Chapter 133

As dust scattered, a more turbulent darkness emerged from behind the secret door, like an overwhelming wave that made Ning Ning inexplicably feel a slight suffocation.

Before her was the silence of many years; the air was nearing decay. She instinctively held her breath and moved the candle forward.

The chamber behind the stone door was not large; it was empty on all sides except for a square stone platform standing at the end.

The candlelight flickered and floated through the darkness, finally reaching the front of the stone platform and illuminating what lay upon it.

Everyone was stunned.

—On the stone platform, there was nothing.

The chamber was empty, and the Sun Blaze Bow that Qiao Yan had mentioned should have been placed here was nowhere to be seen, only a silent and dark void.

Ning Ning’s first reaction was that she had been deceived, and she quickly turned her head to look at Qiao Yan.

However, to her surprise, the expression of astonishment on the young fox girl’s face was no less than theirs. Her eyes widened in disbelief, her pale lips trembling uncontrollably.

“How could this…?”

Qiao Yan couldn’t care about anything else. Her head went blank as she rushed straight into the chamber, looking around in confusion, not noticing any trace of the Sun Blaze Bow. “The bow should have been here; why…”

Her tone didn’t sound like she was pretending; it even carried a hint of obvious sobbing. Ning Ning took a step forward, her voice echoing several times in the chamber. “Could someone have taken it?”

“Impossible!”

Qiao Yan turned back, her eyes filled with tears and her voice trembling like threads in the wind. “My father had an accident when he tried to take the bow. I saw the jade pendant being taken away by the Phoenix…”

She couldn’t continue speaking after that, biting her lip tightly and turning away to prevent herself from crying out loud.

With her home destroyed and her loved ones in danger, Qiao Yan had placed all her hopes on the Sun Blaze Bow. Now, watching all her hopes shattered before her eyes, she couldn’t accept it.

If the Sun Blaze Bow was taken by the Fox Clan, they wouldn’t have hidden it secretly; they would have used it to deal with the demons.

If it had been taken by the demons early on, then they wouldn’t have needed to stay in the secret realm for such a long time, only to end up trapped in the Water Mirror Formation, unable to escape.

“What on earth is going on?”

He Zhizhou walked up to Ning Ning and whispered softly, deliberately lowering his voice, “Without that bow, how will the Demon Clan resolve their situation?”

The development of the situation far exceeded expectations, and Ning Ning didn’t know how to respond to him.

The joy of finally winning over Niguang Island was completely washed away by this unforeseen event. Among those present, except for Ning Ning, everyone else was tactless and didn’t know how to comfort others, especially since there were no useful words to comfort Qiao Yan at the moment.

For a while, no one spoke.

The chamber was already gloomy and silent, and now it has become even more eerie and unpredictable, with layers of unresolved doubts.

From the moment they met Qiao Yan to obtaining the jade pendant, they relied solely on the words of the little fox. Even though she didn’t seem to be lying—

But what if Qiao Yan was also kept in the dark?

After a long silence, it was unexpectedly Qiao Yan herself who spoke up; although her voice still choked with emotion, her tone had calmed considerably. “Let’s go.”

Xu Ye hesitated for a moment. “What about the Sun Blaze Bow—”

“It’s not here, and there’s no use staying in this chamber.”

She still had her back turned, hastily wiping away the tears from her eyes with her hand, then turned around to meet Xu Ye’s gaze. “I appreciate your help in finding the jade pendant. As for the matter with the Demon Clan, I’ll think of another solution.”

She gritted her teeth and added, “I know you all still have your own tasks to attend to, so I won’t bother you anymore after this—if you need a place to rest, the Fox Clan village is always open to you.”

Ning Ning couldn’t bear to see the little girl in such a state and responded softly upon hearing her words, “Don’t say that. With numerous uncertainties now and the Demon Clan waiting for an opportunity, we have already obtained many tokens and will naturally lend our full assistance.”

“Yeah, yeah! We still don’t know who took the Sun Blaze Bow. I’m definitely going to find that guy!”

He Zhizhou nodded in agreement. “But we still have too little information at the moment. Can you tell us more about the Water Mirror Formation and the Sun Blaze Bow?”

Qiao Yan hadn’t expected them to continue helping. She stood there with her mouth half open, stunned.

After a while, she finally made up her mind and nodded as if she were determined. “This matter is quite complicated. My mother knows much more about the details than I do… If you don’t mind the trouble, then follow me back to the village, and I’ll explain it in detail.”

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The group left the chamber in high spirits, but their minds were heavy as they ascended.

Ning Ning was a bit puzzled and couldn’t understand. She quietly used voice transmission to ask Pei Ji, “What do you think?”

“She doesn’t seem like she’s lying.”

Even through the transmission, his tone was cold, devoid of any emotional fluctuations.

“There are no signs of violent destruction at the secret door. If someone really took the Sun Blaze Bow beforehand, they should have used the jade pendant to enter the chamber.”

“And for all these years, the jade pendant has always been in the Fire Phoenix’s lair.”

The more Ning Ning thought about it, the stranger it seemed. “Then the Sun Blaze Bow should have been taken years ago… After all, it’s an extraordinarily powerful artifact. Whether it’s the righteous path or the evil path, how could there be no news for so long?”

Pei Ji shook his head.

With his personality, he should have had nothing more to say at this point, but unexpectedly, he pursed his lips and, after a moment’s pause, continued in a low voice, “I will find out. You don’t need to worry.”

It was as if he was comforting her.

They retraced their steps, leaving the dilapidated ancestral shrine behind, and returned to the Fox Clan village, which resembled a dead city.

The village was not far from the waterfall. According to Qiao Yan, she had intentionally built houses not far from the waterfall to allow the less mobile members of the clan to have easier access to water and reduce their burdens.

Ning Ning admired and lamented as she listened. As they walked along the bustling streets filled with smoke and mist, they suddenly heard the sounds of fighting not far away.

There were many participants in the trial, and this village was one of the few in the secret realm, naturally attracting attention. Ning Ning and Pei Ji exchanged a glance and moved towards the source of the noise.