Thriller Night Talk

Translator-Rhapsodite

Editor- Koneko, Proofreader- Spring Flower

“So, that’s how it is…”

A sudden realization hit Wei Fuyuan as he secretly sighed to himself; that Bei Quan and his group were truly immortal.

Bei Quan narrowed his eyes and pointed to the direction of the boatman at the bow of the boat, reminding him to pay attention.

Wei Fuyuan followed Bei Quan’s silent orders and turned his head to look. This was when Zhu Ling stood up and walked behind the boatman.

Wei Fuyuan: “!!”

He saw that Zhu Ling actually lifted the hat of the old man, revealing the back of his head.

Strangely, there was no hair on the boatman’s head, not even a scalp. But, there was a mechanical keyboard!

Zhu Ling put her hands on the keyboard and typed a string of characters quickly.

“These are the ‘coordinates’.”

Bei Quan explained calmly.

“The ‘coordinates’ of Zhu Ling’s secret realm are not fixed and will change continuously with the date and time. It needs to be calculated according to certain rules.”

He smiled, “Unfortunately, I am not good at divination and calculation, and although I can calculate it, it will be slow. So entering the coordinates has always been Zhu Ling’s responsibility.”

While speaking, Zhu Ling had already entered the “coordinates” and put the hat back on the boatman’s head.

Wei Fuyuan couldn’t help his curiosity and approached the bow, tentatively pushing the old man.

The boatman had no reaction and continued to row the boat silently.

Wei Fuyuan pushed the hat on the old man’s head up a bit, revealing his face.

Judging from his appearance, the boatman was over seventy years old, with blackish-yellow skin and wrinkles all over his face, looking like an old man who had been through the wind and waves of the sea for a long time.

Wei Fuyuan observed for a moment and quickly noticed something was wrong. The old boatman had not blinked, not even once. No human being could last this long without blinking, so the other party must not be human after all.

Wei Fuyuan turned to look at Bei Quan, “This…”

“You guessed right, it’s a puppet controlled by machinery.”

Bei Quan smiled and suggested, “Why don’t you try using the eyes of heaven to see?”

Wei Fuyuan followed his advice and used the eyes of heaven technique to try and get a better understanding of the situation.

Through the visual perspective of the eyes of heaven, Wei Fuyuan immediately noticed the stark differences between the boatman and a living person.

There was no energy field on the old man’s body that living beings or souls produced.

There was no energy field on the old man’s body that living beings or souls produced.

From Wei Fuyuan’s current position, he could not distinguish any differences between the old man and a generic inanimate object, like a table or a chair.

Only inside the boatman’s chest, a fist-sized blob of white energy could be seen.

From this, many branch-like filaments were also separated: just like blood vessels or meridians that connect to the limbs and bones which slowly flow with the boatman’s movements.

Bei Quan explained with a smile.

“It used to be just a simple puppet. Every time we needed to change its ‘coordinates,’ we had to open its head up completely, which in all honesty was quite scary. But three years ago, we asked people from the Mo family to help improve it. They replaced it with an internal computer and keyboard, which made it much more convenient to use.”

Wei Fuyuan thought to himself—— I didn’t expect you Daoist experts to be so up-to-date. No wonder the underworld has developed live streaming apps!

As they spoke, the small boat slid over the sea like a fish that had managed to escape and had sailed far away.

“We’re almost there.”

Zhu Ling stood on the left hand side of the boat and suddenly raised her hand whilst pointing in a westerly direction.

Within a few seconds, the puppet boatman lightly tapped the oars, making the small boat gracefully? and skillfully turn to the left.

As Wei Fuyuan stood up, his hand rested on the awning as he rested his other hand sideways on his eyebrows to block the sun, shading his eyes to get a better look at the view in front of him.

On the horizon where the water and sky meet, the outline of a small island appeared faintly in the distance.

As the boat sailed closer, the shape of the island became clearer. When they were close enough, Wei Fuyuan finally saw the whole island for the first time.

He stood at the bow of the boat, stunned. He even forgot to breathe for a short time.

Wei Fuyuan: “!!”

He always thought that these scenes could only appear in ancient RPG games.

“Isn’t it beautiful?”

Bei Quan reached out and hugged his lover’s shoulder from behind, smiling when Wei Fuyuan turned his head to face him, and said:

“Welcome to my ‘hometown’, where I grew up.”

—————————-

For Bei Quan, compared to the family of his birth mother who gave up on him even on the day he was resurrected, even refusing to give him a surname, the Zhu Ling secret realm was his true home.

Although the secret realm was an island, it was a completely different concept from the traditional island that ordinary people are aware of.

It was not made up of gravel and vegetation, but entirely of red transparent and semi-transparent crystal rocks.

Crystal rocks were a natural phenomenon and came in various depths and shades. The transparency varied from each rock, ranging from light pink to light peach, crimson to a deep vermilion. Colors overlapped and smudged, as if they were hand crafted and carved from a single piece of red jade. Above the crimson crystal rocks, a nine-story palace hung suspended in mid-air.

With glazed tile roofs, intricate overhanging eaves, red pillars and walls, the twelve corridors were situated at varying heights, like a dragon circling around the island.

“This…”

Wei Fuyuan’s lips trembled:

“Don’t tell me this is a magnetically levitating palace…”

“That’s not it.” Bei Quan replied, “The reason why this palace can float is due to the formation laid down by the Master, and the energy comes from the red crystals below.”

He paused, “For now, the energy from the red crystals should be enough to last for another two hundred years.”

Speaking of this, Bei Quan smiled:

“Two hundred years from now, magnetic levitation technology should already be popularized in the secret realm of Zhu Ling, right?”

Wei Fuyuan followed Bei Quan’s words and thought about the scene of using magnetic levitation to lift a palace. Somehow, he felt that such a punk and realistic image was inexplicably cool.

While he was lost in thought, Bei Quan had already docked the boat.

”We’re here.” said Bei Quan, taking a hold of his little boyfriend’s hand as they jumped off the boat.

”I’ll take you to see the master first.”

Wei Fuyuan: ”!!”

?—— Do I have to meet the parents right away?!

Wei Fuyuan’s heart pounded in his chest, and sweat dripped from his forehead.

He turned his head and saw that Zhu Ling was still standing on the boat and seemed like she didn’t want to depart.

”What about Zhu Ling? Isn’t she coming with us?” asked Wei Fuyuan.

Bei Quan smiled and shook his head: ”She has other arrangements and won’t be joining us.”

Wei Fuyuan remained silent.

The two climbed the stairs hidden in the crystal rock between the mountains, step by step.

The stairway in the mountains was narrow, and the two were unable to walk side by side.

Bei Quan led the way in front, and Wei Fuyuan followed behind without a second thought. The mountain road was rugged and steep, the crystal rock-carved stone steps were less stable and more slippery than ordinary mountain rocks and gravel. It was very difficult to walk on and easy to slip if one was not careful.

It took the two of them almost an hour and a half to walk just halfway up the mountain path.

Even Wei Fuyuan, who had good physical strength, was slightly overwhelmed at this point.

Moreover, no matter how dazzling the red crystal was and how majestic the palace above their heads looked, they already grew tired of the view in front of them, having been looking at the same aesthetics for so long.

”Do you high-level people who live in seclusion have no other way to get up the mountain? Like flying swords or something?!”

Wei Fuyuan stopped and asked Bei Quan, ”More advanced teleportation gates, or at the very least various mounts and divine beasts…!”

He said seriously, ”Isn’t that how cultivation novels are written?!”

Bei Quan turned his head and looked at his lover with his arms crossed.

”If it was just me, alone, I could think of a way.”

Bei Quan replied, ”Unfortunately, I have to bring you with me, so we can only walk.”

He paused and added, ”By the way, it’s regrettable to tell you that space folding techniques like ‘shrinking to an inch’ cannot be used in Zhu Ling Secret Realm.”

Wei Fuyuan immediately looked disappointed.

But, since Bei Quan stated that there was no possible way, then indeed, this was the case. Young Master Wei had to cheer himself up and treat this situation as a workout, continuing to climb the mountain.

—————————–

Zhu Ling Secret Realm, just like the paper city in the underworld, had no time flow of the sun and moon. Its natural light source came from the sun in the sky, or rather, a luminous body similar to the ‘sun’.

After Bei Quan and Wei Fuyuan fell into the sea from the ‘entrance,’ the ‘sun’ remained fixed and did not deviate at all. 𝚋ｅ𝚍ｎ𝚘ｖｅ𝚕．𝚘𝚛𝚐

Wei Fuyuan could only judge how much time had passed from his watch.

It took the two of them a full three hours to walk from the foot of the mountain to the top.

Looking up from the top of the mountain, the suspended palace appeared even more majestic, magnificent and spectacular.

However, as nice as it looked, the palace group was at least ten stories high from the ground, making Wei Fuyuan feel uneasy.

Fortunately, Bei Quan wasn’t cruel enough to tell his little boyfriend, ‘We still have to climb up there.’

Instead, he opened a mechanism hidden inside the mountain wall.

A circular rune with a diameter of about two meters appeared in the open space in front of them.

”The teleportation gate you’ve been thinking about,” Bei Quan said to Wei Fuyuan, extending his hand.

”We can try it now.” The two walked into the spell holding hands.

Wei Fuyuan only felt a sudden darkness in front of him, his feet felt light, and his brain produced a brief blankness beyond his control, making it impossible for him to think.

After some time passed, Wei Fuyuan suddenly came to his senses and found that he had landed back on solid ground.

However, he didn’t have time to observe the surrounding environment before a strong dizziness swept over him. He felt dizzy, short of breath and then fell to the ground with a “pu dong” sound, and vomited loudly.

”Oh no, it’s my fault,” Bei Quan said, bending over to pat Wei Fuyuan’s back while laughing and continued to explain.

“The first time an ordinary person uses a teleportation spell, they are likely to feel uncomfortable due to the sudden spatial distortion…

And if it’s severe, they’ll vomit like you just have…”

Wei Fuyuan wanted to turn around and glare at Bei Quan, but being too embarrassed in the moment, he remained still and sighed.

Bei Quan crouched down and gently stroked his lover’s hair.

“It’s okay, practice makes perfect. You’ll get used to it,” said Bei Quan reassuringly.

After Wei Fuyuan finished vomiting, Bei Quan used a cleaning spell to tidy up the mess.

“Are you feeling better?” Bei Quan asked in a gentle tone, helping Wei Fuyuan to stand up.

Wei Fuyuan nodded weakly with a pale face.

At that moment, he had the opportunity to observe the environment where he was.

They had already entered the palace, and in front of them was a long corridor with green tiles and red pillars.

At the end of the corridor was a magnificent hall, but unfortunately, the vermillion lacquered wooden doors were tightly closed, blocking the view for the two of them.

“Master should be inside.”

Bei Quan said to Wei Fuyuan.