The night was black, the wind fierce.
At 22:58, Nangong Yu arrived at the Lin family estate, her footsteps utterly silent.
She did not reveal herself. An invisibility talisman was stuck to her body, and beneath her robes she wore a layer of nano armor.
Foundation Establishment equals minor mob.
That was the power scale Nangong Yu had arrived at after killing Zhou Yun.
Zhao You had been able to trade blows with Zhou Yun, so he was probably around the same level. There was no need for her to take too many defensive measures.
In the dead of night, the howling wind sounded like ghosts wailing, mingling with the cries of the spirit beasts that had not yet escaped from the beast garden. Under the moonlight, jagged stones littered the ground, lending the place a desolate, chilling air.
Nangong Yu waited quietly.
About ten minutes later, a shadow suddenly swept across the sky. She immediately peeled off the invisibility talisman.
The next moment, the shadow landed before her.
“Senior Brother Zhao, you came,” Nangong Yu said, taking a step back as she looked at him.
Zhao You gave her an appraising glance. He was somewhat surprised that she possessed an invisibility talisman, but remembering that she knew Zhou Yun, he no longer found it strange.
“I’m here.”
He had changed his outfit. His sect disciple robes were gone, replaced by a black, form-fitting suit.
He looked neat and efficient, without a single accessory that could reveal his identity.
He looked exactly like someone preparing to murder and silence a witness.
“What did Zhou Yun give you?” He lowered his eyes. In the darkness, his handsome face appeared especially cold and severe.
Rather than answer, Nangong Yu asked, “You tell me first—what did you take from Senior Brother Zhou?”
“Take?” Zhao You scoffed disdainfully. “An opportunity belongs to whoever is capable enough to seize it.”
He and Zhou Yun had discovered that item together.
Who got their hands on it first did not matter. What mattered was who ended up with it.
Zhao You could not be bothered to explain such things to a mortal. Spiritual energy emanated from his body, forming a faint pressure. “What did Zhou Yun give you?”
Why was Zhou Yun not here?
Why had he asked a child to hand the item over to the sect?
Zhao You could not make sense of it. But a mere mortal daring to threaten him displeased him greatly. The spiritual pressure radiating from him grew heavier and heavier.
“Hand it over—”
In the next instant, agonizing pain shot through his eyes. He cried out despite himself and clutched them.
This was the ruins of the Lin family estate. He had come here behind the sect’s back and could not expose his presence. Realizing this, Zhao You immediately clamped his mouth shut.
“Ah—”
Another piercing scream escaped Zhao You’s lips. He forced open his burning eyes and looked down. Through his blurred vision, he saw a glowing sword embedded in his agonized abdomen.
An immortal artifact?
Zhao You was utterly shocked. Why would there be an immortal artifact here?
And why was it in the hands of a mortal?
He was so stunned that he even forgot the pain. He grabbed the blade with one hand.
Sizzle—
The power of an immortal artifact could not be defied. His palm was scorched black, and he could not even tear it away. “Who are you?! Why do you possess an immortal artifact?!”
Nangong Yu abruptly pulled out the light sword, raised her arm a few inches, and this time drove it into his heart.
The last time, Zhou Yun had received his death in exactly this manner. With this stab, Nangong Yu felt reassured.
Sure enough, Zhao You quickly lost all strength. Both a cultivator’s dantian and heart had been destroyed. His life was at an end.
“Who... are you?” He collapsed to the ground, his gaze unable to focus. “Why are you killing me?”
Zhou Yun had not given her anything.
He had been lured here.
She had tricked him into coming here for the sole purpose of killing him. But why?
“Zhou Yun told you?” As if something had occurred to him, his whole body shuddered. Then he burst into laughter, blood spilling from his mouth. “That idiot... that coward, that useless rat... He actually told you...”
Nangong Yu had already raised her quantum lightsaber, ready to slash him a few more times and finish the job properly.
After a pause, she glanced at the ground. “What exactly were you fighting over?”
Zhou Yun had said it was a Bodhi Pill.
Zhao You, however, had said it was a Body-Tempering Pill.
At least one of them had lied.
Zhou Yun might have deceived her. But Zhao You—would he really have told the truth even to a fellow disciple from his sect?
“Zhou Yun didn’t tell you?” Zhao You’s eyes were losing focus. All he could see was an enormous, hazy mass of white light, brimming with immense power.
An immortal sword?
No. Impossible.
How could there be an immortal sword in a place like this? And in the hands of an ordinary mortal girl, no less.
He was too badly injured. He had to be seeing things.
He should never have come here. True, there was an array over the Lin family ruins that could confuse Elder Lu’s Retrospective Mirror. If he killed Nangong Yu here, no one would ever know.
But if he died here, no one would know who had killed him either.
“Even if you kill me, you still won’t get...” Zhao You seemed to want to laugh, but his breath steadily faded. Soon, he went still.
NPCs always loved spouting vague, half-explained nonsense.
Whether she could get it or not was for the player to decide. Nangong Yu raised her lightsaber and chopped the minor mob into eight pieces.
There was no particular meaning behind it.
At first, she had only worried that strange creatures might not die thoroughly enough. Later, it simply became second nature.
Zhao You was a cautious and careful man. Though he had removed the accessories that identified him, he had not left them at the inn. Instead, he had put them into his storage ring.
And that storage ring was securely worn on his finger.
Nangong Yu searched through every piece of the corpse. When she found only one storage ring, she knew that was the one.
She put it into her inventory space.
Then she took out a Fire-Controlling Talisman and set the corpse pieces ablaze.
Before long, only a small patch of ash remained on the ground. The cold wind sweeping through the ruins soon scattered it into the dirt, until it was indistinguishable from the earth around it.
“Hm?” Nangong Yu crouched down and began sifting through the scorched soil.
A faint cluster of multicolored light flickered beneath the ashes. She dug it out and cupped it in her hands.
A tiny, rainbow-colored orb hovered over her palm. Like lamp oil meeting flame, it swiftly began to burn.
The blaze was so intense that it nearly lit up the darkness all around them. Nangong Yu immediately took out a discarded sheet of iron and used it to shield herself and the firelight.
The flames danced above her palm, yet gave off no heat at all.
Nangong Yu watched curiously. She felt that there was something inside. As she stared at it in concentration, the fire burned brighter and brighter, gradually consuming itself.
It revealed a white glow the size of an egg.
Gentle. Pure.
“So there really is treasure?” A minor mob had actually dropped loot. Nangong Yu was delighted as she waited for the white radiance to fade.
At its core was a key.
A golden key.
It was identical to the key called “Eternal Life” that Nangong Yu had been holding before she transmigrated.
“Damn system!” Nangong Yu’s face darkened.
After she transmigrated, the key in her hand had vanished. She had thought it was a one-time-use item. So the system had gone and put it somewhere else?!
[The Universal Key]: Their gift. It can open any door, tangible or intangible. Its mystery surpasses your imagination—so much so that even certain beings grew jealous. Yet somehow, you have obtained it again. Fate truly works in mysterious ways.
(Note: It is a key without limits. Only the number of times it can be used is limited. However, because certain beings grew jealous, you have lost access to the detailed answer.)
!!
Nangong Yu excitedly stamped her feet, cradled the golden key in her hands, gave it two enthusiastic kisses, and tossed it into her storage space.
After a moment's thought, she took it back out. She glanced at the grayed-out customer service avatar on the player panel, pulled out a length of coarse hemp rope, threaded the key onto it, and tied it around her neck.
She had picked up the hemp rope while scavenging for trash before entering the infinite-flow world. It was dusty and ugly, but exceptionally sturdy.
She tucked the key inside her collar, pressing it with one hand as she grew accustomed to its presence.
"What a bastard!"
She glanced again at the grayed-out customer service avatar on the player panel. "You'd better stay gone forever."
Throwing away her mysterious item? That was exactly the sort of thing the damn system would do. If Nangong Yu could get her hands on its mainframe, she would smash it to pieces.
"Fate truly works in mysterious ways." Nangong Yu touched her chest, her heartbeat slightly quickened.
She had been separated from the key, and as luck would have it, Zhou Yun and Zhao You had spotted it nearby. They had fought over it, only to be seen by her—and then, after knocking over her self-heating hot pot, they had been remembered by her.
Humming a tune, she hopped and skipped back to the inn.
Naturally, she put on an invisibility talisman and a breath-concealing talisman, then slipped in through the side door without alerting anyone else.
The sky brightened as usual.
Carrying a spirit-root testing array disk, Chen Zhi left through the city gates. Starting today, children would be brought in one after another, and the spiritual-root testing could begin.
Nangong Yu first made a trip to the Tianji Tower.
"Help me open these." She slapped the storage pouch she had picked up from the Lin family's ruins and Zhao You's storage ring onto the steward's desk.
The steward was astonished. He glanced at the Ziyang Sect disciple token hanging from her waist. "You've already become a disciple of the Ziyang Sect. Why are you still coming to me?"
As far as he knew, there were two Golden Core cultivators among the Ziyang Sect disciples on this trip. Opening a storage ring should have been child's play for them.
Besides, if she was indeed the mortal girl from the rumors—the one who had been specially admitted early by the Ziyang Sect and was exceptionally favored—wouldn't they be more than happy to help her?
"One last time." Nangong Yu was unconcerned. "I'm also here to say goodbye."
The steward NPC had been quite friendly, so Nangong Yu intended to see whether she could trigger anything special.
"I see." The steward accepted her explanation. He picked up the storage ring and used his spiritual sense to erase the restriction placed upon it.
"Who are you doing this for?" the steward asked casually as he handed it back.
If she could not open the storage ring herself, there was no way she could have obtained these storage items.
And if she had managed to obtain storage rings belonging to other cultivators, then there was no reason she should be unable to open them.
The steward examined her aura again. It was still that muddled aura of an ordinary mortal, which only deepened his curiosity.
"That's none of your business." Nangong Yu took out the payment and handed it over.
The steward accepted it with a beaming smile. “Those of us in this line of work know better than to gossip. No matter what a client hires us to do, we keep it confidential.”
They even took assassination contracts. If they couldn’t keep their mouths shut, who would ever come to them?
The steward simply found this mortal girl rather intriguing. She had already become a disciple of the Ziyang Sect, yet she had asked him to open a cultivator’s storage ring. What kind of power stood behind her?
“This is a communication talisman.” He took out a small white jade flute. “Blow into it, then simply say, ‘I’m looking for Zhegu.’”
Nangong Yu accepted the flute, which was no bigger than her little finger. “Zhegu? Is that you?”
“That’s my code name,” the steward replied with a beaming smile.
Nangong Yu thought to herself, So it really did trigger something.
There were far too many side quests in this cultivation-world scenario. There was no way to tell which ones were important.
She held the flute up to the sunlight and examined it. The patterns revealed beneath the light made Nangong Yu suspect that it wasn’t made of white jade at all, but bone.
“Let me ask you something.”
“What is it?” the steward asked.
Nangong Yu lowered her gaze from the flute and looked at him. “How do I get to the demon realm?”
“The demon realm?” The steward looked surprised, then said with a smile, “It lies on the other side of the sea. No one knows how vast the sea is, much less where in its waters the demon realm can be found.”
Nangong Yu asked again, “What if a member of the demon clan wanted to return?”
“Who are you asking about this for, little friend?” the steward asked with a knowing smile.
“You don’t know?” Nangong Yu said in surprise. “The Lin family’s steward, Huang Hu, is actually a yellow demon tiger. He disappeared, so I guessed he had returned to the demon realm.”
The steward smiled. “No, he didn’t.”
“What do you know?” Nangong Yu suddenly leaned closer, studying the lean, middle-aged cultivator with the goatee.
Zhegu didn’t seem to mind. He casually grabbed a handful of spirit fruit and stuffed it into her hands. “Because he’s a traitor to the demon clan. He’ll die out here in this lifetime, and he’ll never set foot in the demon realm again.”
