Chapter 1797: Do You Know Me?

"Lord Supervisor!"

Just as Tan Qigong’s curses left his mouth, a somewhat timid voice followed. When he turned toward the sound, he saw that it was the Third Elder of the Emperor Palace.

No one knew where this Third Elder, who was only at the Heavenly Realm Late Stage, had been hiding earlier; he had actually not been discovered by Yun Xiao, who had left the hall first. Otherwise, Tan Qigong believed that with that youth’s ruthlessness, this Third Elder’s life would likely not have been preserved.

"You little bastard, I, Tan Qigong, swear I will make you pay a hundredfold for what you did today!"

Looking at the mere handful of Emperor Palace Elders left at his side, Tan Qigong felt as if his heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys were about to explode, and he could not help but let out a venomous snarl.

Tan Qigong had originally come brimming with ambition, leading many Elders of the Emperor Palace, intending to find the Treasures within the Murong Tomb to curry favor with the Empress Canglong, so that his own status could be raised yet another step.

He had never expected that, through one moment of carelessness, they would encounter a young man named Yun Xiao, and in the end, among all the Emperor Palace Elders, only the three of them remained. This was truly a devastating loss.

In Murong City, the Emperor Palace had been so imposing; all these years they had pointed and commanded at will, and no one had ever dared to provoke them lightly. Who could have known that a single provocation this time would almost annihilate them.

Shocked as he was, Tan Qigong could not help speculating about Yun Xiao’s origins. Such a stunning, peerless genius he had never seen before, especially not in this remote Northern Domain.

"Could that boy be a descendant of the Murong Family?"

Once Tan Qigong started thinking, his mind ran wild. He made this conjecture only because this place was the Murong Tomb, yet he subconsciously forgot that many of the methods that youth had just displayed were greatly different from the Murong Family’s signature techniques.

"Let’s go!"

After once more glancing back at the collapsed Spirit Hall, Tan Qigong felt stifled and had no desire to remain here any longer, for within the ruins of that Spirit Hall lay the corpses of the Emperor Palace Elders.

Under Tan Qigong’s lead, the only two Elders remaining followed closely behind, their expressions incomparably wary, fearing that terrifying youth might suddenly appear again. If a sword-light flashed, their lives might be taken in an instant.

Toward that youth, though the two Elders were seething with anger, a boundless fear had arisen out of nowhere, especially the Great Elder, Ruan Buwei, who secretly felt it was sheer luck he had survived.

Earlier, Ruan Buwei had lived purely by luck; even at his peak, he had not been able to withstand even a single kick from Yun Xiao. Now, severely injured, he likely had no strength left to fight back at all against that youth.

Fortunately, along the way they ultimately did not see so much as a shadow of that coarse-clothed youth; instead, they saw some Cultivators who had entered this Underground Palace later, performing movements with which they were very familiar.

Before one Spirit Hall, a Meridian Refining Master at the Heavenly Realm Middle Stage walked toward the hall doors, his face filled with excitement. Yet just as he pushed the hall doors open a crack, a sudden change occurred.

Swish!

A sharp sound of something tearing through the air rang out, and immediately afterward, that Meridian Refining Master at the Heavenly Realm Middle Stage followed in the footsteps of the Emperor Palace Elder from before, his chest pierced by an Unfeathered Arrow as he died.

Even the Emperor Palace Elders had been unable to avoid those hidden arrows; although this overly excited Meridian Refining Master could withstand the poison in the lake water above, his own Cultivation was somewhat inferior. To meet such an end could be said to be only natural.

For a time, among the many Meridian Refining Masters who had managed to avoid the poisonous lake water above by sheer luck and entered this Underground Palace, nearly half died at the doors of the various Spirit Halls.

Strictly speaking, those Unfeathered Arrows were not anything particularly remarkable; it was just that they struck unexpectedly, coupled with their astonishing speed, making them impossible to guard against.

Every Cultivator who saw a Spirit Hall would become incomparably excited, and under such circumstances, if they did not maintain vigilance, their fate would likely be no different.

Rumble!

A moment later, one of the great halls seemed to have been struck by some tremendous force and, without the slightest warning, suddenly collapsed, trapping inside a Heavenly Realm Late Stage Cultivator who had just entered, leaving him no chance to escape.

Obviously, that Cultivator who had managed to enter the great hall by luck had encountered the same situation as the few from the Emperor Palace earlier, or perhaps, after entering, he had tried to disturb the remains of the Murong Family’s successive Clan Leaders, and thus suffered this calamity.

In order to protect those remains from being desecrated, the ancestors of the Murong Family had likely set up a series of measures, preferring that the remains be buried beneath the ruins of the great hall rather than fall into villainous hands.

In this Murong Tomb, which no one had entered for countless years, Spirit Halls collapsed one after another. What was worth noting was that the collapse of these great halls left not a single one of the Heavenly Realm experts who entered them able to escape.

There had never been many Meridian Refining Masters capable of resisting the poisonous lake water above, and now, with more than half dying within this Murong Tomb, the losses could be said to be catastrophic. By comparison, the fact that the Emperor Palace still had three people left could be considered a stroke of misfortune within fortune.

However, in Tan Qigong’s heart, he bore not the slightest hatred toward this Murong Tomb; all his mind was set on was finding that coarse-clothed brat Yun Xiao and tearing him into ten thousand pieces, yet he could never succeed.

......

Swoosh!

Deep within the Murong Tomb, a gray figure flashed past—it was Yun Xiao, who had just sped away from Murong Huchen’s Spirit Hall—yet his eyes were fixed on a small plaza not far ahead.

As for the collapse of those Spirit Halls behind him, Yun Xiao naturally could also sense it, but at this moment he would not bother with it; since the Murong Tomb had already revealed itself before the world, perhaps such a calamity was destined to happen anyway, and what mattered more to him now was to search for the possibly still-existing Murong Sou.

Right now, not far in front of Yun Xiao, there was a plaza that was not very large, and there were none of those so-called Spirit Halls that had appeared earlier; at a glance, it looked like a completely empty, ordinary plaza.

The reason Yun Xiao’s heart stirred was because on this small plaza, there was a figure sitting cross-legged, and around this figure’s body, there coiled some peculiar and uncanny aura.

"Murong Sou, I’ve finally found you!"

Yun Xiao’s eyesight was extraordinary, and his Power of Soul had long since broken through to the Half-step Holy Rank; with just a glance he could see that it was an old man. At once, a gleam flashed in his eyes, and he muttered under his breath.

As it turned out, the old man sitting cross-legged in the center of that plaza was precisely Murong Sou, the first one to enter Yingrong Lake earlier. As a Holy Vein Three Realms expert and a member of the Murong Family, he simply ignored the deadly poison within the lake.

Because Murong Sou had previously hidden himself among a crowd of Ordinary Cultivators when entering the lake, even Tan Qi and the others did not realize there was one more person at the bottom of the lake; they all believed those cultivators who had entered the lake ahead of them had been completely poisoned to death.

Although Murong Sou had never entered this Murong Tomb before, as a descendant of the Murong Family, there was a strange kind of sensing hidden in his bloodline, so that he did not enter those earlier Spirit Halls, but instead came straight to this place.

Only, just as Murong Sou arrived on this plaza guided by that sensing, he discovered a special force that, without the slightest warning, bound him in place, forcing him to sit cross-legged here.

Fortunately, although that force was strange and powerful and bound Murong Sou so tightly he could not move, it seemed to cause no harm to him at all; instead, it was pouring a subtle power into his body.

This power was extremely familiar to Murong Sou; it appeared to share the same origin as the Bloodline Power deep within his body. He knew that this time might well be his great Creation.

At this moment Murong Sou’s body indeed could not move, but his mind was incomparably clear, so he saw, at the first moment, a coarse-clothed youth approaching, and a sharp light immediately flashed in his eyes.

"Youth, this is not a place you should come to. Leave at once!"

Murong Sou knew his current condition, yet he put on an air of complete nonchalance. As for an outsider appearing within the Murong Tomb, he was not overly shocked, but instead uttered a voice of admonition.

Since the Murong Tomb had emitted that kind of signal, Murong Sou believed that relying on the poisonous lake water above alone could probably only block some Ordinary Cultivators.

For certain Meridian Refining Masters who specialized in venom or in Detoxification Skill, that toxic lake water might hinder them for a while, but could not keep them out forever; eventually, people would still find their way into this Underground Palace beneath the lake.

It was just that a dignified Holy Vein Three Realms expert, because of the changes in this plaza, was now unable to move and could only rely on words to try to drive away those who came here; one had to admit this was a sort of sorrow.

Yet for Murong Sou, who had already fallen into a certain state, he truly had no deterrent power over these outsiders. Even though he knew this plaza might possess some mechanism that would protect him, he still did not want too many unexpected variables to appear.

"Relax, I’m not interested in the things inside this Murong Tomb. I entered here only to find you and take back a few things!"

Looking at that Murong Family expert who had been quite familiar to him in his previous life, Yun Xiao forcibly suppressed that trace of odd feeling in his heart. The calm words out of his mouth caused the gleam in Murong Sou’s eyes to grow even more intense.

"Youth, you know me?"

This time Murong Sou was truly taken aback. One must know that for all these years he had lived under a false name, even using medicinal drugs to alter his appearance, all for fear of being discovered by the Emperor Canglong Palace.

Furthermore, Murong Sou was a Holy Vein Three Realms expert; in a place like Drunken Immortal City, no one would dare to provoke him lightly. Even a force as powerful as the Emperor Palace had enough self-awareness to tread carefully.

Who would have thought that now, deep within this Murong Tomb, a small youth who had appeared out of nowhere would speak with him as if they were old acquaintances of many years—Murong Sou could not, no matter how he thought about it, make sense of this.

But what Murong Sou could be sure of was that he had absolutely never met this coarse-clothed youth before. Then what could this youth possibly have left in his possession? In his heart, countless doubts and curiosities suddenly arose.

After living alone for many years, Murong Sou’s old friends had long since ceased all contact with him, and people like Manager Zhou of the Drunken Immortal Restaurant had no idea of his true identity. This youth before his eyes only seemed more and more inexplicable the longer he looked at him.