Chapter 80 – Remember to Sleep Early

The cultivators following behind Qin Tang noticed the scene in the distance, and all were struck with horror.

“What a bunch of idiots. They were already told they’d encountered the bizarre, yet they still tried to flee. They truly don’t know how to write the word ‘death.'”

“I recognized one of them — a Foundation Establishment cultivator named Sun Kairong. His mastery of Dao arts was quite remarkable. I never imagined he’d die so silently like that.”

“Strange — how is it that their deaths didn’t produce any heavenly phenomena?”

“Is this your first time hearing about the bizarre, fellow Daoist? Under the shroud of the bizarre, its own rules take hold. Most conventional knowledge becomes useless. That’s why we must treat it with the utmost caution.”

“Thank you for the guidance, fellow Daoist.”

……

Walking along while exchanging thoughts via spiritual sense, the group wore a variety of expressions.

Before long, Qin Tang led everyone into a tall, imposing structure.

Down the center ran a straight corridor.

Lining both sides of the corridor were small, partitioned rooms.

Each room had no other decorations to speak of.

They simply contained five wooden beds.

“Alright! Everyone will rest here tonight! Tomorrow morning, assemble in the plaza!” Qin Tang turned and addressed the group.

With that, he shook his head and strolled out.

“Oh, and remember — sleep early!”

After his figure had vanished, Qin Tang’s voice drifted faintly back to them.

Seeing the bizarre entity depart, the cultivators present finally let out a collective sigh of relief.

Most of them grouped up with people they were already familiar with, finding rooms to share.

Si Kongyi and Baili Chen naturally ended up staying together.

Li Fan didn’t force his way in with them. He simply chose a different room that happened to be nearby.

Two people were already inside the room.

These two knew each other and were exchanging thoughts via spiritual sense about something.

Li Fan didn’t bother greeting them either.

He lay straight down on the bed, circulated the Xuanhuang Heart-refining Mantra, and purged all stray thoughts from his mind.

Before long, he fell into a deep sleep.

The other two, still mid-conversation, froze in surprise when they saw this.

Then, as if something had occurred to them, their faces turned deathly pale, seemingly gripped by a wave of belated terror.

The two immediately ceased their exchange and forced themselves to fall asleep.

But not everyone was perceptive enough to sense what was about to happen.

Quite a few cultivators were still chatting with their companions about the day’s events, as well as their excitement over the treasures that might exist within this newly discovered Cloud-Water Celestial Palace ruin.

Their spirits were stirred, and sleep eluded them.

Time trickled by, drop by drop.

No one knew how long had passed.

Suddenly, every light inside the towering structure vanished all at once.

In the pitch darkness, Qin Tang’s voice echoed, ghostly and distant.

“My, my. This batch of newcomers really doesn’t listen.”

“I did say to sleep early.”

“How is it that even now, so many of you still aren’t resting?”

“It wouldn’t do to miss tomorrow morning’s trial.”

“Since you can’t fall asleep, let me give you a hand.”

“Pfft!”

“Pfft!”

“Pfft!”

Hair-raising sounds rang out one after another.

No one knew how many cultivators perished without even managing a single scream.

Only now did everyone present finally understand — Qin Tang’s earlier remark, “remember to sleep early,” had not been a joke.

But it was already too late.

One cultivator’s life force after another winked out from their senses.

Some tried to shout, to wake those who were already asleep.

But the moment their voices rang out, they were cut short.

Slaughter and death spread through the darkness.

Under this reign of terror, some cultivators who had not yet fallen asleep finally snapped.

Their auras surged as they prepared to unleash everything they had in a life-or-death struggle against the white-robed Qin Tang.

Qin Tang let out a cold snort, as though provoked.

Blue light flared, then immediately extinguished.

And so, these would-be rebels fell without causing so much as a ripple — silently annihilated.

After killing them, Qin Tang’s mood seemed to improve slightly.

“Sigh, this job is truly exhausting. If Sect Master Uncle and the senior brothers and sisters hadn’t all disappeared, they wouldn’t have needed me to handle this.”

“How boring. Truly boring. I’d rather go drink!”

Qin Tang’s words were disjointed and contradictory, and his behavior was entirely governed by whim.

As his voice faded into the distance, the surviving cultivators inside the building all exhaled in relief.

But no one could guarantee when Qin Tang might return.

And so, they all desperately tried to fall asleep as quickly as possible.

But…

Sleep — anyone who has suffered from insomnia knows this all too well.

If your mind is unburdened, you can simply drift off without a thought.

But if you keep fixating on it, forcing yourself to sleep…

Nine times out of ten, you’ll jolt awake at the very moment you’re about to nod off.

On top of that, many of these cultivators had long since replaced sleep with secluded cultivation.

They had practically lost the ability to sleep altogether.

And so, even knowing that failing to sleep meant death, a great many cultivators still couldn’t manage it.

With the death-dealing Qin Tang liable to return at any moment, they had no other choice.

Bitterly regretting that they hadn’t learned a sleep-inducing spell or two before coming, they could only resort to knocking themselves unconscious, hoping to muddle through.

Unfortunately, in Qin Tang’s eyes, being asleep and being unconscious were clearly two very different things.

And so, when Qin Tang returned in the latter half of the night…

Another storm of blood and carnage ensued.

Early the next morning, when Li Fan woke up…

What greeted him was a building strewn with corpses.

Jiao Xiuyuan, just as Li Fan had expected, had not survived this trial.

Head separated from body, he lay there in silence.

Li Fan naturally felt no pity for him.

Without delay, Li Fan headed straight for the plaza from the day before.

Having learned yesterday’s lesson, the cultivators didn’t wander off elsewhere either, obediently gathering in the plaza.

The crowd was sparse. Fewer than two-thirds of the cultivators from yesterday had survived.

The trials hadn’t even officially begun, yet there were already this many casualties.

The survivors were deeply pessimistic about what lay ahead, their expressions bleak.

Li Fan knew — this was only the beginning.

In the end, fewer than one in ten of the first batch of cultivators to enter the Cloud-Water Celestial Palace would make it out alive.

In the crowd, Li Fan also spotted Si Kongyi and Baili Chen.

His gaze swept past them without lingering.

He waited quietly for Qin Tang’s arrival.

Before long, Qin Tang appeared before them once more.

He held a wine gourd in one hand, taking long swigs as he walked.

“Good wine! What fine wine!”

Qin Tang let out a hearty cry of satisfaction before finally turning his attention to the surviving cultivators in the plaza.

“Good, it seems everyone’s here.”

“Then let us officially begin the first trial.”

His eyes narrowed slightly, as though recalling something from long ago.

“My master once said that in the pursuit of immortality and the Dao, three things matter above all else.”

“Aptitude, temperament, and fortune.”

“My master believed that of these three, aptitude was the most important.”

“I disagreed.”

“In my view, of the three, temperament is paramount.”

“That is why all three trials I’ve arranged are related to temperament.”

Qin Tang spoke at a measured pace as he led the group into a multi-storied pavilion.

The pavilion had three floors.

The first floor, where they now stood, was lined with over a hundred bookshelves.

Every shelf was packed full of books.

The cultivators looked closely.

《Flying Cloud Illusory Script》, 《Flying Thunder Escape》, 《Azure Wood Rejuvenation Art》…

Each and every book was a cultivation technique.

Everyone’s breathing immediately quickened.