The three of them walked for an unknown amount of time. Cai Zhao felt that it seemed like a lifetime, and the terrain was getting higher and higher. Hearing Jin Baohui's heavy breathing, Cai Zhao asked softly, "I don't know how long we have been walking."
Mu Qingyan calmly opened his mouth and answered: "We have been walking for an hour and a half, we can take a short rest."
Just as Jin Baohui was about to sit down, he was kicked by Mu Qingyan, telling him to move further away. Jin Baohui knew that he had no one to rely on, so he could only walk away muttering while holding up the fire fold.
Mu Qingyan took off his gray-haired cloak and spread it on the ground for the girl to sit on.
Cai Zhao raised his head, looking confused: "...how do you know we've been walking for an hour and a half?"
"I felt your pulse." Mu Qingyan sat down next to her, "It was a little quick at first, but then it got better."
The two of them just sat next to each other, their heartbeats could be heard. Cai Zhao felt that the person next to him was tall and calm, as solid and reliable as a mountain, and his mind gradually became calm.
"Zhao Zhao."
"Um."
"You are not to blame for what happened to Qian Xueshen. He fell into the hands of those people, and after using him, he will die sooner or later."
"I know."
"Then you are still in a daze, as if you have lost your soul."
"...My aunt said that I am too soft-hearted and should not be involved in the world."
"This is arbitrary."
"It's not arbitrary at all. I've been like this since I was a child - the casserole uncle next door has grown old, handed over his shop to others and returned to the countryside to retire. I was so sad that I didn't eat wontons for a year."
"The new wontons don't taste good?"
"No, it's quite delicious. The base soup is still made with tube bones and shrimp powder, and the flavor is even better than before. But I still feel uncomfortable. I feel that the world is ruthless, and the years are like water, and there is no good thing left behind. No matter how good the new one is, It’s not as good as before.”
Cai Zhao likes a stable and leisurely life, with clear streams and bustling markets.
She and her aunt are different after all,
Mu Qingyan frowned and faced the girl, "...How old were you when you found out that Lady Cai was not going to die soon?"
"Seven or eight years old? Five or six years old? I don't remember." Cai Zhao shook his head. "The family didn't hide it. They told me that my aunt was sick and I didn't know when she would leave. In fact, I couldn't hide it even if I wanted to. My aunt would drink it if she saw the sky. I’m not a fool.”
Mu Qingyan sat back and said, "The original intention of your family was to prepare you early so that you would not be caught off guard and bear it. But they did not want to think about the consequences of asking a little child to think about the death of his loved one every day. "
"My aunt also said this. In fact, she didn't agree with letting me know early." Cai Zhao shrugged, indifferently, "But my mother said that these days, people in the world who didn't have any stories when they were young are too embarrassed to hang out."
"When my mother was a child, she was always afraid that she would have to shave her head when she grew up, and there would be no fish or meat to eat. My aunt and father lost their parents at a young age. Didn't the three of them grow up well later, and they are still aboveboard as adults? The strong helps the weak, which is much better than a person named Song who grew up smoothly and had a surname of Yang."
Mu Qingyan chuckled: "Your Majesty is such a wonderful person."
"Well, it's wonderful. When I was a child, I made a wish, hoping that the flowers would always bloom, the moon would always be full, and the joy in the world would never fade away. My mother told me to go to bed quickly and stop thinking about it. She said, if the flowers don't wither, how can I look beautiful? It blooms brightly; if the moon is not missing, how can it appear that the full moon is precious; if there is no sadness in the world, people will not expect joy." - When Cai Zhao was young, he was so afraid of losing, afraid of death, and afraid of everything that might change the beauty. Things about the status quo.
Mu Qingyan: "Do you understand this now?"
"I'm still understanding it, but I'll be able to understand it completely in the future." She had to learn to face it.
The girl's expression was clear and helpless. Mu Qingyan felt pity for her and stretched out his arms to hold her tighter.
"elder brother."
After sitting quietly for a moment, the girl suddenly made a sound. She had gotten used to barking along the way, and she didn't change it now.
"explain."
"What kind of person is Nie Hengcheng?"
Mu Qingyan was a little surprised: "Why do you suddenly ask about this?"
"When I was a child, I went to play on the banks of the Qingluo River. I saw only people rowing and sailing, but few fishermen. Later I found out that during the battle on the Qingluo River that year, Nie Hengcheng's close associates died in piles of corpses, and the mountains filled the river. Therefore, the riverside The fishermen agreed not to eat fish from this river for ten years."
"My father said that that night, Zhao Tianba, Han Yisu and the others soon knew that they had been trapped in a trap and were surrounded by many enemies. However, they would rather die than retreat and avenge Nie Hengcheng no matter what. My father felt that although they were demons He teaches evildoers, but his bold loyalty to Nie Hengcheng is also admirable."
Mu Qingyan was silent for a long time and then said: "The past leaders, Dharma kings, elders, and even the four altar masters of my religion all used pills to control their subordinates - but Nie Hengcheng did not. Not only did he not do it himself, but he also did not like others to do so. .My father once said that Nie Hengcheng was a man of great talent and strategy, rarely seen in the world. He led the way when he was young, and became majestic and courageous when he got older. To you Beichen Six Sects, he may be a monster, but to many of his followers, he is a Qingtian Yi. Pillar, the divine needle that fixes the sea.”
"Sounds like a nice person, so why did he become so rebellious and murderous in his later years?" Cai Zhao became curious.
Mu Qingyan: "Because he accidentally learned a kung fu with boundless power."
"Is it the kind of martial arts that old Sect Master Yin Dai desperately wants to know?"
"Exactly." Mu Qingyan's voice was low, "Actually, I don't know what the martial arts is like. My father only said that it was an ancient magical skill that should have disappeared from the world long ago."
Cai Zhao thought leisurely, "So that's it."
Mu Qingyan: "When people know that they are unable to do something, they will have scruples about the laws of heaven and earth. But once they know that they can conquer mountains and seas, they will lose this scruple. My father's fate towards Nie Hengcheng was quite disappointing. regret."
Cai Zhao smiled bitterly: "That's true, but now if you and I had the ability to climb mountains and seas, we would have gone out long ago, and Qian Xueshen's life would not have been spared."
Mu Qingyan frowned and was about to say something when he suddenly heard Jin Baohui's sharp scream coming from the corridor ahead, "Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on..."
Mu Cai was startled, and the two of them immediately got up and ran, only to see Jin Baohui holding a dagger, digging into an ice wall like crazy, shouting, "Come on, come on, help me dig it out..." "
Mu Qingyan grabbed Jin Baohui's shoulders and said in a deep voice: "You need to calm down first and speak properly." As he was speaking, he suddenly heard the girl behind him exclaim softly, and he quickly turned his head to look.
It turns out that this is a fork-in-the-road intersection, with many ice caves all around and even above the head, leading to nowhere.
Perhaps because of the huge vibration just now, some of the corpses that were originally sealed in the ice wall were shaken out. A stiff and purple hand was exposed on the ice wall next to Cai Zhao, with five fingers stretched out, which was eerie and strange.
The ice wall behind Mu Qingyan also revealed half of a purple head, with a ferocious and twisted face and protruding eyes, like an evil ghost who had just escaped from hell; the ice wall that Jin Baohui dug desperately also revealed the left side of a corpse. Half a shoulder.
"Quick, quick, help me dig out this corpse! I have a lot of rewards... Oh no, I will do my best to reward Mr. Yan..." Jin Baohui was incoherent.
"I won't help you unless you make it clear." Mu Qingyan said.
Jin Baohui struggled repeatedly, but he thought that the ice wall was harder than iron and that he could not break through it no matter what because of his low martial arts skills. He gritted his teeth and said, "Okay, I'll say it. Look, this corpse is holding a small bottle in its right hand - I want this bottle!"
Cai Zhao stretched his neck to look, and sure enough he saw that the right hand of the corpse still inside the ice wall was holding a small apricot-yellow jade bottle three to four inches long. The mouth of the bottle was inlaid with a circle of dim copper wire. "What's wrong with this bottle? There is something in the bottle." What kind of treasure?"
She saw Jin Baohui's eyes dodge, as if hesitating whether to make up a lie on the spot, so she smiled and said: "Senior Jin had better tell the truth. If it really has nothing to do with us brothers and sisters, it won't be a problem with a little effort. If Senior Jin deliberately deceived... haha , my brother has a bad temper, and our brother and sister don’t have much friendship with Senior Jin anyway,”
Mu Qingyan snorted heavily and cooperated.
Jin Baohui immediately softened and said repeatedly: "I said, I said, ahem, I'm not going to lie to you, it's really of no use to you. What's in this bottle is the saliva of a strange beast - have you heard of the Snow Scale Dragon Beast? What?"
Hearing this name, Mu and Cai were shocked. After looking at each other, they shook their heads together with expressionless faces.
Jin Baohui did not doubt that he was there, and continued: "It is a legendary beast. The adult Snow Scale Dragon Beast is larger than a small courtyard with three entrances. It has double wings on its ribs and four sharp claws. In addition to not being able to go into the sea, , there is no place in the sky and on the earth where it cannot run rampant, and it is known as the 'God of the Sky, Dragon King of the Land'. Legend has it that Beichen's ancestor raised a few of them, and they were of great use during the war between demons." He said with his eyes shining. , the longing is beyond words.
"Even if the bottle contains the saliva of the Snow Lindra Beast, how did you know it through the ice?" Cai Zhao was a little surprised.
Jin Baohui was anxious: "Did you smell a smell? It was spicy, sweet, and smelled of grass... It must have been accidentally spilled by the corpse while running. Before he could get out of the ice cave, he was frozen alive. starving."
After his reminder, both Mu and Cai noticed that there was indeed a faint smell of grass around them, mixed with a strange spicy and sweet taste. Cai Zhao was not sure: "Is this the smell of the Snowscale Dragon Beast's saliva? It looks like this corpse is at least decades old. Is the smell still there?"
Jin Baohui swallowed his saliva: "Oh, you don't know, the saliva of the Snow Lindra Beast does not solidify when exposed to cold, but melts when exposed to heat. It's so cold in this snow-capped mountain, so the smell of saliva can linger for a long time."
Mu Qingyan groaned and put his palms against the ice wall. He exerted his luck and heard a few clicks. The ice wall as solid as iron plate cracked along several gaps one after another, and the ice fragments rustled down, revealing Zombies inside.
Cai Zhao noticed that Mu Qingyan seemed slightly startled when the ice cracked.
For a moment, Jin Baohui couldn't wait to cut off the zombie's finger with a dagger, grabbed the small jade bottle in his hand, shook the bottle, and heard the slow flow of liquid inside, then pulled out the jade stopper and poured a drop into his palm. He smelled it first and then tasted it, with a look of ecstasy and madness on his face: "...yes, yes, this is it, this is it!"
Cai Zhao couldn't stand it: "Senior Jin is careful not to eat something that is dozens or hundreds of years old. By the way, is this really the saliva of the Snow Scale Dragon Beast? Don't make a mistake."
Jin Baohui was ecstatic: "It's true, it's true! Ancestor Beichen had more than a dozen snow-scaled dragon beasts at that time, running around happily, and practitioners would bump into them from time to time. Later, more and more people Young man, until 160 years ago this strange beast completely disappeared, but many sects have preserved some of its saliva, after all, it has the power of nourishing. My ancestors were beast tamers, so of course they also preserved it. I saw it when I was a child It’s the last bottle. I’ve smelled it and tasted it, and I can’t go wrong!”
Holding the small jade bottle, he almost jumped up with joy. Unfortunately, the next moment, Mu Qingyan snatched the small jade bottle away.
"You, you, you, what are you going to do? Give it back to me!" Jin Baohui was about to pounce on him angrily.
Mu Qingyan slapped him away easily and said with a smile: "Speak carefully and don't be so cruel. If you scare my sister, can you afford to pay for it?"
Jin Baohui was thrown two feet away. He pulled his fat body up from the ice one by one. His whole body ached, but he did not dare to complain.
Mu Qingyan held the small jade bottle between his slender fingers and gently turned it: "So, you went to the Snow Mountain just for the saliva of this Snow Scale Dragon Beast?"
Jin Baohui cautiously said: "Yes, yes."
"If this thing is so precious, why should I give it to you?"
Jin Baohui became anxious and immediately said: "No, no, no, it is not precious at all...No, it is precious, but not that precious! Oops..."
After a moment of panic, he reorganized his words, "That's it. The saliva of the Snow Scale Dragon Beast is indeed nourishing, but its efficacy is not outstanding. Many other medicines have the same effect. Take the snow ginseng on this mountain as an example. Let’s use older snow ginseng to replenish qi and heal wounds of those who are cultivating, the effect is even better than this saliva.”
"You think about it, if this saliva is so precious, how could all the sects use it up so easily? My family saved a lot, so I was able to see the real thing with my own eyes when I was a child. I didn't think it at that time. This saliva is so strange. My grandfather was injured once and ran out of fresh bear bile, so he took that bottle of saliva as a supplement."
At this point, Jin Baohui regretted it, "If I had known it would be useful in the future, why would I have stopped him from keeping that bottle of saliva!"
Cai Mu and Cai Mu looked at each other.
Regardless of whether the Snow Scale Dragon Beast's saliva was Shiquan Dabu Pill or not, they couldn't possibly give it to Jin Baohui. The impostors in the Qingque Sect were still waiting for Cai Zhao to skin them, but they wanted to tell more lies.
Seeing that the two of them were silent, Jin Baohui thought they were hesitating, so he said more forcefully: "It's true. If you don't believe me, go home and ask your elders. The saliva of the Snow Scale Dragon Beast is really not some flesh-white bone-living dead god." The medicine is just an ordinary nourishing thing! What is valuable about the Snow Scale Dragon Beast is not its saliva, but its heart, liver and horns. It is said that it can increase its cultivation skills several times!"
Facing such a greedy and sinister face, Cai Zhao was disgusted.
Mu Qingyan spoke unhurriedly: "No matter how fanciful your claims are, and you can't provide any evidence at this time, you are just trying to deceive us brothers and sisters who are young and have little knowledge. God knows whether the jade bottle contains the most precious treasure in the world. If you want to It’s not difficult for me to believe you. Since you said that the saliva of the Snow Lindra Beast is just an ordinary nourishment, then tell me why you work so hard to find it? What’s the use of it?”
Jin Baohui's expression changed, and he refused to reveal it: "Everyone in the world has secrets, why should Mr. Yan force others to do something difficult? In short, if you are willing to give me this saliva, you can choose the three treasures inherited from my family - Fire Qilin Eye, the poison sac of the blood swamp lizard, and the seven-beaded lotus pod of Penglai Immortal Island, how about it? I can bite my finger right now and write an oath to you!"
Mu and Cai were startled again. Being able to exchange such a treasure showed Jin Baohui's thoughtfulness. As a result, Mu Qingyan became more and more unwilling to let go, using words back and forth to lure Jin Baohui into revealing the purpose of the saliva.
Jin Baohui was forced to open and close his mouth several times. He was about to break through and tell the truth when he suddenly heard a familiar voice coming from the front of the cave along with the flowing breath——
"Lao Lan, hold on a little longer. You can lure us out before we die. I'll just take care of your mother at home!"
Then came a more familiar weak voice, "Mom, I won't worry about you anymore. I have already left enough money and land for her. The little girl she adopted a few years ago is filial and fierce, and she will take good care of her."
These two voices are clearly Hu Tianwei and Lan Tianyu!
Jin Baohui cheered as if he heard some fairy music, and ran towards the front of the cave without looking back. As he ran, he shouted, "Master Hu, Hu Tianwei, Hu Tianwei, I'm here...ahhhh..." Who knew Because he was running too fast, he plunged into the pile of broken ice at the corner. He was half buried, with only the waist below struggling outside.
After Mu Qingyan grabbed his ankle and pulled him out, he held his throat and coughed repeatedly. His fat face turned red. It seemed that he had just swallowed some large ice cubes and was even more congested.
Cai Zhao patted him on the back and advised: "Spit up quickly. If it doesn't work, just dig it out. The ice here is covered with ice corpses. Don't swallow the broken corpses in the ice." The words made her feel sick and numb.
Jin Baohui was extremely ruthless. He closed his mouth and held his neck, took a few deep breaths, then turned his head and continued running forward.
Cai Zhao was stunned.
When Mu and Cai walked to the exit of the cave, they found that it was an ice room that suddenly opened up, with a radius of more than ten feet and a height of about seven or eight feet, with abundant light and smooth air. The two looked up and saw the sun shining through the ice. It was obvious that the ice layer at the top was extremely thin.
After being trapped in a dark and narrow ice cave for so long, Cai Zhao was surprised and happy to see such bright sunlight, and a little unbelievable, "This, this, can we go out?"
Lan Tianyu, who was sitting against the wall, gasped and said: "Yes, we have reached the upper ice crevice. There is no need to find the exit anymore. The ice layer on the top is less than two feet thick. With your skills, you can break the ice layer and get out." ”
The 'you' in his mouth naturally refer to Hu Tianwei and Mu Qingyan.
