“Are there human heads growing on the trees?”
“No, they’re on the vines.”
“Could it be that those headless skulls on the ground have all merged into the vines?”
“All I know is that if we don’t get away quickly, we’ll soon have a couple more heads hanging on.” ……
Li Weiyi sprinted through the dense forest with Gao Huan on his shoulder. Behind them, the sound of swift “rustling” among the trees could be heard, mixed with various hoarse, human-like cackles. They raced until they reached a narrow valley, and Li Weiyi glanced back.
Against the dark cyan sky, a thick vine, as massive as a flood dragon, burst out from a cliff. Along it, heads dangled like eerie ornaments, swinging up into the hundred-meter-high misty dome.
“Run!”
They leapt over streams and jumped over gaps. Even when the sounds of the vines were no longer audible, neither dared to stop. Exhausted beyond measure and with the vines still not close enough to catch them, Li Weiyi swapped positions with Gao Huan.
Clinging tightly to Gao Huan’s back, Li Weiyi practiced the Jade Void Breathing Technique to quickly recover his breath and restore his strength. The two took turns and even ran side by side, spending the entire night in a desperate flight. When they finally burst out of the murky, gloomy forest into open air, they could hold on no longer.
One after the other, they sat down and then collapsed onto the grassy slope of a hill. Their sweat had long dried, and with every bit of strength spent, it felt as if even their souls had been sucked away.
“I can’t run anymore. I’m done. Li Ye, you go ahead… don’t worry about me… let me just hang on a bit longer. One more step and I’m dead.”
Gao Huan lay prone, utterly spent, wishing only to sleep soundly on the soft ground.
“Then I’ll hang on with you, too!”
Li Weiyi felt the same weariness, but also the relief of soft ground beneath him and the warm feel of the sky. Taking a deep breath…
“Eh!”
The stench of decaying, moldy rot in the forest suddenly vanished. Li Weiyi slowly opened his eyes, then turned over and sat up. He patted Gao Huan’s backside vigorously and burst into hearty laughter.
“Gao Yutang, get up, come on! That vine monster hasn’t caught up to us yet. Look—we’ve reached the human world. Blue sky, white clouds, green grass, wildflowers… hahahaha…”
The morning haze was gentle, the mountain breeze soft. All the ordinary things one would normally find on Earth now appeared to Li Weiyi like a celestial paradise out of a dream. To these two, who had just endured darkness, slaughter, demons, starvation, and anxiety, even the most mundane human world was more precious than any fairyland.
Li Weiyi closed his eyes again and drew in a long, deep breath. The scent of earth, fragrant grass, wildflowers… even the blue sky and white clouds were so sweet and enchanting. In that instant, all the fatigue melted away.
Gao Huan finally managed to sit up. As he took in the surroundings, a simple, foolish smile spread across his face. Then, almost like a madman, he tumbled over and crawled towards a pale yellow wildflower.
Plucking it, he held it close to his nose and sniffed deeply, repeating, “This is the smell… this is the smell…” After a night of frantic flight, their faces, hands, legs, and even clothes were marked all over by thorn scratches. Sweat that had dried was wet again, then dried once more.
They looked as disheveled as could be. When things finally began to calm down, the pain, exhaustion, and hunger retaliated in full force. All the food and water they had had were long lost in some ravine or stream, while the inedible items—the Yellow Dragon Sword, the Evil Camel Bell, and the money bag—remained intact.
They lay down again. Gao Huan chewed the wildflower in his mouth and said weakly, “We can’t just lie here. We can nibble on some roots and then search for a stream to drink our fill.”
“Yeah,” Li Weiyi replied, “if we can find a town where people live, have a hot bath, and bowl of soup noodles with cilantro—it’s something even immortals wouldn’t trade for.”
Gao Huan’s eyes lit up at Li Weiyi’s words, and his parched throat gulped, “But I don’t want cilantro… I want some braised beef with sauce…”
Suddenly.
A deep, resonant voice rang out above their heads, “What are you two whispering about?” In an instant, the two, already exhausted, worn out, and starving, sat up as if struck by lightning. They slowly turned their heads.
Following the shadow cast upon the ground, they looked upward. Not far off, on a hillside, stood a man in his early thirties with a robust build. His thick brows and large, intense eyes gave him an imposing look.
His broad face, with slightly wavy long hair and rough yet textured skin, added to his formidable presence. Gao Huan couldn’t understand the words he spoke, but he clearly sensed the terrifying aura emanating from him. Li Weiyi felt it even more intensely.
This man’s ability was undoubtedly far beyond his own; there was no other explanation for him appearing so silently out of nowhere. Even in his extreme exhaustion, Li Weiyi had never fully let down his guard.
Even as he and Gao Huan lay on the ground chatting and joking a little while ago, Li Weiyi had been carefully circulating heat and cold energy through the springs in his feet to recover his strength as quickly as possible.
What was even more frightening was not just the man’s cultivation or his imposing aura—it was the merciless look in his eyes, as if he had seen and ended countless lives. Shi Jiuzhai laughed and cursed, “Were you two sent out as scouts? Look at you—so miserable.
Did you encounter some evil spirit or perhaps a Departing Spirit?” Li Weiyi could grasp the general meaning of Shi Jiuzhai’s words almost immediately and understood the misunderstanding he and Gao Huan’s clothing had caused. The clothes they wore clearly resembled those of monks, but not in brown—they were in a wintergreen hue.
How was he supposed to explain that? Could he really say the two of them had stolen dead men’s clothes? The other party would probably prefer to believe that they had killed someone and stolen money along with their clothes.
Not daring to gamble on the man’s character, Li Weiyi quickly nodded and acted overly frightened, gesticulating wildly as he said, “Evil spirit! Lots of heads… vines… so thick…” Although he had studied the language of this world, years of disuse had left him rather rusty.
Yet his words just happened to match their present situation.
“Have you encountered the Thousand-Headed Dragon Vine?”
A flicker of caution flashed in Shi Jiuzhai’s eyes as he strode down the hillside. With a palm extended from afar, he struck toward Li Weiyi. The palm’s power roared like a raging storm.
Li Weiyi only felt a wild surge, as if a massive tidal wave had struck him, leaving his body as if battered by the depths of the ocean.
It seemed that a mistake had been revealed, so Li Weiyi gritted his teeth and channeled the swirling heat and cold energy from the spring eye at his feet, unleashing his own palm strike in response. Then, everything became a desperate contest of wills.
“Boom!”
Li Weiyi was flung aside, as if his internal organs were shattering. He could not get back up.
“Hahaha, no wonder you managed to escape with your life. You little wolf cub, you already opened three spring eyes, didn’t you? For someone your age, it’s impressive.”
Shi Jiuzhai walked over to Gao Huan and grabbed his face in a large hand, scrutinizing him. With growing astonishment, he said, “There’s even one with a Pure Immortal Body? Why is there not a trace of law power in him, just freshly transformed?”
Li Weiyi couldn’t possibly understand what was meant by “little wolf cub” or “three spring eyes.” He had only opened two spring eyes in his feet—where would a third come from? However, he knew well that the man was testing their strength rather than harboring suspicions outright.
To avoid giving away Gao Huan’s true potential, Li Weiyi quickly said, “Exactly… he has just successfully transformed…”
“The Thousand-Headed Dragon Vine must already be satiated, otherwise you two wouldn’t have managed to escape.”
Releasing his grip like iron-clad fingers, Shi Jiuzhai asked, “And who do you two belong to?” Li Weiyi guessed that their attire must represent some faction. This man before them was very likely a prominent, powerful figure from that faction.
In a flash, countless thoughts rushed through Li Weiyi’s mind. He laughed and said, “Of course we follow you, my lord.”
“Hahaha, you’re quite bright. Alright then, from now on you follow me, your king!”
Shi Jiuzhai turned and ascended back up the hillside, his fierce eyes fixed on a narrow, shady valley between two mountains. The mountains on either side rose steeply, towering over more than a thousand meters. Along the riverbank, a dirt path had been cleared, along which a massive procession of coffin bearers trudged continuously out from the mist-shrouded side.
Li Weiyi and Gao Huan, dragging their exhausted bodies, struggled up a small slope and joined Shi Jiuzhai. This high ground provided an expansive view.
Looking out over the landscape— Under the morning sun, one ancient mountain after another was enshrouded in white mist and bathed in warm rosy hues, resembling the dragon spine of the earth stretching towards the horizon and gradually fading into nothingness. The vast sky and expansive land, with wind billowing their robes like banners, stirred an overwhelming sense of heroism.
At the river valley’s edge, the coffin-bearing troops looked as tiny as ants. They wore coarse, gray-white linen clothes. Four people carried one coffin, a thousand coffins advanced in unison, like a long, white serpent winding its way out.
There were rhythmic shouts echoing among the mountains on either side, alongside the clatter of beastly hooves. Paper money fluttered across the dirt path, some pieces being swept up by the wind and drifting toward the banks of the great river.
At the very front, there was a colossal coffin made of a material as white as silver, bound tightly with hemp rope, as large as a full-sized house that could probably contain a hundred people. It was mounted on a cart drawn by a blue ox larger than an elephant.
Even the sound of the wheels could be heard clearly from a thousand meters away in the deep valley. Li Weiyi remarked, “Were these all dredged up from the Blood Sea?”
“Otherwise, what?”
Shi Jiuzhai laughed, “The Nine Li Tribe makes their fortune by dredging coffins from the Blood Sea Coffin Dock and selling them throughout the twenty-eight prefectures of Lingxiao. It’s a profit-making business with no capital at all, and only they have the monopoly. Who wouldn’t be jealous?”
“Starting today, our Earth Wolf King Army will also get a share of this business.”
With the world in chaos, how could Li Prefecture alone prosper?
“Come, let us return to base camp and wait at the Dragon Slaying Mouth up ahead.”
Shi Jiuzhai exhaled a mouthful of gray mist. The powerful wind carried the mist for several feet, engulfing Li Weiyi and Gao Huan. Then, with strides of over ten feet at a time, he leapt along the cliffside and raced down the opposite mountainside.
Caught in the gray mist, Li Weiyi and Gao Huan felt themselves enveloped by countless swirling clouds, as if devoid of weight, and they managed only to trail silently behind Shi Jiuzhai.
“Breathing out, the mist forms like clouds; stepping over rugged cliffs with a single bound. Is he still human?”
Both men couldn’t help but wonder such thoughts. Li Weiyi felt deep worry. The man before them must hold a top rank within his organization, and it was natural that he might not recall every subordinate by name.
But once they returned to the main camp, the two of them would inevitably be recognized. What kind of death would await them then? They had to find a way to extricate themselves as soon as possible.
At this moment, Li Weiyi had no longer any mind for tracking down the Bone Demon or rescuing Cai Yutong. All he could feel was that he and Gao Huan were facing death.
(End of Chapter)