Xie Lian screamed at the sight of it as though he’d been stabbed.
His eyes flew open at the sound of his own scream, and he shot upright. He panted harshly for several moments before his shaken mind could process that he wasn’t standing on the snowy mountain at all—he was lying in a dark, shadowy place.
So it had been a dream.
No wonder something had felt off. Xie Lian exhaled a long breath as he relaxed, wiping away the cold sweat on his forehead. After feeling around for a bit, he determined that there was flat stone beneath him, covered with a blanket of grass. Fangxin hung from his waist and Ruoye was wrapped snugly around his arm. Xie Lian steadied himself and ignited a palm torch to illuminate the room. He sat up immediately and called out.
“San Lang? Are you there?”
The moment the flames brightened the room, Xie Lian discovered that there was a person standing right next to him in the darkness, soundless and silent.
This was no small shock, and Xie Lian was awash in cold sweat as his hand flew to Fangxin. There was no way he wouldn’t have noticed someone lurking so close by!
However, the cold sweat dissipated when he looked closer. It wasn’t a living person but rather a stone statue—and not one of the many stone statues of the victims of the volcano’s eruption. This was clearly a man-made sculpture.
Palm torch in hand, Xie Lian scanned the room and was soon certain of where he found himself.
The place where he lay was a cavern for cultivation. He had once gone into seclusion to cultivate in a place like this, so he was familiar with this type of chamber. It meant that the sculpture inside the cavern was not a regular statue but a divine icon for worship.
The divine statue had been erected in a cavern with an arched ceiling. Its figure was long and slender, its bearing was natural and relaxed, and its pose was graceful. Its right hand rested on the hilt of the sword at its waist. It had been sculpted with sublime skill; even the flowing lines and folds of its robes were exquisite.
However, there was something peculiar about it—the face of this divine figure was covered by a light veil.
The veil was light as flowing smoke. While it was quite strange to see a divine statue with its face obscured like this, it wasn’t ugly. Instead, it added a mysterious sort of beauty. Xie Lian had never seen a divine statue like this, displayed with its face covered. He unconsciously reached out to pull the veil off but was interrupted by a voice from behind.
“Gege.”
Xie Lian’s head whipped around. A figure in red had appeared at the entrance of the cavern without him realizing. It was Hua Cheng. The mysterious face of that divine statue instantly went to the back of Xie Lian’s mind, and he rushed over to him.
“San Lang! Thank goodness, I was wondering where you were. Are you all right? Are you hurt? That avalanche was so sudden.”
Hua Cheng entered the room. “I’m fine. How’s gege?”
“I’m always fine,” Xie Lian said. “What is this place?”
Once he left the cavern, it became clear that this place was far more expansive than expected—the corridor he found himself in seemed quite long, and who knew where it led?
Xie Lian had long ago gotten used to Hua Cheng having the answers to everything, yet this time he replied, “I don’t know. Most likely under the snowy mountain.”
Xie Lian was amazed. “And I’d thought it was a shelter San Lang had found. I can’t believe even you don’t know where we are.”
Well, this was a first. Hua Cheng had memorized the location of every ditch on the mountain path, but he wasn’t familiar with this place. The cave network clearly wasn’t small—had he really never stumbled upon it before?
Xie Lian couldn’t help but find it a bit strange, but he didn’t press the matter and instead raised his palm torch higher. “How did we get here?”
Hua Cheng summoned a few silver butterflies and let them flutter about to shine their faint light. “Maybe we stepped wrong and fell into a ditch,” he replied evenly.
That was the only logical explanation, as the alternative was that someone had intentionally put them here. Xie Lian couldn’t help but recall the dream he’d just had, and a slight shiver went down his spine.
Remembering something else, he asked, “We’re here, so where are Nan Feng and Fu Yao?”
At the mention of those two, a trace of hostility flashed across Hua Cheng’s face. “Probably buried in the snow. Who cares? They’re heavenly officials; this won’t kill them,” he replied unsympathetically.
Xie Lian didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Even if they can’t die, it still won’t feel great to be buried for decades if no one helps dig them out. Maybe they fell in here too, so let’s search for them. By the way, San Lang, what did you hear them say when your silver butterfly flew over?”
Hua Cheng snorted. “Just some meaningless argument. As if it could have been anything pleasant.”
Xie Lian doubted it was that simple, otherwise he couldn’t explain Hua Cheng’s sudden change of expression when the wraith butterfly overheard the fight. Even now, Hua Cheng’s eye was extremely unkind as he snorted. But if he wasn’t going to tell, then Xie Lian wasn’t going to pry.
The two continued down the cave’s long corridor. After walking for a while, they discovered this stone tunnel beneath the snow was much more complex than they had initially thought—there wasn’t just one path straight through but many forks that branched off into various other caverns, large and small.
And every one of those caverns held a divine statue. Some of the figures were teenagers, others were young men. The statues were all in unique poses: in lazy repose, leaning as though intoxicated, sitting poised, dancing with a sword… The clothing was also ever-changing: magnificent ceremonial robes, plain clothes, rags, half-naked, and more. The level of skill differed between sculptures as well—some of the work was rough and unrefined, while some was so extraordinarily exquisite and detailed it was astonishing. They probably hadn’t all been sculpted by the same person, but the sheer number of them and the wealth of varieties made this a spectacular sight.
Xie Lian admired them as they walked, and he couldn’t help but exclaim in awe, “This is a Cave of Ten Thousand Gods! I wonder who chose to build one in this place. They must have been an incredibly devout believer.”
However, all the divine statues shared the same peculiarity: their faces were covered by light veils. Some of the veils were large enough to cover the statue’s whole body, revealing only the hem of its robes or its feet. Xie Lian really was quite curious and wanted to pull the veil from a divine statue to see its face, but Hua Cheng spoke up behind him.
“Gege, I suggest you don’t.”
Xie Lian looked back. “Why not? Doesn’t San Lang think these statues are odd?”
Hua Cheng approached him with hands clasped behind and explained. “It’s precisely because they’re odd that it’s best that you don’t uncover them. If someone covered their faces, they must have had a reason. Spiritual energy gathers in the head, and we can’t be certain how the spiritual energy these strange statues have gathered would react if a veil is removed.” He paused for a moment, then continued.
“Gege, weren’t you searching for your two servants? Since we haven’t found them yet, it’d be better not to touch these statues. Best to avoid any unexpected complications.”
While his explanation sounded slightly far-fetched, it made logical sense. It wouldn’t be a laughing matter if removing a veil awakened something within these statues. Xie Lian wasn’t prone to touching what he shouldn’t. He thought it over and, in the end, dropped his hand.
“I was only curious which deity these sculptures depict. That’s all.”
