Starting as the heir of a marquis's mansion, I gained access to a summoning system.

In the darkness, the official road resembled a gray-white scar, stretching southward along the spine of the hills.

The carriage had been traveling for two hours when the old man Tianji fell asleep in the corner of the carriage. His breathing was so light that Xiang Yutian occasionally had to listen closely to confirm that he was still alive. The sheepskin map was pressed under his body, the edges of which were softened by sweat, and the vermilion pattern on the keyhole was slightly blurred.

Xiang Yutian leaned against the outer carriage shaft, an iron staff resting across his knees, its cracks gleaming a deep red in the moonlight. He suddenly spoke, his voice low: "Young master, the woods along the official road are too quiet for the next three miles."

The carriage curtain remained closed. Dongfang Weiwo's voice came from inside, equally low: "The chirping of insects stopped a moment before an incense stick burned. The stop was too neat, like someone had cut it with a knife."

Xiang Yutian's lips twitched: "Should I go around and take a look?"

"No need. He didn't hide it well."

Ximen Chuixue slightly opened his eyes on the left side of the carriage. He hadn't slept at all; his sword lay across his knees, and his breathing was as even as stagnant water. But at that moment, something stirred at the bottom of that stagnant water. He looked up at the row of dark locust trees at the bend in the road ahead, and his pupils contracted.

Ye Gucheng saw it from the right side of the carriage as well. He said nothing, but simply moved his hands, which had been folded in front of his abdomen, to his sides—at the same time as Ximen Chuixue.

The carriage continued forward, the sound of horses' hooves particularly clear in the silence. As they rounded the row of locust trees, Xiang Yutian saw a person standing in the very middle of the official road.

The man wore a gray robe, the hem of which trailed on the ground, damp with dew. His face was mostly obscured by the hood, revealing only his chin. There was an old scar on his chin, stretching from the corner of his lip to his jawbone, as if it had been ripped open with fingernails. He stood very straight, his hands tucked into his sleeves, and the ground within three feet of him was spotless—not a grain of sand.

The carriage slowly came to a stop three zhang in front of him.

"The road of the Nine Nether Ancient Clan leads to the official road of Tianxuan Prefecture?" Xiang Yutian didn't dismount, tapping his iron staff lightly on the carriage shaft, producing a dull thud. "Standing in the middle of the road in the middle of the night, he doesn't seem like a beggar."

The man in the gray robe raised a hand and slowly lifted his hood.

Beneath the hood was a young face, around twenty-five or twenty-six years old, pale, with eyes as pale as glass washed several times. An old scar stretched from the corner of his lip to his jaw, adding an incongruous crack to his otherwise handsome face. He looked at the carriage curtain, and when he spoke, his voice had a strange, hollow resonance, like someone speaking in a cave—

"Lord of Tianxuan Palace, I am Dongfang Weiwo. I have come on the orders of Lord Youyuan to inquire about a path."

The carriage curtain remained closed.

"Why ask for directions?"

"The eighth bone," the gray-robed man said. "Lord Youyuan wants to know where the eighth bone is hidden, when it will appear, and..." He paused, his Adam's apple bobbing, "and... could you possibly give it to him?"

Xiang Yutian smiled. It was a cold smile. He turned the iron staff in his palm, the tip of the staff silently pointing at the gray-robed man's brow.

"Has your Lord Youyuan forgotten who defeated the Great Yin Master in one move at Broken Valley last time? And you still dare to ask about bones?"

The man in the gray robe did not look at Yutian. His gaze remained fixed on the carriage curtain, and there was a kind of almost devout focus in his light glass-like eyes, like a believer staring at a Buddha statue that might open its eyes at any moment.

"I'm not here to fight," he said. "Lord Youyuan said that the Nine Nether Ancient Clan sank to the bottom of the sea for seven thousand years and has seen more than everyone in the Heavenly Profound Palace combined. The seventh piece you're looking for is in the heart of the Southern Frontier Demon Clan, but deep within the Demon Clan's territory lies a rift in an ancient array—even the Burial Heaven Emperor himself doesn't know where that rift leads. Lord Youyuan said that if the Lord of the Heavenly Profound Palace is willing to give up the eighth piece, he can tell you the truth about the rift."

The carriage curtain was lifted.

Dongfang Weiwo sat inside the carriage, one foot resting on the edge of the carriage shaft, the other leg bent in front of him. Moonlight shone on his face, and his empty gray eyes held nothing as he looked at the gray-robed man with indifference, as if he were looking at a roadside stone.

"The fact that Youyuan sent you to say this shows that he himself dares not come," Dongfang Weiwo said flatly. "He's afraid I'll carve 'owe' on the gate of Haiyuan Ancient City as well."

The gray-robed man's lips twitched slightly. The old scar was pulled, making his face look as if it had been torn in two.

Lord Youyuan said—

"Make him come to Baidi City in person," Dongfang Weiwo interrupted him. "Sending a sentry to deliver a message by the roadside—he doesn't even have the guts to speak face-to-face. What makes him think he can negotiate with me?"

The gray-robed man's pupils suddenly contracted.

He stood still for a full three breaths. Then, the row of locust trees behind him suddenly trembled—not from the wind, but from the roots upwards, as if the entire tree was being gripped by an invisible hand, the trunks creaking and twisting. The gray-robed man pulled his hands out of his sleeves, his fingertips gleaming with a deep blue light, his ten fingernails instantly growing to three inches long, shimmering with an iridescent sheen like the inner wall of a seashell.

"Lord Youyuan said—" His voice changed, the hollow resonance suddenly rising to a sharp, hissing sound like underwater reefs rubbing against each other, "If you don't give it to me, then let me—"

He didn't finish speaking.

Because Dongfang Weiwo stood up from the carriage shaft.

The movement was slow. Slow enough that the gray-robed man saw him stand up, saw his left foot step onto the ground, saw him take a step towards him. But the instant that step landed, the row of twisting locust trees behind the gray-robed man snapped with a "crack," the break as clean as if cut by a knife. The gray-robed man's ten iridescent fingernails simultaneously shattered into powder, like fritillaria being ground into dust.

He looked down at his bare fingertips, then looked up—Dongfang Wei was already three feet away from him.

The gray-robed man didn't move. Not because he didn't want to move, but because he couldn't. The clean ground within a three-foot radius around his feet had cracked into a spiderweb-like pattern, and his feet seemed to be nailed to the center of the cracks. An invisible pressure was closing in from all directions, making it impossible for him to even blink.

Dongfang Weiwo looked at him calmly, as if looking at a mirror.

"Take a message back with you," he said. "The eighth bone will come to me on its own; no one needs to intervene. Let Youyuan stay put at the bottom of the sea. Let him send someone to strike again—the lesson from the Great Yin Chief of Broken Canyon wasn't enough; I wouldn't mind carving two more words at the gate of the Ancient City of the Abyss."

He turned and walked back to the car.

The gray-robed man regained his mobility only after he turned around. He staggered back two steps, looked down at his hands, and saw fine beads of blood seeping from the broken nails. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but only a series of hoarse breaths escaped his throat.

Xiang Yutian had already retracted the iron staff to his knees. He lowered his head to wipe the dust off the staff, as if he hadn't seen anything.

As Dongfang Weiwo stepped onto the carriage shaft, the Old Man of Heavenly Secrets rolled over in the corner of the carriage and mumbled something in his sleep: "...the lock needs to be turned all the way..."

Ximen Chuixue and Ye Gucheng simultaneously withdrew their gazes. The horses' hooves lifted again, and the carriage rolled over the spiderweb-like cracks in the official road, passing by the gray-robed man. The gray-robed man stood stiffly in place until the carriage rounded the second bend and completely disappeared into the night, only then did he finally slowly retract his hands into his sleeves.

He stood there with his head down for a long time.

Then he turned and headed southeast towards the ancient city of Haiyuan. After walking about half a mile, a black jade talisman in his arms suddenly exploded—not shattered, but blasted apart, turning into a cloud of cold powder inside his clothes. It was the "life-saving talisman" left to him by Youyuan, which could block a full-force attack from a beginner-level cultivator in the event of a fatal blow.

The talisman broke.

But Dongfang Weiwo didn't make a move at all.

The man in the gray robe paused, his face paler than the moonlight. He quickened his pace, almost jogging, and disappeared into the bushes beside the official road.

—In the carriage.

Dongfang Weiwo sat back in the carriage and casually closed the curtain. Tianji Laoren was still asleep, his breathing as steady as ever. Deep within his sea of ​​consciousness, after Meng Chixing's blue light signal ended, the second message had been quietly hanging for the time it takes for an incense stick to burn.

He closed his eyes and let the message unfold.

Meng Chixing's lingering consciousness was faint, clearly forcibly transmitted back from an extremely long distance. The scene showed only an endless white ice field, then the camera sank downwards—through the ice, through the rock, through a bottomless fissure, at the very bottom of which was a cluster of black and red light.

The light pulsed. Like a heart. As the light swept across the surrounding rock walls, ancient array patterns were etched upon them—exactly the same patterns scattered when the dark golden colossus disintegrated itself. But those patterns were reversed, like reflections in a mirror, each character a palindrome.

Meng Chixing's voice rang out from the end of that afterimage, hoarse and urgent—

"Young Master. Deep within the Nine Ice Plains, directly beneath the 'Heavenly Gate,' something has awakened. It wasn't disturbed by the outer realms—it seems to have been 'shaken' awakened by your battle seven days ago. Its patterns are completely reversed, and its aura is ancient, even older than that of the Demon God Lü. I need to explore further. If there's no signal within three days—"

The afterimage ended here.

Dongfang Weiwo opened his eyes. The charred bone fragment twirled between his fingers in his palm. Outside the car window, the night was as thick as ink; the direction of Southern Xinjiang was to the southeast, and the direction of the Ice Plains was due north.

Two directions. Two things.

The seventh piece is in the southern border region, where the Heavenly Emperor was buried, there is a ceasefire period, and the unknown truth behind the ancient array's cracks.

The "awakened thing" beneath the ice plains—with its patterns completely reversed and an aura even older than that of the Demon God Lü, located directly below the Heavenly Gate—is it related to the "open the door first, then lock it" principle mentioned by the Demon God Lü? Is it related to the whereabouts of the eighth void arm?

The old man of heavenly secrets turned over in his sleep again, muttering, "...direction...the direction I came back from..."

Dongfang Weiwo remained silent for a moment.

Then he said, "To Yutian."

"exist."

"Change course. Go back to Baidi City first and drop off the Old Man of Heavenly Secrets. Then you and I will go to the Southern Frontier."

What about the north?

"Meng Chixing said there would be no signal for three days. If I don't hear from him after three days, I'll head from southern Xinjiang to the ice plains. There's still time."

Xiang Yutian slammed his iron staff down: "Young Master, what if that thing on the Ice Plains comes back in three days—"

"Meng Chixing is in the mid-stage of the Creation Realm, his spirit controls matter. The fact that he was able to send back two signals means he can still suppress it for now. Three days is enough time for me to make a trip to southern Xinjiang and get the seventh piece."

He glanced down at the bone fragment in his palm. The remnant of Lu Moshen's will within it was so weak as to be almost imperceptible. But the last trace of warmth remained, like a lamp that could be extinguished at any moment, stubbornly burning.

"Three breaths," Dongfang Wei said. "The door will be open for three breaths. I need to finish prying the lock together before those three breaths."

The carriage turned in the night, veering off towards Baidi City at the fork in the official road. To the southeast, towards the ancient city of Haiyuan, an almost invisible shadow rose and fell from the horizon—Youyuan withdrew his gaze.

Further north, beneath the ice field, the pulsating black and red light cast a long reflection on the rock wall, the patterns rotating in reverse, like someone pushing outwards from the other side of a mirror shrouded in mist.

It woke up.

It is waiting.