After wishing on the stars and moon, another two days passed. Shu Xiaolou finally woke up.
She held up her arms and took a good stretch before yawning with her hands over her rosy lips.
Lin Jin did not have time to enjoy watching the sleeping beauty rise from her slumber. Without wasting a single second, he pulled Shu Xiaolou up. “Shu Xiaolou, you’re awake?”
He shook her back and forth while asking her that question.
Shu Xiaolou’s grogginess was shaken away by Lin Jin.
“Lin Jin, what are you shaking me for?” Shu Xiaolou’s eyes were unfocused, confused by the situation.
Speaking of which, many mysterious scenes had been occurring around Shu Xiaolou for the past two days.
Besides a mixture of red and green aura continuously flowing out of her body, the room was also filled with illusions of different paintings. This was another reason Lin Jin had refrained from waking her.
Now that Shu Xiaolou had finally awakened, Lin Jin couldn’t wait any longer.
“I’m helping you clear your mind!” Without another word, Lin Jin used the water reservoir scale to gather an orb of refreshing mist and slapped it on Shu Xiaolou’s face.
With this, Shu Xiaolou was completely awake.
Her first reaction was to flare up in anger.
“How dare you hit me!? I’m going to hit you back!” Having said that, Shu Xiaolou raised a hand. Lin Jin felt an enormous force coming down on him so he quickly leaned back. To his surprise, his entire body felt weightless, as if he was in a free fall.
When he looked around, he was surprised to see that he was, indeed, falling out of the sky. Thousands of feet below him was a vast blue ocean.
“Clouds, come forth!” Lin Jin beckoned to steady himself.
He surveyed the area. Besides the ocean, dry land and mountains could be seen on the horizon. Birds soared through the sky filled with rosy clouds. He wasn’t in Peach Blossom House anymore.
This must be a new magical skill Shu Xiaolou had obtained after cultivating in her sleep for the past few days.
Observing the vivid colors, Lin Jin figured he must be inside some kind of painting.
‘Shu Xiaolou can actually bring me into the realm of a painting?’ Lin Jin was genuinely shocked.
Shu Xiaolou hadn’t been able to do that before.
However, while painting realms could lock up other people, they would never work against Lin Jin.
He was the weakness for all painting realms, thanks to the fire amulet he had, which was a potent mix of different flames. Just one Vulcan Edict and he could burn the entire painting realm, including Shu Xiaolou’s paintings.
Such was the effect of a natural enemy.
Of course, Lin Jin wouldn’t actually burn Shu Xiaolou’s painting realm. She merely pushed him in here to gloat and show off her newfound ability.
Lin Jin could tell that much.
Sure enough, Shu Xiaolou soon appeared before him, standing in thin air.
“Lin Jin, what do you think about this place?” asked Shu Xiaolou with a proud expression.
“What is it all water?” Lin Jin didn’t compliment her. Shu Xiaolou swept her hand across the air and the scenery changed at once. The vast ocean was gone, and it was replaced with mountain heaps and streaming rivers. Birds chirped over lush green forests. As if that wasn’t beautiful enough, there was even a pavilion nearby, which added to the ethereal atmosphere of this place.
“Now this is better. Is this your painting realm?” Lin Jin knew if he didn’t praise her now, Shu Xiaolou would go on a rampage. Lin Jin’s indifferent comment from earlier was planned. He would first derogate her before singing his first praise for her new skill.
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Shu Xiaolou wore a cheeky smile when she heard Lin Jin’s remark.
“That’s right! But this isn’t an ordinary painting realm. I reaped quite some benefits from the last painting we visited. Its soul had given me the power to alter my painting realm, so whoever I touch, be it humans, beasts, monsters, or ghosts, would all be forcefully pulled inside my painting realm. Also, I can use the painting realm’s powers to fight off the enemy, like this…”
As she spoke, Shu Xiaolou waved her hand again. Immediately, the world changed. What had originally been a scenic view was replaced by howling winds and torrential rain. Then, a bolt of lightning came straight at Lin Jin.
“Are you serious?” Lin Jin jolted in shock, but he didn’t move. Shu Xiaolou was obviously just trying to scare him, and sure enough, the thunder disappeared at the final moment. Bored by Lin Jin’s lackluster reaction, Shu Xiaolou decided to scare him verbally.
“I’ll really strike you next time.”
Lin Jin acted as if he didn’t hear her. It was good news to him that Shu Xiaolou had woken up. Not only that, but she was now stronger than before. Hence, Lin Jin couldn’t wait to drag Shu Xiaolou away to see if she could enter the Visitation Hall using Cosmic Ink.
Shu Xiaolou was rather enthusiastic when she heard that Lin Jin needed her help. Their attempts to enter the Visitation Hall ended in disappointment. Even with Cosmic Ink, Shu Xiaolou couldn’t enter the place with Lin Jin.
This was different from what he anticipated.
Looks like the Visitation Hall was quite stringent with its visitors. Besides Lin Jin himself, other people had to possess a visitor token to be able to enter. It was impossible to lead someone in by casting spells from the outside.
After giving it some thought, Lin Jin wondered, ‘Is my only option to wait until the next opening and get Zhao Jingyan to help me?’
Lin Jin didn’t want to wait any longer.
Again, his instincts told him that further delays would risk irreparable damage.
Thankfully, Shu Xiaolou offered, “Since you’re asking me to help you deal with a malicious entity but I can’t go inside, you can bring that thing out here.”
This was something that had never crossed Lin Jin’s mind before.
Lin Jin was dumbstruck. Why hadn’t he thought of that before? Now that Shu Xiaolou had mentioned it, Lin Jin realized how much sense she made.
“I’ll give you an ink stamp. You just have to put this ink stamp on that entity and I’ll be able to pull it into my painting realm. Wouldn’t that do?” Shu Xiaolou’s idea might just work.
Lin Jin planned to try it at once.
With a flip of her palm, a round ink stamp appeared in Shu Xiaolou’s hand. It looked just like a black copper coin.
“Slap this thing on the entity’s body and I’ll be able to pull it into my painting realm,” explained Shu Xiaolou with great confidence.
After a thought, Lin Jin informed Shu Xiaolou that the malicious entity might very well be a zombie.
He didn’t say it was a zombie beast because what Lin Jin saw had been human fingers instead of beast claws.
Shu Xiaolou was stunned.
“Zombie… Malicious entities formed by death aura? That’s quite rare. Many years ago, I came across a zombie tiger that was fighting a Taoist. I went over to help and it took the both of us considerable effort to slay that tiger. I severed one of its claws and the Taoist gifted me an amulet to subdue it. I brought the claw back to the academy to be stored in the Beast Appraisal Pavilion. I wonder if the zombie you mentioned is the same malicious entity as that zombie tiger. If it is, this is going to be difficult.”
Shu Xiaolou looked grave. Her current demeanor was completely different from her usual carefree and frivolous self.
Lin Jin was sure that his eyes weren’t fooling him.
Both were the same type of evil creature, but one was a human, the other a beast.
“Are you going to fight it?” Shu Xiaolou probed. She clearly wanted to say, ‘if there isn’t a need to, it’s best not to provoke something like that.’
Lin Jin nodded.
There was no room for discussion. Since this was about the Visitation Hall, the Museum of Deadly Beasts was at stake. Lin Jin couldn’t pretend as if he hadn’t seen anything.
Even if it was only for the sake of the Visitation Hall, he had to draw out that evil zombie from door number three.