Chu Wanning replied: "If it was the real Gouchen the Exalted, why would he use dead things instead of living beings? And even though this man's powers are fairly strong, they're still nothing compared to a god's." This made a lot of sense, but Mo Ran was still confused on a few parts.
"Was it when Shizun saw this…...this dead fox that you realized that guy was an imposter?" Chu Wanning shook his head. "No." "Then how could you tell..." "Do you still remember what this Gouchen asked me when he first showed up?" Mo Ran thought about it for a moment and said, "I think he asked you something about your weapon?" "That's right," Chu Wanning confirmed. "I've never hidden the aura of the holy weapons on my person; they can be sensed with just a little perceptiveness.
But even as the God of a Thousand Weapons, he couldn't immediately tell that I had two holy weapons from Jincheng Lake and assumed I only had one. I was suspicious then, but the matter at hand was acquiring weapons so there wasn't a good time to bring it up. I just kept a close eye on everything he did from then on, so that he wouldn't get his way." "But..." Mo Ran said, "If he isn't Gouchen the Exalted, how could he create the holy weapons?" "First off, Gouchen creating all the weapons is just a rumor. No one really knows why this lake has so many weapons inside it, so the holy weapons were not necessarily made by Gouchen. Second, this person just let you all pick whatever you wanted from the holy arsenal, but who knows if they're even his to give. Moreover, I just looked closely at Xue Meng and Shi Mei's weapons—— entirely fake." At this, Mo Ran grew alarmed. "Fake?" "Mn." Mo Ran stood blankly for a moment, before finally realizing something pertaining to himself. "Then Jiangui...?" "Jiangui is real. But his goal wasn't just to give you a weapon." "Then what did he want to do?" Mo Ran said, looking in disgust at the fox corpse lying on the stone bed. "First he spent all this effort to lock us up, and then he got something sickening like this. What does he even want out of it?"
"You."
"Huh?"
"What you just said was only half right. That Gouchen didn't go through all of this to trap us; the one he ultimately wants is you." "What does he want with me?" Mo Ran laughed drily. "I'm just some dumbass." Chu Wanning replied, "I've never met a dumbass who could cultivate a core within a year." Mo Ran was going to continue, but he suddenly realized something and slammed to a halt.
——Did Chu Wanning just…...praise him?
The realization made his heart beat faster, and he stared at Chu Wanning with his mouth hanging open. A few moments passed before he slowly blinked.
The thick face he'd always been so proud of was actually blushing a little.
Chu Wanning wasn't even looking at him, still muttering to himself.
"Furthermore, Tianwen and Jiangui seem to have something to do with that willow tree in the courtyard—I've read about it before in ancient texts. When Gouchen the Exalted descended to the mortal realm, he brought three willow branches with him from the imperial court. But the ancient texts were missing a lot; I never found out what Gouchen did with those three branches of heavenly willow." He paused before continuing. "But if the rumors are true, it would seem that Tianwen, Jiangui, and the old tree in the courtyard could in fact be those three willow branches. Two became holy weapons, and one was taken to the bottom of Jincheng Lake, becoming the powerful guardian of Gouchen's arsenal." "But what does that have to do with me?" Mo Ran said.
Chu Wanning shook his head. "How could it not have something to do with you, you're the one who awakened Jiangui." Mo Ran sighed. "Like I said, seriously what the hell!" "My guess is that whatever he wants in the end has to do with the willow tree in the courtyard. But that's as much as I can infer from what we've gathered.
I don't know anything else beyond that for now." This was almost all conjecture on Chu Wanning's part, but Mo Ran thought that, since he was so smart, if that's the conclusion he came to, then it was probably pretty close to the truth.
As they considered these things, they walked quickly though the gloomy underwater dungeon path. When they got through the twisting, winding path,
they walked along another one until they finally came to the exit. They took advantage of the fact that the merpeople patrolling back and forth weren't expecting them, and escaped.
The exit of the dark underground cell was right in the courtyard where the giant willow was. When they surfaced, the scene before Mo Ran's eyes shocked him.
There were four coffins placed in front of the giant willow, one of them empty. Lying in the other three were Chu Wanning, Shi Mei, and Xue Meng.
Mo Ran paled and yelled, "What the hell is this?!" "Those are corpse-sacrificing coffins," Chu Wanning said. "You see the vine wrapped around the edge of the coffin? The other end of it is linked to the giant willow. The fake Gouchen only needs you, so after he drugged us, he had merfolk take you to the cell and put the three of us into these coffins. Using the corpse-sacrificing coffins, he can transfer the entire lifetime's worth of cultivation from the people inside to the giant willow. It's similar to extracting blood." Seeing Mo Ran's grim expression, Chu Wanning continued, "Don't worry,
Shi Mei and Xue Meng are unharmed. I pretended to be unconscious and waited for an opportunity to dispatch the three merfolk guarding the coffins. The three people you see in front of you are actually the bodies of those demons." He said all of this very matter-of-factly, but Mo Ran couldn't help raising his eyebrows and covertly sneaking a look at the other.
How high was the cultivation of the merfolk in Jincheng Lake? Chu Wanning's so-called, simple "waiting for an opportunity to dispatch" meant that he would have had to take care of all three of the merfolk in a single blow,
without making a sound.
Just how skilled was this person…...
It had been too many years since he'd last fought on equal footing with Chu Wanning, so he was a little dazed when he heard this sentence. It was as if the storms and hails in his past life flashed before his eyes, and he saw the figure within it that shook the sky and earth, his face slightly turned to the side, eyes shining bright like Mercury.
Chu Wanning saw him lost in thought and asked: "What is it?" Mo Ran jolted back to awareness. "Nothing." "..." "I was just wondering, how did Shizun turn the merfolk into these forms?" Chu Wanning smiled coldly: "Simple illusions. If that fake Gouchen can do it,
how could I not be able to as well? Leave the fake bodies here to avoid being discovered by those eels. Give him a taste of his own medicine." "..." In any case, the area was dangerous so they couldn't stay there long. They took a short breather and then left immediately. However, when they ran to the meeting place Xue Meng and the others had agreed upon, they found that it was empty; no one was there.
Mo Ran's face went completely white. "Where's Shi Mei?!" Chu Wanning's expression was also slightly disquieted. He didn't answer,
instead lifting his ring finger and producing a layer of golden light atop it. He could use the haitang flowers, which he'd tucked into the waistbands of the three disciples before they climbed Dawning Peak, to track them.
After a short period of time, Chu Wanning cursed under his breath and put the light away. "Something we didn't expect may have happened here. The two of them probably ran away from this area to hide from the merfolk patrolling back and forth, possibly towards the market. Come, let's go look." The two of them were both extremely skilled, easily avoiding all of the merfolk patrols. They swiftly flipped over the tall walls of the courtyard and rushed in the direction of the market that Gouchen had taken them to during the day.
Normally, there would be no such thing as night and day under water, but Jincheng Lake was different; one could perceive the rising of the sun and the setting of the moon. At that time, the long night had already broken and the sun was rising in the east.
Mo Ran could see Jincheng Lake's morning market setting up in the distance, the bustling city center filled with people gathering into it, and subconsciously released the breath he had been holding. It looked like Shi Mei and the rest were safe; otherwise, the scene before them wouldn't be so peaceful.
On the other hand, Chu Wanning's expression didn't look so good for some reason. He did not say anything, but wordlessly pulled Mo Ran over to him.
"Shizun?" "Come here." "What's wrong?" "Don't go far." Chu Wanning's voice seemed to be laced with some selfreproach, even if he looked as cold as always. "Xue Meng and Shi Mei have already gotten lost, I'm afraid that if I'm not careful, you'll also..." Mo Ran saw that Chu Wanning's face was a little pale, and it actually seemed to be out of worry for him. At first, he stared blankly. Then, for reasons he couldn't figure out, his heart actually moved faintly and he spoke to comfort him: "I won't get lost. Come on, Shizun, let's go look for them." He started walking forward while talking, and as he did so, he turned his wrist and casually took Chu Wanning's hand in his own.
"..." Chu Wanning's fingertips in his palm seemed to tremble for a split second.
But the second was too short and too faint; Mo Ran's heart was preoccupied with Shi Mei, so he didn't think much about it, chalking it up to his own misperceptions.
"Fish blood mantou, freshly made!" "Skin of Shuairan Snake, premium clothing material, only three feet left!
Once it's all gone you'll have to wait for my next shedding~" "Selling squid ink brow filler, made with fresh ink spat just this morning by yours truly, it'll do wonders for your eyebrows——hey, hey wait, miss, don't leave!" The shouts of the peddlers in the market fell incessantly on their ears, the extraordinary scene really too much for one's eyes to take in.
Mo Ran pulled Chu Wanning along with a silly smile on his face for two steps and, in that abrupt moment, suddenly realized something wasn't right. He immediately slammed to a halt, eyes widening in an instant, and he felt all the blood in his body run cold.
Something's wrong!
Something very wrong here!
He swept his gaze around and, sure enough...
A headless ghost sat by its stall, selling combs and makeup. It held a comb between two fingers with long, scarlet-painted nails as it brushed the hair on its own bloody head that was resting on its knees, offering in a soft voice: "High quality bone combs, take one home with you today." As he thought!
Just as he thought! In this city center, every person's movements, every person's words, every person's expressions, were exactly the same as when Gouchen had brought them here yesterday!
Mo Ran jerkily recoiled a few steps, crashing right into Chu Wanning's chest. He immediately raised his head and said hoarsely, "Shizun, what is this?" Chu Wanning seemed to have had his suspicions for a while now, but after confirming it with his own eyes, his heart still dropped in his chest. He gripped Mo Ran tightly.
"What's going on?——What is this? An illusion?" Chu Wanning shook his head, but thought about it for a moment. Suddenly,
he said slowly, "Mo Ran, have you ever thought about this…... Jincheng Lake has many different beasts and creatures, and at least some among them must have seen the real Gouchen the Exalted before. In that case, how could they not tell that this one is fake?
The color drained from Mo Ran's face, and he felt a tinge of fear.
"Yeah…...you're right." "And let me ask," Chu Wanning continued, "if you were pretending to be Gouchen the Exalted and hiding out in Jincheng Lake, how would you make everyone else say what you want them to say, do what you want them to do,
listen to your every word, and put on an act for you?" Mo Ran understood immediately.
Zhenlong Chess Formation!
Black and white chess pieces fall into place, and all under the heavens fall in line. None knew better than him the sheer might of this forbidden technique.
He almost blurted it out, but a glimpse at Chu Wanning's eyes, and he managed to stop himself just in time.
How could the sixteen year old him think so easily of the three forbidden techniques?
And so, all he said was: "That would be very difficult." "No," Chu Wanning said, "it's very easy." He paused for a second, then said, "You just need them all to be dead."