The Demon King is back, leading adorable kids on an adventure around the world!

After leaving the pool, the passageway became much wider.

The ground was no longer fine sand and gravel, but flat large stone slabs with tight joints, as if it had been carefully laid.

Niannian walked at the front, repeatedly drawing and sheathing the Morning Dew Sword in her hand.

Each time she drew her sword, a layer of silvery-white light would flash along the spine of the blade, like a straight line in the dark passage, before disappearing back into the sheath as she sheathed it.

"Sister Niannian, don't keep drawing your sword, or it will get angry."

Qiqi followed behind her, watching the sword being drawn and sheathed again. She found it amusing but was also worried that Niannian might accidentally break it.

"It won't get angry; it has a spirit and can recognize its owner."

Niannian pulled the sword out a little further, looked at the flowing patterns on the sword against the light on the stone wall, and then put it back in.

"It just greeted me."

Qiqi peeked at the sword sheath, then looked at Niannian: "How did it greet you?"

"It just made a buzzing sound," Niannian said. "Didn't you hear it?"

"I didn't hear it," Kiki answered honestly.

Niannian didn't argue with her, hung the sword on her waist and patted it: "Let's go, let's go."

Xiao Xiao walked behind her, holding the Water-Gathering Grass in her hand, using her spiritual power to probe the patterns on the edges of the leaves as she walked.

Qianqian walked in the middle of the group. When she stopped, she listened carefully for a while to make sure there was no unusual noise before continuing to walk forward.

Little Jin walked at the very back, a fresh blade of grass dangling from his mouth, kicking at the pebbles at his feet with utter boredom.

He was accompanied by Luo Nannan, who had been silent the whole time. She had been very quiet since she came in, and it was unclear what she was thinking.

After walking for about the time it takes to brew a cup of tea, more light shone through the passageway ahead.

Niannian quickened her pace and walked out of the passage. Suddenly, a valley surrounded by rock walls opened up before her.

You can see the sky overhead, though it's just a narrow crack, but the sunlight shines down at an angle, illuminating the ground at the bottom of the valley.

The valley floor was covered with short grass and low shrubs, with a small shallow pool in the center. The reflection of the water cast dappled light on the surrounding rock walls.

"Wow, outside!"

Qiqi squeezed out from behind and stood next to Niannian, looking up at the narrow crack in the sky above.

"You can still see the sky from here."

Niannian looked up for a while, then pointed to a protruding platform above the rock face:

"There seem to be signs that someone used to live there."

Xiao Xiao looked in the direction Niannian pointed and saw some piled-up rubble on the edge of the platform. The way the rubble was arranged didn't look like it was naturally formed, but rather like it had been arranged by someone.

She looked at it for a while and said, "It was probably left by someone who used to stay here, but it looks like it's been abandoned for a long time."

Luo Nannan found a place to sit down by herself, looked around at everyone, and gently shook her head.

Xiao Jin found a dry rock to sit on, took off his shoes, and emptied the sand out of them:

"You guys go ahead and browse, I'll take a look at the shoes."

Niannian ignored him, walked around to the other side of the shallow puddle, squatted down, placed the Morning Dew Sword horizontally on her knees, and looked down at the fine patterns on the sword.

Kiki crouched down next to her, also looking down at the sword. After a while, she said:

"Sister Niannian, is there a little fairy living inside your sword?"

Niannian thought for a moment and said, "I don't know. If it were, it would probably come out and talk to itself."

Kiki then asked, "If it comes out, will it be able to talk?"

Niannian was stumped by the question, tilted her head and thought for a moment:

"Maybe... The weapon should be able to talk after it takes human form."

Qiqi nodded, as if she had memorized some important knowledge point.

Xiao Xiao stood up from the puddle:

"There should be some usable spiritual materials around here. I'll go take a look."

She walked toward an area covered in thick moss at the bottom of the rock face.

Niannian called out to her, "Little sister, be careful."

Xiao Xiao turned around and waved her hand, indicating that she had heard.

Niannian turned back to look at the sword, then stood up after a while, tucked the sword back into her waistband, and walked towards Qianqian.

"Sister Qianqian, do you think there are any other exits from this valley?"

Qianqian was standing in front of a clump of bushes, using her fingertips to part the leaves and examine the growth pattern at the base of the branches.

After hearing Niannian's question, she looked up and glanced around:

"There is a crack at the bottom of the east rock wall, wide enough for one person to pass through."

The terrain on the south side is higher, but there are no obvious traces of a passage.

Niannian followed her gaze to the crack on the east side and could indeed see a narrow crevice extending deep into the rock wall.

Light shone through the gaps, so it didn't seem like a dead end: "Then let's go take a look over there first."

Xiao Xiao gathered some delicate, leafy herbs growing along the edges of the moss and stored them in her storage ring. She then walked over to Nian Nian's side:

"I've picked these; I can use them as medicine later."

Niannian glanced at the spiritual herbs, then at the crack on the east side:

"Shall we go that way? Maybe it leads somewhere else."

She nodded slightly.

The entrance to the crack on the east side was narrower than expected. Niannian squeezed in sideways and walked for a while before it widened and the light came back on.

There are some shallowly carved symbols on the rock walls on both sides of the passage, as if they were scratched on with a tool.

However, due to its age, most of it has become blurred and indistinct, with only a few places where the direction of the curved lines can still be barely discerned.

"These symbols are different from the script on the previous jade slips; they are more ancient."

Xiao Xiao gently traced the direction of the rune with her finger.

"I can't figure out exactly what it means; it might just be a label."

Niannian glanced at it again: "What are you marking?"

A short story: "I don't know, it could be a direction, or it could be a warning."

Niannian stood there for a while, thinking, but couldn't come to a conclusion, so she continued walking forward.

At the end of the passage was a stone door, half-open, and the light shining through the crack was brighter than the light from the minerals in front of it, like sunlight.

Niannian pushed the stone door, but it wasn't completely jammed. She pushed it open a crack and then stopped.

She peeked inside, then turned and waved to the people behind her.

"It looks like someone used to live here! There are rooms inside!"

……

On the other side, fifty miles west of Hecheng, in an abandoned medicinal field, Luo Tian squatted by the edge of the field, parting the roots of a clump of withered medicinal herbs with his fingers, and turned over a piece of wood that was half-buried underneath.

Half of a blurry emblem was engraved on the surface of the wood chip, while the rest had been eroded by soil and moisture, leaving only a small outline that was still clearly discernible.

Following behind him was a young man in an old cloth shirt, who looked to be in his early twenties.

His face was dark, and his clothes were covered in mud, as if he had just come out of the fields not long ago.

He stood a few steps behind Luo Tian, ​​clutching a bamboo pole in his hand:

"That emblem... I think I heard my grandfather mention it."

Long ago, a group of foreign monks lived here. They left, leaving some things buried in the field.

Luo Tian didn't turn around, but flipped the half-piece of wood over and looked at it again: "Is your grandfather still alive?"

The young man paused for a moment: "He's gone. He left three years ago."

Before he left, he mentioned several times that one of his ancestors was a cultivator who later went elsewhere with someone and never returned.

Luo Tian wiped the wood chip clean and put it in his pocket, then stood up and patted the dirt off his hands:

"What was the surname of your ancestor, the cultivator?" The young man thought for a moment and replied, "Xu."

Luo Tian repeated the surname without saying anything more.

He glanced at the setting sun in the distance, then at the abandoned medicinal herb field at his feet:

"Does anyone usually come and dig up your land?"

The young man shook his head: "Nobody comes. This place is remote, and the harvest isn't good, so eventually nobody takes care of it."

Luo Tian nodded: "Then I'll have someone come and turn over this field later. The medicinal herbs you find are yours, and I'll handle the rest."

The young man paused, not quite understanding what he meant by "the rest," but nodded nonetheless.

Luo Tian turned and walked a few steps toward the outer edge of the field, stopping in the afterglow of the setting sun to look at the distant horizon.

Then we continued walking forward, our figures gradually being enveloped by the twilight and the shadows of the gentle slope.