Chapter 150: The Technique of the Golden Eyes

Inside the cave, Gui Yi's voice was still echoing.
"Master, this bridge is quite unique. There is no danger for the moment."
"Hmm, let me take a look."
Fang Mu lifted his foot and stepped inside.
The moment he entered, the scenery before his eyes suddenly shifted.
The dark passage vanished, replaced entirely by a bridge.
The bridge was constructed of red wood, exposed directly to the elements as it stretched endlessly onward.
In the distance, no end was in sight.
The sky was overcast and dim, heavy with dark clouds.
"Swish—"
The sound of flowing water drifted up from beneath the bridge—not the sound of a rushing torrent, but a quiet, steady current.
Fang Mu stepped onto the bridge. Not far away, Gui Yi was leaning against the red railing, gazing downward.
The sound of the gently flowing water came from beneath the bridge. Hearing Fang Mu's footsteps, Gui Yi pulled himself back from the railing, a look of caution and solemnity on his face.
Fang Mu approached the railing and glanced down.
At that single look, even with his composed mindset, he could not help but freeze.
Beneath the bridge was a river, flowing slowly.
Water in a river was normal, but what was abnormal were the contents of the river—crowds of densely packed, pale human bodies.
These people were male and female, completely naked, their exposed skin as pale as paper.
Their eyes were wide open, staring blankly into the gloomy sky as they drifted along with the current.
Fang Mu finally understood the meaning of the painting. Weren't the short dashes in the river a representation of these pale entities?
"Are these anomalies, or something else?" Fang Mu asked, frowning.
Gui Yi shook his head. "Unclear, but they seem impossible to approach, and there is no way to test them."
With that, Gui Yi made a gesture, conjuring a chess piece and tossing it down into the river below.
The chess piece dropped directly into the river water without kicking up a single splash, disappearing as if a clay ox had plunged into the sea.
Hearing a rush of wind from above, Fang Mu looked up and saw the chess piece falling from the sky, landing right back onto the bridge.
This bizarre scene was so abrupt that Fang Mu failed to react in time.
"When this subordinate was in Cangyun City, I once heard the City Lord mention something," Gui Yi said slowly. "Whenever a powerful being dies while harboring a deep obsession, it transforms into a terrifying Land of Extreme Anomaly. After that eminent monk fell, it is very likely he formed such a Land of Extreme Anomaly."
Fang Mu stroked his chin and asked, "Does the Land of Extreme Anomaly have anything to do with this place?"
The chess piece had fallen into the water and then dropped back down from the sky, as if the river below and the sky above were connected.
Gui Yi explained, "A Land of Extreme Anomaly is different from a Mystic Anomaly Ruin; it is tied to their life before death. If the person was a scholar in life, it is very likely related to books. Master, everything here may be something that the eminent monk experienced."
The chess piece fell into the water once more, and once again dropped from the sky.
Experienced?
Fang Mu mused, "A rule-based anomaly?"
If so, it was very likely a rule-based anomaly.
Gui Yi shook his head. "This subordinate is not sure either, but judging purely by this bridge, it looks very much like a rule-based one, yet also unlike it."
Rule-based anomalies required deciphering their rules. Gui Yi had once been a rule-based anomaly himself, so he was very familiar with such things and could sense that this place did not quite fit the mold of a rule-based anomaly.
Having said this, Gui Yi reiterated his thoughts.
"Not like a rule-based one?" Fang Mu stroked his chin. "Then what type could it be?"
If not rule-based, only the corporeal corpse type and the spectral spirit type remained.
The current problem was that no anomaly had appeared, leaving them with no clues at all.
As the two spoke, the cave entrance they had come through vanished.
Fang Mu looked back and found that behind them was also a bridge with no end in sight.
Given the circumstances, they felt as though they were standing right in the middle of the bridge, with endless stretches of bridge surface on both sides.
"Interesting. This very much resembles a situation of choosing between two options." Fang Mu glanced at the pale human bodies in the river and began walking in one direction.
Since the situation was already laid out and there were no clues, there was no need to dwell on it too much.
Fang Mu and Gui Yi walked back in the direction of the cave they had entered from. Their speed was fast, but the path ahead seemed utterly endless.
Half an hour later, Fang Mu stopped.
Having walked for so long, there was still no end in sight ahead.
"Walking like this is getting nowhere," Fang Mu pondered inwardly.
There were no anomalies, no other objects—the entire journey had been calm and peaceful.
Yet the calmer it was, the more abnormal it became.
A bridge without an end seemed to have no dead ends, but in reality, it was already a dead end.
Gui Yi surveyed his surroundings, equally at a loss.
Fang Mu pondered for a moment. They seemed to have fallen into a dead end.
A trace of green light flashed in his eyes, and Fang Mu's brows twitched.
Layers upon layers of threads appeared before his eyes, intertwined and densely packed together.
He had suspected earlier that something was blocking his vision, and he had suddenly remembered the skill known as the Green Pupil Technique.
The Green Pupil Technique could see through illusions and discern truth from falsehood. Fang Mu had only wanted to give it a try, never expecting it to actually work.
The reason they could not walk out of this place was perhaps because they had been hexed, most likely caught in the legendary ghost-wall phenomenon.
The so-called ghost-wall, also known as the ghost's blindfold, occurred when someone walked at night or in the wilderness, losing their sense of direction, feeling their self-perception blur, and having no idea where to walk, thus continuously walking in circles in the exact same spot.
When describing such an experience to others, it was difficult for listeners to understand, hence it was dubbed the "ghost-wall."
The problem was that while he had discovered it, the threads before his eyes were far too dense, and Fang Mu could not spot any point of light among them.
Was the skill's level too low?
Fang Mu thought for a moment and hesitated no longer, pouring ghost Qi directly into the Green Pupil Technique.
He still had thirty wisps of ghost Qi, which was more than enough.
Four wisps of ghost Qi merged into the Green Pupil Technique, and a prompt sounded in his mind:
[You have injected ghost Qi into the Green Pupil Technique. Green Pupil Technique +1.]
[You have injected ghost Qi into the Green Pupil Technique. Green Pupil Technique +1.]
[You have injected ghost Qi into the Green Pupil Technique. Green Pupil Technique +1.]
[You have injected ghost Qi into the Green Pupil Technique and acquired the skill—Golden Pupil Technique! Capable of seeing through illusions and discerning truth from falsehood!]
A stream of information flowed into Fang Mu's mind, granting him the details of the Golden Pupil Technique.
The description remained unchanged—still seeing through illusions and discerning truth from falsehood—but it was vastly more powerful than before.
A golden hue filled Fang Mu's pupils. Before him, the dense mass of threads began to clarify, and a tiny pinpoint of light appeared.
Fang Mu traced the threads upward and discovered that the light source came from the sky.
Gui Yi lowered his head. The golden light in Fang Mu's eyes just then had given him an overwhelming sensation of having nowhere to hide.
He did not know why, but alongside a sense of pride, there was also a trace of bitterness.
The pride came from the fact that such a powerful being was the master he served; the bitterness came from feeling utterly unworthy.
Even with his four divine anomalies, he felt as though standing before his master was like comparing a firefly to the bright moon.
How could the light of a grain of rice dare to compete with the radiance of the full moon? If those so-called geniuses stood before his master, they would probably be angered to death alive.
"No wonder Master is afraid of nothing." Gui Yi clenched his fists, feeling like a frog at the bottom of a well. He thought to himself, "Master is like a shroud of mist, constantly bringing pleasant surprises to others. His hidden cards are simply too numerous."