Chapter 60: This Young Master Now Knows

“Chen Haoran.”

“Lan Fen.”

“You have advanced.”

“As have you.”

She looked the same as when he last saw her. Vibrant white hair and golden eagle eyes. A face that looked better suited for staring down at someone from a glorious war memorial. She had changed from her dress to armor. The Wintersteel Scale Armor he gave her in fact, from which he was rewarded the Profound-rank Wintersteel Plate. Chen Haoran found there wasn’t much a of difference in Lan Fen whether she wore cloth or metal. He reached out with his sense, Qi Realm Ninth-Layer. It wasn’t altogether too surprising that she reached the Ninth-Layer before he did, it was always going to be easier for her than for him. What did draw his attention was the unfamiliar sword strapped to her side. He felt nothing from it and yet almost unconsciously his sense lingered over it.

Phelps squealed.

He hooked a thumb at his back. “Lan Fen this is Phelps.” Lan Fen looked at the sloth, who stared back at her with large, dopey eyes. “Phelps this is Lan Fen.”

“When Song Yuelin told me he had lost you I never thought you would end up here of all places,” Lan Fen said. “Perhaps I should have expected it.”

“So you’ve known about the cavern for a while.” Given her strength she had almost certainly explored it before under the Lan family.

“Bathhouse.”

“Excuse me?”

“Bathhouse,” Lan Fen repeated. “That is how my family refers to it. That is what it is.”

Chen Haoran’s thoughts ground to a halt. A bathhouse? With all the heated pools it made some twisted sort of sense but… a bathhouse? The density of energy, the sheer size, the abundant treasures, and the monsters that guarded them. If this was some training ground or sacred space he would accept but to hear that it was nothing more than a bathhouse?

Madness.

“All of this?” He couldn’t hide the disbelief that colored his voice. There was no reason for Lan Fen to exaggerate but he couldn’t help but question her.

Lan Fen nodded. “The ruins of an ancient superpower. A relic from a much grander past. This secret realm was used by the disciples of the superpower to rest and maintain their condition.”

It made sense and yet none at all. All of this?

“You said secret realm, is that a specific term?”

Lan Fen hooked her finger and motioned him to follow. “This is not a safe place.” She disappeared into the steam and he followed after her. In a way it was much like the night he followed her to attack the Lan family’s spiritual garden. Surefooted Lan Fen, who possessed a clear view forward, and Chen Haoran who followed after her like a moth to light, all but blind save for his qi sense.

She led him to a hole in the ground covered by a large boulder, with the only opening barely being enough to squeeze through. Inside was lit blue with glowing moss that grew beneath the boulder and filled with lukewarm water. Besides the cold snaps, it was the coolest temperature he had experienced in this ‘bathhouse.’ They settled in the waist-high water and stared at each other.

Phelps squealed and splashed around, happily burbling at Lan Fen. She looked amused at least. Two people and a sloth sharing a pool. It wasn’t the kind of service available in Clearsprings City hot spring that was for sure.

Chen Haoran laughed. Seeing Lan Fen raise an eyebrow he elaborated. “Song Yuelin wanted us to go to a bathhouse together. I doubt this was what he had in mind though.”

“Meddlesome man,” Lan Fen muttered. She rested her back against the stone and propped her arm on her knee. “To answer your previous question a secret realm is a pocket of expanded space separate from the world.”

“Like a storage bag?”

“Vastly more complex than that but they are related. Secret realms vary in their terrains and resources but all are usually more spiritually dense than the surrounding area.”

It was somehow easier to accept he had accidentally stumbled into a new dimension than the fact that said dimension was just a bathhouse. It did help explain how such a large open area underground could exist without affecting any of the lands above.

“I don’t recall going through a portal or anything to get here though,” Chen Haoran said. “I was brought here by a river.”

“Did I not tell you before? The waters of the Clearsprings Mountains run deep.” She nonchalantly waved her hand. “They all pass through here eventually, you would not be the first carried with them.”

“So how does the water leave then?” Not through the waterfall that’s for sure. It would be ideal if he could use another exit besides the waterfall.

Lan Fen seemed to read his thoughts. “Not in a way survivable by you.”

He clicked his tongue in annoyance. “Is that waterfall really the only way out then?”

“It is the only reliable doorway mastered by the Lan family,” she said. “If there are other ways to leave I do not know them.”

Of course. It would be too easy otherwise.

“What’s the plan then?” he asked.

Lan Fen blinked. “Pardon?”

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“There’s probably a Liquid Meridian realm in that camp right?” The question was rhetorical, of course there was, he’d be too lucky otherwise. “There’s no way I can get out without dealing with them and that’s not happening without you.”

“Is that so?” Lan Fen frowned. “I recall it was not too long ago that you had an issue being involved with killing.”

Chen Haoran sighed. “There’s clearly some kind of disconnect between what you think I meant and what I actually said.”

“Enlighten me then.”

“What’s there to enlighten? The people in this cavern want to kill me and will inevitably try to, of course I’m going to kill them to live.”

“That is not what you said before.”

“They weren’t trying to kill me back then.”

“They were always trying to kill you. Do you think yourself nobler for letting them strike first? The result is the same in the end, just with more sophistry.”

“The sophistry is important to me.” He sighed and massaged his head. “I’m not out here to claim some moral high horse, at the end of the day I’ll do anything to live.”

“Clearly.”

Chen Haoran narrowed his eyes. “How long were you watching me?”

“You’ve been within my range since you ambushed the foraging party.” She paused for a few seconds. “I did not take you for the type.”

He grimaced. They both knew what she was talking about. “Neither did I.”

They fell into an uncomfortable silence. Even Phelps ceased his splashing and paddled over to Chen Haoran, softly crooning.

“Why didn’t you say anything about the cavern before?” he asked. It was a question with an obvious answer as soon as it was revealed that Lan Fen wasn’t ignorant of the cavern’s existence. He just needed something to fill the silence.

“It was not necessary.” Came Lan Fen’s curt and expected answer.

“Back when we separated you could have told us about this place,” he said. “We could have come to hide here. I would have never been at risk of being taken back to the Chen family.”

“You saw for yourself Song Yuelin’s behavior.” She frowned and bowed her head. “I am sorry.”

Good enough. How could either of them expect Song Yuelin would be so spooked that he'd try to flee all the way back to the Chens?

“Are you saying you didn’t want him to try and claim it? Are you trying to monopolize the cavern?”

“I do not have the strength to do such a thing as of right now,” Lan Fen slowly said. “But I did not think letting the Chen family know the existence of the Bathhouse was in my best interests.”

Chen Haoran looked at her. “Lan Yao found the Earth-rank method from here,” he stated. “You found your storage space here too.”

Lan Fen looked startled before huffing a laugh. “Once again I am equal parts impressed and annoyed with your ability to string knowledge together.”

“That’s why she sent you to me. This is why she wanted to kill you.”

“Lan Yao has many reasons for wanting to kill me but yes.”

“Did you intend to settle the score in the cavern from the start?”

“I was aiming to have the other families slay the Patriarch once I had drawn him out of his hole.” Lan Fen shrugged. “The plan has unfortunately changed as they are wont to do.”

“Is the Patriarch in the cavern now?”

Lan Fen viciously smiled. “For now he will be stuck in the city for a few more days. The City Lord and the other families will not let him leave so quickly.”

“You leaked information about the cavern.”

“Just its existence. The Patriarch will be bogged down navigating that situation for the time being.”

“Giving you time to set the stage eh?”

Lan Fen raised an eyebrow. “You have fought a Liquid Meridian realm. How do you feel about killing one?”

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