35 Oh, Wait!

Huan Meirong retracted quickly her soul force before striding out of the pavilion with swift steps.

*Boom* Just as one of her feet landed on the grass outside the pavilion, a loud explosion was heard; she messed up her landing because of the tremor she felt in her heart and she fell to the ground.

Her small white face had beads of cold sweat and her mind was in utter shock; they explosion had been so loud. This was the first time after so many years that she had received such a threat; without counting the day she died and the four people who never arrived before, of course.

After being frozen in the greenery for a while, she blew away the strands of hair that had fallen on her face. She got up and as she patted her robes, she thought of something with furrowed brows, 'Why isn't smoke coming out?'

She looked up to the pavilion and walked towards it after a brief thought. It was indeed strange that there was no smoke or a burning smell wafting in the air; the explosion had been strong and even if the pill furnace hadn't shattered, the lid should have been blown away.

When she walked in, she saw that the black pill furnace was without a scratch with its lid in place and not only that, the pill furnace hadn't moved and millimetre from where she had placed it; moreover, the Warm Skin Tree's leaves that were beside it were undamaged as if nothing had happened.

'Did I feel wrong?

No, that can't be. Besides…

I can't possibly have heard wrong. It's my sight the one I lack not my hearing ability, though I can see as though I have my eyes here with my soul force,' she thought while striding with unbelief to the pill furnace.

By instinct, she mover her right hand to open the lid to see inside the pill furnace but the coldness of the lid made her hand stop; if she was so sure about what she had heard, then, it wouldn't be wise to open the lid when she was so close to it.

She tilted her head with furrowed brows and then, she waved her hand to keep the yellow leaves before taking a soft gold ribbon out from the golden qiankun bag that the drunken man had thrown when he had taken one of the twin hairpins; she had seen it before when she had swept a glance to the contents, it was a pretty gold ribbon, after all.

The lid was bound by her with the soft gold ribbon and once she was at a secure distance, she pulled the ribbon and the lid fell to the table.

Nothing dangerous happened but there was a reddish light coming out from the pill furnace and also from the inside part of the lid.

'Formations?' She asked to herself. From what she could tell from where she was, it looked that the light was coming from some the formations but she couldn't discern them well at that distance; she had weakened her soul force to a considerable degree so as it was what allowed her to see here, the formations looked blurred. Therefore, with curiosity and doubt, she walked back.

When she reached the table, she looked from up close the lid; the light was indeed coming from a series of formations. The fine but complicated lines that formed the formations were not only shinning one type of red but a diverse palette of red colours; the lines were dazzling, just like the sky when sunset falls.

A heat also came from the intricate lines and she raised a brow; the heat wasn't that hot, what she felt was a pleasurable warmness, making her feel tempted to touch them but she held back herself from doing so.

As she regarded the complexity of the formations, she had a thought and said with doubt, "Why are the formations still activated? And… how did they were activated?" She didn't know much about formations but from her understanding, a formation needed to be activated by someone and if it was one that had a mechanism to activate by itself like some protective formations, it was needed something to supply it with energy but when she had checked the pill furnace, there was no such a thing. Moreover, she didn't even remember having seen such a pattern of formations before; she had only seen the usual formations that are set on any kind of pill furnace.

But well, that was her rough understanding about formations and that's what she had seen, she might be mistaken.

"Huh?" An instant after having uttered her questions, the light of the formations began to dim.

She raised her brows as she blinked, saying, "It seems that I talked too early."

"Oh, wait!" She suddenly exclaimed; she had forgotten to give a look at the ones inside the pill furnace.