Chapter 311: Rippling Waves
With a thought, Ye Wenxin instructed, "Sister Xuan, please turn left."
Xuan Luofei hesitated, puzzled, but followed Ye Wenxin's direction, turning to face the wall. Jin Xiaoqin and Long Qing'er halted, frowning at Ye Wenxin's seemingly mischievous behavior.
Even a blind person deserves the respect afforded to anyone else. Jin Xiaoqin was about to reprimand Ye Wenxin when Ye Wenxin signaled for silence, adding, "Keep walking forward until I tell you to stop."
Though confused, Xuan Luofei trusted Ye Wenxin and took a bold step forward. In an instant, she vanished into the wall, as if she had walked through it.
Jin Xiaoqin and Long Qing'er were dumbfounded, unable to comprehend how this was possible. Ye Wenxin took a deep breath, touched the wall, and mentally repeated, "This is the way." To her amazement, she too passed through.
Once inside, she was met by a fixed, ghastly face on the wall. Her strong will kept her focused; otherwise, she might have succumbed to fear and perished there. Steeling herself, she moved forward and soon emerged into the world within the wall.
It was a desolate, lonely city shrouded in black mist, with eerie green lights dotting the landscape, reminiscent of scenes from ghost stories. In the distance, she spotted Xuan Luofei, who had stopped, sensing the change in her surroundings.
"We're inside now," Ye Wenxin announced, pulling Xuan Luofei into a corner. "I'll go back to guide them in. Will you be okay alone?"
Xuan Luofei smiled, sitting down in a poised posture to play her guqin, conveying her fearlessness against any lurking threats. Ye Wenxin considered, then handed her a spiritual talisman before slipping back through the wall the way she had come.
Unlike Ye Wenxin's adaptive thinking, it took Jin Xiaoqin and Long Qing'er some time to adjust to the method. After a stick of incense worth of time, they too successfully entered the wall.
"I never would have guessed that was the way through," Jin Xiaoqin remarked.
"Is there some kind of mechanism in the wall?" Long Qing'er wondered.
Ye Wenxin explained, "I've heard that secret realms reflect a cultivator's mindset. This predecessor's heart was dark, hence the ominous content. I think the wall isn't a real barrier but a metaphor for this cultivator's mental block."
Though her explanation was complicated, the others grasped only the essence: the secret realm's difficulty was significant. Ye Wenxin felt a pang of fatigue at the communication gap between her and the people of this world, missing the days when Long Qingyue was around to bridge that divide.
"No matter the difficulty, we have to do something now that we're inside. We can't just sit for a month," Long Qing'er, eager to prove herself after the embarrassment at the Immortal Sect Conference, insisted.
Ye Wenxin observed her but refrained from commenting on her youthful eagerness. Jin Xiaoqin mused, "Indeed, we can't leave empty-handed. This secret realm is peculiar, yet as cultivators, it's our duty to fight evil. But with this thick fog, we're as blind as Xuan Luofei. Let's wait until dawn to plan."
Surrounded by dense, chilling mist, Jin Xiaoqin proposed the most cautious approach.
Xuan Luofei nodded slightly, "No, I'm in a different state. I can sense objects. Let me lead the way." Her fingers danced over the guqin strings, producing sounds that turned into golden qi, forming a protective aura around them.
