"..." Duanmu Yu rolled her eyes, took the wooden bowl, and took a shallow sip. She smacked her lips and frowned. "Apart from being a little bitter, this is just ordinary river water."

"Which proves the key definitely isn't in the water itself," Wei Zhao concluded.

"Then where is it?" Duanmu Yu asked.

"In the river," Wei Zhao said with utter certainty. Had the River of Divine Consciousness been an ordinary little stream, he would never have thought so—but this river was not only impossibly wide, it was also shrouded in a strange mist. By any measure it was out of the ordinary; had there been nothing fishy about it at all, Wei Zhao would have found that stranger still.

"So should we go down and take a look?" Duanmu Yu asked. Though the river stretched beyond sight, the water near at hand was perfectly clear—so clear one could see straight to the bottom. If they only groped about close to the bank, they could withdraw in time even if danger arose; there should be no great problem.

"Unless we're absolutely driven to it, it's best we don't." Wei Zhao shook his head firmly. He could not put his finger on the reason, but instinct told him this river was anything but simple. If they plunged in rashly, who knew what dire crisis they might stumble into.

"But other than going into the river, what else can we do?" Duanmu Yu said helplessly.

"Let's set the River of Divine Consciousness aside for now and look for the Divine Consciousness Grass first. Didn't you say it grows near the river?" Wei Zhao suggested. The matter of the river could wait; there was no harm in making plans once they had found a way to understand it. By comparison, the Divine Consciousness Grass was more urgent—if they could find it, whether the river could temper one's divine consciousness would hardly matter.

"Not near it—in it," Duanmu Yu corrected.

"In the river?" Wei Zhao was startled, and his brows knit. "Could it be that the river's so-called power to temper divine consciousness actually refers to the Divine Consciousness Grass itself?"

"That's possible." Duanmu Yu nodded. Apart from a few fragmentary passages in rare ancient texts, no substantiated conclusions about the River of Divine Consciousness had come down to them; the phrase "tempering divine consciousness" was merely a vague mention in passing. Perhaps it meant the Divine Consciousness Grass—the ancient fragments simply had not spelled it out.

"So we really have no choice but to go down?" Wei Zhao felt a headache coming on. His instincts were rarely wrong. Unless absolutely necessary, he truly did not want to enter that river.

"Not necessarily. We can wait for the tide to ebb, then go down and search for the Divine Consciousness Grass. So long as we come back up before the tide turns, we'll be fine," Duanmu Yu said. This was the method handed down by her sect—without it, how could the Divine Consciousness Grass that grew in the river be found so easily?

"Good." Wei Zhao's eyes lit up. A river this vast and boundless must have its ebb and flow. Going down at low tide still carried risk, but far less than plunging in blindly. The plan was workable.

Having settled on their strategy, the two sat in meditation by the river to rest and recover, gathering their strength while they waited for the ebb.

Before long, the water indeed receded, uncovering the riverbed near the bank little by little before their eyes. Wei Zhao and Duanmu Yu rose together, exchanged a glance, and went down into the river to search for the Divine Consciousness Grass.

Though the tide had ebbed, the water did not drain away completely—only a small stretch of riverbed lay exposed. The two could only make haste to search that stretch, and once the tide turned they must hurry back to shore and wait for the next ebb.

What neither had expected was that the bed of the River of Divine Consciousness was unexpectedly lush and green, carpeted everywhere with all manner of water weeds. To pick out a Divine Consciousness Grass they had never seen from among them was no easy task; even with the rough distinguishing features Duanmu Yu knew, it was far from simple.

"Let's take it slowly. There's no limit on how many tries we get—we search one stretch this time, another next time. If there really is Divine Consciousness Grass here, we're bound to find something eventually," Wei Zhao said.

"Mm. Then let's start from the deepest part of the riverbed, and work our way toward the bank as the tide comes in. That way we'll have a little more time," Duanmu Yu suggested.

"That works." Wei Zhao nodded.

At once the two began searching from the riverbed nearest the center of the channel—a spot fully three or four li from the shore. Even so, not even Wei Zhao's divine consciousness could probe how wide the river truly was, much less sense the far bank. The River of Divine Consciousness was so absurdly vast that anyone ignorant of the truth might well take it for a sea.

"This silt is rather deep." Wei Zhao frowned when they were halfway there. The mud already swallowed his thighs; at this rate, by the time they reached the farthest point it would rise past his chest. An ordinary person would struggle to shift a single step in such conditions, let alone hunt for Divine Consciousness Grass—and might not even make it back before the tide turned, losing their life in the river.

But that was for ordinary folk. To a cultivator of the Foundation Establishment stage it was nothing—at most a hindrance to movement. And Wei Zhao was a spirit-body besides: every part he ought to have was present, yet he weighed far less than his true body. With a little control, he would not sink even standing on the silt.

Of course, Wei Zhao actually had an even simpler, nimbler option—transforming into his primordial spirit. But this place gave him an indefinable sense of peril; should something go wrong in that state, he might not even have the chance to react. He dared not do it rashly.

Duanmu Yu, by contrast, was equally composed, treading the silt as though on flat ground—in fact she looked more graceful and nimble than Wei Zhao, and utterly silent. Noticing his surprised glance, she smiled and explained, "Falling Leaf Without Sound—it's a lightness skill peculiar to our Ye Ling Sect."

"Very impressive," Wei Zhao praised sincerely. It was no flattery: with his eye, he could see the value of Falling Leaf Without Sound. To use it merely to cope with silt was a waste of great talent—a soundless lightness skill of that kind displayed its true worth only in real combat. As the senior disciple of the Ye Ling Sect, Duanmu Yu was indeed no simple character.

Duanmu Yu smiled faintly, then bent to the task of searching for the Divine Consciousness Grass among the water weeds that grew everywhere. Wei Zhao was no less diligent—this was no place to linger, and they must move quickly.

Their efficiency was nothing to scoff at, yet even so they came up empty-handed. When the tide rose they returned to shore with nothing to show for it and looked at each other in dismay.

"Looks like this won't be easy. We'd better prepare ourselves for a long campaign," Duanmu Yu said with a bitter smile.