Chapter 340: Miasma and Fire

More than sixty miles northwest from Dafeng Mountain is the continuous Mount Heng. Bai pulled the cart and traveled around the periphery of Mount Heng. Liu Xiao sat on the cart, stroking Xiao Hei's furry neck, his eyes cast into the depths of Mount Heng, not retracted for a long time.

After half a year, Qingzhu, who stayed in the Guangtian Altar to refine the array plate, should have left, right?

And Sheng Han of the Qingyue Altar. Recalling the sorrow when she poured out her heart, and the infatuated look when she turned and left, he couldn't help but feel a burst of melancholy.

Because of this, he also missed the Altar Master of Qingyue Altar quite a bit. This Altar Master had high cultivation, a graceful demeanor, and rich experience. She was a good Daoist companion to practice the Yin-Yang Scripture together...

However, it was just a thought after all. Thinking blindly like this, the peaks of Mount Heng were gradually left behind.

There was no urgent matter, and the cart moved slowly. When encountering gullies, Xiao Hei would jump down to help push the cart. The two beasts had been well-trained over the years and were increasingly spiritual. Basically, Liu Xiao didn't need to get off the cart, unless the mountain road was too difficult to walk and the two beasts really couldn't pull the cart, then Liu Xiao would reluctantly get off and walk.

Traveling slowly all the way, there was nothing to do on the cart, so Liu Xiao painstakingly studied the Golden Snake Gu technique obtained from the Yao Village. After studying for six or seven days, he had a plan in mind, so he reined in the goose head and drove due west. In less than two days, he arrived at the Dehang Dashan.

By the time he reached the foot of the mountain, the sky was full of stars. He followed a stream into the mountain. After going in seven or eight miles and turning a few corners, he stopped.

He had been to Dehang Dashan many times, and he was very familiar with many places in the mountain.

Finding a leeward mountain hollow, the big goose spontaneously went to pick up branches and dry grass, using its flat beak to "duo duo" them. After not seeing it for a few years, the speed of the goose head moving up and down was so fast that only afterimages could be seen. Before long, blue smoke rose, firelight appeared, and a bonfire burned fiercely.

While the big goose was tending to the fire, Little Black burrowed into the woods. Before long, he returned biting a plump bamboo rat and tossed it to the goose. He then returned to the woods to catch a second and a third. The goose used its flat beak to dress the rats, peeling the skin and removing the fur, after which Little Black used tree branches to skewer them and set them over the fire.

Liu Xiaolou sat on the cart the whole time, using a small knife to carve a gourd about a foot high. Only when the rat meat was roasted to a golden brown did he get up and come over. He rummaged through his storage bag for bottles and jars, sprinkling pepper, salt, and other seasonings onto the three bamboo rats—including the July fragrant seeds, a specialty of Great Feng Mountain that Fourth Master Han had gifted him a large jar of. When added during cooking, they made one's mouth water.

As soon as the fragrance spread, Bai and Xiao Hei pounced on them, each biting one and starting to eat wildly.

Liu Xiao also took his own and feasted together with the two beasts.

The fragrance was truly rich, and the surrounding area was full of wild beasts attracted by the fragrance, making quite a stir. If it were in Wuling Mountain, perhaps powerful spirit beasts would have pounced on them directly, but there were many Miao villages in Dehang Dashan and few spirit beasts, so there were no overly fierce spirit beasts, and they were all suppressed by Bai and Xiao Hei, and none dared to come up to snatch food, which saved Liu Xiao a lot of trouble.

When the moon reached the middle of the sky, he ordered Bai and Xiao Hei not to run around and to guard the cart well. He walked deep along a small stream beside the valley, and in the sound of the gurgling stream, walked into a peach forest.

It was early spring, and the peach blossoms were in full bloom, all over the mountains and valleys. Even in the middle of the night, he felt as if it was a pink piece in front of his eyes.

On the ground were fallen peach leaves, a thick layer, soft, wet, and muddy when stepped on, like rotten mud.

He took out the gourd etched today and buried it in the thickest part of the peach mud, leaving only the mouth of the gourd open. He jumped onto a peach tree, sat cross-legged on a seven-foot-high tree fork, and stared at the gourd under the tree.

After waiting for about an hour, a faint thin mist appeared on the ground, the same color as the peach blossoms in the valley. This was the unique night peach miasma of Dehang Mountain, which was emitted after the nine-petaled peach blossoms in this valley fell to the ground and turned into mud. Those who smelled it would be intoxicated and easily produce hallucinations, and their whole bodies would be paralyzed.

The Miao people of Dehang Mountain didn't dare to come to this valley on weekdays. Under these peach muds, there were actually many withered bones of humans, birds, and beasts buried.

Liu Xiao sat on the tree fork, his true qi condensed, gently danced out from his sleeves, driving the pink miasma from all directions into the mouth of the gourd.

He had etched array runes on the gourd in the past few days. It couldn't be called a sophisticated magic treasure, but it was a good thing for collecting miasma. After the miasma entered the mouth of the gourd, it would sink to the bottom, slowly accumulating weight, repeatedly sinking to the bottom, piling up, and becoming heavy. In this way, it could accommodate a large amount of miasma and play a self-refining effect in the gourd.

After more than half an hour, the night peach miasma gradually dissipated. Liu Xiao collected the gourd and returned to the hollow outside the valley, slowly refining it with true qi.

After refining for a day, at the same time at night, he came to the peach valley again, collected the miasma with this gourd again, and then continued to return to the outside of the valley to refine it.

With each condensation, the night peach miasma in the gourd became more solid and refined. Holding the gourd in his palm, he also began to feel a bit of weight.

At the same time, he also searched the peach forest for many days and found a peach tree that had been struck by lightning. He cut off the section of the peach tree that had been scorched black by the lightning, divided it into several pieces about a foot and a half long, and also etched array runes on them one by one.

Whether it was the gourd or the lightning-struck peach wood, there were several strange twisted symbols in the etched array runes. These symbols came from the Xia Wu of the Nanshui Yao Village and were the secret Gu-refining methods passed down from generation to generation by the Nanshui Yao people.

On this day, he climbed to the top of the mountain again, cut down the other types of miscellaneous trees on the mountain top, leaving only five peach trees, each separated by six or seven feet.

After such busy preparations, early on the ninth day, Bai and Xiao Hei were awakened by the rolling thunder. The two beasts looked up at the sky and saw dark clouds covering the sky, pressing heavily on the mountain top, and felt a trace of coolness on the tips of their noses.

Xiao Hei jumped three times and disappeared into the forest, not knowing where it went or what it was going to do.

Bai didn't care about it either. It dragged the cart back a few more feet into the hollow wall to prevent the upcoming heavy rain from wetting the bedding, and then flapped its wings and flew to the top of the cliff, standing on the cliff, its goose neck raised high, facing the direction where the thunder was most dense.

In anticipation and waiting, Bai's eyes scanned around, and suddenly noticed a figure appearing on a mountain top hundreds of feet away.

It was Liu Xiao. He was also looking up at the sky, waiting and anticipating the arrival of the heavenly thunder.

"Rum-rum-rum... rum-rum-rum..."

The thunder sounded one after another, becoming more and more dense. At a certain moment, raindrops finally drifted down. After falling for half a moment, urged by the increasingly dense thunder, it rained harder and harder, faster and faster. For a time, it was as if the sky had opened a mouth.

He had rarely seen such heavy spring rain. Liu Xiao couldn't help but feel a bit lucky. He had entered Wulong Mountain since he was eight years old. In his impression, it had never rained so heavily or thundered so loudly in March or April. In this Dehang Dashan, he actually encountered it, which could be called getting what he wished for.

Generally speaking, the heavier and faster the rain, the heavier and heavier the thunder. Observing the rain today, the thunder afterwards was almost self-evident, which made Liu Xiao look forward to it very much!

Almost at the same time as the heavy rain suddenly intensified, several thunderclaps exploded suddenly, as if they were on top of his head. He immediately prepared himself and took out the lightning-struck peach wood, holding it in his palm.

It was at the moment he just took out the lightning-struck peach wood that a thunderbolt suddenly fell from the sky, splitting the old peach tree on Liu Xiao's right side and setting it on fire.

The heavenly fire of thunder and lightning had arrived! ===== CHAPTER 341 =====