Chapter 22: Mountain Travel

Finding a few green vines and connecting them together, about seven or eight zhang long, he tied one end to a tree trunk nearby and gripped the other end on his arm. Liu Xiaolou leaped down. When he was about ten zhang from the ground, the green vine reached its end, so he abandoned the vine, aimed at a protruding rock to land, and after using the force of his feet, continued to leap downward.

When leaping again, the old tree root he landed on was rotten and decayed, and it broke instantly. Liu Xiaolou's figure fell straight down.

After all, he had been cultivating for ten years, so he didn't look panicked. He formed his hands into claws and searched for something to grab onto within his sight, whether it was a blade of grass, a stone, or a rock crevice. After doing this several times, he glanced at his feet and estimated that he was less than four or five zhang from the bottom of the ravine, so he turned a somersault in the air and fell into the ravine water, splashing a piece of water.

He rarely jumped off cliffs, so he lacked experience. His posture was wrong when landing, and his butt landed first, making him wince in pain.

Liu Xiaolou rubbed his butt, regained his strength, and continued on his way. After a few steps, he began to climb.

With his cultivation, climbing the cliff was much easier than going down. Although it took a long time, it was stable. After a quarter of an hour, he had climbed to the old pine tree at the top of the cliff. With his true qi circulating, he turned over and got up.

Looking back, he was on such a steep place, but he was walking on flat ground. A sense of pride arose spontaneously.

Just as he was proud, a green vine suddenly threw over from the opposite side, wrapped around the branch of the old pine tree under his feet a few times, and then pulled straight and tight.

A figure stepped on the green vine and drifted over, wearing a bamboo hat, unable to see his face clearly. He looked at Liu Xiaolou and said: "Traveling?" Without waiting for an answer, he walked away.

Liu Xiaolou said "Ah," looked at his dashing retreating back, and then looked at the green vine that formed a rope bridge. He patted his forehead, and that high spirit suddenly disappeared.

Turning to hurry on his way, he hadn't walked a few steps when the bamboo-hat guest who had just built the rope bridge stopped in front, looking at him suspiciously. Liu Xiaolou immediately became alert, his true qi circulating, preparing to engage the enemy.

Don't think that just because you can build a rope bridge, I'm afraid of you. At worst, we'll have a fight!

"Brother Liu?" The man suddenly opened his mouth and laughed: "The night is too dark, I almost didn't recognize you. It really is Brother!" Saying this, he took off his bamboo hat.

Liu Xiaolou was stunned: "Valley Master Zuo? This is really... a coincidence..."

This person was Zuo Gaofeng, also a rogue cultivator from Wulong Mountain. His cultivation cave was located in Banmu Gorge, seventeen or eighteen miles away from Liu Xiaolou's Gan Zhu Ling, separated by five or six large mountains, and it was hard to see each other usually.

If it were in the past, meeting Zuo Gaofeng by chance would usually be ignoring each other, at most nodding. But after being extorted for a gift by Wei Hongqing half a year ago, they had a sense of sympathy for each other.

"Haven't seen you for half a year, Brother Liu, how have you been?"

"Thanks to Valley Master Zuo's blessing, I'm doing okay."

"In the middle of the night, where is Brother going?"

"Junior is going to visit a friend in Eastern Xiang. What about the Valley Master?"

"I'm going to Shi Sect to visit relatives. Meeting Brother tonight, that's really a coincidence, haha."

"It's really fate, haha."

"Since that's the case, we can travel together."

"I respectfully obey!"

So the two traveled together, crossing Wuling Mountain.

The mountain was indeed full of insects and snakes. They encountered many along the way. Zuo Gaofeng was at the seventh stage of Qi Refinement, four levels higher than Liu Xiaolou. Now traveling together, ordinary insects and snakes posed no threat to them. It was just that an iron-headed silver-ring snake encountered in the forest was quite tricky. If Liu Xiaolou had encountered it alone, he probably wouldn't have gotten any benefits. But with Zuo Gaofeng on the side, one lured the enemy from the front and the other flanked from the side, and after a short while, they took down this highly poisonous spirit snake.

The snake gall was given to Liu Xiaolou. Liu Xiaolou didn't delay and swallowed it in one gulp. This was the most spiritual part of the iron-headed silver-ring snake. After swallowing it, a rich spiritual energy wandered in his body. After being refined into true qi by Liu Xiaolou, it surged straight to his eyes, gathered at the Jingming acupoint, and actually opened the Jingming acupoint in one go.

The Jingming acupoint was an acupoint in the Foot Taiyang Meridian. Liu Xiaolou hadn't refined this meridian yet. He didn't expect it to be opened by a snake gall. For a time, he was both happy and uneasy, not knowing if it would affect his cultivation of the Foot Taiyang Meridian in the future?

Liu Xiaolou carefully recalled the technique. This move seemed to have no impropriety, so he felt relieved.

The rest of the snake, except for the snake gall, belonged to Zuo Gaofeng. He put it into the bundle behind him, intending to use the snake skin and snake tendon to refine a magic treasure.

Both got what they needed, and everyone was happy.

By noon on the second day, a fierce tiger appeared in front of the two. Man and tiger confronted each other for a long time.

"Valley Master Zuo, this fierce tiger seems a bit different? Have you ever seen such a tall tiger, Valley Master? Its tail is also long..." Liu Xiaolou asked softly.

Zuo Gaofeng looked solemn and said: "It is indeed different, but I can't tell its reality for a moment."

Liu Xiaolou said: "What should we do?"

Zuo Gaofeng said: "Let's discuss it from a long-term perspective... in short, we must not show weakness."

Just as they were discussing, the fierce tiger suddenly swung its tail whip, "Pa," and broke a tree as thick as a bowl behind it.

Liu Xiaolou was horrified, drew the Three Mystical Sword from his back, and danced a sword flower in front of him. Valley Master Zuo also drew his hand axe at the same time, gesturing toward the fierce tiger, shouting "Roar, roar" in his mouth.

Liu Xiaolou slashed toward a tree of the same thickness beside him with his sword. True qi circulated, and the sword light swept across a tree beside him, cutting it off. Valley Master Zuo held his axe and slashed wildly at the vines beside him. Where the axe light shone, the surroundings were a mess.

In the mutual intimidation of both sides, the fierce tiger gradually retreated, leaped onto the treetops, and disappeared after a few leaps.

Both of them were already soaked in sweat.

With this experience, the road ahead was even more careful and cautious.

The sky in the mountain forest always darkened earlier. When the sunset was still hanging on the mountain top, the forest was already dark. The two lived on the left and right, one alert on one side, guarding against unknown dangers around them.

Unfortunately, they focused too much on the distance in the forest and didn't pay attention to their feet. They heard a roar from Zuo Gaofeng, who was caught by a large net that suddenly opened in the mud and was hung high.

Zuo Gaofeng struggled desperately in the net, holding an axe in both hands to cut the net rope. This net was not an ordinary object, and it couldn't be cut.

Liu Xiaolou wanted to come forward to rescue, but a figure jumped down from the tree, masked in black, and smashed a steel rod in his palm toward Liu Xiaolou: "Hit you, you dark and blind thing!"

This stick was powerful, and the wind it brought was extremely fierce. There were faintly visible gang-qi glows, indicating that the opponent's cultivation was at least at the mid-stage of Qi Refinement, possibly the fifth or sixth level.

It was too late to dodge. Liu Xiaolou gripped the sword hilt tightly with both hands, true qi frantically injected into the sword body, knelt on one knee to support himself, and desperately met it upward.

"—Open!" The opponent shouted again, and the stick smashed straight onto the Three Mystical Sword.

Liu Xiaolou only felt a huge shock in his tiger's mouth, his body suddenly sank, and the sword body also sank downward, almost sticking to his scalp. His left foot and right knee were soaked into the soft mud for a full three inches!

No matter how disheveled, he finally blocked this stick. ===== CHAPTER 23 =====