Chapter 43

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The solitary ascetic disciple in the Valley of the Kings.

On the back of the Divine Bird, the young boy with his head buried in her arms, cried silently.

In the depths of the Shrine, the young Priest, whose face is concealed behind the mystery of the incense burner.

…………………………..

For a decade, the face that had become so familiar, surfaced and faded in sequence – yet nothing could possibly reconcile with what she had witnessed a moment earlier.

Master… Shifu, he actually came to a place like this? How could he… be such a person? Or is every person in this world always having a thousand faces, and what she saw before was just one of them?

Zhu Yan stopped in her footsteps and sighed, feeling a vague pain in her heart, as if something precious had shattered with a bang when she was caught unprepared, too late to even salvage it, leaving only debris all over the ground – from her childhood, she was a straightforward girl, a bright and crisp soul who dared to love and hate, who could afford to put things down. However, at the moment, there was all sorts of turmoil deep in her mind, and a sinking feeling of something heavy was pressing on her heart.

Ugh… I’m really out of my mind today, why did I have to come to this kind of place to witness the excitement? If I didn’t know, if I didn’t see, I wouldn’t be so depressed and torn up as I am at the moment, right? In the future, if they meet again, how will she be able to face her master?

Before she could return to her senses, the housekeeper was already running down to the ground floor, pulling her along.

“Princess… this, what’s going on?” Evidently there was a gap in his memory, and the housekeeper, after coming back to his senses, stopped somewhat puzzled and asked, “What just happened? Are you alright?”

“Forget it, you wouldn’t understand even if I tell you.” Zhu Yan sighed and waved her hand, “Let’s just get out of here… Alas, such a bad luck today! I should have known I shouldn’t have come here to watch the lively atmosphere… Now I must grow stitches on my eyes after seeing something I shouldn’t! Bah, bah!”

As she was mumbling to herself, she walked down the passage with a gait that was actually a little bit frantic. The housekeeper couldn’t help but wonder – it looked like this naturally fearless Princess was actually in the process of escaping out the door as fast as she could. Could it be that there was someone here who she was afraid of?

It was just midday, but the Star Ocean Cloud Pavilion was already bustling with activity, with gardens full of people wearing beautiful clothes, and surrounded by the sounds of warblers and swallows. Zhu Yan was in a hurry to run, and her steps were so fast that she passed through those birds of paradise without looking at them.

“Go, quickly…” She sprinted out like a blazing fire, tugging at the steward’s sleeve, bumping into several people along the way, crossing the lobby in three steps, and not intending to venture further through the main entrance, she ran straight for the side door.

However, just as she was about to walk out through the door, she stopped abruptly on her track and blurted out a loud “Ah”.

On the other side of the entrance lies the utility backyard of the Star Ocean Cloud. At midday there were only a few people in the area, and the courtyard was filled with the garments, handkerchiefs and drapes of the beautiful women, in green and yellow, with flowers and embroideries, steaming in the sunlight like clouds, with a delicate fragrance. Yet, behind those cloudy haze, a shadow passed by, evanescent as smoke.

That passing shadow stung her eyes like a branding iron. Zhu Yan’s face instantly turned white and her body swayed slightly, hardly believing her eyes as she blurted out, “Yuan?!”

“Princess? What’s wrong?” The housekeeper couldn’t help asking again when he saw such a startled expression on her face. However, Zhu Yan pushed him away with one hand and bolted forward with her legs pulled up!

“Yuan! She called out in disbelief, “Is that you?”

She flew onwards and sprinted into the backyard. A trail of garments fluttered in front of her eyes and she brushed them aside, leaving the sound of hangers being knocked over behind her wherever she passed. She ran as fast as she could, almost recklessly, yet by the time she reached the depths of the courtyard, in a mere twinkling of an eye, it was already empty.

“Yuan… Yuan!” She stood there, calling out loudly, spinning around in that small, empty patio, straight to the point of crying out, “I know you’re here!”

Yes! In that moment just now, what she saw was clearly the side of Yuan’s face! It was the man she had longed for, and even if it was just a glimpse, there was no way she could be mistaken!

“Princess!” The steward caught up and couldn’t help but ask, “What’s happening with you?”

She didn’t have time to reply, she just remained standing in the middle of the ward, closing her eyes in a hurry and forming seals with her hands, releasing spiritual energy from her all five vessels and six senses to find the breath of the man in question – it was the fixation spell, which allowed her to perceive within her mind everything that had been around her during the past hour.

A moment later, her eyes opened abruptly and she suddenly lifted her finger and pointed at a certain spot: “Here they are!” It was the only thing left in the tiny patio – a bamboo shelf with no clothes hanging on it. It was made of a purple bamboo stick, with one end propped up on the floor and the other on the wall. When she hit it, all the other hangers slid to the ground, only this one remained untouched.

Zhu Yan gently snapped the single bamboo pole and pressed it downwards, only to hear a muffled sound as the ground in front of her suddenly subsided and a dark entrance appeared! The steward was watching in awe – there was actually such an elaborate mechanism in the backyard of the Star Ocean Cloud Pavilion!

“Princess, please let’s go now.” The steward knew something was not right and hastily pulled her back.

However, Zhu Yan refused to go and looked at the entrance that led to an unknown place and shouted, “Yuan! Come out for me! If you don’t come out, I’m coming after you!”

Before the words could leave her mouth, she shrugged and plunged down without hesitation!

“Princess!” The steward shouted in dismay and stretched out his hand to try to pull her back. However, Zhu Yan’s sleeve rolled up and a swift wind curled in, pushing the housekeeper back in an instant. In a mere blink of an eye, her figure disappeared beneath the black hole in the ground, and the ground closed over again, returning as it was before.

The housekeeper could not help but feel a mixture of shock and anger as he stood in the wretched ward full of crimson and green – what kind of place was this Star Ocean Cloud Pavilion that was equipped with a hidden room filled with traps? What if something went wrong and the Princess fell into a trap, he would not be able to explain to the King even if he chopped off his head!

The steward turned and raced out the door, rushing to call someone in for help at once.

There were no steps beneath that secret entrance, it was only a cave that plunged straight down. The moment she stepped in, Zhu Yan dropped straight down with a thud and landed in a hidden chamber.

The moment she touched the ground, she immediately released a spell to support her body and quickly created a protective barrier around her, then in her haste she also made a seal with both hands to hide herself from view – three spells in a row in the span of a snap of a finger, making it a flowing sequence.

If the Master could have seen this, wouldn’t he compliment the disciple on his “progress”? However just as the thought crossed to her mind, she shivered violently.

Right, this time she broke the Master’s heart and he got so angry, almost as if she had never seen him before…

She wondered if the handwritten scroll given by the Master contains the Bronze Skin, Iron Bone and Golden Bell Shroud martial arts skill, but if it does, it looks like it is time to practice it.

She muttered in frustration as she took a wary look around. In front of her there was a long passage, connecting one room to another on either side, like a twisting maze, with no end in sight. Each door had strange markings written on them, not in Kongsang script, which she actually could not recognize. There was the faint sound of water flowing in her ears, circling around, as if there was an underlying water system running through this maze-like structure.

Zhu Yan couldn’t help but be staggered: the scale of this underground labyrinth was so huge that it was not inferior to the above-ground part of the Star Ocean Cloud Pavilion – what exactly was this place about? Is it a dark workshop? Or was it an occult facility? Perhaps there were stored some special “exclusive” boxes for distinguished guests? What was in these rooms, anyway?

Curious, she put her hand on the door and poked her head in, trying to push it open, when a sudden footstep noise came from behind her. Startled, she dodged backwards in a hurry, only to hear the sound of the wind whistling past her ears; she was only an inch away from colliding head-on with two men in black.

That was close! She took a deep breath while those two men, oblivious of the fact that there was a stealthy person standing right in front of them, came sprinting from the other end of the passage, brushed past her, and hurried towards the spot where she had just fallen, making a careful inspection, frowning: “Strange, the secret door is closed and I haven’t noticed anyone breaking in along the way.” One man said, “But I clearly heard the entrance mechanism being triggered and something falling down.”

The other said, “Go to the ground floor and see if there’s anything unusual.”

“Okay, I’ll go up and ask Ruyi.” The man said, “Let’s split up and tell everyone to be more vigilant – the Left Envoy is here today and carelessness is not an option.”

“Yes.” The other man quickly retreated.

Hearing the conversation between the two men, Zhu Yan couldn’t help but feel anxious, knowing that as soon as the other person reached the ground, what she had just done in the backyard would be immediately discovered. Time was running out, she had to find the whereabouts of Yuan quickly! She no longer cared about anything and barged straight inside.

The underground passage was winding and twisting, and she tracked it with a fixed wooden trail, speeding from one room to the next, tracing the marks of Yuan. Along the way, she found that the place was heavily guarded, with men in black standing around every corner and looking at their costumes, it appeared that they were not the same group of fighters as the thugs she had just encountered upstairs, but were more capable, swift and better equipped. And the strange thing was that all those people were, in fact, sharks!

Using sharks as guards? How mysterious is this Star Ocean Cloud Pavilion? Although Zhu Yan was curious, she did not have time to investigate further. The fixed wood duration was very short, and she had to find the person she was looking for before the people on the ground were alerted.

She followed the scent left by Yuan and bolted forward as fast as a small hound flying across the grassland, hunting down its prey. Turning a few corners without hesitation, Zhu Yan took a deep breath, her heart pounding, and stepped over – Yuan’s scent extended from the ground and finally terminated here. However, there was no door in front of her.

Recalling the previous apparition, she reached down on one side of the staircase handrail, flexed her fingers and struck the lotus flower originally carved into the railing; at that blow the closed lotus flower bloomed, and within the open carved wooden petals, surprisingly a pure gold lotus heart appeared.

Zhu Yan twisted off the pure gold lotus heart and pressed it into a hollow in the wall. Miraculously, each lotus seed of the lotus heart’s indentation fit into the mottled wall. In an instant, without a sound, a secret door floated out from the wall!

Surprised, she pushed the door open with a thud, lifted her invisibility and shouted, “Yuan!”

The moment she pushed the door open, she saw a greenish-grey figure standing with his back turned towards the door. Zhu Yan could no longer hold back her inner excitement and shouted out of the blue, ” Yuan!” As she shouted, she raised her hand and wiped it rapidly across her face, instantly erasing the camouflage and revealing her original bright and beautiful face.

“It’s Ah-Yan!” She shouted into the room, “I’m coming for you!”

However, at the sight of her appearance, the man in the room was so shocked that his hand trembled, he jumped back and hit something that fell to the ground with a loud clang.

In the same instant, Zhu Yan also took a step backwards and uttered out of breath, “How… how could it be you?!”

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