Chapter 59

Recognizing the Wisteria Palace does not mean one can break out of it. Finding the entrance to the Wisteria Palace does not mean one can escape to freedom. In fact, throughout countless years, countless powerful figures have been imprisoned in the Wisteria Palace, and not one of them dared to step into the entrance of the Wisteria Palace.

Those who are qualified to be imprisoned in the Wisteria Palace are naturally extraordinary. They are well aware that life is death, and they are certain that the Pope who built the Wisteria Palace would not leave any loopholes. Once they step into the entrance of the Wisteria Palace, it is as if they are stepping into the realm of death.

In the depths of despair, one may not see hope. Who dares to face death to find life? Rather than choosing the path that seems the simplest and most direct but is the most dangerous, it is better to try to find other methods. Even sitting alone and waiting is a better choice.

Chen Changsheng should be the weakest person ever imprisoned in the Wisteria Palace, but he is also the most special. Unlike the former prisoners of the Wisteria Palace, he has always been searching for hope in the depths of despair. He faces death every day and every night.

He is the most time-conscious person in the world, unwilling to waste time on futile struggles. After confirming some of his suspicions through his conversation with Mo Yu, he made a quick decision and stepped into the cold pond without hesitation.

At that moment, he did not know that the cold pond was called the Black Dragon Pond—knowing it would not have mattered. He needed to leave the abandoned garden and head to the Weiyang Palace to do something. No matter whether it was a tiger's den or a dragon's pond in front of him, he had to dare to explore it.

The abandoned garden is cold and severe, and this is due to the cold pond. The pond water is naturally even colder. The moment his feet touched the surface of the pond, he realized that a thin, transparent layer of ice had formed on the surface. With a few cracking sounds, the ice broke and turned into ice chips.

Chen Changsheng did not feel the pond water wet his shoes because his feet did not touch the water. The cracking sounds continued, and the thin ice on the surface of the cold pond cracked. The water beneath the ice also cracked, revealing a stone staircase leading to the bottom of the pond!

The stone staircase gradually descended from the shore to the bottom of the pond, completely dry with no trace of water, not even moss.

The pond water was separated by an invisible force, creating a magical scene. The darkness at the bottom of the staircase seemed to hide endless dangers, but Chen Changsheng appeared calm and steady, as if the magical scene had always existed.

After a dozen steps, the staircase disappeared beneath the pond, and the passage sank to the bottom of the pond.

The ground of the passage remained dry, but the corners were covered in frost. The temperature here was even colder than at the shore. The stars and the music from the Weiyang Palace gradually faded away. The passage ahead became increasingly dark, and everything was invisible. The further he went, the more it felt like he was leaving the real world and might fall into an abyss or another world.

Chen Changsheng did not stop or slow down; instead, he quickened his pace and eventually started running.

He ran into the dark abyss.

After an unknown amount of time, he reached the end of the passage and found that it was not completely dark.

The stars were no longer visible, and the lanterns of the Qixi Festival in the capital city could not reach here. However, there was still a faint light behind the passage, passing through the clear pond water and faintly illuminating the area in front of him, revealing a stone door.

The stone door was about ten zhang high, looking extremely heavy. There were no carvings on its surface, just two massive stones simply placed together. It looked like a child's toy from the heavens or a coffin of a deity, exuding a chilling and solemn aura.

What shocked and unsettled Chen Changsheng even more was the indescribable aura emanating from behind the stone door.

At the side gate of the Heavenly Dao Academy and the side hall of the Weiyang Palace, he had twice felt the aura deliberately released by Xu Shiji. However, compared to the hidden aura behind the stone door, Xu Shiji's aura was like a cricket, not even in the same league.

Yes, the aura behind the stone door was something Chen Changsheng had never felt before, nor had he ever heard of anything similar. It was a presence that completely exceeded the imagination of ordinary people. Approaching that presence would result in absolute crushing, leading to inevitable death.

Even if he were just a fourteen-year-old ordinary boy, let alone a star-gathering realm expert like Mo Yu, no one could resist the aura behind the stone door. Even a supreme expert at the Holy Realm would choose to avoid it!

The aura behind the stone door was not deliberately released by the terrifying existence behind it but rather seeped out through the cracks in the door. Even so, it was enough to make Chen Changsheng's body and mind shiver, his face pale as snow, and his feet frozen to the ground.

Old Lady Ning was worried that he might mistakenly enter the entrance and encounter the legendary figure behind the stone door, but Mo Yu did not think so. She was certain that no one who felt the aura behind the stone door would dare to push the door open and walk in. For an ordinary boy like Chen Changsheng, even standing was a challenge, let alone entering.

No one could have imagined that the reality was different from Mo Yu's expectations.

Chen Changsheng was in extreme distress but did not fall. He even managed to remain mentally clear.

He did not understand why. He had never encountered the overwhelmingly authoritative aura behind the stone door, yet his body and consciousness naturally produced some subtle reactions, allowing him to stand calmly in the face of the pressure.

He did not know that when he was born, even before his eyes had opened, he had encountered a high-level existence similar to the one behind the stone door.

The authoritative aura still existed.

Chen Changsheng's body was stiff, and he did not fall, but he could not leave either.

Subconsciously, he gripped the short sword in his hand tighter. He felt that the tighter he held the sword, the easier it was to withstand the pressure from behind the stone door, and he felt much more comfortable, as if a force was flowing from the hilt of the sword into his body, protecting him.

He did not know what that force was; he thought it was courage.

The short sword was a gift from his senior brother Yu Ren before he left the mountain.

He had read through the three thousand Daoist scriptures and had never found anyone as courageous as his senior brother Yu Ren.

So he thought that the sword given by his senior brother was the source of courage.

Holding the short sword, he took a step forward, placed his hand on the stone door, and pushed it open.

Silently, the heavy stone door slowly opened with his movement.

Deep beneath the imperial city of the Great Zhou Dynasty, a stone door that had never been opened since its construction was pushed open tonight.

Some dust rose, the dust of history.

This history had lasted for a thousand years.

...

...

Behind the stone door was complete darkness, absolute darkness.

Chen Changsheng held the short sword in one hand and took out a night pearl with the other, raising it high.

The night pearl shone brilliantly, round like a melon, the same one that Luo Luo had given him when she became his disciple. He did not know where it had been before.

The soft light from the night pearl spread in all directions, but for a long time, it did not illuminate the stone walls or any other objects.

This was an extremely spacious area, incredibly vast, as if it could hold a real palace.

Chen Changsheng could not believe that such a large underground space existed beneath the Great Zhou Imperial Palace. Based on the time he had been running, he was likely already outside the walls of the Great Zhou Imperial Palace, somewhere beneath the capital city.

The light from the night pearl gradually spread further, and the vast space became more real.

In the distance, there was a faint silver glow, dense and layered, like silver flakes or all the stars in the night sky descending to the earth.

Chen Changsheng walked toward the silver glow, and when he reached it, he was amazed to find that it was a sea of silver ingots!

The sea of silver ingots was vast, and in the center was a mountain of gold.

At the peak of the gold mountain, there was a tree of dark red coral.

Among the dense branches of the coral tree, there were countless fruits carved from diamonds and crystals.

A gold mountain, a sea of silver, a red coral tree, and countless jade fruits.

This scene was incredibly vulgar, too opulent to describe.

Chen Changsheng was stunned and speechless, even forgetting the pressure.

He had never seen so much money in his life.

To be precise, no one on this continent had ever seen so much gold and silver.

The surface of the sea of silver ingots was covered with a thin layer of frost.

Many of the silver ingots had started to peel off, scattered like wood shavings, which he had seen earlier as silver flakes.

The underground space was extremely cold, even the silver could not withstand it.

Suddenly, a cold wind blew.

The surface of the sea of silver ingots rippled, and the silver flakes rustled, the frost deepening, and snow began to accumulate in the depths of the sea of silver.

The cold wind blew for a long time.

A layer of ice formed on Chen Changsheng's body, his eyebrows and eyelashes turning white.

But his heart was even colder.

Because the long-lasting cold wind was just one breath.

One extremely long and terrifying breath.

In the dark night, two ghostly flames suddenly appeared.

The two flames were pure and cold, without a hint of color.

They seemed to be cold fire from the underworld.

The two flames slowly approached Chen Changsheng.

The terrifying pressure enveloped the entire underground space.

Chen Changsheng could no longer withstand it, and blood began to trickle from the corners of his mouth.

The two flames suddenly contained something called emotion.

Initially bewildered, then shocked, then ecstatic, then curious, and finally turning into cold and cruel.

This was naturally not real underworld fire. They were a pair of cold, cruel eyes, larger than Chen Changsheng's body.

How enormous must the creature with these eyes be?

The night pearl left Chen Changsheng's hand, floated up, and finally landed on the dome.

Suddenly, the entire dome lit up. There were thousands of night pearls embedded in the dome. Chen Changsheng had thought the silver sea was the stars descending to the earth, but now he realized that there was a night sky and stars here.

The underground space gradually brightened.

A black rock appeared in the air.

Then more and more black rocks appeared.

The black rocks absorbed the light from the dome without any overflow.

Chen Changsheng saw clearly that they were not rocks but scales.

A large black rock was a black scale.

In this world, only one type of scale could be so large—dragon scales.

A terrifying black dragon slowly appeared in the night sky.

It looked down at Chen Changsheng, its eyes like cold fire, cold and cruel.