“But no alliance can withstand the lure of profit. My cultivation is low, so I don’t know what happened back then. I only know that Silent Night Palace and the Nine Spirits Sect fell out, and in his rage, the Palace Lord directly attacked the Nine Spirits Sect, smashing their entire sect gate and inheritance into the void…”
Le Qingping’s eyes flickered as she said slowly, “To prevent the Nine Spirits Sect’s inheritance from reappearing in the world, the Palace Lord specially gathered Ten Thousand Year Black Stone from the deep sea of the southern domain and refined it into a Sealing Stone to eternally suppress the Nine Spirits.”
She pointed at that pitch-black stone monument. “That should be it.”
At this point, Le Qingping glanced at Xie Linlang’s expression and tried to speak in a lighthearted tone. “Actually, the elders in the palace had some complaints about the Palace Lord’s actions. They felt that smashing the Nine Spirits Sect into the void was a tremendous waste.”
She hemmed and hawed, “According to rumors in the sect, the Palace Lord lost his head at the time, and the others in the palace didn’t have a chance to loot the Nine Spirits Sect’s treasures. Since I’ve been fortunate enough to come here, Senior, what do you think about…”
Xie Linlang: “Under normal circumstances, what you find is yours, and what I find is mine. But I need to look for things related to Senior Brother, so to avoid conflict, we’ll search together.”
Le Qingping: “……”
The two proceeded one after the other across the open ground in front of the Inheritance Hall.
The area was pitted and uneven, littered with all sorts of battle traces. Besides the heaven-scorching Demonic Qi and the maddening demon power, faint traces of spiritual power from Nine Spirits Sect cultivators remained.
Xie Linlang ignored the Demonic Qi and demon power; his main target for detection was that faint spiritual power. He needed to discern and seek out traces left by Pei Ji.
Unfortunately, by the time they reached the collapsed steps, Xie Linlang had found nothing.
Le Qingping, on the other hand, held a jade bottle and collected three bottles of the black liquid clearly left from wounds torn open during a demon beast battle.
Le Qingping politely asked if Xie Linlang wanted any, but he was in a foul mood and declined. Le Qingping happily put them away.
Xie Linlang entered the Nine Spirits Sect’s Inheritance Hall.
The last time he came, the hall had been solemn and majestic, with a scroll left by the founding ancestor placed at the front. The altar held various spirit items and offerings, while statues of renowned sect predecessors stood on either side.
The specific inheritance sites and how the sect’s secret methods were passed down were the Nine Spirits Sect’s secrets, of course, and Xie Linlang had no right to know.
But now, the Inheritance Hall had undergone a drastic transformation.
Forget the founding ancestor’s portrait and statues—even the murals on both sides had been hacked down, leaving only bare walls.
The hall was empty, with Demonic Qi darting about like frenzied little birds, still faithfully carrying out its master’s intent: to utterly destroy everything here.
Xie Linlang was shocked. He instinctively glanced at Le Qingping.
Le Qingping drew in a sharp breath and murmured, “No wonder the palace elders were so angry. The Palace Lord… destroyed it all too thoroughly…”
Through the main door of the Inheritance Hall, they could clearly see that the back door of the hall stood wide open, while a massive round hole had been brutally smashed into the center of the vaulted ceiling.
It was as if something had once hung there but had been rudely yanked down and thrown away.
No light fell from above, for black-purple Demonic Qi had formed a surging barrier, sealing everything within the hall tight.
Xie Linlang’s gaze fell to the center of the hall.
This area was the most thoroughly destroyed; the ground had been excavated into a pit about ten meters deep. Looking down from the hall entrance, one could vaguely see the ashes piled in the pit, clearly burned to slag.
Xie Linlang pondered briefly, then removed the Bamboo Heart Jade Soul Embroidered Ball hanging from the Lotus Root Rope and tossed it lightly outward.
The next second, the embroidered ball seemed to be buoyed by an invisible force. It floated lightly above the deep pit, and then piercing screams echoed throughout the entire hall.
These were not the screams and wails of a single person, but the death throes of many people, many cultivators, and many demon beasts.
The wails converged into a spike that stabbed straight into Xie Linlang and Le Qingping’s minds.
Both felt their heads split with pain and instinctively retreated to the steps outside the hall.
Xie Linlang vaguely heard curses, pleas for mercy, and agonized cries mixed into those wails.
But he couldn’t make out the specific words being shouted.
The Bamboo Heart Jade Soul could soothe souls and condense spirits, and to a certain extent, appease wronged souls and malicious ghosts.
However, Xie Linlang hadn’t expected the black pit below to be an incineration pit where many cultivators and demon beasts had been burned alive to ash.
Though the Bamboo Heart Jade Soul was excellent material, the refining technique was too poor, and with Xie Linlang’s low cultivation, he couldn’t fully unleash the spirit item’s effects. He still had to endure the hatred and curses within the embroidered ball.
Xie Linlang decisively cut off the connection between the Demonic Qi and the embroidered ball.
With a crisp crack, the Bamboo Heart Jade Soul Embroidered Ball developed over a dozen cracks, then was battered by the frenzied little birds formed of Demonic Qi until it shattered into scattered fragments that vanished into the air.
Xie Linlang’s face paled, while Le Qingping was still shaken.
After a long while, Le Qingping said softly, “The Palace Lord is a Tribulation Transcendence Realm powerhouse. The battle traces he left… are not something we can touch right now. Let’s go around it.”
Xie Linlang was silent for a long time before nodding. “Alright.”
The instant he turned, he suddenly asked Le Qingping, “What is the Silent Night Palace Lord’s given name?”
Le Qingping shook her head. “Every generation of Palace Lord is honored as the Silent Night Demon Venerable. I don’t know the Palace Lord’s personal name.”
Xie Linlang said no more.
…Perhaps he had misheard.
Amid those curses, it seemed someone was cursing “Pei Little Chicken”?
(TL: “镇” (zhèn) means “suppress” or “镇压(Zhenya-suppression / repression)” in a sealing context; “Pei Xiao Ji” (裴霁) sounds like “Pei Little Chicken” (裴小鸡), a pun on the name.)
