Chapter 157

The most indecisive thing for him was dealing with the several mirror ghosts, who had sensed the presence of strangers and were stumbling towards him and Qiao Yan.

Qiao Yan was completely unaware of the truth, but he knew very well that these strange-looking creatures were transformed spirit foxes, all of Qiao Yan’s kin.

It was expected that the mirror ghosts, having been invaded by demonic energy and lost their reason, would attack them. But if he let Qiao Yan shoot them—

Wouldn’t that be the same as fratricide?

“Wait, wait!”

Seeing that Qiao Yan had already raised her bow and arrow, Xu Ye hastily grabbed her wrist, his mind racing faster than ever before. “Miss Qiao, you mustn’t!”

He tried his best to put on a serious look and emphasized, “This place is extremely dangerous. If they bleed, other mirror ghosts might follow the scent of blood and come here. We should sneak in quietly and avoid causing a commotion—No, this place is too scary. We should leave quickly!”

Qiao Yan hadn’t expected him to follow her, and she hesitated slightly, lowering her longbow.

“Taoist Xu, if you know how dangerous this place is, why did you follow me here?”

Xu Ye thought to himself that he didn’t want to come either, but his senior sister had told him that cultivators should help the world, and he couldn’t just run away and leave this girl behind.

“I’m here to eliminate evil!”

Xu Ye only wanted to get her out of there as quickly as possible. While using his sword techniques to knock out the attacking mirror ghosts, he pretended to be clueless and asked, “You’re really not leaving? What are you planning to do here?”

This time, Qiao Yan didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she paused and replied softly, “I want to see if I can find it.”

“It” should be the Sun Blaze Bow.

Thinking he understood her, Xu Ye sighed helplessly. “Where do you plan to find it?”

“In our spirit, fox village.”

Qiao Yan looked around at the desolate scenery and explained softly, “If those demon cultivators stayed here, they would definitely settle in the village. If we go there, we might find other demons besides the mirror ghosts and gather some intelligence.”

This girl is indeed brave.

Xu Ye knew she wouldn’t find anything useful or anyone there, so he quickly agreed, “I can go with you, but you have to promise me that if we don’t find it, you’ll come back to the other side of the formation with me.”

Without relying on his sword techniques, it would be hard for Qiao Yan to sneak into the village unnoticed. She knew her limits and nodded without hesitation.

So Xu Ye diligently played the role of a protector, knocking out the mirror ghosts with sword energy without drawing his sword.

This place, a true secret realm, had an abominable living environment. Not only was it filled with the smell of blood, but there were also remnants of plants and animals scattered around. The dense demonic energy in the air formed a gray fog, making it hard for him to breathe.

This must be the culprit causing the mutations in the spirit foxes.

Due to the mirrored nature of the secret realms, the layout of the roads was identical in both the real and false realms. Despite the vastly different scenery, Qiao Yan was able to navigate by memory, eventually leading her to the long-abandoned spirit fox village.

As Xu Ye had predicted, there were only mirror ghosts flying around, with no sign of any “Nascent Soul stage experts.”

He shivered in the cold wind and heard Qiao Yan mutter, “I’ve never understood why my mother always insisted that there were many powerful cultivators on the other side of the lake… But every time I got close to the lake, I only ever saw mirror ghosts.”

Xu Ye’s heart skipped a beat.

Walking in the dim twilight, her figure and voice blurred, Qiao Yan continued, “Why can’t we find the Sun Blaze Bow? Don’t you think it’s strange?”

“It is strange.”

His answer was dry, and he instinctively felt a bit panicked. “Didn’t Qin Niang say that it might have been taken by a spy? You thought so too before.”

“I…”

Qiao Yan wanted to say something but hesitated and fell silent. Because she was walking ahead, Xu Ye couldn’t see her expression, only the soft droop of her fox ears, looking somewhat sad.

“Didn’t you want to find the demons living here?”

He clumsily changed the topic, trying to cheer her up. “Why don’t we check each house one by one?”

Thankfully, the little girl’s ears perked up, and she nodded slightly.

“Our people used to live here.”

Qiao Yan said, “Later, to be closer to the water source, I built a new house near the waterfall—look, that’s my home.”

She quickly stepped forward and stopped at a small courtyard nearby, hesitantly saying, “This is Yan Qing’s house. We grew up as neighbors, but he preferred reading and didn’t like playing with me.”

Xu Ye nodded and followed her inside.

The house clearly hadn’t been lived in for a long time and was covered in a thick layer of dust. Qiao Yan silently surveyed the hall, and when her gaze swept across the wooden table, she froze.

The table was coated in dust and turned grayish-white, and in the center lay a light brown letter.

Without hesitation, she walked over, brushed off the dust, and immediately saw three prominent characters: “For Qiao Yan.”

“It’s my mother’s handwriting.”

Qiao Yan’s voice was very soft. “It’s her habit to leave a letter here if she and  father have to leave for clan matters—but I’ve never seen this letter in the other space.”

“Your mother is still alive and well! Maybe she left the letter but later took it back after surviving the great battle.”

Xu Ye tried hard to make up a story: “Do you want to… open it?”

His tone was somewhat shaky. However, before Qiao Yan could respond, a series of shrill cries suddenly rang out from not far away.

Xu Ye turned his head hastily and saw a swarm of mirror ghosts at the entrance, their muddy black eyes fixed on him with chilling murderous intent.

“…Damn, it looks like this is their lair.”

Sword techniques couldn’t deal with so many mirror ghosts, so Xu Ye focused and drew his sword. “It seems we won’t find your Sun Blaze Bow. After we deal with them, let’s leave together.”

With a sharp roar, the mirror ghosts at the door swarmed out, their strange noises echoing like bones being crushed.

Although Xu Ye held his sword, he didn’t intend to kill them all, relying on sword wind and energy to gradually drive the mirror ghosts back—