Chapter 30: Xi Ye Ancient City, Desert Army Ants
The sand sea was deep and somber, the night as dark as ink.
The expedition team avoided the sandstorm and arrived at the ruins of an unnamed small city.
Sa Di Peng and the others were already exhausted to the point of falling apart, while Professor Chen and Hao Ai Guo, these two old guys of advanced age, sat on the ground and never got up again, and even Hu Ba Yi and Wang Pang Zi were panting heavily.
“Good grief, this black sandstorm nearly took our lives!”
Wang Pang Zi still seemed terrified as he recalled it.
Xue Li Yang was also very tired, but she couldn’t help looking toward Su Mo.
Su Mo sat there, his expression still calm, without the slightest ripple in his emotions.
A hint of strangeness appeared involuntarily in Xue Li Yang’s eyes:
“Master Su, you…”
Su Mo glanced at her and smiled faintly on his face:
“What’s wrong with me?”
His smile was calm and warm; after seeing it, Xue Li Yang instantly felt a sense of relaxation and joy.
She was surprised that just seeing Su Mo’s smile could make her feel this way, her heart couldn’t help but race a few times, and she quickly masked it with a smile instinctively:
“I’m just curious, you seem always so composed, even the black sandstorm didn’t make you panic!”
Su Mo smiled faintly:
“Aren’t black sandstorms in the desert commonplace?”
Of course he wasn’t panicking.
Not only because of the transmigrator’s perspective, which let him know long ago that they would encounter a black sandstorm in the Gobi desert, but also because otherworldly abilities like the Zi Wei Guan Xiang Fa gave him a transcendent understanding of this world early on.
At this moment, Ye Yi Xin couldn’t help but walk over.
Among the team, only she and Xue Li Yang were women, so the two naturally stuck close together. Hearing the conversation between Xue Li Yang and Su Mo, curiosity filled Ye Yi Xin’s eyes as she looked at Su Mo:
“Yeah, this Su… sir, he knew there would be a black sandstorm just by seeing the clouds—truly amazing!”
She wasn’t used to calling Su Mo “Master Su” like Wang Pang Zi and Xue Li Yang did, so after stumbling a bit, she still called him “sir.”
“But An Li Man actually went to pray to his Hu Da at that time—really…”
Speaking of An Li Man, Wang Pang Zi couldn’t help but feel angry inside:
“Exactly! This old guy did it on purpose!”
At this moment, An Li Man had already wrapped himself in sheepskin and sat beside the camel, looking utterly composed. Hearing Wang Pang Zi and Ye Yi Xin’s words, he still chuckled and said:
“Prayer is naturally to ask Hu Da to protect us! If I hadn’t prayed to Hu Da, how could we have escaped here in time!”
This statement of his blocked both sides, because you simply couldn’t prove his Hu Da hadn’t protected everyone.
Wang Pang Zi was choked with anger inside, and just then his stomach growled. He picked up his gun and stood up:
“Fatty doesn’t bother arguing with you. I see plenty of animals have taken shelter over there—watch me shoot a couple for roast meat!”
Who knew that An Li Man, who had been so composed, would jump up from the ground like he’d been electrocuted upon hearing Wang Pang Zi’s words, shouting loudly:
“No!”
“These animals escaped in only because they were protected by Hu Da. If you kill them, you’ll betray Hu Da’s kindness, and then Hu Da will punish us!”
Wang Pang Zi couldn’t help but roll his eyes:
“I’ll just shoot one yellow sheep to eat—would your Hu Da get mad about that?”
An Li Man’s head shook like a rattle drum:
“No way! Once you fire the gun, these animals will get startled and flee, then they’ll be devoured by the demons of the rising black sandstorm, and Hu Da will definitely blame us!”
He was extremely stubborn, blocking Wang Pang Zi and refusing to let him pass.
Hu Ba Yi had no choice but to step in to smooth things over:
“Forget it, Fatty! The old man isn’t wrong—if you fire, you’ll scare off all the animals that have already taken shelter, and then the black sandstorm will bury them. You won’t have killed just one or two!”
“We brought dried meat for a reason—it’s enough to make do!”
Wang Pang Zi had no choice but to sit back down helplessly in the distance, muttering:
“Damn, this dried meat hurts my teeth!”
What they carried was authentic Inner Mongolia dried meat—tasty, but very tough and chewy. A couple pieces were fine occasionally, but eating too much made their teeth ache.
But there was no way around it—exploration wasn’t tourism; the food they carried was all convenient-to-carry and store stuff like compressed biscuits and dried meat, each tougher than the last.
Xue Li Yang watched Wang Pang Zi and An Li Man bicker, then turned to look at Su Mo, only to find him gone.
She couldn’t help but feel puzzled and got up to search for Su Mo.
Rounding a pile of broken walls and ruins, she saw a solitary figure quietly sitting on the sand, his posture calm and serene, like an old monk in meditation.
It turned out that Su Mo, hearing Wang Pang Zi bickering with An Li Man, couldn’t be bothered to join in, so he had turned and come to this secluded spot to sit in meditation and regulate his breathing.
These ancient city ruins were very quiet, and at this moment the black sandstorm had gradually subsided, with many stars appearing in the sky.
Su Mo wanted to test his Devour and Transform Method here, to see if he could absorb more heaven and earth spiritual energy and consolidate his cultivation improvement.
After settling into the meditation technique with eyes on nose and nose on heart, he felt the surrounding spiritual energy surging like night mist, slowly absorbed into his body by him, finally transforming into vital energy gathered in his dantian.
Just then, footsteps from Xue Li Yang sounded behind him.
Xue Li Yang walked behind Su Mo, watching him very curiously.
Along the way, she had been secretly observing Su Mo with curiosity, because although she was a descendant of the Banshan Daoist, she actually knew very little about the Banshan Daoist, while Su Mo’s display of Kui Xing Kicking the Dipper in the capital city was many times more powerful than what her grandfather had taught her.
Moreover, Su Mo’s steady and composed demeanor throughout the journey, remaining unruffled even in the face of the black sandstorm, made Xue Li Yang extremely curious about him.
“Master Su…”
After a moment of silence behind Su Mo, Xue Li Yang couldn’t help but speak up:
“Do you think this ancient city has any connection to the Jing Jue Ancient Kingdom?”
Su Mo turned his head to look at her and smiled in reply:
“This is Xi Ye Ancient City, built much later than the Jing Jue Ancient Kingdom, but there must still be some connection!”
At this time, Professor Chen’s voice sounded from behind:
“Little Su sir is right—this is indeed Xi Ye Ancient City, probably destroyed by war during the Tang Dynasty, but as for whether it has any connection to the Jing Jue Ancient Kingdom, that’s hard to say!”
Professor Chen, Hao Ai Guo, and the others had also walked over, with Sa Di Peng, Ye Yi Xin, and their fellow students following behind.
It turned out they couldn’t sleep either and had come out to check out the ancient city ruins, just in time to see Xue Li Yang and Su Mo here.
Sa Di Peng looked at a black statue not far away and couldn’t help saying:
“Teacher, look at this statue’s huge eyes—could it be related to ancient alien worship?”
Hearing him say that, Hao Ai Guo couldn’t help but respond:
“Little Sa, you just don’t like studying seriously—you’re always thinking of absurd nonsense. How could this statue be related to aliens? Archaeology is a rigorous science—no room for baseless talk…”
Sa Di Peng, scolded like that, suddenly felt embarrassed and could only lower his head to silently examine the statue.
As he looked, suddenly a huge black ant crawled out from a gap beneath the statue!
This ant was as thick as a little finger; after emerging from a hole along the edge of the stone statue, it crawled toward Sa Di Peng.
Sa Di Peng quickly stomped it to death.
But just after killing one, several more ants appeared at the base of the wall—each as thick as a little finger. Soon the ants multiplied, their red-and-black bodies converging like a tide surging out from the wall.
“Oh no, desert army ants!”
Hu Ba Yi couldn’t help but cry out in alarm upon seeing this.
