Ex-Wife is a Big Villainess
Chapter 368 - 212: Acquiring Another Magical Treasure

Chapter 368: Chapter 212: Acquiring Another Magical Treasure

Familiar skirts, familiar faces, familiar voices...

At this moment, time seemed to freeze.

The boundary between memory and reality blurred, like distant mountains shrouded in morning mist, indistinct, leading the man to involuntarily fall into a trance.

"Ye..."

Unknowingly, he had paced up to the woman in front of him.

Jiang Shouzhong raised his hand to touch the woman’s cheeks, soft and warm like jade, but hesitated mid-air, his fingertips trembling slightly, for fear that what lay before him was nothing but an illusion.

His fingertips could almost feel the faint warmth in the void.

"Ye..."

The man’s lips gently parted, letting out a whisper that was almost inaudible.

But the next second, the woman’s lightly cold and soft palm tenderly caressed the man’s cheek.

"Little Brother Jiang seems to have lost some weight."

Ye Zhuchan’s eyes and brows shone with an indescribable warmth and grace.

In that moment, the emotions stirring in the man’s heart were like a tide - surprise, anxious confusion, and even more so the endless longing and tenderness buried deep in his heart, as well as profound self-reproach and guilt.

"Ye!"

Jiang Shouzhong hugged the woman before him, feeling her body very cold, "I knew... I knew you wouldn’t die..."

Ye Zhuchan smiled faintly, "Life is nothing but birth and death, why should Little Brother Jiang be so attached. Besides, it’s not only Ye in the world, there are other women to keep Little Brother Jiang company."

Jiang Shouzhong said nothing, just holding the other’s body tightly, trying to find the warmth he once knew.

...

Leng Jing standing beside them, however, showed a very strange expression on her face.

Because in her view, Jiang Shouzhong at this moment stood still like a statue, as if he had lost his soul.

"Jiang Mo?"

Leng Jing gently patted the man’s shoulder.

He completely did not react, remaining motionless, his eyes dead.

The girl became a bit panicked and pushed him a few more times, "Don’t scare me, Jiang Mo, what happened to you?"

After shouting for a while with no response from him, Leng Jing’s gaze unintentionally swept to the strange plant on the ground that resembled ginsengfruit, realizing that the situation might have been triggered by touching that thing just now.

Leng Jing tried to calm herself down.

She looked down at the cactus in her arms, bit her fingertip to drop a bead of blood on it, then grabbed Jiang Shouzhong’s hand and pressed it onto the cactus.

The man regained consciousness from the pain.

"Ye!"

He quickly looked around but saw no trace of the beautiful woman.

"What Ye?"

Leng Jing breathed a sigh of relief seeing that he had returned to normal, "You scared me to death just now. I thought you were going to turn to stone, not moving at all. Did you fall into an illusion?"

An illusion?

Jiang Shouzhong frowned, subconsciously touching his cheek.

So it was just an illusion.

The man felt a sense of loss, a hollow feeling inside.

"The things in this place really should not be touched; touching them only causes trouble," Leng Jing moved away from the strange plants around her.

Jiang Shouzhong sighed softly, steadying his emotions before saying, "Let’s continue looking for a way out."

----

In the Capital, at the bottom of Huailan Lake.

The nine-tailed fox in the cage above the altar exclaimed in surprise, "What magic artifact is this that can break my Maze Phantom Realm?"

A helpless voice responded, "Are you bored or not?"

The fox swayed its nine radiant tails behind it, chuckling, "It’s rare to encounter a tomb with an intact array platform, just right to test if I can send an illusion over. This is one of my masterpieces back in the day, capable of transmitting images even to the remotest corners of the world."

"And your masterpiece got you suppressed?"

"Uh..."

The fox became a little annoyed, "To show you your little Brother Jiang and you don’t even thank me, yet you mock me on top of that. Truly heartless. No wonder even your own mentor plotted against you."

Ye Zhuchan snorted coldly, "If that girl hadn’t helped Little Brother Jiang break the illusion in time, you would probably have tried to possess him."

The fox sheepishly said, "How could that be."

Then it sighed, "Zhu Chan, now I am you, and you are me... if I can’t get out, you’ll also be trapped here forever."

Ye Zhuchan replied, "It doesn’t matter."

Within the cage, it seemed like the fox was talking to itself, but it was actually a conversation between two beings.

----

After wandering for a long time, Jiang Shouzhong remained unable to find an exit, which greatly discouraged him.

Leng Jing had been mumbling and talking to herself non-stop behind him.

Jiang Shouzhong, irritated and agitated, said helplessly, "Miss Leng, can’t you be quiet for a moment, keep your mouth shut? If we can’t get out, we’ll be trapped here for life."

"I’m trying to find a way out," Leng Jing said with her nose wrinkled.

Jiang Shouzhong was at a loss for words, "You’ve been looking down all the time, I haven’t seen you finding any way out, and you keep muttering non-stop. Anyone would think you are possessed."

"I’m using geomancy to find the way out!"

Leng Jing puffed out her cheeks as she spoke.

Pointing to a wall on the right, she said, "Qian is heaven, Kun is earth. Here on the north wall, the lines of water flow like dragons among the clouds, representing the Kan trigram. Do you understand what that means?"

Jiang Shouzhong shook his head.

The girl then pointed to the southern rock wall, "The layers of rock are stacked like mountains, stable and solid. It perfectly matches the Gen trigram, which stands for stillness and preservation. Movement brings change, stillness leads to the profound. This is the key to finding the way out, do you get it now?"

The girl’s earnest appearance reminded Jiang Shouzhong of the first time they met.

Back then, she wore an ample Taoist robe with a fake mustache attached, deceiving him just like she was now.

"What is that look in your eyes?"

The man’s skeptical gaze made Leng Jing quite annoyed.

Jiang Shouzhong stood with his arms folded across his chest and spoke lazily, "Fine, if you’re so amazing then you show me the way out."

"Am I not looking for it?"

Leng Jing shot him a glance.

The girl couldn’t be bothered with him and carefully observed every nook and cranny.

After a long time, a seemingly inconspicuous crack on the cave wall caught the girl’s attention; its direction corresponded precisely to the Kan trigram.

The girl’s eyes lit up: "Where water flows, there must be a path."

She pulled out a copper coin from her bosom and gently flicked it into the crevice.

A "ding-dong" sound echoed lightly, followed by a faint echo, as if passing through the other side of the stone wall.

Leng Jing pressed her ear against the crack, listening intently.

This was the method of "listening to the wind to discern water."

Leng Jing listened for a while, then looked down at the ground, muttering to herself as though searching for something.

After a moment, the girl approached a plant that resembled a trumpet.

She reached out and touched it gently, and the ground appeared to tremble slightly. The next moment, a beam of light poured down from overhead, revealing an entrance.

Jiang Shouzhong was dumbfounded.

This works?

At this moment, his gaze towards the girl changed, as if he were looking at an immortal.

This chick still has some tricks up her sleeve.

"How about that?"

Leng Jing, proud of finding the exit, stared at Jiang Shouzhong smugly.

Jiang Shouzhong gave a thumbs-up, genuinely admiring, "Impressive, truly impressive, you’re like an immortal."

"Hehe, talking about immortals is an exaggeration, just learned a few tricks."

Leng Jing blushed slightly from the compliment.

They exited through the passage and found themselves on a lotus platform, surrounded by darkness, quite eerie.

And the passage they had come through had disappeared again.

Jiang Shouzhong tried to step off the lotus platform but found barriers on all sides, impenetrable even to fists or the Seven Kills Blade.

"Do you have a way out?"

Jiang Shouzhong had no choice but to pin his hopes on the girl once more.

"Wait a moment, let me think," Leng Jing said, eyeing the peculiar lotus platform and rubbing her chin thoughtfully, "It looks like the ’Great Sorrow Boundless Refinement Platform’ lacking one of the four palaces?"

After considering for a moment, Leng Jing instructed Jiang Shouzhong, "Jiang Mo, draw your blade and start wielding it, just randomly. Walk around and wield it until I tell you to stop."

Jiang Shouzhong nodded, drew the Seven Kills Blade, and began to swing it around.

He wandered aimlessly, while his blade whistled through the air, pulling out invisible currents of qi.

Leng Jing carefully watched the flow of qi that he released.

After a while, she suddenly shouted, "Stop!"

Jiang Shouzhong immediately sheathed his blade.

Leng Jing moved to a certain position and lightly formed a hand seal, excitedly saying, "This is the southeast direction; the fluctuations of qi are most frequent here. It’s the Xun position, ruling over wind, indicative of transformation and circulation..."

The girl babbled a lot, and Jiang Shouzhong didn’t understand a word.

But judging by her expression, he knew things were in hand.

Leng Jing took out a string of copper coins and cast them using the "Six Lines Divination," gently tossing the coins.

The copper coins landed, bounced a few times, and then became perfectly still.

"Wind over thunder, increase..."

Leng Jing carefully stared at the copper coins, then looked up and fixed her gaze on a large stone lotus petal. The petal had a peculiar shape and ancient runes carved upon it, perfectly matching the clues from the trigrams.

The girl walked toward the lotus petal and tapped it lightly a few times.

Crack!

A crack appeared on the lotus stone platform, beginning to separate slowly.

Immediately after, like spring thawing winter snow, the entire barrier began to melt away, revealing the vast underground palace around them.

At the same time, a stone platform slowly rose.

On the stone platform, there lay a crystal box, within which soaked two vibrant green birch leaves.

"What is this?"

Jiang Shouzhong curiously opened the box and picked up one of the leaves.

However, just as he lifted the leaf, it instantly transformed into a cluster of tiny specks and disappeared.

Afterward, Jiang Shouzhong distinctly felt an icy chill enter his body. This chill traveled around the opened acupoints for a bit before settling into one acupoint.

The next moment, the chi burrowed into the acupoint, and Jiang Shouzhong felt as if his body had expanded slightly.

"What on earth is this thing?"

Jiang Shouzhong started to panic.

But it seemed this chi didn’t cause any harm to his body.

He instinctively prepared to sheathe his blade.

Then, to his shock, the blade in his hand... had vanished!

As Jiang Shouzhong sensed further, he was astonished to find the Seven Kills Blade floating inside the acupoint where the leaf’s chi had settled.

"Is this... a storage ring? No, that’s not right, a storage leaf? Also not right, a storage acupoint?"

Jiang Shouzhong was completely baffled.

By all accounts, this world does not have magic artifacts for storage; even Jiang Yi, the treasure hoarder, had never seen one.

But now...

Jiang Shouzhong was overjoyed and tried to place the Spirit Water Sword inside as well, but without success.

After several attempts, he had a thought and removed the Seven Kills Blade, only then did he manage to place the Spirit Water Sword inside... After several more experiments, he discovered that only one item could be stored within the acupoint at a time.

What is this?

A storage space within the body?