A magical journey of a sharp-tongued woman and a goofy man

As the silver light of the teleportation talisman faded, Ye Shuli's back slammed heavily against the damp rock wall.

Jiang Ye propped himself up on one side of her ear, while his other hand held three broken Five Emperors Coins, the patina falling onto her shoulder.

"The residual value of the Elemental Illusion remains at 37%." Ye Shuli glanced down at the jade bracelet on her wrist, and a stream of fluorescent blue data overflowed from its openwork pattern. "The opponent used at least three different energy systems—wait, are you listening?"

Jiang Ye's Adam's apple bobbed twice in her blind spot, then he suddenly reached out and wiped away the ice crystals on her collarbone: "Kharuwen's curse marks have faded. It seems that guy's mechanical prosthetic eye hasn't evolved to have the ability to attack across space yet." His fingertips still carried the bitter scent of herbs, the smell of the hemostatic vine he had just crushed.

The two are currently trapped in a narrow passage within a natural cave.

The mirror, formed by the condensation of nanofluids, was slowly writhing three zhang away. The reflection in the mirror repeated their actions from ten seconds ago, down to the exact curve of Ye Shuli's hair being blown by the wind.

“Reverse tracking.” Ye Shuli suddenly grabbed Jiang Ye’s collar. “Since the other side can use the Klein bottle to capture the structure of our illusion…”

"Then let's use his celestial observation technique as bait." Jiang Ye spoke, having already cut his index finger. The moment the blood bead fell onto the mirror's surface, the entire fluid suddenly boiled and turned silvery-white. "Hold on tight!"

The dizziness from this teleportation lasted longer.

When Ye Shuli regained her senses of the ground, her heel was stuck in a spiral groove—a defensive rune array commonly found in ancient battlefield ruins. The dark red condensation in the groove proved that an entire squad of cultivators had died here three hundred years ago.

"The seventh paving stone in the southwest corner." She suddenly tapped a spot with her toe, and Jiang Ye almost simultaneously swung out the Immortal Binding Rope.

The moment the ropes tangled around the edge of the stone bricks, eighteen black iron crossbow bolts grazed past their heads and pierced the bronze pillars engraved with runes on the opposite side, their fletchings still vibrating rapidly.

Jiang Ye blew away the stray hairs covering his eyes: "Miss, could you please not trigger the mechanism with your high heels next time?"

“This is the fastest way to verify.” Ye Shuli bent down to observe the fluorescent moss in the groove. “An improved version of the Big Dipper array, plus…” She suddenly fell silent, her fingertips conjuring an ice blade to shave off the surface of the moss, revealing the intricate etching patterns underneath, as precise as a circuit board.

Jiang Ye's pupils contracted slightly: "An energy circuit originating from the same source as that of a mechanical cultivator."

Before the words were finished, the entire underground palace was suddenly filled with the rumble of gears meshing.

The instant Ye Shuli threw her ice blade and shattered the stalactite above her head, Jiang Ye had already grabbed her waist and rolled into the crevice.

Hundreds of poisoned spikes burst from the ground where they had just stood, the longest of which was only half an inch away from the back of Jiang Ye's neck.

"Southeast Xun position." Ye Shuli bit her fingertip amidst the jolts, and when the blood droplet bounced onto a certain spot on the rock wall, a spiderweb-like network of spiritual energy suddenly appeared on the entire wall.

Jiang Ye immediately pressed the Five Emperor Coins into the intersection of the veins, and the burst of golden light temporarily froze the second wave of arrow rain.

When the dust settled, Ye Shuli found her palm pressed against Jiang Ye's chest.

The young man's deliberately suppressed breathing brushed against her earlobe: "You still have 20% of your spiritual energy reserves left, enough to blast open three escape routes."

“No need.” She suddenly pulled off the necklace around her neck, and the malachite pendant struck the ground, generating a ghostly green magnetic field. “Since the other party used cultivation methods to modify quantum entanglement…” The rest of her words were shattered by the sudden shockwave. As the black-robed man stepped out from the distorted spatial rift, the twelve ever-burning lamps simultaneously exploded into dust.

"What a deeply moving escape performance." A mechanical, synthesized laugh came from beneath the black robe, and a miniature version of a celestial telescope hovered in the man's raised hand. "It's a pity that the half hour you stole was only enough to set up such a childish trap?"

Jiang Ye suddenly burst out laughing: "That's what we should be saying—using a prosthetic eye modified from an old relic from three years ago to spy on modern time travelers, is your organization so poor that you can't even get research funding?"

Ye Shuli's ice blade silently pressed against the black-robed man's back: "Energy overload, ten seconds remaining."

Suddenly, a blinding white light exploded around the man in the black robe.

When Ye Shuli was tackled to the ground by Jiang Ye, she saw the dense electronic patterns on his mechanical prosthetic limb—which were exactly the same as the pattern on the sleeve of the bronze masked man on the mountaintop.

"Watch out!" Jiang Ye's warning and the sound of something cutting through the air arrived at the same time.

Seven afterimages suddenly appeared from the direction where the black-robed man disappeared, their attack trajectories forming a blood-red star map in the air. The sharpest blade of light was only a hair's breadth away from Ye Shuli's throat... The seven afterimages, accompanied by a foul wind, rushed towards her, and Ye Shuli's ice blade shattered into dust under the blood-red star map.

As Jiang Ye pulled her backward, a black iron chain suddenly shot out from the bronze pillar, barely blocking the three most fatal attacks.

"Attack interval 2.8 seconds!" Ye Shuli's back slammed into the cold talisman pillar, and the jade bracelet on her wrist suddenly burst out with a dazzling red light.

The ballistic calculation diagram of a modern sniper rifle is laid out on the retina, breaking down the afterimage of the man in black robes into hundreds of coordinate points.

Jiang Ye wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, and the Immortal Binding Rope ignited with a ghostly blue flame in his palm: "Count to three and close your eyes." He suddenly swung the burning rope toward the southeast corner, and the moment the flame touched the ground, the entire underground palace was plunged into absolute darkness—it was a Shadow Talisman forbidden in the cultivation world.

Ye Shuli immediately held her breath and focused her attention.

The principles of modern sonar positioning automatically generated a three-dimensional model in her mind, and the subtle sound of the black-robed man's boots rubbing against the gravel transformed into a clear location marker in her ears.

"Forty-five degrees to the left rear!"

Jiang Ye's fist, accompanied by a whooshing sound, slammed into the solid object, and a piercing sound of metal deforming echoed in the darkness.

Taking advantage of the moment, Ye Shuli threw out thin threads formed from condensed ice crystals. The technique of suturing blood vessels in modern surgery was transformed into a deadly net that entangled the enemy's ankles.

When the Shadow Rune failed, the black-robed man's prosthetic left arm was already stuck in the crevice.

Jiang Ye's five-emperor coins grazed past his ear, blasting a Big Dipper-shaped dent into the rock face: "Your attack rhythm is more regular than the lottery wheel at our company's annual meeting."

The man in black robes suddenly emitted a high-pitched, electronically synthesized shriek.

The space began to distort like crumpled tin foil, and Ye Shuli felt as if her internal organs were about to be squeezed out of her throat.

Jiang Ye's Immortal Binding Rope instantly wrapped around the waists of the two, and the soul-fixing technique of the cultivation world and the stabilizing principle of the modern gyroscope produced a strange resonance.

"The energy flow is like a high-pressure water gun!" Ye Shuli suddenly grabbed Jiang Ye's wrist and quickly traced her fingertips across his skin.

The trajectory diagram derived from modern fluid mechanics formulas was transformed by Jiang Ye into a formation-breaking technique from the cultivation world.

The defensive rune array beneath the black-robed man's feet suddenly reversed, and the forbidden technique that had been devouring space began to backfire on the caster.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Jiang Ye poured all his spiritual power into the Five Emperor Coins, and the Taotie pattern on the surface of the coins came to life and opened its huge mouth.

“Now!”

As five golden rays pierced through the vital points of the black-robed man's body, Ye Shuli's ice blade precisely pierced the energy core in his chest.

Amidst the sparks from the exploding mechanical heart, the two recognized the bronze gear engraved with "Made by Tiangong Pavilion in the Year of Guimao"—the very symbol of the puppet workshop that Jiang Ye had destroyed three years prior.

The man in the black robe collapsed to the ground with a thud, his hood slipping down to reveal half of his mechanical face.

The electronic eye flashed twice and suddenly a projection popped up, showing a holographic image of the tragic ancient battlefield from three hundred years ago spread out on the rock wall, finally settling on the cuff of a monk wearing a bronze mask—the pattern of which was exactly the same as the pattern on the black-robed man's prosthetic limb.

"Wait...wait..." the mechanical throat emitted intermittent electrical sounds, "You have no idea...the Heavenly Crafts Pavilion's..."

Ye Shuli's heel crushed the last gear in operation, but she found half a jade pendant in the wreckage.

Jiang Ye picked up the blood-stained Immortal Binding Rope. The end of the knot had somehow caught on a hidden pocket in the black-robed man's inner lapel—inside lay a letter with intact sealing wax, the cover of which read "To an old friend on the mountaintop".

The underground palace suddenly trembled violently, and the damaged forbidden technique began to collapse.

Jiang Ye dragged Ye Shuli toward the nearest bronze pillar, only to find that the escape formation pattern appearing on the pillar perfectly matched the shape of Ye Shuli's necklace pendant.

"Go outside and stop arguing." As Ye Shuli pressed the malachite into the array's core, Jiang Ye was frowning as he stared at the family crest on the sealing wax of the letter.

The moment the teleportation light shone, the black-robed man's damaged mechanical eye suddenly emitted a red light, leaving a blurry totem on their shadow.

When his feet stepped back onto the grass outside the cave, the stolen letter was burning hot in Jiang Ye's palm.

Ye Shuli's jade bracelet suddenly sounded an alarm, indicating that there was a fluctuation of the same energy source thirty miles away—the exact location where they had discovered the bronze-masked man three days ago.

“It seems someone is more anxious than we are.” Jiang Ye shook the intact wax envelope, the moonlight illuminating the fluorescent moss on his cuffs—the same eerie blue as the liquid flowing from the black-robed man’s wound.