Shocking the Nine Heavens With My Sword
Chapter 268 - 256: Gu Heqian (2/3)

Chapter 268: Chapter 256: Gu Heqian (2/3)

It didn’t resemble other cave dwellings filled with oddities; Gu Heqian’s abode was notably "tidy."

This cleanliness wasn’t about being spotless but rather the absence of miscellaneous items. Everything was ordinary—stone tables and chairs, all utterly mundane, as if it were a retreat for some reclusive expert.

"Heh heh, that old thief Gu is the best at deception. The plainer it looks, the more treasures he has hidden!" Black Donkey said, drooling as his eyes shone brightly.

"...Have you been tricked by him?"

"Pah, would I, so astute, fall for that ancient thief’s tricks?" Black Donkey snorted disdainfully, but his long donkey face involuntarily betrayed a sense of indignation, suggesting that he had indeed been duped in the past.

Zhou Heng laughed out loud. Regardless, Gu Heqian had been dead for tens of thousands of years, and there was no need to speak ill of the dead.

The cave had only one level, but it was very deep. Each stone room looked similar with stone beds, tables, and chairs. Zhou Heng wondered why Gu Heqian had made so many of them.

"Idiot!" Black Donkey gave Zhou Heng a look of extreme contempt. "Ever heard of ’A crafty rabbit has three burrows’? Among these numerous rooms, one has a mechanism that opens a passage to the true secret cultivation chamber of the old thief!"

"Donkey, if you don’t know how to use proverbs, don’t use them at all. Do you even know what ’A crafty rabbit has three burrows’ means?"

"Woof, I like it, you got a problem with that?"

"I don’t have a problem, but can you actually find that mechanism? There seem to be hundreds of identical stone rooms here!"

"Of course, that’s just how the old thief is, a sneaky fellow. He has laid out a Thousand Mechanism Formation here. Each room could transform into a hundred thousand compartments. If you don’t understand formations, you’ll just get lost in here!"

"Less talking, break the formation!"

"Don’t rush me. Speaking of formations, heaven... No, who could compete with me?" Black Donkey led the way, and after a while, suddenly turned into one of the stone rooms, "This is it!"

To the naked eye, this stone room looked no different from the others.

Black Donkey approached the stone table, muttered to himself for a while, then shouted, "Formless Divine Eye, see through falsehood!"

He stamped a hoof down heavily on the stone table.

Grinding and clicking, the sound of mechanisms operating filled the air as the stone table began to rotate and sink into the ground, revealing a pitch-black entrance with a stairway leading to an unknown place.

Gu Heqian really was a careful man!

To make his own dwelling so protected showed just how untrusting he was of others.

"Old thief, Donkey Master is here! Hahaha, all your treasures are mine now!" Black Donkey darted off, rushing into the tunnel, and after a while his echoing voice came back, "Zhou, what are you dawdling for? It’s all up to you now!"

Zhou Heng followed the stairs down, and with his current cultivation level, he naturally saw in the darkness as if it were brightly lit. Soon he reached the bottom, where the sound of running water could be heard, and a gently flowing stream appeared ahead.

Black Donkey stopped in front of the stream and didn’t move. Hearing Zhou Heng approach, he turned and said, "Zhou, don’t underestimate this stream. This is Drowning Water; anything that enters it will immediately sink to the bottom. The intense pressure makes it impossible to move an inch. Even those at the Nascent Soul Realm don’t dare to cross it recklessly!"

Zhou Heng grimaced. Gu Heqian was definitely an oddball, making his dwelling so dangerous—wasn’t he afraid that one day a malfunction would take him down with it?

"Then how can we cross it?"

Black Donkey raised a hoof and said, "Naturally, we’ll use your Nine Mystic Trial Tower!"

"Will that work? You said Drowning Water can sink everything, so if the Nine Mystic Trial Tower goes in, won’t it sink too?" Zhou Heng furrowed his brows.

"No, no, no, Drowning Water has another peculiar characteristic: when it meets a higher-tier material, it will float on it and never sink," Black Donkey immediately shook his head, "If an expert at the Divine Infant Realm came, they could simply walk across the water!"

Truly mysterious!

Zhou Heng believed that the rank of the Nine Mystic Trial Tower must be above the Nascent Soul Realm, and perhaps even surpass the Divinity Transformation Realm—it was one of the legendary Immortal Objects! If Black Donkey’s words weren’t false, they could indeed float across using the Nine Mystic Trial Tower.

Though the donkey was extremely unreliable, it wouldn’t go so far as to trap itself too.

"Let’s go!"

Zhou Heng slightly enlarged the Nine Mystic Trial Tower and tossed it into the stream. Then he grabbed Black Donkey and with a thought, they both entered the Treasure Pagoda.

Plunk.

The Nine Mystic Trial Tower landed on the water’s surface. Strangely enough, it seemed as though it had landed on solid ground—no sinking whatsoever—instead, it floated along with the water’s flow towards the front.

Zhou Heng extended his Divine Sense ahead, vigilantly, ignoring the insufferable donkey. Although the flow wasn’t quick, in about fifteen minutes they reached the end.

Whoosh, Zhou Heng flashed, and was already on shore.

—He could appear anywhere within a two-zhang radius around the Nine Mystic Trial Tower.

Once on shore, he let Black Donkey out as well.

"What a treasure!" Black Donkey’s eyes sparkled as it drooled all over the floor.

"Stop being disgusting!" Zhou Heng really felt like punching it.

"Stingy!" Black Donkey wiped away his drool and continued onward, more interested in raiding Gu Heqian’s lair.

After walking through a long corridor, they entered a very large stone room.

The stone chamber was about thirty feet wide but extended to around three hundred feet in depth, much like a huge plaza.

Zhou Heng casually scanned the room, which was essentially a treasure room, with Spirit Stones being the most abundant treasure, each radiating an astonishing level of nature’s spiritual energy, dense and exceptionally pure. Then, there were rows of weapon racks and armor stands, a testament to the abundant collection of the chamber’s owner.

"Hahaha, Old Thief Gu, I won’t stand on ceremony!" Black Donkey laughed cheekily before immediately beginning his grand looting spree.

It clearly possessed a Space Artifact as well, and an incredibly large one at that, sweeping away one-tenth of the treasures in the room in one go without showing any signs of stopping.

"Cheap donkey, can’t you slow down a bit?"

"Quick hands get, slow hands miss out!"

Zhou Heng hastily started his looting as well. Spirit Stones collected by a Nascent Soul Realm Old Ancestor would, of course, be of the Upper Grade variety. Regrettably, there was no real treasure like the Spirit Core!

With his hands flipping and swirling with Spiritual Power, he didn’t even look at what he was grabbing, just shoving everything into the Nine Mystic Trial Tower.

Together, the man and the donkey launched into a frenzied plunder, scavenging to their hearts’ content.

Although they had visited quite a few ruins in the past, never had they experienced such a smooth and effortless journey straight to a treasure trove. If every trip could be this easy, the path to cultivation would be a whole lot smoother.

Pushing and shoving each other, man and donkey quickly rendezvoused at the far end of the stone chamber, where there were only a few treasures left.

Bang!

A huge, dark red piece of amber was uncovered, floating in midair.

Just for a moment, every hair on Zhou Heng’s body stood on end, filled with an indescribable sense of tension.

Inside the piece of amber was a man!

With his eyes tightly closed, logic dictated that this stone chamber should have a history of tens of thousands of years; whether human or demon, they should have decayed to dust long ago. This man inside the amber was certainly dead, but why did he give off an incredibly terrifying feeling, as if he could wake up at any moment?

"Be gentle! Gentle!" Black Donkey quickly emitted a surge of Spiritual Power to hold the amber aloft, preventing it from falling, "Don’t startle Old Thief Gu awake!"

"What!" Zhou Heng felt a chill rise from his back, spreading throughout his body, "Is he Gu Heqian?"

"Who else would look so vile if not the Old Thief?" Black Donkey delicately placed the amber down as if the person inside was merely sleeping.

"Cheap donkey, what exactly are you hiding from me!" Zhou Heng suddenly turned around, "He’s not dead?"

"Hmm, not dead!" Black Donkey nodded.

"How is that possible—" Zhou was about to question how a man could possibly live for tens of thousands of years, but then he looked at the black donkey in front of him. If it was telling the truth, it was also an old donkey that had lived for tens of thousands of years, although it had spent most of that time sleeping.

Asleep?

He looked at the amber. Was it possible that Gu Heqian wasn’t dead, but simply in deep slumber?

"This is called Temporal Origin Liquid, capable of temporarily sealing the passage of life for all creatures, including Divine Sense, as if time itself has stopped!" Black Donkey explained.

Of course, this cheap donkey must have also passed tens of thousands of years in such a manner.

But if it was just an ordinary donkey, that wouldn’t be anything special. However, the fact that there was a person who had chosen to lock away their life’s passage, to leap through the vicissitudes of history to the future, that was definitely no coincidence.

"Donkey, you said you were awakened from your sleep by the Stele. Then, how long were you originally supposed to sleep, and when were you supposed to wake up?" Zhou Heng furrowed his brows, sensing a huge secret hidden behind all this.

"Probably only about ten or twenty years from now!" Black Donkey said, counting on its hooves.

"Why exactly at this specific time?"

The donkey stared at Zhou Heng for a while, giving him a chilling sensation, before saying, "This involves a great opportunity. During our era, many experts chose to seal themselves with Temporal Origin Liquid, waiting for this day to arrive!"

What kind of opportunity could persuade experts at the Nascent Soul Realm to willingly seal themselves away, waiting for tens of thousands of years?

Becoming Immortal!

Apart from this, what greater temptation could there be?

"Becoming Immortal?" Zhou Heng looked at Black Donkey.

"That’s right, Zhou, your head really is quite bright!" Black Donkey did not idle, and cleaned out all the remaining treasures except for the amber.

Zhou Heng took a deep breath and asked, "Aside from Gu Heqian, how many more experts have sealed themselves?"

"To my knowledge, there should be no fewer than a hundred!" the donkey said.

A hundred!

All the Nascent Soul Realm and higher experts in the human empire added up to about two hundred; if these self-sealed experts appeared all at once, imagine how huge the impact would be on the continent’s power dynamics?

And that was just the number Black Donkey knew about!

If there were two hundred, three hundred, or even four hundred such experts, the whole continent would descend into chaos!

"Donkey, what exactly is this so-called opportunity for Becoming Immortal, and how can one be certain it leads to immortality?" (To be continued. If you enjoy this work, feel free to give your recommendations and monthly votes at Qidian.com. Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please visit m.qidian.com to continue reading.)