Chapter 145: Everyone Follows the Rules

The scientific name of Full Moon See is Moon Bell Orchid; although it is a spirit herb, it still belongs to the lily family and is a distant relative of the common lily of the valley plant. Full Moon See is its common name.

Full Moon See plants grow to about forty to sixty centimeters tall, with slightly shorter flower stalks that are each curved slightly, reaching outward with flowers hanging from them. The flowers look like little snow-white bells; during the days of the full moon, they emit a faint light, making them look like tiny little street lamps. They usually bloom in small patches, but because they have high environmental requirements and the entire plant is highly toxic to humans, they are destined never to become ornamental plants.

This patch is about a few square meters; Chen Shu only needs about half of it, and the remaining half can be used for sale. I wonder if Chen Banxia has any channels.

At this moment, most of the flowers have not yet opened.

Chen Shu did not rush to approach, but instead hid in the shadows, observing carefully.

Full Moon See is indeed highly toxic to humans, but to some Spirit Beasts and exotic beasts, it is a delicacy and a great tonic. This is already the edge of the Forbidden Land; I wonder if there are any Spirit Beasts or exotic beasts lurking in the shadows.

After observing once, nothing was seen.

Activate Spirit Eye to investigate again—

The Spirit Power in the Forbidden Land is chaotic. This patch of Full Moon See presents an abnormal glow. Besides that, there are some light spots in the forest, some faint and some bright.

"Hmm?"

What is going on with this glowing object that evenly outlines a body shape?

Chen Shu seems to have seen that giant beast from the daytime again. Only the projection of that giant beast, composed purely of Spirit Power, could appear so clearly under the Spirit Eye. For others, whether human or beast, the Spirit Power is not distributed evenly, nor is it this bright.

There is also a small light spot nearby.

It is undoubtedly Yan Keling.

What a coincidence.

Because there are other light spots present, Chen Shu quietly lay down, not acting rashly.

The night grows deeper.

Gradually, there is a bit of chill.

Several light spots in the Spirit Eye have changed positions; some are closer to the Full Moon See, and the Spirit Power radiance of that patch of Full Moon See is getting brighter and brighter. Even looking at it with the naked eye, the light it emits is brighter because more flowers have bloomed.

At some unknown time, that giant beast disappeared.

Chen Shu, sensing something, looks to the left.

Rustling sounds gradually come from the grass, and a figure quickly emerges, eyes wide as she looks at him, while lowering her voice:

"Senior Brother, it really is you!"

"Ah, what a coincidence."

"Why did you come here? Weren't you here to hunt Sword pigs?"

"I lied. What about you?"

"..." Yan Keling pauses slightly, "Senior Brother, you admitted that a bit too readily, didn't you?"

"So, what about you?"

"I... I just came by..."

"Also lying, right?"

"Yes~"

"How did you know I was here?"

"It..."

Yan Keling points behind her.

Chen Shu looks in that direction and tilts his head slightly, seeing a pair of huge, bright yellow eyes. He cannot help but feel some Surprise; high-level existences are just different, as even using the same Spirit Power, they can exert different effects.

"There are other things in the forest..."

"Yes, they are waiting, waiting to see who goes out first," Yan Keling says. "They are very cautious and have their own rules for contention."

"Are they strong?"

"Above Fourth Stage, but not quite Fifth Stage."

"That is very troublesome."

"Yes."

"How about we cooperate?" Chen Shu says. "I only need half of the bloomed Full Moon See, and you can arrange the rest however you like. If it works out, we can even leave the ones that haven't bloomed yet for them."

"I only want the bloomed ones too."

"How many do you want?"

"I want as many as there are. If you take half, then I'll take the remaining half..." Yan Keling pauses, then adds, "If things go smoothly."

"That works out perfectly!"

"Can I trust you?"

"What is the point of asking..." Chen Shu twitches the corner of his mouth, "Believe it if you are willing to believe it."

"Alright then! I believe you!"

"..."

At this moment, a low roar is heard from the giant beast.

Yan Keling hurriedly turns her head, following its gaze—

The first exotic beast has revealed its figure; it is a snow-white giant ox, scientifically named Zhongzhou Auspicious Ox. Its size exceeds an elephant, yet it steps on the ground without a sound. It slowly walks from the forest toward the Full Moon See, looking quite confident.

Almost simultaneously, another exotic tiger appears.

This game of contention seems to have started automatically once the number of players exceeded one. As soon as the exotic tiger emerged, it let out a low roar and charged fiercely toward the Auspicious Ox.

The Auspicious Ox also assumes a defensive stance.

"Senior Brother!"

Yan Keling only shouts once, not having time to explain much, before she also rushes up.

The giant beast behind her moves with her, but instantly overtakes her, pouncing directly toward that Auspicious Ox and the exotic tiger.

"Whoosh..."

Several streaks of red Tracking Spells shot out, moving even faster, crossing over Yan Keling and the giant beast in the blink of an eye, and striking directly at the Milk Cow, which had the largest target.

"Boom!"

Several violent explosions rang out.

The Milk Cow lost its balance and was flipped directly onto the ground.

The giant beast lunged forward fiercely, pinning it down with its front claws, its sharp nails instantly sinking into the flesh, as roars and wails merged into one.

Until another strange tiger charged forward.

Having originally aimed for the Milk Cow, it temporarily switched its target to the giant beast, immediately becoming entangled in a fight with it.

The strength of these two strange beasts was between the Fourth Stage and the Fifth Stage, higher than an ordinary Fourth Rank Peak, yet not quite at the Fifth Stage. The giant beast was the same rank as Yan Keling, but its inherently high status granted it a more refined way of utilizing Spirit Power, allowing it to fight the strange tiger to a standstill for the time being.

But this was not good.

They might have already known each other; to them, Chen Shu and his group were the outsiders, and if this dragged on, they would easily become the targets.

Strange beasts have intelligence.

Thus, Chen Shu also joined the Battlefield and began to attack with all his might—

What is a modern Spell bombardment?

Formless Tracking Spells streaked across the sky, conducting precise, mid-to-close-range bombardment on the strange tiger and the Milk Cow; once the Spirit Power collided, it resulted in a massive explosion.

For a time, the rumbling sounds in this mountain forest echoed incessantly, like rolling spring thunder.

Whole swathes of trees fell down.

Wood chips flew everywhere, and fallen leaves danced in the air.

Whenever the strange tiger and the Milk Cow lunged forward, they were met head-on by powerful shockwaves, accompanied by Sword Qi and thunder raging across the sky. The power of modern Spells combined with Chen Shu's extremely high Spirit Sea strength caught them off guard for a moment.

They could not hide.

They could not run.

Gritting their teeth and lunging forward regardless, the giant beast of Yan Keling had combat power no worse than theirs, and it always made them feel fearful. And whenever they paused slightly, Chen Shu would release a Cage Spell to trap them before attacking again.

There was also the assistance from Yan Keling.

The two strange beasts were soon covered in wounds and retreated to the rear, keeping their distance to observe them.

Chen Shu stopped instantly, no longer continuing his attacks.

Almost simultaneously, Yan Keling also tacitly restrained her giant beast, telling it not to chase after them now that it had gone wild.

Chen Shu glanced at Yan Keling, then glanced at the depths of the forest, activated his Spirit Eye, and seeing that at least two more strange beasts were hiding in the woods, he took the lead in bowing: "We will only pluck the flowers that have already bloomed today; we will not take a single one that has not bloomed or is about to bloom. You all may wait until tomorrow."

As his words fell, the surroundings were deathly silent.

Chen Shu waited vigilantly and continued: "It was rude to cut in, and I apologize for that; it is truly because I suddenly have a need for it. I can promise, and swear in the name of Shengzu, that I will only come to this place once in my life, and I will not record any location information, nor will I reveal it to others. After taking the Full Moon See, I will leave here tonight, and if I meet you two again, no matter what we are competing for, I will voluntarily concede."

Strange beasts can always understand human intentions.

At the same time, they were not fighting to the death over the Full Moon See; strange beasts rarely kill each other, and they rarely harm humans; this was just a competition for resources.

This could be seen from one point—

Their strength was about the same.

In all likelihood, they had agreed to come here, and this struggle was supposed to be their game.

Chen Shu did not want to be besieged by them, so he cooperated with the giant beast to quickly force back the previous two strange beasts and stated his attitude, hoping they would give him some face.

For a moment, the forest was seen in a mess from the tracer rounds and Sword Qi; the Milk Cow stood in the distance, calmly watching Chen Shu, Yan Keling, and the giant beast, while that strange tiger was licking the wounds on its body while watching the giant beast, occasionally showing a look of contemplation.

Finally, the strange tiger left first.

The two more timid, unnamed strange beasts hidden in the forest also turned and left.

The Milk Cow did not leave, standing in the distance and watching.

Chen Shu kept his Spirit Eye open, watching them go, the luster in his eyes flickering constantly.

Because of the agreement signed between the countries of the current world and Dongzhou, as long as any creature undergoes Transformation into a demon, they must be extradited to Dongzhou and cannot be hidden privately. Countries basically treat this agreement very seriously, so one rarely sees wild demons in Yiguo; one can occasionally see demons in Yujing who have come to study or work, but often it is hard to tell the difference between them and humans.

The only extraordinary creatures one can see besides humans are strange beasts and animals with strange beast bloodlines; Spirit Beasts count as half, this thing is basically referenced by Taozi.

Every year, there are quite a few incidents of beasts with strange beast bloodlines like sword pigs hurting people, but one rarely hears of strange beasts hurting people; when the few cases are investigated deeply, there are more or less factors of the injured party courting death involved.

Strange beasts seem to be naturally friendly to humans.

Chen Shu looked again at the giant beast beside him.

This also seems to be a strange beast.

But where is its true form located?

Yan Keling's voice interrupted his thoughts: "Senior Brother, have they gone far?"

"Quite far."

"Why doesn't that cow leave?"

"I don't know..." Chen Shu pondered for a moment, "Perhaps it is supervising here? Afraid that we will break our promise and dig them all up. Perhaps compared to the others, its love for the Full Moon See is a bit higher."

"Phew..." Yan Keling let out a long breath, "That's good, it was much easier than I imagined."

"Communication is paramount!"

"I thought strange beasts were hard to communicate with..." Yan Keling scratched her head and smiled embarrassedly, "It was all Linjian who misled me."

"Linjian..."

"Yes, it is called Linjian."

"That sounds quite nice."

"Haha..."

"Aren't you a successor of the Imperial Sect?" Chen Shu asked again, "I remember in the records of the classics, besides using the Spirit Contract method to summon projections, your Imperial Sect would also sign contract relationships with ordinary strange beasts; how come you don't seem to know much about strange beasts?"

"I only obtained the Imperial Sect inheritance, but the Imperial Sect disappeared long ago."

"So that's how it is."

"Senior Brother, let's split this!"

Yan Keling seemed particularly interested in dividing things up; she stood beside this patch of Full Moon See, lowered her head to examine it in deep thought for a long while, then reached out to draw a line: "The flowers blooming on both sides seem to be about the same amount; I'll take this half, and you take that half, how about it?"

"That works."

Chen Shu lowered his head and began to dig, being very careful.

These flowers were magical; when touched, the light blooming from the bell-shaped flowers would brighten slightly, so beautiful that one could not bear to lay a hand on them.

As they were digging, there was movement behind them, and it was rapidly approaching them.

Yan Keling and Lin Sword were already on alert.

Chen Shu also stopped and looked back, only to see a figure rush out of the woods, their hand glowing—it was holding a satellite locator.

It was none other than Brother Jiang.

"Who is it?"

Yan Keling pretended to be fierce as she asked: "What are you doing here? This patch of Full Moon See has already been contracted by us, go find some elsewhere!"

"Brother Chen!"

"Hmm?"

Yan Keling was a bit confused, and then she heard Chen Shu's voice:

"Brother Jiang, how did you come here?"

"I was woken up from my sleep, heard explosions coming from this direction, and the satellite locator also showed that you were here, Brother Chen, so I came over to take a look."

"Oh, it's nothing, I'm just picking some medicinal herbs, and then I'll head back."

"Do you need me to help you?"

"No need."

"Oh."

Jiang Lai stood to the side, catching his breath.

About half an hour later.

The three people and one beast left the area with the Full Moon See; the Auspicious Ox watched from afar, and until it confirmed they had completely departed, it scanned the remaining Full Moon See one last time, then silently turned and left the place as well.

It was already midnight by the time they returned to the camp.

Chen Shu used Spirit Power to seal the Full Moon See, whose luster had dimmed, and pretended to put them into his backpack, though in reality, he stored them inside the Crystal, only then lying down inside his tent.