The grand archives.

Mei Kongxu chose the most sensible option available to her when she was faced with Li Yang's outstretched hand, ignoring him while maintaining her chilly expression. She knew that everything she said would just be used against her in some form, even her silence might end up being used by Li Yang to tease her. But it was still better to go with the option that only produced a chance of her getting teased rather than the option that was guaranteed to get her teased, at least like that there was a chance that she might get to maintain her usual coldness.

Li Yang wasn't bothered by it and simply drew back his arm, resting his hands behind his head in a casual manner as he started to walk. Their marriage was set in stone and they were going to need a fair bit of time to find out the truth behind the visions they constantly saw. As such, they would be spending plenty of time together in the future so he had plenty of time to tease her and shatter the cold expression she always wore. After all, he had seen how she looked when she smiled and laughed, albeit only briefly, and it was at least a thousand times better than her boring coldness.

Mei Kongxu followed after Li Yang as he moved, the pair attracting a great deal of attention as they moved from spatial array to spatial array. Practically everyone was familiar with Li Yang, he was one of the main sons of their esteemed Third Elder after all. But they weren't familiar with Mei Kongxu, they had only heard a little about the arranged marriage, this was their first time actually seeing her. And sure enough, they found themselves utterly spellbound as she walked past, her beauty and cold temperament tugging at their hearts and souls.

Li Yang simply smirked at their reactions, he wasn't even bothered by those who revealed lusty gazes and had to lurch forward somewhat. Of course, whether or not he would maintain a smirk if they actually tried to make a move was something only he knew. And the price they would have to pay for that move was also something that only he knew, it was up to them whether or not they wanted to learn the answer.

Li Yang took a few detours here and there, occasionally glancing at Mei Kongxu's expression to gauge her reaction. It was only when her brows started to furrow, her pupils sweeping her surroundings in suspicion, that he actually started to head for the sect's archives. And once he actually started to lead the way properly, they only had to pass through four quick spatial arrays before they reached a small island that only had a single one-room house standing on it. The room was barely a few metres wide and long, so it was obvious that Mei Kongxu would find it somewhat dubious.

"This is your archives? Space expanding formation?"

A space expanding formation was one that wasn't used too often by sects or cities, mainly due to the fact that they had so much open space available that there was no need to. When you had nearly endless room you could use, why would you bother to create and power an array that expanded the space within it? Her guess was reasonable, but Li Yang shook his head lightly as he stepped forward and opened the door, revealing an empty room containing a set of spiralling stairs that descended downwards.

"Nope. Tell me, have you ever heard of a brine pool?"

He didn't wait for her answer before he entered the room and started to descend the stairs, Mei Kongxu eyeing the room somewhat suspiciously before she followed him. And as she started to descend the stairs, what greeted her was a transparent tunnel that went straight down, the seemingly endless ocean depths stretching out around her.

Fish, strange plants, even aquatic Demonic beasts of various sizes, all could be seen through the transparent walls of the tunnel. The light of the sun still reached down through the surface of the water for a bit, but even that vanished as they descended deeper. And as the light of the sun vanished, the countless sources of light born within the ocean revealed themselves.

Fish, plants, normally unnoticeable bits of crystals, all lit up with their own bioluminescent light, turning the dark ocean depths into a replica of the starry sky. Mei Kongxu had grown up in the World-Rending Behemoth sect so it was uncommon for her to even interact with the ocean, much less this mostly unknown underside of the ocean. As a result, even her eyes lit up with splendour that cracked through her chilly exterior. Li Yang smirked at her amazement, tapping the transparent walls and pointing down.

"It's quite a sight, isn't it? It's like being surrounded by the stars themselves. But our target is that one down there."

Mei Kongxu drew her gaze away from the lights around her and lowered it, spotting a rather strange sight. At the end of the transparent tunnel was something that looked like a murky bubble, perfectly shrouding whatever was hiding inside it. Li Yang didn't wait for her to ask, already starting his explanation as they continued to descend.

"A brine pool is a body of water that has more than three times the salinity of the surrounding ocean, resulting in the two being unable to mix. You can consider it a lake within the ocean if you want. The founder of the sect personally pulled this brine pool up from the ocean depth and suffused it with both his Qi and the blood of several Demonic beasts, even one Divine Beast. As a result, it has become the perfect hiding place for our archives, no senses can spot or penetrate it, it'll just appear like a normal patch of water. Even this tunnel and the above island can be collapsed in less than a second, ensuring that the archives remain hidden."

The archives, while also serving as a library for the sect's disciples, would also contain the gathered knowledge of the sect. Acquiring a sect's archives would grant you all the knowledge they had worked so hard to gather, it would lay bare every single resource-filled land or cultivation techniques they had discovered over the years. As such, it was definitely a place that had to be protected with great care.

The two finished their descent after a few minutes, a hallway that was only a few steps long appearing at the end of the downwards tunnel, a simple metal door situated at the end. A soft light left Li Yang's palm as he placed it against the metal, the door creaking open after a short moment and revealing the true scope of the archive.

The door opened up to an utterly massive room that was a few tens of kilometres in each direction, shelves filled with books and slips of various materials neatly lined up throughout the entire room. A few metre wide and tall crystal pillar stood at the centre of the room, a set of descending stairs leading down to the second and final floor of the archives right next to it. This was much more in line with the archives that she was used to so Mei Kongxu could already guess what the crystal pillar was used for, gesturing towards it.

"That should be the Grand Index, no? Can it be used for more concentrated searching?"

The Grand Index was the core of the entire archive, every recorded word contained in the texts here had been copied into the Grand Index. With it, you could easily find texts that contained what you were looking for. It was a fairly easy connection to make if you had ever been in a sect's archive, but Li Yang still had to play it up.

"Wifey really is clever, it warms this husband's heart."

Mei Kongxu drew in a short breath and ignored Li Yang, moving through the rows of shelves with short steps while making sure that Li Yang tagged along. This was after all the archives of the Deep Sea King sect, there were arrays scattered throughout the entire thing to prevent non-sect members and even sect members from doing as they pleased.

They occasionally saw a few other disciples that were currently going through the archives, but none of them interacted with Li Yang, only momentarily staring dumbfoundedly at Mei Kongxu. At least that was the case until a slightly sneering voice came from their side.

"Li Yang? You don't bother cultivating, you don't bother taking part in any sect activities, you don't even study, yet you actually dare come to the archives?"

Li Yang stopped and turned towards the direction of the voice, Mei Kongxu also halting as she wasn't interested in testing out whether or not the arrays here would act against her when she was alone. The one that had called out to them was a youthful man with waist-length black hair and green eyes, a few other people following closely.

Mei Kongxu originally wasn't going to bother with them, but then she noticed that the leading youth had only carved his 5th rune. This meant that he was still only in the Human Rune realm, barely in the middle-stage of it. Li Yang had already shown that he could utterly humiliate people even stronger than this, so she had no idea why this man would be so dumb as to antagonize him now like this. Li Yang didn't even bother with the green-eyed youth, glancing sideways at Mei Kongxu and clearing up the extremely faint confusion he saw in her eyes.

"Your sect doesn't have people like this? Brainless monkeys who stay cooped up here in the archives to read through the texts they have access too, they prefer this over anything else, to the extent that they rarely actually leave the archives. I mean, yeah they do increase their knowledge thanks to it, but they never leave so they never get to use that knowledge. And they end up not learning about the things taking place around them so it's pretty useless, you might as well just hand a divine sword to a toddler, it'll produce the same effect."

Mei Kongxu was indeed no stranger to people like this, their own sect also had people who practically lived in the archives. It was to a point where the sect had to install certain arrays just so that these people could clean themselves so that they didn't stink up the archive. Having understood, she stopped bothering with the people in front of her and gave Li Yang a short reminder that he didn't have to squawk so much for such a simple explanation.

"You could have just said Bookworms."

"We sometimes just call them Book Weevils, but your term sounds quite a bit nicer, I like it."

Li Yang wasn't bothered by her reminder and simply chuckled, his hands still resting behind his back as he started to walk away. People like this, so focused on the past that they lost all track of the present, were really not worth his time. But even if he thought that, it didn't mean that the other party would just accept his decision, especially after he insulted them.

"Li Yang, you may be one of the Third Elder's sons, but don't think of yourself as someone so gra....mmbph!"

The youth didn't get to finish his sentence, Li Yang's body almost blurring in front of his eyes. Before he realized it, Li Yang had appeared in front of him and shoved his hand into his mouth, grabbing a hold of his tongue and silencing him. He looked at the youth with an amused smirk, raising his other hand in a hushing gesture.

"Shhh, this is a library, you have to be quiet. If you can't hold your tongue, then you will have it held for you."

Since the other party couldn't accept his great graciousness of ignoring them, then he could only give them a little push and have some fun with them. He stretched out his arm while still grasping the youth's tongue, slipping his leg behind the youth's foot so that he tripped over it as he was forced back. The youth fell to the ground, Li Yang letting go of his tongue after it stretched for a bit, chuckling as he turned around and gave a "gentle" reminder.

"Ah? You fell? You need to be careful, I know that worms like you aren't used to having legs, so you need to be extra careful in places like this where the floor is so slippery."

The other people behind the youth that fell to the ground were even weaker than him so they obviously wouldn't dare to step forward, even if the other party was the Li Yang that was supposedly someone who never bothered to cultivate. That was especially so after he so easily toyed with and humiliated their Senior Brother. They didn't say anything, but Mei Kongxu did, glancing sideways at Li Yang as they continued to walk.

"I can really see why people in the sect would dislike you enough to call you a haunted brat."

Li Yang simply smirked at her words, using his hands to frame his face as they approached the crystal pillar.

"They're just jealous of my handsome face, that's all there is to it."