Chapter 1113

One by one, they spared no true Qi, surrounding Hearing Gai Nie and the other from all directions.

"Hero Gai, you and I met by chance. You saved me once, and I am already very grateful."

Miss Xiao Li saw the problem and knew there would be no escaping it today.

She suddenly took out the cloth bag she had been clutching tightly against her chest and handed it to Hearing Gai Nie,

"This is a rare exotic beast, and it is also tied to a hidden place.

I ask that Hero Gai treat it well and not let it fall into the hands of these villains."

"A rare exotic beast? A hidden place?"

Hearing Gai Nie had been wholly focused, on guard against the masked men's impending attack.

But hearing Miss Xiao Li's words, he could not help feeling a little puzzled and blurted out,

"Isn't this a Fire Monkey?"

Hearing Gai Nie had come to Manghuang Mountain this time precisely for Old Sixth Miss Xiao Li's Fire Monkey.

Now that Miss Xiao Li had produced this cloth bag, clearly the Fire Monkey should be inside.

But why did Miss Xiao Li's words make it sound as if this were not a Fire Monkey?

"Hehe…"

Miss Xiao Li gave a miserable little laugh and said,

"This is not a Fire Monkey. It's called a Pixiu!"

Having said that, Miss Xiao Li opened the cloth bag.

Out popped an exotic beast, about the size of a Pekingese, with a pair of golden horns on its forehead and a body of flaming red, appearing in Miss Xiao Li's arms.

This exotic beast had been held tightly in Miss Xiao Li's embrace the whole time, yet upon appearing now, it was still fast asleep.

Watching the rise and fall of its breathing, it looked rather adorable.

Hearing Gai Nie could not help a moment of distraction, then asked,

"Pixiu… what is a Pixiu…"

He truly could not make sense of the situation.

Clearly, he had come looking for the Fire Monkey on the word of the Six Ghosts of the Yellow River, especially this Old Sixth, Miss Xiao Li.

How was it that at the very end, this perfectly good Fire Monkey had turned into such a charmingly silly Pixiu?

But by now, Miss Xiao Li had no time left to explain.

The masked men's leader, seeing the Pixiu, lit up and laughed to the sky, saying,

"Haha! The strategist foresaw as if divine—sure enough, someone has delivered the Pixiu right to our door!

Quick, seize the Pixiu for me. We cannot let it be lost on our watch.

Otherwise, I'm afraid when we go back, none of us will survive."

In truth, the masked men's large force had already closed in from all sides.

Hearing the leader's words just now, they only now realized that this Pekingese-sized Pixiu before them was the true objective of their mission.

And hearing the leader's words about punishment, the masked men shuddered all over.

No longer bothering to attack Hearing Gai Nie, they all rushed instead to snatch the Pixiu.

"So these people are also after the Pixiu?"

Hearing Gai Nie could not help his curiosity and instinctively resolved not to let these masked men succeed.

Paying no heed to anything else, he drew the Yuan Hong Sword at once and unleashed the Vertical Sword Art against the masked men.

Even without true essence, Hearing Gai Nie's Ghost Valley Vertical Sword Art was terrifyingly powerful.

Moreover, this Yuan Hong Sword was the second-ranked famed sword on the Fenghu Zi Sword Register of Great Qin.

The moment the Vertical Sword Art came out, it not only wove layer by layer of sword nets.

Above the sword nets, there was also a faint pulling force that drew in the masked men's moves and weapons alike, greatly weakening their assault.

"What a Hearing Gai Nie!"

Seeing that his two dozen-odd subordinates attacking from all sides could not break through the sword net for the moment, the masked men's leader could not help but praise him.

After all, at this moment Hearing Gai Nie had no cultivation to speak of.

"Hero Gai, I'll help you!"

Zhu Jia, who had been silent in the distance all this while.

Seeing that Hearing Gai Nie's fight with the masked men had already reached a white-hot stage.

Zhu Jia's heart could not bear it; he no longer wished to be a shrinking turtle.

With a fierce shout, he too charged toward them with all his might.

"Hmph! Overestimating yourself!"

Seeing Zhu Jia charge in, the masked men's leader gave a cold laugh.

Just as Zhu Jia was about to arrive, he suddenly swept sideways and slashed out with Guihai Yidao.

That slash was his unique skill—appearing to be only one strike, yet containing infinite variations.

Coupled with the fact that the masked men's leader still had his true essence intact, the attack was viciously fierce.

By rights, Zhu Jia's strength was far inferior to Hearing Gai Nie's.

Facing this slash, the odds would likely be grim.

The masked men's leader was also confident that this slash of his would surely cut down this short fellow beneath his blade.

But before the blade's reach could envelop Zhu Jia, Zhu Jia's short little figure suddenly flickered.

The next instant, countless short little figures shot up into the air, attacking the masked men.

"What kind of technique is this? How can you use true essence?"

The masked leader was greatly shocked — he had never imagined that Zhuge Shennong could actually mobilize true essence!

It turned out that Zhuge Shennong was a man of the Farmer Sect.

The Farmer Sect traces its origins to Shennong Shi, and takes as its mission the tasting of a hundred herbs to succor all under heaven.

Therefore, disciples of the Farmer Sect are not only skilled at refining medicines and concocting poisons, but also adept at neutralizing toxins.

The Despair Grass truly is colorless and odorless, able to harm a person invisibly.

But once Zhuge Shennong reached this side, he promptly sensed that something was amiss.

So he bit down on a Shennong Detoxifying Pill and kept it in his mouth, while on the surface he put on the appearance of one poisoned by Despair Grass.

Although the Shennong Detoxifying Pill could not completely purge the poison of Despair Grass, it could after all let Zhuge Shennong preserve a measure of his strength.

Suddenly unleashing it now truly gave these masked men a fright.

One saw those short, small figures split off half to surround and attack the masked leader.

The remaining half, however, charged toward the masked men who were besieging Hearing Gai Nie.

These masked men's strength was only at the Grandmaster level.

Moreover, they were already constrained by Hearing Gai Nie's sword net, making it hard to fend off other attacks to begin with.

Zhuge Shennong's attacks, moreover, were exceedingly strange and uncanny.

In an instant, when these short, small figures rushed up —

More than twenty masked men were, almost in the blink of an eye, tapped to the ground by Zhuge Shennong.

"Brother Zhuge…"

Hearing Gai Nie had already become somewhat exhausted from unleashing that sword net.

Seeing now that Zhuge Shennong had risked life and death to lend him a hand, he could not help but feel moved in his heart.

Others did not know, but he knew that this move of Zhuge Shennong's was the Zhuge family's ultimate art — Thousand Faces, Thousand Forms.

Every short, small figure that resembled Zhuge Shennong was in truth a phantom conjured from Zhuge Shennong's own true essence.

Unleashing this move required Zhuge Shennong to expend ten years' worth of cultivation!

Under ordinary circumstances, Zhuge Shennong would never employ it; he had not expected that today he would use it to save Hearing Gai Nie.

"Brother Gai, run!"

At this moment the place was filled everywhere with phantoms conjured by Zhuge Shennong's Thousand Faces, Thousand Forms, and one could not tell where Zhuge Shennong's true body actually was.

Yet Zhuge Shennong, hearing Hearing Gai Nie's voice, immediately spoke out to Hearing Gai Nie.

This Zhuge Shennong had actually conceived the idea of covering Hearing Gai Nie's rear guard.

"But I…"