Chapter 178: Searching for Treasure in the Old Place: The Back Mountain of Moyun

Jietian Ling stands with a single peak of unique beauty, while the clouds over Moyun Stronghold are vast and hazy.

Returning to this old place, the mountain paths have grown even more secluded and deep, with the sounds of birds and beasts far noisier than before.

After the stronghold was destroyed, human paths vanished, and this place became a complete paradise for wild beasts.

The wooden stakes and trenches by the road have long since been mostly weathered away, though traces of the army's encampment can still be discerned.

Commander Chen's great army has been gone for a long time!

The ground in the wilderness looks as if it has been wiped clean; the original bloodstains, corpses, and the like are nowhere to be seen.

Nature's self-purification ability is far more formidable and rapid than one would imagine.

The former site of Moyun Stronghold is now a ruin; before the army withdrew, they pushed over the walls, filled in the trenches, and those who found it troublesome even set it all on fire, after which the wind and rain finished the job, making it completely part of the mountain.

Seeing the scene before him, even the most powerful imagination would struggle to reconstruct the atmosphere of Moyun Stronghold in its prime.

Walking to the back mountain, Zhou You stopped and discovered friction marks from ropes on the edge of the cliff; clearly, someone had hung down to investigate earlier.

The faces of Commander Chen, Chen Yang, and the three Captains flashed through his mind.

These people are meticulous in their thinking; they didn't even spare the bottom of the cliff, specifically sending men down suspended by ropes to investigate.

Unfortunately, they were destined to return empty-handed.

Zhou You had long anticipated this, throwing everything to the bottom of Wanzhang Ya, a forbidden zone where even birds dare not land.

Once a mortal body of flesh and blood is placed in such a treacherous natural environment, the risks are too great to withstand, and it is easy to lose one's life.

Whoosh!

Zhou You took a breath, the pores all over his body vibrating like feathers, and his body immediately became lighter than ever before.

Basic Lightness Skill lv4.

He grabbed a vine and descended; having only dropped 300 to 500 meters, he looked up and felt the sky was infinitely high, while the surrounding rocks seemed to be covering and pressing down upon him.

A wave of dizziness washed over him, the sense of oppression immense.

Zhou You took a deep breath and continued to climb down, a faint sound of breaking air reaching his ears.

He frowned and raised his hand to block it; it was a Poison Snake that had been Zang in a rock crevice, lying dormant for a long time.

The Poison Snake dripped venom, biting onto the edge of Zhou You's palm, but the next moment, the snake's body went straight and stiff, instantly dead.

Zhou You plucked off the dead snake; competing with me in poison, are you worthy? Seven Step Poison Sand Palm has already refined poison into a baleful aura; within seven steps, both man and beast perish, truly the hegemon of poisons.

This is also the reason he had the confidence to venture alone into the abyss at the bottom of the cliff.

Continuing downward, his feet stepped on something soft; looking down, it was a corpse.

A rope was tied around the corpse's waist; it must have been one of the men sent to scout the bottom of the cliff who perished halfway down.

Zhou You descended until the end of the vine, about 1300 meters deep, where the surroundings became increasingly lush.

Although the crevices in the cliff face were barren, under the wind and rain, many shrubs had grown.

There were even rare and precious medicinal herbs scattered here and there across the cliff.

"Golden Thread Vine Leaf, Purple Spotted Snake Fungus, Withered-Prosperous Branch Grass, Three-Spring Fruit..."

Zhou You has a rough understanding of alchemy, and combined with his frequent trips to Xingren Tang to stock up, he recognized eight or nine types of precious herbs worth their weight in gold at a glance.

Their harsh growing environment, the difficulty of harvesting, their scarcity, and their high utility make these herbs priceless and rare.

Climbing down another few hundred meters, he suddenly saw a shrub with a corpse hanging from it; judging by the degree of decay, it could be traced back to the day Moyun Stronghold was breached.

Weathered by the elements, the skin and flesh had mostly dissolved, leaving only a layer of tattered, rotten meat.

Zhou You punched the rotten flesh away and saw a golden light exposed in the gaps of the ribcage.

His luck was good; the first strike was a success. This corpse contained treasures from the Moyun Stronghold treasury.

A fist-sized jade carving, a flawless round pearl, top-grade ivory and rhinoceros horn, and so on...

To avoid contaminating the treasures, Zhou You had specifically wrapped them in oil paper before stuffing them into the corpse's abdominal cavity, layering them until they were airtight.

Zhou You dissected the corpse, took out the treasures one by one, and threw them into the bamboo basket on his back. Continuing downward, he found another corpse with bottles and jars of Secret Medicine hidden inside.

His luck was too good.

The treasury mostly contained gold and silver jewelry that couldn't be eaten or drunk, while Secret Medicine was rare; after all, it was a consumable with an expiration date and could not be stored for too long.

Zhou You remembered that all the Secret Medicine combined filled 3 corpses; finding one of them so easily was a great start.

Selling jewelry requires finding special channels, but Secret Medicine is hard currency for martial artists; it is perfect for personal use or exchange.

Unknowingly, night fell; looking up from the bottom of the cliff, the starry sky was exceptionally magnificent.

Zhou You found an protruding stone platform to sit on, curling up in a corner to close his eyes and rest.

The back basket was already more than half full, the weight about to exceed 50 jin; if he scavenged one more corpse tomorrow, it would be about time to leave the cliff.

He was alone without support, so he had to be cautious in everything and could not be too greedy.

If one is insatiably greedy and lacks restraint, the corpses littering the bottom of the cliff would be his final fate.

A night of silence facing the mountains.

As dawn approached, a streak of morning light swept across a distant mountain peak, slanting into the deep valley at his feet.

Thin mist rose immediately, emitting strange, multicolored hues as it met the morning sun.

"Miasma!"

Alerted, Zhou You immediately mobilized his poison aura to drape a protective layer over himself.

The miasma rose from the valley floor, ethereal and soft, but the moment it touched his poison aura, it hit Zhou You like a heavy iron hammer.

Zhou You clutched his chest, his insides churning, and he nearly lost his footing.

It was terrifying; without the shielding of the poison aura, even if he held his breath, the miasma could seep into his pores, causing him to lose his senses and fall into the bottomless abyss.

When the miasma gradually thinned, he looked down at the valley floor and saw that the dark brown ground was essentially a pile of countless decaying flesh and blood, interspersed with ghastly white bones.

The miasma rose from the piled-up rotting flesh, shrouding this mysterious valley floor.

No living thing could survive in such an environment; instead, the shrubs and grasses thrived on the nourishment, growing ever more lush and robust.

Seeing this scene, Zhou You suddenly had an idea: if he were to refine the miasma into his Palm Poison, what would the power be like?

He thought about it and gave up; it was too disgusting. The miasma originated from rotting corpses, and anyone who could turn a blind eye to that to practice palm techniques was definitely a pathological misanthrope.

He either pulled on withered vines or gripped rocks, using his Lightness Skill to leap about, searching for corpses bearing marks.

Before long, his basket was already full; grabbing a handful at random, they were worth a fortune.

Zhou You weighed it a few times; the weight was less than 100 jin, manageable to transport from the valley floor to the cliff top.

He began to climb up, his arms gripping the rocks instantly tensing; when descending, he followed gravity, but now climbing back up, his body weight became a resistance, not to mention the Secret Medicine and treasures he had collected were also quite substantial.

By the time he climbed halfway, the sun was already at its zenith, and his speed was not even half of what it had been when he arrived.

Zhou You opened the bottles and jars, selecting a type of Secret Medicine to restore physical strength—the Profound Valley Pill.

"Tianfu Decipher Confusion, swallow!"

He ate 5 of them in one breath; his fatigue vanished, his energy was restored, and the soreness in his hands and feet was swept away.

Zhou You set out on the return journey again, reaching the cliff top before the sun set over Xishan.

Looking back at the abyss behind him, he felt as if a lifetime had passed.

Should he go back or not?

The answer was: go.

He estimated that in two more trips, he could fish up all the remaining treasures, and after that, he would never come to this godforsaken place again.

(End of this chapter)