At that moment, Elder Liu spoke up as well: "Young hero Chu Feng speaks truly. The world is vast, and indeed all manner of strange things exist. But every matter always has a truth behind it."
"Perhaps our three geniuses will be able to uncover the truth of this place."
"Follow me."
With that, Elder Liu led Chu Feng and the others through the barrier gate.
It was a teleportation tunnel. Although the tunnel had some age to it, it was not ancient. It was thick with Elder Liu's aura, indicating that he was the one who had opened this teleportation tunnel.
The moment they stepped out of the tunnel, Chu Feng felt a wave of cold wash over him.
Everyone present, regardless of their cultivation level, couldn't help but shiver.
It wasn't mere coldness — it was a heart-palpitating sense of unease.
Just as the Xianhai Fish Clan's clan chief had said, this place had a thoroughly unsettling atmosphere.
And yet, they hadn't even seen the so-called female ghost yet.
"Elder Liu, give me a few of those talisman papers," Xianhai Shaoyu said, sidling up to Elder Liu.
Elder Liu divided the talisman papers into three portions and handed them to Xianhai Shaoyu, Chu Feng, and Little Fishy respectively.
Xianhai Shaoyu clearly already knew how to use them. He plastered all of his onto his clothes and stuck one on his forehead as well, making himself look like a living talisman puppet.
"What's the matter, bro? Don't you want to see the female ghost?" Little Fishy asked with a grin.
"Forget it. I came here to cultivate, not to go ghost hunting."
"Sis, if you want to see her, you won't need these talisman papers, so hand them over to your big brother."
As he spoke, Xianhai Shaoyu reached for Little Fishy's talisman papers.
"Not a chance." But Little Fishy didn't give him the opportunity. Instead, she taunted him: "What a coward."
"What do you know? I'm afraid she might be a lustful ghost. What if she really is looking for a husband? I'm not being a coward — I'm keeping myself pure for Brother Chu Feng."
As soon as Xianhai Shaoyu said this, his parents and grandfather were all rendered speechless.
His sister delivered just two words: "Sick in the head."
But Xianhai Shaoyu couldn't have cared less. He even looked over at Chu Feng and raised an eyebrow: "Actually, I'd be willing to give myself to her too."
Hearing this, Chu Feng chuckled.
He had long grown accustomed to Xianhai Shaoyu, who loved cracking these kinds of jokes. It was all in rather poor taste.
But Little Fishy had no patience for it. She reached over and tugged at Xianhai Shaoyu's face: "You pervert of a brother, you're disgusting me. Keep talking nonsense and I'll rip your mouth open."
Xianhai Shaoyu's face was stretched out of shape, and he had no choice but to beg for mercy: "Wrong, wrong, I was wrong."
Clearly, everyone was well accustomed to the way these siblings interacted.
Chu Feng, meanwhile, had begun carefully observing his surroundings.
This was a natural rock cavern — an enormous one, comparable to an entire underground world.
But it was remarkably sturdy. The reason for that sturdiness was a layer of ice covering every wall of the cavern.
That ice was the source of the cold, the reason for the cavern's structural integrity, and, at the same time, the very material used for cultivation.
The ice visible before them was fairly thin, but it hadn't started out that way — it had clearly been refined by someone.
"How was this place discovered?" Chu Feng asked out of curiosity.
He had been observing from the very moment he arrived in this world.
Yet all along, he had found no trace of this cultivation ground.
But given his current level of perception, the fact that he — knowing full well this place existed — still couldn't find any clues meant this location was truly extraordinarily well-hidden.
So he was genuinely curious: how had the Xianhai Fish Clan found this place?
"Because of this," the Xianhai Fish Clan's clan chief said, producing an ancient sheepskin scroll and handing it to Chu Feng.
Chu Feng opened the scroll and found it was a concealed map — one that required a keen eye to decipher.
Chu Feng activated his Heavenly Eye, and before long he had seen straight through the map.
The map recorded this location's position as well as the method for entering it.
"We acquired this at an auction for a steep price, after which we discovered that this scroll was far from ordinary."
"But when we arrived here, it was obvious that someone had already been here — not long ago, either."
"So we deduced that whoever sold the scroll had come here to cultivate and afterward auctioned off the scroll at a high price."
"After inquiring further, we learned that two people had come to auction the scroll, but both had deliberately concealed their identities, so we never found out who they truly were."
"The cultivation material here is indeed usable for cultivation — it's just that the cost of extracting it is rather steep."
The Xianhai Fish Clan's clan chief, sensing that Chu Feng was quite curious about the matter, took it upon himself to explain everything.