Seeking Truth with a Sword-Chapter 354 - 308 Fractured Bones

Chapter 354: Chapter 308 Fractured Bones
A thunderous roar sounded. Li Ang and Sui Yi exchanged glances before immediately concealing their auras and rushing out the door.
The Jialan Sect was built on a mountain and covered a vast area. From south to north, its structures included the Mountain Gate, the bell tower and drum tower, a corridor, the Lotus Pond, and the Heavenly King Hall. On either side of the Heavenly King Hall were side rooms and the guest hall (a place for handling miscellaneous affairs, receiving visitors from afar and wandering monks, and managing the attendance and discipline of the monks). Behind the Heavenly King Hall lay a large square. To the east and west sides of this square were the Pharmacist Hall, the Guanyin Hall, the Reclining Buddha Hall, and other Buddhist temples, followed by the most magnificent Great Hero Hall.
Inside the hall stood four people in a triangular formation: Ashina Que Teqin, a Lu Li Academy Disciple named Jiu Fenghai, and a Prince of the Zhou Kingdom named Xia Jun. Standing by Xia Jun’s side was Xiao Da, Li Ang’s teammate from earlier.
Hm?
Li Ang was somewhat puzzled. He had seen Xiao Da fleeing north earlier, so why was he now inside the ruin?
"Don’t get in my way!" Prince Xia Jun, Longsword in hand, bellowed. "Today, I’m going to demolish this place to see what’s causing trouble."
"You can’t demolish it," Que Teqin, holding a scimitar, blocked Xia Jun’s sword and said earnestly. "The Prohibitions of the Jialan Sect are extremely odd; any action might cause unknown consequences. At best, it summons danger. At worst, it triggers an anomaly, leading to expulsion from the competition."
"What I demolish has nothing to do with you," Xia Jun said impatiently. "If it comes to it, I’ll take the consequences of failure myself. Just stay far away."
"Your Highness, that’s not right," Jiu Fenghai said, after a brief pause. "We are all trapped in this ruin, like grasshoppers on the same rope. Let’s not be hasty with infighting and make fools of ourselves in front of new guests."
New guests?
Xia Jun and Que Teqin followed Jiu Fenghai’s gaze out of the hall. It was unusually quiet outside, with only the sound of the wind.
Seeing this, Jiu Fenghai had no choice but to say helplessly, "The two Academic Palace students outside, please reveal yourselves."
At his words, Li Ang and Sui Yi appeared from the hall’s front steps. They stepped over the threshold and walked into the hall quite openly, showing no embarrassment at their concealment being discovered.
"Li Ang?"
"Dr. Li?"
Xiao Da and Que Teqin exclaimed in surprise.
Prince Xia Jun narrowed his eyes. The name Li Ang was already famous across the land, and Sui Yi’s alias, the Yinghuo Sword, was also particularly well-known in the Zhou Kingdom’s Cultivation World.
"Everyone," Li Ang raised his hand and asked, "what exactly is going on here?"
Xia Jun, Que Teqin, and the others exchanged glances and slowly lowered their weapons. Jiu Fenghai sighed before he began to explain.
Not long ago, all of them had been pulled into the ruin by various accidents. Some were chased by demons; others were searching for Aliens carrying high-level Bell Beads. Some, like the unfortunate Xiao Da, had accidentally stepped into a ruin overgrown with weeds, triggered a Prohibition, and found themselves here when they next opened their eyes. After arriving, the four of them discovered they couldn’t leave, no matter what they tried. Moreover, time seemed frozen within the ruin—the sun, moon, and stars remained unchanged—so they had no idea how much time had passed. Thus, they had begun exploring the surroundings.
"There haven’t been any deadly anomalies," Jiu Fenghai spoke gravely, "but we constantly encounter strange phenomena. For instance, we hear footsteps approaching from behind, someone whispering in our ears, or even screams—yet, when we turn around, there’s nothing. The food we carried suddenly rotted. The weapons and Bell Beads we brought disappeared mysteriously, only to reappear inexplicably elsewhere."
Xia Jun added gloomily, "Just now, I encountered this." He lifted his right arm, showing a bloody handprint on the sleeve at his elbow, as if someone had forcefully gripped it. "My Spiritual Sense didn’t detect anyone approaching at all; not even my Alarm Talisman was triggered." He glanced at the Buddhist temple and said coldly, "This whole site is permeated with an evil aura. The Academic Palace deliberately set up the Prohibitions like this. This joke has gone too far."
"Prince Wu, please calm down," Jiu Fenghai said, shaking his head. "The Academic Palace Doctors wouldn’t intentionally make the difficulty so high that no one can pass. Every Prohibition has a way to be lifted. The more abnormal situations there are, the closer we are to the truth. The Mountain Master said before the trial began that a large number of Bell Beads were also placed within the site for the taking. Right now, those outside still daren’t enter. This is a good opportunity for us to explore the environment and earn points."
"...Hmph." Xia Jun’s gaze flickered, but in the end, he didn’t press the issue. If possible, he too wanted to be among the top ten to advance to Zhanquan for further study, which would greatly benefit his standing in the Zhou Kingdom.
Seeing Xia Jun settle down, Jiu Fenghai breathed a sigh of relief and turned to Li Ang and Sui Yi. "How did you two end up at the Jialan Sect? And injured, at that?"
"We ran into Shangguan Yangyao and his group and had a fight," Sui Yi said with a curl of his lip, giving a brief account.
Li Ang, meanwhile, stepped forward a few paces to carefully examine the structure of the Grand Hall. Compared to the Heavenly King Hall to the south, the Jialan Sect’s Grand Hall was even larger and more magnificent, though also more dilapidated. The ground was covered with deep marks and broken bricks and tiles. More than half of the beams and columns had collapsed. Under some tiles, fine, gray fragments remained. Picking one up, Li Ang saw it was weathered bone.
Human bone.
"This place was indeed the site of a fierce battle when it was destroyed," Li Ang said, looking up. "But where are the corpses? If other Sects in the chaos of the Late Sui Dynasty slaughtered the Jialan Sect, they surely wouldn’t have been so kind as to dispose of the bodies properly."
"I know about that," Sui Yi said, raising his unbroken left hand. "When our Academic Palace discovered this site a hundred years ago, there were many ghastly remains on the ground. The Academic Palace seniors couldn’t bear to see the bones exposed, so during the archaeological survey, they simply burned them."
"Burned?" Li Ang’s eye twitched. "If they couldn’t bear to see the bones exposed, shouldn’t they have buried the remains properly?"
"What if resentful spirits were attached?" Sui Yi said confidently. "For the remains of Cultivators, burning is actually the best way to deal with them. I’ve arranged the same for myself. When I die, I’ll have friends and family gather, throw my coffin into a bonfire, and hold a bonfire party—BBQ, drinks, the works. Perhaps, after I die, I could even play matchmaker one last time, pairing off one or two young couples at the bonfire party. Matchmaking, reincarnation, the cycle of life—all in one go!"
So you’re planning to go out with a bang, huh,
Li Ang thought speechlessly. "If the bones hadn’t been burned, I could have determined the cause of death by analyzing the injuries. Now there’s no way."
Hmm...
He surveyed the hall and quickly noticed something amiss. "Why does the Grand Hall enshrine four Buddhas?"