Chapter 136: The Gift Upon Meeting from the Bones

This small valley looks quite peculiar.

Surrounded by spirit-qi-rich herb mountains and herb fields, this broken place barely even grows weeds.

As far as the eye can see, there are only large and small gravel stones.

Moreover, the gravel covering the valley floor seems to follow a pattern, as if some force had rushed down from a cliff somewhere inside the valley.

Xue Chi Luo shot straight to the vicinity of a large stone and stopped. "Ancestor came here."

Su Jin didn't think much of it; she just followed.

Then with a thud, both person and earth fell down.

This place was actually a pit!!

Su Jin fell along with a pile of earth and small gravel stones; just as she sat on the ground with her buttocks aching terribly, she began sliding with the earth and stone pile, rushing rapidly toward the deep underground.

Xue Chi Luo followed behind her but was much more at ease, bouncing along the stone walls nearby as he trailed her.

With Xue Chi Luo following, Su Jin felt a sense of relief.

After sliding nearly a hundred meters, the earth and stone pile finally stopped.

Su Jin sat atop the pile, staring at the secret chamber lit by an eternal lamp, her face filled with shock.

The key point was that the ventilation here was excellent; there must be a ventilation system supporting it.

Su Jin looked at the four corners of the secret chamber and indeed found pipes leading outside.

Looking further inside the chamber, there was a jade bed.

Seated cross-legged on the bed was a skeleton wearing an ancient wizard robe.

That wizard robe showed no signs of wear at all, looking brand new.

Su Jin remembered her mother's advice: whenever you discover the remains of a senior from the Wu clan, whether incomplete or whole, remember to rush over and kowtow, while also announcing your family background. State which Wu lineage's little brat you belong to.

So Su Jin quickly stood up, ran before the skeleton, and kowtowed three loud kowtows with a thud-thud-thud.

"Su Jin of the Wood Wu Department pays respects to the senior."

The holes where the skeleton's eyes should be seemed to move.

Su Jin immediately felt as though someone was watching her; her scalp went numb.

Oh my goodness, she suddenly remembered her mother saying that if, after she kowtowed, that Wu senior turned out to be unkind and wanted to eat her, she should use that wooden talisman.

Su Jin quietly moved a certain wooden talisman out of Little Wu Tian and clenched it in her palm.

With a crack, the skeleton's jaw suddenly dropped a section. A golden storage ring appeared on the skeleton's lower jawbone.

Su Jin's eyes immediately widened.

"Senior, is this really for me?" she asked.

The skeleton made no sound.

Obviously, it intended for her to understand on her own.

Su Jin looked at the ring, then at the skeleton, estimating that this ring was indeed left for her.

She remembered her mother once saying: proper Wu seniors, when meeting younger Wu juniors, would always give a gift upon meeting.

This ring was probably the gift she had received.

Su Jin extended her little paw but stopped just before touching the ring. "I forgot what mother said: one must drip blood before taking something."

Su Jin, annoyed, squeezed a few drops of blood from her finger onto the ring.

Then Su Jin watched in astonishment as the ring, clearly golden, began to emit black flames with a sizzling sound.

As soon as those black flames ignited, they made Su Jin feel dizzy and groggy.

She immediately stepped back a few paces, thinking her mother was right; the seniors were all far too suspicious.

Simply stating you are a little brat from some Wu department wasn't enough; you must also shed blood to prove it.

Wu blood can allow you to break the defensive measures on a gift upon meeting.

Only after the black flames completely vanished did Su Jin take out the ring.

This ring was indeed a storage ring, but it was far superior to the small one-cubic-foot ring her grandfather had given her.

Inside the ring was actually enough space to fit the house where Su Jin lived.

It was so many times larger than her small ring; Su Jin was overjoyed.

Of course, besides this storage ring with its enormous capacity, the senior had also given her various ores occupying ten percent of the ring's volume.

Now Busatan's food supply for the foreseeable future was secure.

Su Jin thought for a moment, put on the golden ring, took off her original ring, and transferred everything inside it into the golden ring.

As for the remaining empty ring, she threw it into Little Wu Tian to let her younger sister Su Shen play with later.

Su Jin kowtowed three loud kowtows to the skeleton once more.

Then she began to complain gloomily, "How am I supposed to go back? That small hole has collapsed; how can I climb up?"

She had just finished speaking to herself.

When she heard the stone wall nearby click-click-click open. A doorway opened by itself.

Joy instantly flashed across Su Jin's face. "Thank you, senior, thank you, senior; I am leaving now, senior."

She happily ran into the doorway, paying no attention as the doorway silently closed behind her.

After finally climbing out from underground.

Su Jin sighed, sat on a large stone, and began drinking Bing Chen Lu.

This Bing Chen Lu was indeed delicious, but it wasn't very useful for replenishing physical stamina.

Now there was her, covered in dust and grime, and Xue Chi Luo, who had been by her side, looking energetic and spirited.

Why was the gap between a person and Luo so huge?

"Little Xue, how did you discover that place?"

"It sent me. It said it wanted to give you a meeting gift," Xue Chiluo said.

"Ah? Does that elder still live? But isn't he nothing but a skeleton?" Su Jin asked in surprise.

"He called me over; all descendants of the Wu bloodline who have awakened their companion Wu spirits can hear it. Because we can hear his call. He is very kind, a Wu of the Metal element," Xue Chiluo said.

"Ah? Then did he not instruct us to return his bones to his home or anything like that?" Su Jin asked, confused.

"No. He is dead; his consciousness is very chaotic and incomplete. Only a few residual thoughts remained: to sleep, and to give the meeting gift. After he finishes giving the meeting gift, he will likely return completely to the earth and dissipate into the world," Xue Chiluo said.

In ancient times, many Wu had no descendants of their own, and before dying, they could not bear to have their lives wasted in vain.

So someone created this routine.

To bequeath all the treasures accumulated in one's life to any junior fortunate enough to see one's bones. This is the meeting gift!

How many portions the meeting gift can be divided into, and what it contains, depends entirely on the Wu's own will and taste.

But a meeting gift from an elder is not so easy to take.

One careless mistake, and the suspicious elders will kill you.

Because so many people were killed, the juniors began to summarize their experiences and lessons, sorting out a procedure for visiting elders and taking the meeting gift.

Alas, it was truly too hard on them.

Other people's elders liked to build magnificent tombs and pile up vast treasures for juniors to come in and take freely.

Their Wu elders gave a meeting gift, yet they still had to worry about losing their own lives!