# 1844
Chapter 1837: Arrival at the Antarctic
"This guy... what exactly is he thinking?"
Lin Qiye stared at the familiar small courtyard before him. After a long while, he finally came back to his senses, furrowed his brows, and muttered to himself.
He found himself increasingly unable to understand An Qingyu.
When An Qingyu had first betrayed Great Xia, Lin Qiye had always felt that she must have some苦衷 (difficult reasons), that her heart still belonged to Great Xia. But then she had killed Cao Yuan... His trust in An Qingyu kept hovering at the edge of his bottom line, sometimes high, sometimes low. At one point, he had even believed that An Qingyu had truly betrayed them.
But later, upon closer reflection, Cao Yuan's death was also full of mysteries. Setting other things aside, since the "prison" that was Cao Yuan had been broken, what about the Black King that had been imprisoned inside? The Black King, who should have regained freedom, never appeared. Even Cao Yuan's body couldn't be found... What had actually happened at that time?
Looking at the Beijing courtyard before him now, Lin Qiye's doubts erupted once again. How could someone who had been determined to betray Great Xia secretly recreate such a building in the Cthulhu Faction's main camp within the Mist?
What was her purpose in recreating the Beijing courtyard? Nostalgia? Was she nostalgic for Jiang Er, or... [Night Watch]?
After contemplating for a long while, Lin Qiye could only set his doubts aside for the moment. He crossed the courtyard full of maple leaves and walked toward the Mist Wall.
However, before he could touch the Mist Wall, an invisible barrier blocked his path. Dense mysterious patterns emerged in the void, as if some kind of force field was sealing him inside.
Lin Qiye frowned slightly. Just as he was about to attempt forcing his way through the force field, a voice spoke from within the mist:
"It's useless. This禁制 (restriction) was created by me fusing together the defensive formations from Asgard and the Divine Temple. If it were your Seraph's avatar trapped in here, perhaps there would be a chance of opening it... but this uncompleted deity's body of yours cannot break through."
An Qingyu's figure emerged from within the Mist Wall. She stood outside the force field, facing Lin Qiye.
"This courtyard— what's the story behind it?" Lin Qiye, seeing An Qingyu had arrived, directly asked the question weighing on his mind.
An Qingyu glanced at the courtyard and replied calmly, "Although I can work without rest when it comes to dissection, that doesn't mean I don't need rest at all... Is it strange to build a place to stay in a location like this?"
"If you were just looking for a place to stay, was it necessary to completely recreate a courtyard?"
"For me, recreating a building that once existed is simpler than creating one from nothing."
"...This place is where you live?"
"Yes."
"Then now that I've moved in, where will you stay?"
An Qingyu glanced at him, turned, and walked toward the Mist Wall.
"You should worry about yourself instead... Don't try to force your way out. Even if you break through the restriction, the Black Goat is right outside. I won't move against it while you're here, but if you deliver yourself to it, I won't be able to save you from its hands."
With those words, An Qingyu's figure completely vanished between the Mist Walls.
The Beijing courtyard fell into silence once more.
Lin Qiye stood alone at the original spot, thoughtfully rubbing his chin...
"She went out of her way to seal me in the ice coffin, refusing to let me see the process of entering this place. This means the method of entry isn't particularly difficult—as long as one sees it, there's a high probability of being able to learn it.
I need to think of a way to confirm this place's specific location..."
An Qingyu returned to the laboratory. Her fingertip traced gently across the wall, and the extinguished lights flickered on one after another.
The spotless laboratory was bathed in light. At the same time, low rumbling sounds of machinery emerged as one unknown device after another started up. At the very top of the laboratory, there was even a miniature signal collection tower.
An Qingyu took a white coat from the table and draped it over herself. She walked to one of the devices, her fingers tapping rapidly.
As the light at the top of the signal tower flickered, steady waves transmitted across the screen.
An Qingyu's eyes gazed at those waves, her expression utterly calm.
A gray figure flew in from the distance, landing lightly behind her. Fish Four lowered his head respectfully and spoke:
"The task you assigned us has been completed."
"Have the messages all been spread?"
"Yes."
"What's the reaction from Divine Desire Paradise and the Hidden God (Yin Shen)?"
"After hearing the news, the Holy Sovereign of Divine Desire Paradise has already quickly organized forces and set off heading south... As for the Hidden God, their movements have always been rather secretive. We're not sure if they've taken action. Fish Two is still gathering intelligence."
An Qingyu's eyes narrowed slightly as she spoke coolly:
"In this world, there is no need for chess pieces that don't obey, nor chess pieces that slip out of control...
Take five Cthulhu Faction deities and go destroy the Hidden God."
"Yes."
Fish Four nodded. His form dissolved into a streak of light and vanished quickly.
Shortly after Fish Four left, the waves on the screen before An Qingyu, which had been perfectly steady, suddenly began to fluctuate violently!
The waves were chaotic and irregular, seemingly without any pattern. At the same time, the lights throughout the entire laboratory flickered intermittently. A faint rustling sound emerged from the players at the laboratory's edges.
Under the flickering lights, An Qingyu's gaze fixed intently on the equipment screen before her. In a voice only she could hear, she murmured:
"Found you... Jiang Er."
Mist.
A golden streak of light flashed across the heavens like lightning.
Although he was within the Cthulhu Faction gods' main camp, Lin Qiye had by now devoted the vast majority of his attention to his Seraph avatar.
After all, the most pressing matter at hand was still finding a way to break through the Temporal Maze and rescue Nyx, the Night Goddess...
As Lin Qiye drew closer to the extreme south, the surrounding temperature dropped rapidly. Over the endless sea, except for the boundless mist, no land of any kind could be seen.
After a moment, fragments of ice began appearing along the ocean currents. At the edge of the horizon, masses of snow-white land appeared in Lin Qiye's field of vision.
Lin Qiye had visited various divine realms and continents, but the Antarctic was a place he had never been before. Seeing that world shrouded in glaciers, he still felt somewhat novelty.
It was only after arriving at the Antarctic himself that Lin Qiye realized just how vast this place was. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but ocean and ice—even larger than the entire area of Great Xia.
According to what Wang Mian had said, they had wandered across the Antarctic ice for several days before accidentally entering the Temporal Maze. So there was no fixed route to enter the maze. To re-enter the Temporal Maze, one could only rely on luck or spend sufficient time exploring.
Fortunately, the one who had come here now was his Seraph avatar. If he really couldn't find it, he could just use "Miracle" to try several times.
Lin Qiye flew over the Antarctic for a long while, carefully surveying the general terrain. Just as he was about to find a place to land and throw his sword to gamble on a direction, his gaze suddenly stopped on a spot below.
There, on the snow-white ice, more than a dozen figures were gathered together, moving slowly. They carried a heavy black sedan chair, and a strange fragrance was frantically spreading from within that carriage...