When Yu Su and his people arrived at the Ice Wolf Tribe, the chief of the tribe had already come out to greet them, seemingly with a smooth transition.
Yu Su glanced at Lu Yan and whispered, "I will keep an eye on him."
The chief may not truly surrender. If he dares to cause trouble, Lu Yan will handle it.
...
On the other side, in the Fengcheng's team.
After receiving the news brought back by the Phoenix Bird, Bird Master's face turned ugly.
His followers didn't dare to speak when they saw his expression.
Bird Master: "Those useless people from the Ice Wolf Tribe actually sided with Yu City!"
The followers were surprised, "How is that possible? They had already set up an ambush, and the chief of the Ice Wolf Tribe promised to drive the high priest of Yu City into the Ice Field."
Bird Master also found it strange. Recently, the birds sent to monitor the people of Yu City had all disappeared. Only the Phoenix Bird went to investigate, but it didn't know what was going on. The information it brought back was vague and far less clear than before.
Little did they know that the Phoenix Bird couldn't get too close, it could only watch from afar and barely see a rough idea, not knowing any more details.
But it couldn't openly tell the Bird Master, so it could only express its information vaguely.
Therefore, Bird Master had no idea about Yu Su keeping the Little Wolf King.
...
Yu Su and his group were temporarily settled in the Ice Wolf Tribe.
At first, the chief of the tribe was still unwilling to submit and wanted to cause trouble secretly. However, after being beaten by Lu Yan at the first opportunity, he became obedient and now dared not show himself in front of Lu Yan.
Now the Ice Wolf Tribe was extremely obedient. When they saw Yu City people, they were as frightened as quails, let alone seeing Yu Su and the others. They wished they could stay far away.
However, one morning, just after Yu Su woke up, he heard a commotion outside.
"What happened?" Yu Su thought the Ice Wolf Tribe was still causing trouble, but Lu Yan came in and brought him different news, "The ice on the Ice Field is starting to melt. The place where the catastrophe occurred that day has now become a lake. It is estimated that in another ten days or so, the entire Ice Field will melt."
This was already speculated, but they didn't expect it to happen so quickly.
Yu Su went to check and found that the melting ice was indeed faster than expected.
"It's probably because of the extremely hot weather. Without the ice beads, the ice cannot hold up."
The people of the Ice Wolf Tribe watched the melting Ice Field with confusion. They had been living on the edge of the Ice Field for generations and had grown accustomed to the climate there. Moreover, the wolf god they worshipped resided in the Ice Field. Now that the Ice Field was melting, they didn't know what would happen in the future.
"Where is the Wolf God? Did the Wolf God leave?"
"The Little Wolf God is still here."
"What exactly is going on?"
The shaman of the Ice Wolf Tribe had an intuitive feeling that this matter was related to Yu Su and the others. Otherwise, how could it be so coincidental that the Ice Field melted as soon as Yu Su arrived?
So he sought an audience with Yu Su.
Yu Su straightforwardly said, "The wolf packs on the Ice Field have already left and headed north. Your Wolf God has also left."
The shaman of the Ice Wolf Tribe was shocked, "H-How could this be?"
Yu Su fooled him, "The Ice Field started melting a long time ago, but you didn't know."
The shaman of the Ice Wolf Tribe became worried. The Wolf God had taken the wolf packs and left, so were they essentially abandoned? What would they do in the future?
This was the Ice Wolf Tribe's problem, and Yu Su didn't want to get involved.
The shaman of the Ice Wolf Tribe didn't ask further and obediently left to discuss with his fellow tribesmen.
...
"Brother Yu Su, should we continue building the road with our construction team?"
"Continue."
"But the Ice Field has melted. We can no longer cross it and have to take a detour, which is very troublesome."
Yu Meng and the others sat down and asked Yu Su about the next arrangement for road construction.
"No rush, let's see how big the lake becomes after the Ice Field melts. If there is no water source replenishing it, this lake will evaporate sooner or later. Let's wait and see."
It was impossible to take a detour. That would be too much trouble.
Because of this, Yu Su and his group had to stay in the Ice Wolf Tribe for a while longer until the ice melted.
On the other side, the team from Fengcheng was going crazy when they found out that the people from Yu City had stopped again.
"What's wrong with the people from Yu City? Why did they stop for such a long time again!"
"Master Niao, according to their route, they won't be able to catch up to the Ten-City Conference at all. What should we do if the Great Sorcerer blames us?"
Master Niao regretted taking this task.
...
After more than ten days, all the ice on the ice field had melted and formed a large lake.
Yusuo and his team searched around the lake and found two water sources to the north - a small stream flowing out of a valley and a river coming from the northwest.
After observing for a while, Yusuo realized that the river was originally flowing eastwards beneath the ice field and found its outlet on the eastern side of the lake.
Since the lake wouldn't dry up, they had no choice but to build roads along the lake shore.
It was more cost-effective than taking a detour. They just needed to remove any obstacles, and with Yusuo and the other foundation-level cultivators, it wasn't difficult at all.
Yusuo sent a message to the road-building team at Dujucun Village through the giant eagle and then Jia Yun Chuan led Yusuo Meng and others back to meet up with the team.
This section of the journey was quite long, involving traversing dense forests and circling around the lake. It would take at least over a month to complete.
This also meant that the team from Yucheng would have to stay in the Ice Wolf Tribe for a longer period of time.
This almost drove the team from Fengcheng crazy.
"The people from Yucheng are building roads? Have they gone mad?" Master Niao was so anxious that he was foaming at the mouth. It had been several months already, and the people from Yucheng had only traveled such a short distance. They hadn't even covered one-tenth of the journey. How could they catch up to the Ten-City Conference?
Therefore, while the emperor was not in a hurry, the eunuch was, and the people from Fengcheng were in a dire situation, Yucheng's team, on the other hand, was enjoying their time.
Apart from the road-building, Yusuo and his team also visited the villages to the east of the Ice Wolf Tribe. Through various means, they established contact with these villages and even discussed trade agreements. They had gained quite a lot.
"How are things going?" One day, Yusuo asked the little black bird, "Are the bird masters from Fengcheng still staying put?"
Not only was Fengcheng paying attention to the movements of Yucheng's team, but after noticing that the Phoenix Birds were occasionally monitoring them from afar, Yusuo had also sent the little black bird's subordinates to monitor the situation of Fengcheng's team.
Fengcheng's bird masters probably never expected that they would end up being monitored by birds themselves.
While playing with the little wolf cub, which had become chubby over the past month, Yusuo's heart trembled every time it acted cute.
When he heard Yusuo's question, the little black bird chirped, "They are still staying put. My subordinates say that the people from Fengcheng are all getting rashes and constipation due to their anger."
Yusuo raised an eyebrow and showed a disdainful expression.
The others who had overheard also looked disdainful. They felt that the little black bird's subordinates were not particular enough in their behavior, to be spying like this.
Lu Yan said, "The more anxious they are, the more it implies that there's danger ahead. That Ten-City Conference might have some issues."
Yusuo Meng added, "Exactly! Let's wait and see. We won't fall into their trap. Let's see how desperate they become."
Jian Yunchuan said, "I'm afraid they might resort to some tricks to force us to move forward."
Yusuo Meng replied, "What are we afraid of? If they dare to cause trouble, we'll just kill them all!"
...
The people of the Ice Wolf Tribe had been working hard lately. Each and every one of them was sent to help the road-building team, for fear of displeasing Yusuo and the others. No one dared to be lazy.
"I've never worked so hard even when hunting before."
"I'm exhausted. The people of Yucheng are not normal. Even with so many of us, we can't catch up to them. They can flatten a whole mountain, shatter stones as tall as a person with ease."
"Why did we listen to the envoy from Fengcheng and go through all this trouble to find them?"
The people of the Ice Wolf Tribe regretted this decision.
If the people of Yucheng were so strong, they wouldn't have gone looking for a dead end.
"Boom!"
A peak in front collapsed, revealing a clear path.
"It's open, it's open! That's the mountain pass ahead. Once we cross this pass, we can reach the other side of the mountain without having to take the long way. It'll only take an hour to reach the north from now on."
The people from the Ice Wolf tribe in front were shouting, and the people behind hurriedly ran up to see.
They had already circled halfway around the lake, and now they had cleared a path through the mountain pass on the other side of the lake!
Running along the mountain pass, they indeed reached the plains to the north, where they could see the villages of Beiman. The villagers in those villages were startled by the commotion and came to see. When they saw the people from the Ice Wolf tribe running out of the mountains, they were all dumbfounded.
"How did you come out of the mountains?"
The Ice Wolf tribe and the Beiman tribe were separated by both the ice field and the mountains. The Ice Wolf tribe had to take a long detour to reach the north. After all, no one dared to cross the ice field. Now seeing the people from the Ice Wolf tribe coming out of the mountains, they thought they were dreaming.
"The ice field disappeared. We built a road along the lake and even pushed down a mountain blocking the way. Now we can directly pass through this mountain pass."
The people from the villages in the north thought that the Ice Wolf tribe was talking nonsense. How could the ice field disappear? How could the mountains be pushed down?
But when they really saw the collapsed mountain and the lake behind it, they were all shocked and speechless. "It's actually real..."
"Did you do all of this?"
The people from the Ice Wolf tribe would have loved to take credit for it, but unfortunately, they didn't. However, they were considered a force of Yucheng, so they proudly puffed out their chests. "Well, you see those people over there who are dressed differently from us? They are our brothers from Yucheng, and they were the ones who pushed down the mountain."
The people from the villages in the north had rarely heard of the reputation of Yucheng, mainly because it was too far away and they had little interaction with the Ice Wolf tribe. So they never even heard the rumors.
"What kind of village is Yucheng?"
"What village? It's a city, a powerful city like Fengcheng. And Yucheng has living deities. Their warriors have been blessed with divine power!"
The people from the villages in the north didn't believe it. If they were so powerful, how come they had never heard of the reputation of Yucheng before? Just at that moment, a soil dragon suddenly burrowed out from underground, startling the people from the villages in the north.