Bad Feng Shui

Everyone rushed into the depths of the prison, but the situation inside the cells was far more sinister and terrifying than what they had seen outside. It was nauseating; even Li Nanzhu, who had seen countless severed limbs on the battlefield, felt her stomach churn.

Inside the stone chambers, cultivators hung like broken puppets. Their skin was deathly gray, and some had lost their fingernails entirely, leaving black-red scabs on their fingertips—the result of clawing at their chains for a long time.

Even more horrifying was the state of their eyes: sunken, hollow, and numb, with no trace of spirit. Their breathing was so weak it was almost imperceptible. Many were covered in hideous wounds, some deep enough to reveal bone, with pus and filth slowly seeping out and being absorbed by the ground.

Others had missing limbs, with a strange black qi coiling around the stumps, preventing them from healing and accelerating the passage of life.

Rather than humans, they were more like bags of skin barely maintaining a human form.

"This is... so disgusting..." Yu'er's voice trembled, her face pale. Although they had prepared themselves mentally, witnessing this living hell firsthand was still a massive shock.

"Evil cultivator methods—extracting souls and refining blood to squeeze out every drop of vitality," Feng Qingping's voice was ice-cold, carrying a suppressed rage. "They were treated as 'nourishment.' It's a miracle they've survived this long, but their life force is nearly extinguished. Even if we rescue them... they won't live for more than a few hours."

But they had no time to dwell on that. As soon as she finished speaking, everyone rushed toward their respective targets.

Rong Yuying condensed spiritual energy at her fingertips and shattered the restriction on the iron bars of the stone chamber holding the Hehuan Sect disciples.

"Junior Sister Ling!" she called out in a low voice.

One of the female cultivators with golden core cultivation slowly raised her head. This was the woman Rong Yuying had called "Junior Sister Ling"—Ling Suxin.

She struggled to look up, and when she saw the figures rushing in, she let out a bitter laugh. "Is it another hallucination?"

It wasn't until Rong Yuying's sleeve brushed against her wrist that she jolted, her head lifting fully.

"Senior Sister Rong...? Is it really you? How... how did you find this place?!"

Her voice was extremely weak. Although she hadn't been here long, her higher cultivation clearly meant she had received more "special treatment" than the others.

Rong Yuying crouched down, carefully checking Ling Suxin's condition while speaking rapidly. "It's a long story! We followed Little Nanzhu to find her senior sister, and that led us here. You've suffered so much! Now isn't the time for talk; we have to get you out of here immediately!" She pointed toward Li Nanzhu.

Ling Suxin followed her finger to look at Li Nanzhu. A stranger? A female cultivator at the foundation establishment stage? The shock in her eyes grew, but now was not the time to pry. She nodded with difficulty, her eyes instantly welling with tears. They were finally being saved!

On the other side, Li Nanzhu and Feng Qingping had already reached Feng Weilan's stone chamber.

"Weilan!" Feng Qingping tore the iron bars apart and rushed inside. The sight before her felt like a knife to her heart, and her voice carried a tremor she didn't even notice. She hurried to his side, not daring to touch him too hard, only calling out in a low voice.

Feng Weilan was firmly fixed to the wall by chains, his body practically suspended in the air. His face was paper-white, and his lips were so dry they were bleeding. Hearing Feng Qingping's voice, he forced his eyes open. His gaze was scattered for a moment before he managed to focus with difficulty. "...Qingping?"

"It's me." Feng Qingping's voice trembled as she condensed a blade of blue spiritual energy at her fingertips, slashing fiercely at the black chains!

Clang—!

A piercing sound rang out. She had expected the chains to be severed, but not even a white mark was left behind. A full-strength strike from a golden core cultivator had been completely useless.

"What?!" Feng Qingping's expression changed.

Li Nanzhu immediately drew her short blade and hacked down with all her spiritual energy.

Clang! This was also in vain; the blade was even knocked back by the force of the recoil.

Feng Qingping quickly tried several different spells, but the chains remained unresponsive. Seeing this, she immediately turned and rushed to the golden core evil cultivator, tearing off his storage bag to search it, but she found nothing.

She gritted her teeth and looked at the dying evil cultivator, asking coldly, "Where is the key?"

Though the evil cultivator was on his last breath, he still pulled his mouth into a hideous grin. "A key? Hahaha, there are no keys here! The keys are all in the hands of the elders! You'll never get them, hahaha! These are forged from spirit-siphoning iron; once locked, unless..."

"Unless what?" Feng Qingping grabbed him by the throat.

The evil cultivator gasped for air, his eyes filled with malice. "Unless... you have the strength of a nascent soul... otherwise... don't even think about it..."

"Shut up!" Feng Qingping struck him with a bolt of spiritual light, causing him to curl up in pain, but his laughter only turned into a suppressed, venomous wheeze.

Rong Yuying's side was also facing trouble.

They were trying to rescue the other Hehuan Sect disciples, but their condition was even worse than Ling Suxin's. They had been here longer and had lower cultivation.

As Rong Yuying tried to help one of them up, the woman's body suddenly convulsed. Her pupils dilated instantly, her head slumped, and the last spark of life vanished.

Another was barely hanging on, her breathing shallow and her gaze unfocused. Black blood mixed with fragments of internal organs seeped from her mouth. She was clearly at the end of her rope, beyond any hope of recovery.

"Xiaodie! Ayue!" Ling Suxin cried out in grief.

The despairing atmosphere instantly swallowed the joy of their reunion. The chains couldn't be cut, there was no key, and the dying couldn't be moved... was it really going to end in failure?

Just as everyone's hearts turned cold, Li Nanzhu suddenly looked up. Her gaze was no longer on the indestructible chains, but fixed instead on the thick stone wall where the other end of the chains was embedded!

Her eyes flashed, and she suddenly spoke.

"Don't you think the feng shui here is a bit bad?"

"What?" Feng Qingping and Rong Yuying were both stunned.

"I need to renovate this place!" Li Nanzhu formed a hand seal, funneling all her spiritual energy into her palm before punching the wall that held the chains!

A deafening explosion roared through the stone chamber. Her strike actually managed to blast an irregular, tabletop-sized hole into the hard stone wall! While the chain remained intact, the end where it was fixed loosened as large chunks of rock crumbled away!

The entire prison seemed to vibrate!

Everyone was dumbfounded, including the wheezing golden core evil cultivator. His laughter stopped abruptly, his eyes bulging wide.

"You can do that?!" Qinghe muttered.

"Y-you..." the evil cultivator finally reacted, staring at Li Nanzhu in disbelief.

"What are you looking at?" Li Nanzhu dusted off her hands and kicked a piece of rubble out of the way. "Haven't you ever seen a violent demolition? Keep talking and I'll tear you down along with this wall!"