He regretted his words the moment they left his mouth, thinking that Zhou Zishu was going to reprimand him. Yet, Zhou Zishu lifted a casual hand and placed his palm on his shoulder. His hand was so thin, but so warm; Zhang Chengling turned his head to the side, and by the weak light of the luminescent pearl, saw Zhou Zishu’s side profile. It put his heart at ease.

It was unknown how long the stone corridor was; just when Zhou Zishu was running out of patience, they finally reached the end of it. Zhou Zishu thought to himself that he did not know where Ye Baiyi and Wen Kexing had gone earlier, but he was not particularly worried either. If there were people who could survive even when the sky came crashing down and the ground collapsed, it would be those two. Rather, it was slightly more tough for himself, who was bringing Zhang Chengling, this little rascal who only made trouble at critical moments, along with him.

At the end of the stone corridor was another door. This time, it was an enormous door; it was like his visual field had suddenly been broadened. Zhou Zishu yanked Zhang Chengling behind him and pushed the door open--it looked to be a great hall, an empty great hall with not a single thing in it at all. Zhou Zishu’s gaze drifted downwards, and he noticed that the ground was in fact a dark grey colour.

Zhang Chengling stuck his head out to peer over his side, looking at his shifu with a questioning gaze, not knowing why Zhou Zishu stopped here.

Accustomed to operating cautiously, Zhou Zishu extracted a silver crumb from his robes and flicked it out. The silver crumb landed on the dark grey ground, rolled twice, and nothing happened--he let down his guard slightly, but right at this moment, a drop of water fell from the ceiling. Under the surveillance of two pairs of eyes, that drop of water landed right on the silver he had thrown out, and thereafter, dissolved where it was on the ground!

Then, something even more terrifying occurred--drop by drop, that corrosive water touched down on different spots, growing more and more concentrated, until it looked like it had started to rain.

Zhou Zishu understood then why the ground was that sort of ominous dark grey colour. If a person was doused by this sort of fatal rainwater, even their bones would be reduced to ashes.

His heart sank--in this world, there were qinggong techniques one could use to traverse snow without leaving a mark, but there were definitely none a person could use to drift through rain and not have a single drop touch him.

Zhou Zishu took a step back, and said, “This road is impassable. We’re turning back.”

They had just turned around when they heard another set of footsteps coming from the long stone corridor.

Tap——tap——tap——