Chapter 1489 - 1486: The Bell Leads the Way

Ye Qiu looked at Fang Wushang and said, "Don't be in such a hurry yet. This might be some senior's hall. We should walk up one step at a time with a heart full of reverence."

Fang Wushang glanced at Ye Qiu, then at the hundreds of steps, and let out a speechless sigh, but she still couldn't bring herself to refuse Ye Qiu's request. After all, Ye Qiu's cultivation was far higher than hers; if something happened along the way, she'd still have to rely on him.

Thinking of this, Fang Wushang nodded, smiled, and said, "Alright, I'll listen to you."

With that, Fang Wushang followed Ye Qiu, stepping onto the stairs one step at a time.

"Ah!"

As soon as Fang Wushang stepped onto the stair, she let out a startled cry and her whole body pitched backward.

Ye Qiu reacted quickly and grabbed Fang Wushang, supporting her as he looked at her with a puzzled expression and asked, "What's wrong?"

Fang Wushang retreated down from the stair. A thin sheen of sweat appeared on her forehead as she panted slightly and said to Ye Qiu, "Th-this stair is wrong."

"Wrong?" Ye Qiu looked at Fang Wushang in surprise. "What's wrong with it?"

"The moment I stepped on it, I felt like there was a whole mountain pressing down on me. It was so heavy I couldn't move my feet at all."

Hearing this, Ye Qiu's brows furrowed at once. After having Fang Wushang stand properly, he stepped onto that stair himself.

Instantly, Ye Qiu felt as if a thousand catties had been added to his legs, like a great mountain was pressing down on his back. He only took two steps before feeling that his back was drenched in sweat.

Seeing this, Fang Wushang immediately pulled Ye Qiu back down. "Looks like this stair is a kind of test."

Then Fang Wushang looked at Ye Qiu with a bit of lingering fear and said, "Good thing you didn't let me use a Cultivation Technique to fly over just now. If I hadn't listened to you, I'd probably have died halfway by now."

Ye Qiu chuckled and shook his head. "If you really want to thank someone, then thank this sense of reverence of mine. I just felt this hall wasn't simple and didn't want to use a Cultivation Technique to take a shortcut."

Fang Wushang laughed softly, a trace of relief in her heart. "I wonder just how high the cultivation of that Immortal Couple actually was, to be able to lay such a restriction. It's really eye-opening."

"Maybe they'd already undergone Ascension and become Immortals as a couple. Who knows?" Ye Qiu said, looking at Fang Wushang.

"So what do we do?" Fang Wushang stared speechlessly at the mountain gate in front of them. "Are we really going to just stand at the door and not go in?"

Hearing this, Ye Qiu gave a wry smile. "With my Divinity Transformation Earth Realm cultivation, I can't even handle two steps. Do you really think we can get through these hundreds of stairs?"

Fang Wushang looked at the hall before them with some unwillingness. "But I really can't accept it. We've already made it this far, yet we can't go inside. It's just too frustrating."

Ye Qiu could only shrug helplessly. "Forget it, let's not go in. We'll go check out somewhere else."

After saying that, Ye Qiu tugged Fang Wushang to turn and leave. But after only two steps, the bell inside the wooden box in his arms rang out with a crisp chime.

"What's going on?" Fang Wushang looked curiously at the wooden box in Ye Qiu's arms. "Why is it ringing again?"

Ye Qiu was also full of doubt. He took out the wooden box from his robe and said, "I don't know either. Let's take it out and see."

The bell in the wooden box hadn't stopped ringing since it first made a sound. Even when the moon—opened the box, it was still ringing nonstop.

"Ding-a-ling, ding-a-ling."

The bell in the wooden box let out a pleasant sound. As Ye Qiu opened the box, a burst of light shone from the bell, and it actually floated up on its own.

Ye Qiu and Fang Wushang stared blankly at each other, completely clueless as to what was going on with this bell, that it would float up into midair by itself.

"Ye Qiu, could it be that this bell has become a spirit?"

Ye Qiu also stared in confusion at the bell hovering in the air. He watched as the bell circled twice in front of him, then flew toward that hall.

After flying a distance, it seemed to notice that Ye Qiu hadn't followed. It flew back in front of him, circled again, then continued toward the hall.

"Is it trying to lead the way for us?" Ye Qiu asked Fang Wushang, looking puzzled.

At Ye Qiu's words, Fang Wushang's eyes lit up and she said excitedly, "Very likely! Look, it's heading straight for that mountain gate. If it just wanted to fly on its own, it could have gone long ago. Why linger here?"

Ye Qiu looked at the bell still lingering in front of the stairs and slowly nodded. "In that case, why don't we follow it and give it a try? Maybe it really can lead us up the stairs."

Fang Wushang nodded immediately. "Alright!"

The two of them stepped onto that stair again, the bell slowly floating right in front of them.

"It's real!" Fang Wushang said to Ye Qiu in delight. "That gravity really disappeared!"

Ye Qiu nodded as well, looking at the bell floating ahead. "Looks like this bell is the key to leading the way. Good thing we brought it along."

Fang Wushang nodded too. "Yeah, I originally didn't plan on bringing it. I think it might've taken a liking to you. That's why it rang when we were about to leave, making you take it with you."

Ye Qiu thought about it and felt that what Fang Wushang said made sense, and he was very glad he'd chosen to bring it along back then.

With the bell guiding them, Ye Qiu and Fang Wushang advanced unhindered, as if walking on flat ground, and entered the mountain gate in front of the hall.

Ye Qiu looked at the stone pillars on either side of the mountain gate and found that both pillars were engraved with something. However, the script looked like small seal characters, and he couldn't read them at all.

"Can you read what's carved up there?" Ye Qiu asked Fang Wushang.

Fang Wushang walked up to the two stone pillars and carefully examined them. "I can't quite make it out either, but it should be telling the story of two people."

"Looks like this hall is most likely the residence of that Immortal Couple. Let's go in and take a look."

With that, Ye Qiu led Fang Wushang through the mountain gate.

This hall complex was enormous—pavilions and towers, rockeries and clear springs, covered bridges and waterside pavilions, all of it like the South Sea Immortal Island, making one feel as if they'd stepped into an Immortal Realm.

"It's really beautiful here," Fang Wushang said softly to Ye Qiu. "The people who lived here must have been truly otherworldly."

Ye Qiu didn't reply. Even his footsteps unconsciously grew lighter. He had a feeling that this hall was currently asleep, and that any louder movement would awaken it.