Chapter 175 - The Pulled Disciples and the Missed Fortune
Outside the entrance of the Fallen-Star Sanctuary, the elders had spent the past nine days learning what helplessness tasted like.
At first, it was only tension.
Every hundred years, young geniuses entered with treasures, pills, talismans, and the hopes of their sects tied around them. Elders naturally worried, but that worry had always been mixed with expectation.
But this time was different.
On the first day, not even an hour after the disciples entered, a dozen Spatial Return Threads dissolved almost at the same time.
The elders of those sects stood frozen.
At first, they thought it was a mistake. Perhaps the gate fluctuation had disturbed the threads.
But the threads did not return.
The jade plates holding those disciples’ Spatial Return Threads dimmed one after another. Some cracked softly. Others simply lost their glow, as if the connection had been swallowed by something deep.
No elder spoke for several breaths, then someone whispered, "Already?"
The word made the atmosphere worse.
Yue Cangyu’s expression turned grave.
...
After several hours, more Spatial Return Threads vanished.
This time, the result was worse.
Several soul lamps went out.
The moment those lamps died, the elders no longer had room to comfort themselves. A dissolved thread might mean interference. A shattered connection might mean danger. But a dead soul lamp meant the disciple was gone.
The entrance camp fell into a heavy silence.
The elders who had mocked the City Lord Mansion’s caution no longer spoke loudly. The sects whose disciples had died lowered their banners slightly.
Even the larger factions stopped treating the opening as a competition of opportunity and began watching the gate like it was a wound that might spit out bad news at any moment.
Then, later that day, Su Bai’s Spatial Return Thread disappeared.
Lu Canghai’s face turned ugly. Beside him, Li Xuanzong’s expression also changed.
Several nearby elders noticed at once. Among them, Jian Wuchen of Myriad Swords Sect and Yan Zhaolie of Scorching Sun Valley exchanged a glance.
Jian Wuchen’s expression carried the proper amount of concern. His tone carried far more than that.
"Brother Lu," he said, "your disciple’s Return Thread seems to have vanished. How unfortunate. The Fallen-Star Sanctuary is truly unpredictable."
Yan Zhaolie sighed as well. "Young geniuses should still remember caution. Talent is precious, but recklessness can bury even a bright future."
The words sounded like concern. The meaning beneath them was not even hidden well.
Lu Canghai did not look at them.
That alone made the two slightly uncomfortable.
They had expected anger, worry, denial, or at least a cold reply. Instead, Lu Canghai only stared at the dimmed jade plate connected to Su Bai’s thread, his brows drawn together as if he were not imagining Su Bai dying, but imagining Su Bai doing something deeply troublesome.
Li Xuanzong understood that at once.
After a moment, Lu Canghai finally sighed.
"That brat."
Jian Wuchen’s eyes moved slightly. Yan Zhaolie almost smiled.
Lu Canghai continued, "He must have seen something useful and walked straight into it again."
The smiles froze before they fully formed.
Li Xuanzong coughed lightly into his sleeve.
Jian Wuchen’s expression became difficult to describe. "Brother Lu is... confident."
Lu Canghai finally glanced at him.
"My disciple is not easy to kill."
Yan Zhaolie gave a faint laugh. "Confidence is admirable."
Li Xuanzong smiled before Lu Canghai could answer.
"Indeed," the Sect Master of Radiant Sky Sect said gently. "Confidence is admirable. That must be why Scorching Sun Valley sent so many disciples despite the early opening. Such courage truly moves people."
Yan Zhaolie’s smile stiffened.
Li Xuanzong turned toward Jian Wuchen with the same polite expression. "And Myriad Swords Sect as well. I heard your disciples entered with excellent preparation. Brother Jian must be very at ease."
Jian Wuchen felt as if he had swallowed a sword sheath.
After exchanging several more sentences filled with good manners sharp enough to cut robes, Jian Wuchen and Yan Zhaolie finally left with irritated faces.
Lu Canghai watched them go, then snorted.
...
Days passed.
More Spatial Return Threads disappeared.
Then, the first disciples were pulled out.
At the start, only a few sects dared do it.
A Return Thread was a safety measure, but forcibly pulling a disciple out was not a light decision. Once withdrawn, they could not be sent back in. The opportunity was over. If the danger inside was survivable, then the elder had personally ended their disciple’s chance.
But after hearing reports from the first rescued disciples, more elders became cautious.
Those disciples came out pale and trembling. They spoke of false faces, broken safe zones, red mist that entered wounds, and people who remembered their own names but smiled wrongly.
When the words "an outpost may have fallen" spread, the entrance camp changed again.
The elders no longer watched only their own jade plates.
They watched everyone’s.
No one said it openly, but the thought appeared in many hearts.
If one outpost had fallen, what about the others?
...
After a few more days passed, the fear that had been quietly accumulating finally found a place to erupt.
A large number of Spatial Return Threads reacted at once.
Some dissolved. Some shook violently. Some weakened so quickly that the jade plates began ringing like cracked bells.
The entrance camp exploded into motion.
"Whose disciples?"
"Check the soul lamps!"
"Are they alive?"
"Why are so many threads reacting together?"
"Did they enter a trap?"
The major factions did not move immediately. Their disciples were powerful, and pulling them out too soon might waste the greatest opportunity of the century.
But smaller factions could not remain calm. They did not have many geniuses to lose.
One sect master’s hands trembled as he looked at his disciple’s thread flickering wildly. He remembered the earlier reports of bodies blooming. He gritted his teeth and pressed his palm onto the jade plate.
"Pull him out."
The spatial formation flashed.
The decision spread like fire.
"Withdraw our disciple!"
"Bring them back!"
"Activate the emergency pull!"
One after another, Spatial Return Threads tightened from outside the Sanctuary.
Some succeeded. Some failed because the connection had already dissolved. Some were violently severed from within.
That last result stunned the elders.
"They cut their own threads?"
"Why would they resist rescue?"
"They must be under illusion!"
"Or controlled!"
The elders’ faces changed drastically.
If disciples were cutting their own Return Threads to avoid being saved, then the situation inside had to be horrifying.
Soon, the first successfully pulled disciple appeared.
Spatial light flashed.
A young cultivator stumbled onto the platform. His hair was disheveled. His face was pale.
Several elders rushed forward.
His sect elder grabbed his shoulders. "Are you hurt? What happened inside? Speak quickly!"
The young cultivator stared at his elder. His lips trembled.
The elder’s heart sank.
This expression. This grief. This must be trauma!
But then, the young cultivator’s eyes became moist.
"My storage ring..." he whispered.
The elder froze. "What?"
The disciple inhaled shakily.
"My storage ring was not full yet!"
The elder’s hands loosened slightly.
Around them, several other pulled disciples appeared one after another.
None of them looked grateful.
Some looked dazed. Some looked heartbroken. Some looked as if they had personally watched heaven close its door in their faces.
One disciple grabbed his head with both hands and almost howled.
"I was just starting to get rich!"
Another stared back at the gate, eyes red. "The next ruin was right there. Right there!"
A third clenched his fists, then remembered his elders were present and swallowed his anger so hard his throat visibly moved.
The elders stared at them.
Something was wrong.
This was not the reaction of disciples saved from certain death.
This was the reaction of gamblers dragged away from a winning table!
One elder said carefully, "Were you under illusion?"
His disciple looked at him with wounded dignity. "Elder, I wish it had been an illusion. Then perhaps I could still wake up inside."
Another elder frowned. "Then why did you resist being pulled out?"
A young cultivator from a smaller sect could not hold back anymore. He turned toward his own master with tears in his eyes.
"Master, why did you pull me out? Our sect was about to get rich!"
His master’s expression blanked.
The disciple continued as his voice cracked with grief, "Brother Su was leading us! We were safe! We were finding treasures every few hours! I had already received star-metal fragments, ancient formation pieces, and beast materials! Another hidden chamber was ahead! I saw it! I saw the wall that was not a wall!"
The entrance camp fell silent, then several people reacted at once.
"Brother Su?"
"Star-metal fragments?"
"Wall that was not a wall?"
"What Brother Su?"
The disciple wiped his eyes, then seemed to realize how many elders were staring at him. His neck shrank slightly, but grief strengthened his courage.
"Brother Su Bai of Radiant Sky Sect."
Every gaze turned toward Radiant Sky Sect.
Lu Canghai stood there silently for a moment. Then, his beard moved. He was stroking it.
His face remained stern.
Unfortunately, the pride in his eyes was difficult to hide.
The pulled disciples began speaking all at once.
At first, the elders could not understand the mess.
One said Su Bai had led more than a hundred cultivators. Another said he could walk through the red mist without losing direction. Another said he found treasure wherever the mist was thickest. One swore that if Brother Su stopped in front of a wall, the wall should immediately be suspected of hiding something.
Several elders thought this last part was nonsense, but the disciples began taking out treasures.
The first storage ring opened.
A pile of mineralized miasma beast materials fell onto the ground, then broken star-metal fragments, then a cracked but usable formation plate, then a sealed medicine residue jar.
The elder who had pulled him out stared.
The disciple looked at the pile with grief, not joy.
"This is only what I gained before being pulled out."
Only.
The word struck the surrounding elders like a small hammer.
Another disciple immediately opened his storage ring as if unwilling to suffer alone. More materials appeared. Then another did the same.
Soon, the platform looked less like a rescue site and more like a small market that had been struck by lightning.
Several elders’ eyes turned bright.
Yue Cangyu stepped forward before greed could spread too far.
A quiet pressure descended.
The elders immediately remembered where they were.
The City Lord of Azure-Jade City looked over the treasures, then at the pulled disciples.
"Explain from the beginning."
This time, the disciples spoke more clearly.
They told the outside elders what had happened.
The false bodies. The procession. The treasure divisions. The dead seniors that supposedly guided him.
Lu Canghai’s eyebrow twitched at that part.
The disciples explained that Su Bai was barely affected by the mist, that his sense of direction remained sharp even when others became confused, and that he had led them from safe zone to hidden ruin and from hidden ruin to treasure site.
They explained that treasure distribution had been fair, that even late joiners received shares, and that the thicker the mist became, the more likely Su Bai was to find something valuable.
Then came the most painful part.
They had been pulled out right before the next opportunity.
The elders of the smaller factions slowly turned stiff.
Their disciples did not accuse them directly. That would have been unfilial and dangerous. But their faces said enough.
Master, you saved my life. Also, you ruined my fortune.
Both things could be true.
The elders began to feel complicated.
One elder coughed. "Safety comes first."
His disciple lowered his head. "Yes, Elder."
The tone was respectful. The grief was not.
Another elder tried to comfort his disciple. "At least you returned alive."
The disciple nodded obediently. "Yes, Master." Then he whispered, "But I was alive inside too."
His master pretended not to hear.
On Radiant Sky Sect’s side, Lu Canghai finally spoke.
"That brat," he said sternly. "I told him to act low-key."
The entrance camp became silent.
Everyone looked at the piles of treasure on the ground, then they looked at Lu Canghai’s face.
He was trying to look angry, but he failed.
The corners of his mouth did not move much, but his beard was being stroked with such satisfaction that several elders wanted to cough blood.
Li Xuanzong turned his head slightly, as if he did not want to expose him too openly. But the faint smile in his eyes betrayed him as well.
Someone from a smaller sect muttered, "If this is low-key, what is high-key?"
No one answered.
Jian Wuchen’s face became ugly.
Moments earlier, he had been satisfied that Myriad Swords Sect had not acted rashly. Now that satisfaction had turned into a strange pride mixed with irritation.
Chen Feng was still inside. According to the pulled disciples, Chen Feng had been following Su Bai’s procession for several days.
Following. The word was not pleasant, but the treasures were.
Jian Wuchen slowly adjusted his sleeve.
"Chen Feng has always been quick-witted," he said calmly. "Knowing when to cooperate is also part of sword cultivation."
Several Myriad Swords elders nodded at once, as if this had always been their sect teaching.
Yan Zhaolie’s expression darkened. Yan Lie was not among those in Su Bai’s procession.
"Hmph. Opportunities gained by following others are still borrowed opportunities."
Lu Canghai glanced at him.
"Borrowed or not, they still fit in a storage ring."
Yan Zhaolie’s chest tightened.
Soon, the mood outside changed again.
The elders who had pulled their disciples out too early regretted it.
The elders who had not pulled their disciples out straightened their backs.
Those whose disciples were still inside with Su Bai suddenly looked as if they had discovered that their sect’s fortune had been quietly earning interest somewhere beyond the gate.
Of course, none of them admitted they had almost panicked too.
One elder stroked his beard and said, "Young people need tempering. Pulling them out too early may harm their Dao Heart."
Another nodded deeply. "Indeed. We must trust the younger generation."
A third added, "Especially when they are gathered under a capable leader."
The pulled disciples looked at those elders with silent resentment.
Where had this wisdom been a few moments ago?
Yue Cangyu listened quietly.
Unlike the others, his attention did not remain on the treasures.
His eyes had brightened for another reason.
Su Bai.
Something stirred in Yue Cangyu’s heart.
He looked toward Lu Canghai.
"Brother Lu," he said slowly, "your disciple seems to be doing more than searching for treasure."
Lu Canghai’s beard stopped moving.
For once, his expression became truly serious.
"I know."
Yue Cangyu turned back toward the gate.
The red light inside the entrance fluctuated faintly, like a breath taken by something sleeping badly.