The passage they fell through was very narrow, only allowing one person at a time.
After about half the time it takes to burn a stick of incense, Shen Qing noticed a faint light coming from below. Before long, she felt a sense of weightlessness.
Below was a vast expanse of white. Shen Qing closed her eyes and let herself land on the soft snow.
She heard two thuds beside her, and knew that it was Li Xian and Xian Shiyu who had landed.
Inside the Sword Tomb, they were not allowed to fly with their swords. To prevent Bi Luo from getting lost, Shen Qing retrieved it.
She spread out her spiritual sense, only to find that it could only detect the area around them. Any farther, and she couldn't sense anything.
The snow was extremely soft. Shen Qing didn't know how to exert herself in it. She struggled a couple of times but couldn't get up.
Snow got into her collar, nose, and mouth, making her feel extremely uncomfortable.
Suddenly, a pair of large hands picked her up, lifting her out of the cold snowdrift.
Shen Qing waved her hands wildly. When she felt Li Xian's familiar aura, she nervously wrapped her hands around his neck and let him carry her away from that place.
"I just realized that people can actually drown in snow..."
Li Xian lowered his head. He felt like he was holding a chubby snowball. Hearing Shen Qing's low - key complaint, he couldn't help but laugh, his chest trembling.
"Hahaha... I've never heard anyone say that before."
Shen Qing let go of Li Xian's neck and patted the snow off her face. Only then did she see Li Xian clearly.
Li Xian's hair and face were also covered in snow. He wasn't in a much better state than she was.
"Snowman!"
Shen Qing covered her mouth and laughed.
The more time she spent with Li Xian, the more she knew that he wasn't as cold - hearted as he seemed on the surface.
Maybe because he spent a lot of time with Xiao Jinglan, he sometimes made the same kind of dry jokes as Xiao Jinglan. And a casual complaint from Shen Qing could make him burst out laughing. He had a very low laugh threshold.
So Shen Qing felt more and more at ease around Li Xian.
The two of them looked at each other's embarrassed state and couldn't help laughing.
But amidst their laughter, a faint cry for help came from behind them: "Sister... save me..."
Shen Qing shivered and then realized that Xian Shiyu was still in the snowdrift.
"Quick! Go save her!"
Half an hour later, the three of them were sitting on the snow, out of breath and too tired to speak.
"Have you noticed that our spiritual energy seems to be draining very quickly since we came in?"
Xian Shiyu gasped. Her face was already a bit pale, and she was shivering all over. Her voice was so weak that it was almost inaudible.
Shen Qing nodded. She had the same feeling.
Although she had no experience of living in the snow, the snow pit that Xian Shiyu fell into wasn't very deep. But she and Li Xian just couldn't dig Xian Shiyu out.
In the end, one of them held a rope while the other loosened the snow before they could barely rescue Xian Shiyu.
Even these simple tasks had exhausted Shen Qing and Li Xian.
"This is not good. This place is very strange. We need to find a way out as soon as possible."
"You're right! The thing that pulled me down, which looked like a tongue, disappeared after throwing us down. I'm afraid it will appear again. It's better to find an exit first."
Shen Qing echoed Li Xian's words. She remembered that after the tongue pulled her down, it immediately retracted into the snowdrift and disappeared.
Shen Qing took out the few fire starters from her storage bag and lit them all. Illuminating the surroundings, she found that this place was like a deep pit.
Above was complete darkness, with no end in sight. The same was true for the left and right sides.
On the ground were snowdrifts of various sizes, mixed with some clothes and storage bags of cultivators.
Xian Shiyu shrank fearfully beside Shen Qing and pulled on her sleeve: "This place won't be the belly of some beast, will it? Did it pull us down here to eat us?"
Shen Qing patted Xian Shiyu's hand and comforted her: "Let's see what's going on first."
After the three of them tidied themselves up, they randomly chose a direction and started walking forward.
They observed the surroundings along the light, but it was still pitch - black all around. They didn't notice that the footprints they left behind disappeared in an instant and the snow returned to its original state.
Apart from the crunching sound of their footsteps on the snow, there was no other sound. Shen Qing felt that this place was so quiet that she was starting to have tinnitus.
After walking for about two hours, they still couldn't see the end. Xian Shiyu was starting to break down.
"Where on earth is this place? Why have we walked for so long, but it still feels like we're standing still? We can't even find an end!"
Li Xian frowned and wanted to look back for the way they came. But when he turned around, he found that the snow they had walked on was flat and smooth, with no footprints at all.
Shen Qing followed Li Xian's gaze and immediately noticed the problem. She couldn't help getting goosebumps.
"What's going on?"
"Could it be a ghost wall..."
Although Shen Qing was a cultivator, she was most afraid of ghostly things. Seeing this situation, she couldn't help feeling a bit scared.
"Don't be afraid. I'll protect you."
After saying that, Li Xian took out something like an umbrella from his storage bag.
"This is the Guanghua Umbrella that a Buddhist cultivator friend gave me. This umbrella was enshrined in front of the Buddha and blessed. All ghosts and demons will be exposed. But it can only be used once. We'll use this one - time opportunity to find out what this place is."
Shen Qing and Xian Shiyu nodded seriously and nervously tugged at their sleeves.
Li Xian opened the umbrella. The surface of the umbrella seemed to be made of thick gold foil. The light reflected from just a few fire starters was already very dazzling.
"With such a good thing, brother - in - law, you should have taken it out to light up the place earlier."
Li Xian was speechless. If he hadn't heard Shen Qing mention ghosts, he wouldn't have remembered that there was such a thing in his storage bag.
Thinking of the sly look on that bald monk's face when he stuffed the umbrella into his hands, he didn't want to take it out.
Li Xian recalled how to use the umbrella. After making a hand seal, the umbrella flew into the air and emitted thousands of rays of light.
Only then did Shen Qing notice that there were actually many small spirit beasts hidden in the snow. When the light shone on them, they panicked and hid in the snow.
"What are these things? They're holding small shovels in their hands. My goodness! No wonder we've been walking in circles. They've been changing our route!"
Following the light from the umbrella, the three of them found that this place below wasn't actually very big. They should have walked out after walking for so long.
But it was precisely because of these small spirit beasts that they had been walking in circles like they were caught in a ghost wall. To confuse them, the spirit beasts even smoothed out their footprints.
With a target in sight, it would be much easier to solve these problems.
Xian Shiyu secretly took out many magic tools. With a grim look on her face, she rolled up her sleeves and said to Li Xian and Shen Qing,
"Sister, brother - in - law, don't worry. I'll take care of these problems from now on!"