Back in the medical tent, everything was normal. Li Weiyi breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Cai Yutong, Gao Huan, Old Liu and the others, who knew the reason for Li Weiyi’s trip into the Graveyard Forest, had waited outside.
When they saw him return, thinking that he had accomplished his goal, they hurriedly asked about the situation.
“That Bone Demon is no ordinary opponent. It’s already capable of leaving the tomb. With my current strength, even after using every trick in my arsenal, I can only match her evenly.”
Li Weiyi’s face was filled with worry. If he could not completely eliminate her, then she would be free to do as she pleased. If she really attacked the research team members, there’d be no defense against her.
Moreover, there was also that ghostly figure riding a camel, whose soul might already be scattered.
“Are you hurt?”
Cai Yutong asked as he noticed the bloodstains on Li Weiyi’s body.
“No worry,” Li Weiyi replied in a calm tone as he gave orders, “Tell everyone: none of you must enter the Graveyard Forest for now. The moment you hear a camel bell, put on your earplugs immediately. And be extra cautious around Doctor Qi.”
“What happened to her?”
Cai Yutong asked, concerned about Qi Shanshan’s well-being. After a moment’s reflection, Li Weiyi said uncertainly, “She may have been possessed by that Bone Demon!” Cai Yutong’s expression turned gloomy.
Although he had already suspected that Qi Shanshan might be in trouble, this outcome seemed even harder to accept.
“It might not be possession. I just feel her condition is very odd,” Li Weiyi tried to reassure him.
“Brother Weiyi, the First Mate is awake!”
Qin Ke rushed out of the medical tent, shouting happily from afar. Li Weiyi’s spirits lifted instantly. All the worries and distractions in his mind vanished as he hurried into the tent.
There, amidst laughter and chatter among the senior disciples, Zhao Meng sat up and complained, “Am I turning into a giant now? I seem to be at least three meters tall, and my legs are almost as thick as a bucket!”
Li Weiyi said, “If I had another way, I wouldn’t so easily be forced to feed you Flood Dragon Blood.” Zhao Meng, sensing the guilt in Li Weiyi’s heart, laughed heartily, “I think it’s great! I feel my whole body is filled with power.
Maybe I can catch a tiger with my bare hands. How about a little duel among us senior disciples? Are you brave enough to do it?”
Zhao Meng had not yet shed his mortal shell, nor had his skin undergone any mystical transformation. It seemed that after drinking Golden Crow Blood and Black Flood Dragon Blood, everyone changed differently. Even Li Weiyi himself, his appearance remained unchanged.
Li Weiyi then asked, “No dueling needed. I have something important I want to ask you, brother. Do you still remember Senior Sister Jianan?”
Instantly, the image of an unforgettably beautiful figure flashed in Zhao Meng’s mind.
“Why did you suddenly bring up Senior Sister?”
“I remember Senior Sister spent three years in our Sect, but I was too young at the time to remember much. Where exactly was she from? Why did she never return to the Sect later? Was something wrong?”
Li Weiyi inquired.
“Not three years—it was two and a half years.”
Zhao Meng recalled every little detail.
“Senior Sister was very close to you. It’s a pity you were too young to remember. If you had been older, you’d have never forgotten her in your whole life; she was too extraordinary, almost beyond what a mortal should be.”
“Stop reminiscing about your younger days. I’m talking about a serious matter,” Li Weiyi chided.
Zhao Meng asked, “Then what is it that you want to know?”
“It’s too complicated to explain in simple words,” Li Weiyi replied.
The reason he brought up Senior Sister was that earlier, when the red-clad Qi Shanshan and that ghost riding a camel conversed, they used the same native language that Senior Sister had spoken. Though Li Weiyi was young then, he wasn’t forgetful.
He and Senior Sister had learned that language, so he was able to grasp the essence of their conversation. Zhao Meng said, “Our Master once mentioned that Senior Sister came from a minority tribe overseas. Once she left the Sect, she immediately returned home.
Later, I went to sea many times, searching in various countries, but I could never locate that mysterious minority.”
“Didn’t you ask our Master?”
Li Weiyi asked. Zhao Meng replied, “I did, but no answers were given. In fact, our Master advised me not to pry; he even cursed me, saying I was nothing but a lowly hill monkey unworthy of Senior Sister.
I feel so wronged—I only wanted to see her once more. Didn’t you want that too?”
“Of course I do! But I have a feeling that in this world, we might still get another chance to meet her,” Li Weiyi answered meaningfully, his mind filled with sudden thoughts. …
Two days later. Li Weiyi stood at the bow of the ship, gazing out at the scarlet sea, his heart growing heavier with each passing moment. Red-clad Qi Shanshan and the ghostly figure called “Yutuonan” had been searched for several times in the Graveyard Forest to no avail.
He guessed that the two calamities were hiding within some mound of graves, recuperating from their injuries. The tombs were too numerous to dig up one by one. And if a third calamity were uncovered…
As the bronze ship sped onward, more and more coffins appeared on the sea. They crowded together, forming vast fields of coffins along the shore. The area became a dark, overwhelming mass that nearly blocked the navigational path.
The ship’s speed slowed to an unprecedented crawl, almost coming to a stop. There were coffins of all sizes, with every shape and design imaginable. The larger ones were massive—hundreds of meters in length—with ebony wood carved with demonic images and inscriptions, chained with locks as thick as a basin rim, hiding secrets of what kind of corpse lay within.
In some regions, thousands upon thousands of coffins piled together formed what looked like a “floating island” from which purple-red vines had started to grow. No one knew where the roots of these vines took hold. The entire coffin sea was eerily quiet.
Whether it had always been this still or quieted by the passage of the bronze ship, no one could tell. Li Weiyi turned to Gao Huan and said, “Explain to me—what sort of place is this from myth and legend? Where do all these coffins come from?”
Gao Huan replied, “As we sailed, we estimated that the number of coffins was in the millions—perhaps even several million. And this is only what we could see. They seem to be driven here by some unknown force.”
He paused, his lips moving as he thought for a moment, and then said calmly, “Perhaps they all fell from a greater, macro world—just like us. There are countless planets in the universe; life surely exists on many of them besides Earth.
And maybe, once those beings are laid to rest, they fall into this microscopic world for some unique reason!” After Zhao Meng regained consciousness, Gao Huan was the first to drink the Golden Crow Blood. He shed his mortal shell and transformed into a being resembling an immortal spirit, his skin as smooth and white as warm jade.
Like Cai Yutong, his body strength had increased considerably—comparable even to those top-level athletes at their peak. But… his height had shrunk considerably. Once standing at about 1.65 meters, he was now under 1.5 meters tall.
Despite the surname “Gao,” he had nothing in common with a “tall” stature.
“Hey! Lord Li, look down on the sea—what’s that red figure?”
Gao Huan exclaimed in surprise. Li Weiyi’s eyesight was far superior. Even from hundreds of meters away, he could see the figure leaping from one floating coffin to another—it was none other than Qi Shanshan.
She had actually disembarked from the ship? The red-clad Qi Shanshan had grown a pair of flame-like wings on her back. In her arms she cradled a person, and in an instant she had landed on one of those massive coffin islands.
Glancing back at Li Weiyi at the bow, she pointed at Cai Yutong with a single finger. Then without a backward look, she charged deep into the midst of the coffin island, disappearing into the murky fog.
“So that’s the red-clad Bone Demon?”
“Did she take Doctor Cai with her?”
“What is she planning to do? Even if a corpse can’t matter, how can Doctor Cai survive?” …
Gao Huan hurriedly followed Li Weiyi, heading toward the medical tent and the broken research ship.
“She did it on purpose—she wanted to lure me off the ship.”
Li Weiyi found the rope fastened along the side of the ship that was used for drawing water. It was obvious that Qi Shanshan had disembarked there. How dare she?
Could it be that she knew what sort of place this was?
“Weiyi, it’s bad—Doctor Cai has been attacked by Doctor Qi…”
Zhao Meng, Old Liu, and several others rushed over with anxious expressions. Li Weiyi replied, “I know—they’re already off the ship.”
“Before she left, she said something very strange. ‘If Li Weiyi wants to know who he really is, he can come find me and I’ll give him the answer,’” Zhao Meng recounted every word exactly.
“Who am I?”
Li Weiyi frowned. He had never really thought about this before. But with the appearance of the Bone Demon and the so-called ‘Dao Guardian Wife,’ everything had become shrouded in mystery.
A person must have an origin. Clutching the rope tightly and hesitating, it wasn’t that he was afraid to disembark—it was that he knew there was an even more fearsome ghost aboard the ship, and he was deeply worried that if they left the ship, his senior disciples might encounter disaster.
And if everyone got off the ship, with the path ahead uncertain… This coffin sea was too eerie. No one knew how many dangers were lurking there, and once the bronze ship set sail again, all hope would be lost.
“Stop… it seems the bronze ship has come to a complete halt…”
Gao Huan said as he leaned against the ship’s bulwark, peering at the sea.
Clang, clang!
From within the Graveyard Forest, the sound of camel bells and wind roared, racing toward the bulwark.
“Watch out!”
Li Weiyi shouted as he hurried forward. Channeling the hot and cold energies within his body, he formed the Rolling Heaven Palm Seal with his hand and struck at the swirling cloud of nether fog that was flying toward him from above a tombstone.
With a loud thud, the fierce power within the nether fog cloud sent Li Weiyi flying over the bulwark. A humanoid ghost riding a camel, amid the deafening sound of the camel bell, leapt high over the bulwark.
In mid-air, he waved a Ghost Flag down at Li Weiyi’s waist and abdomen, intending to strike him so hard that he would fall and be smashed against the sea.
In that extremely perilous moment, Li Weiyi, even as he was falling through the air, drew the Yellow Dragon Sword strapped to his back and swung it to block the attack.
“Thud!”
The two forces clashed. Li Weiyi’s internal energy surged, and he began to fall even faster. Worse yet, the sound of the camel bell and the flash of the Ghost Flag returned.
The ghost on the camel showed no fear of falling; his sole aim was to kill Li Weiyi. At the point when death seemed almost certain, Li Weiyi felt the spring force of the soles of his feet burst forth. Energy surged through all twenty-six of his meridians as he unleashed the Yellow Dragon Rising to Heaven technique.
The first step he took was as if treading upon a cloud of wind and qi, stabilizing his descent. The second step allowed him to dodge the Ghost Flag, bringing his body to the same height as that of the ghostly figure. With the third step, Li Weiyi had positioned himself directly above the head of the humanoid ghost.
In the shocked eyes of his foe, the shift in the balance of attack and defense was clear.
“Die now!”
Li Weiyi raised his sword with both hands. The blade shone with a brilliant yellow light as he brought it down heavily in a sweeping strike.
(End of Chapter)