Don't Cause Trouble Chapter 94: Forbidden Area

In the palm of her hand, this spirit-replenishing pill just by looking at its color, one could tell it was a top-grade pill, even though Ye Su had never taken one before.

A spirit-replenishing pill was even better than a top-quality spirit stone. It had no impurities, required no effort to absorb, and once swallowed, it could quickly be converted into one’s own spiritual energy. It even contained some herbs to nourish the spiritual palace and replenish qi, making it perfect for someone who had exhausted their spiritual power.

However, the pill was expensive, and only disciples from major sects could afford to use them.

Ye Su held the pill in her hand and looked up at Yan Hao. She was pink from head to toe, her entire bearing relaxed, as if she were on vacation rather than breaking through a trial.

"Are there many direct disciples in the Hehuan Sect?" Ye Su asked her.

Yan Hao shook her pink feather fan. "Not many, just me and my senior brother. Not just anyone can become a direct disciple of the Hehuan Sect, you need both strength and talent, and you have to look good, too. But if you’re willing to join, you’d absolutely be a direct disciple!"

"Alright," Ye Su said.

Yan Hao’s eyes immediately lit up. "You agree?"

Ye Su glanced at her. "I meant let’s go together. As for being a direct disciple, forget it."

Yan Hao instantly looked disappointed, but in the end she reluctantly said, "Fine then. Take the spirit-replenishing pill before we go."

Since Ye Su had started laying down arrays earlier, Yan Hao had been following behind and had already noticed Ye Su’s condition was very unstable, her spiritual energy was clearly exhausted, though she somehow managed to keep a calm face for so long.

Ye Su followed instructions and swallowed the spirit-replenishing pill. As soon as it entered her mouth, it turned into a rush of vast spiritual power that surged into her dried-out spiritual palace.

The restoration was so rapid that her spiritual palace even felt a tearing pain.

Luckily the sensation soon faded. With her spiritual energy replenished, Ye Su felt much clearer in her head.

Yan Hao stood next to her the whole time, still fanning herself, but clearly staying on alert, guarding Ye Su. If there was any disturbance around them, she would react at once.

Ye Su was a bit dazed for a moment.

According to what the brown-haired elder had said, most demon beasts in the Chaos Mirror were rank four or five. With Yan Hao’s cultivation at early Nascent Soul stage, plus the special skills of a major sect’s direct disciple, she could basically move around here with no problem at all.

But… in the original novel, during the first round of the sect tournament, a direct disciple of the Hehuan Sect died.

The book hadn’t specified who it was or how they died, only mentioned it briefly after the first round ended.

Most of the story focused on the heroine’s group accidentally encountering a rank-six demon beast, which drew the attention of everyone outside the mirror. Then the male lead arrived to help them slay it. Afterward, they didn’t continue cooperating, but each led their own people to gather enough beast cores and successfully cleared the trial.

From then on, besides gratitude for saving her life, the male lead began to feel a sense of mutual admiration for the heroine.

"Let’s go," Ye Su said to Yan Hao beside her.

Since the Hehuan Sect only had two direct disciples, then if something went wrong, it had to be either Yan Hao or Mei Chouren. Now that she’d met Yan Hao, sticking together might at least help.

Still, Ye Su couldn’t help but think of her little junior brother normally so picky, and now who knew where he’d ended up alone, probably not in a great mood.

She counted her own beast cores, sixty-three in total.

As for Lu Jiu and Yi Xuan, Ye Su wasn’t too worried about them, but she wasn’t sure if You Fushi would bother to dig out beast cores. Before meeting him, she’d better collect as many as possible, just in case.

Meanwhile, things were getting lively on the little junior brother’s side. He and Lu Jiu had traveled together, slashing down any demon beasts they saw. On the way, they ran into Ma Congqiu, and naturally the three of them teamed up.

Since Ma Congqiu knew how to read the signals left behind by their sect’s disciples, more and more disciples of Sword Sect gathered around them. Later, they even ran into Xu Chengyu and Zhou Yun.

In just ten days, except for a few unlucky ones who had been eliminated after encountering fifth-rank demon beasts, all the Sword Sect disciples had regrouped.

"Ye Su isn’t here," You Fushi said, walking up to Ma Congqiu.

Ma Congqiu was tending to a wound on his arm, and when he heard this, he guiltily lowered his head.

When they’d first met You Fushi, he’d said there were many Sword Sect disciples around, so maybe Ye Su would run into someone and join them.

In the end, the Sword Sect disciples were all accounted for, but no one had seen Ye Su, not even Yi Xuan.

Seeing this, You Fushi didn’t bother with Ma Congqiu anymore. He turned and stood in front of Lu Jiu. "You come with me. We’re going to find Ye Su."

He needed someone to dig out beast cores, so once he found that mortal, he could give the beast cores to her.

After so many days of hearing You Fushi’s commands, Lu Jiu had developed a habit of responding, and subconsciously got up to follow him.

"Young Master You." Xu Chengyu stepped forward and blocked their way. "The Chaos Mirror is tens of thousands of miles across. If you search blindly, you might never find her. If you two split from us, you may not find Ye Su, either. It’d be better to go with us to the Forbidden Area’s border."

"The border of the Forbidden Area?" Lu Jiu pointed to the sky. "Didn’t the Kunlun Elder say before that the Forbidden Area was dangerous?"

"We won’t go inside, just look around the edge," Xu Chengyu explained. "The more dangerous a place is, the better the things you’ll find there. Anything you get inside the Chaos Mirror, you can keep once you leave. That’s why most people will go there, Ye Su probably will too."

You Fushi frowned and stared at Xu Chengyu for a long moment before finally agreeing to stay.

After that, every time the Sword Sect took a break, he would silently appear in front of Xu Chengyu, then expressionlessly urge him: "Get up. Let’s go to the Forbidden Area’s border."

Xu Chengyu: "……"

Where did the guy go who used to do nothing but sleep for days without cultivating?

……

In the forest.

"What’s that?" Yan Hao watched as Ye Su suddenly walked up to a tree, struggling to cut open its bark, then collecting the sap that flowed out with a bottle, and asked curiously.

"Sulfur resin, it’s a material for refining tools," Ye Su explained. "It’s expensive, and you normally wouldn’t find it in secret realms."

Basically, Kunlun was so rich they could set up a trial stage filled with rare treasures at will.

Yan Hao nodded thoughtfully and quietly said from behind, "You really stay busy."

Ever since they’d started traveling together, Yan Hao had hardly seen Ye Su rest, searching for demon beasts, collecting every material they came across, even when resting, she would take out a jade slip to study.

Ye Su didn’t quite hear her clearly, focusing on holding the bottle steady so the sulfur resin would flow in properly.

"Over here, there’s a…"

Ye Su didn’t hear the rest of Yan Hao’s sentence for a long time. She turned her head to look, there was no one behind her. "Yan Hao?"

No one answered.

Ye Su quickly stopped what she was doing, abandoning the leftover resin, and looked around for Yan Hao.

It couldn’t have been a demon beast, she hadn’t heard any other sounds. It was as if Yan Hao had vanished into thin air.

Ye Su’s heart sank. She had a bad feeling that the Hehuan Sect disciple who had died in the original novel was very likely Yan Hao.

Without wasting time, Ye Su stood in place, closed her eyes slightly, and released her spiritual sense in a sweeping search.

Nothing. Still nothing…

Within her spiritual sense range, she saw other sect disciples and various demon beasts, but Yan Hao was nowhere to be found.

No, there had to be a reason Yan Hao disappeared here.

Ye Su opened her eyes, lowered her head to study the marks on the ground, and located where Yan Hao had been standing. She recalled that half-finished sentence from earlier.

Yan Hao had discovered something.

Ye Su looked around, there were only rows of tall trees, with thick weeds on the ground, nothing unusual at first glance.

She put her hand on a tree nearby and took a deep breath, trying to calm down.

Ye Su suddenly paused, tilting her head to look at the hand resting on the tree trunk. She moved her hand away, staring at the bark, an ordinary tree, with rough vertical lines and a few knots.

But that feeling couldn’t be wrong.

Ye Su closed her eyes again, pressed her fingers to the same spot on the tree trunk, and carefully felt around with her fingertips, sketching the pattern in her mind.

—An array!

Ye Su’s eyes flew open. She raised her hand and looked closely at the tree bark, which appeared completely normal, but there was clearly a teleportation array carved into it.

Before she could react, Ye Su’s vision blurred, and the next moment, she found herself somewhere else entirely.

"Why did you come in too?" a familiar voice suddenly came from behind her.

Ye Su immediately turned around, sure enough, there was Yan Hao.

"I was just about to tell you there was an array carved into the tree trunk," Yan Hao said, "but there was an illusion spell added to it, so ordinary people couldn’t see it."

She hadn’t had time to dispel the illusion before she was pulled in here.

"I touched it," Ye Su replied, turning her head to look around, the ground was covered in white stones.

Yan Hao bent down, picked up one of the stones, and handed it to Ye Su. "We might be in serious trouble this time."

Ye Su took it, and as soon as she felt it, she realized something was off. Looking closer, she saw it wasn’t an ordinary stone, but a bone, with a layer of resentment still clinging to it.

"I checked, there are both human and beast bones," Yan Hao said, not even bothering to fan herself anymore. "There’s no place like this in the Chaos Mirror, unless it’s a forbidden area."

A forbidden area?

"The pass token," Ye Su asked, "if we crush it, can we leave?"

"No." Yan Hao looked about the same on the surface, but there was a grave look in her eyes. "Every year there are always disciples who, for various reasons, end up in the forbidden area. No matter their cultivation, no one has ever come out. Feichen Daoist outside the mirror cannot sense all the disciples who enter the forbidden area, and he can’t bring them out either."

"Since there’s an entrance, there must be an exit," Ye Su said calmly. "If there was a teleportation array on the tree trunk, there has to be another one in here."

Yan Hao crouched down, resting her face against her pink feather fan. "Why would there be a teleportation array hidden on a tree trunk? And with an illusion spell on top of that? It’s like a trap specifically meant for spell cultivators."

Then she suddenly looked up at Ye Su. "I dragged you into this. If you hadn’t come looking for me, you probably wouldn’t have noticed that array and wouldn’t have ended up here."

"The forbidden area might not be as scary as it sounds," Ye Su met Yan Hao’s eyes. "Let’s go look for an exit."

"Let’s go," Yan Hao stood up again, shaking her pink feather fan. "There has to be an exit. I still need to go back and recruit disciples for the Hehuan Sect!"

A moment later—

"I was wrong!" Ye Su shouted, running like crazy. "The forbidden area really is terrifying!"

"It’s too late to regret it now!" Yan Hao yelled ahead of her, "We’re dead for sure this time!"

Behind them, a whole pack of rank-six demon beasts charged after them, bloodthirsty killing intent soaring, their feet crunching countless bones on the ground with every step.

Yan Hao looked up and saw a small hill ahead. She turned back, grabbed Ye Su’s hand, and pulled her behind the hill to hide.

"Illusions have no set form; the image shifts with the shadow spell!" Yan Hao bit her fingertip, smeared the blood across Ye Su’s forehead, then raised two fingers, casting a large-scale illusion spell.

The two of them leaned against the back of the hill, doing their best to steady their breathing so the pursuing demon beasts wouldn’t sense them.

At that moment, in the eyes of those demon beasts, the two girls were no different from the hill itself.

The demon beasts, having lost their targets, began searching aimlessly. Some gradually wandered off, but one stayed nearby, circling around.

"I can’t hold this for long," Yan Hao silently mouthed to Ye Su. These demon beasts were rank-six, equivalent to Nascent Soul stage cultivators.

She had just used a life-preserving spell, which consumed not only her spiritual power but also her lifespan.

That beast that had been circling suddenly came closer to the hill, its hot breath drawing nearer and nearer—