Chapter Ninety-One: Save Me

Xu Zhe was somewhat startled. There were actually other people here?

What was more important, the other party seemed to have nothing more than an ordinary mortal body. From the look of it, there was not the slightest trace of cultivation, yet his divine sense could not detect this person at all.

It was only when she stepped out from the palace wall that he had sensed nothing.

“Xu Zhe at your service. May I ask who the young lady is?” Xu Zhe hesitated, unsure how to begin.

This woman, clutching an infant in her arms, had appeared too abruptly and was far too strange. His divine sense could not perceive even the faintest aura from her.

“What are you doing here?” the woman suddenly asked warily. She tightened her hold on the child and backed away several steps at once.

“I mean no harm. I only mistook...” Xu Zhe was about to explain when he suddenly caught himself.

Wait. This woman had said “you all”?

Was there someone else here besides him?

He immediately looked to either side of him. Empty. Then he turned to look behind him. Aside from the Golden Yuan Mist that could not flow in, there was no one else.

What was going on?

Xu Zhe was momentarily bewildered. Had he run into Schrödinger’s paradox again? Was he the one seeing a ghost, or was the other side the one seeing a ghost?

“The villagers of our Mountain Plains Village have lived here for generations and never heard of any treasure. You should go search somewhere else.” With that, the woman suddenly turned and hurried toward the side of the palace wall.

“An illusion?”

Xu Zhe froze, then his figure blurred as he shot forward.

When he reached the right side of the palace wall, he discovered a path there, and the woman was still clutching the infant as she ran desperately ahead.

After a brief pause, Xu Zhe continued to follow.

“Help! Somebody help! Outsiders have come to the temple entrance...”

Suddenly, the woman cried out at the top of her lungs.

Her fleeing figure gradually faded and blurred in front of him, vanishing into thin air in the blink of an eye.

The next moment, countless figures surged toward him, men and women, old and young alike, though most were men. Their clothing was equally plain, as if they were farmers just returning from the fields, still carrying hoes, sickles, and other tools in their hands.

“Stop right there. Who are you people? Why have you appeared at our Mountain Plains Village temple?” A burly man, gripping a hoe and pointing it straight at Xu Zhe, demanded sternly.

Xu Zhe frowned. He seemed to be witnessing something from the past.

At last he understood why his divine sense had failed to detect these people: they had already ceased to exist.

And yet why did they appear so vivid? To the naked eye, their faces and auras could be distinguished clearly, as if they were living, breathing beings of flesh and blood.

This was not merely a projected reconstruction. It was more like a true re-enactment of history.

Whoosh!

Xu Zhe darted forward and landed before the burly man. He reached out to rest a hand on the man’s shoulder, only to meet emptiness; his hand passed straight through the man’s body.

So it really was not a living person.

“Don’t touch me!”

Suddenly, the burly man twisted his body and glared at Xu Zhe.

Xu Zhe’s expression changed at once. He withdrew his hand and took a quick step back.

How could this be?

Could an illusion even give birth to sentience and become a real existence?

“Don’t touch me. I don’t know you, and I’ve never heard of any treasure. The temple is where our Mountain Plains Village offers worship. There’s nothing inside.” The burly man retreated abruptly, as if shaking off the hand of someone who did not exist.

“...”

Xu Zhe rubbed his nose awkwardly.

What a coincidence. For a moment, he had thought the man was speaking to him.

But why did it feel as though they were toying with him?

“I’m not toying with you!” the burly man shouted again. “I said there isn’t any treasure, so there isn’t any. Who exactly are you people, and how did you get in here?”

“...”

Xu Zhe curled his lip. He did not want to speak, and he did not even want his thoughts to move.

So he simply stood there and watched in silence.

But at that moment, the burly man’s figure also began to blur. Gradually, like an infection spreading, he faded away together with the crowd of villagers behind him, men and women and children alike, until they vanished completely.

The surroundings returned to silence once more, as if those people had never existed at all.

Xu Zhe turned his gaze forward. He was already at the end of the narrow path outside the palace wall. Ahead lay an open cavern space, and behind the palace sat a village that looked ancient and secluded.

The village was deathly quiet. The houses were shabby and dilapidated, as if abandoned for many years, their surfaces covered everywhere with thick layers of spiderwebs.

Only when Xu Zhe stepped into the village did he discover many skeletons scattered across the ground. Most had already turned to ash and mixed with the sand and soil beneath them.

“So this place was once home to a native population? Later, outsiders broke in, searched for treasure here, and slaughtered the village?”

Based on what he had seen, Xu Zhe made a rough guess.

He wandered around the village and even opened some of the broken-down houses, but found nothing.

In the end, he returned to the outside of the palace and stared somewhat blankly at the empty crystal coffin atop the dragon throne.

“A magical artifact-grade crystal coffin?”

Xu Zhe felt a chill at his scalp. What kind of person would refine a crystal coffin into a magical artifact?

Was this an ancient cultivation method passed down by corpse-raising demonic cultivators?

According to some records from the Azure Heaven Domain, in ancient times there really were such crooked heretics who specialized in raising corpses into ferocious undead. They would leave home carrying a coffin on their backs, and when they fought, they would release the corpse within. It was said those corpses were even stronger than body cultivators.

But later, after being besieged by righteous cultivators, that lineage gradually disappeared.

Now, seeing this artifact-grade crystal coffin up close, Xu Zhe could not help but think again that it might have been left behind by corpse-raising demonic cultivators.

Yet according to the villagers he had seen earlier, a group of outsiders had come here to seek treasure. Could it be that they had come specifically for this magical artifact crystal coffin?

Then why had they ultimately not taken it away?

And also...

Xu Zhe thought of something else and took the bronze flying sword from his sleeve.

“Do you recognize this artifact?”

He asked it, since before entering the cave, both this bronze flying sword and that magical seal had clearly been eager to come in. Yet after entering the cave for a short while, both had gone silent.

Even now, no matter how Xu Zhe asked, the bronze flying sword gave no response, as if too lazy to bother with him.

Helpless, Xu Zhe put the flying sword away and examined the surroundings once more.

He did not intend to touch that crystal coffin, even if it was an artifact.

Besides, the coffin kept a very low profile and had never paid him any mind. It was so quiet that if one did not step close enough to look, one would never know it was an artifact.

“Hm?”

Suddenly, Xu Zhe spotted something in the back corner behind the crystal coffin.

It was a jade slip, a Ten-Thousand-Forms Jade Slip.

And on it, the name “Wang Jianguo” was clearly engraved.

However, several cracks marred the jade slip, and it seemed to be damaged.

After picking it up, Xu Zhe tried to probe it with his divine sense, but the jade slip showed no reaction at all.

After thinking it over, he still stored it in his spatial ring. Once he left this place, he could try to have it repaired.

Then Xu Zhe took one more look at the crystal coffin before turning away.

He was not short of magical artifacts, though having one more would hardly be a bad thing.

But this crystal coffin clearly had problems.

Someone had come here before, and Wang Jianguo among them had certainly discovered that the coffin was an artifact. So why had none of them taken it away in the end?

And what about the matter of the village massacre? Did Wang Jianguo have anything to do with it?

Carrying all these doubts, Xu Zhe entered the village once more.

This time, he did not continue searching the houses. Instead, he walked straight ahead in the direction completely opposite the palace. Very soon, he arrived at the village entrance.

Outside the entrance stood a huge stone engraved with the three words “Mountain Plains Village.”

Looking farther out, an exit from the cave suddenly came into view. Beyond it was a bright, open sky.

Xu Zhe immediately shot forward, then froze at the cave opening.

Beneath this opening was a deep abyss, and the mouth of the cave was set right into the face of a cliff.

And beneath the abyss lay a vast mass of densely packed insects, piled up like the sea.

“Gold-devouring ants.”

Xu Zhe felt the scalp on his head tingle, and he quickly and carefully stepped back.

Even his breathing became much lighter.

These Gold-devouring Ants were all in slumber. If they were awakened by accident, with such a terrifying number, they would not just bite someone to death; they could drown a person alive with sheer numbers.

Even a Great Ascension expert would weep.

“Save me... please, save me...”

Just then, a faint female voice drifted slowly up from the bottom of the abyss.

The first installment is here; the second will follow later. If you like The Last Pure One in the Cultivation World, please bookmark it.