Chapter 1325: This Should Be It

Yuan Gang seemed a little stumped. "How am I supposed to ask?"

Niu Youdao, who had been studying the Scorpion Emperor, looked back at him. "You're asking me? If I had a way, why would I have brought you? Figure it out yourself."

Fair enough.

Yuan Gang raised a hand and rubbed his bald head. After thinking for a while, as though trying to work himself into the right state of mind, he slowly spread both arms toward the Scorpion Emperor's enormous head and began making low "hoh, hoh" sounds.

Standing beside him, Niu Youdao could clearly sense that the emotion behind each call was different, but he could not decipher any of it. All he could do was watch.

Whether the Scorpion Emperor understood was impossible to say. In any case, it huffed several times through its huge mouth, blasting out rank, fishy breath.

Man and monster went back and forth like this several times before Yuan Gang finally stopped, looking puzzled. "Master Dao, there's no way to communicate with it precisely."

"Roughly what did it mean?"

Yuan Gang considered it, then shook his head. "I don't know how to explain it either. I can't explain to it what the hell the Fifth Domain is, and I don't know whether the response it's giving me has anything to do with the Fifth Domain. All I can do is convey things through emotion. I can vaguely sense that it wants me to follow it somewhere, but I don't know where."

Niu Youdao said, "In other words, after you conveyed that feeling to it, its response was that there really is somewhere it can take us?"

"That's how it feels."

"We've already come this far. Let it take us there and have a look."

"All right!" Yuan Gang leapt onto one of the enormous pincers and started climbing.

Yun Ji, who had been watching, suddenly said, "I'm going too."

Niu Youdao looked back and pointed at the flying mount circling overhead. "Someone has to stay and watch it, doesn't he? That thing is worth a fortune. It'd be a shame to lose it. And if we do lose it, won't getting back become troublesome?"

Yun Ji said, "If we really are entering the Fifth Domain, it would be a pity not to go along and broaden my horizons." She looked up at the flying mount overhead. "That's easy enough. I'll handle it."

She suddenly flashed away toward the mountain wall. Bang, bang! Her arms struck in rapid succession, forcibly opening a cave in the stone.

Then she shot into the sky, knocked the flying mount senseless, dragged it down, and tossed it directly into the cave. Afterward, she moved rocks over and quickly sealed the entrance.

She flashed back. "When we return, we'll wake it up. If we don't return, then this will be its burial place."

Niu Youdao was speechless. He said nothing more and flashed onto the Scorpion Emperor's back. Yun Ji followed, landing beside him with a trace of excitement.

"Hoh..." Yuan Gang barked.

The Scorpion Emperor turned its enormous body and raced toward the depths of the desert. It had not gone far before it crashed headfirst into the sand and disappeared underground.

Only after they went below did Niu Youdao discover that bringing Yun Ji had its advantages after all. Her cultivation was profound, and she specialized in earth-escape techniques; moving through sand was even easier. With her magic, she opened a spherical space around the three of them, relieving the pressure and making things much easier for Yuan Gang in particular.

The creature was a native of this desert, and the king of it at that. Sure enough, it was naturally adapted to the environment. Its enormous body forced its way through the deep layers of sand underground with astonishing ease and speed.

Niu Youdao, who had prepared in advance, took a small luminous pearl from his belt and used it to light the darkness.

No one knew how long they traveled, only that it was a very long time. Now and then, the spherical space following the Scorpion Emperor passed stone sculptures it had knocked aside, statues that seemed to be Buddhas buried beneath the yellow sand.

"The Land of the Buried Buddha..." Niu Youdao murmured, luminous pearl in hand.

Yuan Gang seemed to remember something. He suddenly gave several low roars. "Hoh, hoh..."

Niu Youdao and Yun Ji exchanged a glance. They could clearly feel the Scorpion Emperor change direction.

"What is it?" Niu Youdao asked.

Yuan Gang said nothing.

They did not wait long before the Scorpion Emperor suddenly stopped tunneling. Its head seemed to have pressed against a stone-framed opening.

"This should be the entrance to an underground palace," Yuan Gang said heavily. Then he added, "I've been here before."

Niu Youdao immediately thought of something and gestured for Yun Ji to clear the way.

Yun Ji used her art to force apart the sand packed between the stone frame and the Scorpion Emperor's head. The other two followed her through.

They had not gone far past the Scorpion Emperor's head when the space ahead suddenly opened. The three emerged from the sand into a dark, cavernous space filled with countless rustling sounds.

Niu Youdao released a Moon Butterfly. It spread its wings and flew through the underground space, casting light over what appeared to be an enormous buried palace. Sand scorpions of every size crawled across the floor in dense masses and began converging on the three of them. But as they drew close, whether because of Yuan Gang's aura or the Scorpion Emperor behind them, they all retreated again.

The Moon Butterfly flew farther in. At the very end, beneath its glow, they could faintly make out a colossal Buddha seated upon a lotus throne.

Rustle!

Yuan Gang slid down the slope of sand. The sand scorpions below scattered out of his path.

Niu Youdao and Yun Ji followed. Wherever Yuan Gang walked, great numbers of sand scorpions gave way.

As he studied the structure of the entire place, Niu Youdao glanced back. The section blocked by yellow sand, where the three of them had entered, should have been the palace's main entrance. Perhaps this had never been an underground palace at all. It might originally have been a palace standing aboveground, later swallowed by the desert.

Yuan Gang stopped beneath the Buddha.

Only then did Niu Youdao and Yun Ji notice a black-jade stone coffin resting in the open space at the statue's feet.

Cracks ran across the lid, as though it had once shattered and later been pieced back together.

As Niu Youdao approached, he immediately noticed something strange. "Did you see that? The sand scorpions don't seem willing to approach this coffin. There's something unusual about it."

Yuan Gang placed a hand on the stone coffin. "They used to come close. I smeared a ring of my blood around it. After that, they stopped."

Niu Youdao paused, then ventured, "Su Zhao is here?"

"Mm." Yuan Gang nodded. "Since we're passing by, I wanted to see her. It won't take long."

Niu Youdao fell silent.

Yun Ji tentatively asked, "What does that mean?"

Niu Youdao shook his head, signaling that she should not ask about it in front of Yuan Gang. Yun Ji fell quiet.

Yuan Gang suddenly reached behind him and drew the saber from his back. He slashed hard across his palm, and blood immediately poured from the wound.

He pressed the bloody palm against the stone coffin, walked around it, and smeared another circle of his blood over the surface.

Then he sheathed the saber and walked before the towering Buddha. He stood looking up at it for a time before suddenly bringing his palms together reverently toward the great figure whose face lay submerged in shadow.

No one knew what he was praying for. Perhaps he was asking the Buddha to let the person inside the stone coffin rest in peace.

Niu Youdao turned the luminous pearl idly in his hand. Its light and shadow shifted across his face until he seemed like a man staring at a lone lamp in bleak wind and bitter rain.

The road through the jianghu was never easy. Life and death were things one always had to face. This was not the first time he had shown such an expression. It was the look of someone who had already seen too much and learned to take it lightly.

Yun Ji seemed to understand roughly what had happened. She watched Yuan Gang in silence while taking the opportunity to restore her magical power. Traveling underground for so long had consumed a great deal of it.

Neither of them spoke or disturbed Yuan Gang. Only the rustling of sand scorpions filled the buried palace.

After a long while, Yuan Gang turned. He stared at the stone coffin once more, then strode away. "Let's go."

The other two turned and followed.

At the sand-packed main entrance, Yun Ji used her earth-escape art to clear a path. The Scorpion Emperor was still lying where they had left it, waiting.

Once they climbed back onto its back, Yuan Gang gave several more low roars.

The Scorpion Emperor backed away, turned, changed direction, and carried the three off. Behind them, yellow sand once more swallowed the entrance to the buried palace...

No one knew how much longer they traveled beneath the desert. The Scorpion Emperor still showed no sign of stopping.

Even Niu Youdao began to wonder whether it would not have been simpler to find their destination aboveground and only then burrow down.

Then again, he could understand. If the Scorpion Emperor did not prefer traveling underground, it probably would have fallen into the hands of cultivators long ago.

The swishing sounds around them suddenly ceased.

The Scorpion Emperor had stopped.

The three waited, but nothing happened. Niu Youdao finally asked, "What is it?"

The words had barely left his mouth when a hazy green light suddenly seeped through the yellow sand around them from some unknown source.

Yun Ji immediately grew wary and thrust out a palm. The spherical space ahead expanded several dozen feet before reaching the limit of her art. She could force it no farther, and even at that distance there was no sign of the source of the green light.

While the three were still staring in uncertainty, the edge of the green glow suddenly appeared within the space Yun Ji had opened ahead.

As that moving edge swept across, it drew out a curtain of rippling green light.

Once the edge had passed and the luminous curtain fully spread before them, the Scorpion Emperor suddenly moved. It bored straight toward the curtain at speed.

The three felt themselves follow it directly into the rippling green barrier. They clearly saw the sheet of light pass across the space around them from front to back before disappearing into the yellow sand behind.

The Scorpion Emperor continued tunneling through sand suffused with shifting green light.

Not long afterward, another curtain of rippling green light appeared ahead.

They followed the Scorpion Emperor through it once more and abruptly found themselves back inside ordinary yellow sand.

Before any of them could make sense of what had happened, they realized the Scorpion Emperor was tunneling upward.

A while later, Yun Ji suddenly said, "We're almost at the surface."

Niu Youdao and Yuan Gang knew that because she was maintaining the space around them with earth-escape techniques, she could sense changes in subterranean pressure and judge their depth.

Sure enough, daylight suddenly appeared overhead.

With a crashing rush of sand, the Scorpion Emperor broke through the surface and crawled out into a vast desert, returning them once more to a normal world of light.

The creature stopped where it emerged. Its pincers shifted back and forth as though it were shaking its head, while it huffed repeatedly through its great mouth.

Yuan Gang concentrated for a moment, then said, "It means this is the place."

Yun Ji looked around in bewilderment. "What? Haven't we just come back to the Boundless Desert?"

"No." Niu Youdao suddenly spoke slowly. "We should have crossed into another world. This should be the Fifth Domain."

Yun Ji and Yuan Gang both looked at him.

He was squinting up at the sun.

They followed his gaze and immediately noticed the difference.

Beside that sun hung an enormous brown sphere, something that did not exist in the mortal world at all.

They looked around again.

Desert.

Endless desert in every direction, seemingly no different from the Boundless Desert of the mortal world.

"Could the Fifth Domain be an entire world of desert?" Yun Ji asked suspiciously.

"No," Yuan Gang said. "Unless something unusual is going on, there should be large forests and plenty of water here."

Yun Ji opened her Dharma Eye and surveyed the surroundings again. She refused to believe his eyesight was better than hers, yet she found nothing.

At last she could not help asking, "What makes you say that?"

Yuan Gang answered calmly, "Because there's plenty of air."

[End of Chapter 1325]