Ji Shiyou and Mingyue, who had swapped bodies, reached an agreement to return to Sifang Mountain first.
Ji Shiyou then took Mingyue and flew high into the sky on his sword.
An amusing scene unfolded on the Yingyue sword.
A petite girl stood at the front, holding a sword seal with a determined gaze.
Behind her, a tall and handsome man with his eyes closed.
He tightly hugged the girl's waist, screaming in terror.
"Mind your image."
Ji Shiyou's face was filled with disdain, his head aching from Mingyue's incessant noise.
He thought, thankfully, no one could see this.
If he were seen in such a state, he would be too ashamed to face anyone.
With this thought, Ji Shiyou's expression faltered, and he controlled the Yingyue sword beneath him to land.
"Are we at Sifang Mountain? If not, why did you stop?"
Feeling solid ground beneath her feet, Mingyue opened her eyes and asked with a dazed, innocent expression.
Upon realizing they weren't at Sifang Mountain, her expression turned to confusion.
Then, she sternly questioned him, her expression changing as if she were performing a face-changing act.
"Control your expressions. This is not Sifang Mountain. We might be trapped, likely within an array."
Seeing his own face shift through several expressions in an instant, Ji Shiyou worried about his facial muscles cramping.
His face, in twenty-odd years, had never experienced such intense activity.
He doubted his own face could even produce so many expressions.
Therefore, he reminded her to manage her expressions.
He certainly didn't want his face to be ruined by Mingyue after they swapped back.
Ji Shiyou suspected they were trapped in an array because, after flying for so long, he had only seen mountains, rivers, grasslands, and forests.
There had been no sign of people, cities, or villages.
Thus, he decisively stopped flying and landed on the ground.
Hearing Ji Shiyou's words, Mingyue remained silent, feigning death.
"Do you know something? What's the origin of that exploding jade token?"
Ji Shiyou saw Mingyue shrinking her neck, not uttering a word.
He immediately sensed something was wrong. This girl was usually a chatterbox.
Her current silence indicated a problem.
He suddenly recalled the white light and explosion before they swapped bodies.
The source was the jade token in Mingyue's hand, so he directly inquired about its origin.
"I'll tell you, that jade token can activate the Qian Tian Illusion Array. So, we might be in an illusion right now. I didn't intentionally hide it; you just didn't ask!"
Mingyue had been worried all along. She hadn't told Ji Shiyou about it, harboring a sliver of hope.
She thought that perhaps the illusion would dissipate when the jade token shattered and exploded.
If she had told him, it might have aroused Ji Shiyou's suspicion, so she hadn't mentioned it.
But now, it seemed the Qian Tian Illusion Array had not vanished.
And she and Ji Shiyou were deeply trapped within it, so she decided to reveal the truth.
She stated it with a righteous indignation, even if her logic was flawed.
"Understood."
Ji Shiyou replied calmly. He didn't understand why Mingyue was so aggressive, like a bristling hedgehog, when he had merely asked about the jade token's origin to strategize.
Why was she looking at him with such a "death before dishonor" expression?
"Are we trapped? Are we going to die here?"
Mingyue found Ji Shiyou's reaction strange. Knowing she had implicated him, causing the body swap and their entry into the illusion, shouldn't he be angry?
This Qian Tian Illusion Array was the masterpiece of the renowned array master Hu Ying from three hundred years ago in the Yuehua Realm.
The array shifted with the mind, its transformations myriad, and no one had ever emerged alive from it.
Although named an illusion array, it was, in fact, a killing array.
However, Master Hu Ying died young, and the array diagrams were never left behind.
Only a few jade tokens inscribed with the array were scattered across the land.
Each jade token could be used three times to activate the Qian Tian Illusion Array.
Every single one was worth a fortune, yet impossible to acquire.
Mingyue had stumbled upon it by chance when she robbed a rogue cultivator.
The rogue cultivator, ignorant of its value, treated the jade token as an antique piece of jade, much to Mingyue's good fortune.
However, the jade token was damaged and had already been used twice.
Upon recognizing it, Mingyue treated it like a treasure.
Today, she had reluctantly used it to trap Ji Shiyou and his group, only to end up trapping herself.
Thinking of the Qian Tian Illusion Array's power, Mingyue felt a pang of despair.
Since Ji Shiyou wasn't blaming her, she felt he was a decent person.
Unconsciously, she began to see him as someone she could confide in, so she pouted and asked.
"Don't be afraid. Although the Qian Tian Illusion Array is formidable, the jade token shattered and lost its medium before activation. It was damaged and couldn't unleash its full power. As long as we find a loophole, we can definitely break out of the array."
Seeing Mingyue's somewhat helpless expression, Ji Shiyou felt an inexplicable softness in his heart.
Uncharacteristically, he spoke at length to explain their current situation.
He even reached out to pat Mingyue's head to comfort her.
However, his body was too tall, making it awkward.
He raised his hand, then lowered it.
For the first time, he found being too tall truly annoying.
"How do you know the Qian Tian Illusion Array was damaged?"
Mingyue asked skeptically, finding it hard to believe.
She had thought the Qian Tian Illusion Array would disappear with the exploding jade token.
Yet, it had still appeared and trapped her and Ji Shiyou.
Looking around at their surroundings, it seemed utterly real, indistinguishable from the outside world.
She couldn't discern any damage to the Qian Tian Illusion Array.
"The Qian Tian Illusion Array changes with the mind. The array should trap the spirit. Our bodies have swapped, and now both our bodies and spirits are within the array. This proves the array has become chaotic, leading to our souls swapping. It also proves that the Qian Tian Illusion Array was damaged by the explosion. Furthermore, the Qian Tian Illusion Array is akin to a perfect world. If it were intact, when I thought just now about the lack of cities and villages, the array would have conjured the scenery I wished to see. But it didn't, which indicates the array's power has been diminished."
Ji Shiyou didn't know what had come over him. When Mingyue asked, he patiently explained.
He was well-read and knowledgeable, and he had learned about the renowned Master Hu Ying and the famous Qian Tian Illusion Array from ancient texts in the Jin Wu Palace.
"Then how can we get out?"
Upon hearing there was a chance to break free and not be trapped here, Mingyue became excited. She grabbed Ji Shiyou's hand and asked enthusiastically.
Ji Shiyou wanted to pull away; he disliked physical contact.
But then he remembered it was his own body and gave up, allowing Mingyue to hold his hand.
"Actually, Master Hu Ying long ago revealed the method to break the Qian Tian Illusion Array. Master Hu Ying was a very arrogant man, confident in his Qian Tian Illusion Array. All illusion arrays are unreal; the principles are the same. They trap people without their knowledge, using desires and inner demons to guide the trapped individuals into losing themselves, destroying their will and lives. However, the prerequisite is that the trapped person must not realize they are in an illusion. Once they realize they are in an illusion, the array self-destructs. Therefore, others using illusion arrays typically employ sneak attacks, acting in secret to draw their opponents into the illusion unknowingly. But Master Hu Ying, in his arrogance, believed the Qian Tian Illusion Array was so perfect, indistinguishable from the real world, that even those aware they were in an illusion couldn't detect any discrepancies. Thus, Master Hu Ying did the opposite. When he activated the Qian Tian Illusion Array, he never attacked sneakily. Instead, he would clearly inform those entering the array that it was an illusion. He would also openly reveal the method of破解: within the illusion, anyone who finds even a single detail that differs from the real world will cause the array to disappear."
Ji Shiyou recounted the information about Master Hu Ying from the ancient books he had seen in the Jin Wu Palace to Mingyue.
"Then isn't that just finding fault? I'm best at that."
Mingyue hadn't expected the method to break the Qian Tian Illusion Array to be so simple and exclaimed excitedly.
However, after trying, she realized how difficult it truly was.