Fu Ling’s mind whirled as she thought about how to respond. Immediately, she heard Li Yunxian say smoothly, “Oh, then since we’re here, it’s a good time to pay our respects.”
Fu Ling: “?”
Was that an appropriate way to respond?
The answer was yes.
Because Su Wenjing spoke with a natural expression, “There’s no need. I collected their bodies later and put them in my space.”
“Your Innate Divine Ability is really useful,” Li Yunxian praised. “It’s quite convenient.”
Fu Ling: …
Convenient for what? Convenient for paying respects?
This joke was way too dark!!
But that wasn’t the main point.
Fu Ling processed their conversation, looking back and forth between Li Yunxian and Su Wenjing with wonder in her eyes.
“Are you two that close?” Fu Ling was completely surprised.
In her understanding, Su Wenjing was a rather solitary figure among the top players in all of Shenzhou.
“I’m very good at making friends,” Li Yunxian replied with a grin. Then she looked down at the base of the cliff and changed the subject. “It looks quite empty down there. It shouldn’t be hard to find your Marker.”
Fu Ling chuckled, “You’ll see once we go down.”
Li Yunxian sensed there was more to Fu Ling’s words—there was likely something hidden down there.
But it didn’t matter.
Li Yunxian stepped forward boldly and directly, “Then let’s go down and take a look.”
Seeing Li Yunxian’s fearless and straightforward attitude, Fu Ling couldn’t help but smile.
She had lingered on the cliff for so long to be mindful of Li Yunxian’s feelings, letting her adjust mentally.
As it turned out… the other girl was even more proactive than she was.
She liked this kind of decisive personality.
“Alright, let’s go.” Fu Ling followed.
Back when Li Yunxian was in the Qi Refining Stage, she had dared to jump off a cliff in a Secret Realm to fight a Golden Core along with her classmates.
Now that she was a Golden Core herself, the height of this cliff was no different from flat ground to her.
***
The moment she landed, Li Yunxian felt the light before her eyes shift faintly, and the entire world suddenly grew dim.
It wasn’t pitch black, however, but rather a hazy gray.
The whistling wind whipped past Li Yunxian’s ears, kicking up dust. All around were the clinking and clanging sounds of objects colliding.
Metal? Wood chips? Or perhaps plastic?
In short, items of various materials were making noise in large clusters.
It sounded like sobbing and complaining.
This place was entirely a desolate junkyard.
Fu Ling and Su Wenjing landed immediately behind Li Yunxian.
“Are all of these Markers?” Li Yunxian’s voice was filled with shock. “There are so many!”
When looking from above the cliff, the entire plain seemed to have nothing. Once they descended, they discovered the actual area of the Heaven’s Ruins was even broader than that plain.
Masses of trash were either scattered or piled into mountains, stretching as far as the eye could see.
“Don’t forget how many Cultivators there are in this world,” Fu Ling remarked.
She had come to this place countless times, returning empty-handed every time.
Opportunities and fate were truly frustrating things.
If it weren’t for that, Fu Ling wouldn’t have pinned her hopes of finding her Marker on Li Yunxian’s special ability.
She wouldn’t have asked her to come if it weren’t a difficult task.
Li Yunxian adapted to this quite well.
“What does your Marker look like?” Li Yunxian asked curiously.
“I don’t know,” Fu Ling replied.
Li Yunxian: …
Well, that wasn’t unexpected.
“Then how do you judge if the Marker you find is yours?” Li Yunxian asked again.
Fu Ling said, “It’s said there will be a very familiar feeling.”
Li Yunxian asked, “Is it possible to misjudge?”
Fu Ling’s expression became melancholic. “Yes. If you misjudge and take someone else’s Marker into your body, you’ll be killed or severely injured.”
Li Yunxian: …
Looking at that expression, it seemed Fu Ling was very experienced in this.
Li Yunxian coughed lightly and stopped mentioning Fu Ling’s sad past, turning her gaze toward the distance.
She immediately saw the Creepy things they had discussed on the cliff.
Those things were bizarrely shaped; each looked different, and their cultivation levels varied as well.
In Li Yunxian’s perception, within the range of her Divine Sense, the lowest ones were at the Nascent Soul Stage, while the high ones were even Creepy entities at the Dacheng stage.
No wonder when Fu Ling first invited her, she said to wait until Li Yunxian reached the Nascent Soul Stage.
However, these Creepy entities had no autonomous consciousness and drifted aimlessly.
Just as Fu Ling had said, whenever they encountered anything along the way, they would manifest blades and burn whatever blocked them into ashes.
Li Yunxian watched several Markers disappear into the Void. She paused and asked Fu Ling again, “What happens in a situation like that? Do you just accept the bad luck?”
Fu Ling shook her head. “Unless the person dies, the Marker won’t disappear. The Creepy entities doing that just causes the Marker to respawn in another location.”
This was indeed good news.
Li Yunxian had come this time to find the two fragments of her Divine Soul that had exploded previously. If she accidentally encountered these drifting Creepy entities…
Li Yunxian recalled her own luck…
She felt the possibility was quite high.
Thinking of this, Li Yunxian felt a headache coming on regarding her luck.
She wondered what her Divine Soul would turn into.
The information that “it would feel familiar” was simply too vague and subjective; there was no way to make a judgment based on that.
Furthermore, when Fu Ling said those things, Su Wenjing didn’t add anything, so the actual situation was likely as simple as Fu Ling described.
Sigh, she hated anything that relied on luck!
Why was it that the higher one’s cultivation, the fewer fights there were!
Everyone shouldn’t be so peaceful!
Li Yunxian looked a bit depressed, and then Fu Ling’s surprised voice drifted into her ears.
“When did a tree appear in the Heaven’s Ruins?!” Fu Ling looked into the distance with total amazement.
Hearing this, Li Yunxian looked up and followed the direction of Fu Ling’s gaze.
After seeing that tree clearly, Li Yunxian: …
Li Yunxian: …
She closed her eyes.
She couldn’t believe her eyes.
She hoped what she was seeing was a hallucination.
What entered Li Yunxian’s sight was a tall Ginkgo tree.
The branches, the height, even the texture on it were all extremely familiar to Li Yunxian.
She would rather not be so familiar with it.
Just a moment ago, Li Yunxian was worried she wouldn’t find it; now, she’d rather worry about not finding it.
This was too smooth!
How could it be so smooth for her!!
The scene before her practically had “death trap” written on her forehead.
With a wooden face, Li Yunxian resolutely chose to act like she hadn’t seen it, responding to Fu Ling’s surprise with a forced smile. “…It must be a Marker generated by a new Cultivator. It’s nothing strange.”
Fu Ling frowned, disagreeing with Li Yunxian. “Impossible. While Markers of high-cultivation individuals aren’t necessarily large, a very large Marker definitely belongs to someone with high cultivation.”
“I’ve been to the Heaven’s Ruins five or six times, and most Cultivators’ Markers don’t look this full of life. If this tree had existed in the past, even as a sapling, I would definitely remember it.”
Fu Ling chattered on, “Could some Other Race be doing something behind our backs…”
Li Yunxian put on an innocent look and didn’t respond to Fu Ling’s conspiracy theory. Instead, she turned to Su Wenjing and asked, “What are you here to find? Is it also a Marker? Have you found it?”
Su Wenjing was very familiar with Li Yunxian’s expressions; one look and he knew she was changing the subject.
The Ginkgo tree…
Li Yunxian…
Plus Fu Ling’s words…
Su Wenjing had already guessed something.
After glancing at Li Yunxian a few times, Su Wenjing said nothing and honestly followed Li Yunxian’s lead, answering, “Yes, I saw it at a glance.”
Su Wenjing raised his hand and pointed into the distance. “That mountain is it.”
What other people’s Markers looked like was very significant for reference.
Upon hearing this, Fu Ling immediately looked up and followed Su Wenjing’s hand.
“Does that mountain have any special meaning to you?” Fu Ling inquired.
Su Wenjing answered directly, “My home.”
Fu Ling: …
That was indeed very familiar and significant…
But it had absolutely no reference value.
Fu Ling didn’t feel like any house she owned was particularly important to her.
“Since we’ve found it, there’s no rush. Let’s walk around first,” Li Yunxian suggested.
For the time being, Li Yunxian didn’t want to meet her own Marker.
Su Wenjing hummed in response, offering no objection.
Fu Ling certainly wouldn’t object either; she enthusiastically led Li Yunxian forward. “Yeah, let’s look around. There are quite a few good things in the Heaven’s Ruins.”
“This used to be an ancient battlefield. The things left behind randomly by those fallen ancient Cultivators would be treasures today. If we run into any later, I’ll give them all to you—”
Before she could finish, they turned a corner, and a floating—or rather, a Creepy entity—suddenly appeared before them.
And it was a Dacheng stage Creepy entity.
Fu Ling: …
What kind of ‘falling in love at the corner’ is this!!!
She almost spat out a mouthful of blood.
The environment in the Heaven’s Ruins was eerie, and the space was strange; it wasn’t uncommon to step into another area with a random stride.
Furthermore, Cultivators like them could perform the divine ability of Shrinking Earth to an Inch, and the Creepy entities could naturally do the same.
This was why the Heaven’s Ruins was so fraught with danger.
But…
They hadn’t even been in the Heaven’s Ruins for ten minutes!!
And they were facing a Dacheng stage entity right off the bat!
Was this appropriate?!
Was this reasonable?!
Without a word, Fu Ling reached out with lightning speed, grabbed Li Yunxian, and retreated a step without stopping, vanishing instantly from where they stood.
Su Wenjing, who was left behind in the blink of an eye to face the maddened Creepy entity: …
Li Yunxian, who already had her Starfire Sword in hand and was ready for battle: …
Only Fu Ling’s eyes were bright, her face full of confidence. She said to Li Yunxian with great pride, “See? I told you, if you come to the Heaven’s Ruins with me and stay by my side, I can definitely protect you!”
Fu Ling was a Body Cultivator.
Her reactions and speed were top-tier!
Li Yunxian paused for a moment and reminded her tactfully, “…Su Wenjing, he’ll be okay, right?”
As the words fell, Su Wenjing appeared beside them, his clothes slightly disheveled.
“…I’m fine,” Su Wenjing replied.
Fu Ling coughed; she felt a bit guilty about abandoning Su Wenjing.
However, when facing the Dacheng stage, that was the best choice.
Between the three of them, they naturally had to protect Li Yunxian, who was only a Golden Core.
“This should just be an accident. There aren’t many Creepy entities above the Dacheng stage in the Heaven’s Ruins. As long as we don’t encounter another Dacheng—”
Before Fu Ling could finish, another Creepy entity floated out in front of her.
Yes.
No surprise, no accident.
Dacheng stage.
Fu Ling: …