Chapter 1643: Chapter 1643

"So it turns out, this White Flash was nurtured!" After reading the entire inscription on the stone tablet, Li Yifei smacked his lips and sighed. After enduring hardships, the two finally reached this dangerous place for this White Flash. Now that they had found the right spot, they could finally breathe a sigh of relief.

But the White Flash hadn’t been found yet, so it wasn’t time to celebrate.

They looked around, finding no other stone tablets. Xu Shanshan found a stone to sit down on, while Li Yifei circled the surroundings. After breaking the Formation Method at the entrance, most parts of the shrine could be seen by the two. The space was indeed not very large, comparable to a regular cathedral, most of it occupied by stone pillars. The end of the shrine had nothing unusual except an altar-like place, which slightly stood out.

There were many skeletons in the shrine, at least a dozen, more than the ones at the entrance. Clearly, not only Li Yifei and Xu Shanshan had broken the Formation Method, but there had been more, yet it was unknown why they died here.

Looking at the altar, Li Yifei suddenly had a worry: the White Flash was nurtured during the Han Dynasty, which was at least two thousand years ago. Could it still be alive?

Recalling Master Void’s words, Li Yifei remembered Master Void’s exact words: "A few years ago, I went to the Southern region once and found something. When I had nothing to do, I deciphered it and discovered a map. It mentioned a highman who had explored some place in the Southern region, and after entering, discovered the White Flash. Just then, the highman had other business to attend to and didn’t delve further, so he later made a map and wrote a few simple sentences."

This implied that the highman might not necessarily be a modern person; he could have been ancient. The highman discovered this place and seemed to have come here, discovered the White Flash but did not research deeply, hurriedly leaving behind a simple map.

Of course, it’s also possible that it was a modern person. Anyone within one or two hundred years counts as modern, right? If that were the case, then the likelihood of the White Flash existing is very high.

As Li Yifei roamed inside the shrine, he also checked for dangers. After doing a lap, he confirmed there was only one Formation Method here. Then he called Xu Shanshan over, and the two began to carefully investigate the shrine, hoping to find some clues.

Ten minutes later, Xu Shanshan walked to the entrance, intending to take a look at what the giant pythons were doing. But when she got to the entrance, she felt a soft elasticity blocking her.

"Oh no. We can’t get out," Xu Shanshan turned her head and said to Li Yifei.

Li Yifei hurried over and tried it out, finding it indeed just as Xu Shanshan said. There was a barrier at the entrance blocking them, and when he stretched out his hand, he too was rebounded by a soft force.

Li Yifei attempted to punch it, using a bit more force. A second later, he felt a rebounding force on his fist, stronger than before, causing him to take a step back to dissolve the recoil.

Slightly surprised, Li Yifei raised his eyebrows and stepped back, aiming at the air before him. This time, channeling True Qi into his fist, Li Yifei charged for a few seconds and then punched again. This time, he suffered a greater rebound force, and he was directly flung out.

Xu Shanshan didn’t have time to grab Li Yifei, watching as he flew six or seven meters back, landing on his buttocks first, rolling over on the ground, and quickly jumping up again.

Li Yifei chuckled, patting his backside, "Interesting, this Formation Method rebounds the force back."

Xu Shanshan walked over, helping him arrange his clothes, deliberately checking the bottom he had just fallen on. After escaping from the pythons to here, their clothes were already tattered, and their backpacks were lost. At this point, they looked quite miserable.

With a reproachful glare at him, Xu Shanshan said, "There’s a Formation Method here; let’s find another way out."

Li Yifei pointed above, "It’s leaking up there, and that side is broken too."

A few minutes later, Li Yifei personally confirmed that neither the opening above nor the collapsed part on the other side could be exited. There was likewise an almost invisible membrane blocking them. After a while, the two proved one thing.

They were trapped. There was a membrane within a 20-meter radius centered on the altar, invisible to the eye, but palpable to the body, whether above or below ground... they hadn’t checked underground, as the floor was stone, the same material as the stone pillars. They couldn’t yet explore below the ground level.

The price was Li Yifei’s bum taking quite a few hits; fortunately, his skin was thick and rough, so he didn’t mind.

Even more worrying was not just the lack of a way out of the membrane, but also because they had no food or water, and everything they brought was in the backpacks outside. Their clothes weren’t reliable either, with Li Yifei nearly exposing himself, his underwear torn open, revealing parts of his rear.

Xu Shanshan was a bit better, at most revealing a deep cleavage on her chest that caught Li Yifei’s attention, but after a few glances, Li Yifei stopped looking and shifted his focus to breaking the formation.

The two of them were not hungry for the moment, but they were a bit thirsty. There were only stones here, nothing else.

Xu Shanshan sat next to the altar, watching Li Yifei busily moving around. Unable to hold back, she said, "Come and take a break, regain your strength. If it doesn’t work, let’s try to break the formation together and see if we can get out."

Hearing this, Li Yifei stopped, walked over, stood in front of Xu Shanshan, looking down at her with slightly narrowed eyes, and said, "You rest first. I’m not tired yet. I’ll keep looking." Follow current ɴᴏᴠᴇʟs on novel•fire.net

After speaking, Li Yifei glanced around and sighed, saying, "I now understand where these bones came from. Just now, I was wondering why these people, who could break the formation at the entrance, proving they weren’t ordinary, ended up dying here."

Xu Shanshan’s expression changed slightly. Initially trapped by the formation, she wasn’t too worried because she trusted Li Yifei, but when he said this, Xu Shanshan thought about all the masters throughout history who came and got trapped here, which was enough to show that this formation was extremely difficult to break.

Li Yifei extended his hand to wipe Xu Shanshan’s face, which still had traces of dirt, looking a bit pitiful. Li Yifei bent down, cupped Xu Shanshan’s face, gently kissed her, and softly said, "Don’t worry, I will find a way out."

"I’ll look with you, tell me some methods." Xu Shanshan grabbed Li Yifei’s hand to stand up. In such a dire situation, she couldn’t just sit there and wait for death, nor could she watch Li Yifei search alone while she rested.

There were methods, but they were clumsy. When encountering formations in the past, Li Yifei would first sense and perceive the existence of the formation, just like the one they were trapped in when they entered. But now, this method wasn’t working. Li Yifei couldn’t sense the presence of the formation at all; there was only that invisible resistance separating them from the outside world.

The two searched every inch of the place, and outside, the sky turned dark. Through the collapsed section, they could see many stars, as if they were right in front of them, yet completely untouchable.

Inside the formation, there was wind and air, and even the scent of the rainforest could drift in. When it began to rain in the latter half of the night, the raindrops could fall inside, through the formation, onto the ground.

Xu Shanshan cupped some rainwater in her hand and ran quickly to Li Yifei, saying, "Quick, have some, at least we have water now."

Li Yifei didn’t stand on ceremony, brought his mouth to Xu Shanshan’s hand and drank two mouthfuls. Xu Shanshan went to fetch another handful, and Li Yifei drank it all again. It wasn’t that he couldn’t fetch it himself, but drinking the water Xu Shanshan fetched made her happier.

Indeed, Xu Shanshan ran back and forth three times, still smiling beautifully. The two planned to stop searching in the latter half of the night, originally intending to lie down and rest, but then it rained, so Li Yifei was lying down.

Xu Shanshan drank quite a bit herself. With their current cultivation level, they could last several days without food or drink, and with water, they could last even longer. As for how long they could last, since they achieved this level of cultivation, they hadn’t tested it, so they didn’t know.

Li Yifei sat up cross-legged and heard Xu Shanshan murmur, "If only we could store some water."

Suddenly Xu Shanshan’s eyes lit up, looking at the altar. There was a depression on the altar, and superficially, it seemed to be nothing, just a stone basin the size of a washbasin. The two had checked it many times, knocking with hands and pounding with fists, but didn’t get any reaction. So when thinking of a container, Xu Shanshan’s idea focused on this.

As soon as she thought of it, she acted immediately. Xu Shanshan started catching rainwater with her little hands, quickly running to the altar to pour it into the stone basin. Seeing it, she realized how little water her hands could hold compared to the basin the size of a washbasin, so she only glanced at it and went back to catching more rainwater.

After several repeats, Xu Shanshan continued the task. Li Yifei stood up, went to the place where the rain was leaking, stood where it wasn’t leaking, quietly observing, his eyes fixed on the ground.

The rain tonight was heavy, outside filled with the sound of rustling rain, so much water gathered, flowing to the ground and forming streams. The entire temple was flat, those rainwaters should’ve spread everywhere, but they didn’t. Instead, they landed, flowed a short distance, then disappeared.

Indeed, they disappeared. There were no cracks on the ground, the stone was a solid piece, but the rainwater vanished, disappearing right before Li Yifei’s eyes.

He stared for so long that Xu Shanshan called him, but he didn’t hear. Xu Shanshan called him to help fetch rainwater; filling the basin would be enough for both of them to drink for days, hopefully lasting until the next rain. Even without food, with water supply, they could meditate more and absorb True Qi to meet their body’s needs, even if they couldn’t get out, they could live many more days.