Chapter Ninety-Two: The Impassable Chasm

When Lu Chenyuan said this, a guard of the Demon Suppression Bureau at his side frowned and was about to rebuke him, thinking, “You look like some frail lad with no strength to restrain a chicken. What would you know of the foul current’s miasma?”

Yet just as the words reached his lips, he remembered that this man was Mistress Lin’s “friend,” and could only swallow his contempt down hard. His face turned rather ugly with the effort.

What startled him even more was that, out of the corner of his eye, he saw that both the elegant Young Master Chu and even their own haughty Mistress Lin had remained perfectly calm after hearing the youth’s words, as though he had merely spoken some commonplace truth.

Before he could think further, he witnessed an even more unbelievable scene.

The mistress from the Demon Suppression Bureau headquarters in the Divine Capital knit her delicate brows and, almost instinctively, asked, “Sir... Lord Lu, do you have any other discoveries?”

She had meant to address him as “senior” at first, but on second thought, since he was willing to humble himself by working here in the inn, he must not wish to reveal his identity before others.

If she blurted it out and angered this temperamental elder, the consequences would be dire.

Thinking of this, the word “senior” on her lips was forcibly changed to “young master.”

Lu Chenyuan slowly shook his head. Although he could sense the lingering traces of the foul current, he could not discern the mystery within it.

Shangguan Chuci had also secretly kindled the fire of reason within her. Under the illumination of her inner flame, the chaotic energies here were disordered and mixed beyond measure, yet she too could not find anything of real use. She only felt that compared with Lu Chenyuan, she was still somewhat inferior in matters of the foul current.

Suddenly she thought of something. Her gaze fell upon the glass palace lantern, a foot or so high, cradled in Lin Jianyan’s arms, and she suggested, “Mistress Lin, your method of investigation is truly marvelous. Why not use the technique of extinguishing the lamp and observe once more?”

When Lin Jianyan heard this, her delicate oval face could not help but pale slightly.

She had thought she had already overcome that fear born of her supernatural power, but after last night’s evil puppet affair, she understood that it had all been self-deception.

Now, to ask her to snuff out this protective flame of her heart and once again enter that strange and uncanny inner world, she truly felt a lingering dread.

When Shangguan Chuci saw her expression, she immediately understood, and could not help feeling somewhat guilty.

With that in mind, she sighed softly and said, “Mistress Lin, that was presumptuous of me. I only thought of borrowing the mistress’s divine sight to get to the bottom of it, and forgot that the price of this power must ultimately be borne by you alone. My suggestion was rather like standing and speaking without pain.”

Lin Jianyan had not expected her to apologize for this, and warmth spread through her heart. Even her fear seemed to lessen by a degree.

She shook her head, and in her eyes there now appeared a firmness she had never shown before.

“Young Master Chu speaks too gravely. Since I bear this ability, and the people of Zhenhai River are in mortal peril, how could I shirk my duty out of private concern?”

Having said this, she no longer hesitated. She gently placed the glass palace lantern upon the sand, then reached into the broad sleeve of her robe and took out several pieces of sesame candy. After unwrapping them, she put them into her mouth.

As the sweetness melted upon her tongue, it seemed to become courage itself. Only then did she slowly exhale and crouch down.

With jade-like fingers, she lightly grasped and turned the mechanism.

Within the palace lantern, the milky-white flame waned from brilliance to weakness, from brightness to dimness, until at last all radiance was gone.

At the very instant the lamp went dark, two points of pale flame ignited in her pupils as well.

Her black uniform stirred without wind, sleeves drifting as though she had gained an indescribable aura of mystery.

The brother and sister stared dumbfounded, both thinking, “What manner of power is this? To externalize the flame of the heart into a magical instrument, and to open and close it at will?”

Lin Jianyan rose slowly. Her eyes, burning with pale flame, looked toward the place where the monstrous fish had been stranded.

At that very instant, the moment she looked, she felt her soul suddenly plunge, as though she had fallen at once into an endless abyss beneath the sea, surrounded by a bone-chilling cold and boundless darkness.

Within that faint light, countless shadows like colossal beasts drifted slowly through the deep waters on all sides. An indescribable pressure emanated from those shadows, causing her soul to tremble and nearly shatter on the spot.

Yet within this deep and terrifying darkness, there was one mass of light that stood out above all else.

At first glance, that radiance appeared pure and gentle, like the tears of a merfolk or the pearl of a dragon king, the only illumination in this dreadful abyss.

Lin Jianyan’s mind was seized by it, and she unconsciously drove the pale fire in her pupils to its limit, wanting to see clearly.

But this one look showed her a hellish scene she would never, for the rest of her life, be able to forget.

What was that if not a night pearl?

It was clearly countless human heads, gathered together by some viscous and slimy gelatinous substance, writhing endlessly. The faint glow they emitted was the light of the souls that still had not yet dispersed from those heads.

Just as her mind was about to be completely crushed by this infernal sight—

At the very center of that mass of light, one head suddenly turned toward her!

Its gaze pierced across the realms of illusion and reality and locked dead upon hers.

She recognized those eyes.

They were the same merfolk whose head had been severed at noon in the fish market by Ling Jue’s blade.

Those eyes still held the astonishment and pain from the moment of decapitation.

And now, it had also recognized Lin Jianyan.

Its pupils contracted sharply. Then, the gelatinous matter around those eyes suddenly split apart, becoming a gaping maw that screamed in silence as it lunged fiercely toward Lin Jianyan’s soul!

...

In the blink of an eye, Lu Chenyuan only felt that the cloth doll that should have been lying quietly against his chest had trembled ever so slightly.

And at that very instant, a vast and overwhelming aura of the foul current had already drawn near, as though it meant to swallow the young girl’s soul completely.

Lu Chenyuan’s brows could not help but knit tightly.

He sensed that the girl’s current state might not be able to withstand such a dreadful erosion by the foul current.

He ought to do something.

Suddenly, an image flashed through his mind: the extinguished flame inside the girl’s palace lantern.

There must be fire.

He had no flame of the heart, but in that ink-wash world, there was one.

Through the rather worn layer of coarse cloth, he pressed lightly, then firmly, upon the restless doll.

Immediately after, he drove the ink-wash flame within his body, the one that did not belong to him, to its utmost extremity.

At the same time, he extended his right hand, already transformed by the path of becoming into something with a dreadful scarlet eye growing from it, and simply thrust it out.

Like an impassable heavenly chasm, it stood before the girl.

...

Lin Jianyan’s world had long since been swallowed by the boundless deep sea and its bone-deep cold.

She watched helplessly as the mass of light made of countless human heads, as the face she had personally seen be severed in daylight, became a gaping mouth that lunged to tear at her.

She wanted to flee, but her body seemed frozen stiff, unable to move even a fraction.

She wanted to cry out, but her throat seemed filled with molten lead, not allowing a single sound.

Just when she believed death was certain, and that her meager cultivation, together with her pitiful share of the seven emotions and six desires, would become nothing more than a trivial morsel in the belly of the monster—

A shadow rose abruptly before her without warning.

At first, that shadow was merely a human shape; yet the instant it appeared, it began to twist and recombine with a kind of madness that admitted no reason whatsoever.

In the end, it became an arm.

An arm wrought from ink and flame, bristling with countless scarlet demonic eyes that slowly opened and shut.

The ghastly maw of jagged teeth halted three feet from that demonic arm.

The greed and frenzy that could devour all things had, before this single arm, become something indescribable: fear and disbelief.

It let out a shriek of utmost agony.

Then, the enormous maw formed from the vast foul current collapsed in an instant, like a sand tower stripped of its foundation.

The maw burst into countless fragments of flesh.

Then became a skyful of foul current.

Everything, the instant it struck the ink-flame arm, was like a furious wave crashing against a cliff of ten thousand fathoms.

In that single moment, it shattered into pieces and scattered into nothingness in all directions.

At last, all the terror before the girl’s eyes dissolved into countless mixed strands of foul current, gradually dispersing between heaven and earth.