My best friend asked me if I was still doing system tasks.

“Your cultivation level is low, so you are easily affected. Smelling this calming incense will make you feel better.” Ji Daoyun took out an incense stick, snapped his fingers, lit it with the cold, spicy flame at his fingertips, and handed it to Luo Hanying.

Luo Hanying held the Qingxin Incense around her nose a few times, took a deep sniff, and indeed felt her mind become clearer.

She looked around at her surroundings, following closely behind Ji Daoyun's steps: "This place is so strange, it's like a maze."

"Perhaps it's to guard against tomb raiders." Ji Daoyun carefully examined the floor tiles for any hidden mechanisms before taking a step.

Luo Hanying exclaimed in surprise, "It's one thing for the cultivation world to have tombs, but it also has tomb raiders?"

Ji Daoyun smiled and countered, "What do you think our current behavior resembles?"

Luo Hanying awkwardly retorted, "The cause and effect are different; we were forced to fall in here."

“If the situation outside weren’t so critical, I would have brought you in too.”

Cultivators rarely leave behind a physical body upon their death; this tomb is most likely a cenotaph, and the magical artifacts, books, and elixirs buried with them would be of great benefit to us.

Ji Daoyun raised his hand to signal Luo Hanying to stop, "There's a sound, it seems to be rhythmic..."

Luo Hanying held her breath and listened intently, whispering, "It seems to be coming from this intersection on the right..."

It was a rapid, screeching sound, as if something was quickly crawling across the ground.

As soon as Luo Hanying expanded her divine sense, she saw that the stone wall and the stone brick floor were covered with densely packed, flat, round insects.

They swarmed out and headed straight for Luo Hanying and Ji Daoyun.

"What the hell is this disgusting thing?!" Luo Hanying quickly summoned the array plate and activated it, putting it on herself.

Ji Daoyun formed a hand seal, and his body was instantly covered with a layer of icy blue flames. The insects were devoured by the dancing flames and burned to ashes, but more insects still rushed forward one after another, which was quite a drop in the ocean.

"Crunch, crunch—" The formation emitted a tooth-grinding sound.

Luo Hanying felt a chill run down her spine as she stacked the array plates: "Array formations?! Insects can destroy array formations?!"

Seeing that Ji Daoyun's flames seemed to be working, she quickly wrote: "I rise and look at the southern mountains, where mountain fires burn the fields."

The words transformed into towering flames, the scalding flames collapsing and engulfing the swarm of insects. The air was filled with the aroma of meat, and Luo Hanying pinched her nose and gagged, "Damn! How disgusting!"

Ji Daoyun frowned, and he stretched out his palm, muttering, "It's going to rain."

A surge of spiritual energy caused the vertical harp to appear in Ji Daoyun's hands amidst a flurry of light. He embraced the harp and began to pluck the strings with his fingertips.

As rain fell, light shimmered and swirled, and sound waves spread outward from Ji Daoyun's center. Insects that were nearby were blown away, and the entire swarm suddenly lost its direction and became chaotic before scattering and fleeing in all directions.

Ji Daoyun breathed a sigh of relief: "Fortunately, I didn't mishear."

"What did you hear?" Luo Hanying asked curiously.

Ji Daoyun, carrying Tian Jiangyu, continued to clear the way, explaining, "Yu Chen Daozun is skilled in music theory. I studied with him for a while. Just now, I heard intermittent, rhythmic striking sounds. It should be a mechanism in the underground palace. Those striking sounds will command the swarm of insects to attack us."

I remembered reading about this insect in a book; it's called a sound-eating cockroach. After being trained, it obeys sound commands, so we used the sound of impending rain to distract them. Luckily, it worked, otherwise we would have been eaten to the bone.

"That's it!" Luo Hanying immediately thought of Ruan Chayan. "We're already having such a hard time dealing with these things, and Chayan doesn't have any magical artifacts. What will she do?!"

Ji Daoyun pondered for a moment and said, "If she hadn't left the illusion array, she wouldn't have encountered these things."

If she leaves the illusion array, it's not impossible for her to get past the puppets on her own. As for the sound-devouring cockroach, as long as there's a sound that can mask the rhythmic sounds of the mechanism, even if it's not music, it might work.

I just don't know if she has a way to make that much noise.

He had been traveling extensively. The first time he collaborated with Ruan Chayan to investigate the Lu family, Ruan Chayan also left for some reason. Therefore, Ji Daoyun had only heard about what she was like from his disciples and did not know her personally.

"Sichuan peppercorns are good! Sichuan peppercorns are a mutated shrew, and they usually use their calls as a means of attack!"

Luo Hanying beamed with joy, "I'll remind her right away!"

She thought for a moment and took out a communication jade slip; it was still necessary to put on a show.

*

"Luckily, Xiaoxue gave me a lot of array plates, otherwise the two of us would have been crushed by these puppets by now."

Ruan Chayan glanced at the puppet outside the formation, which was raging helplessly, and asked, "Do you need my help? Can you manage on your own?"

Wenren Ya nodded and said, "Our cultivation methods and techniques are completely different, and our relationship is not so good that we can trust each other's consciousness and spiritual power to enter each other's meridians."

"Therefore, I will trouble Fellow Daoist Ruan to protect me. Give me two quarters of an hour. With your Vitality Pill, I might be able to expel the Bone-Softening Incense from my body. Even if that doesn't work, at least I'll regain my mobility."

As she spoke, she closed her eyes and sat down to meditate and regulate her breathing.

Ruan Chayan then focused her attention on the puppets attacking the formation, and she couldn't help but look at the crystal on the puppet's forehead.

Ruan Chayan asked, "Xiange, what kind of ore is that?"

String Song was speechless: [“By Chaos above, you really have to ask everything. Why don’t you just ask me how these puppets are made and how we deal with them?”]

Having spent time with Jin Si and the others, Ruan Chayan had developed an impenetrable thick skin. She pretended not to notice Xiange's sarcastic tone and asked with delight, "Really? Is this something I can say?"

Xiange, mimicking the accent of the TV drama she was watching, shouted: "No, no, of course not! Please don't make things difficult for me!"

["Okay, okay, okay, keep your voice down in my head."] Ruan Chayan covered her aching head, picked up the array plate beside her, put in spirit stones to activate it, and let the tireless puppets continue to attack the array.

Judging from the puppet's current attack power, although the array plate consumes a lot of resources, it can withstand the pressure.

The crimson stone on the puppet's forehead shimmered with light, and Ruan Chayan couldn't help but stare at the crystal.

String Song screamed in terror: "Hey! Don't do this!"

Ruan Chayan snapped out of her daze as if waking from a dream: [“What?”]

Seeing the precarious formation, she quickly activated several more array plates.

Ruan Chayan asked in confusion, "What happened? How come I... I was asleep?"

String Song broke down, saying, "Don't be fooled by the stone on the puppet's forehead; that thing has the power to bewitch minds."