Since they were raising Datou, they naturally had spiritual rice prepared with them.
Nanzhu quickly grabbed a large handful. It was wet, so he used his qi to dry it and placed Datou in his palm.
Datou did not stand on ceremony, throwing itself into the pile of rice and eating wildly with a crunching sound.
The three martial brothers standing on the ice plain looked around at the world, but the sea was nowhere in sight.
“Has the entire sea been frozen over?” Nanzhu asked in surprise and suspicion.
“Help me go up and take a look,” Yu Qing said to Mu Aotie. Having said this, he leapt up and then floated down towards Mu Aotie, using his own momentum to borrow a bit more force.
The martial brothers cooperated tacitly without needing many words. Mu Aotie raised his single arm to the sky and sent Yu Qing, who was leveraging the force, into the air with a single palm strike.
Shot into the air like a cannonball, Yu Qing looked around and still only saw the ice plain, unable to see the sea. After floating back to the ground, he shook his head at the two and said, “I cannot see the edge. The frozen sea area is not small.”
Nanzhu was puzzled. “How could it freeze over so suddenly? To freeze this seawater so quickly is no ordinary feat.”
An image flashed through Yu Qing’s mind of seeing Wu Hei’s father freeze a pool of water with a blue halberd in the valley. He suspected that Old Master Wu had used the blue halberd to do this, but he could not confirm it. Could such a small halberd really freeze such a vast sea area?
Not being certain, he did not speak rashly.
What should they do next? The three looked at the ice hole on the ground, finally feeling extremely fortunate that they had truly escaped with their lives.
Under the bright sun, it was still chilly.
Nanzhu looked at Datou, who was crunching away in his palm, and suddenly sighed with emotion. “It has been two or three years since we left the mountain. In just two or three years, how many times have we escaped death? When we were still at the temple, we could never have dreamed of experiencing all this.
“Old Nine, Old Fifteen, perhaps we were truly wrong. If we keep going like this, we are bound to stumble and fall one day. Thinking about it now, although the mountain is a bit poor, it is truly free and peaceful. Why not listen to our junior martial uncle and go back? Let us return to the mountain and live in seclusion.”
Hearing this, scenes from after they left the mountain flashed through the minds of Yu Qing and Mu Aotie. They had indeed faced danger repeatedly and escaped death time and again. Just thinking about it made them feel a lingering fear.
“Without these repeated adventures, by the time we reach our seventies or eighties, our cultivation might not even break through to the Xuan realm,” Mu Aotie replied, turning his head to glance at Yu Qing’s reaction.
“You two go back first,” Yu Qing lowered his head and said softly.
Seeing him say this, Nanzhu changed the subject. “Sigh, it seems Wu Hei and his father are still frozen below. What should we do?”
Yu Qing understood immediately that he could not be persuaded to leave. He turned his head to look at Datou in his hand, who was crunching away, exhausted and weak from the excessive energy expenditure.
During their escape from beneath the ice layer, he had considered rescuing Wu Hei and his father. Along the way, he had vaguely seen the faint glow of fluorescent stones somewhere in the distance within the ice. However, it was too difficult for Datou to melt the ice horizontally with its heated water, which was far less simple than melting the ice upwards.
In fact, he was worried about whether Datou’s continuous heating ability could last long enough to rescue all three of them from the ice layer. Rather than everyone being trapped below to die, it was better to save whoever could be saved first.
He also truly had selfish motives, prioritising the rescue of Old Seven and Old Nine!
Only if Datou still had the capacity would he consider rescuing Wu Hei and his father.
His friendship with Wu Hei and his father had indeed not reached the level of sharing life and death.
The result proved his choice was not wrong. Datou was indeed unable to take it anymore, and escaping with their lives had already pushed it to its absolute limit.
Datou’s current condition was also obvious, having absolutely no ability to cross horizontally under the ice layer to rescue anyone.
“If they are merely trapped in this ice layer, the father and son should not die,” Yu Qing said after some thought.
“How can you be sure?” Nanzhu was surprised.
Yu Qing naturally had a reason for saying this. He explained the process of how Wu Hei’s father transformed from a dried corpse back into a human.
Nanzhu and Mu Aotie were shocked to hear this, not expecting such an unimaginable thing to exist.
The two wanted to ask more, but they noticed Yu Qing was looking up at the sky, unsure at what. Following his gaze, they also froze, seeing a person floating in the air.
“We really cannot mention someone without them appearing. We just spoke of him, and here he is,” Nanzhu muttered.
The newcomer was none other than Wu Hei’s father, the old man who had expanded from a dried corpse into a human.
The old man, floating in the air, held a golden halberd, his long hair fluttering as he looked down from high above at the vast expanse of floating ice on the sea surface below.
From his height and perspective, he could see the sea, which Yu Qing could not see even when he jumped up.
He had been flying around searching for Old Master Wu and also looking for the Immortal Palace. If he found the Immortal Palace, he would have no trouble finding Old Master Wu. If it were not for this massive area of floating ice, he would have found it very difficult to notice this area while flying nearby.
Turning to fly over and gazing for a moment while floating, he saw the people on the ice and felt quite surprised.
“Why are you here? Where are Da Hei and Xiao Hei?” he stood before the three and said in a deep voice, leaning on the golden halberd after landing on the ice with a gust of wind.
“You have arrived at the right time, old sir. Wu Hei and his father should be trapped in the ice layer below. The ice is too thick, and we are powerless to rescue them,” Yu Qing cupped his hands and said.
“How did they get trapped in the ice layer below?” the old man asked.
“We are not entirely clear either. We escaped from the Immortal Palace at the bottom of the sea…” Yu Qing briefly explained the general situation of being frozen during their escape.
“I was wondering how such a large piece of floating ice could appear. It turns out my brother used the power of the blue halberd,” the old man understood after hearing this.
“Can that blue halberd freeze such a large area of the sea?” Yu Qing was surprised.
“That is to say, my brother is still in the Immortal Palace?” the old man answered a different question.
“The Immortal Palace underwater must also be frozen over. I am afraid it will not be easy for him to come out anytime soon,” Yu Qing replied.
“Where is the Immortal Palace located?” the old man asked.
“We escaped from right here. Going straight down will lead to the Immortal Palace. Old sir, let us rescue them first,” Yu Qing immediately pointed to the ice hole they had just emerged from.
“Rescue them!” the old man finally replied after pondering for a moment, staring at Datou, who was crunching away in Nanzhu’s palm.
He lifted the golden halberd in his hand and shook his arm, immediately releasing a surging wave of heat that made people feel suffocated by the scorching air.
The three of them, Yu Qing included, were surprised. They had all handled a real golden halberd before and did not expect it to have this effect. It seemed that those who did not understand it truly could not wield it.
The old man had already swung the halberd and jumped directly into the ice hole.
“It is not suitable for Datou to dive any deeper. You two stay here and watch Datou. I will go and act as a guide for the old sir,” Yu Qing said, turning around and jumping into the ice hole as well.
“You watch him,” Mu Aotie also said, before jumping into the ice hole.
“This stinkbug does not need anyone to watch it,” he immediately started shouting, not knowing who he was shouting to, after looking around and finding that he was indeed the only one left, dumbfounded by the splashes of water bursting out one after another.
“Datou, eat slowly here. If we do not return, we will not drag you down with us. Just look after yourself,” he said, quickly squatting down, taking out a small bag of spiritual rice, tearing the bag open to reveal the rice, and placing it on the ground before putting Datou on top of it.
Having spent so much time with Datou, he understood it to some extent. As long as they could return safely, Datou would not be lost. If they could not return alive, then it would truly depend on Datou’s own luck. Whether it could find a way to leave Jin Xu would depend entirely on how clever Datou was.
Having provided enough food, he also resolutely jumped into the ice hole.
After crunching away for a while, Datou suddenly tilted its head and stopped. With its large, round belly sticking out, it looked around in a circle, then flapped its wings and flew to the edge of the ice hole. It stared at the water surface for a moment, turned around, faced its rear towards the ice hole, took a few steps back, and only stopped when its rear end sat in the water.
Pfft! A cloud of gas that turned things to ash was released into the water.
Its round belly visibly deflated back to normal. It then flapped its wings, flew back, landed on the food bag, and continued to crunch away…
Underwater, the heat emitted by the golden halberd was incomparable to Datou’s, primarily because the direction of the heat could be controlled.
The old man held the halberd and sank headfirst, clearing a path and breaking through the newly frozen channel all the way down.
Yu Qing and the others following behind had to channel their qi to withstand the scorching water temperature.
No one knew how deep they had sunk. At Yu Qing’s signal, the old man moved horizontally through the ice layer towards an area where fluorescent stones were glowing.
Melting the ice revealed the people inside, which were none other than Wu Hei and his father. They had escaped quickly and were relatively close to the sea surface.
Seeing his father come to the rescue, Wu Hei tensed his cheeks and continued to cast spells to maintain that space free of water for his son.
The old man signalled for Wu Hei to cover the light of the fluorescent stones, and then held the halberd to clear a path, heading towards other areas with fluorescent stone glows.
Soon, Ning Chaoyi and the mother and daughter, Lu Xingyun, who were trapped in the ice, were also rescued. They were all still alive, having stubbornly channelled their qi in despair to hold out until now.
The three of them, seeing the old man arrive in person with the golden halberd, no longer feared Old Master Wu. Their spirits lifted, and instead of leaving, they followed along to search for the thieving couple…
Inside the palace, people held fluorescent stones one by one, guarding the edge of the earth spring pool platform.
Old Master Wu stood by the pool holding the halberd, accompanied by Wu Dao and Wu Heyun. The Iron Faced Man nearby had put his iron mask back on.
The ones holding the fluorescent stones were precisely the four White Orchid demons, along with four of the Iron Faced Man’s subordinates.
The Iron Faced Man had personally gone to summon them all back.
After regrouping, these people realised that their leader had already submitted to Old Master Wu. What could they do? They could only pretend to comply and submit in order to save their own lives.
The group did not know what it meant to be brought back here again.
“This spring is an immortal treasure. It is a good thing, and good things should not be hidden from our own people. Iron Face, tell your men to go and soak in the pool,” Old Master Wu held the halberd and slowly paced beside the pool platform, sighing after a long while.
The Iron Faced Man suddenly turned his head and stared at him blankly.
The four White Orchid demons and the four cloaked men were startled, all filled with suspicion and uncertainty, not knowing what the old man was plotting.
If they did not know what this pool was, it would be one thing. However, they happened to know that this was an earth spring capable of causing human mutation. Who would dare to soak in it so easily?
“Only those who have soaked in it are truly our own people. If they are not of one mind, what is the use of keeping them?” Old Master Wu slowly turned around, staring at the Iron Faced Man.