QT: Don't fall in love with the Male Lead

Chapter 88: Don't stumble onto a well kept secret

Liao Min is the first to squat down and examine the dismembered leg. Not that there's much to it, besides some black wrapping around the calf, black curled toe boots, and what looks like it could be a piece of under robe around the knee.

"These are the clothes of Blood Crane retainers," she says, picking up the loose piece of fabric between her fingers and bringing it to eye-level. "Our retainers are hired workers from nearby villages, and not actual sect members, but they still have their own uniform."

Li Siqi sneers. "Are you sure that's all they are, 'workers'?" When Liao Min glares at her, she elaborates. "How come you recognize them from their inner robes and leg wrappings alone?"

Xi Zirui groans and steps in between the two of them. "Both of you are missing the point." He points at the bloodied limb. "Someone is missing a leg!"

They both have the decency to look cowed, but Xi Zirui doesn't put much stock in it lasting long.

Han Yu pulls him by the sleeve towards the room the stump was lodged into. "Shizun, look," pointing out a glowing tile in the opposite wall.

The four of them crowd into the small room, inspecting the glowing tile from every direction.

It's not a very common architectural motif, and the fact it glows a faint blue is nothing it not alarming.

"Don't touch it, it's clearly a trap," Xi Zirui says, inspecting it closer in the hope of seeing some sort of mechanism.

Han Yu casts his eyes around the small empty room. "Where did the rest of the body go?"

There's no trace of a body in the rest of the room, and only a small blood pool around the doorway.

"Maybe the leg was placed here?" Li Siqi suggests. "To intimidate us?"

"Why would a leg intimidate anyone?" Liao Min says, derisive.

Their juvenile bickering is getting on Xi Zirui's nerves, and he steps away from them, intent on inspecting the other side of the room.

There's a barely audible click on his next footfall, and he can feel the slight depression of the floorboards under his feet.

He barely has the time to shout out a warning before the floor is opening under his feet.

Air rushes past him as he free falls into darkness.

Landing is going to be rough if he doesn't do anything.

"The fan, Host!" Ni Ni shouts, her voice ringing in his ears like a bell.

Xi Zirui pulls out Untold Sorrow from the fold of his robes and flicks it open between his spread fingers.

Ni Ni didn't specify what he's supposed to do, so Xi Zirui focuses on diverting his qi towards the fan in his hand and waving it towards the dark abyss beneath him, hoping that whatever happens will prevent him from being flattened into fine paste.

A surging wind shoots up from the belly of the tunnel he's falling down and slows down his fall, like a pillow of wind cradling his back as he slowly descends.

Above him, Li Siqi, Liao Min, and Han Yu are using light-stepping to go from wall to wall and in that way control the pace of their descent.

Ni Ni chimes. "Uhm, at least Host's way is faster?"

Xi Zirui doesn't humor her with a comment.

He lands on his back, non-too gracefully. He gets up to his feet with a groan and wipes the dust off his silver and white robes.

It's pitch-black wherever he landed, and he can scarcely see a palm in front of his face.

Xi Zirui might be out of his depth in this cultivation world, but he remembers the kind of talismans he packed this time around. After rummaging inside his sleeve for a second be brings out a thin piece of browned paper with characters related to small fires all over it.

He double checks he has the talisman for the little fires, instead of the big fires, otherwise the fall will be the least of his problems.

Holding the talisman between his forefinger and middle finger he closes his eyes and focuses on directing his flow of qi towards the talisman to light it.

The top section of it bursts into flame with a gentle woosh.

Moments later, Han Yu, Li Siqi and Liao Min land at his side smoothly. Just in time to witness the grisly sight Xi Zirui's talisman illuminates. 

A few paces in front of them lies the broken body of a man missing his leg, his spine twisted in an impossible shape and his eyes wide with terror. Beside him, face-down, lies the body of a man dressed in the same type of clothing, his skull completely caved in from the impact.

"The retainers," Liao Min says, inspecting them from up close. "I didn't know these two personally, but they faithfully served Blood Crane sect, Shizun will compensate their families for their loss."

"As if that's going to solve anything," Li Siqi says, shaking her head.

Liao Min turns on her and grips her by the front of her white and teal robes, gripping the thin silk of her outer robes in her fist. "Their families still need to eat! Maybe you immortal cultivators think dying in the service of your sects is a great honor, but at Blood Crane we don't fool ourselves. Every death is a waste, and lamentable."

Li Siqi shakes off Liao Min's grip with a vicious snarl, raising up on her tiptoes to meet her eyes. "Don't demonic cultivators harness qi from the dead? Destroying their souls in the process and prevent them from ever reincarnating?"

Liao Min brings her face an hairsbreadth away from Li Siqi's. "Not from our own." She smirks, revealing a row of pearly white teeth and one sharp canine. "But I'd be happy to drain you to the last drop."

Xi Zirui fans himself with Untold Sorrow, holding the burning talisman in the other hand and sending sparks flying every which way.

He doesn't think Liao Min realizes how suggestive her words sound.

Li Siqi does, and averts her eyes, a smattering of red crossing the bridge of her nose.

Cute. There might be hope for Xi Zirui's extremely cursed special system shop item.

Han Yu clears his throat and addresses Liao Min. "Young miss Liao mentioned her sect brothers...but no one else seems to be here."

She nods. "It's possible they didn't fall into this trap at all."

Xi Zirui doesn't think so.

"Did either of you see the floor closing up behind you?" he asks the three disciples, who all shake their heads. "That means there is a certain amount of time the mechanism remains static for before returning to its original position."

He taps Untold Sorrow against his chin, thinking the scenario over in his head.

"I think the two retainers went rushing into the room after hearing the noise of the trap springing into action, and potentially someone screaming in surprise as the floor opened up under their feet."

Liao Min isn't so easily convinced. "How can Master Xi be so sure?"

He points at the body of the man missing a leg with Untold Sorrows. "The severed leg. That could have only happened if someone fell in just as the mechanism was closing. There were a few drops of blood upstairs, and very few on the stump here. Which means the blood from the wound sprayed everywhere as this poor man fell to his doom."

Ni Ni chimes twice in quick succession. "Congratulations, Host! Li Siqi's admiration up by +10 points. Now at 90 of a possible 100 points."

"Congratulations Host! Han Yu's admiration up by +10 points. Now at 48 of a possible 100 points." 

Should Xi Zirui feel vexed that he and Han Yu had sex and yet his admiration isn't maxed out yet?

"Uhm, as Ni Ni mentioned, admiration isn't the same as favor. Admiration represents Host's disciples respect for him as their master and teacher."

It's still grating that Li Siqi suspects him of having an immoral relationship with Han Yu and yet admires him more than Han Yu himself.

"Why is Shizun glaring at me?" Han Yu asks, peering at Xi Zirui's thunderous face. "Did I do something wrong?"

"Han Yu didn't do anything," Xi Zirui says, and shoves the burning talisman into Han Yu's hands. "Here, lead the way. Sect leader and Young Miss Li's sect brothers could be down here with no way of getting out."

Li Siqi gives Xi Zirui a searching look. "But, Shizun, doesn't that mean we're stuck here as well?"

Xi Zirui doesn't have an answer for her.

He follows after Han Yu, his sharp profile illuminated by the flickering light of the talisman.

---

They walk for ages through another long corridor, which seems to be carved into sheer rock.

Xi Zirui thinks they must be half a li under the surface, with how far he has fallen, yet the air is neither oppressively hot or cold.

Suddenly, Xi Zirui hears the sound of running water, a rapid current as if they are approaching an underground river.

Xi Zirui overtakes Han Yu and rushes towards the sound, pulling up the skirts of his robes as he jogs.

He has a bad feeling about this.

The story about the dragon and the villagers has been rattling around in the back of his head.

If the dragon's resentment was so strong, why would he stop in his quest for vengeance just because the remaining villagers funded a cultivation sect in his honour?

It makes no sense. 

Something else must have happened.

Xi Zirui follows the sound into a small opening in the wall, calling out "Over here," before crawling inside it and coming up on the other side of a wide gallery with a roof sprinkled with glittering diamonds and other gems.

A coursing river of crystalline waters flows under it, refracting the small amount of light in the chamber up into the sparkling roof.

In the middle of the river is a small embankment, almost like a tiny island. Tied to two posts in the middle of it, kneels a dried up skeleton dressed in fine teal and silver silk, a mane of white hair still clinging to the exposed skull.

Someone has mounted a funeral plaque near the body, most likely the same person who imprisoned the poor soul in such a desolate place. 

It reads,"Huan Xuan, bringer of floods lies here."