Chapter 431
Chapter 431
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 431
>Chapter Title: Golden Hall
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Li Huowang stood in place, eyes wide as he stared at everything before him.
He’d always been indifferent to money, but when a palace forged entirely from gold appeared in front of him, his heart still filled with overwhelming shock.
The golden palace ahead looked utterly solemn and sacred—even the white snow drifting down from the sky gradually vanished upon touching it.
“They all went inside.” Li Huowang eyed the bloody footprints on the golden bricks in the distance. He carefully maintained his invisibility as he headed inward.
Walking alone through a sea of gold, Li Huowang’s feet trod upon the golden bricks as he gazed at the golden hall. He felt as if he were dreaming. Just how rich was Great Liang to build such an enormous golden city?
Following the bloody footprints on the ground, Li Huowang soon approached the grand entrance of one of the golden halls. The couplet on the left read: “The imperial mandate encircles the nine provinces—this is truly arduous, how can one fail to revere it?”
The couplet on the right read: “Heaven’s heart blesses this sole virtue—forever proclaim its preservation, earnestly seek its peace.”
Li Huowang looked up, and there on the massive plaque overhead gleamed three enormous golden characters: “Golden Throne Hall.”
“Golden Throne Hall, is it?” Li Huowang furrowed his brows and stepped inside. He didn’t care what this place was called right now. What mattered was finding out exactly where that Heart Elemental, North Wind, was.
The interior of the Golden Throne Hall was utterly empty. Aside from the massive pillars coiled with six-clawed golden dragons, there was nothing else.
His footsteps, deliberately slowed, echoed faintly with each step.
“How did these Sit-Forget Dao followers run so fast? And what are they doing in Great Liang’s imperial palace?”
Li Huowang pressed down his rising anxiety and unease as he quickened his pace toward the six doors at the back of the hall. But when he reached them, he discovered there were no doors at all!
“Eh?! A ghost wall? Here in Great Liang’s palace?” Li Huowang’s heart sank.
“Dad.” Li Sui spoke up suddenly.
“What is it? This isn’t the time to talk.”
“Dad, there are words on your arm.”
Hearing this, Li Huowang instinctively raised both hands. To his shock, words were carved into the inner side of his left forearm with a knife.
“This place is strange—memories of time get forgotten. Carve it down with a knife!”
Li Huowang knew full well these were his own notes, yet no matter how he scoured his memories, he couldn’t recall when he’d carved them.
“Wait! I’ve seen this exact scene once before!”
Just as Li Huowang was about to carve the words “Heart Turbid” into his arm, he realized they were already there.
And beside them were more words: “He’s nearby—find him quick! I’ve been trapped here for half an hour!”
These words sent a chill down Li Huowang’s spine. In his memory, he’d only entered the Golden Throne Hall a few minutes ago—how had half an hour already passed?
At that moment, Li Huowang also felt a deep gash on his thigh, bone-deep.
“I’m injured? When?!” Gritting his teeth, Li Huowang pried open the flesh and saw cracks on his thigh bone—divination cracks.
Clearly, he’d divined on it to find the Heart Turbid, all without his own awareness.
He firmly memorized the twisted shapes of those bone cracks and carved them into his arm before beginning his search inside the Golden Throne Hall.
In the process, more and more writing appeared on his arm.
“Southeast corner—checked?”
“East side, behind the coiling dragon pillar—searched it all, no need to look.”
After swiftly circling a few times, Li Huowang stopped before the only spot in the Golden Throne Hall’s center that had no markings.
Staring at the familiar pattern on the golden brick, Li Huowang gripped the hilt with both hands and thrust hard into the spot.
Gold was precious but relatively soft compared to other metals. Before the Purple Tassel Sword, which could slice through iron like mud, it might as well have been clay.
Li Huowang easily pried up the golden brick. When he peered inside, he saw that the rammed earth beneath had been piled aside at some point, revealing the red-tiled roof of a structure.
This buried building was tiny—likely just a bit taller than a person. It resembled a roadside earth shrine.
Without a word, Li Huowang raised his copper coin sword and shook it from afar. “Ya! Mingda Tuowa La! Urgent urgent fetch!”
The shrine’s tiled roof was instantly torn away, revealing a familiar face—Heart Turbid, the Heart Turbid corpse that Ji Xiang had led them to capture after a thousand hardships!
Now, its limbs were bent and fully sewn to its body with golden threads. Not just its limbs—its eyes, its mouth, everything on its body had been sewn shut with gold thread, turning it into a limbless Heart Turbid torso.
In this state, aside from its head and chest, its body was covered in golden ink swastikas. These swastikas interconnected and intertwined, as if it were draped in a cassock of swastikas.
The swastikas weren’t just on its body—they spread from it into the surrounding earth.
Li Huowang flicked his copper coin sword fiercely once more, hooking the Heart Turbid and yanking hard.
The figure seated in the shrine floated into the air. As it separated from the golden swastikas, the entire golden hall seemed to dim.
Only when no new writing appeared on his body did Li Huowang finally breathe a sigh of relief. This trouble was over, at least.
He’d already wasted so much time—he couldn’t afford to waste more. After a quick glance at the Heart Turbid corpse, he hurried toward the distant exit.
This time, he emerged without incident. But before he could catch his breath, he froze at the sight of the golden halls in the distance. “Wait—don’t tell me there’s a Heart Turbid buried under every single golden hall?”
“Some have them, but not all.” Red, who had been silent beside him, spoke up.
“These golden halls form a constellation formation. I know little about it specifically and can’t tell which one, heh. Looks like that Heart Turbid you went to such lengths to find has been used as a formation eye.”
Li Huowang’s expression darkened at Red’s words. To treat something as dangerous as a Heart Turbid as mere formation eyes—what on earth were they planning?
No time to dwell on it. Li Huowang picked up his pace and pressed deeper inside. This was big trouble—North Wind had gotten mixed up in something this dangerous. He couldn’t let anything happen!
Having learned his lesson, Li Huowang now avoided the surrounding golden halls as much as possible, sticking only to the open corridors and plazas.
When there was no path, he simply dug a hole straight through the golden walls.
Perhaps his method worked, or maybe those ahead had cleared the way for him—either way, everything proceeded smoothly for a while.
Following the bloodstains northward, Li Huowang passed through a high wall when his sharp hearing picked up chanting and the clashing of metal from beyond several walls.
“Found them!” Unable to contain his excitement, Li Huowang rushed toward the sound.
After arduously breaking through yet another golden wall, the view before him suddenly opened up.
The first thing that assaulted him was a black-and-white vertical pupil amid the extremely low-hanging black clouds overhead, surrounded by sixty-four floating bronze hexagrams.
(End of chapter)