearly!" Jie Fu Lian shouted as he continued to falsely accuse the boy of stealing his non-existent turtle.
"Fellow Daoist, I-I think there has been a mistake," The boy stuttered a little as he tried to calmly solve this situation.
However, Jie Fu Lian was simply not planning on cooperating.
"It's you! I know it's you! There is no use in denying it! You stole my little turtle TianTian!"
The boy gulped and his eyes looked as if they were ready to pop out of his sockets.
Hua Tianshu almost laughed as he heard the words 'my little TianTian' and surprisingly enough, for the first time in ages, he looked to be a little interested in this unknown man who had suddenly started accusing one of his disciples.
"Brother, I never stole a turtle nor have I ever seen a turtle named TianTian," The boy looked to be intimidated by the approaching Jie Fu Lian and he slowly backed up on instinct.
"I saw you steal TianTian! Don't you dare lie!" Jie Fu Lian suddenly lifted his feet and kicked the boy, sending him flying all the way to the wall on the opposite side of the cave.
Although he had tried his best to hold back on his strength, that kick was still too strong and as soon as the boy's back hit the wall, the stone wall cracked a little.
Jie Fu Lian felt a little guilty and worried for the boy but he was a master at hiding away his inner thoughts and on the outside, one could still see his character 'TianTian's angry father' being masterfully played out.
The young disciple groaned as he hit the floor and it looked like the rest of the disciples from the HuiXue sect were no longer amused by Jie Fu Lian, and on the contrary, they now held hostility towards him.
"He said it wasn't him!" Duan Luoyang exclaimed with anger as he glared at the man.
"There! Look there!" Xian Li suddenly interrupted the conversation as she cried out.
Everyone's attention was immediately caught by the woman who pointed at the wall that the kicked disciple had cracked.
"It's a formation!" Ling Rong also joined in as she exclaimed.
A few of the disciples. including Duan Luoyang walked over to the wall and took a closer look at the faint formation that was still visible even after being covered with layers and layers of dirt and dust.
Nobody cared about the unfortunate young disciple who was still rolling around with pain on the floor.
"It doesn't look like a transportation array but I've never seen a formation like this so I can't say anything for sure," Duan Luoyang spoke up with his eyebrows creased together in confusion.
"There is one here as well!" Another disciple cried out as he pointed at the wall on the opposite side of the cave.
While walking along the walls of the cave, Jie Fu Lian had purposefully brushed off some of the dust in order to make the arrays more visible and now, it seemed that his efforts hadn't been wasted.
"There is one here too!" One more disciple shouted.
Duan Luoyang gulped as he looked around and it took a minute for him to put the pieces together as he spoke, "North... West... South... East. There must be one on the East wall as well!"
Everybody suddenly looked to be very enthusiastic and soon enough, they found the identical array on the east wall of the cave as well.
Jie Fu Lian slightly smiled as he saw this.
Since he had already spelled the method out for them in secret, he expected them to at least be able to use the method in order to find the answer.
However, it seemed that the current disciples of both these sects weren't as bright as they used to be back when Jie Fu Lian was still at the top of the cultivation world.
"I've never seen an array like this but it must be a transportation array of some kind!" A young enthusiastic disciple from the HuiXue sect spoke up.
Duan Luoyang nodded his head in agreement.
"The array must have a trigger of some sort. If we can find the trigger, we can probably use this array."
Jie Fu Lian mentally face-palmed.
Had nobody in this cave ever heard about a demon-summoning formation...?
Even having the base knowledge about demon-summoning formation would probably be enough for them to recognize these arrays.
The disciple who had been wrongfully kicked by Jie Fu Lian finally managed to push himself off the ground and it didn't look like he cared about the arrays. His eyes were focused only on Jie Fu Lian and he looked rather angry.
"I never stole your turtle!" The boy roared as he took out his sword and jumped at Jie Fu Lian.
This sudden attack was a bit unexpected and shocking, but if Jie Fu Lian had wanted, he could have easily avoided it.
However, he suddenly had an idea.
Instead of avoiding the sword, he stepped aside and let the sword slash his upper arm, splattering blood on the array.
The boy still looked to be dissatisfied and tried to attack Jie Fu Lian once again, but this time, Hua Tianshu interfered and stopped him on time.
"Blood!" One of the disciples exclaimed, "The trigger is blood!"
Nobody knew who acted first, but in the next few minutes, a few of the disciples had already cut their palms and smeared blood on the other three arrays as well.
Jie Fu Lian took a deep breath in as he looked at the floor with an expectant gaze and it just so happened that Hua Tianshu noticed this small reaction.
The arrays started glowing and the ground began shaking.
Most of the disciples had an excited and relieved expression plastered on their faces, not exactly knowing what was happening.
'This is a demon summoning formation. Activating it with blood can only lead to one thing,' Jie Fu Lian thought in his mind and at that exact moment, the floor started to glow, revealing another bigger array that was engraved on the ground that they were all standing on.
These bunch of disciples certainly lacked experience and base knowledge about demon-summoning formations, however, now, even they could sense that something wasn't right.
From the ground, something started to come out. To be more exact, it was a hand that was too big to be considered a human hand.
Question of the day: Why did Jie Fu Lian name his imaginary stolen turtle 'TianTian'?
Cough~ Cough~ The answer isn't hard at all (;
Thank you for reading and don't forget to vote, comment and support!~
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Take care <333
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