A ruined altar with blood stains and profound scriptures lent a sense of vicissitude.
Eh?
He glimpsed at the altar, and found an elder-like statue sitting on it.
"Why was I brought here?" Ye Chen's eyes glinted.
"What's the cliff's origin?"
"What's more…" He glanced at the true fire quivering out of fright in his elixir sea.
"Little friend." A faint and aged voice arose at once.
"Who's there?"Alert, Ye Chen gripped the Crimson Cloud Sword, and looked around, cold sweat standing on his forehead and heart thumping. He could not discern where the voice came from.
"Little friend." The voice sounded again.
"Who is it?" Ye Chen backed, and clutched the sword harder.
"I'm behind you." The aged voice was not heard clearly.
Ye Chen spun around, and found the speaker the elder-like statue sitting on the altar.
"You…" Ye Chen gaped at it, and paced backwards.
To his surprise, it was not a statue, but a person packed with thick dusts.
Ye Chen edged towards the old man, and he opened his eyes slowly.
His eyes, one empty without pupil and the other as deep as a chasm, scared Ye Chen off.
"Who are you?" Ye Chen was alarmed, without the expectation that a man staying under the cliff.
"Vacancy Jiang." The elder's feeble voice could barely be heard.
"Vacancy Jiang?" After deliberation, Ye Chen was sure that he never heard of the name in the Great Chu Empire.
He looked at Vacancy Jiang up and down, who remained still and was enwrapped by dense deathly vital energy, as if crawling out from a coffin.
"Why do you hide beneath the cliff under the Hengyue Sect?" Ye Chen fixed his eyes at him, hoping to discover some hints from the old man's remarks and behaviors.
Vacancy Jiang smiled, "I arrived here before the establishment of the Hengyue Sect. And I've stayed here for five thousand years."
"Five…five thousand years?" The answer stunned Ye Chen.
He was unable to figure out the conception of five thousand years.
Cultivators had longevity, compared with commoners. But cultivators' lives were still limited. Those at the virtual spirit stage could lead a life as long as five hundred years at most, and those at the empty darkness stage a thousand years. What an extraordinary cultivation base the elder had to sustain a life of five thousand years.
"Five thousand years! The elder comes out from his coffin?" Ye Chen was startled while gazing at Vacancy Jiang.
It was marvelous to live for five thousand years, let alone to sit still over the period. Vacancy Jiang needed to bear the loneliness as well as the vicissitude of time.
Ye Chen was so astonished that he forgot his alertness, looking at Vacancy Jiang, "Elder, you really lead a life of five thousand years?"
He just nodded without speaking.
"How's your cultivation base?" Ye Chen could not squash his curiosity, though asking about others' cultivation base was a taboo.