Standing on the solid and rough ground, Jun Aoyan looked up at the vast sky.
"What's wrong?" Seeing her in a daze, Liu Shenghan asked at the side.
"No...it's nothing. I just thought about Lingge again...I wonder how she is doing now."
"Perhaps she collected the body for her master and left for a long time."
"That's really a big corpse -" Qi Huan said with emotion.
"I hope...even though she is our enemy, I hope she will do well in the future. She is a good person and a good monster, and she should not be let down by fate like this."
Bai Ya walked in front and had been silent until now. At this moment, he shouted without looking back:
"If you keep talking, you won't be able to finish your work even after dark."
Garuda was not completely dead after losing his heart - giving it away. With the support of the remaining divine power in his body, he walked to the edge of the cliff, opened his arms, and leaned back. They chased after it and saw that the huge Garuda fell like this, with a long trail of blood flying from its heart in the air. Ling Ge on the other side of the stone thorn probably heard something. She kept beating the heavy obstacle in vain, and let out a shrill whine, as if what was being cut open was her chest.
Her voice should be used to sing hymns... not scream.
Does Garuda not want to die as a human? They don't know the answer either.
Returning to the mineral vein where Wuxiaying grew up, we encountered no more twists and turns. When she came back for the first time, Liu Shenghan secretly memorized the road. She led her companions and easily followed the spiritual veins to the place where Ling Ge had brought them. It seemed like a long time had passed, but in fact it was just a few days full of twists and turns.
Wuxiaying is still growing and blooming as before, with petals of five distinct colors swaying quietly in the mountain wind, like the eternal breath of heaven and earth. No matter whether it is a half-demon or a god who falls, it has no meaning to the simple existence of all things.
However, the entanglements between people are much more complicated. Qi Huan suggested that they fill the bamboo baskets they brought with as many flowers as they could and move them away. Even if three or five flowers die, they can still satisfy the Incense God's requirements. This suggestion was approved by everyone, so they divided their baskets into baskets and started digging in the flower field.
I don't know how long it took, but Jun Aoyan suddenly shouted in surprise:
"How is your Wuxiaying...? Why do the flowers I have here wither when I dig them out?"
Several people felt nervous and checked their bamboo baskets one after another, and found that they had also encountered the same situation: as soon as the rhizomes of the flower plants left the ore, the flowers became dim and wilted, and the stems became wrinkled as if they were dry.
"The blessing of the Ruyi Pearl is gone?" Qi Huan frowned and asked uncertainly.
"Probably, only Shenghan can do it, right?" Jun Aoyan said, "She is someone who has received divine power. Let's go and have a look."
Liu Shenghan had walked far away, and when they found her, she was still picking flowers. Only a small part of the ore, including the main root system, is connected under all the flower necks. She is very attentive. And Wuxiaying, which was excavated by her hands, is still thriving.
So all the burden fell on Shenghan's shoulders, which gave others a reasonable excuse to be lazy. Jun Aoyan helped her put the flowers into the bamboo basket and counted them. Unexpectedly, when the 100th flower was discovered, the spell failed. But the flowers that had been picked were still alive and well, leaving them unsure. It seems that the plan to avoid risks by relying on quantity will not work. They had to carry a total of ninety-nine Wuxiaying flowers on their backs, and discussed the risks of transportation as they walked.
"Going back the way we came from, we can still find carriages and horses in the village. However, maybe it's not the best choice to take a detour to the desert and the country of Goshen like we did when we came here." Liu Shenghan frowned and explained to them, "I I vaguely remember that according to what Garuda said at the time, the protection given by the Ruyi Pearl was to make the ninety-nine Wuxiaying trees stay alive as before during the journey back to Xiangji Kingdom. We don’t know whether what he said was from here to The shortest distance to Xiangji Country. Besides, we have been delayed in the mountains for quite some time."
Qi Huan asked: "Didn't the mother of the country say that there is a closer way?"
"It seems that if you go directly between the two places, you have to pass through a very wide swamp." Jun Aoyan recalled.
"We can only take risks. Garuda is dead and the wish-fulfilling pearl is broken. If this trip is in vain, there will be no chance to come back again." Bai Ya agrees with Liu Shenghan's point of view, "If you don't follow Ge Shen Guorao, you don't have to Let’s meet that weird Imperial Master again.”
"What's wrong, you also think she is a bad woman who is too beautiful?" Qi Huan joked.
Bai Ya didn't smile, he just shook his head: "She is a woman I don't like."
"That's right. There's something wrong with these gods we met. Besides, this flower is a different species, strange and beautiful. Don't let that little king take a look at it. Oh, there are so many beautiful flowers. Take them all for fun. Enough is enough..."
Before evening, they found the carriage and horses in the village outside the mountain and expressed their gratitude to the woman who had taken them in earlier. She was probably a little surprised at the survival of these strangers, but her emotion was light and not very noticeable.
Before leaving the next day, they asked the woman to call some remaining villagers in the village and tell everyone the news that the bird god was dead.
"You can live freely." Jun Aoyan said seriously, with a kind of happiness that could not be concealed in his tone, "There will no longer be monster rules to restrain you, and the people here will no longer be hurt or taken away inexplicably. life……"
Oddly enough, these people's reaction wasn't as exciting or as relieved as they expected. They were all the same as the kind woman. They responded with their mouths, but their expressions were very stiff and numb. One or two of them nodded dully, half understanding.
It looked very strange. Even when Bai Ya and others were far away, they still felt bad about it. When Jun Aoyan looked back, this lonely small village was already a dark spot. She backed into the car and sighed.
"Look how happy they are smiling." Qi Huan teased.
"Maybe you don't believe it. We are outsiders after all. We came here only two days ago to tell them that the god here is dead." Bai Ya said lightly, "A group of outsiders are here. I will tell you tomorrow. Your Majesty He passed away, do you believe it?"
"Not only do I not believe it, I also want to beat him up. Spreading such rumors will cost you your head."
"I guess they have long been used to it." Bai Ya's words were still direct and cold. "Like the little white-haired half-demon villager, they regard themselves as inferiors and deserve to be enslaved and bullied. They cannot be free."
"They will always do it." Jun Aoyan tried to argue, "One day... they will realize it and accept it!"
"These people are also older. Perhaps, the suffering they have suffered for so long has made them dull and numb to both joy and sorrow. Only in this way can they survive, and they can only live like this for the rest of their lives."
Liu Shenghan concluded in a bored and indifferent tone.
The death of the divine bird was clearly unexpected by them. At the moment, no one knows this. It’s not a cop-out, just out of character. And none of this is relevant to them anymore. The scattered villages, the sacred bird temple, Kalingbinga, Garuda... all the dangers and stories were scattered with the dust from the carriages and horses, and fell behind them.
Gradually, it gets a little colder. The flowers and plants seen during the journey also seemed to have deepened in color, but were still full of vitality, like Wuxiaying in a bamboo basket. Occasionally there were continuous rainy days, and sometimes they were lucky enough to encounter scattered villages where they could stay and rest temporarily. The deeper you go into the wilderness, the fewer such opportunities become. They even had to come down in the rain to lighten the load on the horses as they trudged through waterlogged, muddy meadows.
Contrary to the increasingly sparse human population, the vegetation along the way is flourishing. The land was full of moisture, and at first, they thought it was due to rain. It wasn't until a sunny day after a rain that the inexplicably sluggish progress caught everyone's attention. Liu Shenghan seemed to have remembered something, and signaled Aoyan to stop his horse. After calculating for a while, he suddenly got out of the carriage.
Qi Huan poked his head out and saw her squatting beside the newly-made ruts, twirling the fine grass blades and soil at the beginning with her fingertips, looking at them, and seemed to take a sniff.
"I think we need to get out of the car."
she announced to her companions.
According to Liu Shenghan's calculations and the map provided by the mother of the country, they should have entered the periphery of the vast forest. Geological changes also directly support this point.
Abandoning the car was already agreed upon. The carriage was large, not only inconvenient to travel through the forest, but also in danger of collapsing in the swamp. In comparison, the strange horses of Xiangji Kingdom have camel-like feet, which presumably allows them to walk more steadily. Immediately, Qi Huan and Bai Ya packed up their luggage and bamboo baskets, and passed them one by one to Jun Aoyan and Liu Shenghan, who got out of the car and unloaded the horses, and scattered the things to the horses.
While moving, Qi Huan murmured to Bai Ya.
"You said, there are four of us and only three horses, and they all have strange humps - or horse humps? If so, wouldn't it be impossible for two of us to ride together... We had agreed in advance that if we walk Let’s take turns.”
Fortunately, Xiangji Kingdom has its own response to the unique horses here. When they went down to the ground carrying the last supplies, they saw that the two horses had saddles on them, turning the bulging backs into flat surfaces. Jun Aoyan was putting the third saddle on the horse's back. There was a hollow under the saddle, which could just accommodate the bulge on its back. She didn't stop talking and said to Liu Shenghan:
"There are only three horses, Sheng Han, you have to ride with me. My Mo Dao is heavy, and if the two of us add it together, I'm afraid the horses will not be able to move safely. The best way is..."
With that said, the two girls turned back. Even Bai Ya turned his head and looked at Qi Huan who didn't have many soldiers.
"...What are you doing!"
Qi Huan wanted to say that he felt that the best solution was to lead the men himself and Jun Aoyan to carry the sword.
This is naturally inappropriate, but it was just a joke. Lin Zeli's marching team ended up with one person carrying two soldiers, two people sitting together chatting, and a tail who kept the weapons for others.
As we progressed, the trees became denser and deeper, with vines growing everywhere. Within two days, the falling skylight was also obscured. Small patches of mud covered with grass blades appear from time to time underfoot, and the steps of several people become cautious. Bai Ya often rides his horse first to test, and then the two horses behind follow suit and step on the ground that is proven to be safe.
Perhaps it was because of the light, but also because the chirping of birds, animals, and insects was far away. The atmosphere made them feel somewhat eerie. For this reason, Bai Ya specifically asked Liu Shenghan, who assured them that this place was not as weird as the dense forest they passed through when they came. According to her observation, Lin Ze is just an ordinary person, and the unique beings in such an environment are good at hiding themselves.
But she added that this avoidance of people is a hint that humans are present in this place. Otherwise, they should not hide themselves from a species like themselves, nor would they recognize horses from the desert.
The latter inference could not be confirmed for the time being, but they were convinced of the results of her observations. After all, as long as you dismount and search carefully, you can still find animals lurking in forest leaves, grass or swamps. The most common ones are long insects with different colors. The deeper you go, the more frequently they appear. Sometimes they even appear on their own initiative and swim past the horses' hooves. Fortunately, they had no intention of attacking yet. At most, they would scare people and they would flee in a hurry.
After a few days, the first real danger was not brought by any living creature.
Recommended: The Witch Doctor Awakens to read on your mobile phone.
