The six of them split into two groups riding on swords—the crimson sword in front and the silver sword bringing up the rear—as they flew northwest. The journey was fraught with tension, though they managed to cut down numerous flying beasts of varying sizes along the way.
Add to that the giant serpent they slaughtered upon landing, and in less than half a day, they had collected around a thousand sacred stones—less than two hundred per person.
"This isn’t even enough to fill the gaps in my teeth," Wen Shuangbai muttered, sitting cross-legged atop the Glazed Rainbow Sword, reminiscing about the days in Zhuoguang City when each of them had gotten fourteen hundred.
Shen Hefeng, who had been forcibly dragged onto the Glazed Rainbow Sword by Li Zhuohua to serve as their guide, remarked dryly, "Who knew your teeth had such big gaps?"
"..." If Shen Hefeng weren’t useful, she would’ve already chopped him into fertilizer for her flowers.
Xie Ziyin, busy processing venomous fangs, glanced at the fuming woman with an indifferent expression before suddenly thrusting a sharp fang toward the pesky Taoist beside him.
Shen Hefeng yelped in alarm, scrambling behind Li Zhuohua. "Senior Sister, save me! This poison doctor is trying to kill your divine fortune-telling junior brother! Quick, avenge me by throwing him off the sword!"
"Shut up!" Li Zhuohua snapped, her temper flaring. "Your screeching is scaring off all the beasts—they’re fleeing before we even get close!"
"And that’s my fault?" Shen Hefeng sniffed the thick scent of blood lingering on the Glazed Rainbow Sword. "Isn’t it because you were too brutal earlier, scaring them all away?"
"..." The next moment, the sword lurched violently, sending Shen Hefeng tumbling off.
As he desperately clung to the sword, trying to climb back up, Wen Shuangbai cast a thoughtful glance at Xie Ziyin, who was focused on his task. When he lifted his gaze to meet hers, she casually averted her eyes and then—with a smirk—pushed Shen Hefeng back down. "See ya."
Shen Hefeng erupted into furious curses.
Suddenly, Li Zhuohua called out, "Look ahead!"
Wen Shuangbai turned her gaze forward.
A vast mountain range stretched across their path.
Normally, no matter how high the peaks, Li Zhuohua could easily fly over them. But this range was bizarre—every tree shot straight upward, piercing the clouds and merging with the sky, forming an impenetrable wall. From a distance, they looked like an army of towering sentinels.
With their aerial path blocked, the group had no choice but to land.
Standing at the foot of the forest, the six of them craned their necks, staring at the sky obscured by the dense canopy. Awe flickered in their eyes.
"What now?" Lu Jiayao gaped. "How do we get past this?"
Shen Hefeng, basking in his own foresight, declared smugly, "As I predicted—this path is fraught with peril."
Wen Shuangbai scowled, recalling his earlier divinations in Zhuoguang City, all of which had pointed to certain doom. "So, is this another dead end?"
"Not exactly," Shen Hefeng said. "But the divination gives me a bad feeling—like drawing water with a bamboo basket, all effort for nothing. Even so, are you all still determined to proceed?"
"We’ve come this far," Xie Ziyin said, unfazed. What was futility compared to paying off a mortgage only to transmigrate into a novel empty-handed?
Hearing this, Wen Shuangbai swallowed back her own "we’ve come this far" and instead said, "If we can’t fly over, let’s go in and see."
Only by understanding what lay inside could they figure out a way forward.
"Let’s go!" Li Zhuohua was the first to charge ahead, pointing her sword at the towering trees. "Gods block us, we slay gods; Buddhas block us, we slay Buddhas; trees block us, we chop trees!"
Shen Hefeng, however, hung back with remarkable dignity. "You all go first and scout the way. This forest is too strange!"
"Cowardly charlatan," Wen Shuangbai muttered, shaking her head as she and Li Zhuohua stepped into the woods.
Xie Ziyin followed at a leisurely pace, then Lu Jiayao.
Yin Xuan, the rear guard, turned to Shen Hefeng, who remained rooted in place. "Junior Brother Shen, let’s go."
"You go ahead, Senior Brother," Shen Hefeng said, fiddling with his tortoise shell and muttering incantations as he counted on his fingers. "If there’s no trouble in the time it takes an incense stick to burn, come back for me."
Yin Xuan: "?"
Wait—he was supposed to come back for him?
In the end, Yin Xuan entered the forest, glancing back every few steps.
Fine. If Shen Hefeng wanted to stay behind, he could fend for himself.
---
The moment they stepped into the woods, the light was swallowed by the towering trees, leaving the forest bathed in an eerie blue haze.
The air was damp and thick with the scent of vegetation.
An unsettling silence hung over the woods—no wind, no chirping insects or birds, no signs of life. Yet the greenery thrived unnaturally.
The five of them moved cautiously, staying close as they advanced.
Then—rustling.
Vines slithered down from the trees like awakened serpents, coiling toward them from all directions.
"Watch out!" Li Zhuohua leaped back, her sword flashing as she severed several vines.
Yin Xuan cut down the ones lunging at Lu Jiayao.
The two swordsmen formed a protective circle around Wen Shuangbai, Xie Ziyin, and Lu Jiayao.
Wen Shuangbai hurled explosive talismans into the vines, Xie Ziyin scattered poison, and Lu Jiayao played his flute.
But no matter how well they fought together, the vines were endless—surging from above, from the sides, too fast to counter.
"Tch." A vine lashed across Wen Shuangbai’s left shoulder, its thorns biting deep, drawing blood instantly.
She scanned the forest, quickly grasping their predicament. "Fall back! We’ll regroup outside!"
And so, Shen Hefeng, still waiting at the forest’s edge, soon saw his five comrades fleeing like drowned rats.
Barbed vines chased them, retracting only after the group had put a hundred meters between themselves and the woods.
The forest fell still once more.
Shen Hefeng rushed to help the wounded, unable to resist gloating. "See? I told you there’d be bloodshed!"
Wen Shuangbai yanked the thorny vine from her shoulder, wincing, then whipped it at Shen Hefeng. "How about I give you some bloodshed?"
Nearby, Xie Ziyin, who had been about to gently remove the vines from her, paused. "..."
---
As dusk settled and their path remained blocked, the six of them found a nearby cave to rest.
Xie Ziyin examined their injuries.
Fortunately, the vines weren’t poisonous—just flesh wounds.
They hadn’t ventured deep and had retreated quickly, so the damage was minimal.
Li Zhuohua, with her sword-forged physique, had barely been scratched. Xie Ziyin handed her a pill, then tossed medicinal powder and pills to Yin Xuan and Lu Jiayao. "Apply it to the wounds," he said curtly.
Two injured individuals, taking full advantage of their wounded status, were openly rummaging through Xie Ziyin’s barrel of fasting pills (yes, Xie Ziyin had spent the competition period idly refining fasting pills, ending up with an entire barrel) to pick their favorite flavors.
Hearing his remark, they both lifted their faces to look at him.
Yin Xuan, cheeks slightly puffed with pills, mumbled indistinctly, "I can’t reach the wounds on my back."
Lu Jiayao nodded in agreement. "Yeah, me neither!"
"Easy fix." Xie Ziyin had absolutely no intention of applying medicine for them—their hands weren’t broken, after all, since they could still pick out fasting pills. "Just help each other with it."
The two: "…?"
They were injured, for heaven’s sake!
"Or," Xie Ziyin pointed at Shen Hefeng, who was crouched beside Wen Shuangbai, whispering who-knew-what secrets, "ask Shen Hefeng to do it for you."
Earlier, Xie Ziyin had offered to check her injuries first, but she refused, insisting he tend to her senior siblings and Lu Jiayao first.
Instead, she had dragged Shen Hefeng aside to divine a way through the towering forest ahead.
During the competition, time was of the essence—she had no intention of letting the Purple Flame Realm beat them to the Star Moon Divine Tree again.
In the previous two rounds, the Purple Flame Realm had always been one step ahead, meaning their tally of sacred stones was undoubtedly higher than Qingling Mountain’s.
This third round, Star Moon Valley, was the midpoint—a crucial turning point. If they wanted to claim first place, they couldn’t afford to fall behind again.
"No hints." Shen Hefeng showed Wen Shuangbai the empty turtle shell, unsurprised. "Like I said, this mountain is bizarre."
Wen Shuangbai stared at the vine in her hand, her head throbbing.
She had briefly considered the nuclear option—just setting the whole forest on fire.
But a quick test proved the damned plants were fireproof.
After a moment, she suddenly said, "Then divine again. Will the other sects face the same forest as us?"
If so, everyone would be equally delayed, and the disadvantage would cancel out.
"You’re such a pain!" Shen Hefeng grumbled. "Whether they face it or not doesn’t change the fact that we have to. Why bother torturing yourself with the answer?"
He’d made that mistake before and learned his lesson.
Ah, he’d long accepted his cursed luck.
Wen Shuangbai: "Just do it. Stop whining."
Muttering under his breath, Shen Hefeng reluctantly performed the divination as instructed.
The result? The Purple Flame Realm wouldn’t pass through it. Neither would the Heavenly Net Witch Sect, Divine Evolution Temple, nor the Jade Rhino Valley. Only Qingling Mountain had to deal with it!
To add insult to injury, Shen Hefeng roughly divined the other sects’ starting locations in Star Moon Valley.
The Star Moon Divine Tree was in the northwest—and the Purple Flame Realm had been dropped right there. The Heavenly Net Witch Sect and Divine Evolution Temple were in the northeast, while the Jade Rhino Valley was placed in the center.
Only Qingling Mountain had been exiled to the far southeast—like some disgraced prince banished to the frontier in a period drama.
And this towering ancient forest just happened to block the path between the southeast and northwest.
"Damn it!" Wen Shuangbai’s composure shattered, her resentment boiling over. "This is outrageous!"
Shen Hefeng gloated. "I warned you, didn’t I? You insisted on knowing. Why torture yourself…?"
Before he could finish, a sharp kick landed on his backside.
Shen Hefeng spun around, his face dark. "If you’re going to kick anyone, kick your fiancée! Are you out of your mind? Did the vines scramble your brain?"
Wen Shuangbai snapped. She lunged at him, yanking his hair. "Shen Hefeng, I’ve had enough of that mouth of yours!"
"Ow—don’t touch my hair!" His Achilles’ heel seized, Shen Hefeng panicked. "If you hate my mouth, why attack my hair?! Let go! A gentleman uses words, not force! Xie Ziyin, control your woman!!!"
Xie Ziyin watched calmly, only stepping in once Wen Shuangbai had vented her fury. He pulled her back. "Enough. Let him go tend to your senior brother’s wounds."
