```

Before coming to the Ancient Realm, Lu Yang had never imagined that his training expedition here would involve so many events.

Well-known in the Demon Territory, he and Meng Jingzhou decided that since they were here, it would be a pity not to visit the Creation Ancient Land, so they entered the Ancient Realm under the guidance of their Third Senior Sister.

Unexpectedly, here he encountered the insights left by various great demons of ancient times, as well as the cultivation techniques of the Immortal Jiuchong.

In the fourth layer of the Creation Ancient Land, a place unknown to the geniuses who had entered the Ancient Realm for the past three hundred thousand years, and where even the spirit of the Secret Realm, Luo Hong, was not qualified to tread, the first visitor was welcomed.

The place was dead silent, with the echo of empty footsteps, as if someone was following behind.

Lu Yang observed the fourth layer carefully; the room’s decorations were understated yet meaningful, suggesting that the owner was a predecessor with excellent cultivation.

Every decorative item in the room exuded an aura of ancientness and extraordinariness, and with Lu Yang’s insight, he could only identify the origins of a small part of them.

A stone table carved from the marrow of top-grade spirit stones, a jade chair formed by the fusion of the essence of the sun and the moon, glass floor tiles forged from special star cores, a Kunlun bronze mirror, an Enlightenment teacup, a perpetual fairy lamp...

These were all items Lu Yang had only seen in his own Spiritual Space—Fairy Eternity occasionally liked to change the style of the Spiritual Space.

When Fairy Eternity had introduced these items to Lu Yang before, he had listened with his eyebrows twitching, as their value was beyond his imagination.

Now that these items were appearing before him in the flesh, it was a different feeling altogether.

Lu Yang noticed a jade flute hanging on the wall, its emerald green color elegant and slender, with fine details, and the patterns of hundreds of birds lifelike, giving a feeling of lightness and purity.

At the end of the room lay a bed, draped in a thin gauze, barely allowing one to discern the figure of a female cultivator lying on it.

"Fairy, do you remember whose room this is?"

Lu Yang asked in a low voice, careful not to disturb the room’s owner.

"It’s Jiang Lianyi."

A heaven-defying talent from the Phoenix Tribe, the Phoenix Ancestor, wife of the Qilin Immortal, one of the top ten beauties of ancient times, Jiang Lianyi.

Lu Yang’s hand, poised to draw back the light gauze, hesitated for a moment, and he muttered to himself that it figured, before he parted the gauze, revealing the exceptionally beautiful woman lying on the bed, clad in vivid red as if she were a flame.

It was indeed the legendary Jiang Lianyi.

There was no breath in Jiang Lianyi, the vitality dispersed, her lips pale, eyes tightly shut, her expression peaceful, hands crossed over her chest.

"Has she passed away?"

Lu Yang was aware of the sleeping techniques used by ancient cultivators; no matter how deeply those cultivators slumbered, one could still sense a faint breath, which was completely different from Jiang Lianyi’s state.

His voice trembled, his face displaying disbelief, how could a legendary figure like Jiang Lianyi possibly be dead?

But Lu Yang, recalling the corpse of the Time Immortal buried beneath the Five Elements Sect, and the old Qiongqi in the black coffin in the Qiongqi’s tomb, had to acknowledge this fact.

The affairs of the ancient past were confounding and anything could happen.

The only thing he could do was accept it.

He didn’t know if Fairy Eternity could accept it; Fairy Eternity and Jiang Lianyi were very close. Despite Fairy Eternity’s typically jovial demeanor, she must be heavy-hearted when it came to the departure of friends.

If Jiang Lianyi was dead, what had become of Ao Ling, the Dragon Clan Ancestor, and what of the Qilin Immortal?

It’s likely that the fates of the other two were not much better, and it’s possible that all three had perished.

"She’s not dead, this is the Playing Dead Technique."

𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

Fairy Eternity glanced at Lu Yang, whose expression was complex as he struggled to come to terms with the news of Jiang Lianyi’s death, thinking to herself why bother cursing someone else for no reason?

Lu Yang fell silent for a moment.

```

"...Playing Dead Technique?"

Fairy Eternity, couldn’t you have mentioned that earlier? I got all emotional for nothing.

"You forgot, I taught her the Playing Dead Technique. Back then she wasn’t very skilled and kept yowling while being burned..."

"Alright, alright, stop talking about it."

Lu Yang quickly interrupted Fairy Eternity’s reminiscing. It wasn’t very nice to bring up such things in front of others.

Fairy Eternity, with her hands on her hips, was quite proud: "My Playing Dead Technique is far more reliable than any minor trick like being frozen. The principle behind being frozen is to delay time and slow down the rate of lifespan depletion, but the lifespan will still fade away. Who knows, some unlucky fellow might oversleep and end up dead."

"Take Ancient Di Jiang, for example. Before sealing himself away, he had a lifespan of seventy to eighty thousand years. Now that he’s awakened, he’s probably only got twenty to thirty thousand years left."

"On the other hand, the Playing Dead Technique, once cast, is equivalent to being dead, so there’s absolutely no worry about lifespan running out."

How could there be any depletion of lifespan in a state of death?

"Make way, I’ll resurrect her."

Lu Yang conscientiously made room and stood aside. This kind of thing was beyond the capabilities of a Golden Core ancestor.

Fairy Eternity extended her index finger, with the flow of mystical principles emitting from her fingertip. Endless Daoist runes emerged, converging above her head and silently colliding, producing a dazzling light that made Lu Yang squint his eyes.

A massive influx of runes formed a reversal flow toward her fingertip.

Her index finger lightly touched Jiang Lianyi’s forehead, causing ripples to spread out invisibly, like a silent breeze that made the light curtains surrounding the bed sway, and the stone table, jade chairs, and bronze mirror tremble slightly.

Caught in the ripples, Lu Yang sensed the flavors of both death and life. After careful reflection, he found it strange yet ultimately indiscernible.

Jiang Lianyi’s complexion turned from pale to red in the blink of an eye, her cheeks becoming as rosy as those of a living person. Her long eyelashes quivered as if awakening.

"Mmm~~"

Jiang Lianyi let out a lazy hum, elegant and leisurely, just like Fairy Eternity when she first woke up.

With Jiang Lianyi’s revival from death, the entire fourth level sprang to life. The stone table, jade chairs, and bronze mirror started to shake rhythmically, as if dancing. The jade flute hanging on the wall started to play a lively tune… as though celebrating their master’s awakening with joy and jubilation.

Jiang Lianyi sat up from the bed, her head heavy. She felt as though she had slept for a very long time, so long that her slumber had to be measured in tens of thousands of years, her memories had become somewhat blurred, and she kept sorting through them in her mind.

She looked around, momentarily forgetting why she was sleeping here and why she was now awake.

Just as she turned her head, a pretty face, even more beautiful than her own, leaned in close.

"Lianyi, you’re awake?"

Fairy Eternity crawled to the edge of the bed, coming close to Jiang Lianyi, which genuinely gave Jiang Lianyi quite a scare.

Seeing Jiang Lianyi awaken, Fairy Eternity’s lips curled upward in a brilliant smile, her eyes twinkling with joy.

"Who are you?"

Jiang Lianyi looked bewilderedly at Fairy Eternity. She was, after all, a Semi-Immortal, and it was surprising she didn’t detect someone approaching her.

"You don’t recognize me? I’m Yellow Bean, Fairy Eternity Yellow Bean," Fairy Eternity earnestly introduced herself.

Jiang Lianyi was usually very cautious, but facing this young girl who had appeared out of nowhere, she couldn’t muster any sense of vigilance.

Two streams of tears traced down Jiang Lianyi’s cheeks uncontrollably. She wiped at her eyes with her wrists, but the tears kept flowing copiously and wouldn’t stop.

Even though she was crying, there was an inexplicable feeling of joy in her heart.

"Strange, why am I crying?"