Chapter 18

The bed had already been tidied, and the room had been cleaned until it was spotless. Yet Xu Yizhuo stood in the very center of the room like a wooden stake, not wanting to touch anything anywhere.

On this night when she was alone and separated from the others, only the mirror in her arms could still bring her a trace of warmth.

As soon as she entered the room, Xu Yizhuo used the mirror to shine over everything. As expected, she saw that the teapot was filled with sand, and the bed was nothing more than a few broken wooden boards covered with several pieces of tattered cloth. An illusion was only an illusion, after all. It could not create real things.

The place she was currently in was Lotus City, which had already turned into ruins… She just did not know who had arranged an illusion formation here, allowing her to see Lotus City as it had been more than two hundred years ago, before Guque had fallen.

And the people she saw inside Lotus City did not seem to be mere illusions either. Perhaps they were wandering souls who did not know they were already dead.

What exactly was the connection between those lotus lanterns and the wandering souls… Xu Yizhuo recalled the child whose body had gradually become transparent after his lantern went out. If a lotus lantern went out and was not relit in time, would the ghost also disappear completely?

Xu Yizhuo lowered her eyes in thought.

Then she suddenly realized something and raised her head as if waking from a dream.

“Why am I worrying about these things?” Xu Yizhuo patted her own head. “What does it have to do with me?”

The purpose of her trip was to cross the Yangshu Desert and go to Dayan. As long as she brought Old Li out of the Yangshu Desert, her goal would be achieved. What did Guque, the illusion formation, and the wandering souls have to do with her?

After figuring that out, Xu Yizhuo prepared to leave. She originally wanted to go through the main door, but remembering that the old, unrepaired door would make an ear-piercing creak the moment it was pushed open, she did not want to alert the ghost in the courtyard. So she pushed open the window and climbed out.

A pop-up suddenly jumped out in front of her. Startled, Xu Yizhuo twisted her ankle and nearly fell to the ground. She only barely steadied herself by holding onto the windowsill.

The system, which had almost no presence, suddenly issued a quest.

[Main Quest 3 · Shrouded in Mist: Under the influence of the illusion formation, you have seen the Lotus Marsh Kingdom, Guque, from more than two hundred years ago. Wandering souls roam the city, unable to enter reincarnation. To uncover the secret of Guque’s fall, please proceed to the royal palace and investigate.]

“Not going.” Xu Yizhuo abandoned the quest with an indifferent expression.

The system had confirmed some of Xu Yizhuo’s guesses about Lotus City, but unfortunately, she had no interest at all in Guque’s secrets. She only wanted to reunite with Old Li and the others, then leave the desert as soon as possible.

Xu Yizhuo rubbed her slightly swollen ankle, found a bottle of wound medicine from her inventory, casually applied it a few times, then walked back along the way she had come. Fortunately, the woman’s home was truly close to the city gate, and the tall city walls were conspicuous enough. She was not so hopeless as to get lost over such a short distance.

Xu Yizhuo walked close to the base of the wall, trying her best to stay within the inconspicuous shadows. Very soon, she reached the foot of the city wall.

When she had entered, the city gate had been open, but now the gate was tightly shut. Xu Yizhuo glanced at the soldiers standing guard on both sides of the gate and decided to rely on herself. She would simply climb over the city wall directly.

A white shadow did not attract anyone’s attention as it lightly landed on top of the city wall.

All the cultivation in Xu Yizhuo’s body seemed to only serve the purpose of climbing onto roofs and tearing off tiles. Because she was too lazy to use doors, Xu Yizhuo had grown used to climbing courtyard walls. Now that the courtyard wall had been replaced by a city wall, her movements were not much more awkward. She was just about to jump straight down from the city wall when she saw a “wall of sand” abruptly appear not far away.

A sandstorm was moving rapidly toward Lotus City, sweeping in.

“…Again?” Xu Yizhuo was stunned.

She knew that during the sandstorm tide, sandstorms broke out extremely frequently inside unauthorized copy the Yangshu Desert, but she had never expected them to be this frequent.

Xu Yizhuo understood the situation very well and obediently turned around, jumped down from the city wall, and returned inside the city.

She dug out the quest she had just abandoned from the quest list. After choosing to accept it, a map briefly replaced the mini-map.

Xu Yizhuo followed the red arrow on the map.

Looking down at Lotus City from above, one would discover that it formed a standard square, with the royal palace located right at the center. Several main roads in the city ran straight and level, either horizontally or vertically. Once Xu Yizhuo reached one of those roads, she only had to keep walking forward.

Lotus City seemed completely unaffected by the sandstorm. When Xu Yizhuo looked back, she saw that the sand and dust crossing over the city walls dissolved like snow beneath the moonlight. It was as if Lotus City was covered by a protective barrier guarding it.

But Xu Yizhuo knew this was only an illusion.

She glanced once, then calmly looked away. The main road was brightly lit and filled with human voices, but at the end of the road, there was a deathly silent island.

Guque’s royal palace sat on an island in the center of a lake.

The lotus flowers covering the lake bloomed quietly. Under the moonlight, the snow-white petals seemed to be covered with another layer of cold white gauze, swaying gently in the night wind. But in the Delusion-Breaker Mirror, there was no lake water and no lotus flowers. There was only yellow sand, no different from anywhere else.

Xu Yizhuo walked along the lakeside for a long time but did not find a bridge leading to the island.

[After solving a specific mechanism, the bridge leading to the royal palace will emerge from the water. Player, please search nearby for the mechanism.]

Xu Yizhuo ignored it completely. She directly took a small wooden boat from her inventory. After ​read the original at bailiantales.com​tossing it onto the water, the boat, which had originally been no bigger than her palm, instantly became normal-sized.

Xu Yizhuo lifted her skirt and carefully stepped onto the small boat. There was no need to row. The boat moved toward the center of the lake on its own.

The lotus flowers and leaves on the water were parted by the boat and left behind one by one. After Xu Yizhuo stepped onto land, she waved her hand, and the small boat returned to its original size and landed in her palm.

[Within Guque’s royal palace lies Guque’s greatest secret.]

After the system said this, it did not give any other hints. No matter how Xu Yizhuo poked it, it did not respond.

Xu Yizhuo suddenly very much wanted to greet the game planners.

She summoned a paper lantern and held it in her hand, shining it at the ground beneath her feet. Weeds grew thickly across the ground, most of them reaching above her ankles. Xu Yizhuo could not find a path, so she could only pass through the weeds until she reached the steps in front of the palace.

After all, it was only the royal palace of a small desert kingdom. The palace was not large. Its area was probably comparable to that of a high school. Because the entire building was white, at first glance, Xu Yizhuo felt that it did not look like a royal palace, but more like a temple.

The stone steps beneath her feet were made of unknown white stone. Some parts had already shattered, and cracks had appeared even in the places that had not broken. When she stepped on them, they even shook slightly.

Xu Yizhuo quickly climbed the nine steps.

What appeared before her were two stone doors that looked extremely heavy at first glance. On both sides of the stone doors were two stone beasts Xu Yizhuo did not recognize. They looked a little like lions, but they had two heads, and their fur also looked much thicker than that of lions. They sat on either side of the stone doors, dignified and imposing, like guardians of the royal palace.

Xu Yizhuo tried pushing the stone doors. To her surprise, the doors seemed to have some mechanism installed. Although they were extremely heavy, the person pushing them only needed to use a very small amount of force to open them.

The main hall was pitch-black inside.

After Xu Yizhuo opened a crack in the door, she warily squeezed inside. She lifted the paper lantern and shone it around, but the space inside the hall was far larger than she had imagined. The paper lantern could only illuminate a very small area. Xu Yizhuo could only see that beneath her feet was a white stone floor polished enough to reflect a person.

After closing the palace doors, the hall became even quieter. Xu Yizhuo could only hear the sound of her own footsteps as she walked, accompanied by faint echoes.

It was rather creepy.

Aside from the lantern in her hand, there was no other light in the hall. It also felt as if she would never reach the edge of the main hall. Xu Yizhuo began to feel like retreating. This quest was something she could either do or ignore anyway. Why not stop here, honestly wait for the sandstorm to pass, and then wait until Old Li and the others found Guque’s ruins so they could reunite?

As soon as the thought of retreat appeared, Xu Yizhuo turned around and started walking back.

But after she had only taken two steps, a girl’s eerie voice sounded behind her.

“Why… aren’t you continuing forward?”

Xu Yizhuo: “…”

Xu Yizhuo turned and ran.