Chapter 4 - Layla Adamantine!

When Yu Yin opened his eyes, he didn't wake up in the afterlife like he expected. He was completely bewildered by his situation. He bit his tongue, causing him to feel a sharp pain.

"Argh!"

The pain caused him to immediately sober up.

"Apparently I'm not dead…"

Concerned, he checked his left hand for his storage ring which thankfully was still there. Unfortunately, the Silver Qilin Horns hadn’t been so lucky. Only 1 of his precious horns was loosely hanging on his right holster. He let out a bitter-sweet smile, happy that he at least still had one treasure left. With that, Yu Yin stood up with a solemn expression on his face. It was time to find out exactly what his circumstances were. From as far as the eye could see was an endless expanse of murky darkness. Human bones were scattered everywhere in heaps and mounds across this boundless wasteland of despair, giving it a dreary atmosphere. Yu Yin momentarily wondered how all the bones had got there. He shook his head, casting away these trivial thoughts from his mind before walking around to explore.

The ground was soft and squishy with a disgusting texture that was incredibly uncomfortable to walk on, and now and again, tall slabs of stone could be seen jutting out the ground. They looked like towering spikes which were attempting to reach out of this awful black hell. On a particularly tall mountain of bones, a white light was piercing through the shadows. It looked very out of place in this world of black, like how a wolf would look amongst a herd of sheep! Yu Yin saw this questionable white light and trudged towards it, hoping to investigate what it was. When he laid his sight on the source of the white light, his heart almost leapt out his chest and his eyes became bright in ecstatic disbelief! He shot towards the light at the fastest speed he could possibly muster, an elated expression on his face!

"My Darling!!! Thank goodness, I thought I'd lost you forever!!"

Nightmare over. The second horn had been found. Yu Yin reached the large pile of bones within a second, at which point, an adorable giggle reverberated in his ears.

"Who's your darling now?! I know I'm lovable, but you really need to restrain yourself sometimes, you know what I mean?"

Busted. Yu Yin fell over and plunged headfirst straight into the pile of bones, inducing another bout of giggling. He climbed back to his feet and narrowed his eyes towards the origin of this crystalline voice. There, just a few meters away resting on a small stone slab, was the black-haired beauty. Her once majestic wavy hair was completely dishevelled, and her clothes had rips and tears all over them. A small trickle of blood was seeping out of the corner of her mouth. She was very clearly injured, most likely due to the backlash of her runic formation collapsing, but her outstanding good looks were still very apparent. She seemed very vulnerable and delicate, sitting in solitude amongst the darkness. Yu Yin glared at her and opened his mouth.

"It's you!!! Where are my..."

"If you're asking about the bronze lockets then you don't need to. They'd disappeared from inside my interspatial ring by the time I woke up”.

Yu Yin narrowed his eyes. Both the rude interjection and the information he had just received made him rather upset. The black-haired beauty seemed to have let bygones be bygones as her tone of voice was actually gentle rather than hostile like he expected. Yu Yin, however, was a very petty person and he still felt bitter about the stolen lockets.

"Why would I ..."

"Why should you believe me? Did you think I wouldn't show them off if I had them?!"

The corner of his mouth twitched upon being interrupted again. She glanced at him and let out a soft sigh.

"You can see if you like, my interspatial ring is completely busted! The lockets forced themselves out of my ring, breaking it and causing almost everything to empty out! I'm so pitiful that I don't even have any medicine to treat myself with right now!"

‘Good job I didn’t store the locket from before in my interspatial ring’ thought Yu Yin. ‘Rebuilding my unholy collection of gold coins would be impossible’.

"So where are they now then?" Yu Yin asked.

"My guess is that the ghastly coffin from before spat them back out...I can't think of anything else could cause such a phenomenon"

When she spoke of that accursed coffin, she coughed up a mouthful of blood.

"Damn it!! *cough* I haven't been in a state this bad for at least 3 years! I could've sworn that the bamboo slip said there was no danger *cough*"

The words she spoke caused Yu Yin's eyes to widen like saucers.

'There was more than one bamboo slip?!!'

As the black-haired beauty slowly recovered from her coughing fit, Yu Yin was entering into deep contemplation.

'My bamboo slip clearly said that whoever found itself, would be destined for the good fortune waiting inside the hidden plane. But the existence of another bamboo slip with the same information completely contradicts this statement! There's also the section about there being no danger....'

Yu Yin quickly pulled out his own bamboo slip to examine it, causing the black-haired beauty to startle. However, as he opened it, the entire bamboo slip suddenly started dissipating into motes of white light that flew into their before vanishing. Both Yu Yin and the black-haired beauty watched the motes of light disappear into the endless black sky in complete shock. They both had ashen expressions as they considered the implications of this development.

‘Ah, this was a scam wasn’t it?’ Yu Yin thought.

After a few moments time, the black-haired beauty let out a self-mocking chuckle and tilted her head to gaze towards Yu Yin, locking their eyes together. Her alluring rosy lips parted a little to let out another soft sigh.

"We've been completely duped, haven't we?"

Looking this gorgeous black-haired beauty and the bitter expression on her face, Yu Yin couldn't help but feel a little camaraderie towards her. His heart softened a little and his animosity towards her decreased by half. He smiled at her.

"I suppose we have…"

The black-haired beauty seemed a little surprised by his smile, blinking a few times. Yu Yin looked around at the countless heaps of bones. He now knew where they came from.

"To think that the owner of that hidden plane would actively try to attract people here just to kill them… It's hard to believe that an exalted [Solid Soul] expert would have such a dark sense of humour!"

The black-haired beauty shook her head.

"It's to be expected really, people of such calibre usually have eccentric personalities and are unpredictable! Although I agree this is a bit much, only we can be blamed for not questioning our sources. However, there is no way I'm going to die here. I'm going to escape one way or another!"

Yu Yin sat down on a few stray bones a meter across from the black-haired beauty, so they were eye level. Although she was in a decrepit state, she still had a glimmer of hope in her eyes.

"What's your name?"

She weakly raised her hand to brush a few strands of hair to behind her ear, clearing her line of sight.

"My name is Layla Adamantine"

Yu Yin was taken aback by hearing her foreign sounding name. He narrowed his eyes.

"You're not from the Frigid Enigma Continent?"

Layla shook her head and smiled.

"I'm actually from a place known as the 'Iron Turtle Dynasty'"

Yu Yin sat there in a daze before suddenly feeling very nervous as she didn't seem like was lying. The Yu Family library contained vast amounts of secrets gathered from across the world and their network spread beyond comprehension. While Yu Yin was living at the Yu Family palace, he had access to any of this information he wanted within reason, and all of this information could be found on the Yu Family library.

Yu Yin had only ever used this library to learn as much as he could about all the kinds of immortal treasures in existence. This, however, did not mean he didn't have a good knowledge of the geography of the world he lived in. Thanks to the odd book or two he had coincidently read, this was never a problem for him. Yet, he still had never heard of such an 'Iron Turtle Dynasty'! There could only be three possible reasons for this. Either one: The Iron Turtle Dynasty is so secretive and reclusive, that not even the Yu Family had heard of it, something impossible that could be ruled out completely! Or possibly two: The Iron Turtle Dynasty is so formidable that Yu Yin, a mere mortal, had no right to even hear its name! But a member of such a group wouldn't be as weak as Layla was! Reason three was the most plausible of them all though!

Layla laughed upon seeing Yu Yin's dazed look.

"It's not a surprise you haven't heard of my home. After all, it's a very, very, very long way away from here! Possibly worlds apart!"

Yu Yin sat in silence upon hearing her words.

'So it was reason three in the end... '

"How did you get all the way over here then?"

Instead of answering his question, Layla looked towards the expansive black sky, a well-hidden pained look hiding in the depths of her sky-blue eyes. Yu Yin's eyes widened when he saw her with this expression. He guessed that she had probably run away from her home for one reason or another, although he had no idea of what this reason could be! He suddenly felt that Layla was a very complicated person, that there was much more to her than just a pretty face. Although she acted playful and mischievous on the surface, her personality was actually very complex and could not be so easily defined! After a while, Layla looked down again and answered his question.

"Mostly luck! Of course, a few runic teleportation spells helped things along but that's not the important part. In truth, patience, determination, and just a bit of little luck got me this far I guess!"

She suddenly narrowed her eyes and smirked at him.

"So tell me Mr, after I've told you all this, are you rudely not going to introduce yourself? You really don't make a good gentleman do you!"

Her words shoved any of his feelings of melancholy towards her straight into the abyss. Yu Yin's response to her verbal attack was the same as usual, he stood up and started acting needlessly pretentious.

"I Yu Yin, am actually a great sage of the highest calibre! My great wisdom sours higher than the tallest of mountains and people across the land faint from joy upon even seeing my face! So I, in fact, have no need to be a gentleman!"

"That name....Hmm...Yu Yin.....Yu Yin...Yu.....AH!"

She let out a shout.

"You’re the good-for-nothing son of the Yu Family Matriarch aren't you!!"

Her tactlessness and the fact that she was spot on made Yu Yin almost faint on the spot!

"Who says I'm good for nothing!! I am actually a very talented and valued member of the Family!"

She looked away from him, looking completely disinterested in what he was saying.

"Ohhh, is that so..."

Yu Yin was speechless. He simply couldn't deal with this woman anymore! He turned around to leave her.

"Damned women. Just you wait until I really am an all-powerful sage, and we'll see if you'd dare let out a fart in front of me then!"

Layla giggled as Yu Yin stomped off, clearly in a bad mood. Yu Yin had better things to worry about anyway, like how to get out of this dark prison. He looked around at his surroundings, only to find just murky blackness. It was only thanks to the illuminating properties of the Silver Qilin horn on top of the bone pile that anything was visible at all. He unstrapped his other Qilin horn to use as a torch and started searching the many piles of bones. He knew he wouldn't find anything of too much value, but he wanted to try!

'I'll leave the other Qilin horn there to use as a beacon to find my way back, and I'll use this one to search for treasure! That woman’s in terrible shape, so I won’t need to worry about her stealing it. Surely, there must be something good around here! With all these bones around, I refuse to believe I can't find some sort of treasure!'

After an hour of futile searching, Yu Yin actually found a few medicinal pills lying around. He blinked at the pills a few times, surprised that such things would be there.

'Is this medicine? I suppose they aren't that useful to me right now, but I'll take them!'

At this point, he thought of Layla and the miserable state he found her in. Although Yu Yin was generally a selfish person, he wasn't heartless. And even though he found her infuriating, he slightly admired the way she hadn't lost to despair and how she still had hope for life. Of course, he would never ever admit that to her. Anyways, He’d probably need her help if he wanted to escape this place alive. Yu Yin turned around to head towards the light of his other Qilin horn where she was resting.

"Hmph, as I am such a magnanimous person, I shall be a good Samaritan just this once!"

If Bai Chen from earlier heard this, he would most likely jump off a cliff in depression!