After the Fairy Disappeared

  Compared to Wendaoshu, he is now in the true north, that is—

  The threshold in the Houtian gossip.

  The weather is good today, there are no clouds in the sky, and the peaks are faint. If you look far away, you can actually see the mountains farther away.

  The snow-capped Tianshu Peak, and the nameless small peak on its side.

   That is the location of the Naturalization Tower.

  From the perspective of He Lingchuan, the Guihua Tower is just a little east of the south!

  He muttered: "Li?"

  South, isn't it the off-position in the acquired gossip?

  The Guihua Tower, the Wendao Tree, and the huge rock he stands on are basically in a straight line from south to north.

  In this way, he should be looking for the right direction.

  He Lingchuan turned around and continued heading north, that is, walking along the extension of this straight line.

  There is no road ahead, the mountain is very steep, and it goes down to the bottom of the valley.

   Then, he saw a pool of water.

  In fact, this is a wall hole formed by the cracked and indented roots of the mountain, which has been washed away by running water for years. Xushan Mountain has experienced wind, frost, rain and snow, and there are eight hundred if not thousands of such potholes and depressions.

   But the pool water here is very clear, and you can't see the bottom; the water surface is not frozen, and white steam is faintly coming out.

  The sharp rocks on all sides are like barriers, enclosing it in the middle, forming a rarely-known mountain paradise. The surroundings are quiet and quiet, occasionally there is a cry of apes.

   But what surprised him the most was that there were people by the pool!

  One man and one woman.

  The man is over forty years old, of medium build, with good clothing and a neatly trimmed beard.

  A woman in her early twenties, with an oval face, peach eyes, and a womanly bun.

  The man wrapped her in an ermine cloak, and the two hugged each other, kissing.

  He Lingchuan waited patiently for them to stop.

  The woman pushed her companion away, her temples were scattered, and she whispered: "Sister-in-law came with me, she is resting in front of Tianxuan Peak, I can't stay too long!"

  Where is the man willing to let it go, he hugged her and put it by the pool: "Don't panic, I will transfer your man away this time when I go back this time, so that he won't get in the way..."

  The pool cave is much warmer than other places. Do the pair of wild mandarin ducks want to soak in the hot spring? He Lingchuan grabbed a stone and threw it out, hitting their feet with a click.

   The two were taken aback.

  When the man looked up and saw He Lingchuan suddenly, he couldn't help being shocked, "Who are you!"

  An outsider suddenly appeared here, and the woman quickly broke free and tidied up her face.

  He Lingchuan looked at him, then at her, blinked, and suddenly grinned: "You seduce other people's wives, and you have to go to a remote mountain, no wonder."

   "None of your business!" the man said angrily, "Get lost!"

  He Lingchuan jumped off the boulder and walked over slowly.

  The woman's face was flushed, and she suddenly turned around and fled.

  It was only then that He Lingchuan discovered that there was a path up the mountain beside the pool.

  It seems that these two people did not jump over the stone ridge.

   "Aqian!" The man called her back, but seeing that she didn't look back, he said angrily, "Stinky boy, don't let me see you again!" After saying that, he turned and wanted to leave.

  He Lingchuan folded his arms and said, "If you want to die, follow along."

"What's the meaning?"

"When she jumped off the path, an arm stretched out from the valley to help her." He Lingchuan snarled in the direction where the woman disappeared, "It was a man's arm, but she didn't cry out, and she even spoke. .”

  The woman didn't cry out in surprise, and kept chatting closely with the other party. Obviously, the two parties recognized each other. Thanks to his good hearing, he heard the woman say: "There is another person coming from above... Hurry up..."

  The man wondered: "What exactly are you trying to say?"

   "There are people lying in ambush here, waiting for you to go down, maybe there are more than one." Just now when the wind was blowing here, He Lingchuan had heard two heavy breathing sounds, "I don't know if this fairy jumps for money or for his life."

  Of course, now that he, an outsider, has stepped in, the guy behind the col has retreated.

  The man was surprised: "You are talking nonsense!"

   "Didn't she ask you to come up today?"

  The man immediately shut up, his eyes wandering.

   It was indeed the wife of the subordinate who spoke first and asked him to go up the mountain to play, and she was also looking for this small peak. This place is desolate and uninhabited. If someone falls to the valley and dies, he will not be discovered until the year of the monkey.

  That black-hearted woman, is she planning to kill him with her husband?

  The man swallowed his saliva, and suddenly realized that he raised his legs and climbed up the boulder.

   Regardless of whether there is an ambush on the way down the mountain, isn't it safe for him to walk from the stone ridge to Tianji Peak?

  Suddenly, a blur appeared in front of his eyes, and the young man who had just stood by the pool suddenly appeared on the boulder in front of him.

   It looked like a ghost, and the man trembled with fright, and almost slipped down: "You, what are you going to do?"

  He Lingchuan knelt down and grinned at him: "It's already here, why don't you do me a favor?"

"no no…"

  …

  He Lingchuan went to the back of the mountain to see that everyone had run away.

   Come on, he saves trouble.

   Reaching into the pool, I found that the water was warm, even a little hot.

   That's right, the terrain here is lower than Wendao's tree hole, and it's closer to geothermal heat.

  He cut off a seven or eight-foot-long branch and probed into the water, but he still couldn't reach the bottom.

  Don't look at the irregular pool with a diameter of less than two feet, but it is actually being eroded deeper and deeper by the flowing water.

   More importantly, He Lingchuan saw roots under the water.

  Sturdy, snake-like roots.

  He murmured: "East Li enters Kanshui."

  The "kanshui" in Venerable Wood Spirit's speech refers to the pool located in the north of Wendaoshu, right?

  He took out a turtle talisman from his pocket and hung it up with a fishing line.

   This is the token left by Dongli Daoist on the bank of Xianling Lake in Sihua. He asks someone who is destined to send it back to the Guihua Pagoda on Shouan Mountain (Xu Mountain), and he will be rewarded.

  But the last time He Lingchuan sent it back as promised, the stone pagoda simply rejected it.

  He Lingchuan has been thinking about whether there are other reasons for this.

  Until he heard the third speech of Venerable Wood Spirit:

   "The east leaves and enters the Kanshui."

  The "Dongli" here actually refers to the tortoise shell left to him by Daoist Dongli, with runes engraved on it.

  And judging from the azimuth, it can also be said to be a turtle amulet rejected by the southern (off-position) naturalization tower.

  Then the "kanshui" in the Ye language, the water in the north (kan position), is likely to be here.

  So He Lingchuan threw the turtle charm into the pool and watched it sink slowly.

   Strange things happen:

  As the turtle talisman sank, large groups of bubbles burst out of the pool, and the water level dropped sharply.

   It took only a dozen breaths before and after, and the pool was out of water.

   What lay in front of He Lingchuan was a bottomless hole!

  People have searched for hundreds of years to find Wenwen Peak Cave Mansion. It turns out that the entrance is not on Wenwen Peak, but hidden here!

  He Lingchuan saw a few copper coins by the water, which shows that occasionally someone climbed up here and used the pool as a wishing pool to insert coins, but found nothing abnormal.

  He Lingchuan grabbed the fishing line and retracted the turtle charm, but the water in the pool did not rise again.

  It seems that the Venerable Wood Spirit has long since revised the rules for opening the cave, and used Dongli's tortoise amulet as the key to the gate.

  He Lingchuan threw a few stones into the cave.

  They rolled down the crevices of the stone, clattering.

   It seems that the head here is neither deep nor steep.

  He Lingchuan patted the man behind him: "It's up to you."

  He originally wanted to plot against the guards of Tianji Peak to do this. But isn't there something ready in front of you, it's him.

  The man looked blank, standing behind him without moving, like a puppet.

  He Lingchuan handed a sack to him, and he walked into the cave.

  The water in the pool receded, and stone steps were exposed underneath, but it was a bit slippery.

   But two feet further down, the surrounding air became noticeably hotter, and the further you went underground, the brighter the light.

  This man has been controlled by He Lingchuan and turned into his living puppet, and his words and deeds are under his control for a short time.

  This move is the "Shadow Transfer" taught by Xi Yunhe, and it is the first time He Lingchuan has used it.

  He himself walked back directly, climbing all the way, jumping over the stone ridge and returning to Tianji Peak.

   There is also a small hill in the southwest of Tianji Peak, and a pavilion has been built for tourists to settle down. Now it's late autumn, when people sit on the stone chair, the cold air rises from the buttocks, so the guests here will not stay for too long when they come and go.

  He Lingchuan leaned against the railing, pretending to be looking out from the distance, but actually observed the newly opened cave through the puppet.

  Now he is only a few tens of feet away from the puppet in a straight line, and he has not yet left the effective range of "Shadow Transfer".

   This supernatural power still consumes real power, thanks to his abundant reserves. If it was half a year ago, his real strength would probably only be enough for a few tens of breaths.

  Not all caves are their own small worlds, at least not this one. It's just a space in the ground. The road under the puppet's feet is getting wider and wider. In the next second, it opens up in front of him, and he comes to a bright world.

  Three feet in front of you is the golden-red sea of ​​magma!

  But the magma here is unusually quiet, it hasn’t flowed for a long time, it’s not as noisy as the downstairs of Zhaixing Building, only bubbling occasionally.

   It stands to reason that this is a world of high temperature and poisonous smoke, and the living would have been suffocated if they got so close.

  However, the humanoid puppet feels a little hot, and the breathing is still smooth, and there is no discomfort.

  This is probably related to the runes on the surrounding rock walls, and the ubiquitous tree roots.

  Yes, the roots of the Wenwen tree went straight to the ground, and He Lingchuan even saw some of them go straight into the magma pool.

  Is this tree not afraid of high temperature?

  Thinking about it again, the Wendao tree is more than 4,000 years old, and the treasure tree king can only catch up with it by five times its age. Moreover, this spiritual tree has experienced countless catastrophes, and has carried many attacks from gods and demons.

  It should be able to bear a little ground heat under Tianji Peak.

   Only after witnessing all of this, He Lingchuan understood that Wendaoshu and Tianji Peak have been completely integrated into one, and it is indistinguishable from each other. No wonder Tiangong didn't cut it down, otherwise Tianji Peak would probably collapse once the tree died.

  This underground space was originally opened up by the overflow of magma, but the Great Emperor set up a talisman here, relying on geothermal energy, and it has been working well for two thousand years. The magma is hot, but the stone chamber is relatively cool, so a flowing wind is formed here, blowing towards the top.

   It can be seen that there is still a gap on the top, reaching the ground.