Linghu Jiu especially liked Ning Zhuo’s carefree attitude. Feeling even more excited, he took out stone bowls, one for each of them.

He hurriedly sat down. “Here it comes, here it comes!”

Seeing him like this, Ning Zhuo could not help but sigh inwardly. Last time, when he had given tea to Linghu Jiu, although the latter had been delighted, he had not been nearly as excited as he was now.

Ning Zhuo used the jar-opening hand seal that Zhu Xuanji had taught him in his letter, easily breaking the clay seal.

In an instant, the fragrance of wine spread out, filling the entire cave.

The moment Linghu Jiu smelled it, he blurted out, “Oh? This is actually our country’s Guojiao!”

His eyes lit up, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he grew excited. “Good heavens, this is a hundred-year-old Guojiao Yearning Wine, truly rare to see.”

“Virtuous brother, where did you get this from? I’ve asked others to purchase for me many times. There’s much Guojiao spirit wine on the market, but one aged a hundred years? That’s nearly impossible to obtain.”

“Thanks to your good fortune, this time I can truly indulge, hahahaha.”

Ning Zhuo smiled, pouring both Linghu Jiu and himself a full bowl.

The two clinked their bowls and began drinking.

In the stone bowls, the Yearning Wine glowed like crimson pearls and jade, clear and luminous, reflecting their faces full of anticipation.

A gentle sniff revealed the wine’s fragrance mingled with the faint aroma of red beans, soft yet profound.

Once in the mouth, it was smooth and mellow, warm like the first sunlight of spring. The faint sweetness of red beans spread across the tongue, carrying delicate traces of emotion, and in the thick aftertaste there lingered a faint bitterness, like yearning that had built up without relief, pressing heavily on the heart and refusing to fade.

Both men savored it carefully, and for a time neither spoke.

After a long while, Linghu Jiu broke the silence. “The hundred-year Guojiao, indeed worthy of its name! Gentle upon entering, with the sweetness of red beans, yet imbued with the rich depth of a hundred years of brewing. The feeling of yearning, ethereal and elusive, becomes weighty upon closer taste.”

“A hundred years, and still yearning…” Ning Zhuo sighed deeply. “The older this wine, the heavier the yearning. Good wine, truly good wine!”

Recently, Ning Zhuo had tasted three wines: Ice Jade Wine, Deep Thought and Brewing Intent, and Yearning Wine.

Among the first two, Ice Jade Wine could channel spirit with breath, rapidly enhancing one’s Sea of Qi cultivation. Linghu Jiu had benefitted greatly from this. Deep Thought and Brewing Intent—real or fake aside—could connect Yin and Yang, bringing the guidance of ancient sages.

Both of these wines had powerful effects.

But Yearning Wine was different. It was more extravagant, merely letting one experience the feeling of yearning.

And this wine was difficult to preserve.

Yearning was hard to last.

How long could ordinary people yearn? One year, two years? Ten, or twenty?

The heart was fickle, human ties were easily forgotten, and the flow of time could wash away everything.

A feeling was difficult to sustain for years, let alone decades. A hundred years? That was rarer still.

After all, a mortal life itself was but a hurried hundred years. What kind of feeling could make someone miss another for an entire lifetime?

Once, the Supreme Empress of Southern Dou Country had wanted to express precisely such a feeling.

It was said that the Yearning Wine she had personally designed and brewed still remained to this day.

She had wanted to give it to someone, but never once had she managed to send out a single jar!

The brewing of Yearning Wine was difficult. A Spirit Chef had to personally bear deep, passionate yearning to have any chance of producing it.

Preserving Yearning Wine was also difficult. The yearning contained within had to endure and continue.

Thus, very few hundred-year Yearning Wines existed on the market. Once it passed several decades, the wine’s yearning would dissipate, and it would spoil, undrinkable.

But today, Ning Zhuo and Linghu Jiu drank such wine.

For a time, both were submerged in yearning, deeply affected, unable to extricate themselves.

Ning Zhuo thought of his mother. Now his mother had become a mechanism, accompanying him by his side. Though she seemed close, in truth she remained distant.

As for his second goal, the Fetal Breath Spirit Vessel, it was far too immense and far away. To this day, Ning Zhuo had yet to find any feasible path to burn it down.

Linghu Jiu thought of his Little Junior Sister, Lin Shanshan.

The taste of Yearning Wine melted in his mouth, like countless threads gently twining around his heart.

When he had been very young, he had been adopted by Lin Bufan, and he had watched Lin Shanshan grow up little by little.

Those sweet and fleeting moments he had shared with her seemed stretched out by the sediment of years within this wine, becoming even more profound and enduring.

The Yearning Wine transformed each of his longings into drops within the wine, gradually diffusing within his heart.

“Life is like wine, yearning like a song.” Linghu Jiu sighed. “Some yearning fades with the passage of time, while some becomes deeper and deeper!”

This time drinking was very different from the last. The first had been fiery, but this one was heartfelt.

After three rounds, Ning Zhuo spoke directly of his situation. “Brother Linghu, I recently drank Deep Thought and Brewing Intent again, but no guidance came.”

Linghu Jiu pointed at him. “That is completely normal.”

“You must understand, drinking this wine only gives us a chance, a chance to communicate with sages of the underworld.”

“At a certain time, in a certain place, if a sage in the underworld is willing, has leisure, and takes a liking to us, then he may give a word or two of instruction.”

“Most of the time when I drink Deep Thought and Brewing Intent, nothing happens. Even if something does, most often it is vague murmurs, hard to comprehend. I can only rely on my own talent to glean insight from those murmurs and gain benefit.”

“Your fortune last time was extraordinary, not the norm.”

Ning Zhuo smiled slightly. “So that’s how it is.”

He gazed deeply at Linghu Jiu, remaining silent for a moment.

Seeing his strange look and being stared at, Linghu Jiu laughed freely. “If you have something to say, just speak it out!”

Since he had not used Life Hanging by a Thread, Ning Zhuo could not use the Buddha Heart Demon Seal to sense Linghu Jiu’s innermost heart.

But relying on his own years of life experience and his grasp of human nature, he was certain of Linghu Jiu’s sincerity.

A sharp light flashed in Ning Zhuo’s eyes as he opened up boldly and spoke.

First, he told how he had asked the Ning Family Golden Core Ancestor for the wine recipe, but Lin Bufan had sternly refused, leaving no room for discussion.

Then, how he had given the wine to a Spirit Chef to taste, asking him to try to identify the recipe, but instead receiving an unexpected evaluation.

Linghu Jiu was greatly surprised. “You’re saying Deep Thought and Brewing Intent is a fake wine? That it doesn’t actually allow communication with the sages of the underworld?”

“Impossible!”

He shook his head firmly. “This wine was personally given to me by Master, and he even strictly ordered me… to keep it a secret.”

At this point, Linghu Jiu looked a little awkward.

His nature was lazy and carefree. To put it poorly, when stirred by emotion or desire, he often forgot instructions.

Deep Thought and Brewing Intent was the best example.

Though his master had required him to guard the secret strictly, in Linghu Jiu’s eyes, this wine mostly had no effect when he drank it, so its value wasn’t very high.

Thus, the last time he had found Ning Zhuo pleasing, he had simply taken it out and shared it.

Seeing Linghu Jiu’s complete trust in Lin Bufan, Ning Zhuo said, “Last time I heard you mention that Master Lin Bufan had personally busied himself for your sake, even inviting a great chef to design this recipe.”

“Allow me to make a bold and disrespectful guess: perhaps Master Lin Bufan was deceived? After all, he is no Spirit Chef. Among the myriad arts of cultivation, to be skilled in spiritual plants, healing, and alchemy already makes one a profound scholar.”

“But different trades are like separate mountains, and expertise is specialized. To be deceived is not impossible, right?”

Linghu Jiu nodded. “Indeed so.”

He then clasped his hands. “Thank you for informing me of this. I shall report it to Master another day.”

But Ning Zhuo raised a hand. “Brother Linghu, I still have some interesting information to tell you. It concerns the Five Elements Divine Lord…”

Hearing this, Linghu Jiu sank into thought.

He looked up and fixed his gaze on Ning Zhuo. “I understand your meaning. You’re saying there’s a problem here!”

He pointed at the cave.

“Exactly.” Ning Zhuo clapped his hands and laughed. “The ancient Ten Thousand Demons Mountain, today’s Ten Thousand Demons Cave—the Five Elements Divine Lord once perished here. Could it be he left something behind, enabling him to influence the outside world even now?”

“Last time, after I returned, the wine’s effects had faded, yet beneath the Lingyin Willow I received his guidance once more. My Five Elements realm was promoted with terrifying magnitude.”

“Whether from the Yin lifespan or from Deep Thought and Brewing Intent, this is abnormal.”

Linghu Jiu burst out laughing and stood up. “Interesting, interesting!”

“I’ve often been punished by Master with confinement, and this has been the place I spent most of my time. I always thought it ordinary, but now that you’ve said it, I sense a mystery here.”

“Why not, while drunk with wine, let us go together and explore the Ten Thousand Demons Cave? Anyway, I am also tasked with keeping watch here.”

Ning Zhuo was overjoyed. “This is truly what I wished for but dared not ask. Brother, please!”

The two walked shoulder to shoulder, deeper into the Ten Thousand Demons Cave.

Inside was pitch-black. The stone steps beneath their feet were damp and slippery. Water dripped against the rock walls all around, echoing as if the cave itself was alive, silently whispering the secrets of time.

Ning Zhuo and Linghu Jiu both formed hand seals, releasing light to illuminate their surroundings and the path ahead.

Descending step by step, the air grew increasingly stifling. They communicated by sound transmission, leaving only the echo of their footsteps in the silent cave.

After a while, the man-made traces of the stone steps disappeared.

The darkness deepened. Even as they consumed spiritual power to sustain their light, its range was clearly compressed.

The cave path grew steeper. At some points, they could only pass one after the other, squeezing sideways.

Ning Zhuo could clearly sense that he was steadily descending deeper into the earth.

He began to faintly hear the sound of water.

Not the dripping of seeping walls, but the sound of a river.

Linghu Jiu was quite familiar with the path. Whenever forks appeared, he told Ning Zhuo those were dead ends.

“Sometimes when I was confined, bored beyond measure, I would venture deeper alone, exploring on my own.”

“Don’t laugh, but I even hoped some demon beast would appear, so I could kill it—either to drive away boredom or to gain merit, so Master would release me.”

“But every time, I returned empty-handed.”

“Once, demon beasts and even beast tides had emerged from the Ten Thousand Demons Cave. But for the past hundred years, it has been peaceful.”

“The greatest upheaval was when your Ning Family followed the underground river and suddenly barged into our Myriad Medicines Valley.”

Linghu Jiu spoke by sound transmission.

Smiling, Ning Zhuo also replied by sound transmission.

As they spoke and walked, they turned a corner, and Ning Zhuo’s eyes suddenly widened—they had entered a vast underground cavern.

The cavern’s dome hung high like a sky, dotted with countless glowing stones that twinkled like stars, casting the entire chamber into a dreamlike scene. Crystal-like vines hung from the walls, like dripping icicles, flowing with faint light.

Ning Zhuo could not help but stop and admire the sight.

Linghu Jiu, having seen it many times, found nothing novel, but he tactfully stopped as well, giving Ning Zhuo time to take it in.

“Past this point, there will gradually be signs of life.”

“Walk for about the time it takes to burn a stick of incense, and we’ll reach the underground riverbank. Can you imagine, deep underground, a great river flowing endlessly?”

“Hahaha, that’s quite a spectacle too!”

Linghu Jiu wasn’t very concerned with verifying Ning Zhuo’s suspicions. In his mind, simply showing him the sights wasn’t a wasted effort.

But the next moment, Ning Zhuo’s face suddenly changed.

For he seemed to hear a voice.

That voice was all too familiar—the voice of the Five Elements Divine Lord.

“Boy, did you come down here just to see me? Hahaha, look at that stalactite. Study it carefully—that’s the gateway.”