Li Yun was stunned for a moment, then the smile on his face dimmed and he asked, "Why, do you still remember your junior brother?"

"Of course I remember," Shuikeng said unconvincedly, "I not only remember what he looked like later, I also remember him when he was a child. Third Senior Brother loved me the most. Besides, even if I really don't remember, Senior Senior Brother has been drawing him for almost a hundred years. How could I not recognize him?"

Every generation of Fuyao sect disciples has the tradition of leaving their portraits in the Nine-story Sutra Tower. Even though they can't go back now, Yan Zhengming has always wanted to leave one for Cheng Qian. Unfortunately, he has deleted and revised it over and over again, but still hasn't come up with a finalized one.

Li Yun laughed and said, "You have no conscience. Don't we love you?"

As he spoke, he also looked at the puddle twice more, but he felt that the person flashed by like a stunning figure and he could not see anything.

"Your junior brother has always been handsome since he was young. Good-looking people may look a bit like him if you look closely. There's nothing to be surprised about." Li Yun paused and then warned, "By the way, remember not to tell this to the senior brother, or he'll get angry with you."

Shuikeng responded casually, but his eyes kept rolling around, and he shamelessly thought in his heart: "This guy is really pleasing to the eye. I must go and get to know him later."

When she thought about it, she inexplicably became impatient, spread her wings and flew into the air, complaining, "Why hasn't Senior Brother come back yet? Is he planning to stay in Mingming Valley and be a son-in-law?"

There was no need to use her true energy, as Shuikeng was born with a pair of clairvoyance. She could see animals running dozens of miles away with just a glance. She glanced around aimlessly and suddenly saw a frost-like sword light rising into the sky in the distance. Following the sword light, Shuikeng noticed that the place was actually covered with an imperceptible blood aura.

I don't know who the sword energy was, but it instantly brought up a frost, which surged up like a tide, sweeping away the blood energy like a breeze sweeping away fallen leaves. Then, a thick black fog fled in all directions, and disappeared in the blink of an eye.

The puddle was stunned.

The unforgotten memories came back to her in the blink of an eye, separated by the ruthless passage of time. In the small courtyard on the island in late autumn that year, a young man smiled at her as if on a whim, and said, "Junior Sister, let me show you what the Sea Tide Sword is—"

Vaguely in front of my eyes.

Shuikeng's heart began to beat wildly.

She suddenly spread her wings as wide as possible, and regardless of Li Yun's shouting on the ground, she leaped towards the direction of the sword light.

Let’s talk about that sword - Cheng Qian followed the black shadow with a ghost face on the corpse all the way. He had seen the great ghost cultivator Jiang Peng with his own eyes, and had been acquainted with the ghost Tang Zhen who escaped from the Soul-Devouring Lamp for many years. He was very familiar with the indelible hostility of the Soul-Devouring Lamp. He felt it as soon as the black shadow jumped out.

At the same time, I became more and more confused. Ghosts are usually formed souls or spirits. How could they look like a rag?

The rag-like black shadow fled for more than ten miles and dived into a cave.

Before Cheng Qian stepped in, he could already smell the choking blood in the cave. He did not rush in, but just sent out a wisp of spiritual consciousness at the entrance of the cave - when he was a Yuanshen cultivator, when his spiritual consciousness was released, everything within a hundred miles could be seen by him.

But the cave seemed to be filled with a thick fog. Cheng Qian could only barely see something deep in the cave. Just as he was cautiously circling the cave entrance, he suddenly heard an undisguised voice coming from not far behind him. Nian Dada said in a loud voice, "Little brother, are you saying that the body was nearby at the time?"

Another younger voice responded, "Yes, our whole village saw the white shadow here at that time."

Cheng Qian frowned and immediately hid himself, watching the two men walk to the cave entrance. He had met Liu Lang several times and had the impression that he was a young man with a very expressive face. However, at this moment, Liu Lang, who was leading Nian Dada into the cave, had a very dull expression. Upon closer inspection, his eyes were dim and there seemed to be a gray mist in his pupils. The closer they got to the cave entrance, the thicker the mist became.

Seeing that Nian Dada, the lifeless idiot, didn't notice anything wrong and followed Liu Lang into the cave with a blank look on his face, Cheng Qian no longer hesitated and immediately restrained his breath and followed him in. His real body was made of the Spirit Gathering Jade, so he was very good at restraining his breath, which was much easier than an ordinary mortal body, so he could pretend to be dead at any time.

As they walked, Nian Dada said, "You know what, this cave really looks like someone has died there. It smells fishy."

Cheng Qian listened from a distance and felt powerless - what insight was incredible.

Liu Lang did not answer. He led the way with his eyes wide open. The boy's footsteps tapped the ground, and there was no change in the intervals between each step for a long while.

Nian Dada: "Little brother?"

Still no response, Nian Dada finally got a little scared and couldn't help but shouting in courage: "Uncle Master! Uncle Master Cheng, are you in there? Cheng..."

His voice stopped abruptly, and he stood there in amazement as if his tongue had been pulled out - the narrow path ahead had come to an end, and Liu Lang, who was leading the way, suddenly fell down silently, and the scene in the cave suddenly appeared before his eyes.

There was an object more than one meter tall displayed here. It was in the shape of an oil lamp with an open long neck. There were densely packed talismans engraved under the long neck, which connected all the way to the ground. The blood-red spells covered the area within a few feet.

The talisman was not scary at all. Even if it was really scary, Nian was too ignorant to see anything. What scared him to death was that the oil lamp was filled with not lamp oil but a pool of blood. The blood was being stirred by something and was moving without wind. Countless bones were bobbing up and down in it and the whole cave was filled with blood.

Cheng Qian, who had followed quietly, frowned. He recognized it at a glance. It turned out to be the Soul-Devouring Lamp.

And it seemed to be the one that was destroyed by Lord Bei Ming before.

Just as he was carefully observing the talisman under the Soul-Devouring Lamp, a white shadow suddenly flew out from the blood lamp without warning and penetrated into Liu Lang's body unexpectedly.

The young man curled up in a strange position on the ground, then suddenly jumped up, his nails grew three inches long, and fiercely pinched Nian Dada's neck. As a monk, Nian Dada already had a heavy sword in his hand, and he could have resisted at that moment, but when he saw Liu Lang's youthful face, he became soft-hearted again, thinking: "This kid is a mortal, if I strike him with the sword, he may not be alive."

After just a moment's hesitation, Nian missed the last chance. The evil spirit completely invaded Liu Lang's body in an instant. The smooth skin on the boy's face fell off piece by piece, and the bones on his arms twisted like snakes, being hit by the huge evil spirit and becoming longer on one side and shorter on the other. The deformed finger bones broke through the flesh and pointed directly at Nian's brow, muttering in a hoarse voice, "Gathering the Yin of the Netherworld, fusing the blood and energy of thousands of people into a body, transforming into tens of thousands of spirits, and reigning supreme in the way of ghosts..."

Nian Dada had a splitting headache, his three souls and seven spirits were all shaking, and he felt that his body could not hold his soul, which was about to fly out from his eyebrows.

That "Liu Lang" showed a sinister smile on his face: "Soul Lamp... who is it!"

A bright sword light came and chopped down on the head of "Liu Lang" without any mercy. Liu Lang's soul-sucking technique was suddenly interrupted, and he was nearly attacked by the Soul-Eating Lamp. He had no choice but to throw Nian Dada aside and immediately let out a heart-wrenching roar.

Cheng Qian walked out from a deserted place with a sword in hand, still looking down at the talisman under the Soul Devouring Lamp. He said calmly, "Why, Senior Jiang, when Bei Mingjun destroyed the Soul Devouring Lamp with his own soul, you didn't die? It seems that the ghost way really has its own unique understanding of souls. You are... um, are you trying to reshape the Soul Devouring Lamp?"

When Cheng Qian saw the huge soul-devouring lamp, he first thought of Jiang Peng. When he heard him speak, he felt more like him, but he couldn't confirm it.

The spell on the ground was incredibly complicated, and even Cheng Qian found it difficult to fully comprehend it at once. Therefore, he deliberately dragged out the sound, pretending to be confident, and made up a lot of nonsense without any basis, hoping to delay for a moment by talking so that he could memorize the entire spell on the ground.

Who would have thought that as soon as these words were spoken, that "Liu Lang"'s face suddenly changed drastically, and he roared and rushed towards Cheng Qian, as if he had been told a secret and was ready to kill him to silence him.

Cheng Qian dodged several black auras and was suddenly shocked - this person was really Jiang Peng? He was actually refining the Soul Devouring Lamp?

Even though Jiang Peng was a peerless demon, possessed by a mortal, and without the Soul Devouring Lamp and Ghost Shadow, Cheng Qian would not take him seriously with his current cultivation. Especially since Jiang Peng had obviously lost his mind and was like a mad dog.

This person's current situation is completely different from the great demon that brought disgrace upon a group of sects in the East China Sea. So, the idea of ​​pretending to be an evil ghost and luring nearby monks... was it really his own idea?

Cheng Qian suddenly felt horrified. What exactly is the ghost way?

Is it that people use the Soul-Eating Lamp as a weapon, or is it that the Soul-Eating Lamp eats people and turns them into ghosts?

Who was the person who led Jiang Peng into the ghost world back then?

Cheng Qian immediately stopped suppressing his cultivation. With him as the center, frost gradually enveloped the entire cave, but it was unable to penetrate near the Soul-Devouring Lamp.

Jiang Peng was stimulated by the cold air and actually regained some of his consciousness. He took a half step back and stared at Cheng Qian vigilantly: "Who are you?"

Cheng Qian replied coldly: "The one who cleans up the house."

After saying that, his sword light rushed towards Jiang Peng like a cold star, and he used the Fuyao wooden sword. A look of surprise flashed across Jiang Peng's face, and then he inserted his hand into Liu Lang's upper body and pulled out a rib. The bloody bone turned into a long sword with black air in his hand, and he raised it into the air, and it immediately turned into ten incomplete ghosts, who were about to surround Cheng Qian in a fierce manner.

Nian Dada, who had just recovered his breath, nearly fainted when he saw this scene. He howled in his broken voice, "Be careful!"

After a hundred years of practice, he never expected that the first person to test the sword would be his fellow master.

What kind of circumstances are these?

The ordinary sword in Cheng Qian's hand suddenly grew three feet in length, and the sharp blade became invincible. He ignored all the ghosts and pointed directly at Jiang Peng without any hindrance.

The sword from the master brought an incomparable pressure to Jiang Peng's head. In that instant, the big devil finally wavered. As soon as this slight hesitation appeared, the seamless talisman circle of the Soul-Devouring Lamp suddenly had a flaw, and the blood-red talisman was penetrated by a ray of frost - it turned out that Cheng Qian was just feinting, and his target was the Soul-Devouring Lamp.

He only heard a low cry: "Broken——"

The entire cave seemed to be about to collapse, and the half-refined Soul-Devouring Lamp was split in half by Cheng Qian's sword. Thousands of ghosts detained in the soul lamp fled and rolled into a black mist. The thick blood energy was all picked up by his sword energy, rolled for a moment, and exploded with a loud bang.

A loud noise almost knocked Nian Dada unconscious. He regained consciousness after a while and saw that a corner of the cave had been broken, letting in light. Fortunately, the mountain could still hold up and did not bury them alive. The Soul-Devouring Lamp was destroyed again. Their Youtan Elder had already sheathed his sword and stood aside indifferently, looking at "Liu Lang" who was like a bloody man on the ground.

Nian Dada crawled to Cheng Qian and said, "Uncle Master... this..."

"The real boss ran away." Cheng Qian said, and stretched out his hand to Nian Dada, "Do you have any healing pills?"

"Yes, yes!" Nian Dada hurriedly felt around and took out a small bottle of medicine. He was about to clumsily feed it to the dying Liu Lang when Cheng Qian stopped him. As soon as the pill fell into his palm, it turned into a ball of mist and flowed gently into Liu Lang's body.

The elixirs from Shu are always unique and effective. Liu Lang's distracted eyes became focused again. The young man's face was full of pits and pits, and his arms, one long and one short, hung limply at his sides. He was missing a rib in his upper abdomen, leaving a black bloody wound, which looked very shocking.

Nian Dada couldn't help but ask, "Uncle Master, can he still survive?"

Cheng Qian lowered his eyes and looked at the dying boy. Liu Lang dug his deformed hands into the ground fiercely, his eyes were wide open, and there was an almost ferocious desire to survive in them.

Cheng Qian said: "That depends on whether he wants to live that much."

Before Nian Dadada could react to what this meant, he saw Cheng Qian suddenly shoot out three cold air from his palms, like three nails, ruthlessly nailing into Liu Lang's Baihui, Dantian and the soles of the feet. Liu Lang opened his mouth wide, but could not even make a sound. His whole body was violently pulled to the ground, leaving a long blood mark.

"When a mortal dies, his soul disappears, so I have nailed his soul into this body. If he survives within two hours, you can take him back to Mingming Valley and ask your father to send him to Master Tang Zhen," Cheng Qian said. "If he doesn't survive, there is nothing I can do - I have something else to do, so I can't take you with me. We'll meet again if we are lucky."

After saying that, he turned around and turned into a wisp of green smoke, and left in such a hurry.

Nian Dada: "Ah! Uncle Master! Wait!"

He jumped three feet high, wanting to catch up, but couldn't bear to leave Liu Lang who had fainted, so he had to turn around in the same place like a donkey pulling a mill. Suddenly, a ball of fire rushed into the cave like a meteor, and turned into a person on the ground. Nian Dada was so scared that he shrank his head, and when he looked again, he found that the person was a beautiful woman, so he greeted her shyly: "Miss, you..."

It was Shuikogen who broke in. She glanced around and asked, "Where are the people?"

Nian Dada stammered, "Who, who?"

Shuikeng stepped forward, grabbed Nian Dada's collar, lifted him up with great strength, and asked rapidly, "Where is the man who used the sword here just now?"

Nian Dada’s face turned red and his neck became thick. He uttered two words with difficulty: “…I’m gone.”

"Where did you go?"

Nian Dada had a bitter face and struggled hard to save his neck: "I don't know, girl. He is an elder of our sect. How could he tell me where he is going?"

Shuikeng threw him aside and turned to leave. After thinking for a while, he suddenly turned back and asked, "What sect are you from? What kind of elder is he to you?"

Nian Dada coughed dryly for a while, but still replied in a good-tempered manner: "There is only our Mingming Valley nearby. That is Elder Youtan of my sect. He has been in seclusion for nearly fifty years and just came out. This is his first time out of the valley. Girl, you must have made a mistake..."

Shuikeng interrupted him: "What's his name?"

Seeing that she was stubborn, Nian Dada sighed, but still answered honestly: "Cheng..."

Before he uttered the next word, the puddle had already transformed into a stream of fire again and chased after him without looking back.

After fifty years of seclusion, he just came out of the valley. If he was really her junior brother, where would he go? Apart from Fuyao Mountain, the water pit was out of his mind.

She cried as she chased, but she actually didn't understand what was so good about crying. But she just couldn't stop crying for some unknown reason. The tears just fell from her face and then turned into a ball of water vapor in the flames.

Shuikeng wanted to make the whole world know about it and inform her eldest and second eldest brothers and brother Zheshi one by one. However, she didn't dare to do so for fear that this was just a daydream.

She didn't even dare to listen to the silly boy say the man's full name.

During the past hundred years, Third Senior Brother had become a thorn in the side of the Sect Leader. No one was allowed to mention him. Sometimes, even the slightest hint of him in someone's voice would make him fly into a rage.

But he didn't allow anyone to mention it, and at the same time he made a copper coin phantom ring, which he often used to torture himself. He also painted the portrait of that person again and again, and every time he finished painting, he would stare at it for a while, then wave his hand to destroy it.

Shuikeng knew why, because he didn't want the person in the painting to stay in his youth forever, but he was powerless to do anything about it.

"Can the dead be resurrected?" She said to herself, "It's impossible. Even if one is a Yuanshen cultivator, he will not be the same person after reincarnation. Besides, Third Senior Brother was less than seventeen years old at that time, and he was a long way from Yuanshen."

Shuikeng felt that she was almost convinced by him, but her wings were completely out of control and she still headed towards Fuyao Mountain without hesitation.

She was absolutely right. Cheng Qian's target was indeed Fuyao Mountain. Seeing Jiang Peng again reminded him of the mysterious grudges of the previous generation of people on Fuyao Mountain. He had a vague premonition in his heart that if he could figure out those things, he would be able to find the key to reviving the sect.

Why can’t Fuyao Mountain become the second Mingming Valley?

Along the way, Cheng Qian had made countless preparations in his mind, thinking about the worst-case scenario: could Fuyao Mountain have become a barren mountain? Could their nine-story scripture building, the most exquisite formations, and countless unique talismans have been taken away by someone?

But what he never expected was that none of this happened, and he couldn't find the way back to Fuyao Mountain.

When Master Mu Chun brought Cheng Qian back to the sect, he took him up the mountain step by step. Cheng Qian thought that he would definitely find Fuyao Mountain. However, he rode his sword non-stop for a whole day and a whole night, and after searching back and forth three times based on his memory, he finally had to admit that Fuyao Mountain... had disappeared out of thin air.