"It's a bit inconvenient to talk here, Fellow Daoist Xu. How about we head outside and chat?" The large man in brocade robes glanced around the stone room and at the Star Palace cultivator in the corner, making the suggestion.
"Outside? Fine." The scar-faced man agreed without a care.
The brocade-robed man's face lit up, but then, as if suddenly remembering something, he turned and actually managed to squeeze out a smile toward Han Li as well.
"Brother Qu. Why not join us and listen in? Maybe we can work something out together!" The brocade-robed man made it obvious he was trying to win Han Li over.
Han Li blinked upon hearing this, then broke into a grin.
"Sure, I was just about to say I'd like to listen." Han Li replied cheerfully. Then, without the slightest hesitation, he strode forward and was the first out of the stone house.
"Huh? This fellow isn't with you?" The scar-faced cultivator was visibly surprised to see this.
"He just happened to teleport here with us — we didn't know him before!" The black-faced middle-aged man, who still harbored some hostility toward Han Li, suddenly spoke up.
The brocade-robed man frowned slightly at these words, though he said nothing.
Xu Yun nodded as well, offering no comment.
The group filed out of the stone house one after another.
By now, Han Li was already standing outside, looking around in wide-eyed astonishment.
This place was nothing at all like Ningcui Island, which he had visited before.
They had materialized inside a small city.
It wasn't large, and quite crude — only about twenty-some li in circumference — but it was undeniably a city built entirely of black stone.
The rundown stone house containing the teleportation formation stood at the very center of this stone city, built atop a raised platform resembling an altar, with steep stone steps on all four sides.
Thanks to the elevated position, standing atop this platform offered an unobstructed view of everything around.
The city was enclosed by what seemed like a token stone wall roughly three to four zhang tall, and about a zhang beyond the wall shimmered a thick white light barrier that enveloped the entire city.
Inside the wall stood stone houses of various sizes — all tall and imposing.
But strangely, there were no multi-story buildings or towers; everything was uniformly single-story. At first glance the city seemed crammed with structures, but in reality there weren't that many independent buildings. Some stone houses were fused together into sprawling complexes, while other single-story structures covered staggering areas — easily dozens of zhang across.
What truly stunned Han Li was that inside this stone city, mortals and cultivators actually mixed together, walking along the rough black stone paths and hurriedly entering and exiting various stone houses.
That alone would have been strange enough. What really shocked Han Li was that the mortals were mostly young, beautiful women, each dressed as vividly and colorfully as butterflies. The rest were brawny, muscular men and a few refined-looking youths of both sexes.
While Han Li stood there dazing, the brocade-robed man and his group emerged as well, led by the scar-faced man. They too stared at the small city with faces full of shock.
After all, having planned to venture into the Outer Star Sea, they had naturally studied every Monster Beast Island in advance. But none of the information they had reviewed matched this place in the slightest.
"Fellow Daoist Liu, pull out that jade slip with the old records on Qiyuan Island. Let's go over it again — maybe we missed something." A strange look flickered across the brocade-robed man's face, after which he spoke in a grave tone.
"Right, let me check!" The woman surnamed Liu hurriedly rummaged through her storage bag.
"No need to look anything up, friends. Most of the information you saw about Qiyuan Island before was fabricated. Of course it all seems surprising." Xu Yun raised a hand to stop the woman from searching for the jade slip.
"Fabricated? What do you mean?" The brocade-robed man's expression changed.
"Simple. This Qiyuan Island is different from all the other Monster Beast Islands. Every cultivator who returned from this island was placed under strict orders to relay only the same, standardized information. Otherwise, dire consequences would follow. Fellow Daoist Yi, now that you've set foot on this island, I honestly can't tell whether you should consider yourselves lucky — or cursed." Xu Yun said with a half-smile.