Chapter 2283 — A Peculiar Situation

It was not strange that no spiders guarded the cave entrance, for the cave was protected by an ancient restriction and had no fear of outside intrusion—but that not a single spider had come to wait for them or carry word back, that was strange indeed.

True, the Heaven-Rank Spider had said the night before that it would weave a silk bridge for Wei Zhao, but had the entire spider clan turned out for the task? With so many spiders, could it truly remain unfinished after a whole night? What a colossal undertaking it must be.

And besides, even if it were unfinished, dawn had long since broken—surely the Heaven-Rank Spider would have sent one of its kind back to inform Wei Zhao.

Yet now there was not a single spider to be seen. What sort of situation was this? At the thought, Wei Zhao frowned, and a sense of foreboding welled up in his heart. Could something have gone wrong?

He carefully surveyed his surroundings but found nothing amiss, nor any trace of a struggle. In truth, he was only looking for form's sake; had anything truly happened nearby the night before, he, cultivating within the jade pendant's space, could not possibly have failed to notice.

"Why is there not a single spider?" Sun Jingyan had noticed the wrongness too, and asked in puzzlement.

"I fear... something has gone awry," Wei Zhao said. He did not know where Tianqian Mountain Ravine lay; the Heaven-Rank Spider had not specified the night before, and Wei Zhao had not asked—after all, he had assumed the spider would take him there himself, so naturally he had not bothered with such meaningless questions.

But now they did not even have a direction to go on.

"Huh? Surely not? Isn't this their territory? How could anything go wrong? And even if it did, it's impossible that not one spider would be left," Sun Jingyan said in bewilderment.

"I don't know yet. I have a bad feeling, as though something is bound to happen," Wei Zhao said. "It is precisely because there is not a single spider that I feel something is off."

"That does make sense..." Sun Jingyan nodded. "Could it be that the silk bridge isn't finished, and they're working overtime?"

"That possibility cannot be ruled out." Wei Zhao did not, after all, understand the habits of spirit beasts; perhaps spider spirit beasts were the sort that worked with great rigor and would not rest until the task was done.

"Then shall we wait?" Sun Jingyan asked.

"That seems to be all we can do," Wei Zhao said.

So the two of them and the Heavenly Thunder Pig waited at the cave entrance, and in the blink of an eye several hours had passed. Wei Zhao's mood grew heavier and heavier; it seemed to him that matters could not be so simple. Though he did not know what had gone wrong, there was certainly nothing normal about it.

Seeing Wei Zhao's expression grow ever more grave, Sun Jingyan could not help asking, "Has something gone wrong?"

"Who can say?" Wei Zhao had not expected trouble. "Perhaps something truly unforeseen has happened. The spider clan does not seem the sort of spirit beast to break its word—and if they meant to break it, there would have been no need to tell us any of this at all. They could simply have said nothing yesterday, and we would have left today. There would be no reason to play at vanishing..."

"Then... what do we do now?" Sun Jingyan nodded and asked in agreement.

"Heavenly Thunder Pig, can you find where those spiders have gone?" Wei Zhao turned to the Heavenly Thunder Pig; at present he could only pin his hopes on it.

"Jiji!" The Heavenly Thunder Pig nodded to show it could. It had already memorized the scent of the spider clan; so long as they were within a certain range, it could find them.

"Good, take us to them now!" Wei Zhao made his decision at once.

"Jiji!" The Heavenly Thunder Pig ran ahead, with Wei Zhao and Sun Jingyan following behind, heading all the way in the direction opposite the valley where they had gathered herbs the day before...

The direction the Heavenly Thunder Pig took was the shaded side of the Wulonghaote Mountains, where vegetation was sparse and the road fairly easy to walk—yet Wei Zhao's heart was full of vigilance, on guard at every moment against some mishap.

But the whole way was quiet: no spirit beasts, no sign of human habitation, and none of the mishaps or accidents he had anticipated. Soon, a magnificent silk bridge woven of spider thread came into view in the distance, before the eyes of Wei Zhao and Sun Jingyan.

The silk bridge spanned directly from one side of a mountain ravine to the other. Clearly, the spider clan had finished weaving it... yet this very fact left Wei Zhao all the more baffled. Where had all those spiders gone?

The bridge was here, yet not a single spider was to be seen. This peculiar state of affairs could not but give one a creeping sense of horror—it was too strange, too frightening.

Wei Zhao did not rush forward. Instead he halted and carefully sensed the jade pendant's reactions. If he walked on and the pendant gave warning, it would be too late—just as it had been when they were caught in the great net before.

After all, conditions in the Wulonghaote Mountains were peculiar; knowing a danger did not mean one could avoid it. Take that heaven-and-earth net of the spiders: even if Wei Zhao had received the pendant's warning and seemed to have ample time to react, that great net was unlike ordinary dangers—it could both expand and contract, leaving no defense possible.

So this time Wei Zhao had grown wiser and meant to wait and see.

"It seems... there is no danger?" Wei Zhao stroked his chin, his expression somewhat odd. In truth, even he found it hard to believe that there was no danger here at all—after all, the present situation had exceeded his imagination.

Sun Jingyan kept silent; she had no right to speak, for her experience with such matters was nil, and she did not wish to answer carelessly and sway Wei Zhao's judgment.

"Let's take a look first." Wei Zhao could only walk on toward the silk bridge. To be honest, he could have turned and left that very moment, but he could not resist the curiosity in his heart. Never mind where the spiders had gone—that mysterious teleportation formation leading to Yunjie Island filled him with boundless curiosity.

"Mm..." Sun Jingyan was curious too. Though her path of cultivation was unlike others', the legendary threshold through which one could break past the Heaven Rank and step into the Heavenly Dao was enough to stir a powerful curiosity in her.

Wei Zhao and Sun Jingyan reached an agreement and set forth once more. All the way to the edge of the silk bridge nothing unexpected occurred, and the jade pendant at Wei Zhao's chest remained calm—yet the calmer it was, the more uneasy Wei Zhao felt.

It was far too quiet here—frightfully quiet. By rights, the first thing the spider clan should have done after finishing this silk bridge was return to the cave to wait for Wei Zhao and Sun Jingyan to come here together.