Repugnant Gateway

Chapter 524 – Lost

When An Zheng opened his eyes, what he saw waree of peach blossoms, the pink color rushed forth from the darkness, giving him the illusion that he had suddenly entered another world. Previously, the old ox’s shadow had sent them into the Daoist manor’s holy abode, but was this place really just a peach forest? As for this peach forest, why did it look so familiar?

An Zheng looked around and realized that he was the only one there.

“Chen Shaobai! Qi Tian! ”

An Zheng shouted twice, but no one answered.

An Zheng walked forward slowly, guarding his surroundings. No one knew if there were any dangers lurking around. The old ox’s shadow had mentioned that many experts of the Great Xi world were trapped in illusions. Looking at the date, those people had been trapped for at least nearly a year. They were probably on the verge of collapse. Once they met someone, they would immediately attack.

After An Zheng walked forward for about a few hundred meters, the area in front of him suddenly opened up.

It was because he saw this empty space that An Zheng’s mind suddenly exploded.

Wasn’t this place the Peach Garden in the immortal palace? Here, An Zheng had fought with people from the Hanhai Sect before, and this empty space was left behind after An Zheng had pulled out hundreds of peach trees. It seemed that the military headquarters were flat, and the loess that had been turned over still had new traces.

In other words, Qi Tian and Chen Shaobai could have been sent to the true heavenly passage, while he himself was sent to this peach forest.

However, An Zheng could not find anyone to ask. After determining the direction to go based on the empty ground, he turned around and walked towards the location of Old Cow’s thatched cottage that he remembered. He did not dare to be too fast. Since it was an illusion, what he saw might not be real. After walking back for a few hundred meters, An Zheng suddenly stopped, because he realized that he had lost his way. An Zheng was a very meticulous and cautious person, his many years of experience in investigating cases had given him many good habits.

When he just appeared in this peach forest, An Zheng had already made a mark on a peach tree. This peach tree must have suffered some sort of attack before, the shape of the tree was very strange, An Zheng definitely remembered it correctly. The tree was still the same, but the mark was gone.

An Zheng suddenly turned his head, as if he had suddenly realized something, and rushed towards that empty land. An Zheng remembered clearly, he took a total of more than 900 steps to reach the clearing. He was definitely not going in the wrong direction, and even though the peach tree looked messy because it had been growing for so many years without anyone to take care of it, it was still in the queue. According to his memories, when An Zheng rushed over, he was shocked to find that the space had disappeared.

There was not a single missing peach tree here, and every one of them was intact.

This was more than just an illusion. These peach trees formed a huge maze. An Zheng had specially noted down the past few times when he had entered the Peach Blossom Forest. The Peach Blossom took up at least ten thousand acres, and walking out of the maze in such a large area would be even harder than ascending to the heavens.

It seemed like Chen Shaobai and Qi Tian had also been sent into the peach forest. It was just because this place was changing at any time, that the three of them were separated the moment they entered. At this moment, if he wanted to find each other, he could only rely on luck. No one knew where they were, let alone finding them.

An Zheng remembered what the old cow had said and finally understood. The old ox said that there were many experts from the Great Xias trapped in the illusion. There were even Dao Sect descendants who had a deep understanding of the Mysterious Gate’s armor. If they accidentally encountered it, they would be in danger. This carelessness originally meant that there was a danger involved.

An Zheng pondered for a while from where he stood. He felt that he wasn’t distracted, and was still paying attention to his surroundings. But just when he was considering what would happen if he stayed where he was, he discovered that the peach tree next to him had silently changed. Without any movement, the peach tree was no longer the peach tree from before.

An Zheng frowned.

“In that case, let’s open a path.”

An Zheng bent over and hugged onteach tree: “These are all good stuff, I’m not willing to destroy you guys.”

He raised both his arms and pulled oueach tree with a poof. He then threw it into his own Blood Pearl Bracelet space, but there was no hint from Heaven’s Eyes. An Zheng was startled, could it be that all the peach trees were fake?

In that instant of astonishment, he realized that the tree hole in front of him was also gone. The peach tree was still in front of him, exactly the same as the one he had just pulled out.

“All fake?”

However, if it was fake, then he should have already felt it when he was pulling the peach tree just now. However, no matter if it was the feeling of a tentacle or the feeling of being forcefully pulled, it was all very real. With such a large peach tree, the roots and intertwines of the earth were intertwined. Just relying on the strength of one’s muscles to pull it out was not enough, so one still needed to use the Cultivation Power. The consumption was real, so why was the peach tree fake?

“Heaven’s Eye!”

An Zheng called out, and the scarlet Blood Pearl immediately flew up and floated in front of An Zheng.

“Let’s see what kind of place this is.”

A layer of faint red light scattered out from his Heaven’s Eye, quickly covering a large area. After a while, the voice of the Heaven’s Eyes appeared in An Zheng’s mind, but there were only two words.

“Tao Lin.”

An Zheng sighed and retracted the Heaven’s Eyes. Then, he took out the good old man that was still sleeping lazily from the Blood Pearl and rubbed his little head: “Don’t sleep anymore, I’m trapped here. See how we can walk out of here.”

good old man unwillingly opened his eyes and looked around. Then, as if he had suddenly regained his spirit, he stood up straight and trembled, then looked around. Roughly two minutes later, good old man raised his beautiful little claws and pointed to the left. An Zheng hugged good old man and kissed him hard: “I knew you were the best.”

good old man looked at him with disdain, but did not have any more sleepiness, and continued to size up his surroundings. An Zheng followed the direction that good old man pointed and walked forward. After walking for about a few hundred meters, he was stunned yet again.

This was the place where he had entered the peach orchard. He saw that the peach tree had a strange shape and there was a mark that he had left on it. He had returned to the starting point, but the starting point was also in the peach forest.

An Zheng asked: “good old man, what should we do next?”

At this time, the good old man unknowingly stood up, all of its hair looking stiff, its tail bursting straight. He didn’t know if it was because he saw something terrifying that he frightened, or because of some other reason. The stars in its eyes flowed faster and faster.

An Zheng raised his vigilance to the maximum, the state of the good old man looked too weird. However, after a few minutes, good old man’s tensed up nerves suddenly relaxed, as if it had just battled against some extremely powerful enemy. The entire cat looked a bit dispirited, but it had relaxed by quite a bit. It once again lifted its front paw and pointed in a direction, then laid in An Zheng’s embrace, looking drowsy.

An Zheng didn’t know what good old man had just experienced, but he could feel that he was extremely tired. It was as if he had just experienced a fierce battle and all his energy had been exhausted in just a few minutes.

Following the direction that the good old man was pointing in, An Zheng walked for around half an hour. The surrounding environment looked like it was never seen before, so An Zheng’s mood gradually became better. As long as they were places that he had never been before, at least he wouldn’t be walking around in circles.

Then, An Zheng heard the sound of water splashing. It was very light, but An Zheng was sure that he had heard it correctly.

He rushed in that direction, and after another three or four minutes, he reached the end of the forest. In front of him was a small stream, but it was not very wide. The stream was so clear that one could see the bottom. Not far away, he saw a person sitting in a daze as he stared at the stream. He was rather skinny, with long hair and a shawl covering his body. His clothes looked tattered, so he couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman.

An Zheng coughed, and wanted to ask where he was.

That person slowly turned his head, and then, even An Zheng’s scalp felt like it was going to explode at that moment.

This person had no face.

His face was flat, like an eggshell. It would not be so smooth if someone had cut off its facial features. It really was likuge egg on its neck. There was nothing, but An Zheng could clearly feel that this person was looking at him.

Suddenly, a sharp wailing sound came from that person’s body. That sound was ear-piercing, and almost pierced An Zheng’s eardrums in an instant. That person suddenly stood up, as if he was greatly frightened, and dived head first into the stream. The stream was very shallow, but it was only a few centimeters deep. However, that person had dove into it and disappeared.

The stream was still clear enough to see the clean pebbles below, but the person had disappeared withourace. An Zheng looked down and saw that all the hairs on good old man’s body had stood up once again. The stars in his eyes moved once again, as if he was about to face a great enemy.

What the hell was this place!

This small stream was like a dividing line. Behind An Zheng was the peach forest, and on the other side of the small stream was the peach forest. Following the direction of the stream, he seemed to be able to seall mountain. An Zheng searched through his memories, discovering that the outline of the mountain was somewhat familiar, yet he couldn’t recall where he had seen it before.

Looking downstream, he couldn’t see the end of the river. The stream went straight down, and there were peach trees on both sides.

An Zheng asked good old man where he should go. good old man raised his little claws and pointed upstream. At this time, An Zheng had no other choice but to follow good old man’s instructions and advance towards the mountain. He didn’t dare to travel that fast. No one knew what the freak he met was.

Just as he and good old man were walking towards the direction of the mountain, the strange person who had entered the stream earlier appeared once again. He slowly stuck his head out of the stream without making any sound. His long, wet hair was loose on his shoulders, and on his face that didn’t have anything at all, he seemed to be looking at An Zheng’s back.