Chapter 136: Squeezing Out the Last Bit of Savings

This was the owner of the cave dwelling, the "immortal" they spoke of. In death, he looked no different from a mortal. His dried skin clung to his bones, his face long unrecognizable, devoid of any immortal grace.

His wide-sleeved robes were undeniably elegant. Neither silk nor satin, they felt extraordinarily smooth, their material indiscernible. Yet, when He Lingchuan reached out and tore the fabric, it ripped easily.

Why did everything here feel like it was made of paper?

The young man stood up, walked around the cave dwelling, and discovered that its owner had been truly impoverished, leaving nothing of value behind.

He returned to the prayer mat and noticed the skeletal remains were in a standard sitting posture, the right hand clenched into a fist with only the index finger pointing towards the ground.

The ground?

He pushed aside thick layers of dust and saw hundreds of characters neatly engraved on the floor tiles, seemingly carved with a fingertip.

Was this the owner's last will, left before his death? He must have known that no medium could withstand the long passage of time, so he had simply engraved it on the black stone floor for greater durability.

Unfortunately, though the handwriting was elegant, He Lingchuan could not understand most of it.

He thought for a moment, then took out paper, covered the inscription, brushed ink over it, and peeled it off, successfully creating a rubbing. Just because he couldn't understand it didn't mean others couldn't; it would be worthwhile to find a few old scholars to decipher it when he eventually visited Xiazhou or the capital.

He carefully put away the rubbing and was about to stand when his divine bone necklace suddenly grew hot, almost burning him twice.

What did that mean? Was there still something here?

He Lingchuan paused, carefully surveying his surroundings once more.

Everything appeared as before: what was ruined remained ruined, what was decayed remained decayed.

This time, however, he noticed a black ring on the little finger of the cave owner's left hand, previously hidden by the sleeve and thus unobserved.

"Forgive my rudeness," He Lingchuan said, bowing to the skeletal remains before carefully slipping off the ring.

It was a plain black jade ring, simple in design, without any embellishments. Yet, when he tried to probe it with his divine sense, he couldn't help but gasp in amazement.

This was a storage ring, with an immense internal space, equivalent to a room of seventeen or eighteen square meters.

It was no exaggeration to say that the ring itself was priceless. In the current age, a storage space of even one or two cubic meters was considered excellent. The one He Lingchuan currently wore was almost entirely filled by just two small wooden tea tables, meaning it could usually only hold small, valuable items; even food and water felt too bulky.

Possessing this treasure was like carrying a small warehouse at all times.

The space now contained various miscellaneous items, including a stack of jade slips. These slips were the length of an index finger, shaped like bookmarks. In the immortal legends He Lingchuan had heard, their appearance rate was second only to that of magical artifacts.

It sounded as if these were the "hard drives" of the immortal era, capable of storing vast amounts of information. However, when he eagerly examined them in his hand, he found all the jade slips were empty.

Of course. Without the nourishment of spiritual energy, the stored content would have been lost. He Lingchuan was disappointed; he had originally hoped to find divine abilities and cultivation methods left behind by the immortal.

All things in the world, it seemed, could not withstand the ravages of time. Immortals and their cave dwellings were no exception.

He walked out of the small courtyard and looked around.

This "cave dwelling" covered an area of approximately seven to eight hundred square meters, with towering rocks. With plants and flowing water, the scenery would likely have been beautiful. Unfortunately, it was now just a bare, barren hilltop.

Gray mist surged around the cave dwelling, obscuring anything beyond it.

He Lingchuan climbed over the hilltop, approached the gray mist, and poked it with a tree branch.

Initially, it felt as light as nothing, but the further he pushed, the more substantial it became, akin to poking a thick cotton quilt with a finger, until eventually, it could not be penetrated.

This was likely the boundary of the cave dwelling.

His visit to the immortal's cave dwelling concluded, and he returned along the same path. The brief exploration was about to end, leaving He Lingchuan deeply disappointed. However, it had first been discovered by the Spirit Tortoise and later visited by the Crocodile God; he couldn't know how many visitors had come before him, so it was logical that the cave dwelling was empty.

Just as he was about to exit the so-called "cave dwelling," his divine bone necklace heated up again.

Was there still something valuable here?

He Lingchuan had no choice but to turn back and retrace his steps.

If he walked too far, the necklace would grow hot, as if agitated; the closer he got to the center of the cave, the calmer it became.

Finally, He Lingchuan reached the edge of the dried pond. "Here?" he murmured.

Only by standing here did the divine bone necklace remain quiet.

What should he do now?

There was nothing but rock and sand here, not even a breath of wind. Everything was completely still, save for himself.

Using his broken knife as a shovel, He Lingchuan dug a few times, discovering the sandy ground was incredibly hard; ordinary blades likely wouldn't even scratch it.

It didn't look like anything was hidden beneath.

Digging was too foolish a method, He Lingchuan decided. He simply took off the divine bone necklace and pressed it onto the ground.

*You* found this spot, so *you* figure it out.

He was growing impatient, but to his surprise, the divine bone necklace immediately sank into the soil as if plunging into water.

He Lingchuan hadn't grabbed it firmly enough, and it vanished beneath the surface.

"Hey!" he exclaimed, startled. If that thing didn't float back up on its own, he would suffer a massive loss!

He then dug three feet into the ground, but there was no sign of the divine bone necklace, not even a ready-made small pit.

Fortunately, after dozens more breaths, just as He Lingchuan was consumed by anxiety, the item re-emerged on its own, glowing with an intense red light. He had no idea what it had encountered underground.

Just as he picked up the necklace, he heard a muffled, unusual sound.

It sounded like a human spine being snapped, or a rattan breaking, magnified dozens of times.

Immediately afterward, cracks began to appear on the ground, increasing in number, growing deeper, and small pebbles started falling from above.

At this moment, He Lingchuan knew the anomaly had to be related to the divine bone necklace, and he sprinted out of the cave.

The ground trembled so violently he could barely stand.

He took one last look back from the entrance: the immortal's dwelling and the cliff collapsed together, plunging into the endless gray mist.

He Lingchuan dared not look again and stepped out.

His vision darkened, and he was once again in the pitch-black cavern.

Then he heard a "crack," and the coconut-sized shell at his feet shattered into pieces.

The sound startled the other two creatures; the Crocodile God and Wu Shaoyi both looked over. "What happened?" they asked.

He Lingchuan reached back and pressed the stone wall; it didn't budge an inch.

A moment ago, there had been an entrance here; now it was just a solid rock wall.

"The cave dwelling seems to have vanished," He Lingchuan stated.

The other two were somewhat surprised. The Crocodile God asked, "What did you do?"

He Lingchuan lied without a hint of guilt. "I didn't do anything," he claimed. "I just looked around and came back out."

He then asked the Crocodile God, "What do you think caused it?"

"I don't know," the Crocodile God replied, unconcerned. After all, the interior had been completely empty.

Only He Lingchuan himself understood that the divine bone necklace must have done something to the cave dwelling's interior.

Wu Shaoyi, still unable to move freely, could only gaze at him eagerly. "Was it really an immortal's cave dwelling?" she asked.