Just after dark, Ning Tao got a call from Bai Jing. When he came out of Jiang Hao's neighborhood, Bai Jing's car was waiting for him at the roadside.

It was a Brabus G500 off-road vehicle with hard lines, like a beast lying on the side of the road. Although Ning Tao was not familiar with the brand and price of cars, he knew it was a limousine worth millions by looking at its shape, size and sheet metal.

Ning Tao walked over to the pa.s.senger seat, looked in through the window and saw Bai Jing in the driver's seat. She had swapped the white dress for a pair of black leather shorts and a tight black stretchy tank top, which showed off her body's hidden lines and curves. She looked hot and charming, causing Ning Tao to almost get a nosebleed.

During the day, she wore a long white dress and looked like an ancient beauty out of a painting, without any worldly aura. Tonight, she seemed to have become another person, a female gang leader with aggression, as if she would fight others if she was not satisfied with them.

Seeing her white legs in the air and the lines and shapes of some parts of her body, Ning Tao had a slight trance.

Bai Jing leaned over and opened the car door for him. "Is it enough?" she asked. "Get in and take your time."

Ning Tao shrugged, pulled the door open and got in.

Then Bai Jing started the car, turned into the driveway and headed north.

The atmosphere in the car was slightly awkward because of Bai Jing's strange fragrance and ubiquitous hormones.

"Where are we going?" Ning Tao broke the silence between them.

Bai Jing looked at him with l.u.s.t in her eyes and a smile on her lips. "Where do you want us to go, Tao?"

Ning Tao frowned and said, "Please be serious. I'm talking business."

Bai Jing chuckled and replied, "I'm talking about serious things. We should enjoy ourselves while we are alive, lest we regret when we are old. Don't you think so?"

Ning Tao closed his eyes in repose and ignored her words.

"You're so boring," Bai Jing grumbled and drove in silence.

The Brabus G500 went up the highway, drove dozens of kilometers, and then went down on a country road.

Ning Tao looked out the window at the view. There were many jagged peaks in the distance, casting an immense shadow under the darkness. He was suddenly struck by some questions. "There're so many barren mountains and uninhabited islands in this world. Would those unfrequented places have some demons like Bai Jing or pract.i.tioners like Chen Pingdao? Also, are there some persons in the vast universe who became immortal through cultivation? If so, where are they?"

For a moment, his mind was full of imagination.

When the car entered the mountains, a section of broken Great Wall suddenly came into sight. It went over mountains and mountains, with no end in sight. It was magnificent, emitting a strong sense of the vicissitudes of history, like an old general of the Ming Dynasty, who was full of wounds and about to fall.

Ning Tao's heart suddenly beat fast as he wondered, "Tens of kilometers to the north, by the ancient Great Wall... Is this the place the moustached vendor talked about? Does the incomplete inkstone have anything to do with Bai Jing?"

He unconsciously glanced at Bai Jing out of the corner of his eye.

"Is it funny to see me this way? Dare you touch me?" Bai Jing asked in a soft, sweet voice.

"No," Ning Tao answered flatly.

Half an hour later, the Brabus G500 rounded a bend in the rugged mountain road, and a village sign appeared ahead.

The sign read "Blackhill Village".

At the sight of the sign, Ning Tao was sure that they were going to the place the moustached vendor told him. He was full of surprise and confusion, but his face remained calm.

Instead of entering the village, Bai Jing drove around it. Beyond the village, the country road was gone, and ahead lay a dirt road of unknown age. It was so potholed that the millions of off-road vehicle b.u.mped along it.

Ning Tao was shaking badly in the car. He deliberately frowned and inquired, "Why do you live in such a lonely place? How long before we get there?"

Bai Jing simply replied, "Soon."

The Blackhill Village was left behind and soon out of sight. The road ahead grew rougher and rougher, surrounded by dark hills and sections of the Great Wall that appeared sometimes. There was not a ghost in this place, let alone a person.

After a while even the worst of the dirt roads disappeared, and the Brabus G500 still hurtled forward.

A startled crow suddenly flew up from a tree while cawing.

The sound echoed across the valley, giving the desolate place an eerie and gloomy air.

At that moment, lights suddenly appeared in a place below the hillside. They were white lanterns, and buildings stood out from the darkness in the lamplight. There was a courtyard with stone walls, black tiles, pavilions, bridges, streams, fake boulders and a pond. It was just like an antique manor of the big family.

The road suddenly became smooth, and Ning Tao didn't feel b.u.mpy anymore.

At the gate stood an old man, and it was Wei Bai. He had opened the gate before the car arrived.

There was a sudden splash of water. Ning Tao looked toward the sound source and saw a mountain spring running down a cliff below the manor, plunging into the pool at the bottom of the cliff. It was from that pool that he heard the rus.h.i.+ng of water.

"Could that be the pool the moustached vendor mentioned?" Ning Tao wondered secretly.

But before he could look closely enough to see if his guess was correct, Bai Jing had driven the Brabus G500 into the gate of the manor.

When the car stopped, Wei Bai opened the pa.s.senger door, stood by it and said politely, "Doctor Ning, please."

Ning Tao got out of the car with his medicine chest and looked around.

Bai Jing cast a glance at Wei Bai.

Wei Bai responded with a small nod.

"Doctor Ning, come with me," Bai Jing said, walking toward a building.

Ning Tao followed Bai Jing to the building, quietly awakening his skills of looking of his eyes and smelling of his nose. For a moment he was frightened, for what he saw was no longer a quaint manor, but a tangle of stones and weedy tombs in a heath!

Only the lanterns were real.

Each lantern was painted with runes, and the candles inside were burning and giving off smoke, but it was only a facade. In Ning Tao's eyes, those candles emitted wisps of black gas, which was the spiritual energy released by dark spiritual power!

It was obvious that the antique manor was created by these lanterns. They might be magic tools that could transform dark spiritual power into illusions that were indistinguishable to ordinary people. It was a superior use of spiritual power.

It seemed that Chen Pingdao's house that Ning Tao saw was also made in the same way, but not as luxurious as this one.

Although Ning Tao could see through the strange illusion and find its key point, he had no knowledge of the relevant principles. Looking at the lanterns that created the illusion of the manor, and thinking of the incomplete inkstone, Ning Tao felt more deeply that he was just a rookie in the cultivation world. At the same time, his desire to acquire the knowledge of cultivation had become stronger.

"What do you think of this house?" Bai Jing asked casually as she walked.

"It's magnificent," replied Ning Tao. "It must have cost a lot of money."

"Not so much, only about 10 million," Bai Jing stated. "I don't really come here very often. My sister recuperates here. She likes to be in a quiet environment and doesn't want to be disturbed. That's why the road isn't built."

"I see," Ning Tao said casually.

Then they came to a door with two white lanterns hanging on the pillars on both sides, but in Ning Tao's eyes, it was actually a cave opening with two white lanterns hanging.

Bai Jing led Ning Tao through the door and a corridor and stopped at another door.

This door was real, and made of Phoebe zhennan, so Ning Tao smelled an odor of medicine.

Bai Jing pushed the door open and Ning Tao followed her in.

The room behind the door was also a real room. It was a s.p.a.cious room with Phoebe zhennan furniture, and even the floor beneath and the ceiling overhead were made of Phoebe zhennan. A white lantern hung from the beam, its light s.h.i.+ning brightly on all the materials of Phoebe zhennan. Ning Tao felt as though he was in a dream, with the golden light glowing in the room.

As a resident of Shan City, Ning Tao knew something about Phoebe zhennan, because Shan City was one of its production areas.

Phoebe zhennan was also known as coffin wood and dark wood. Ancient officials and rich people all liked to make coffins with Phoebe zhennan, because its medicinal incense could repel insects, kill bacteria and prevent the bodies from rotting. In general, living people could not use it, unless the people who had enough vitality. Otherwise it would bring disaster to the man who used it. Phoebe zhennan was heavily used in this room, so it was filled with the heavy feeling of death.

In the room, the big bed made of Phoebe zhennan carried the strongest smell of death.

On the bed lay a woman. Ning Tao could not see her face because of the gauze curtain before the bed. Immediately, Ning Tao realized that she was Bai Jing's sister.

Bai Jing went over to the bedside and called, "Qing Zhui, Doctor Ning, the doctor I told you about has arrived. Are you going to get out of bed or let him come?"

Qing Zhui was the name of Bai Jing's sister.

However, the name gave Ning Tao a little creepiness. "The elder sister's surname is Bai, and the younger sister's surname is Qing. Are they the living Bai Suzhen and Xiaoqing of the Legend of the White Snake?"

Qing Zhui on the bed made a move and responded, "Let him come. My legs are stiff and I don't want to get up."

Her voice was sweet and silky, but sounded weak, sickly, yet eerily voluptuous.

"All right, I'll have him come." Bai Jing looked back at Ning Tao and beckoned him over. Then she stretched out her hand to pull up the gauze curtain.

Ning Tao walked over to the bed with the medicine chest, already getting a good look at Qing Zhui's face. She had an aura like Lin Daiyu in A Dream of Red Mansions and a tender beauty that made people feel sorry for her. Her skin was pale and blue, the typical sickly color of lacking of vital energy and blood. Her hair was long and dark with a hint of green in it. It looked like bleached green, but Ning Tao knew it was her natural hair color.

Qing Zhui's eyes turned to Ning Tao, which were dark and bright, deep and mysterious. A flash of green light flashed through her eyes like a shooting star across the night sky.

For a split second, Ning Tao felt as if he had been sucked by something and fell into a cold quagmire!