Chapter 32: The Mysterious Black Shadow

() The uniformed female student glanced sideways at Li Bucai.

At this moment, Li Bucai frowned tightly; even before anyone noticed, he had already taken back his battle spear. Seeing her direct her gaze at him, of course he didn't want her to go, but she was merely a beloved concubine in jest, and he had never truly promised anything, so stopping her made no sense. He could only turn his gaze elsewhere.

The uniformed female student sensed his slight displeasure, secretly delighted, thinking to herself: These days I've been worrying about you; now it's your turn to taste this feeling—this is giving them a taste of their own medicine.

She readily agreed, and amidst the crowd's intertwined glances of envy and jealousy, Wei Zidan gently supported her wrist, heading toward Wei Zidan's campsite.

Qian Feng said: "Looking at this, they don't intend to ally with us; they want to form a marriage alliance with Wei Zidan."

Li Bucai muttered: "Having her or not makes no difference. If you want to win, you'll find a way; death is death no matter how—do you want to win or lose?"

"Of course I want to win."

"If you want to win, you must start striving now. Let's go."

Qian Feng immediately returned to his campsite and mustered his troops. Li Bucai left Rushi and Xiaoxiao behind, took the others, the two groups merged into one, and with over twenty people they left the beach and headed into the forest.

"Your strength is fine—not as weak as I imagined." Li Bucai glanced at the more than ten elite soldiers behind Qian Feng, realizing he had fallen far behind.

Qian Feng said, not without pride: "Hehe, this is heaven's favor to me. Do you know what a treasure the Lulu Beast is?"

"What treasure?"

"Just from your appearance I can tell you haven't seen one; unfortunately I don't have a complete specimen. That creature is larger than an elephant, its back scales are more than two fingers thick—blades bend when they strike it, arrows bounce off, it's essentially a heavy tank; without reaching level ten in true speech, you can't even move a hair of it."

"So you've broken through level ten in true speech?" He didn't look like it at all.

Qian Feng scratched his head and chuckled: "Not yet, so I say it's heaven's favor."

Li Bucai very much wanted to exchange methods for capturing the Lulu Beast with him, asking: "If you haven't reached level ten, what method did you use to catch it?"

"Have you heard the fable of waiting by a stump for a rabbit? I'm the one who guarded the riverbank and picked them up. I don't know which idiot killed a few Lulu Beasts and threw them into the Shalanjiang River, discarding them. When I was destitute, heaven sent these few Lulu Beasts to me. Do you know? The meat of the Lulu Beast is a second-grade food among land animals, and it's quite valuable. He actually threw them all away—don't you think he's an idiot?"

These words made Li Bucai suddenly recall the few Lulu Beasts he had caught that fell into the river a few days earlier. He thought to himself: "Damn it, you're holding my Lulu Beast and calling me an idiot, claiming that Lulu Beast is yours—there's no proof left now that it's dead. This is really eating coptis while mute—having suffering you can't speak of. I really want to shoot another arrow into your butt."

Seeing him walk and suddenly stop, with both eyes glaring angrily at himself as if wanting to say something, Qian Feng asked, bewildered: "Big brother, what's wrong with you?"

At that moment, a fully bronze-armored military officer behind him tugged at his collar and whispered: "Master, you need to be careful—he might want to eat people."

Li Bucai felt he had seen that person somewhere before, then suddenly recalled last night's events, and said in realization: "Isn't this Munan? How is he also here?"

Qian Feng scolded her: "Go, stop talking nonsense, eating what people?" Then he turned to Li Bucai and said: "From your words, it seems you know her?"

"Sort of. Last night, the envoy from Sky City, Zou Ying, brought her to my place; later, for some unknown reason, she insisted on returning to Sky City, unexpectedly ending up beside you."

"Uh... actually it was sent to you. Yesterday I requested ten guards from Minister Zou; he delivered them and left. Then in the middle of the night he came to my place, woke me up, and also said I didn't need to go on campaign. I hadn't expected he wanted to entrust Munan to me. Since I was waiting for help, I took her in and gave him 100 units of Lulu Meat as thanks. Otherwise, you could give me 100 units of Lulu Meat, I'll return her to you, or you could offer Wu Tenglan in exchange."

"Damn, trade Zhuoran for her? Only an idiot would do that—it's obvious Munan doesn't want to follow me." Li Bucai said: "Anyway, you're also short-handed; you'd better keep her yourself."

As they spoke, the group had already walked far ahead, faintly seeing the shadow of a mountain in the distance.

"There seems to be a sound ahead; please wait here a moment, my lord, while Rui Tong goes to check."

"Alright, be extra careful." The daytime battle with the ant tribe had shown him Rui Tong's agility, which was still reassuring. He halted the troops at the mountain's base, and Rui Tong alone climbed up the mountain.

About ten minutes later, Rui Tong came down from the mountain.

"Reporting to my lord, ahead there is a cave with four soldier ants guarding the entrance, making it impossible to go inside to scout; I suspect it is the nest of that ant swarm we fought during the day."

Li Bucai's eyes lit up; if that cave truly is the ant tribe's nest, it would indicate a huge army inside, allowing rich spoils from the ants—but the risk is also enormous; one misstep could bury all these people here. Among the Holy Spirit Sixteen Divisions, aside from Piao Fengtian, any randomly called lord is stronger than him. Either die in the ant hole or be swallowed by others; Li Bucai very much wants to go.

Such danger is optional; Li Bucai tried to gather everyone's opinion, saying to the group: "If it is the ant tribe's nest, there will surely be many soldier ants; we might very well go and never return. Of course, if we can withdraw unscathed, I would surely gain even more. What do you say—go or not?"

Wu Zhuoran said: "If the lord says to go, we will follow the lord inside."

Xianghong said: "Perhaps we can also obtain magic crystals."

The people of Sky City all wish to become nobles; the only way to advance is to use magic crystals to sublime the blood in their bodies into super-powered blood. Today they also obtained one from the ant tribe, which is enough to whet their appetites.

Upon hearing this, several other girls were all eager to give it a try.

Li Bucai glanced at Qian Feng again.

Qian Feng furrowed his brows; it had been hard to gather these guards—if they died… it would be painful.

"Damn, even you girls dare to go. Alright, today I'll risk my life to accompany the gentleman." He said to his subordinates: "What about you? Dare to follow me in and kill?"

The leaders said to go; the subordinates naturally dared not refuse. Thus everyone set off toward the mountain.

Here the Luo Ping Trees are much shorter than those on the mountain; after walking a little farther, the forest ends, and before a jumble of rocks lies a narrow goat-path.

"My lord, it's right ahead."

Although ants have poor vision, whether they can actually see light is still unknown; moreover, these ants are a mutant species. To be safe, Li Bucai made a gesture, signaling everyone to extinguish their torches.

As everyone was extinguishing their torches, a whooshing wind sounded in their ears, and several black shadows swooped past overhead, leaping toward the mountain.

Li Bucai shouted: "Who goes there?"