The four of them pooled seventy-eight Qintian Stones. Mo Wuji didn’t use them all, returning ten to each, and used thirty-eight to refine thirty-eight array flags.
Once the thirty-eight Qintian array flags were crafted, Lan Xiaobu immediately set up a tracing array.
As soon as the tracing array was formed, a fork appeared on the previously empty Qintian Ancient Road.
Since entering the road, they had never seen a fork. Its appearance signaled a change in direction. Mo Wuji stepped onto the fork first, followed closely by the other four.
After all five entered the fork, Mo Wuji retrieved the array flags, and they found the path they’d come from had vanished. They were still on the Qintian Ancient Road, with only one path ahead.
Thunder Sage sighed, about to say it was no different, when they noticed, to their astonishment, a waystation nearby, labeled “Qintian 2706th Waystation.”
“Let’s check it out,” Lan Xiaobu quickened his pace, soon reaching the waystation’s exterior.
No one? Arriving, they saw no one, and couldn’t help but wonder.
“That’s not right. The Qintian Ancient Road may be empty, but waystations are crowded. Every time I entered one, there were one or two thousand people,” Thunder Sage said, puzzled.
Yi Qingshan agreed, “Yes, the least populated waystation I saw had hundreds. Why is this one empty?”
Lan Xiaobu stepped through the waystation’s gate, encountering a shielding barrier. Unfazed, he crossed it and saw a hall.
There were people inside, quite a few. Lan Xiaobu estimated seventy or eighty. Though populated, it was far from the one or two thousand Thunder Sage described.
The people inside noticed Lan Xiaobu and the others, casting surprised glances. A long-bearded male cultivator left his transparent cave abode and approached. After sizing them up, he asked, “Greetings, daoists. No one’s come here in over a thousand years. How did you manage it?”
Lan Xiaobu and the others exchanged looks. So it wasn’t just them struggling to find waystations—everyone was trapped on the Qintian Ancient Road, unable to locate them. How else could a thousand years pass without visitors?
“We just found this place. Why has no one come in a millennium?” Lan Xiaobu clasped his fists and asked.
The long-bearded cultivator explained, “A thousand years ago, people in the waystation noticed that while people left, no one arrived, unlike before when there was both coming and going. Later, it was confirmed: only departures, no arrivals. Knowing this, we’ve been reluctant to leave, fearing we’d never find another waystation and be stuck on the road.”
Yi Qingshan nodded, “You’re right to stay. I walked the Qintian Ancient Road for over a thousand years without seeing a waystation. I only just found this one, and it took luck.”
Yi Qingshan nearly mentioned that without Mo Wuji’s Qintian Stone tracing array, she wouldn’t have found it. But with so many people present, she worried about sparking envy if someone coveted the stones, bringing trouble to Lan Xiaobu and the others.
Lan Xiaobu’s gaze swept the hall. It was spacious, with many vacant temporary stalls around. The seventy or eighty people each occupied a cave abode in the hall, likely idling away their time.
These abodes had only basic defensive barriers, offering no visual privacy.
A door led out the back of the hall. Since divine sense couldn’t penetrate, Lan Xiaobu walked over.
Crossing the back door, he found it led back to the Qintian Ancient Road. However, this stretch had teleportation array patterns on both sides.
Thunder Sage followed, seeing Lan Xiaobu studying the patterns, and explained, “Qintian Ancient Road waystations are like this. To stay, you rent a cave abode—there are at least one or two thousand in the hall. To leave, you exit here onto the road. But once you step back onto the road, you can’t return to this waystation; you’d need to find the next. Those array patterns are teleportation arrays for leaving the road, but each leads to a different destination. You’d need to ask the waystation’s controller for specifics.”
Lan Xiaobu chuckled, “Do you think there’s a controller here?”
Clearly, something was wrong with the Qintian Ancient Road—it lacked managers.
“Xiaobu, I asked around. There’s a teleportation array to the Chaos River. The waystation’s manager left long ago,” Mo Wuji said, approaching.
“Great, we can teleport out now,” Qi Manwei said eagerly. Centuries on the Qintian Ancient Road had worn her out. She’d rather settle somewhere with Lan Xiaobu than keep walking.
Thunder Sage gave a wry smile, “If teleporting out were possible, would there still be seventy or eighty people here?”
Lan Xiaobu chuckled, “Maybe we can.”
His divine sense had noted the teleportation array patterns lacked spiritual energy or dao rhythm. He also spotted grooves at the edges, not for dao items but roughly the size of Qintian Stones. He suspected the grooves were for Qintian Stones, meaning teleportation likely required them.
Mo Wuji sent a transmission to Lan Xiaobu, “Xiaobu, don’t use Qintian Stones lightly. There are many strong cultivators here, including two who seem to be Creation Sages. If these seventy or eighty rush us, we’d struggle. Plus, we don’t know if fighting is allowed here. If a fight collapses the place, finding the next waystation could take centuries.”
Lan Xiaobu nodded, agreeing. Qintian Stones were precious and couldn’t be revealed publicly. He now knew two uses: crafting tracing arrays to find the right path on the Qintian Ancient Road and powering teleportation to leave it.
He approached a middle-aged cultivator’s cave abode, clasped his fists, and asked, “There are teleportation arrays here. Why doesn’t anyone use them?”
Since Lan Xiaobu’s group arrived, all the hall’s cultivators had been watching them.
The middle-aged man, addressed by Lan Xiaobu, replied courteously, “To teleport out, you need Qintian Stones, which are rare and elusive. We’ve never even seen them.”
“Then how did people leave the waystation before?” Lan Xiaobu asked, puzzled.
The man said flatly, “Before, each waystation had teleportation and cave abode managers. To leave, you bought a teleportation ticket from the teleportation manager. Now, with all managers gone, we don’t know how to activate the arrays.”
“Let’s try the teleportation array,” Lan Xiaobu said, casually producing four dao items.
Mo Wuji’s glance revealed Lan Xiaobu’s intent—the four dao items were fake, coated with dao crystal dust but containing Qintian Stones inside.
With divine sense unable to penetrate here, only Mo Wuji could tell the disguised Qintian Stones apart.
Seeing Lan Xiaobu produce four dao crystals and invite his group to the teleportation array, the hall’s cultivators sneered. If ordinary dao crystals could activate the array, they wouldn’t have stayed for over a thousand years.
As Lan Xiaobu was about to place the Qintian Stones in the teleportation grooves, a young man in plain robes approached, clasped his fists, and said, “Greetings, daoist. Are you heading to the Chaos River?”
Lan Xiaobu nodded, “Indeed, to the Chaos River. Do you have something to say, friend?”
The young man smiled warmly, “I also wish to go to the Chaos River. May I join you?”
Lan Xiaobu chuckled, “Of course, though I’m not sure if we can teleport out.”
“No matter. If we can, it’s my luck. If not, my chance to leave hasn’t come. Either way, I, Du Bu, thank you all,” the young man said, bowing again before calmly stepping onto the teleportation array with Lan Xiaobu’s group.
