Chapter 146 - The Path That Bent
Chapter 146: Chapter 146 - The Path That Bent
At first, the outpost wall could still be seen behind them.
Then it became a shadow.
Then even the shadow blurred.
A few breaths later, Qiao Wen frowned.
"The outpost should still be behind us."
Chen Feng glanced back.
"It is behind us."
Qiao Wen turned slightly.
"No. It feels like it shifted left."
Mu Qing looked back too.
"I feel it on the right."
Zhao Heng frowned.
"Straight behind."
The group slowed.
Several cultivators looked at one another.
The same outpost could not be in three directions at once.
Unless the outpost had moved.
Or their senses had.
Luo Shenshui, who had been leading the way, stopped and turned back.
"That is normal," he said quickly. "The mist affects the sense of direction. The structure is not far ahead. I remembered the way."
His voice sounded anxious.
Qiao Wen looked at him with concern.
"Junior Brother, are you sure?"
Luo Shenshui nodded.
"Yes. I saw it clearly enough before. We should reach it soon."
Chen Feng narrowed his eyes.
"So we are going directly east, right?"
Luo Shenshui paused.
Chen Feng continued, "A broken watch platform is at the east of the Outer Outpost. Is the strange structure you saw that watch platform?"
Luo Shenshui seemed to think for a moment.
"I did not see it clearly. Maybe it is really that."
Chen Feng snorted.
"If you had not come, we would have gone there anyway."
Several cultivators glanced at him.
They all understood.
Chen Feng still felt that his map contribution had been diluted.
Qiao Wen laughed awkwardly.
"Brother Chen, if it is the same place, then your map and my junior brother’s discovery both have merit."
Chen Feng looked even more dissatisfied.
"That sounds worse."
The atmosphere loosened slightly.
But Su Bai did not smile.
Behind the Glacier-Lung Bone Mask, his expression remained hidden.
The others were arguing because their senses were being tampered with.
But Su Bai was not affected.
At least, not in the same way.
The Ashen-Blood Miasma brushed against his skin and seeped into his breath, but the harmful distortion twisted the moment it touched him.
His sense of direction remained clear.
His memory of the map remained clean.
And because of that, the problem became obvious.
They were not going east.
At first, perhaps. But after leaving the outpost, Luo Shenshui had taken several subtle turns. Just small corrections made under the excuse of avoiding thicker patches of mist and broken ground.
To normal senses, those corrections felt reasonable.
To Su Bai, they formed a curve.
He looked back.
The outpost light was gone.
Luo Shenshui had said he saw a faint light from the outpost and followed it here.
But from this position, even Su Bai could no longer see any trace of Outer Outpost No. 9.
That meant one of two things.
Either Luo Shenshui had been luckier than anyone deserved to be.
Or he had lied.
Su Bai silently compared their current route with Chen Feng’s map in his memory.
Outer Outpost No. 9.
East boundary.
Broken watch platform farther east.
Red-fog basin marked as high miasma density.
The path beneath their feet was no longer leading toward the broken watch platform.
It was descending toward the red-fog basin.
Su Bai’s eyes lowered slightly.
He did not speak.
Instead, he opened his system inventory.
Among the stored items, one bead quietly appeared in his palm.
The True-Sight Bodhi Bead. Its surface looked like old jade soaked in pale gold light.
Su Bai did not raise it openly.
He only lifted his hand near the edge of his mask and rubbed the corner of his eye, as if the miasma had irritated him.
No one found it strange.
The others were too busy worrying about direction.
The moment the bead neared his eye, the world changed.
The red mist did not vanish.
It became layered.
Su Bai looked at Luo Shenshui.
Then he stopped breathing for half a breath.
Luo Shenshui... was not Luo Shenshui.
Under the bead’s light, the young cultivator’s skin became thin and translucent.
There were no bones beneath it. Only layers of red mist wrapped around a bent human silhouette.
Thin black veins hung inside it like roots soaking in dirty water.
Countless pale mouths opened and closed beneath its borrowed face, silently repeating stolen words.
Behind its eyes, a half-digested soul fragment flickered like a candle trapped in stained glass.
Su Bai stared.
For a rare moment, he was truly speechless.
They had only entered the outer area of the Fallen-Star Sanctuary.
This was supposed to be the beginning.
The safe edge.
The place where young cultivators learned caution before gradually approaching deeper danger.
So why had something like this appeared here?
Su Bai’s gaze changed.
The thing in front of them knew Qiao Wen’s private memories.
It knew Luo Shenshui’s name.
It knew his sect, his relationship, even embarrassing little details.
That knowledge had not appeared from nothing.
Either Luo Shenshui had been captured.
Or he had already died.
Su Bai preferred the first possibility.
The second was not useful.
He slowly moved the True-Sight Bodhi Bead away from his eye and returned it to his system inventory.
The world returned to normal.
Luo Shenshui once again looked like a pale, anxious Blue River Pavilion disciple.
He did not expose anything.
Not yet.
If he attacked here, several things could happen.
The creature might flee.
The route to its lair might vanish.
The real Luo Shenshui, if alive, might be lost.
And if this thing had used the same method on others...
Su Bai thought of Liu Meng, Qin Baoshan, Han Yuelin, and Ji Ruyue.
He did not know where they had landed.
He did not know what had approached them.
He did not know whether another borrowed face was leading someone else into a deeper trap.
His eyes became colder.
He needed to know where this thing was going.
He also needed to know what was waiting there.
The best way to find a trap was not always to avoid it.
Sometimes, one had to let the trap think it was working.
Of course, that was usually a terrible method.
But Su Bai had once again been placed in a situation where the terrible method contained the most useful information.
Qiao Wen was still looking at Luo Shenshui.
"Junior Brother, how much farther?"
"Soon," Luo Shenshui said. "The structure should be just ahead."
Chen Feng clicked his tongue.
"That answer has been used by many people who were lost."
Luo Shenshui lowered his head slightly.
"I am not lost."
Chen Feng was about to speak again when Su Bai raised one hand.
"Continue."
The group looked at him.
Qiao Wen hesitated.
"Brother Su?"
Su Bai’s voice remained calm.
"The mist is affecting direction. Arguing here will only consume more pill energy."
That was true.
The white lotus-light barriers around the group were thinning slowly. Not dangerously yet, but visibly.
Every moment spent arguing in the Ashen-Blood Miasma had a cost.
Chen Feng looked at Su Bai.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
He seemed to sense that Su Bai had noticed something, but he did not ask.
Luo Shenshui looked relieved.
"Then I will continue leading."
Su Bai nodded.
"Lead carefully."
Those words made Luo Shenshui pause for an instant.
Then he turned around and continued walking.
The group resumed moving.
This time, Su Bai paid attention to everything.
The path beneath them gradually sloped downward.
Broken stones became fewer.
The ground became softer.
The red mist became heavier.
The lotus barriers around the cultivators hissed more frequently.
Qiao Wen’s expression became tense.
"This miasma is thicker."
Mu Qing nodded.
"My pill energy is being consumed faster."
Zhao Heng looked around.
"Should we slow down?"
Luo Shenshui said quickly, "The structure is just below this slope. The mist there was thick earlier too, but I saw stone outlines. If there is danger, we can retreat."
Su Bai looked at him.
Luo Shenshui’s words sounded reasonable.
Like someone who knew exactly how much temptation to add without sounding reckless.
Chen Feng suddenly said, "Hey."
Su Bai looked at him.
Chen Feng’s voice was lower this time.
"I do not think this is the right direction to the watch platform. The map never mentioned high-density miasma in that area, and the lotus barriers are burning through energy twice as fast as usual."
Luo Shenshui’s face stiffened.
"I do not know the map. I only saw structures."
Qiao Wen frowned.
"Junior Brother..."
Luo Shenshui looked at him quickly.
"Senior Brother, I truly saw something. If it is dangerous, we can turn back after confirming it."
The group hesitated.
A possible structure.
A high density miasma.
A guide with questionable direction.
No one wanted to rush anymore.
Su Bai spoke before the hesitation became another argument.
"We continue until visual confirmation."
Everyone looked at him.
Su Bai continued, "If the place ahead is the broken watch platform, we assess it. If it is another else, we stop at the edge and do not descend without a reason."
That arrangement was reasonable.
The group accepted it.
Luo Shenshui also nodded.
"Yes. That is best."
Su Bai watched his back.
The thing was patient. That made it more dangerous.
They continued.
The red mist grew dense enough that the world seemed to shrink.
Beyond ten steps, figures became blurred.
Beyond twenty, everything became uncertain.
The white lotus barriers hissed steadily.
Su Bai alone walked without a barrier.
The miasma slid across him like cold rain.
His robes continued suffering quietly.
He glanced down once.
Another sleeve edge had thinned.
A practical problem.
If this continued, he might need to change robes before fighting seriously.
It was not dignified to expose one’s abnormal constitution through wardrobe failure.
He had no intention of becoming famous for that.
Then the ground opened ahead.
The mist thinned for a brief moment.
A downward basin appeared before them.
It was wide, deep. and filled with red fog that churned more heavily than the mist above.
Inside the basin, broken stone structures jutted from the ground at uneven angles. Some looked like collapsed pillars. Some resembled signal towers. Others were half-buried beneath red-black soil.
At the center stood a cracked altar.
It was surrounded by several broken posts.
From those posts hung pale, cocoon-like shapes wrapped in red mist.
The moment the group saw them, everyone stopped.
Qiao Wen’s face turned pale.
"Those are..."