Chapter 2666: Chapter 2667: The Gold Palace’s Wealth and Might

"Donghai Yin Jiao Wood?" Bai Ruozhu had never heard of it before.

"It’s said to be a type of tree that only grows in the darkest depths at the bottom of the Donghai. They also say Yin Jiao Wood is guarded by flood dragons, so it’s extremely rare. But it’s not afraid of seawater—soaking in the sea for ten thousand years won’t rot it, so you can imagine how valuable it is. This door actually used so much Yin Jiao Wood, that’s really something," Jiang Yichun said.

Bai Ruozhu looked up at the top of the door. It really was enormous.

"Does Danliang have this Donghai Yin Jiao Wood?" she asked.

Jiang Yichun shook his head. "Not sure, I’ve never seen it."

"Then how can you be sure it’s Donghai Yin Jiao Wood?" Bai Ruozhu was intrigued.

Jiang Yichun’s expression shifted, his brows knitting tightly. "I don’t know. What I just said isn’t something I knew before. It just suddenly popped into my head, and I inexplicably recognized the material of this door."

"Huh?" Bai Ruozhu was a little shocked. "You only got it after coming here? There’s something off about this place."

"Not exactly. Something similar has happened before—might be the fish tail," Jiang Yichun said.

Only then did Bai Ruozhu remember his fish tail. The light had been too dim just now for her to see clearly; now she noticed his legs had already turned back, it was just that his pants were ripped into strips.

She hurriedly took out a new pair of pants from the Space. "Hurry up and change."

Jiang Yichun grunted in a muffled voice. Every time he turned into a fish tail his pants were ruined; it was just too damn坑, wasn’t it.

By the time Jiang Yichun finished changing, Bai Ruozhu was already walking toward the Donghai Yin Jiao Wood door. She carefully stretched out her hand and lightly touched it.

"Ah, this door doesn’t feel like wood!" Bai Ruozhu cried out. "It feels like, like human skin—cool and smooth!"

If it were warm, she would definitely suspect this door was alive.

Jiang Yichun went over and pulled her hand back. "That’s the nature of Yin Jiao Wood. That’s why flood dragons like it—they feel it’s like their companions’ bodies."

Bai Ruozhu touched it again; the texture really was quite nice. If you made a chair out of it, sitting on it in the summer heat would definitely be comfortable.

Jiang Yichun also reached out to touch it, but the moment his hand made contact with the door, there was a dull creaking sound, and the door slowly opened a crack!

"You..." Bai Ruozhu looked at him. It was obvious that nothing had happened when she touched it twice, but the door opened as soon as Jiang Yichun touched it. That was definitely not normal.

Jiang Yichun looked at his own hand, equally confused.

"Could this place have been built by Merfolk, and the door automatically opens when a Merfolk comes?" Bai Ruozhu suddenly thought of this and immediately grew excited. "Let’s go in and take a look. Maybe we can find some information related to Merfolk Island."

"Alright." Jiang Yichun took her hand. The two of them pushed the crack wider, then turned sideways and slipped in.

They had barely entered when another creak sounded behind them, and the door closed by itself.

The two of them exchanged a look and continued forward.

Inside the door was a long passageway. The passageway resembled a stone bridge; on either side were bottomless chasms. It was so dark below that the naked eye couldn’t see how deep it was, nor what lay beneath.

The passage wasn’t narrow—a horse carriage could pass through. The two of them held hands and walked side by side with great care, and soon reached the end of the passage.

Here stood a paifang formed by four gold-colored pillars. The archway was very tall, and there seemed to be words written on it, but from where the two of them stood below they could only see a patch of darkness.

"Wait here, I’ll go up and take a look." Jiang Yichun let go of Bai Ruozhu’s hand, raised the oil lamp in one hand, grabbed the gold pillar with the other, and used light footwork to climb up the pillar, quickly flipping onto the top of the archway.

The oil lamp lit up the area above. With the added light, Bai Ruozhu could see from below two bold, swirling characters: Gold Palace.

Bai Ruozhu curled her lip. "What a tacky name. Not a shred of extra information in it."

Jiang Yichun checked around up there again before sliding back down along the pillar.

"Nothing else written. Let’s keep going."

As they walked further in, the feel under their feet changed. Before, they had been walking on slightly damp, moldy soil, but now they were stepping onto large stone bricks.

He held the oil lamp lower to illuminate the ground. Sure enough, it was a road paved with big stone bricks, but on closer inspection, tiny specks of gold light could be seen glinting in the bricks.

"This is Deep Sea Gold Ying Stone," Jiang Yichun said. "This kind of stone is very hard, extremely difficult to cut, but it contains strands of golden light inside and looks very beautiful."

As he spoke, he covered the oil lamp with his sleeve. When the light dimmed, the faint, star-like gleams on the ground appeared.

Looking out, faint starlight spread in the darkness; it was very beautiful.

"To match the gold pillars outside, the owner of this Palace really does love the color gold. But this ’gold’ probably has nothing to do with gold metal; the pillars outside aren’t coated in actual gold," Bai Ruozhu said.

Jiang Yichun nodded. "Right, it’s not gold metal. It’s a very rare kind of seabed plant. Its sap is gold-colored and doesn’t fade with time, unlike the Golden Buddha statues in Temples, where the gold leaf on the outside wears off and dulls over time."

"It definitely costs a fortune too." Bai Ruozhu curled her lip. At first glance the place looked kind of tacky, but once you dug into it, it was extravagance on a monstrous level.

The oil lamp was raised again. The two of them continued forward, and trees gradually appeared on both sides of the path. Bai Ruozhu had never seen any of them before; some, Jiang Yichun couldn’t name either.

In some places the plants had withered. They had probably planted flowers there, but flowers have short lives and had long since dried up.

Before long, a large tree appeared right in the middle of the road. It was tall, with an especially huge canopy spreading out in all directions. It looked very much like a Banyan Tree, but Bai Ruozhu knew it couldn’t be one.

"What tree is this?" she asked.

Jiang Yichun looked up for a long while. "No idea. I just feel it’s very special, but it’s about to die."

The sound of trickling water drifted over from afar, immediately drawing their attention. They walked over and found a small, exquisite fountain, with some Artificial Hills built beside it—but these weren’t the usual kind of artificial rocks, they were huge corals.

It was said that a piece of East Sea Coral half the height of a person was worth a fortune, yet here there were corals taller than Jiang Yichun, and more than one at that—and they weren’t the common red coral, but gold!

It was yet another confirmation of the name "Gold Palace."

But Bai Ruozhu didn’t have a good impression of this name. It always reminded her of how the Wuhan Emperor once promised Chen Ajiao a Gold Palace, only to cast her aside once he held power in his hands.

They went closer and finally saw that in the small Fountain Pond, a few Lianhua were floating. Unfortunately, they had all dried up, but one could still vaguely tell that before withering, they had also been gold-colored.

"Wow, gold Lianhua—what a shame they died like this." Bai Ruozhu felt a bit rueful.

Jiang Yichun squeezed her hand. "Try putting them into your Fish pond and see if they can come back to life. If not, maybe you can at least keep them as medicinal ingredients."

"Great idea!" Bai Ruozhu reached out and tugged, sending the few Jin Lian into the Space.