Chapter 19: The Dragon Rises

For more than half the year on Giant Serpent Head Island, water drips and turns to ice.

A wild yamen like the Blackwood Town Market Office, which had both money and power, naturally wouldn't suffer.

The insulation inside used a specially made refined iron stove.

It was as round as a giant tree that one person couldn't wrap their arms around, half a person high, and could hold dozens of catties of charcoal at once.

After burning two whole stoves of over a hundred catties of charcoal.

Zhang Gui's whole body was burned as red as cast iron, yet he hadn't drunk a single drop of water.

It wasn't until his spirit couldn't hold on anymore that he ran back into the rain.

Under extreme thirst, the main Divine Cong 'Drink River' instinctively operated upon encountering water, absorbing the rain through his pores into Zhang Gui's body.

The powerful force actually condensed the raindrops near him into tiny whirlpools.

Guided by this, the only open aperture of the other main Divine Cong, 'Water-Fire Harmony,' pumped out gold blood, turning into Cong hair that drifted toward his skin.

The new 'Secondary Divine Cong' thus had a beginning, named 'As-If-Drinking.'

Soon, even if his body was no longer lacking water, Zhang Gui could still absorb rainwater through his pores.

Using 'Swift Foot' to jump with all his might, he flew out of the market office.

He went to the paint workshop in the market and secretly painted his face with red lacquer.

With a few leaps, he climbed onto the ridge of the tallest wooden building on the street to overlook the entire town.

The street was empty, but the restaurants, casinos, and brothels were still brightly lit, with nothing unusual.

But strangely, there wasn't a single patrol guard on the street in the town.

Even if the rain was heavier than knives, according to the rules of Blackwood Town, even if knives were falling from the sky, the patrol guards still had to patrol the busy streets after nightfall to deter petty thieves.

Just as Zhang Gui felt strange, a bolt of lightning struck him head-on, making him dizzy, and he fell from the roof.

A young lady from 'Hanxiang Pavilion' was leaning her chin on her hand by the window, gazing at the falling rain.

She was naturally sentimental, belonging to the character type in ancient poetry: "A beauty in a secluded valley, with a peerless appearance."

But unfortunately, her looks were quite ordinary; after skillful makeup, she was only six or seven points in appearance, belonging to the type that could barely debut.

Tonight, a big tycoon had invited everyone for a full house.

He had booked all the young ladies in the brothel who were free, which was the only reason there was business.

However, because there were many young ladies debuting and few guests, on average, each one had six or seven, and even with four sticking to the front, back, left, and right, there were still leftovers.

No one paid attention to a young lady with this kind of appearance.

And just as she was dazed, she suddenly saw a naked figure fall from the sky in the rain.

Immediately after, like a grasshopper, he got up, jumped, and disappeared without a trace.

"Ah, there's a naked red-faced maniac flying in the rain!" the young lady exclaimed in shock.

"Where? What a strange sight."

"Flying in the rain, red-faced and naked.

Honghong, you must be crazy about men, hahaha."

The other low-beauty, thin-chested young ladies who were drinking and feeling bored nearby gathered around with giggles upon hearing this.

But by this time, Zhang Gui had already disappeared.

The other young ladies couldn't see him and just assumed Honghong had seen wrong, and just as they were laughing and making noise, another bolt of lightning tore through the sky and illuminated the distance.

In the rain clouds, several giant pythons that were frighteningly huge were flying and circling.

Faintly, one could see patches of blood staining the rain red.

Scaring everyone to sit on the ground, their faces deathly pale, unable to make a sound.

In the rain.

Zhang Gui, whose palms and soles were charred black by the lightning and whose whole body was still trembling slightly, also saw those giant pythons.

Just by visual estimation, he knew that a single sweep of those monsters' tails could turn him into meat paste, so he hurriedly hid in the shadow of a building, seeking psychological safety.

Seeing that the location where the pythons were flying was almost overlapping with Zhang Qitong's camp, Zhang Gui knew that even if he didn't go looking for trouble today, trouble would likely come looking for him in the future.

It was better to turn passive into active.

He waited for a long time.

After several flashes of lightning and rolls of thunder, no more giant pythons appeared in the distant clouds.

At the same time, the trembling of his body slowly disappeared.

He moved his limbs and felt that everything was fine.

Zhang Gui used 'Swift Foot' to slip out of the town.

There wasn't a single patrol guard guarding the city wall, which he found even more strange.

After leaving the town, he didn't dare to walk on the stone road and instead drilled into the woods.

In thunderstorm weather, trees are the easiest to be struck by lightning.

If it weren't for the fact that the wind and rain were truly too heavy, a great fire would likely have already started in the forest.

Zhang Gui was very afraid that he would be struck by lightning a second time, so when he ran, he deliberately chose to step on charred trees that had already been struck by lightning.

The logic was the same as finding a shell crater on the battlefield to lie down in.

Moving rapidly, a patch of scattered corpses appeared before Zhang Gui.

If it weren't for the tree canopy blocking the pouring rain, the muddy crimson on the ground would have been washed away, and these flesh and bones wouldn't have been so conspicuous.

Not long ago, Zhang Gui had opened the door to see red, killing until the meat gourds rolled around, and he hadn't felt it was that scary.

He had been quite proud, thinking he was a person made of special material.

Now he knew that it was just that the quantitative change wasn't enough to trigger a qualitative change.

With his hands trembling slightly, he averted his gaze from the corpses, wanting to vomit but holding it back, carefully identifying the identities of these remains and broken flesh.

There were many broken horse heads.

There were also fragments of heavy armor on the horse bodies.

Looking at the beast-like sharp teeth of the horse mouths, even if he didn't understand, Zhang Gui knew it must be exotic heavy cavalry without a doubt.

There were also arms holding long swords or corpses with connected arms, and the number was quite large; they should have been low-grade cultivators cultivated in batches.

Looking further, suddenly a human head he had some impression of entered his field of vision.

The old man who had been speaking passionately beside Zhang Qitong an hour and a half ago now had a deathly pale face.

The scholar's robe he was wearing had also turned into a warrior's outfit, and its size had changed significantly.

The body that had clearly been very thin when he saw it before was now as tall as a tree, with bulging muscles and tendons like coiled snakes.

This old man, who looked like a high-level intellectual at first glance, was actually a high-level bodyguard.

Zhang Gui almost confirmed Zhang Yan's intention, and also guessed Zhang Qitong's most likely end.

"Zhang Qitong is likely finished.

This matter is ninety-nine percent Zhang Yan's doing.

I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die!

He really isn't even satisfied with being the External Affairs Elder; he's turned the world upside down!"

Zhang Gui cursed inwardly, hesitated for a moment, ignored the corpses on the ground, and walked toward the camp not far away.

No matter how high the probability, it wasn't a hundred percent certainty, and the reason Zhang Gui risked coming here was that he wanted certainty.

Moving forward in the muddy forest.

To minimize the noise as much as possible, he no longer used the Divine Cong Swift Foot and slowed down his speed.

Suddenly, a bizarre shout accompanied by the rustling of rain on leaves came, layer upon layer:

"The dragon is walking!"

"The dragon is walking!"

"Flooding three hundred miles, ten zhang long entering the sea!

The dragon is walking!"

This sound made people's scalps numb and goosebumps rise all over their bodies.

At the same time.

The mud on the ground cracked open, turning into springs that gushed out, washing away big trees and rolling up rocks.

Instantly, the forest turned into a swamp.

Without the obstruction of the tree canopy, the rain from the sky mixed with the springs from the ground.

Covering the sky and earth!

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 20 =====