The tranquil sea water suddenly split into two without any warning, with a nearly 100-foot-wide abyss separating the two. The large ship plunged straight into the abyss, and the hull made a "crackling" sound in the air as if it was about to fall apart, as if someone's teeth were chattering.

Yan Zhengming rubbed his ears, waved his hand to put the stone mustard seeds back into his sleeves, and the two of them flew their swords, barely stopping above the crack.

There was no wind, no waves, the water rose and fell straight up and down, but the flow was unnaturally slow, supporting a steep wall of sea water, and the lifeless waves looked as if they were painted on.

The two swords in the air trembled uncontrollably, as if they were ready to throw their masters off and escape at any time.

Cheng Qian injected his true energy into his eyes, looked down, and saw that the abyss was endless.

He could only try to find a way to make fun of himself and sneer, "Big Brother, you said that your broken boat could follow the clear air to find a secret place, but it ended up finding a ditch?"

Yan Zhengming glared at him: "How should I know? Besides, why would I come to this kind of ghost place for no reason? It's all my fault..."

"It's all my fault, it's all my fault, okay?" Cheng Qian interrupted him. "What now? Leave here?"

"Nonsense, are you going to spend the New Year stuck in the ditch?" Yan Zhengming slightly adjusted the height of the wooden sword, grabbed Cheng Qian's wrist, and warned, "Don't let go of my hand."

The two of them were extremely cautious and flew forward on their swords, intending to get away from the abyss before releasing the stone mustard seeds. However, something strange happened - the abyss seemed to be moving.

It was like an unfathomable mouth with a dark throat, chasing the two people relentlessly. They flew upwards, and the sea water and the abyss under their feet also rose up. As they flew forward, the abyss became the moon in the sky, and the people followed the ditch.

After a while, my eyes started to blur.

Cheng Qianxin thought: "If this continues, we will not be able to escape this area even if our true energy is exhausted."

He turned around and saw that the wall of sea water on one side of the abyss was extremely oppressive, as if it was about to collapse and crush the two of them.

Cheng Qian suddenly felt a sense of oppression and suffocation in his chest. The frost blade suddenly made a sharp sound, and the bright sword light flashed, suddenly pouring in the sword intent of the Sea Tide Sword. The Sea Tide Sword fearlessly rolled up the roaring North Sea Water. The originally quiet sea surface roared and a dark tide rose up. At the edge of the tide, broken ice stacked up, forming a dazzling white in the dark sea water, and smashed into the oppressive sea wall.

With a loud "boom", the loud noise seemed to deafen the entire North Sea. Cheng Qian's heart shuddered - there was something under the wall of sea water!

Then, without stopping just for a moment, Cheng Qian created huge waves one after another, which turned into towering icebergs, crashing into the wall of sea water one after another.

Yan Zhengming blinked involuntarily and felt the water vapor in the air condense into fine ice chips, brushing past him like a small knife.

He touched the back of his neck and felt that Cheng Qian was usually quite tolerant of him.

After several such collisions, the outer surface of the sea water wall was completely broken up. The thin water curtain seemed to be pulled to both sides by some force, and a huge natural iceberg was revealed in the middle.

It is as smooth as a knife, stretching for thousands of miles without a single break in the middle. No one knows what is wrapped inside, but it refuses to float to the surface of the water and is hidden in the dark sea, half submerged and half floating.

Is this the secret place of Snow Mountain?

Could it be that the legendary secret realm of the Great Snow Mountain is just beneath the North Sea?

Yan Zhengming held down Cheng Qian's sword-holding hand and murmured, "My blind cat, you can still encounter such a big dead mouse."

The two were each in doubt and confusion. The next moment, countless thin soul swords flew out from Yan Zhengming's sleeves like raindrops and landed on the ice layer of unknown depth. The sharp sword tips hit the thick ice surface, and there was a chaotic sound of metal and stone. Most of the soul swords were bounced back into the air and turned into clear air and returned to Yan Zhengming's inner palace. However, a few of them sank under the ice layer.

The Yuanshen Sword contained thousands of Yan Zhengming's consciousnesses. When a few of them disappeared, he immediately noticed it and pulled Cheng Qian up and said, "This way."

The two followed the sword shadow and soon found the place where the sword of the soul sank into the ice - under the cover of the black sea water, there was a small hole less than one person tall in the huge ice layer.

Cheng Qian was not afraid of the cold. He reached his hand into the smooth groove at the entrance of the cave. Immediately, tiny icicles emerged from his palm, like a group of tiny swords, standing upright on the ice surface.

"This was opened artificially." Cheng Qian said, "Look, there is still residual sword energy in the fault... Hmm?"

Cheng Qian's hand suddenly paused, and a thin stream of blood flew out from the ice, passed through his fingers, and collided with his body-protecting true energy lightly. Although it was only the remaining sword energy and was very weak, it still had a kind of arrogance that wanted to confront him head-on.

"A demon cultivator?" Cheng Qian retracted his hand in surprise.

Could it be Tang Zhen?

Yan Zhengming glanced at him and knew what he was thinking. He said, "It's not Tang Zhen. The sword energy is still so violent and aggressive after so many years. It shows that the person who opened this cave must be a powerful demon cultivator. His cultivation must be not inferior to yours. Tang Zhen must have just come down the mountain not long ago. If he had such a cultivation, he would not be injured like that by a mere ferocious beast."

When he mentioned this, an idea suddenly flashed through Cheng Qian's mind -

The Demon Queen had already been seriously injured by the Demon King at that time. In addition, as she was an auspicious bird, she was naturally incompatible with ferocious beasts. It was reasonable that she was almost bitten by the ferocious beast. However, some wealthy cultivators should carry common items for exorcising demons, warding off evil spirits and healing wounds when they go on long journeys. Even the weakest Li Yun would not suffer any harm if she met the beast, not to mention that Tang Wanqiu was there at that time.

Unless... Tang Zhen's cultivation was far inferior to Li Yun's at that time, and it was even very likely that they did not have any souls at that time.

Yan Zhengming asked, "Would you like to go in and take a look?"

Cheng Qian nodded and walked sideways into the man-made ice cave.

He wanted to use the same trick again, like he did in the Ten Directions Formation, by snapping his fingers and making a cluster of flames jump out to illuminate the place. However, this trick did not work in the ice cave. The flames quickly went out after they ignited. This happened several times. It seemed that this secret realm of the Great Snow Mountain could not tolerate any light.

Yan Zhengming pressed his hand down, and took out a night-shining pearl from his storage bag with great wealth and generosity: "This place is not right, save your energy first."

There is an artificial passage in the ice cave, which is extremely narrow and long. Various traces of knife chopping, axe cutting and sawing can be vaguely seen. It can be seen that more than one person came here at that time. The people who dug the hole were either all short people or they wanted to save energy. The passage was not opened high, and the two people had to lower their heads all the way to pass through, which made people feel very irritated.

Yan Zhengming felt his hair was messed up by the ice hole above his head, and said unhappily: "When we get out of here, you have to comb my hair again."

Cheng Qian said helplessly: "Yes, sir. I will make sure to comb along the hair."

The two of them walked with their heads lowered and their backs bent for a full moment before they reached the end of this narrow passage, but they did not have time to relax the breath hanging in their chests.

This was like entering the real secret realm of the Great Snow Mountain. Suddenly, the two of them realized that this place was actually a very strange and different world.

The night pearl in Yan Zhengming's hand flickered like a ghost, flashed for a while, and then went out by itself.

The loss of light was not a big deal, as a Yuanshen cultivator still had his spiritual sense even if he was blindfolded, and it was no problem for his spiritual sense to scan a few miles. However, Yan Zhengming soon discovered that it was extremely difficult to project his spiritual sense here. He blinked with some difficulty, and the ice fragments condensed on his eyelashes fell down. At that moment, he felt the biting cold.

With his level of cultivation, he has long been immune to cold and heat, not to mention that the body of a sword cultivator is inherently stronger than that of other cultivators. Complaining about the cold and heat is just looking for trouble.

But the coldness here was different. The harsh coldness made Yan Zhengming have some kind of illusion for a moment, as if he had suddenly lost all his cultivation and became an unarmed mortal again.

Cheng Qian's hands were too cold, and Yan Zhengming's skin was frozen to the point of numbness. He could hardly feel Cheng Qian's presence. His consciousness scanned the surroundings with difficulty, and he could only barely "see" the area three feet below his feet. If it was farther away, his consciousness would stagnate as if it was frozen.

Just now Yan Zhengming was complaining that the ice and snow corridor was too narrow to lift his head, but now he felt that it was too big. For a moment, Yan Zhengming had the illusion that he was standing at the end of the world. He was neither alive nor dead, but wandering alone in this place with incomparable loneliness and coldness...

Suddenly, someone pinched the back of his hand hard, and Cheng Qian whispered, "Don't be distracted here."

Yan Zhengming shuddered and took a few sharp breaths. The cold air went straight into his lungs, and he seemed to have survived a near-death experience.

Then, he discovered another very scary thing. At the moment when he was distracted, a chill penetrated into his internal organs and froze his entire body. The surging true energy like a sharp sword was frozen into deathly silence. If Cheng Qian had not suddenly spoken, his soul would have almost left his body unconsciously.

"It's too cold." Yan Zhengming came back to his senses and whispered, "Is the ice pond in Mingming Valley also this cold?"

Cheng Qian was obviously more accustomed to it than him. He walked forward cautiously with Yan Zhengming, breaking the silence with deliberately heavy footsteps: "Well, it's the same thing. Talk to me, otherwise you'll go crazy."

Yan Zhengming kept asking, "How did you spend those years in Mingming Valley?"

"The ice pond is very cold. When it gets cold enough, people will have hallucinations in it, and it is easy for the soul and the body to separate from each other," Cheng Qian said calmly. "My soul had just entered the state of concentration when it entered the Soul Gathering Jade. It was the soul that was cultivated in the Soul Gathering Jade. I invisibly regarded the jade as my body. But after all, it was not born, and there are always some incompatibilities with the soul. So I need to use the coldness of the ice pond to separate the soul and the body again and again... For example, it is like doing carpentry. The materials must be cut and ground repeatedly to make them fit perfectly."

When others said he was wooden, he really thought he was a piece of wood that could be cut and polished at will. Yan Zhengming felt heartbroken just thinking about how painful it was for the Yuanshen and the Juling Jade to adapt to each other. He held his cold hand and was speechless for a while.

Cheng Qian said nonchalantly, "So I guess Tang Zhen must have been here, otherwise he wouldn't have thought of using the ice pond to forge... What is this?"

As he spoke, the tip of the Frost Blade suddenly hit something, making a slight "ding" sound.

Yan Zhengming: "Watch out, don't step on it."

After saying that, he took out another night pearl. These things looked round and big, and each one was priceless, but he took them out handful by handful like candy beans, without any stinginess at all.

The night pearl was like a messy candle flame in the wind. As soon as it came out of the storage bag, it began to flicker vigorously, and then quickly began to dim, but at least it illuminated an area under its feet.

With the dim light, Cheng Qian saw that what he had just touched was actually a human skeleton. Even with their spiritual senses, neither of them could detect it. It looked too much like an ice sculpture, and it was completely integrated with the surrounding ice and snow wall, as if it had grown there forever.

Cheng Qian squatted down and was about to reach out to touch it, but Yan Zhengming slapped him away and covered him with a handkerchief.

Cheng Qian: “…”

He took the handkerchief reluctantly, thinking that the eldest brother's storage bag must have at least hundreds or thousands of handkerchiefs that could withstand his abuse.

Yan Zhengming: "Are these real human bones?"

"It should be," Cheng Qian suddenly had an ominous premonition, and his heart began to beat wildly without warning. He calmed himself down and whispered, "It's been too long, it's frozen."

Yan Zhengming came up to take a closer look and saw a dagger beside the skeleton. He ordered Cheng Qian to break the dagger out of a large lump of ice and lift the frost off the handle, which had a familiar mark engraved on it.

"It's the Nightmare Walker." Cheng Qian said, "I saw many such marks when I went to Zhaoyang City."

Going further, several identical skeletons were lying in disarray nearby. There was no sign of fatal injuries on the bones, and they lay on the ground in a skewered manner, like a group of bamboo poles blown down by a strong wind.

Very weird.

The tension in Cheng Qian's heart reached its limit.

"Strange," Yan Zhengming whispered, "You said that these demon cultivators didn't stay in Southern Xinjiang, why did they come all the way here to die?"

Cheng Qian: "Stop talking, be careful."

Before he finished saying the word "heart", a sharp sound suddenly came from the depths of the secret realm which was originally dark and silent, as if a sharp knife had directly pierced the eardrum. Cheng Qian only felt a buzzing in his ears, as if he had been hit hard on the temple, and his three souls and seven spirits seemed to be shattered in an instant.

He felt dizzy and almost fell. Before he could react, a gust of wind suddenly rose up without warning.

Yan Zhengming grabbed him back, turned around quickly, and used his back to block the attack for him.

Cheng Qian: "Brother, you..."

Yan Zhengming took a quick breath, not knowing where he was hurt: "It's okay, the original ones are always stronger than yours that were worn in later - go!"

The two men retreated in embarrassment. Cheng Qian seemed to be in a state of unconsciousness, and his vision was almost blurry. He subconsciously held onto the wall, but felt something was wrong as soon as he touched it. He looked over with some difficulty through the unknown number of luminous pearls in Yan Zhengming's hand, and saw a pale dead face face to face.

Cheng Qian: “…”

He almost smashed the other person to pieces with one palm strike.

Yan Zhengming flicked the night pearl in his hand out and added strength to it. The night pearl made a terrible scream, but could not withstand the sword cultivator's true energy and immediately exploded into a bunch of flying flowers in the air.

The space where the two were located suddenly lit up, and they saw that in addition to the white bones, there were "people" of various shapes and sizes floating in all directions. Among them were men, women, old and young, all with pale faces and dull features. They kept their feet suspended in the air, and were directly frozen in mid-air, like a group of silent hanged ghosts!

Even though Cheng Qian was extremely daring, he couldn't help but gasp. For a moment, he felt his chest throbbing even more unpleasant. It was not until the exploding night-light pearl returned to dim that he whispered, "Ghost..."

It is extremely cold here, and it can freeze not only the body, but also the true essence and even the soul.

Cheng Qian said, "There used to be a soul-devouring lamp here. When it was hit by the strong wind, all the ghosts inside were blown out. These ghosts had no time to escape and were frozen here... Where is the soul-devouring lamp?"

As a competent local rich man, Yan Zhengming let go of Cheng Qian slightly and then turned on the light again: "Look."

I saw a skeleton in the corner. After gently brushing away the ice and snow covering his body, I found a fiery red feather sandwiched between the two rows of frozen ribs, which was particularly eye-catching in the ice and snow.

Yan Zhengming: "Are you saying that's Tang Zhen?"

Is that Tang Zhen?

A cultivator who has not yet entered the realm of Yuan Shen came to the North Sea with untold hardships and found the secret realm of the Great Snow Mountain. He either entered with these demon cultivators for some reason, or found the entrance to the cave left by the demon cultivators and sneaked in. He happened to encounter the Soul Devouring Lamp here and was injured by the strong wind just now. He died here, but his soul mistakenly entered the Soul Devouring Lamp...

But wasn’t the Tang Zhen that he and Han Yuan met on the coast of the East China Sea a hundred years ago a primordial spirit?

A terrible guess suddenly popped up in Cheng Qian's mind. At the same time, the roar in his ears became louder and louder. Although he was temporarily away from the strong wind, the sequelae were still there. He could hardly stand for a while and leaned softly against the ice wall on one side. He tried his best to use the cold wall to press his forehead and hold back the groan that almost came out of his mouth - the turmoil of his soul was too painful, almost the same as when he severed his soul in order to refine the wooden sword.

Cheng Qian's temples were soon soaked with sweat, and he didn't know whether it was from cold sweat or melted ice water.

They fell into an ice cave, and the group, who were almost reaching Shuzhong, still felt a little hot.

There are many mountains in Shu, and the disciples in charge of clearing the way at the White Tiger Villa always feel nervous when they get here, because there may be formations hidden in these dense forests, and they are in the air, so if the enemy is a little more hidden, they can set up an unknown ambush.

Nian Dada was holding an old book in his hand, and was sitting on a low-flying Pegasus, reading it carefully word by word. Suddenly, someone beside him casually read out the title of the book: "Reincarnation Record..."

Nian was startled, and the book almost flew out of his hand. He caught it in a panic, looking at Han Yuan who had walked over at some point, and stammered, "Fourth-Fourth Uncle..."

There is no doubt that Nian Dada was a little afraid of this moody Fourth Uncle.

Han Yuan glanced at him and did not embarrass him. He asked calmly, "Whose reincarnation are you planning to find?"

Nian Dada tried to relax a little with difficulty and replied, "My father."

Han Yuan: "Oh, where is your father from?"

"Mingming Valley..." Nian Dada blurted out, then immediately changed his words, "That doesn't seem right. He was originally a casual cultivator from the East China Sea. In his early years, he was fortunate enough to be selected to attend the Qinglong Island Lecture Hall, where he entered Taoism. He then wandered around the world to practice on his own. After he turned a hundred, he settled in Mingming Valley and changed his name."

Han Yuan said expressionlessly, "Qinglong Island... I actually have this kind of fate - I'll give you a suggestion. If you have time, go look for it near the East China Sea. You're welcome."

This legendary dragon that almost poked a hole in the sky actually spoke to him so calmly. Nian was stunned for a moment and stammered, "Is... is that so?"

"The reincarnation of the soul is usually like this," Han Yuan said, "The soul returns to its hometown... but it's useless. When you are reborn as a human, your cultivation and memory are all gone. You don't know who you are. You can only barely maintain the appearance and temperament of your previous life."

A look of cautious expectation appeared on Nian's face.

Han Yuan glanced at him and sneered, "Don't be too happy now, think about how to save your life first!"

Nian was stunned. The White Tiger Hall disciple who was leading the way in front suddenly gave a sharp alarm. In the distance, a demonic energy rose into the sky from the dense forest, blocking the group's way.

Han Yuan seemed to have become a completely different person in an instant. He looked extremely charming, with a dragon-like black aura emanating from his body, making the four-legged monster seem to be about to burst out.

"Don't make a fuss," Han Yuan said with a flash of red in his narrow eyes, "These idiots think that I have already conquered the North Sea, and they all want to step on my corpse to become the leader of the Ten Thousand Demons."

He sneered, and suddenly stood up amid Li Yun's exclamation, sweeping across the sky like a whirlwind: "Why don't you take a piss and look at yourself?"