Li Nanzhu stepped forward quickly and took a bottle of pills from her storage bag. "Take this detox pill first."
She wasn't giving him the pill out of pure kindness. In the original novel, not a single rogue cultivator had survived to reach this point. Although their intervention had changed the plot, the fact that Zhao Wuya had made it this far suggested he possessed considerable strength.
More importantly, he was from Qingyun City, which was an affiliated city of the Five Elements Dao Sect. While she didn't know much about the Zhao family's situation, she figured she might as well help if she could.
If this man managed to return alive, the Zhao family would owe her a favor. If he died here... she would only have wasted a single pill.
Unaware of her calculations, Zhao Wuya accepted it gratefully and swallowed it without hesitation. As soon as the pill entered his stomach, the blackened, festering wound on his arm stopped rotting immediately.
Seeing how decisively he took the pill, Li Nanzhu’s estimation of him rose a few points. In the cultivation world, people like this either died early or lived longer than anyone else.
"Thank you, Fellow Daoist Li..." He leaned weakly against the stone wall, gasping for air.
Zhu Yinxi watched Zhao Wuya's face slowly regain its color and nodded slightly. "To make it here, Fellow Daoist Zhao, your strength is truly impressive."
After all, they had just survived a pursuit by all sorts of strange creatures. Even with their numerous methods, it hadn't been easy for them to survive, let alone just two people.
Zhao Wuya cupped his hands with a bitter smile. "I am ashamed. If you all hadn't repaired the array, we would have been dead long ago."
Catching his breath, a flash of lingering fear crossed his eyes as he continued, "We chose the third passage on the left. At first, everything went smoothly..."
He raised a trembling hand, pointing to his festering wound. "Until we met those blood vines. Old Liu was at the front when his legs were suddenly entangled and dragged into the darkness... I only heard his screams..."
Duan Xianxing frowned. "What about the others?"
Zhao Wuya shook his head. "I don't know. After we split up, I never saw them again."
The group exchanged looks. It seemed the other passages were even more dangerous than they had imagined. It was lucky they had chosen the correct path, otherwise, they might not be standing here in one piece. They also wondered about the Sword Heart Sect; the fact that they hadn't shown up yet suggested they had run into trouble too.
Since there was nothing else to be learned, the four stopped asking questions and began to examine their surroundings while Zhao Wuya started meditating to recover.
Li Nanzhu looked thoughtfully at the nine light gates. In the original text, only four gates had appeared, but now there were nine... What caused the change?
As she pondered, Suisui hopped over to one of the gates. Its bone claws lightly touched it, causing the runes on the gate to glow faintly.
Seeing this, Duan Xianxing strode to the nearest gate and reached out, only to be bounced back by an invisible barrier. "Strange, I can't get in!"
Li Nanzhu was stunned, her emotions turning complex. She had originally planned to snatch this inheritance directly, but she hadn't expected such a restriction. This meant she couldn't take it early. Was this truly the heroine's fated opportunity? Even if others arrived first, they couldn't enter.
"It seems we need everyone to arrive before it opens," Zhu Yinxi said, twirling his jade flute. "This array is quite cunning."
Li Nanzhu's eyes flickered. In the original story, there was no mention of the light gates being inaccessible. Combining this with Zhu Yinxi's deduction, she roughly guessed the truth.
Including the four of them and Zhao Wuya, plus the four from the Sword Heart Sect, that made exactly nine people.
In the original novel, there had been no obstruction simply because there were no other people—or rather, no other living people.
Thus, when the four from the Sword Heart Sect arrived, they could enter the light gates without any hindrance. Now that the number had changed, it meant only the nine of them had survived. The other rogue cultivators had likely died in the passages.
Li Nanzhu glanced at the meditating Zhao Wuya and decided not to voice this deduction. To her, while she might have initially thought about helping those people, that sentiment vanished once they tried to use her group as shields.
She didn't like seeing people die in front of her. Since her previous life, she had always held the mindset of helping when possible—otherwise, she wouldn't have transmigrated here. But that didn't mean she was willing to be an easy mark. If Zhao Wuya hadn't been from Qingyun City, she wouldn't have even given him the pill.
Li Nanzhu understood that her mindset was changing. After all, this was the cultivation world where strength ruled and the weak were prey. It was no longer a peaceful modern society. She had to discard her old ways of thinking.
She took a deep breath to calm herself. Such events would only become more frequent. She still had to save her senior brother; she didn't have time for sentimental wallowing.
Just then, the sound of hurried footsteps came from behind. The Sword Heart Sect group rushed in looking disheveled and miserable. Cang Dongqing's sleeves were mostly scorched, and Le Changxi had a bloody gash on his face.
Li Nanzhu's heart skipped a beat.
Everyone else had encountered danger, yet the path they took had been perfectly safe—that was too abnormal.
Before she could think further, she was interrupted by Cang Dongqing's voice.
"You..." Cang Dongqing's voice cracked when she saw Li Nanzhu looking completely unscathed. "How is this possible..."
Li Nanzhu smiled slightly. "It seems your intuition is occasionally wrong?"
Cang Dongqing clenched her fists so hard her nails dug into her palms. Her intuition had actually failed! How was that possible? Before this, her intuition had never let her down.
Even though they had encountered danger in the passage, it had been within their ability to handle. She had assumed it was normal; after all, it was impossible to reach the heart of a cave dwelling without any danger. Compared to the other passages, the one she chose should have been the least dangerous.
But seeing Li Nanzhu's leisurely appearance, she realized there was a path that was completely safe!
Could it have been the path she abandoned? Impossible! That was absolutely impossible!
She would never admit her intuition was wrong; there had to be something wrong with the other party.
She glared at Li Nanzhu, her eyes filled with a jealousy that was almost tangible. "You must have used some underhanded methods!"
Li Nanzhu let out a cold laugh, her gaze sweeping over Cang Dongqing with contempt. "Underhanded? Fellow Daoist Cang, your talent for shifting the blame is far more accurate than your intuition. What's the matter? You chose the wrong path and now you want to pin it on us?"
Duan Xianxing immediately clapped his hands in exaggerated praise. "Marvelous! My junior sister is absolutely right!" He turned to Cang Dongqing, feigning surprise. "Oh my, why is Fellow Daoist Cang's face so pale? Could it be that you're throwing a tantrum because you picked the wrong road?"
"You!" Cang Dongqing trembled with rage, her fingers clutching her sleeves tightly.
"What about us?" Li Nanzhu crossed her arms and sneered. "We walked our path, did we get in your way? If you chose wrong, just admit it. Why are you throwing a fit here? Do you want a copper mirror so you can see how ugly your face looks right now?"
"Exactly, exactly," Duan Xianxing added fuel to the fire. "Did we hold a knife to your throat and force you down that path? Or did we press your head and make you believe in that intuition?"
Le Changxi frowned and tried to speak. "You guys..."
"Shut up!" Duan Xianxing snapped back. "Control your brainless companion. You're stupid and yet you blame the road for being uneven? Have you no shame? Or is this just the kind of people the Sword Heart Sect produces?"
"You've got two eggs hanging under your brows—you can blink, but you're blind as a bat! I'm talking about you, you big idiot!" Li Nanzhu chimed in quickly.
Li Nanzhu continued to twist the knife. "Fellow Daoist Cang, I suggest you go back and ask your master if they were blind when they took you in. How did they end up with such a brainless creature?"
"You!" Cang Dongqing's eyes turned red with fury, her voice shifting pitch.
"'You' what?" Duan Xianxing replied instantly. "Which word we said wasn't the truth? Do you think the cultivation world is run by your family?"
Liu Qingyang suddenly seemed to remember something. "Right, I recall someone confidently saying her intuition never fails?" He poked his ear theatrically. "That slap to the face was so loud I could hear it from ten miles away."
Zhu Yinxi added coldly, "I suggest a total reconstruction. After all, if your brain isn't enough, you'll never understand cultivation."
Li Nanzhu finally said slowly, "Fellow Daoist Cang, do you know? Failing your intuition isn't the embarrassing part. The embarrassing part is being so stupid you don't even realize it. You've humiliated the Sword Heart Sect completely."
The four of them tag-teaming left Cang Dongqing's face pale and her lips trembling, unable to utter a single word in rebuttal. Seeing this, Le Changxi quickly pulled her behind him, fearing she might faint from anger on the spot.
"Enough!" Qu Chen suddenly barked. He looked at Li Nanzhu with a complex expression. "Fellow Daoist Li... you have quite the skill."
At the back, Lin Shuang winked at Li Nanzhu with a smile, clearly agreeing with everything Li Nanzhu and the others had said.
Just as the tension reached a breaking point, Zhao Wuya, who had been silently recovering, spoke up. "Fellow Daoists, these light gates..."
Everyone looked over and saw that the invisible barrier shrouding the light gates was slowly dissipating. The runes on the nine gates lit up one by one with a soft glow.
"The barrier is gone." Zhu Yinxi was the first to react, spinning his jade flute. "It seems it was waiting for everyone to arrive."
Liu Qingyang looked at the Sword Heart Sect group. "They arrived just in time."
Duan Xianxing curled his lip. "Some people have good luck, arriving at just the right moment."
Li Nanzhu looked at the dark-faced Cang Dongqing, then at the visibly relieved Le Changxi, and chuckled. "Since the gates are open, let's go our separate ways."
Qu Chen nodded slightly. "My thoughts exactly."
As they were hesitating over which gate to choose, the runes on the nine gates began to flow, weaving into several lines of ancient text in the air.
"Three thousand paths of alchemy return to one cauldron,
One gate, one fate—do not force the path.
Think thrice before stepping through this door,
For destiny and death are indistinguishable."
Duan Xianxing's expression froze.
He turned his head mechanically toward Li Nanzhu, his throat bobbing. "Junior Sister... does that say..."
Li Nanzhu didn't respond, and Zhu Yinxi almost dropped his jade flute. His usually cold face showed a rare look of shock. "It's actually an alchemy inheritance..."
Duan Xianxing's eyes widened, his voice cracking. "An alchemy inheritance?!"
Liu Qingyang instinctively touched his headscarf and murmured, "This... this kind of inheritance... is likely one that has been lost for ages..."
The breathing of the Sword Heart Sect group also grew heavy.
An alchemy inheritance! Anyone who obtained this opportunity might reach a level of alchemy that could surpass even the Shenmu Sect!
A grand opportunity! A massive fortune!
The stone hall fell into a sudden, dead silence.
Even Zhao Wuya stopped his meditation, a sharp glint appearing in his cloudy eyes.
Li Nanzhu, however, looked at the Sword Heart Sect group.
Qu Chen's sword tassel fluttered without wind, and Le Changxi's fingers pressed against his storage bag...
How interesting.
She curled her lips in a silent smile.
These people clearly wanted to murder and steal the treasure immediately, yet they still had to maintain a sanctimonious facade.
Unfortunately, the strength of both sides was roughly equal. Even if they fought, the other side wouldn't necessarily gain anything.
And... with their inclusion this time, she wondered if Cang Dongqing would still be able to successfully claim this inheritance.
Rate on N.U.
