The depths of the night in Black Pine Forest were cold enough to freeze even a soul.

Su Ming walked at the very front, each step leaving a deep footprint in the snow. His face was frighteningly pale, his lips already frozen to a bluish-purple, but his eyes shone with an intense light in the darkness.

With the dual enhancement of his observation micro state vision and the Formation Heart Seal, this originally pitch-black, chaotic pine forest transformed into a world constructed from countless lines.

"Kan position, three zhang and seven chi, at the root of that half-broken pine tree."

Su Ming stopped walking, pointing at an inconspicuous snowdrift ahead, his voice hoarse. "Lu Jun, go, peel back the bark, and carve a 'Concealment' character pattern three inches above the ground. Don't activate it with spiritual energy, just carve the form, don't infuse it."

Though Lu Jun was full of doubt, seeing Su Ming's serious expression, he didn't dare delay. He hurried over, stumbling through the deep snow with the others to follow the instructions.

"Instructor Su, it's done!"

"Good. Next, Li position, eastward, that toad-shaped rock."

Su Ming turned, pointing to another spot. "Dig down one chi below the rock and bury a 'Silence Talisman' there. Remember, bury the talisman upside down, the talisman head facing down, to connect with the earth energy."

"Upside down?" Another apprentice froze for a moment. "Won't that ruin it?"

"Just bury it!" Su Ming didn't have the energy to explain; the broken bone in his chest ached piercingly under the biting cold wind. "This is 'Earth Hearing.' It's not for making sound, it's for absorbing sound."

Time trickled by, drop by drop.

Su Ming led the three of them, like a group of sleepwalking madmen in the snowy night, continuously digging holes, carving characters, and arranging stones within a five-hundred-zhang radius around the stone house.

It was an excruciatingly dull and painful process.

The spiritual energy within Su Ming's body had long since hit rock bottom. He was completely relying on overdrafting his life force to maintain the observation micro state. Each time he pointed out a location, each time he calibrated a node, felt like trying to forcibly squeeze water from a dried-out sponge.

"Just three more nodes..."

Su Ming bit the tip of his tongue, using the sharp, coppery taste to stay alert. "Master, help me calculate the position of the formation core. The core on this remnant diagram is mobile; I can't pin it down."

"Nonsense, this formation borrows wind momentum and earth energy, of course it's mobile."

Lin Yu grumbled irritably, but his soul power surged forth without hesitation, helping Su Ming stabilize his teetering Consciousness Sea. "Qian position shifting to Dui position, the vortex center at the wind gap! Right there!"

Su Ming's gaze sharpened, locking onto the long-rotted chimney atop the stone house.

That was precisely where the wind and snow converged, the most chaotic node of airflow in this area.

"Lu Jun! Give me all the spare formation flags!"

Su Ming caught the bundle of formation flags Lu Jun threw over.

"Disperse!"

Su Ming's ten fingers moved like wheels. In that instant, he seemed to return to the Repair Hall's backyard, filled with the smell of scrap and machine oil, to those countless days and nights spent dismantling formation plates.

Over a dozen formation flags scattered in the air but didn't fall. Instead, guided by the last dregs of Su Ming's water-attribute spiritual energy, they shot precisely into the surrounding tile cracks.

The position of each flag was exact to the last detail.

"Combine!"

Su Ming landed, kneeling on one knee on the roof, his hands slamming down on the chimney opening.

*Pfft.*

A mouthful of blood sprayed out, splattering onto the formation core.

But this blood didn't freeze. It was instantly absorbed by the formation.

The next moment.

There was no earth-shattering radiance, nor deafening thunder.

Only an extremely bizarre sensation instantly enveloped everyone present.

Lu Jun was standing in the snow, shivering uncontrollably, when suddenly, he felt the sound of the wind around him... vanish.

No, not vanish.

The wind was still blowing, the snow still falling, but he could no longer hear that howling noise. It was as if the wind and snow were detouring around this area, or as if this area itself had become part of the wind and snow.

He instinctively looked back at the stone house.

What he saw made his hair stand on end—

Clearly, the stone house was right before his eyes. Clearly, Su Ming was still kneeling on the roof. But in his perception, there was nothing there.

If he closed his eyes and swept the area with his divine sense, it was just an empty stretch of Black Pine Forest, a cold rock, or a pile of lifeless snow.

"This... what is this..." Lu Jun's eyes widened in disbelief as he stared at his own hands. "Has my divine sense failed?"

"Not failed."

Su Ming's weak voice came from the roof. He looked as if he'd been fished out of water, sweat and blood mingled together, instantly freezing into icy slush.

"It's assimilation."

Su Ming slid down from the roof with difficulty, collapsing into the thick snow, not even having the strength to move a finger.

"This is the 'Hidden Dragon Formation.'"

"As long as you don't actively release spiritual energy to attack... to the outside world, this stone house, along with all of us, is just a rock in Black Pine Forest, a piece of rotten wood."

Lin Yu added a sentence within the Consciousness Sea: "Commonly known as—the 'Playing Dead Grand Formation.'"

With the formation complete, the spiritual energy fluctuations around the stone house were suppressed to the extreme. The heat radiation originally produced by the burning underfloor heating was also cleverly locked inside the house by the formation, then dispersed and channeled into the earth through the underground nodes, not a single wisp escaping outward.

Su Ming was carried into the house by Lu Jun and the others, all lending a hand.

Once inside, the sense of isolation from the world grew even stronger. The sound of wind and snow outside became extremely distant, as if separated by a thick layer of water.

"Everyone, be quiet."

Su Ming lay on the stone bed, his face ashen like paper, but his gaze was more focused than ever before.

"The formation may be complete, but it also blocks most of our perception. Right now, we are the blind and the deaf."

"Lie down! Don't move!" Lin Yu barked. "Leave the rest to me. Since this formation is connected to your seal, I can borrow your divine sense and use this formation as a giant stethoscope."

Su Ming gave up struggling, slowly closing his eyes.

Lin Yu, leveraging the resonance between Su Ming and the Hidden Dragon Formation's earth veins, amplified his perception infinitely, piercing through the wind and snow, extending all the way to the ruins of Iron Wall Pass three hundred li away.