Forbidden Read!
Chapter 21 (part 1)

Chapter 21: Shortening Distance; Sand Storm Caught

As he thought, that red silhouette suddenly moved closer and was immediately within his reach.

San Lang was dragged into that windstorm as well!

Xie Lian yelled at him, "Don't panic!" But as soon as he opened his mouth, his mouth was again filled with sand. At this point Xie Lian already felt used to eating the sand that forcefully filled her mouth. He tried to tell San Lang not to panic, but honestly he did not feel that the boy would panic at all. Ruoye wrapped herself back to Xie Lian, closing the distance between her and the boy who had just been blown into the sky. As he had expected, San Lang did not look panicked in the slightest, looking as if he could even calmly open the book and read it at this very moment. Xie Lian wondered if San Lang was 'drapped' on purpose.

Ruoye wrapped herself around the waist of the two of them to tie them up, and Xie Lian then ordered, "Go and try again, but don't bring anyone else!"

The silk cloth darted once more but this time he snatched... Nan Feng and Fu Yao!

Xie Lian was tired. "Ruoye," he said tiredly, "I said don't take anyone anymore, but I don't mean people literally."

Xie Lian then faced the ground and shouted, "hold, YOU TWO!"

Below, of course Nan Feng and Fu Yao did their best to try to restrain and pull them to the ground, but the gust of wind was too strong and unsurprising when soon two other silhouettes joined them in the wind***** the pickaxe. Now the four of them, bound together by Ruoye, swirled around in the wind***** pickaxe, the higher and higher from the ground, the wind and sand fused and wafted.

"How did you two get carried away here as well?" Xie Lian shouted while holding all the sand into her mouth.

"Ask your stupid Ruoye!" Fu Yao shouted back, also getting a mouthful of sand that went into her mouth. With nothing but visible sand and blowing wind, they could only shout at each other back and forth to be heard.

Xie Lian clasped her 'Dumb Ruoye' with both hands and desperately said, "Dear Ruoye, the four of us depend on you now. Please don't tie the wrong thing again this time. Go now!"

Xie Lian unhappily let go of Ruoye once again.

"STOP RELYING ON THAT TOY. THINK OF ANOTHER WAY!" shouted Nan Feng. But just then, Xie Lian felt a tug from the end of her silk cloth, and then her eyes lit up full of enthusiasm. "Wait on! Give me one more chance! Ruoye tied something up!"

"IT'S BETTER HE DOESN'T TIE PEDESTRIANS RANDOMLY! LET THE POOR MAN GO!" yao Fu shouted as well.

Xie Lian was also afraid of the same thing. He pulled Ruoye back but the pull remained firm and firm, and Xie Lian heaved a sigh of relief. "No, Ruoye tied something solid, pretty stable!" Then he ordered Ruoye: "Pull!"

Against the wind****** a powerful pickaxe, Ruoye quickly shortened herself, and dragged the four of them out and away from the windstorm. Slowly, Xie Lian could see something big, black, and half round the size of a small temple down there. When they finally touched the ground, Xie Lian saw that it was actually a huge rock.

In the midst of the windstorm, this stone was like a fortress, a perfect shelter. But before on the road, none of them had seen such a stone. No one knows the extent to which the wind****** the pickaxe was carrying them. When they landed, they immediately turned to the back of the rock to shelter from the wind, and saw a hole. "Thank you god's blessing!" Xie Lian cheered.

The hole was as wide as two merged doors, but its length was only half the size of a person's body. Although it was a bit short, it was still possible to enter if one were to bow down. The edges of the hole were jagged but seemed to be made by humans rather than being formed naturally. When Xie Lian walked in, she discovered that the inside was actually hollow, and deep enough. It looked dark deep inside, so he did not bother looking around before sitting where there was light, patting the sand that was on Ruoye, and tying it back on her arm.

Nan Feng and Fu Yao entered, spitting sand; they were covered in sand from head to toe, in their mouth holes, ears, eyes, nose, and all over their clothes. They took off their outer robes and flicked them, making small mounds of sand on the ground. Of the four people, only San Lang looked calm; he lazily cleared himself and returned to normal. Other than the ponytail, his casual figure remained unaffected. The pigtail of his horse was tied by Xie Lian and was already tilted, so the small wind did not make a clear difference.

Nan Feng wiped his face and started cursing while Xie Lian threw away the sand from her hat. "Huh, I don't think you two would be interested either. Why don't you guys use the Thousand Pound Weight (Thousand Pounds Weight) spell?"

"We did it! It's useless!'' Nan Feng said furiously.

From the side, Fu Yao still shook the sand from her outer robe and said viciously, "Where do you think we are now? This is a desert in the Northwest, not my General's main territory."

Nan Feng continued, "North is the territory belonging to two General Pei, and west is Quan YiZhen's territory. You won't find Nan Yang temple within a hundred miles radius from here."

There was a saying that a powerful dragon could not win against the local lord's snake; nan Feng and Fu Yao represented Generals in the southeast and southwest, respectively, so that their power was limited outside of their own territory.

"That's really hard for you guys." Xie Lian looked at their irritated and sympathetic faces thinking maybe it was the first time they were pulled into a whirlwind****p pickaxe and rolling around.

"So, are we just gonna sit here until the storm subsides?" San Lang asked from next to Xie Lian.

"That seems to be the case," replied Xie Lian. "Whatever the whirlwind is, it's impossible to blow a giant rock into the sky."

"You won't know. As you said, there's something strange about that wind."

Suddenly a thought came to Xie Lian, "San Lang, may I ask you a question?"

"Please" replied San Lang.

"Priest BanYue's head is actually a woman, right?" ask Xie Lian.

"true."

Xie Lian continued, "Before as we rested in that abandoned inn, didn't we see two figures passing by? That white-clothed figure was a female cultivator."

Fu Yao looked doubtful, "The robe can be worn by either men or women, and that person looks taller than an ordinary woman. Are you sure you saw it right?"

"I'm absolutely sure" said Xie Lian. "So I thought he might be Chief Reverend BanYue."

Xie Lian thought that the two figures were not ordinary people because of how strange their steps were. At first he did not link them to evil, but given the current circumstances he had to follow that line of thought.

Nan Feng considered the idea and said, "Maybe. But, then who was the black-clothed figure next to him?"

Xie Lian replied, "It's hard to say, but that person is walking faster than a female cultivator and his strength is definitely not beneath him."

"Could it be the Head Priestess, the other Demon Cultivator, Fang Xin?" Fu Yao wondered.

"It's nothing," said San Lang, "I just think what you said makes sense. One of the four 'Four Great Disasters' was indeed not included, there were only three. Please continue."

Xie Lian continued, "In reality, these two Demon Cultivators should have no relation to each other. I've heard of Master Fang Xin; he is the Chief Priest of Yong An, born hundreds of years earlier than the Chief Priest of BanYue."

"You don't know about the 'Four Great Cataclysm' in the ghost realm, but you do know about Master Fang Xin from Yong An in the mortal realm?" fu Yao asked in disbelief.

"There are some things I heard while collecting trash in the mortal realm. I don't collect trash in the ghost realm, so of course I don't hear about those in the ghost realm." Xie Lian explained.

The wind outside the hole seemed to have subsided, and Nan Feng walked closer to the edge of the hole, patting the rocky surface here and there, examining it.

"Why is there a hollow rock like this in the middle of the desert?"

He thought the stone was a bit suspicious, but Xie Lian did not think so.

"They are not rare. At that time the BanYue people will build a shelter like this to hide from sandstorms or even to pass through the nights while grazing livestock. Some of the holes were not dug out but formed on their own" Xie Lian said.

"How could anyone dig a rocky hole like this in the desert?" Nan Feng asked, puzzled.

Xie Lian smiled, "In this region two hundred years ago it wasn't all deserts. There used to be an oasis."

"Gege," call San Lang, please,

"Yes?" answer Xie Lian.

San Lang raised his hand and pointed, "The stone you are sitting on seems to have a writing on it."

"What?" Xie Lian looked down, then stood up and realized that the stone she was sitting on earlier was actually a slate. After cleaning the dust, there were indeed letters on its surface. The characters there were lightly carved vertically, and with the slate that had been buried in the sand, the words were unattractive and faded in the darkness.

If there is writing, it should be checked! "I don't have much power left. Can anyone lend me the light of a palm? Thank you!" Xie Lian asked.

Nan Feng flicked his finger and a small flame lit up in his palm. Xie Lian glanced at San Lang, but she did not seem surprised. Xie Lian thought that after seeing the Distance Shortening array, nothing else would surprise her. Nan Feng moved his palm to where Xie Lian pointed it and illuminated the writing on the slate. The characters are strange, as if drawn by a toddler, slanted and wild. "What the fuck?" Nan Feng wondered.

"Language is BanYue, yes." Answer San Lang.

"I'm sure what he meant was the meaning of those words," said Xie Lian, "Let me see it."

Xie Lian cleared out more dust and sand from the slate, and revealed the first writing column with the greatest character. They should be the title part. The same character also appears repeatedly in various parts of the contents of the writing. Fu Yao came closer and lit a fire from her palm. "Do you know how to read BanYue?"

"To be honest, I once collected trash in BanYue before that Demon Cultivator came." replied Xie Lian.

"..."

Feeling the silence, Xie Lian looked up, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Fu Yao bowed, "Just want to know where you haven't collected the trash?"

Xie Lian smiled and looked back at the character, and suddenly said, "General,"

"What?" Nan Feng and Fu Yao replied at the same time.

Xie Lian glanced at them and explained, "The first word on this slate is 'General'." He was silent for a moment, "But there are other characters after that I'm not sure of the meaning."

Nan Feng sighed in relief, "You keep looking and thinking about it."

Xie Lian nodded and Nan Feng shifted his palm further to illuminate the other words. Something feels wrong, Xie Lian thought. There seemed to be something more on the outskirts of the rock. With both hands stuck to the stone, Xie Lian raised her head.

On top of the slate, flickering flames lit up the stiff human face. That face, with its protruding eyes, was staring straight at him.

"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!"

***

The one who shouted was not Xie Lian or Nan Feng, but that stiff face.

Nan Feng immediately took his other hand and turned it on as well. He put his hands together and lit a fire until it was finally bright enough to light up the entire cave.

The one whose face was revealed by the light was the one who had been hiding in the shadows all this time, and as the flames got bigger he rushed away along the wall towards the inner cave, which was the only one who had ever been seen before, and there Xie Lian saw seven to eight people crowding and trembling in fear.

"WHO ARE YOU?" Shouted Nan Feng.

Nan Feng's furious shout echoed in the cave, and Xie Lian, whose ears were still ringing from the screams earlier, covered her ears. The noisy sounds from the windstorm had deafened their hearing, and ever since they entered the cave they had been discussing about the Chief Priest BanYue and then the inscription on the slate, which was the first one, no one noticed that anyone else was hiding in the same shelter. Seven to eight people trembled for a while before a man of about fifty years old said, "We are a group of merchants passing through this area. Ordinary traders. My name is Zheng. This sandstorm is too big, so for now we're hiding here."

He was the calmest person, looking like the leader of that merchant entourage. Nan Feng asked, "If you're an ordinary merchant, why are you hiding secretly?"

Zheng was only about to respond when a young man of about seventeen yelled, "We don't plan to be sneaky! But all of a sudden you come in, who knows if you're a good or a bad person? Then we keep hearing you talking about the Chief Priest BanYue, the ghost realm, and lighting a fire in your palm; we thought you were BanYue warriors patrolling and hunting meat! There's no way we're gonna make a sound!"