When Wu Yong was heading to the south part of Kunhuang Island, the people of Leng Qingtang were also pressing onward to the west part of Kunhuang Island with the guidance of the map.

After about two hours, they got into a lush forest.

It was dark at night as the forest was surrounded by the night mist. The shadows of the trees were tall and entwined with one another. Plus, the forest was overgrown with wild weeds as tall as three meters. One could never find the right path here.

Men of the first tribe and the second tribe of the Eastern Depot went ahead of the troop as they were wielding steel swords to cut up all the branches and vines of wistaria, so as to make way for their peers behind.

Stepping over the fallen plants and trees, the troop struggled to move ahead in the night mist with faltering footsteps.

Together with Leng Qingtang and Gu Yunxi, Yu Xuanji walked in the troop, too.

He paid all his attention to Gu Yunxi as he walked, asking Gu Yunxi with concern,

"Ruo, are you tired? Walk slow, and mind your step."

"Ruo, you've gotten sweat on your forehead. Come and let me help you wipe it. Be careful not to catch cold."

Gu Yunxi was caught flat-footed by his care, but she couldn't just turn him down directly. Thus, she said politely,

"I'm alright, brother. I'm not tired. Let's go quickly, or the troop will be delayed by us."

Yu Xuanji frowned with discontent as he ordered Leng Qingtang again,

"Hey, Huanan He! Can't you ask your men to walk slower? Due to your twin brother's soften bone soup, Ruo's too feeble now. How could her body bear it if we continue walking like this...?"

"Brother!"

Glaring at Yu Xuanji, Gu Yunxi pouted.

"Ai Qing..."

Gu Yunxi broke in before Leng Qingtang could finish his words,

"Master, I can keep walking."

Seeing this, Yu Xuanji directly half-crunched,

"Get on my back, Ruo. Let me carry you."

Leng Qingtang instantly kicked him,

"Piss off! She's my wife. If she wants to be carried by someone on the back, that would be me. Come here, girl."

Immediately, the man lowered his rock-hard back.

Gu Yunxi went red as a beet as she bashfully stomped,

"Eww, you two are so annoying. I don't want to talk to you."

Then she quickly ran to the front of the troop and walked with Ai Qing and Lu Rong, two captains of the tribes.

Lu Rong looked at her bashful expression with a smile and quipped happily,

"How do you feel, Madam Yun? You must be over the moon now, right? One is your good brother, and the other one is your good husband. They both love you the same."

"Don't you ever try to laugh at me, the second captain."

Gu Yunxi bashfully wined, yet the sweet feeling in her heart was much sweeter than the honey.

Seeing the two handsome men fight to love and protect Gu Yunxi, Huanan Jiyan couldn't be too jealous.

As her soft body moved close to Lu Qiange, she stretched out her beautiful arms and tightly circled Lu Qiange's arms like pliable willow branches.

Lu Qiange was too proud to display affection in public, even if he could do it in his private life.

Seeing the girl wanted to show her affections in public, his face instantly went dark as he put on airs of male chauvinism. He frowned and refused,

"What are you doing? Go away. Just walk carefully."

Huanan Jiyan shook her body as she kept blinking at her lover with her watery eyes, affectionately saying,

"I'm scared. The mist is too thick to walk in it, and the road is too rough. What if I got separated from you? What if I got tripped over? Zhu, I want to get on your back, too..."

"Nonsense!" Lu Qiange refused the girl without hesitation,

"You are too timid. If so, you should've waited for us on the outside of the forest."

Seeing her devotion couldn't be understood, the little princess just took back her hands. She got sulky while walking. She complained,

"Yuck! You purple eye. You just can't understand how to love and protect your girl, can you?"

"Whom dare you call Purple Eye?"

"Of course you. How dare you glare at me? Watch it, or I'll dig out your purple eyes."

Leng Qingtang just ran to the front of the troop to keep Gu Yunxi company on the way.

They listened to the bickering of the couple behind and found it interesting, so they eyed each other with a smile.

Two more hours passed, and the mist was lifted as the night was about to end.

A flat stone bank with a few weeds and trees came into their eyes.

So the troop stopped marching ahead.

Leng Qingtang took out the sheepskin to compare the terrain as he observed the bank,

"According to the Kunhuang Island map, a river is supposed to be here."

"What if the stone bank is the dried-up bed of the river?"

With wisdom in her eyes, Gu Yunxi gave a hint.

Leng Qingtang narrowed his eyes which were filled with vigilance, without a bit of sluggishness,

"The underground palace was built over twenty years ago. It's said that only ten years can bring a huge change, so it's normal to see the terrain here has changed. Without further ado, let's open the entrance now."

There was strength in numbers. The gunpowder was quickly set up at the proper place.

Before the fire was set, roars of exploding shells had rumbled, the ground shuddering.

Flying birds fluttered their wings in the sky as they frantically ran into one another with panic, and countless broken feathers swirled down like flying snowflakes.

With the buzz in her ears, Gu Yunxi's brain was filled with chaos.

"What happened? Does a sea-island also have earthquakes?"

Huanan Jiyan screamed as if the Dutch had taken Holland.

Gu Yunxi looked at the place where the roars came and feebly said with her pale lips,

"That's...Has another underground palace opened?"

Leng Qingtang's brows furrowed with unfading sadness, and his voice was depressing,

"Wu Yong has died in the right path."

What happened after that went quite well as the gunpowder left a deep hole in the ground on the north of the river bed.

After the smoke was lifted, everyone gathered around the hole to watch its inside.

Several stone stairs in ancient style showed up in the wreck of broken stones, leading to the dark abyss.

Everyone was so delighted that they quickly moved away the broken stones, preparing to enter the underground palace.

"Hua'er, you're the prince of Udan. For your safety, you'd better stay on the outside with Jiyan."

Leng Qingtang had his worry.

Although he had the true Kunhuang Tomb map, he wasn't sure that whether there were any unbreakable traps in the underground palace before he could experience it by himself.

Lu Qiange's identity was special. If he got killed in another country, it would harm the relationship between the two countries.

Lu Qiange knew what Leng Qingtang meant, so he didn't insist on going inside with them. He gripped the handle of Deer Blood Sword tighter as he seriously said,

"Uncle, you and Yunxi, be careful. I'll keep watch for you here."

"Thanks."

Leng Qingtang answered him with a smile before leading his men to go down the stairs.

The entrance wasn't wide enough for two men to walk side by side.

Yu Xuanji and Cheng Wanli entered the palace first.

Seeing the sparkles of the fire torches gradually disappear in the dark, people on the outside couldn't help getting worried as their palms all got sweaty.

Before long there came the voices of Cheng Wanli from the underground palace. It sounded a little distorted with echoes,

"Master, it is capacious inside, and we haven't found any traps or built-in locks."

Light instantly shined in Leng Qingtang's eyes. He was so excited that he punched his own fists and ordered his men,

"Come on, follow me to the underground palace!"

The stone stairs in the underground palace were very steep and narrow. If one stepped on it, half of his foot would be left in the air.

Gu Yunxi leaned to one side and walked as Leng Qingtang did. She walked quite smoothly as she went down a stair at one time with one hand lifting her dress, the other on Leng Qingtang's body.

With the help of the wavering light of the fire torch, they found that the stone walls on both sides were very rough as the lines between the bricks had been blurry.

Every time Gu Yunxi went down a stair, she carefully counted, so she found there were forty-nine stairs before her feet touched the flat ground of the tunnel.

Leng Qingtang held up the fire torch to look around, only to find a long and straight tunnel lead into the boundless dark which one's eyes couldn't see.

The stone walls on both sides of the tunnel were still built with stone bricks, which spread upward into a huge vault overhead.

What Gu Yunxi had imagined was quite different from reality.

It turned out that there were neither exquisite and complex patterns nor dazzling silver or golden embossment in the walls. Instead, there were lots of broken signs of damp corrosion in all kinds of shapes.

As Cheng Wanli had said, the further you walked into the tunnel, the wider it became. There weren't any traps or secret weapons around.

The only disadvantage was that the further you walked into the tunnel, the air became thinner, which made people difficult to breathe as if their chests were clogged.

After walking about 400 meters, they reached the end of the underground palace.

A stone exhibition, which was of the height of nearly half a man, showed up in front of the people from the Eastern Depot, but there was only one thing displayed on it.

Cheng Wanli asked the Master, "Please let me go to check it at first."

Leng Qingtang nodded.

Cheng Wanli and Ai Qing carefully walked over and observed it near the stone exhibition stand before saying,

"Master, it's a jade box."

Everyone gathered around to watch it.

Gu Yunxi frowned and watched the box carefully. It was a cubic box whose length was less than a foot. It was light green in all aspects, glowing cool and dim in the dark.

The walls of the box were engraved with patterns of hibiscus flowers, rough and uneven texture was as natural and clear as the clouds and water. There was a small hole in the center of the walls which was opposite to Gu Yunxi's eyes.

She instantly thought of something so she took out her short jade flute to jab it into the hole.

Leng Qingtang immediately stopped her,

"Let me do it. Everybody back down fifty feet!"

"Master!"

Gu Yunxi shook her head, worrying about him.

"Back down!"

Leng Qingtang grabbed her flute away and repeated his order. He was so insistent that no one could refuse.

Yu Xuanji grabbed Gu Yunxi and led the others to back down.

Leng Qingtang swiveled resolutely. He showed the fire torch around the box before his eyes fixed on it for a while, and then he took a deep breath.

He slowly pushed the flute into the hole with one hand. It didn't touch the trap until half of the flute was pushed into the hole.

Furrowing his brows and holding his breath, Leng Qingtang tried slowly to spin the flute.

It was quite clear to hear the small sounds in the dead silence, which definitely attracted everyone's attention. They got nervous when they heard the bell-ringing sounds.

Gu Yunxi even got her eyes locked on the man standing in front of the stone exhibition stand. Nervously biting her lips, she watched him quickly lift the lid of the box, take out the white thing inside, and hurry to turn around, holding the thing high overhead in the presence of everyone.

The crowd instantly broke into cheers in the depressing underground palace...

It was at the east shore of Kunhuang Island.

Shining through the clouds, rays of sunshine reflected on the crystal viewing platform with a height of one hundred feet. It made a grand scene of prosperity where colorful flags danced in the wind and hundreds of officers gathered together.

There was the propitious time. Beautiful music was played at the east shore, and the Wangxian Rise was enveloped by the colorful misty smoke. The air was heavy with the intoxicating scent of flowers and fruits.

The young emperor in the dragon robe showed up in the colorful smoke with his pretty concubine. His obedient courtiers knelt down when the emperor proudly looked down at the flowers below.

"Long live Your Majesty! Long live Your Grace!"

With arched brows and a kind smile, the emperor slowly opened his arms wide as his big sleeves fluttered in the wind, which sounded swift and fierce.

"Rise, everyone. The grandeur of today will go down in the history books of Da Yi. Be at ease, everyone, and you shall witness Dragon God's ascension out of the sea with me together, which will bless my country to be prosperous forever."

When he finished his words, his tone was kind of sharp and abrupt, which somehow sounded uncomfortable.

"Yes, Your Majesty."

All the courtiers stood up and watched the sea for the Dragon God's ascension.

Huanan Xin was oppressively pacing back and forth on a royal ship not far away from the shore.

He suddenly swiveled and threw a teacup at the messager’s head, and it bled.

The messager was scared to death as he humbly and ceaselessly kowtowed, swallowing the pain with the blood on his head,

"Please forgive me, Your Majesty. Please forgive me, Your Majesty. It's my bad. I am incompetent."

"Get out. Don't smudge my ship!"

The messager staggered out in a hurry. The old eunuch Chen Ying instantly lowered his head,

"Please calm down, Your Majesty. I've sent a squad of Royal Guards to the island for the trace of the men of the Eastern Depot. If Lady Yun hasn't followed Leng Qingtang to the underground palace, everything will be okay."

Huanan Xin punched his fist at the royal desk. With blood-shot eyes, he cursed insanely,

"You're such a muddleheaded old rip! How could Leng Qingtang let my woman continue to stay at the Kunhuang Island after stealing her from the Imperial Palace at night? I need more men for a national manhunt!"

"Plus, I hereby proclaim that as long as there is a man of the Eastern Depot on the island, Honour Guards should kill him at once, despite the underground palace is true or false."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

―

Gongs and firecrackers exploded everywhere on the east shore.

Time slowly passed by.

And then it was noon. The musicians on the shore were busy with the shift as the blazing sunshine directly reflected on the mirror-like even surface of the sea.

It was humid and hot enough to make some officers stagger in the lines, since they were too old to stand the heat.

The emperor waved his sleeve to stop the music with scorching eyes. He asked the courtiers with anger,

"Where's Observatory Director?"

"Here... Here I am..."

A man in a dark blue official robe staggered out of the lines. When he knelt down and kowtowed, there was urine under his shoes.

Knowing he was in trouble, the coward peed his pants in public.

Lady Yun watched it all so clear that she hid her face behind her defined sleeves and smiled charmingly.

"Answer my question now. Why haven't we seen the Dragon God come out of the sea and the ascension after water-absorbing since the propitious time has passed?

The emperor got riled up enough to forget everything. He asked the director with a dark face and sharp tone.

The man explained in sobs,

"Please calm down, Your Majesty. I... I've got my men to observe the sea and the sky, so the time should be right. I..."

"Just stop it―"

The emperor got impatient and screamed,

"Someone, come and take the waste out. Arrest Observatory Director and his eighteen men. They'll be declared guilty after we return to the Jing City."

"Your Majesty, We're wronged. Please forgive us!"

"Your Majesty, please forgive us―"

The lines of officers broke into loud cries.

Honour Guards rushed in without any emotion, dragging over a dozen of criminal officers to the tower ship anchored off the shore.

"Ha-ha, Huanan Xin. You've done too many evil things including usurping, so the God won't help you this time."

A black figure jumped to the air in the laugh before landing on the Wangxian Rise.

All the officers below were in uproar as they got restless. Thousands of eyes were widened to the extreme as people all stared at the man with a shocking and broken face slowly got off his rank-fifth official robe, as well as his double-winged official hat, showing his inside dark Kung Fu suit.