After breaking up with my girlfriend, I became a Great Sage of the Demon Clan.

Little Yama interjected.

"So this place is fine for you, right?"

Zhou Yan nodded.

"Hmm, I can see something's off about this place, but it's a bit subtle; it seems to have two safe endpoints at zero."

Zhou Yan looked at the gates with the Ghost Mother and the Asura. In Zhou Yan's eyes, if he walked through these two gates in the correct order, he would arrive at two rooms of different sizes, which both seemed to be the final destination.

"These two doors."

Zhou Yan pointed to the Ghost Mother and Asura.

"Both options lead to the finish line, which one would you like to choose?"

Little Yama looked at the two doors: the Asura Door and the Ghost Mother Door.

"The Demon Mother, perhaps."

Little Yama pointed to the door of the Ghost Mother.

Leng Qing shook her head.

"I have no objection."

Mu Yuan didn't care.

"casual."

Zhou Yan shrugged.

Anyway, it's a safe destination, so there's nothing to fuss about.

Little Yama walked towards the gate of the Ghost Mother. After the gate opened, there was a small platform. On the opposite side of the platform were three doors with reliefs of tigers, dragons, and dogs.

Zhou Yan walked towards the dog door.

After opening it, there is the next platform, with three relief doors below.

After repeating this process several times, Zhou Yan spoke to Mu Yuan, who had grabbed the doorknob, in front of the thirteenth door.

"The safe end is just ahead, be careful."

Although Zhou Yan had done his research and assured everyone there was no danger inside, he still gave a warning.

Mu Yuan raised his guard to the limit and prepared for spatial distortion before opening the door.

The moment the door opened, streams of cold white air shot out from inside. After the door was half-opened, the cold air rushed out like a tide, impacting all four of Zhou Yan's companions.

With the door opened this wide, the four of them could see what was inside the room.

The room was sparsely furnished, with smooth walls on all sides. In the center stood a two-meter-diameter icicle, which was transparent. As a result, Xiao Yanjun, Leng Qing, and Mu Yuan could all see a frozen woman in the center of the icicle.

The woman had bright eyes and white teeth, and was beyond compare in beauty; her looks could rival those of Jiu Feng.

Zhou Yan opened the woman's profile page.

Name: Guanyin.

Chapter Forty-Three: Not to be Talked About

Guanyin?!

Is this thing even here?

Moreover, judging from the frozen beauty's bodily functions, she seems to be dead.

Mu Yuan was the first to enter the room with the door open.

The temperature inside the room was much lower than outside, and white mist constantly billowed from Mu Yuan's breath and lips.

Everyone present could see clearly from outside the door that the room was bare, with only an icicle in the middle containing an incredibly beautiful young woman.

Once inside, it's the same; there are no hidden places or blind spots.

After walking around the walls of the house, Mu Yuan arrived at the ice pillar, adjusted his glasses, and said in surprise.

"I've heard a story."

Mu Yuan went to see Zhou Yan, Leng Qing, and Xiao Yanjun, unable to suppress the joy on his face.

“In ancient times, there was a kind and gentle scholar. Near his home was a Taoist temple that wasn’t very popular. The scholar had a good relationship with the old Taoist priest in the temple. When the old Taoist priest was about to die, he called the scholar to him and said that he had nothing of value but the Taoist temple. He didn’t want it to be abandoned after his death, so he asked the scholar to take over the temple and clean it every day.”

"The scholar, seeing that the old Taoist priest spoke very sincerely, agreed."

Si Muyuan began circling the ice pillar, nodding occasionally.

"Soon after, the old Taoist priest died. The scholar, according to his own means, held a rather shabby funeral for the old Taoist priest. Afterward, he moved into the old Taoist priest's Taoist temple, intending to make it his home. A month later, while cleaning the temple, the scholar found an extremely intricately carved box under the old Taoist priest's bed in the old Taoist priest's bedroom. It was clearly a box of considerable value."

The scholar was curious. This poor Taoist priest used to have to scrimp and save to get wine, so where did he get such a nice wooden box to hold treasures? So he opened the box and found that it didn't contain the gold and silver treasures he had imagined. Instead, it contained some paintings, all of which depicted beautiful young ladies with remarkable looks.

The scholar cursed "lewdness" at the time, but seeing how pretty the young ladies in the painting were, he carefully put it away, thinking that he could use these young ladies to have a beautiful dream in the future.

"That night, the scholar was about to go to sleep when, unexpectedly, the moonlight shone on the young lady in the painting, and she stepped out of the painting and spent a night of pleasure with the scholar, their passion boundless."

Zhou Yan, who was still at the door, understood Mu Yuan's meaning.

Zero: "You mean this woman..."

Wu Zhouyan nodded his chin toward the icicles that had frozen Guanyin.

"Just like the girl in this painting?"

Does this young lady frozen inside the icicle emerge from it every night and then do something naughty with Yang Lingnan or the Imperial Advisor?

isn't it?

Yang Lingnan was, after all, the emperor of Chu, the kind who was second only to the emperor and above all others. Surely he wouldn't be so short of women that he had to keep them hidden away in private?

Mu Yuan stroked his chin and said.

"This place is heavily guarded, with sentries every three steps and patrols every five steps. It's so heavily guarded that it's practically impregnable. Any woman who can be found here must either be as important as Jiu Feng, or..."

"...this was either the state advisor of the Chu people or the lover of the Chu king."

Mu Yuan reached out, wanting to touch the ice pillar, but then thought better of it.

Mu Yuan once watched a movie where a biological laboratory suddenly encountered an accident, and a group of "professional experts" were fully armed to solve the problem. In one scene, the "professional experts" saw a group of animals that had probably been subjected to biological experiments, causing them to become agitated and aggressive, and then tried to grab them with their hands.

And it was completely unprotected.

Mu Yuan even complained that these experts were probably just like modern internet celebrities who rely solely on marketing but have nothing to offer.

Any normal person would be like Mu Yuan now. Although Lu was very curious about who was inside the ice pillar, he decided against taking action.

Nothing is more important than life.

"Ah……"

Little Yama also entered the house and looked at Guanyin, who was frozen inside the icicle.

"I'm curious, why would a Taoist priest give a treasure to a scholar? Couldn't he have found a fellow Taoist? Isn't he afraid the scholar might mess it up and damage the treasure?"

Mu Yuan explained with a smile.

"There's nothing we can do about it. The authors are all scholars, aren't they? Look at those fox spirits, seductive ghosts, fairies who descended to earth, and princesses and noble ladies—aren't they all paired with scholars?"

Zhou Yan and Leng Qing also entered the room, and the four of them stared at the frozen ice pillar.

A few seconds later, Leng Qing, Xiao Yanjun, and Mu Yuan all looked at Zhou Yan.

They couldn't see anything, so they could only hope that Zhou Yan, the Bai Ze, could figure something out.

Zhou Yan did indeed see something.

"This place..."

Zhou Yan's gaze shifted from the icicle to the ground.

The ground was very clean, showing that it was cleaned regularly, but the person who cleaned it did not have obsessive-compulsive disorder or severe germaphobia. Zhou Yan could see many footprints left on the ground.

"Before we arrived, there were only Yang Nanling's footprints."

Only the state advisor and king of Chu could come to this place, but the room only contains the king's footprints, which makes the meaning very profound.

肿）＄ｚan:≮咎『～《№邻≤≮泤♂◎旿六沐原理解了。

"So this woman is Yang Nanling's woman? Interesting..."

"It might not be as simple as you think."

Leng Qing came out. As a woman, even though Leng Qing was very cold and had little experience in relationships, she still knew a lot about the sordid things between men and women in the literary works, TV series and movies she watched.

"The woman who is frozen may be Yang Lingnan's sister, younger sister, or enemy. The reason for her being frozen is very likely not love, but hate, longing, or the need for someone to talk to, etc."

Little Yama clapped his hands.

"Alright, alright, I'll ask someone about this place later, anyway..."

Little Yama asked Zhou Yan.

"There's not much usable information here, right?"

Zhou Yan scanned the entire room.

"Hmm, that's all. There's no useful information left in this place."

Little Yama said with satisfaction.

"Okay, isn't there a safe destination? Xiao Yan, take us there."

Zhou Yan had no objection, and neither did Leng Qing or Mu Yuan refute it.

The four of them lined up in their original order, closed the door on the room where a beautiful girl was frozen, and then left.

The next destination is the second destination.

……

The imperial carriage of Siyou arrived in the capital of Chu and came to the front of the Daming Palace.

There were many patrolling soldiers in front of the Daming Palace, who looked like earthbound spirits. Without the driver of the Siyou Imperial Carriage needing to tell them, these patrolling soldiers opened the city gate and let the Siyou Imperial Carriage into the Daming Palace.

Yang Lingnan, who was inside the car, opened the car window.

This Siyou Xunlan (a type of carriage) is modeled after the carriages of the Five Ghost Emperors, but it does not possess the true supernatural powers of the Siyou Xunlan. The carriage cannot fly, and there is no inner universe inside; it is just a small space where one can reach out and touch the window.

The other imperial advisor, who was sitting in the carriage, spoke up.

Are you afraid?

Yang Lingnan did not reply, but simply pulled down the curtains of the car window.

The vehicle continued forward and then stopped after a while. The driver spoke at the door.

"Your Majesty, we have arrived."

Yang Lingnan straightened his clothes and got out of the car, followed by the National Preceptor, who was wearing an old Taoist robe.

Outside the car was the front gate of a palace, above which were three large characters written in a flamboyant style: "Imperial Study."

Several eunuchs came out of the imperial study and bowed to Yang Lingnan.

"Your Majesty, the Great God has been waiting in the study for a long time."

Yang Lingnan's imposing expression, though not angry, slowly tightened, then gradually relaxed.

Jiufeng had practically watched him grow up, but Yang Lingnan always felt uncomfortable around her, especially after that incident. He knew that if he didn't want to see Jiufeng, he would never go to see her.

Unfortunately, there are some things in this world that you can't escape, no matter how hard you try.

Yang Lingnan walked in front, followed by the Imperial Preceptor, and the two entered the Imperial Study together.

After passing through the front yard where a thousand-year-old locust tree grows, Yang Lingnan opened the door to his study.

The study was brightly lit, with more than a dozen bookshelves neatly arranged. Jiufeng stood in front of one of the bookshelves, holding a copy of the Tao Te Ching and flipping through it.

Yang Lingnan, the Imperial Advisor, immediately felt a chill run down his spine, and his heart began to race.

"Great God..."

Yang Lingnan bowed to Jiu Feng.

As the king of Chu, Yang Lingnan could face the Nine Phoenixes directly without kneeling.

Jiufeng closed the book in her hand and put it back on the bookshelf.

"Xiao Nan is back..."