Chapter 119 - 114: Ginseng King

’Drilling Mountain Leopard wants to escape?’

Zhao Lin’s heart skipped a beat when he heard what Liu Huaying said.

After this battle, Drilling Mountain Leopard’s main forces were all but wiped out. He was like a grasshopper after autumn—he wouldn’t be jumping around for much longer.

Right now, his biggest worry was a single thing: that Drilling Mountain Leopard would get away.

This bandit chief was sinister, cunning, and cruel by nature. Judging from his past deeds, he was definitely the type to hold a grudge.

If he let this man escape, he would forever have to watch his back for this venomous snake. He wouldn’t even be able to sleep soundly.

’No, I absolutely cannot let him run!’

If he knew the location of the secret passage, he could cut off his escape route.

’But... given Drilling Mountain Leopard’s personality, would he really tell his subordinates about all the secret passages?’

Zhao Lin sneered inwardly. He deliberately lowered his head in thought and released a focused beam of ultrasonic waves toward Liu Huaying.

Although Liu Huaying was kneeling on the ground, she had placed her Ghost Head Saber within reach. One of her hands was fumbling inside her sleeve, as if hiding something she didn’t want seen.

"The secret passage entrance you mentioned... I am indeed very interested in knowing where it is..."

Zhao Lin said, deliberately slowing his pace.

Liu Huaying’s expression relaxed. She looked up and said, "Rest assured, my lord, I..."

Zhao Lin suddenly moved. With a single bound, he crossed a distance of several dozen feet. His iron ruler sliced through the air like a streak of black light, smashing down heavily.

Liu Huaying’s face turned ashen. In her panic, she grabbed her Ghost Head Saber to block.

Although they were both at the First Layer of the Qi Realm, their strength was on completely different levels. Zhao Lin’s full-force strike sent the Ghost Head Saber clattering to the ground. He followed up with a kick that landed squarely on Liu Huaying’s chin.

Liu Huaying was launched into the air. Before she even hit the ground, Zhao Lin advanced and struck her on the neck with his iron ruler.

CRACK.

Liu Huaying fell to the ground, her neck lolling limply to one side.

Zhao Lin walked over and tapped her arm with his iron ruler, hearing the clang of metal. Just as he thought, she had a hidden weapon like a sleeve arrow concealed there.

"Take your secrets to the grave!"

Zhao Lin ignored the corpse, pushed off the ground with his toes, and leaped off in the direction Xu Mabang had disappeared.

...

Wang Mazi ran for his life, not daring to look back, terrified that a single glance would reveal that ghostly figure. He ran until his legs grew numb and he tripped, his face planting into the cold, damp earth.

Ignoring the pain, he gritted his teeth, scrambled back to his feet, and continued running toward Fuli Valley.

’It’s over! It’s all over!’

’Ying Tianliang was dead, Liu Huaying was dead, "Hanging Line" Yang Dan was dead, and Second-in-Command Xu Mabang was probably dead, too! All the brothers... they were all dead!’

He had to get this news to the Big Boss and tell him they couldn’t stay on Baitou Mountain any longer!

He didn’t know how long he’d been running, but a valley faintly appeared before him. In the distance, a few guards hailed him.

"Dingtian Liang is back!"

"It’s Master Ma! Why is he covered in blood?"

Wang Mazi was overjoyed. He opened his mouth, but not a single word came from his parched throat. Suddenly, his vision went black, and he collapsed, stiff as a board.

「Fuli Valley. The underground secret chamber.」

Drilling Mountain Leopard, Yang Dazhi, paced back and forth in the chamber, agitated.

He didn’t know why, but lately, he couldn’t sleep at night. He felt a vague sense of panic and would fly into a rage at the slightest provocation.

’How many days have Xu Mabang and the others been gone? Why aren’t they back yet?’

’Why have my men been avoiding my gaze lately?’

’A few crows flew into the valley yesterday. That can’t be a good omen...’

In truth, he knew who he was worried about: Zhao Lin. The young man he had initially dismissed had now become a thorn in his side, a threat to his very existence.

If he could turn back time, he would kill him at any cost.

As for letting Zhao Lin go, the thought had never even crossed his mind.

He’d had a vengeful nature since childhood; anyone who crossed him would suffer retribution twofold.

When he was seven, he and a friend found a bronze Buddha statue in a local earth god temple.

Worried their parents would see it and take it away if they brought it back to the village, they hid the statue in a hole in the temple wall, agreeing to take turns playing with it.

But Yang Dazhi loved it so much that one day, he couldn’t resist sneaking it home, planning to return it first thing the next morning.

But the next day, his friend couldn’t find it in the wall. He gave Yang Dazhi a harsh scolding and forbade him from touching the statue for a whole month.

Yang Dazhi didn’t cry or complain. Instead, he went into the mountains, caught a scorpion, and tied it to the bronze Buddha under the cover of darkness.

The next day, when his friend reached into the hole to grab the statue, he let out a bloodcurdling scream. His hand swelled up like a steamed bun, and he nearly lost his life.

Watching from a distance, Yang Dazhi felt an indescribable glee, a joy greater than even possessing the bronze Buddha itself.

As the memory surfaced, his sense of unease grew even stronger.

Drilling Mountain Leopard took a deep breath, walked to his bed, and opened a hidden compartment in the headboard. From it, he retrieved a long box.

Opening the box revealed a section of ginseng. Its rootlets were dense and long, and it was shaped like a human thigh.

"It’s been nearly thirty years..."

Drilling Mountain Leopard murmured to himself, stroking the ginseng lovingly, a look of reluctance in his eyes.

He owed all of his current achievements to this very ginseng.

Back then, everyone thought he had killed the lumber mill foreman out of anger after a dispute. The real reason was that they had simultaneously discovered a thousand-year-old Ginseng King that had taken on a human form.

To this day, Drilling Mountain Leopard remembered the scene perfectly: congratulating the foreman on their find with one hand while plunging a dagger into his heart with the other.

He hadn’t started practicing martial arts until he was twenty, and with his mediocre talent, it should have been impossible for him to enter the Qi Realm, let alone reach its peak!

It was only by consuming a piece of this Ginseng King that he had been able to maintain his peak Qi and Blood for so many years.

Despite being nearly fifty, his body was still as robust as a young man’s.

In recent years, his Qi and Blood had begun to decline, but he had endured it, unwilling to consume this piece of the Ginseng King.

If he could find the right medicinal formula or a sect willing to take him in, he still had a chance of entering the Blood Realm. At that time, he would rely on this Ginseng King to restore his Qi and Blood.

But now, he had changed his mind.

"Zhao Lin!"

Drilling Mountain Leopard ground out the name between clenched teeth.

He had always considered himself unrivaled within the Qi Realm. But ever since Zhao Lin appeared, that belief had been shaken.

’What’s the deal with that kid? Could he have eaten a Ginseng King, too?’

’Impossible!’

Drilling Mountain Leopard slowly shook his head.

A Ginseng King like this absorbed the Spiritual Qi of an entire mountain; a second one couldn’t possibly appear within several hundred, or even a thousand, years.

’Perhaps he had some other fortuitous encounter...’

Drilling Mountain Leopard sighed softly, picked up the "thigh" of the Ginseng King, and put the entire thing in his mouth.

A moment later, a surge of abundant Primordial Qi spread through his body, coursing through every part of him.

His muscles bulged, his blood vessels pulsed, his tendons hummed and his bones cracked. His meridians and acupoints filled with vitality. In an instant, his body felt more than ten years younger!

"HAHAHA..."

Drilling Mountain Leopard threw his head back and laughed, his eyes filled with madness.

"Big Boss, Dingtian Liang has returned!"

A small bell hanging at the entrance to the secret chamber tinkled gently. A muffled voice came from a speaking tube.

Drilling Mountain Leopard was startled. He asked, "Only Wang Mazi? By himself?"

"Yes. He says it’s urgent," the muffled voice replied.

"Have him wait in the assembly hall."

Drilling Mountain Leopard ordered, his brows knitting together tightly.

He had sent out so many men, yet only one had returned, and in the middle of the night at that...

A sense of foreboding rose in his heart.