Fengli Daxia gave a cold laugh and said, "It's not as simple as splitting into two factions. The current world order is largely the result of struggles among your own kind. You will come to know this. I was once involved in that dispute myself, but thankfully, I managed to withdraw in time, allowing me this many years of leisure."

Silence fell between us after he finished speaking.

After a while, seeing he made no further move, I asked, "Daxia, I don't understand. Why are you telling me all this?"

Fengli Daxia waved his hand dismissively. "Don't misunderstand. I have no intention of deliberately helping you. It's just that Leiyun Monk wants you dead, so purely to oppose him, I decided to lend you a hand. A massive net has already been cast outside. If I hadn't sent the ghost soldiers to divert you here, and then had the acolyte trick you upstairs, you’d already be dead. Leiyun Monk's people have been chasing you all along. You saved yourselves once, that young man from the Zhang family saved you once, and I saved you once. But next time, no one will come to save you."

Hearing this, I was instantly stunned. Although our journey here had been perilous and bizarre, nothing had truly threatened our lives.

Whenever we were lost and adrift, a clue would always appear.

Now it seemed that the Muramasa demon blade that guided us might have originally belonged to the young man, placed there specifically to lead us to the place we needed to be. And the young man bringing us to the bronze door also seemed to be an act of evasion, which is why he let us out midway through.

"Now that you know what you needed to know, I will see this act of kindness through and show you a clear path."

With that, he flicked his finger, and a white, silver-glowing seashell slowly drifted toward us.

"This is a juvenile Shèn. Keep it with you. It consumes nothing but human jīngqì. Place it in a place with many people, and it will become full of vitality. A Shèn only births one child in a thousand years; you must cherish it dearly."

I cupped the juvenile Shèn in my palm and observed it carefully, realizing that aside from being slightly darker, it looked no different from an ordinary shell. On its black surface were many white spots, making it appear even more commonplace.

Even if someone discovered this thing, they wouldn't think it strange; they would just assume it was an ordinary shell.

This is why so few people throughout history have ever seen a Shèn; even if they encountered one, they would never recognize it as the legendary creature.

Looking at this marvelous object, I was about to ask Fengli Daxia how to use it, but when I looked up, the great tree ahead and the old immortal perched upon it were gone.

However, the previously raised mound of corpses had sunk back down, returning to the appearance of a pit.

Not far ahead, Nie Chuan sat on the ground, his face also etched with bewilderment.

The scene before me made me feel that everything that had just transpired was unreal. But when I opened my hand and found the black shell truly there, I was amazed that it had all been real.

Nie Chuan walked toward me then, his eyes fixed on the shell in my hand, and said, "Is that... a Shèn?"

I nodded. "Yes. Everything that just happened was real."

Nie Chuan clearly struggled to accept it, saying slowly, "But if a Shèn truly exists, then the Fengli Daxia we just saw must have just been an illusion!"

I shrugged and said nothing.

Nie Chuan was silent for a moment, then looked back at the terrifying and disgusting corpse pit and said, "The egg is gone. I guess it’s time for us to leave."

I nodded in agreement, because I believed everything that had happened was real; otherwise, there was no way to explain why the juvenile Shèn had appeared in my hand.

After saying this, we both rushed back toward the direction of the bronze door, as if fleeing.

As we walked, Nie Chuan asked me, "But there's still one doubt. Ishida said his master came in to talk with Fengli Daxia, but from beginning to end, we only saw an illusion of Fengli Daxia. Where is that supposed master?"

I paused to think; indeed, we had never seen the supposed master at all.

Or perhaps I had, but simply didn't realize he was the boss.

After all, compared to Nie Chuan, I had seen two extra people upon entering: the mysterious long-faced man, and the other, [redacted] .

We walked on in silence, each preoccupied with our own thoughts.

It wasn't until we reached the doorway that Nie Chuan exclaimed, "I remember!"

I stopped, asking what he remembered.

He then said, "I remember reading in a book that the Shèn lays its eggs on the ceiling of damp caves."

I was confused by his sudden mention of this and looked at him questioningly.

He rummaged through his backpack for a long time and finally pulled out a broken glow stick.

This was likely the last glow stick we both had, which is why Nie Chuan had been reluctant to use it earlier. Now that we were leaving, he had nothing to hold back.

I asked what he intended to do, but he merely said, "Watch!"

With that, he twisted the glow stick hard and threw it toward the ceiling.

The glow stick traced an arc, struck a spot on the stone ceiling, and bounced back down.

And in that instant, I saw the ceiling, made of stone, covered in densely packed juvenile Shèn, numbering perhaps ten thousand.

"This..." I was shocked by the sight.

Because Fengli Daxia had told us in the illusion that the juvenile Shèn was extremely rare, only one in a millennium, yet here I was seeing so many. This suggested that what Fengli Daxia said in the illusion might not have been true.

Reaching the doorway, Nie Chuan had cast off his previous agitation, smiled faintly, and clapped me on the shoulder. "After we entered the illusion, the vibration caused by the rising corpse mound shook down several juvenile Shèn, and one happened to fall into your hand."

I looked at him, confusion in my eyes.

His gaze, however, was firm as he told me, "When I first saw those monsters and immortals, I felt something was wrong. Then, the fact that we could actually use magic completely defied common sense. Now that we are out of the illusion, realizing we are empty-handed is the normal state. Therefore, we must have been in an illusion before. Only in an illusion would so many bizarre things happen. I firmly believe this, so your attempt to make me believe the illusion could actually affect our real world—I will never buy that."

Hearing him say this, although I wanted to argue, the words caught in my throat, leaving me speechless.

Yes, if everything that happened after we arrived at Mount Liujia was indeed an illusion, as he claimed, how wonderful that would be.

At least then, I would have died long ago, and the matter of my spirit being controlled wouldn't be real.

However, I had a strong premonition that it might actually be true.

For that reason, I had already decided to go back and check Deban Island.

If I could just find the place where the long-faced man imprisoned us for his experiments, perhaps the situation could be turned around.

Of course, before that, we still needed to go back and revive Liang Qian.

Thinking of this, I nodded at Nie Chuan and said, "I hope what you say is true, too. In any case, let's just get out of here first."

With that, we squeezed out through the partially open bronze door.

Upon stepping out, we were stunned by the sight before us.

The ghostly building we were just in had transformed into an ancient ruin constructed of black stone.

Da Xiong and Xie Yuting were asleep beside the stone wall near the bronze door.

The surroundings were adorned with lush green vines, appearing fresh and natural, yet simultaneously mysterious and profound.

In the distance, the mountain peaks rolled endlessly against the horizon, thin mist swirling between them—exactly like the legendary Penglai Immortal Realm.

However, we were in no mood to admire the scenery, as both Da Xiong and Xie Yuting were in a state of deep coma, their condition extremely dangerous.

Furthermore, their clothes were tattered, and their faces were sickly pale.

Da Xiong, who originally weighed three hundred jin, now surprisingly weighed only about two hundred.

Both Da Xiong and Nie Chuan sustained injuries during the hallucination. Although perhaps we didn't personally witness who injured them, the wounds had left very real marks.

Fortunately, since Da Xiong was thinner now, carrying him was not excessively difficult for my current frame.

Nie Chuan and I each carried one of them, heading toward the base of the ruins.

On the way, we saw the white-haired old man lying in a pool of blood on the ground.

But it seemed he hadn't died from his head being cut off by me. He bore numerous injuries that looked like burn marks.

The memory imprinted in my mind was of fighting the white-haired old man in the illusion and ultimately killing him.

But this, too, was an illusion. In reality, I might not have fought him at all.

Or perhaps my fight with him only indirectly led to his death.

But regardless of the outcome, he was dead, and we had achieved a measure of revenge.

As we continued down, we encountered no one else. Ishida and the other four seemed to have left a long time ago.

We descended the circular steps of the ruins. Since Nie Chuan and I hadn't eaten in a long time, we rested frequently along the way, taking a full four hours to reach the woods at the base of the ruins.

It was then we discovered that at the foundation of the ruins, there was absolutely no opening connecting to the subterranean cavern.

This suggested that we might have emerged directly from the earth, perhaps through an internal passage within the structure, or perhaps we had arrived here from somewhere else entirely.

In any case, the hell-like place was undeniably gone.

When we arrived at the base and looked up again at the dilapidated ruins among the mountains, we realized how perfectly concealed it was within the vast landscape, suggesting it might not have been visited for a very long time.