After saying this, he turned back to look at Bailan and added, “I promised you, it will be honoured. Now, he can die. You can take your revenge, and we will help you take your revenge, on the condition that it does not ruin the chance of immortality that everyone has worked so hard to obtain. However, the matter is also easy to handle. Find a suitable opportunity, arrange for an inside man to get him isolated.”
As soon as these words were spoken, the resentment in Bailan’s eyes surfaced once again, “I want him to be unable to live or die!”
The man in the iron mask: “When the time comes, whether you want to kill him directly or keep him to slowly torture, either is fine, as you wish!”
“Thank you, sir.”
Bailan seemed to have put aside the unease and fear in her heart, and once again had the motivation to continue forward.
At this time, the person who had gone to scout returned, pointed in the direction that Yu Qing and the others had gone, and reported, “Sir, they went that way.”
The man in the iron mask turned back to look at Gao Yuan, “Currently, you are the only one here suitable for keeping watch and scouting the path. I will leave it to you.”
“Yes.”
Gao Yuan acknowledged, then leaped up into the air. While in the air, he transformed into a large white-headed eagle, flapping his wings and flying away.
After watching him leave for a moment, the man in the iron mask looked again at the golden halberd in his hand, quite puzzled, “Isn’t it a key? Did I hear wrong? Going through so much trouble to get this thing, how could it have been left on the ground outside? It can’t be fake, can it? Didn’t it already open the entrance?”
No one made a sound at this question, and no one around him could answer it, because the informant had not informed them of this aspect of the situation.
In any case, the man in the iron mask first firmly grasped the golden halberd in his own hand. Even if someone beside him offered to hold it for him, he refused, preferring to hold it himself…
After walking out of the jungle, Yu Qing and the others were once again faced with a vast expanse of gobi, with undulating mountains in the distance.
Looking back, they realised that the rather large jungle was in a depression.
Yu Qing, looking around everywhere, wondered, “Where is the gold?”
As soon as the words fell, Nan Zhu excitedly pointed, “There!”
Everyone followed his gesture and saw a shiny, golden object on the ground not far away.
Nan Zhu had already flashed over, landing seven or eight zhang away, bending down to pick up something, and waving at everyone.
Everyone immediately rushed over, and upon closer inspection, they found it was a gold nugget about half the size of a palm.
Everyone took turns to confirm it in their hands, weighing it, estimating it to be just over a jin. With their horizons, how could they think much of such a small thing.
“Look over there.” Nan Zhu pointed to a few more places, and everyone looked, seeing several more golden reflections near and far. He was so happy he could barely stand it, saying, “Gold nuggets can be picked up casually on the ground. It really is a good place. What are you all standing around for? Hurry up, let’s start picking!”
Everyone looked at each other.
Mu Aotie suddenly threw the gold nugget in his hand at Nan Zhu’s feet, clearly disdainful of it.
Nan Zhu was immediately unhappy, picked it up and dusted it off, “I say, Old Nine, you have only been rich for a few days and now you look down on this? Don’t you understand that many a little makes a mickle?”
Yu Qing raised his hand to signal him to stop, “Stop talking nonsense. These one or two jin things, forget about getting rich, just to cover our shortfall we would need at least millions of pieces. In this place, picking like this, we would be picking until the Year of the Monkey.”
Nan Zhu was stunned, then looked again at the sporadic glints around, thought it over, and casually threw away the gold nugget in his hand, sighing, “Then we at least need to find a small gold mountain to move, to satisfy our appetite.”
“There should be some.” Wu Hei dropped this sentence and continued striding forward.
Everyone immediately understood that inside the Golden Ruins, piles of gold should be plentiful.
Yu Qing looked at the slanting sun, “The mountain looks close but the horse dies running to it. Stop dawdling, let’s get moving. We should reach those mountains before dark to search again.”
Indeed, it would be inconvenient once it got dark. The group immediately continued on their way, even more enthusiastic than Wu Hei.
Watching the people flying past him one by one, Little Black immediately felt itchy, sitting in the basket behind Wu Hei and shaking vigorously, “Fly, want to fly…”
As his son wished, Wu Hei quickened his pace, walking as fast as flying, faster and faster, drifting across the ground like a wisp of green smoke, overtaking the flying crowd from behind.
The people who were occasionally landing and flying saw the figure drifting below them, all shocked, only then realising that this person’s strength far surpassed theirs. Everyone had been misled by the fact that Old Master Wu had easily taken him hostage before.
The reason he was easily captured was, first, he might have been negligent in that situation, not expecting Old Master Wu to still be alive. Secondly, it was obvious that Old Master Wu’s strength was even stronger. One could tell from Old Master Wu’s moves, he clearly possessed the strength of the High Mystery realm.
Watching the figure drifting below fly into the distance, Ning Chaoyi said to Yu Qing, who was flying alongside him, “He actually has the strength of the Upper Mystery!”
Yu Qing smiled bitterly. He had heard the conversation between the old man and his son. Wu Hei had lived for at least several hundred years. Wasn’t it normal for his cultivation to break through to the Upper Mystery? Most people stopped at the Initial Mystery realm in their lifetime, largely due to the problem of lifespan. The more time one lived, the greater the probability of a breakthrough.
Everyone was flying now, so they arrived very quickly. Before long, they flew out of the gobi and stood on a mountain peak, looking out at the thousands of mountains and valleys, all bare and barren, not a blade of grass growing.
As for Wu Hei, he had already gone far away, his figure faintly visible rushing towards the highest mountain peak in the distance.
“Should we still follow him?” Nan Zhu asked.
Yu Qing sighed, “Forget it. Different paths do not make for mutual plans. He will look for his things, and we will make our fortune.”
Ning Chaoyi, standing nearby, asked curiously, “Don’t you want to find the ‘Heavenly Spring’ to cleanse your body and achieve immortality?”
Yu Qing chuckled, “I would like to, but so far, every so-called immortality I have seen is not normal. They are all neither human nor ghost. Just thinking about it is frightening. Furthermore, his father is currently fighting to the death with Old Master Wu. The fighting and killing of two High Mystery cultivators, if we get involved, we won’t be enough to fill the gaps between their teeth. Old Master Wu is also looking for the ‘Three-Life Spring’. If we bump into him, it won’t be good. Do you think he will let bygones be bygones for the few swords we stabbed into him? Let’s not overthink it. Let’s get the gold first. With money, we can talk about future matters later.”
Speaking of the matter of stabbing Old Master Wu a few times, Shen Qingcheng glanced at his silent mother, and quickly nodded, “Yes, yes, it’s better to leave early.”
Ning Chaoyi smiled at Nie Pinlan, “Truly the mindset of the young. Young people don’t have such a great desire for longevity. If it were an old person, they would probably spare no cost.”
No one had anything more to say. The group immediately scattered to search, looking among the thousands of mountains and valleys, still occasionally seeing gold nuggets on the ground.
It was not long before Nan Zhu jumped onto a mountain peak, waving at everyone in the sunset, “Here, come here.”
Everyone heard the sound and emerged, flying over one after another. Under Nan Zhu’s guidance, they jumped down into a valley together.
“Wahaha, it seems this one still has the better fortune!”
Nan Zhu laughed wildly, his fat body trembling, waving his hand to both sides with the air of letting everyone admire to their heart’s content.
Without him saying it, everyone’s eyes were already reflecting a sea of gold.
Gold! On both sides of the valley walls, everywhere were large chunks of gold, truly resplendent with gold. And in the valley, large, relatively round gold lumps were all taller than a person.
Nan Zhu jumped onto a gold lump as tall as one zhang, excitedly saying, “My treat, everyone take as much as you like. Whoever takes it, it’s theirs.”
The air of a nouveau riche was in full force. He had never been this generous in his life.
Everyone indeed had expressions of endless amazement in their eyes.
Ning Chaoyi shook his head, “If all the gold in this canyon were taken out, I’m afraid gold all over the world would become worthless.”
Yu Qing said, “I think everyone should still work together, partner up to get the gold here out first, get as much out as possible, and then split it evenly when we get outside. How about that?”
Nie Pinlan sighed, “Split it however you like, no one will fight over it. One person couldn’t eat it all anyway.”
Qiao Qie’er also sighed, “Gold here is no different from stone.”
Yu Qing lifted his sleeves, “We don’t know when the exit will close, so don’t rest. Let’s work through the night.”
Everyone immediately straightened their clothes, preparing to work. There was no way around it, they would definitely have to carry it like labourers.
Just as everyone was discussing the division of labour, there was a sudden “buzz” in the valley. Some soil and stones clattered down from the cliff, and then “buzzing” sounds came one after another.
Everyone paused in slight alarm, looking around, then one after another flew up and returned to the mountain. They immediately heard the rumbling sounds of fighting coming from the distance. Looking over, it was coming from the direction of the highest mountain peak in the distance.
Everyone immediately wondered if something had happened to Wu Hei.
Shing! Yu Qing drew his sword and immediately flew over at full speed. Everyone followed.
When they arrived at that highest mountain, they suddenly saw Wu Hei lying on the mountaintop waving at them, signalling them not to expose themselves. His son, Little Black, was also lying beside him.
The sounds of fighting came from behind the mountain, with dust churning up.
Everyone realised it had nothing to do with Wu Hei, and immediately crouched down beside Wu Hei and his son to peek. When they saw the reason for the fighting behind the mountain, they were all startled.
Behind the mountain was a huge canyon, in which several golden dragons were churning, fighting with a huge golden bear.
When they finally saw the heads of the “dragons” clearly from the dust, everyone realised they were not dragons at all, but giant snakes. Each head was as big as a large round table, and evil energy was churning in both eyes.
Evil energy was also churning in the giant bear’s eyes, and it fought back with extreme fury. However, facing the entanglement of the group of snakes, it was already at a disadvantage. Before long, it was entangled so tightly by the snake bodies that it could hardly move, leaning against the mountain wall and breathing heavily.
One giant snake raised its upper body, opened its fangs-filled mouth, and suddenly bit down on the giant bear’s head.
A bizarre thing happened at this moment. From the wound bitten on the giant bear’s head, intense evil energy gushed out, being inhaled in large gulps by the giant snake’s mouth.
With several loud thuds, several other giant snakes also bit into the giant bear’s body, all sucking the evil energy from within the giant bear’s body.
Soon, the evil energy in the giant bear’s eyes disappeared. Its body lost its power, dead-like, as if it were a golden sculpture. The entangling snakes slowly twisted and deformed it, distorting it beyond recognition until it fell to the ground.
The snakes that had released the corpse slithered around the canyon, and then all disappeared without a trace.
When the dust completely settled, everyone realised there were many huge caves in the canyon, which should be the snake holes where those giant snakes had disappeared.
Bodies so massive, yet able to move so lightly, it was an eye-opening experience for everyone.
Yu Qing looked at the gradually darkening sky and asked Wu Hei, “Are we pressing on through the night?”
Wu Hei slightly shook his head.