"The Frozen Serenity Sect," Tang Xiadan murmured thoughtfully, while inwardly he was reeling with relief.

He was confident he had ventured further and wider over the years than most, but the continent was still a vast place, and if its entirety were taken into account, his hundreds of years of wandering and exploration, no matter how extensive, would probably amount to having covered two or three percent of it at most. And that was being generous. In truth, he didn’t feel he had even covered one percent.

Over the years he had unearthed no less than five hundred hidden ruins, about a dozen mysterious realms scattered here and there, and three grottos. But he knew, as impressive as those numbers sounded, he had barely scratched the surface. The waters of the Southern Continent ran deep, and with a peak-stage Palace Realm cultivation, he was limited in how far he could venture into those depths. His senior’s feather helped, and his innate abilities as a Gold Jade Treasure Mouse had made exploration easier, but even with those advantages, there were places he had no business knowing about, let alone venturing into. His own homeland was proof enough of that. He had lived there for over a thousand years, and yet, despite all that time, half of the Green Fog Region remained a complete mystery to him because he simply dared not set foot there. He would lose his life without question if he did, and the same held true for the rest of the continent.

He had been worried for a moment there that Yang Qing would end up requesting information on something he had no clue about. Luckily, he hadn’t.

"I have been to a few places with ties to the sect," Tang Xiadan began. "Was there anything in particular you needed to know?" he asked, shooting Yang Qing a questioning look.

Yang Qing, unable to mask his joy, smiled widely as he inwardly celebrated the run of luck he seemed to be on since setting foot in this place. "These places..." he said, unconcealed eagerness in his voice. "Now, you’re free to reject the request if you feel it is too excessive," he added, his expression shifting from eagerness to something more solemn.

"Please," Tang Xiadan gestured for him to continue.

Yang Qing nodded appreciatively before broaching the matter. "While I am interested in whatever you may have uncovered about the Frozen Serenity Sect where its history is concerned, at the moment, due to certain circumstances I won’t get into, I find myself in need of coordinates tied to the sect rather than the contents of what is there."

He paused, holding Tang Xiadan’s gaze. "I understand my request may be somewhat excessive given its nature, so I leave it entirely to your discretion how much you are willing to share. Regardless of how much that is, the flame is yours," Yang Qing said, gesturing toward it.

"Even rumors of places tied to the sect will do," Yang Qing added, before falling silent to give Tang Xiadan the space to think on it.

Under different circumstances, he wouldn’t easily make such a request, as it bordered on certain taboos in the cultivation world. What he was asking for had already gone well beyond the confines of confidential.

As was the norm, when a cultivator found a hidden ruin, a legacy, a treasured place or item, they kept that information and its location to themselves. A disciple was likely to hide such a find from their own sect, their martial siblings, even their master if it came to it. A clan member would hide it from their entire clan, down to their parents, close relatives, siblings, and children. Sworn brothers and sisters who had weathered countless life and death struggles together were liable to do the same.

Why would they do that? Birds die for food, and men die for treasure.

The more precious something was, the more unwilling one was to share it, or the more wary one became of sharing it at all. Either way, both roads led to the same place: secrecy. The best kept secrets were ones where only you knew. Any more than that, and the secret risked becoming known.

And so keeping things close to the chest had become a norm in the world, and what Yang Qing was asking of Tang Xiadan was for him to abandon that norm entirely.

Even long after thoroughly scouring and harvesting everything a hidden ruin had to offer, including pulling apart the slabs used for the walls and flooring, and the wood from the gate, even after stripping that ruin to nothing, a cultivator would still have extreme reservations about sharing its location with anyone else.

What if something worthwhile was still hidden in there that they hadn’t uncovered? There was no shortage of stories about cultivators finding treasures in places thought to have been picked clean to the bone, only for it to emerge later that some rare treasure, artifact, or profound art had been concealed in plain sight, or behind some hidden mechanism.

Stories like that made cultivators all the more guarded about revealing the ruins they found.

And yet here was Yang Qing making exactly such a request, and not for any random ruin at that, but one tied to an ancient lineage that had held the status and power of a Holy Land. Certain circles would argue it carried even more prestige than the two present-day Holy Lands, given the profundity of their foundational cultivation art: the Frozen Serenity Scripture.

Yang Qing, despite being a self-aware, seasoned, shameless individual, still felt a measure of shame making the request, even though he wasn’t exactly asking for the information so he could go there and try his luck. If anything, he had zero intentions of visiting any of those places; his only interest in them was the karmic value they held in their potential tie to Bai Chen’s kidnapping case. He still felt awkward about it all the same.

But it couldn’t be helped. Shame paled in comparison to the value of life.

"That’s all you want?!" Tang Xiadan asked, looking genuinely stunned.

Yang Qing looked immediately the same. He had been prepared to wait even an hour as Tang Xiadan thought things through before giving his response, yet it took no more than four seconds, and when he did... What’s with that look? Yang Qing wondered, confused, before moving to give his reply, sounding just as bewildered as Tang Xiadan.

"Yes," he answered, uncertainty seeping into both his tone and expression.

"Really, just that?!" Tang Xiadan looked even more baffled, which in turn left Yang Qing looking all the more confused as the whole thing seemed to be going nothing like he had imagined.

"Yes," said Yang Qing. "If it is too much, the request can be altered," he added as his doubt grew by the second.

For what felt like an eternity to Yang Qing, though it was really only a few seconds, the two of them sat looking at one another, blinking in mutual confusion, before the moment was finally broken by Tang Xiadan laughing, which only served to confuse Yang Qing further as he wondered what on earth was going on.

After he’d had his fill, Tang Xiadan cupped his fists and said, "Forgive my lack of manners. I was just..." He paused. "Surprised by the request," he added.

"I agree to your request," he said, smiling faintly as he produced a white jade rectangular talisman. He closed his eyes and held it close to his temple for about two minutes, the talisman fluctuating with a silver glow as he did. When he opened his eyes, he handed it to Yang Qing. "You will find the places I have visited and when I was there, along with a few interesting tidbits on the layout and what I found. You’ll also find the rumored locations, along with my personal thoughts and estimation of how likely they are to be true," Tang Xiadan said.

"I have more from other lineages if you want," Tang Xiadan offered, before moving to list some names. "Eternal Blossom Sanctuary Sect. The Myriad Beasts Sect. The Four Sacred Wings... there was one, though I’m not too sure about it, but there is one I found tied to the Seven Star Sword Sect, though I can’t be too certain. After all, I’m no sword cultivator, and the place had no definitive objects that could prove the tie other than some withered writing on a whetstone," Tang Xiadan said, his voice trailing into a murmur toward the end before he perked up again, leaning closer to the table with a smile that said he had something even more interesting to share.

"I heard the Order has a branch in the Deer Mountain Range," Tang Xiadan said slowly.

"We do," Yang Qing answered, looking and feeling considerably more composed, even though another bout of shock was quietly brewing within him. How did he find those places? Is he some reincarnated Son of Destiny?! Yang Qing wondered, as a touch of envy simmered within him, which he immediately stamped out as his attention snapped back to the present conversation.

Smiling with an air of mystery, Tang Xiadan lowered his voice slightly. "If Fellow Daoist isn’t opposed to it, given that you already have a presence there, you should visit the branch and explore the range. It may not look like much..." He paused before continuing, a brightness entering his tone. "But that whole range was once part of the Bi Xie Empire. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it..."

"I have," Yang Qing interjected softly, smiling with amusement.

"Good, good," Tang Xiadan said, still holding that same air of mysticism, as though he were about to reveal some heavenly secret. "I don’t know why, but the range still holds unearthed treasures from that empire. There is even a grotto there... though it has bizarre traits, so do be careful if you decide to venture," he warned solemnly.

"Also, be careful of the Deer Mountain Kingdom," he added, his expression growing graver.

"Why?" Yang Qing asked, straightening slightly as he looked at Tang Xiadan, with all the earlier amusement and carefreeness gone from his face.

"I don’t have anything certain to go by, other than..." Tang Xiadan’s gaze drifted meaningfully toward the ceiling. "I told you I owe the senior you wanted to meet a great deal, and that she has saved my life more times than I can count," Tang Xiadan said.

Switching his gaze back to Yang Qing, he continued, "Because of my experiences with her, I have grown to trust her instincts more than my own." He paused briefly before continuing, "We once went to the Deer Mountain Range to sightsee. Given the host of spirit beasts living there, we were curious how life was there for them compared to how it was for us in Green Fog Region. Not to mention, we also had a friend in the Green Fog Region who was originally from there, and I had also uncovered rumors of the range’s history and its ties to the Bi Xie Empire.

We roamed around the range exploring before finally making our way to the Deer Mountain Kingdom. In my pursuit of the traces of the Empire, it only made sense to look there, too, and given that they had no Domain experts, the risk wasn’t too high. Only..."

Tang Xiadan’s gaze deepened. "The moment we reached the border, Sister Yanyu’s body started trembling. She hysterically told me we needed to leave or we might never get the chance to. I have never seen her that afraid. When I asked her later what she had sensed, all she said was that she felt the embodiment of death and chaos buried in that place, and that if we set foot there, we would be swallowed by it. I haven’t been back since."

"How long ago was that?" Yang Qing asked. Could it be because of the fiendish organization that had been there before? he wondered. After all, the Bi Xie Empire had been built from the ashes of a former kingdom brought to ruin by a Blood Fiend Sect that had sacrificed the entire kingdom’s population. The founder of the Bi Xie Empire had been one of the few survivors of that massacre, and his survival had been attributed to two unassuming Bi Xie statues that had stood outside the store where he worked, which was why, when he later founded his empire, he named it after them.

"Seven hundred years ago," Tang Xiadan answered after a quick calculation. "It was one of the first places we came to after leaving the Green Fog Region," he added.

"I know you don’t know her," Tang Xiadan said seriously, "but my senior’s instincts are hardly ever wrong about these things. There could be something dangerous lurking there," he added, his tone carrying genuine concern.