The path inside the secret passage twisted and turned like a sheep’s intestine trail. Fortunately, Li Feng had a headlamp in his hand. Otherwise, in this pitch-black place where one could not see their own fingers, walking would have been extremely troublesome.
After walking for twenty minutes, Li Feng finally emerged from that winding narrow path and arrived at an open area.
With the light from the headlamp on his head, he could see several branching paths ahead.
Seeing this scene did not surprise Li Feng. When he had scanned with his divine sense earlier, he had already noticed this situation. Moreover, with the range of his divine sense, he could only scan up to here and no further. That was also why he had decided to come personally.
If it were someone else facing this problem, they might find it very difficult to solve. But for Li Feng, it was not an issue, because he had divine sense.
Li Feng immediately released his divine sense and began scanning each path one by one.
A quarter of an hour later, Li Feng opened his eyes and walked towards the third passage.
The passage was not long. After walking about four hundred metres, Li Feng saw a thick stone wall blocking his way. However, he did not panic, because he had already discovered this through his divine sense scan earlier.
Li Feng walked up to the stone wall, glanced around, then reached out and gently pressed a seemingly unremarkable protruding stone block.
Click, click, click!
Rumble!
It was as if some mechanism had been triggered. A sudden sound of gears turning echoed through the passage. Then the entire tunnel seemed to shake. Dust fell in showers from above. Under Li Feng’s watchful gaze, that perfectly seamless thick rock wall slowly opened to both sides like a sliding door.
Beams of soft light spilled out from the cracks, bringing a trace of brightness to the dark passage.
Soon, the thick rock wall parted to create a gap wide enough for one person to pass through.
Seeing this, a smile appeared on Li Feng’s face. He had already scanned what was behind the stone wall with his divine sense earlier. The other passages were all dead ends. Only this one led to something extraordinary. Now he was very curious about what lay at the end of this passage.
However, what Li Feng did not know was that the moment he pressed the mechanism, in a hidden underground room somewhere in Tianhai City, an old man suddenly opened his eyes.
“He finally went and opened that mechanism. Li Feng, you are much later than I expected, but now it all depends on your performance. I hope you do not disappoint me.”
“Come in.”
The old man called out towards the outside.
“Master.” A man in black entered the underground room.
“Pass down the order. Immediately begin Plan Number One,” the old man said gravely.
“Yes.” The man in black nodded and turned to leave.
“Wait.” The old man suddenly remembered something and called him back.
“Does Master have any further instructions?” the man in black asked quickly.
The old man took out an object from his robes and handed it to the man in black. “Give this to Zhang Yunhao. He will know what to do.”
“Yes.” The man in black took the object from the old man’s hand and left the underground room.
“Li Feng, I waited so long just for you. If you disappoint me, I will not let you off. Hehehe…” The old man let out a sinister laugh.
Li Feng walked several hundred metres through the passage until a stone chamber appeared before him.
The stone chamber was very large, roughly several hundred square metres. At the top of the chamber, several night-luminous pearls were embedded.
With one sweep of his gaze, the entire situation of the stone chamber came clearly into view.
“Could this be Lord Wen’s cultivation chamber?” The thought flashed through Li Feng’s mind as he looked at the chamber. It contained all kinds of daily necessities.
“But with Lord Wen’s cultivation level, was there any need to build such a hidden stone chamber?” Li Feng shook his head. The location of this stone chamber was already more than a thousand metres away from Spirit Crane Garden. If Lord Wen had built it just for cultivation, there was no need to construct a chamber so far away.
“This is…”
Li Feng’s expression suddenly changed, because in one corner of the stone chamber, he saw a set of pale white skeletal remains.
Why were there skeletal remains here? Who was this person? Why did they die here?
A trace of doubt flashed through Li Feng’s mind. From the traces in the stone chamber and the earlier passage, it was clear that someone had been here in the past few months. So the person who came could not have failed to notice these remains. Yet they had ignored them completely. Could these remains have something special about them?
Whoosh…
At that moment, a gust of chilly wind blew through. Li Feng shivered.
“Could there be ghosts?” In this world, stories about ghosts were countless. In this mysterious stone chamber, with these pale white remains and gusts of yin wind, Li Feng’s first reaction was that there might be ghosts. But he immediately realised that even if there were ghosts, there was nothing to fear. To martial artists, ghosts were simply the souls of the dead after death. And souls were not untouchable. In this world, there was a profession called ghost cultivators. These were people who, after death, cultivated their souls, solidifying them to become immortal and indestructible existences.
In this world, ghosts were called ghosts only because they were a form of soul energy. They could not escape the detection of divine sense at all. So Li Feng quickly ruled out that idea.
Since it was not ghosts, the only explanation for the repeated gusts of yin wind in this stone chamber was that there might be another exit somewhere.
At this thought, Li Feng’s expression grew serious.
From Spirit Crane Garden to here, in Li Feng’s view, this secret passage was Lord Wen’s escape route. So it made sense for the stone chamber to have another exit.
With that in mind, Li Feng wanted to release his divine sense to scan the entire stone chamber. But he immediately discovered that his divine sense could only cover the area within five metres around him. Anything further was blocked and bounced back.
Could something in this stone chamber block divine sense?
A trace of shock flashed in Li Feng’s eyes. This was the second time he had encountered something that could block divine sense. The first time was the dragon-shaped mask given to him by Elder Tu. And now it was here in this stone chamber.
“What else is in this stone chamber?” Li Feng narrowed his eyes and looked around, but apart from those pale white remains, he did not notice anything particularly special.
Could it be the remains themselves?
Li Feng shook his head. These were human skeletal remains. How could they block divine sense? Unless there was something on the remains.
With this thought, Li Feng walked towards the remains.
Crack, crack, crack.
At that moment, a series of explosive cracking sounds erupted in the stone chamber. Immediately after, a door appeared in the rock wall beside the pale white remains. Then two stone statues rushed out from inside. Their heavy footsteps made the entire stone chamber tremble.
“What?” A trace of surprise flashed in Li Feng’s eyes. This was the first time he had encountered such a situation.
“Could these stone statues be some kind of mechanism?”
While Li Feng was puzzled, one of the stone statues had already reached him. It raised the large blade in its hand and chopped down towards him.
“Seeking death.” Li Feng snorted angrily and struck out with a palm.
Bang!
The massive palm force slammed into the stone statue. The statue only swayed slightly. Not even a layer of its stone skin was chipped off. After receiving Li Feng’s attack, the stone statue seemed provoked. It swung its blade like lightning towards Li Feng.
Blade light exploded forth, swift as lightning.
Although the stone statue’s movements were stiff, its attacks were incredibly fierce. Li Feng’s expression changed. He quickly used Phantom Nine Layers and dodged the stone statue’s blade.
Boom!
The stone statue’s blade struck the ground, leaving a deep gash.
Li Feng’s pupils contracted, and his expression changed. He had thought these stone statues were just ordinary mechanisms. But the palm he had just struck out could not be withstood even by an acquired eighth-layer ancient martial artist. How could this stone statue block it so easily? And without a single mark?
Was this an ordinary mechanism?
No, clearly not.
Could these stone statues be some kind of puppets? Were they guarding this stone chamber?
But with Lord Wen’s capabilities, where could he have obtained such stone statues? Moreover, there seemed to be nothing particularly special in this stone chamber. Why would Lord Wen station two stone statues here to guard it?
Furthermore, when the Black Stone Gang was destroyed, why did Lord Wen not use these stone statues? With their strength surpassing acquired eighth layer, even a hundred of him back then would not have been their match.
Wait.
Li Feng suddenly remembered something. From Spirit Crane Garden to the branching paths, the passages seemed to have been excavated not long ago. Judging from the soil around the passages, it was at most no more than ten years. But the passage from the branching point to this stone chamber, including the mechanisms on the walls, had definitely not been built within the last ten years.
Moreover, the daily items in this stone chamber were modern, but the tables and chairs appeared to be very ancient styles. Such styles could not be bought nowadays unless custom-made.
And these tables and chairs were so large. They could not possibly have been brought through the passage from Spirit Crane Garden. Unless Lord Wen had a spatial bag or spatial ring. But did Lord Wen possess such things?
Li Feng thought about it and felt it was impossible. Even he, the young master of the Li family, did not have a spatial bag. Zhao Xiu, the head of the Zhao family, one of the four great families in Tianhai City, also did not have one. With Lord Wen’s status, how could he have a spatial bag? If he did not even have a spatial bag, let alone a spatial ring.
Li Feng recalled the vermilion fruit that Lord Wen had given him before leaving last time. If Lord Wen had a spatial bag or spatial ring, he would not have kept the vermilion fruit in his study.
From this, it was clear that this stone chamber had definitely not been built by Lord Wen. After all, Spirit Crane Garden had only been constructed for about ten years up to now.
So the problem arose. If this stone chamber was not built by Lord Wen, why did Lord Wen build a passage connecting to this stone chamber? What was his purpose?
Could it be for these remains and these stone statues? Or was there some secret in this stone chamber that he did not yet know? But with these stone statues being so powerful, even if Lord Wen came, he would probably die. Then how could the daily items in this stone chamber be explained?
In a daze, Li Feng felt as though he had discovered some secret. In his heart, he had a strong intuition that this stone chamber might be related to the mysterious forces behind the four great families of Tianhai City.
While Li Feng was deep in thought, that stone statue had already attacked him again. It swung its blade fiercely towards his neck.
