“How could you have forgotten me, big bro?” Although her words were spoken softly, they crashed like thunder in Bai Xiaochun’s mind. Memories flooded into his mind as he thought back to the Fallen Sword World, and how among the banesouls had been a young girl holding a skinned, bloody teddy bear!!
“How is this possible?!?!” he thought, his mouth and throat going dry. He felt like he was going crazy, and couldn’t even breathe. It was almost like being hit in the head repeatedly with a big stick.
Gongsun Wan’er smiled at his reaction. Then she casually waved her right hand, causing a blood mist to spring up next to her, which rapidly converged together into the form of a tall man.
He was burly and well-built, but terrifyingly, had no skin. Blood-slicked muscles were all that could be seen, with occasional blue veins bulging out here and there.
As soon as Bai Xiaochun saw that burly man’s face, a name popped into his mind.
“Lei Shan!!”
This man had once been a chosen of the Profound Stream Sect. Lei Shan! Based on the cultivation base power rolling off of him, his strength was comparable to the Nascent Soul stage. However, his eyes were empty and vacant, almost as if he were a puppet. [1]
“Just wait for me here, big bro,” Gongsun Wan’er said in her child's voice. “I'm still not full yet. I'm going to take teddy to go get a bit more food, and then we can play together. You wait here like a good boy, now. I’ll be very upset if you disobey!” Smiling happily, she turned and skipped off into the distance, accompanied by Lei Shan, who walked alongside her with an expressionless face, the faint sounds of thunder rumbling out from him as he walked.
Bai Xiaochun watched all of this happen with an ashen face. He felt cold all the way down to his marrow, and had already decided that he wouldn’t wait around for Gongsun Wan’er and Lei Shan even if someone threatened to kill him. As of this moment, he finally put the pieces of the puzzle together, and realized that the terrifying young girl from the Fallen Sword Abyss had emerged into the world in Gongsun Wan’er’s body.
Whether it was the haunting of the River-Defying Sect or the deaths on the ship, all of them were carried out by that girl....
And then Bai Xiaochun remembered that she had originally transformed because of a medicinal pill he had concocted, and his heart flip-flopped.
“Um... don't worry!” he said loudly. “I’ll be a good boy. I won’t go anywhere.... Oh, by the way, there’s a guy out there named Zhou Yixing. He's very fair and delicate, and clearly very delicious. Why don’t you go play with him for a bit...?” After waiting for a bit to confirm that the girl was gone, he turned and fled.
1. Lei Shan was last seen "alive" in chapter 150
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Chapter
552: Realm Of Trials By Fire
Bai Xiaochun had never harbored even the slightest intention of doing what Gongsun Wan’er told him to. As far as he was concerned, only an idiot would have sat there obediently waiting for her to come back.
“Think I’m a moron? That I'm just gonna sit around waiting?” As he fled nervously, he pondered how quickly she had trusted that he would do what she said.... “Well, all’s fair in both love and war. Whatever. It's not like I’ll be around to find out what happens later anyway.”
Although he wasn’t sure of exactly what was going on, or what the girl was thinking, he continued to flee at top speed. As usual, he used his simplistic method of sticking to the right to try to find the exit.
A few days passed, over which he didn’t encounter anyone, and hadn’t run into any bizarre situations either. Because of that, he picked up speed, and eventually, the path of his movement as outlined in the jade slip became clearer. Eventually, he stopped and examined the would-be map.
Then he looked around at his surroundings for a moment. Although he couldn’t be absolutely sure, after examining the jade slip, he was fairly certain... that he had passed through this area before.
“So, this place is a big circle.... The labyrinth is made up of a whole bunch of massive, interconnecting concentric rings....
“What I have been assuming is the right-hand wall is actually the left-hand wall in other locations. They’re the same wall!
“In that case, there are two possibilities. The first is that all of the rings in the labyrinth are never-ending dead-ends, and only one of the rings has the exit!
“The other possibility is that none of the rings have an exit, and that the exit... is in some other location.” Bai Xiaochun rubbed his forehead and sighed. Despite how long he had been in the labyrinth, he had no idea whether or not anyone else had found the exit. Although it was a huge and complicated place, there were plenty of amazing geniuses among cultivators, so just because he hadn’t solved the puzzle didn’t mean no one else had.
Muttering a bit, he looked at the jade slip for a bit longer, then headed down a path that headed left, continuing to track his progress as he went along. Whenever he encountered a place that he thought he had passed before, he would pick a different path. However, the entire time, he generally continued to go to the right.
“I have to find a spot where this ring connects to the next ring.... It's got to be around here somewhere!” Gritting his teeth, he proceeded to search.
“There’s no guarantee that this method will find me the exit, but as long as nobody interferes and gets me lost again, I think it has a good chance of succeeding!”
Half a month later, Bai Xiaochun was looking a bit haggard. However, he had long since found a way into the next ring, and had also confirmed that it was also a never-ending dead end.
However, he didn’t give up looking for a way to the next ring.
As time crawled by, bad luck seemed to be further away than ever, and good luck seemed just around the corner. Another month passed by. By this point, Bai Xiaochun’s jade slip was filled with a complicated outline of the various paths he had traveled. As he moved along, he was constantly absorbed in studying the unfolding map. Eventually, he stopped in place and looked up to find that ahead of him was a wide-open square!
The square did not contain any candles or blood-soaked buns. Right in the middle of it was an altar with a glowing door atop it.
As soon as he saw that door, his heart swelled with excitement.
“Finally! I finally found it!!” Bai Xiaochun took a few moments to calm himself down. Furthermore, he didn’t just blindly charge toward the door. He took a moment to examine his surroundings, and after confirming that there wasn’t anything overtly dangerous, he began to slowly make his way forward. Soon, he was at the end of the tunnel and right at the border of the square, where he looked at the shining door and began to laugh loudly.
“What kind of crappy labyrinth is this anyway? With the snap of a finger, I, Bai Xiaochun brought this place to the verge of becoming ash. Now, with a bit of thought on my part, I’ll finish the job and breeze through the exit.” Feeling very proud of himself, he flew toward the altar and the glowing door.
There was no rumbling or any other sound as he flew inside and disappeared.
His vision swam, and when it grew clear, he looked around and instantly began to tremble. In fact, he couldn’t even breathe.
There didn’t appear to be any ground in this place, just an empty void. Stretching out in all directions were numerous glowing spheres of starlight, well over a thousand of them.
Within each globe of starlight was a person. There were ordinary cultivators, soul cultivators and savage giants, all of them sitting cross-legged with their eyes closed, as if in meditation. Occasionally, the expressions on their faces would change. Some would grit their teeth, some would look elated. All sorts of different emotions could be seen.
Bai Xiaochun actually recognized many of the people in the spheres as people from both the Great Wall and the Wildlands who had gathered outside the labyrinth.