Chapter 144: The Grand Hall
Walking out of the underground cave, in my understanding, has always been walking out of the entire underground cave, to the end…
Later, in the cave, Tao Tongzi and I encountered a mysterious voice, with great power, yet full of childlike innocence… It had inadvertently revealed that Tao Tongzi and I would never be able to reach it… Later, the remnant soul of the master appeared, as if it also knew about this underground cave, and revealed that even the person in charge of the Snow Mountain lineage now had not been able to reach the bottom of this underground cave.
Is that the general idea? After all, at that time, it was Daotongzi who controlled my body, and my memory is a bit hazy.
So, I always knew that I should not have reached the bottom of the underground cave… But I never thought that the location of my master and I was not even in the middle of the underground cave.
I can’t describe the scene in front of me in detail, but roughly speaking, the location where we are is where we can see the entire underground cave… It’s like an underground circular hole that extends downward… Then the underground cave that holds those demons with great power, or something else, is another small circular hole in this large circular hole.
The only place where you can see the small cave is a bridge-like open passage connecting the large cave and the small cave. At the end of the passage is a platform, on which there is a small hut closely connected to the underground cave. I think the person who brought me food used this hut to spy on everything in the underground cave.
This is the same structure as the one at the entrance to the underground platform, because there is also a hut there, and a strange old man with a wound on his face.
My master and I came out of this room… When we came out, it wasn’t dark anymore, and I didn’t know who lit the oil lamp along the way… Under this dim light, I saw that the hut where my master and I were was actually different from the other huts above.
Because this place is actually a small complex of several small houses… and the platform we were on was also a little larger… and the way up was at the edge of the large cave, winding along the rock face to the exit.
The path was lit all the way up, and as my master and I stood below, it had an otherworldly, dazzling feel.
What shocked me was not this… because I looked down at the dim light and found that I could not see the bottom at all… and just looking down, I felt a powerful breath rush up at once. I almost lost my balance in an instant when I was unprepared, but my master held me up.
This is why I judged that I had only reached the middle of the underground cave… and when I finally came out, I encountered the remnant spirit of a real dragon. What would I have faced if I had really reached the bottom of the underground cave? I couldn’t even imagine it!
I even doubted whether the power of the entire Snow Mountain Sect could suppress the existence of this underground cave. At this time, my master said in my ear, “Chengyi, there is no need to explore anything. This will also become your responsibility in the future, guarding this underground cave… because you are the master of the Snow Mountain Sect.”
“Master, how did you know?” I looked at my master in surprise. In the dim light, my master’s face was a little blurry, but his eyes, which were filled with pride for me, were exceptionally clear.
“The people of the Snow Mountain Sect told me while waiting for you to come out of the cave! Their sect was built here not for the so-called spiritual energy, but for the real reason of this underground cave.” In the meantime, my master and I had already walked out of the passage that looked like a road or a bridge and came to the stairs going up.
“Look…” Standing at this location, my master took me by the hand and pointed to the entire underground cave.
“This…” There is nothing more intuitive than standing in this position to experience the entire underground cave… It is located in this even larger cave, but it is not the cylindrical shape that one would imagine, but more like a honeycomb, with two small ends and a large middle… And on the outer walls of the entire underground cave are engraved extremely complex patterns… Then the surrounding aura clings to it, like gusts of wind blowing around the underground cave. What is even more strange is that wherever it passes, the patterns will light up with a silvery glow, and the whole scene looks like it is in a dream.
I, Chen Chengyi, have experienced enough strange and beautiful events in my life, but I really can’t imagine that I will be able to see such a strange place in my lifetime. It feels like I’m in a fairy tale… And my master said to me with deep meaning: “The guardians of the Xueshan lineage have always been the best cultivators… To be their leader is your pride, my pride, and the pride of the entire Old Li lineage. Chengyi, you will know more when you become the master of the Xueshan lineage. But the great calamity in front of us is Yang Sheng. Let’s go up.”
I was a little dazed… and a little sad. The guardian is a Taoist monk, not me, right? As I walked up the mountain, I kept thinking about the mysterious voice in the underground cave. Where should it be in the underground cave? Is it at the bottom of the deepest part?
This underground cave is actually a huge prison, and any being imprisoned inside would be able to ‘startle’ a party if they were released into the human world.
My mood was mixed… and before I knew it, I had reached the top of the underground cave and saw the familiar platform again… and the hut at the entrance to the underground cave on the platform.
The difference is that the owner of the hut has already come out and is now at the exit of the underground cave, holding a wine pot and smiling at me. Even though there are three hideous scars on his face, it doesn’t affect the sincerity and joy of this smile.
“You really came out,” he said to me, taking a sip of the wine in his jug.
I bowed and sincerely said to him, “Thank you.” If it weren’t for the spirit wine he gave me, and the copper coin sword that helped me a lot, I’m not sure if I would have been able to get out.
Thinking about this, I took the copper coin sword from my waist and was about to return it to this person.
He grabbed my hand and said with a smile, “I’ll call you a silly boy now, but in the future I’ll call you the head of the sect… This copper coin sword was originally the property of the head of the sect. According to the ancestral rules, as long as someone can break the prayer drum and walk through the underground cave, I have to hand over the copper coin sword… Since you didn’t come out, I naturally had to find a way to take it back… Once you came out, this is the token of the head of the sect, and it is a magic weapon that belongs entirely to you. If you really want to be human, it’s because I like you and gave you a pot of wine.
I also heard from Jenny that this copper sword should indeed belong to the owner of the Snow Mountain lineage. There should be two other magic weapons like this copper sword… So I didn’t refuse and took the copper sword.
The old man who guarded the underground cave suddenly burst into laughter: “I have been guarding this underground cave for so many years that I have become a little fuzzy… I have been looking forward to a good fight, so that I can get the chance to burn the knowledge I have learned in my life… A jug of wine bet on the right direction, come on, you should drink with me again.”
While he was talking, the old man took a big gulp of the wine in the jug. I took it from him and took a big gulp too… I felt that this wine was not the elixir he gave me when I entered the underground cave, but another kind of wine. It tasted very light when I first took it, but as soon as it went down my throat, the taste of the wine began to come out, with a long-lasting, incomparable medicinal flavor. It had a lot of staying power, but it wasn’t explosive… Instead, it kept nourishing my body.
After drinking a big gulp, my body’s fatigue and weakness have been reduced a lot… I was very surprised to see the old man, but he patted my shoulder and said, “Young master, this is another bargain for you, my treasure… Seeing that you have a lot of internal injuries, my brother should give you a good treatment after you go up… We’ll see you again in the big battle a month later! I also have to go back and practice hard, and I should get familiar with the kung fu I’ve learned! This time, whether it is destruction or a quiet world, I don’t care. What I want is a great battle!
After saying this, he left with a somewhat arrogant laugh… If it is said that there are many powerful beings in the Snow Mountain, and their abilities can seal the king… this arrogant old man asked me to think of a word for him, and I could only think of the word “war”!
A well-deserved “war king”! He doesn’t care about the outcome. On the battlefield, someone who only seeks a happy battle and doesn’t care about life or death is not a war king, what else could he be?
And his brother…? With doubts in my heart, I continued to walk with my master… Just as I had stepped out of the underground cave and into the main hall, I was shocked… I thought the main hall, which should have been empty, was now packed with people.
When my master and I walked out, all the people sitting in the venue suddenly looked at my master and me with burning eyes… Before I could say anything, the deafening shouts of “Chief” set off a wave of sound that almost drowned me.
In the middle, on the large platform where I had once fought a decisive battle, familiar figures were looking at me.
When I was excited, an old man in a white robe floated over and looked at me. He bowed first, and then said, “Master, for the month before the battle, you will follow me… I will answer your questions and teach you things, and I will protect you as you practice in seclusion.”
I looked at this face, it was somewhat familiar… Could this be the younger brother of the scarred old man in the underground cave?