Translator: Cinder Translations
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Xuan Ye said, "Daoist Guo, I am going to deactivate the array."
As he spoke, Xuan Ye made several hand seals toward the array plate, and the crimson protective shield above the snake pit suddenly dissipated.
Song Wen casually waved, and the eight array flags rose from the ground and flew towards him.
Song Wen slapped a Haste Talisman onto himself and turned to flee.
With his spiritual energy exhausted and his strength weakened, Xuan Ye tapped one of his ghost storage pouches at his waist.
Five small ghosts with snow-white skin and colorful clothing leaped out.
The five ghosts lifted Xuan Ye and followed closely behind Song Wen, swirling with gusts of cold wind.
The five ghosts moved at incredible speed and quickly overtook Song Wen.
Seeing more and more black vipers closing in behind him, Song Wen was engulfed in a haze of blood mist, his speed increasing dramatically, and he quickly passed Xuan Ye.
...
An hour later, having shaken off the black vipers, Song Wen and Xuan Ye found a small cave to rest.
"Daoist Guo, there are a total of three snake scale fruits here. How would you like to divide them?"
At some point, Xuan Ye had stopped calling Song Wen "Brother Guo Tao" and instead referred to him as "Daoist Guo."
Snake scale fruits are precious spiritual herbs that can help Qi Cultivators break through to higher realms. They are rare and typically not sold openly. When available, they are usually traded for other rare spiritual materials.
For Song Wen, the snake scale fruit wasn't urgently needed. His breakthroughs had been smooth so far, with no long-term difficulties in overcoming bottlenecks.
However, since the fruits were now in hand, Song Wen could not afford to give them up.
"Just give me one."
The snake scale fruit is only effective when taken for the first time. Moreover, Xuan Ye had contributed more to this expedition and deserved to receive more of the fruits.
Xuan Ye nodded and placed one of the snake scale fruits into a prepared jade box, handing it to Song Wen.
"Thanks to Daoist Guo for your help on this trip. Xuan Ye is deeply grateful."
Song Wen replied, "We are merely cooperating for mutual benefit. No need for thanks. But do not forget, you promised to accompany me to retrieve the Hollow Cicada Wood."
"Of course. Let me rest a bit, and we will set out tomorrow."
The next day.
Song Wen and Xuan Ye returned to the cave where they had parted ways with the two people in purple. They continued along the cave passages.
After traveling several dozen miles, Song Wen was astonished to find that numerous plants had appeared in the cave.
Most of these plants grew in damp corners, with some emitting a faint glow, which was quite magical.
If it weren't for the lack of spiritual energy in these plants, Song Wen might have suspected they were some special spiritual herbs.
Song Wen marveled again at the wonders of the cultivation world.
Perhaps this is one of the meanings of cultivating immortality, always encountering extraordinary things beyond ordinary imagination.
As Song Wen was moving forward, he suddenly stopped and said, "In a nearby side passage, there is a small cave hiding two people!"
Having already grown accustomed to Song Wen's extraordinary spiritual perception, Xuan Ye was no longer surprised. He asked, "What kind of people?"
Song Wen's expression was somewhat peculiar as he replied, "A man and a woman, both with low cultivation. One is at the fourth level of Qi Cultivation, and the other at the third level. The man is also injured."
A Qi Cultivator at the fourth level and another at the third level dare to venture into the ancient battlefield's underground caverns. This was indeed somewhat unexpected for Song Wen.
Xuan Ye, however, looked unsurprised and said, "They are likely brought here as scouts."
Even Qi Cultivators at the late stage have a limited spiritual perception range of about a hundred meters. In these dark, complex underground caves, this range is often insufficient.
Thus, some cultivators resort to using living people as scouts.
By marking the living individuals and controlling their lives and deaths, these unfortunate people have no chance of resisting.
Xuan Ye continued, "Let's go take a look."
Encountering living people in the caverns, especially those with low cultivation, made Xuan Ye consider gathering information from them.
Song Wen and Xuan Ye soon arrived at the small cave where the man and woman were hiding.
Seeing the sudden appearance of Song Wen and Xuan Ye, the man looked panicked and shielded the woman behind him.
The man was in his forties, dressed like a wandering cultivator. He had large sections of flesh torn from his waist, indicating that his injury had been sustained for some time. His wounds had been bandaged, and the bleeding had stopped.
The woman was about ten years younger and had an ordinary appearance.
"What are you doing here? How did you end up in this underground cave?"
Without acknowledging the panic of the pair, Xuan Ye asked coldly.
As if afraid of displeasing Xuan Ye and Song Wen by answering too slowly, the middle-aged man hurriedly responded.
"We are a father and daughter from Tianyuan Market, a small gathering place of wandering cultivators. We were captured by three late-stage Qi Cultivators. They used my daughter's life as leverage, forcing me to explore the caverns for them."
Tianyuan Market was a small market established by wandering cultivators, not far from the ancient battlefield.
"How did you escape?" Xuan Ye continued.
"While scouting in the cave, I suddenly saw a pile of bones dozens of meters high. At the top of the bone pile were two spiritual trees with a jade-like appearance, one of which was over three feet tall."
"I was just about to relay the information to the three behind me when two vengeful spirits burst out from the bone pile. The spirits were extremely powerful, and the cold wind they stirred easily threw me against the cave wall, injuring me severely. After that, I lost consciousness."
"About half a quarter of an hour later, I slowly regained consciousness, but the vengeful spirits were gone."
"Concerned for my daughter's safety, I hurried back. However, my daughter and the three cultivators, who should have been only about two hundred meters away, had vanished. All that was left were signs of a struggle."
"I couldn't find my daughter's body, so I held onto a slim hope and continued searching. Eventually, I found her in this small cave. It turns out she had managed to escape while the three were fighting the vengeful spirits and survived by luck."
What the middle-aged man did not notice was that when he mentioned the 'bone pile' and the 'jade-like spiritual trees,' Song Wen and Xuan Ye exchanged glances.
The jade-like spiritual trees were the exact purpose of Song Wen's journey—the Hollow Cicada Wood.
From the man's account, Song Wen also inferred that the three cultivators who encountered the vengeful spirits had likely been defeated.
If they had won, they would have taken the Hollow Cicada Wood with them.
Song Wen observed the father and daughter closely but found nothing particularly remarkable about them.
Their luck seemed extraordinarily excessive; they had survived against powerful vengeful spirits for no apparent reason.
At that moment, one of the scouting beetles suddenly transmitted another message.
Song Wen asked, "Someone else is coming?"
He had not encountered anyone since entering the underground cave, so he was surprised to encounter another group so soon.
"Who are they?"
"A group of three. Two of them are dressed in purple, and they are followed by a male cultivator at the eighth level of Qi Cultivation. The condition of this male cultivator seems quite unusual."
(End of the Chapter)