Chapter 85: A Passing Visit

Under Jiang Min’s worried gaze, the little sprout quickly swallowed the few drops of Thunder Jade Marrow, its entire body turning pitch black before it stretched out its leaves and pointed toward the ground.

Crackle!

A strange bolt of lightning, as dark as ink, shot out from its leaf and struck the earth, leaving a charred patch behind.

After unleashing the lightning, the little sprout danced its leaves joyfully, showing off its new ability to Jiang Min.

Now it could wield lightning just like her~

“Very good, very good. A-Ling, you’ve grown much stronger again!” Jiang Min praised the little sprout, making it even happier. She then asked, “Can you return to your usual form?”

The little sprout nodded its leaves, spun around, and the sinister black aura faded from its blades, turning back into the fresh green shoots of an ordinary plant.

Seeing that the little sprout could easily control this refined lightning power, Jiang Min felt completely relieved. She glanced at the blackened mark on the ground, musing to herself, “This strange lightning is utterly wicked and sinister, even stronger than ordinary thunder. Only something supremely pure and righteous could restrain it. If I could refine it, it would become a powerful tool.”

Though the Thunder Jade Marrow was indeed bizarre and ominous, as long as it wasn’t deadly, it was fine.

She immediately decided to collect as much of this dark Thunder Jade Marrow as possible. With a sweep of her sleeve, countless bottles and jars of varying sizes floated before her.

“A-Ling, let’s hurry and gather everything, then get out of here.”

No matter what, this was no place to linger. Just the sight of this pit of ten thousand corpses sent a chill through Jiang Min’s heart. She had a creeping sense that some deadly secret was buried here…

Together, woman and sprout set to work, gathering the Thunder Jade Marrow that hovered at the edge of the thunder sea and bottling it up.

Once the containers were full, Jiang Min stowed them away, cast a last glance at the pit of corpses, and then turned to leave.

She had just turned away when her steps faltered. On a nearby mountain wall, she seemed to glimpse the faint traces of writing, though time had worn it nearly illegible.

“What… ‘You’? Is that the character for ‘you’?”

Then Jiang Min looked up at the rock face—and was startled.

Above, all manner of inscriptions!

“Right and wrong since ancient times are but dirt beneath our feet; who now knows the fate of kings and losers?”

“To those who come after, it’s best to forget everything that happened here.”

“Pitiful, lamentable, laughable to the extreme.”

“I was here.”

“I was here.”

“I was here…”

Some of the characters were simply scratched in, others carried an incredibly powerful aura, enduring countless years without fading—proof that those who left these marks were cultivators of no small strength.

Jiang Min was stunned.

So, cultivators had found this place before her. No wonder so many of the wards and barriers had been destroyed.

Yet no one had ever spoken of it.

Beneath the Gorge of Buried Souls, there lay a land of bones.

Judging by the tone of these inscriptions, it seemed those cultivators knew some secret, and that secret was a taboo.

Jiang Min’s expression grew grave as she speculated: “The weak could never breach the many enchantments, dying beneath them instead. The strong who managed to get in must have learned something, but kept silent about the Gorge of Buried Souls. So this ravine became a land of certain death.”

“I think I’ve seen something I never should have…”

Her brow furrowed slightly.

Whatever forbidden history or the rights and wrongs of old, none of it concerned her. She had no wish to be caught up in such troubles.

It was clear she must keep what she’d seen and heard locked in her heart, and focus solely on her cultivation.

“A-Ling, let’s go.”

Just as Jiang Min was about to step away, a gust of sinister wind struck her, and a piercing shriek echoed in her ears, making her scalp tingle.

A bizarre remnant will, formed of countless twisted faces packed together, shrieked as one. Just hearing it sent Jiang Min’s soul into chaos, her mind clouded. Instinctively, she spat out a peach branch, summoning its devouring power.

“Ah!”

That monstrous thing, formed of several lingering resentments, twisted and struggled frantically as the peach branch consumed it, its shrieks growing sharper. Yet, under the branch’s overwhelming might, it was soon swallowed entirely.

Then, amidst the fragments, images came flooding from the peach branch.

Scenes of desperate life-and-death battles—one side utterly crushing the other in a massacre. The victims left behind their dying words:

“We swear eternal loyalty to the Immortal Lord!”

“You traitors! I’ll kill you all—ugh!”

“Ah Jun, I’ve come to join you.”

“May you all die miserable deaths!”

“Mother, why are they killing us…”

Under the slaughterers’ assault, the victims barely managed any resistance before their lives were snuffed out.

Over the millennia, the lingering resentments of the slain had fused together, forming the vengeful will that had just attacked Jiang Min.

After digesting these memories, Jiang Min frowned slightly. The scenes showed cultivators in ancient, archaic robes—a massacre from ten thousand years ago. Yet the pale yellow garments worn by the slaughterers seemed oddly familiar.

“Such familiar clothes…”

She mulled it over, then suddenly remembered.

“That’s it! In the ancient battlefield of the Myriad Sword Sect, when I saw the remnants of that old battle, one side’s cultivators wore those pale yellow robes.”

“The same group, slaughtering without restraint…”

Jiang Min turned to look at the bones in the pit, a rare solemnity in her eyes.

This must have been a great war from ten thousand years past.

Yet in all the histories she’d read, there was no mention of such an event. The records from that era were sparse, only filled with unverifiable legends…

“Once I leave, I must forget all this. I was never here.”

Jiang Min shook her head slightly, casting these distant matters from her mind.

She had acquired the Thunder Jade Marrow and now had to flee this place at once. She could only hope that Jiang Ziyi believed her dead and had already left.

Led by the little sprout, Jiang Min slipped through a gap in the enchantments and made her way back up the mountain path to the cliff’s edge.

Jiang Ziyi was nowhere to be seen. After a brief investigation, Jiang Min hurried back to Feng Qiuer’s cave, entered the stone chamber, activated the mechanisms, and sealed off all possible entrances. Drawing on Feng Qiuer’s memories, she restored the shifting and concealing formation outside—the very one Yan Sixteen had once broken.

“This place is rather good—a fine spot for hiding and cultivation.”

Jiang Min surveyed the stone chamber with satisfaction. Though the place was in disarray from Zhang Yi and Yan Sixteen’s battle, and the corpses of many green-scaled vipers still littered the floor, as a hiding place it was more than adequate.

A cultivator’s cave at the peak of Foundation Building, filled with traps and protected by powerful formations—surely, no one would disturb her now.

The little sprout flew from Jiang Min’s sleeve, tilting its head in confusion and pointing north.

Cultivate here? The trial period was nearly over—shouldn’t she return and report?

Faced with its doubts, Jiang Min only smiled, her tone full of meaning. “A-Ling, Qi Yan’s words have made me realize something.”

“Some rules are simply not worth following.”