Chapter 28: Dawn Glow Across Ten Thousand Miles
“Heads growing on the tree?”
“On the vines.”
“Those headless corpses on the ground, could their heads have all turned into part of the vines?”
“I only know, if we don’t escape quickly, soon there’ll be two more heads hanging up there.”
……
Li Weiyi shouldered Gao Huan and dashed madly through the dense forest. Behind them, the trees always transmitted swift “rustling” sounds of shuttling, along with various hoarse human-like laughter.
They fled to a gorge and looked back once.
In the dark cyan sky, a thick vine shot out from the cliff like a flood dragon python, with heads swaying on it one by one, straight into the hundred-meter mist dome.
“Run!”
They stepped across streams when encountering water, leaped over gullies when meeting them.
Even when they couldn’t hear the vine sounds, they absolutely didn’t dare to stop.
When utterly exhausted and the vines hadn’t caught up yet, they switched, with Gao Huan carrying Li Weiyi. Li Weiyi practiced the Jade Void Breathing Technique on his back to recover qi and stamina at the fastest speed.
The two took turns or fled together, running for their lives for a whole night.
When they burst out of the gloomy yin mist dense forest, they could no longer hold on. One after the other they sat down, then fell over, lying limp on the grassland of a hillside.
Sweat had dried up, strength exhausted, as if even their souls had been drawn out.
“No more running, can’t run anymore. Master Li, you go first… don’t mind me… let me hang up there. One more step, and I’d die.” Gao Huan lay there, utterly spent, just wanting to sleep into oblivion on the ground.
“Then I’ll hang up there too!”
How could Li Weiyi not be tired? He just felt the ground so soft, the sky so warm.
He took a deep breath…
“Huh!”
The yin corrupt musty smell in the forest was gone.
Li Weiyi opened his eyes, then sat up, fiercely slapping Gao Huan’s butt, laughing loudly: “Gao fish soup, get up quick, get up quick. That vine monster didn’t catch up. We’ve reached the mortal world—blue sky, white clouds, green grass, wildflowers… hahaha…”
The dawn glow was gentle, the mountain breeze light.
These things so ordinary on Earth appeared to Li Weiyi at this moment like an immortal realm from a dream.
The most ordinary mortal world was more precious to the two who had endured darkness, slaughter, monsters, hunger, and anxiety than an immortal realm.
Li Weiyi closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
Soil, fragrant grass, wildflowers… even the blue sky and white clouds were so sweet and enchanting.
All fatigue vanished in an instant.
Gao Huan finally sat up and, seeing the surroundings clearly, grinned foolishly like Li Weiyi. Then, like a madman, he scrambled toward a goose-yellow wildflower, plucked it, put it to his nose and sniffed hard, exclaiming repeatedly: “This is the smell… this is the smell…”
After fleeing all night, their faces, hands, legs, and clothes were covered in thorn scratches everywhere. Sweat dried and wet again, wet and dried again, their appearance utterly disheveled.
After gradually calming down.
Pain, exhaustion, and hunger struck back vengefully.
The food and water they carried had long been lost somewhere in a gully or stream. Instead, the inedible Yellow Dragon Sword, Evil Camel Bell, and money bag were all still there.
The two lay down again.
Gao Huan chewed the wildflower in his mouth and said feebly: “We can’t just lie here like this. We can eat grass roots, then find a stream to drink our fill.”
“Yeah, if we can find a town where humans live, take a hot bath, have a bowl of noodle soup with cilantro, even immortals wouldn’t trade.” Li Weiyi said.
Gao Huan’s eyes lit up again at Li Weiyi’s words, swallowing his parched throat greedily: “I don’t want cilantro… I want braised beef…”
Suddenly.
A thick, deep voice rang out above their heads: “What are you two muttering about?”
The two, already exhausted, drowsy, and starving to the extreme, sat up like they’d been electrocuted.
They slowly turned their heads.
Following the shadow cast on the ground, they looked upward.
There stood a man about thirty-something, with a sturdy build, on the hillside not far away. He had thick brows and large eyes, a slightly broad face, long slightly curly hair, and rough yet textured skin.
Gao Huan couldn’t understand what he was saying, but he could feel the intimidating aura emanating from him.
Li Weiyi sensed it even more strongly.
This man’s ability was absolutely far above his own; otherwise, it would be impossible to appear there silently. Even in his extreme fatigue, Li Weiyi had never fully let down his guard.
While lying on the ground bantering with Gao Huan earlier, he had been constantly circulating cold and hot qi flows to nourish his exhausted body, seeking to recover stamina as quickly as possible.
What was terrifying was not only the man’s aura and cultivation.
But more so the ruthless glint in his eyes that disregarded life—this kind of look could only be cultivated by someone who had killed countless people.
Shi Jiuzhai laughed and cursed: “You two were sent out for reconnaissance and lookout? How did you end up so disheveled? Did you run into a fiend demon or departed spirit?”
Li Weiyi could understand the general meaning of Shi Jiuzhai’s words and instantly realized.
It was the clothes on him and Gao Huan that caused the other party’s misunderstanding.
What the other wore also resembled a monk’s robe.
But not brown, rather wintergreen.
How to explain this?
Could this even be explained?
Tell him they had stripped clothes from corpses and put them on?
The other would probably more readily believe they had killed people and looted money.
Li Weiyi didn’t dare bet on the man’s character, so he quickly nodded, pretending to be overly frightened, gesturing while saying: “Fiend demon! Many heads… vines… this thick…”
Though he had learned the language of this world, he hadn’t used it for years, so it was very rusty.
But it perfectly matched his current state.
“You encountered a Thousand-Headed Dragon Vine?”
A clear flash of wariness appeared in Shi Jiuzhai’s eyes. He strode down the hillside and struck a palm toward Li Weiyi from afar.
Palm force whistled.
Li Weiyi felt a gale and massive waves crashing over him, his body like a lone boat in the deep sea. Thinking he had slipped up and been seen through, he could only grit his teeth and mobilize the cold and hot qi flows from the spring eyes in his soles, pushing out with both palms.
Then let’s fight to the death!
“Boom!”
Li Weiyi was sent flying, his five viscera and six bowels feeling shattered. He couldn’t get up again.
“Haha, no wonder you two escaped alive. You little wolf cub have already opened three spring eyes, huh? At your age, not bad.”
Shi Jiuzhai walked to Gao Huan, grabbed his cheek with a large hand, examined closely, and said in surprise: “And there’s even a Pure Immortal Body? Why is there no magic power in the body at all, just metamorphosed?”
Li Weiyi couldn’t understand “little wolf cub” or “three spring eyes” at all.
He had only opened two spring eyes in his feet—where did three come from?
But he understood the other wasn’t suspicious but probing his strength. Afraid Gao Huan would give it away, he quickly said: “That’s right… he just successfully metamorphosed…”
“The Thousand-Headed Dragon Vine must be full already; otherwise, you absolutely couldn’t have escaped.”
Shi Jiuzhai released his iron clamp-like fingers and asked: “Which one are you two with?”
Li Weiyi guessed that this outfit likely represented some force. The man before him was probably a prominent figure in that force.
A thousand thoughts flashed through Li Weiyi’s mind in an instant. He smiled: “Of course we two are with you, sir.”
“Haha, got some wits about you. Good, from now on follow this king!”
Shi Jiuzhai walked back up the hillside, his tiger eyes focused, staring at the narrow river valley in shade between the two mountains below. The river valley banks had majestic steep mountains rising over a thousand zhang.
A dirt road had been carved along the riverbank. A massive coffin carrying team continuously emerged from the fog-shrouded side.
Li Weiyi and Gao Huan dragged their exhausted bodies up the low slope, appearing beside Shi Jiuzhai.
This spot had very high terrain, with a broad view.
Looking out.
Under the sunrise, ancient ridges and great mountains were all shrouded between white morning mist and warm rosy glow, like the earth’s dragon spine extending to the horizon and gradually fading.
Sky high and earth vast, wind blowing robes like flags, giving a sense of boundless heroism.
The coffin carrying team by the river valley below had people like ants, all wearing gray-white coarse cloth clothes. Four carried one coffin, a thousand coffins moving together, like a white long snake extending outward.
Chantey voices echoed between the mountains on both banks, along with the sounds of beast riders galloping back and forth.
Paper money scattered all over the dirt road, some caught by the wind and drifting to the banks of the great river.
The foremost coffin was made of silver-like material, bound with hemp ropes, huge as a beamed house, big enough to hold over a hundred people. It was on a cart pulled by a green ox even larger than an elephant; the wheel sounds could be clearly heard across a thousand meters in the empty valley.
Li Weiyi said: “These are all salvaged from the blood sea?”
“What else?”
Shi Jiuzhai laughed: “The Jiu Li clan salvages otherworld coffins from the Blood Sea Coffin Dock, sells them across the Twenty-Eight Prefectures of Lingxiao, making a fortune. Such a great no-cost business, yet only they can do it—who wouldn’t be envious?”
From today on, this business, the Earth Wolf King Army would also take a share.
The world was in chaos—how could Li Zhou alone be at peace?
“Let’s go, back to the main camp first, wait for them at the Dragon Slaying Pass ahead.”
Shi Jiuzhai exhaled a puff of grey mist from his mouth. The wind force was strong, the grey mist spreading several zhang far, enveloping Li Weiyi and Gao Huan within. Then, he dashed toward the mountains below on the other side, stepping over cliffs and walls, each step covering over ten zhang.
Li Weiyi and Gao Huan in the grey mist felt wrapped in dense cloud clusters, weightless, always flying behind Shi Jiuzhai.
“Exhaling into clouds, crossing cliff faces in one step. Is he even human?”
The same thought arose in both their minds.
Li Weiyi was extremely worried. This man before them surely held an extremely high position in the force; it was normal not to remember underlings. But back at the main camp, the two of them would surely be exposed.
What kind of death would it be then?
He had to find a way to escape quickly.
At this moment, Li Weiyi had no mind left for tracking the White Bone Demon or saving Cai Yutong; he only felt he and Gao Huan were as good as dead.
