Chapter 494: The Pipa Sings of a Distance of Ten Thousand Miles

If the Great Crane could speak, it would surely lodge a tearful complaint about Zhou You's shameless conduct.

Enslaving it, making it work for free without pay, and even snatching food from its beak—it was simply the height of shamelessness.

The pile of large white mushrooms treasured in its old nest had been completely looted by Zhou You, not even a single strand of mycelium left behind.

The Great Crane lay in the stone nest, wanting to cry but having no tears; was this the attitude he had toward a meritorious hero?

"Don't be sad. Another day, I'll treat you to a whole roasted cow and a whole roasted sheep, with all the fine wine you can drink."

Upon hearing this, the Great Crane's tail stood up; the images of delicious food in its memory awakened, and it couldn't help but drool.

It held up two claws, indicating that it would take eight portions of roasted cow, roasted sheep, and fine wine to settle today's matter.

"Deal."

Zhou You high-fived it and stroked its feathers, which were as cold as metal, "Crane, you can fly; the world is vast and you can go anywhere. If you encounter similar things in other places, you might as well bring them back, and I will reward you handsomely."

He had realized the Great Crane's utility; besides helping in fights, it was also a natural reconnaissance plane.

Items that advance martial strength are all heaven-sent treasures; ordinary food can no longer replenish consumption, so he must prepare for a rainy day.

The Great Crane flies back and forth in the sky, unconstrained by terrain, and can easily discover medicinal herbs in the mountains and wilderness.

Zhou You discovered that he truly had the qualifications of a black-hearted capitalist, signing a sweatshop exploitation contract with the Great Crane in just a few words: find a patch of medicinal herbs on par with the white mushrooms, and be rewarded with 8 portions of wine and meat.

Why 8 portions? Because the Great Crane's claws only have four toe tips, and its math is base-8.

The Great Crane looked down at its two claws, thinking happily that it had made a huge profit; wouldn't this eat its unscrupulous employer into poverty!

Zhou You retrieved the puppet back to the Poison Nest; it was the same dormitory for the Fist Intent puppet, a case of "replacing the bird in the cage"!

He rode the Great Crane and flew away from the stone nest, descending from a height of ten thousand meters.

It was already near dusk, and the afterglow of the setting sun was scattered across a stretch of sandy land, with a bizarrely large sunset as the background.

The Great Crane stood on one leg on the ground, burying its head to preen the feathers on its neck.

Zhou You sat on the ground, sitting on the soft sand in front of the Great Crane, and took out a Tiger Tendon Pipa.

Musical notes flowed from his fingertips, weaving through the strings of varying lengths and thicknesses, eventually intertwining into music.

The music drifted across the sand, entwining with the sunset's afterglow and spreading in all directions with the wind.

Sunset, yellow sand, crane, human figure—this scene, slightly desolate, was actually integrated into the sound of the Pipa.

"Hmm?"

On a tragic battlefield, Yan Baihu pulled his Tiger Head Blade from a corpse, his killing intent at its peak, when he suddenly heard a series of intermittent string sounds; identifying them carefully, it was actually a Pipa.

"Who is playing music? This melody is desolate but not sorrowful, full of artistic conception; the person playing is a master of the highest order."

He could never have dreamed that the breathtaking Pipa sound in his ears was actually played on a Tiger Tendon Pipa.

As everyone knows, the Tiger Tendon Pipa is not a musical instrument, but a piece of martial arts training equipment, categorized with wooden dummies and Stone Locks.

Listening to the Pipa sound, his inner restlessness subsided, and his killing intent also calmed down.

Suddenly, a sobbing sound came to his ears; it was the Human Face Sore on his chest shedding tears upon hearing it, "Brother, I want to go home."

Yan Baihu remained silent for a long time.

"The sword formation of the Jueguang Sect is well-deserved of its reputation."

The leader of the Witch Person Ten Heroes, Wu Luoye, moved his hands through the sky full of figures and silver light, still having the spare energy to comment.

He ranked first among the Witch Martial Masters and was the target that countless martial artists wanted to kill as quickly as possible.

This time, ten Disciples of the Jueguang Sect participated in the siege, all of them elites, and they even employed a split-and-flank sword formation.

Long swords were connected head-to-tail, forming flower shapes, ripples, octagons, and other patterns, wrapping Wu Luoye inside and stabbing in turns. Before Wu Luoye's eyes and behind his head, there were Jueguang Sect Disciples moving to fill gaps everywhere, a scene of figures flying about, with one or two cold sword lights darting out from time to time, forcing him to respond with full concentration.

"What a pity, this sword formation is just a tasteless thing; since you are already many and powerful, bullying the weak, why go to such unnecessary trouble?"

"If you are already inferior to me, no matter how many people there are or how complex the formation is, it is hard to resist me breaking it with a single force."

Just as Wu Luoye finished speaking, his hands suddenly clenched into fists in the air, striking toward the sky full of figures and sword light.

A moment later, broken swords and remains were everywhere, scattered in the grass...

Wu Luoye took a deep breath and said indifferently, "Scions of noble families, nothing more than this."

A faint Pipa sound came to his ears, and he listened intently for a moment, a look of obsession appearing on his face.

After a long while, Wu Luoye sighed, "Is this the Zhong Yuan scenery that the ancestors mentioned?"

The desolate artistic conception revealed in the music actually completely suppressed the scene of his triumphant battlefield.

"Pfft!"

A noble family martial artist and a Witch Person perished together, each stabbing their weapon into the other's body.

The cold Qi-blood divine weapon erupted with violent Qi-blood, tearing and pulling along the wound, cutting the flesh and blood body into pieces.

Blood poured onto the land, stirring up a unique bloody smell, and the air became a few degrees warmer.

In the silence, people from both camps walked out, dragging the corpses and their belongings back, and the battlefield returned to its original state.

Liu Fengji and Gaoyang Ruoqiang looked at each other, and the attendants beside them stepped forward, holding the weapons they were accustomed to using.

This was the largest and highest-level life-and-death struggle on the battlefield.

Liu Fengji and Gaoyang Ruoqiang, one was a top figure of the noble families, the other a descendant of the Witch leader Gaoyang Clan, representing the peak combat power under strong martial arts.

Their exchanges were also extraordinary, continuing to this day without a clear winner.

During this time, they had to retreat several times due to exhaustion, and to keep the atmosphere from cooling down, their companions and attendants fought in their stead.

The two who had just perished together were the Witch Person and the martial artist who were warming up the stage.

One round ended, and the Qi-blood of both Liu Fengji and Gaoyang Ruoqiang had recovered almost completely.

Suddenly, a burst of Pipa music reached the field; although the corpses had been moved away, the blood-stained yellow soil suddenly gave rise to a few strands of desolation.

Everyone present saw a scene emerge before their eyes: sunset, yellow sand, crane, and human figure...

For a time, both sides were lost in thought, unable to initiate a fight for a short while.

……

Liu Jinguo broke off a piece of dry ration and handed it to the blind old man; the old man took the ration and clutched it in his palm, slow to take a bite.

"Senior, do not harbor such worries. The news has already been sent out; whether it succeeds or not depends on fate!"

She chewed on her dry ration, swallowed it down with a mouthful of water, and suddenly looked up, "Is someone playing the pipa nearby?"

She was born into a family of great wealth and status, so she had an understanding of all kinds of musical instruments and had known many masters and experts, but she had never heard a pipa player with such a distinct and unique style.

For a moment, she was somewhat distracted.

The blind old man's hand trembled with excitement, causing the dry ration to fall to the ground; he took up his two-stringed fiddle and began to play along with the sound of the pipa.

Thus, one singing and one responding, they began to communicate through music in the void.

Zhou You used the sound of the pipa as a signal, containing a message encoded with the Seal Script 'Sound'; to the ears of others it meant nothing, but once heard by a successor of the Seal Sound, it was no different from speaking right in their ear.

The blind old man responded with his two-stringed fiddle, and although he was far away from Zhou You, it was as smooth and unobstructed as if they were communicating face-to-face.

(End of this chapter)