Though Elder Yu had no wish to carry anyone along, when he thought of the dangers they might yet run into, he grabbed Old Black all the same, and none too willingly.

"Jump!" The instant the two slabs of ground were about to meet, Wei Zhao barked the word and reached out to seize Yu Xiao Ke. Chen Yutian and Qiu Lingshan clung to him, one on each side, and the whole party began to plummet.

The bottom of the abyss was all but invisible. By the light falling from above the great hall, even with the preternatural eyesight of cultivators, they could make out only a few hundred meters below them - and still no end to it. One could well imagine how deep this place was.

"Don't clutch me so tight, I can't draw my breath!" Elder Yu was vexed at the way Old Black had fastened itself around his neck. You are no beauty - what do you want with hugging me like that?

"Sorry, I'm a bit frightened..." Old Black said awkwardly. "I'll let go once we're down..."

Elder Yu snorted, but his eyes never left Wei Zhao's side. Yet the deeper they fell, the dimmer the light grew, and before long Elder Yu could no longer make out what was happening over there.

"Male Thief, what is actually down there? Is it dangerous?" Unable to see Wei Zhao at all now, Elder Yu asked, a note of worry in his voice.

Wei Zhao himself could not clearly see what lay beneath them either. At that moment he closed his eyes, withdrew into the space inside his jade pendant, and perceived the world outside through his spiritual sense - and everything opened up at once. Every detail around him stood out with perfect clarity.

It was a square shaft running straight down, its four faces smooth stone walls without so much as a foothold anywhere. Unless you wore shoes with an enormous grip, you might barely cling to the wall; otherwise, even if you did attach yourself for a moment, you would simply fall.

Even with the light before him bright as day, Wei Zhao still could not see what lay underfoot. All that met his eyes was the same bottomless abyss.

"I don't know. You are an Earth-rank expert, yet you fear this and that from morning till night - whatever did you come out here for? Staying home and cultivating would be the safest thing by far."

"Hmph, ignorant boy. My life is worth ten thousand times yours. If you die, then you die - but I am fine porcelain, understand?" Elder Yu reddened at Wei Zhao's words, though he still struggled to defend himself.

"Heh -" Wei Zhao smiled his cutting smile and said nothing more.

Yu Xiao Ke had been picked up by Wei Zhao before, but always in some emergency, and she had been set down again before long; she had never been held this close. Now, pressed against that broad chest of his, breathing in the manly scent of him, she felt her cheeks burn and her heart race.

All her life she had never been so near to any boy. She had never even entertained the least thought of romance - no moonlit trysts, no sweet nothings. From the moment she was old enough to understand, she had devoted herself wholly to the orphanage. As for love, Yu Xiao Ke had never dared to hope. Who would marry such a great burden? Unless their head was cracked.

Families of wealth and standing would not so much as look at a female thief; men with nothing to their name could never keep so large an orphanage afloat. So she had set the matter aside for the time being. She kept herself chaste on the chance that, should the orphanage ever truly need it, she might not have to find a rich boyfriend - that, in her condition, she could still fetch a good price. So long as it could relieve the orphanage's most desperate hour, that would be enough.

Still, the Male Thief before her had stirred something in her. All her life, apart from her master, no one had shown her such concern - and certainly no man. The missions of the Thief Sect were all matters of life and death; outwardly agreeable, inwardly strangers. Even if Yu Xiao Ke had been beautiful as a celestial fairy, no one would have spared her a moment's tenderness. It all came down to profit. With money, beauties were easy enough to find - why would anyone want her, Yu Xiao Ke?

So on every mission she ran with the people of the Thief Sect, she had to watch for betrayal the whole way through, guile answering guile, without a shred of feeling between them.

The Male Thief, though, was different. Whenever she ran into danger or trouble, he would step forward and speak up for her. She took that concern to heart. She did not know whether the Male Thief truly coveted her beauty as Old Black claimed, but whatever the case, a ripple had risen somewhere inside Yu Xiao Ke, and it left her with a certain fondness for him.

Above all, the Male Thief always struck her as somehow familiar, as if she had seen him somewhere before - only she could not recall who he was.

Could the Male Thief be her Prince Charming?

Under such tense circumstances, Yu Xiao Ke's mind began to wander. Then she thought of the Female Thief at Wei Zhao's side, and her spirits sagged. He already had a partner - he probably could not marry her after all.

Of course, that was not what Yu Xiao Ke cared about most. What she cared about was whether the Male Thief would be willing to part with his money for the orphanage. If not, then there was nothing left to discuss...

Wei Zhao had no idea that Yu Xiao Ke's tender heart was twisting itself into so many preposterous notions. Had he known, he would very likely have hurled her straight out.

Some half an hour passed and the party was still falling at tremendous speed - proof enough of how immeasurably deep this underground palace ran, that they had not reached the floor after so long. One could not even imagine how the people of old had built it.

Elder Yu grew both impatient and worried. "Male Thief, we are not simply going to drop into the center of the earth, are we?"

"Oh, then when we get back you can film a television drama about it," Wei Zhao said, none too kindly.

Elder Yu's strength was gravely mismatched by his courage: timid as a mouse, mortally afraid of death, not in the least like an Earth-rank expert! Of course, had the already departed Jin Wudi heard these words, he would have wept bitter tears - it was precisely because he feared death too little that he had ended up dying for good.

"Hmph! I happen to think there is something wrong with this ancient tomb!" Elder Yu snorted and would say no more.

A little while later, Wei Zhao finally saw the bottom. Bottomless was only a relative term - this shaft did, in fact, have a floor.

The very bottom was thick with bladed instruments, like an oversized bed of nails, their points turned upward. Without precautions, anyone who fell would be skewered clean through. An ordinary person might well have been killed on the spot; but Elder Yu was an Earth-rank expert, with power to spare - at worst he would be wounded, and his life would not be in danger.

So Wei Zhao had not even considered warning him. It would be best if the old wretch were injured past all movement - that would make it easy to be rid of him, and spare him the trouble of competing with Wei Zhao for Zhang Liju's medical case notes.

For the fastest updates, please read without pop-ups.