Endless mountains. Dense valleys. Dark and damp. Sunless.
Lin Tang carried Ning Yuexi on his back with Wei Zichu tucked under his arm. He moved between the rugged, bizarre rocks, his steps completely silent. He felt as though he had entered an extrely complex natural maze, which was very conducive to hiding. Most importantly, the place was filled with a thick, deathly aura that effectively blocked Xiao Qingcang's long-range senses.
Xiao Qingcang had also arrived and was roaming the area, playing a ga of hide-and-seek with Lin Tang.
"This damned cur is really cunning!" he snarled in a fit of rage, shattering a rock with a single punch. A multitude of insects scattered in a panic. A few grotesque birds with fleshy growths squatted on rotten branches, squawking annoyingly. What made Xiao Qingcang even more uncomfortable was the poisonous miasma perating the air.
If he were in his pri with abundant energy, he naturally wouldn't be afraid. But now… he was already starting to feel dizzy and nauseous.
Should I retreat? Or should I continue?
Reason told him he should retreat, but emotionally, he couldn't accept it.
He suddenly shouted at the top of his lungs, "Long Tianji! When you killed the Vice Hall Master's daughter, you had another woman with you. She must be even more important to you, right? If you know what's good for you, co out now! Otherwise, I'll go to Jiangbei, find her, and rape her before I kill her!"
His voice carried far and wide, creating echoes. After a mont, there was still no response.
"Fine! I'm off then!" Xiao Qingcang roared again and strode away, deliberately making all sorts of noise as he went. Then, everything returned to a dead silence.
A few minutes later, WHOOSH!
Xiao Qingcang reappeared, sweeping quickly through the forest, his gaze scanning every possible hiding spot. On several occasions, he almost stumbled upon Lin Tang. It was quite a thrilling close call.
Lin Tang remained perfectly calm, watching him run into the distance. Then he said, "You two can breathe again."
"Phew—"
The two girls, who were now awake, let out a long breath in unison.
Wei Zichu whispered, "Uncle Long, you can't beat him right now, can you?"
"If I could beat him, why would we be hiding?" Lin Tang shot her a sidelong glance.
"Put down!" Ning Yuexi squird and demanded. His large hand was cupping her bottom, his fingers uncomfortably close to sensitive areas.
"If you walk on your own, you'll make noise, and he'll easily detect us… Shh, be quiet, he's coming again! Three, two, one, hold your breath!"
The two promptly did as they were told.
About ten seconds later, Xiao Qingcang once again strode past, a hundred ters away. Once he was gone, Lin Tang said softly, "If on the next pass, or the one after, he gets within fifty ters, he'll probably be able to hear your heartbeats and find us."
"Ah? Then what do we do?" Wei Zichu's face tensed. One could hold their breath, but how could they stop their heart from beating?
Ning Yuexi glanced at the ring on his head and tried to remove it, but it seed to have grown into his flesh and wouldn't budge.
Has he really turned into Sun Wukong?
She said flatly, "Judging by your tone, you must have a solution, right?"
"I do, but I need your help."
"What can I do?"
"Dual Cultivate with !"
"Pah! I'd rather he found and killed …"
"And what if he rapes you before he kills you?"
"That—" Ning Yuexi fell silent. Xiao Qingcang was also a middle-aged man, and he had the face of a cur—far uglier than Long Tianji.
"What kind of demonic Cultivation Technique do you practice that you can recover your strength through Dual Cultivation?"
"Want to learn? I can teach you."
"I would never deign to learn it, you damned demon!" Ning Yuexi's heart ached with sorrow, and tears stread down her face. She bit down hard on the nape of Lin Tang's neck and said with grim resolve, "Kill , or let kill myself."
Lin Tang was baffled. "Is Dual Cultivating with really that unacceptable?"
We've already done it once. What's the harm in doing it again?
Wei Zichu felt an odd urge to laugh and said teasingly, "She's disgusted because you're old. If you were a handso young man, she probably wouldn't be so repulsed she'd rather die."
"Is that… really it?" Lin Tang, feeling powerless to argue, had no choice but to confess, "Actually, I'm only in my twenties or thirties. I just look old."
Ning Yuexi's silence was deafening. Do you take for an idiot?
"Alright, alright, I'll co clean. This face is fake. I really am young." As Lin Tang spoke, his voice changed completely. With a series of crackles, his fra stretched and grew taller. He let Ning Yuexi touch his face, and she could clearly feel his features subtly shifting.
"!!!"
It was unbelievable! He actually possessed such a secret skill!
She eagerly craned her neck, trying to see his true face, but it was too dark here. There was no light. She couldn't see a thing, though she had a vague feeling he looked familiar, as if she'd seen him sowhere before.
"How can you…" Ning Yuexi's mind was in turmoil.
Lin Tang chuckled. "Even Sun Wukong has his seventy-two transformations. As the 'demon' you claim I am, it's perfectly normal for to have a transformation or two, wouldn't you say?"
"Normal my ass! You tricked so badly…" Ning Yuexi began to cry again, proving the old saying that won are made of water.
It is human nature to compromise. For instance, if you complain that a room is too dark and suggest opening a window, many will disagree. But if you then threaten to tear the roof off, they will suddenly agree to open the window.
Upon learning that Long Tianji was actually a young man in disguise, Ning Yuexi's resistance to Dual Cultivation weakened trendously. After all, a wretched life is better than a good death.
She stamred, "How can we Dual Cultivate in a place like this? What if that man discovers us while we're in the middle of it?"
"Pfft—" Wei Zichu couldn't hold back her laughter this ti.
Lin Tang couldn't help but smile. "Well, we don't have to take our clothes off, and we can use a coat for cover…"
Before Ning Yuexi could get shy again, he shifted her around to his front. After so rustling…
"Hey, you—" Ning Yuexi's face flushed crimson. Her entire body tensed, and her stomach trembled.
GULP!
Lin Tang's Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed the Seven Emotions Pill and the Five Spirits Pill at the sa ti.
Ning Yuexi stared. What's going on? Does he actually need to take pills to… you know?
The next mont, she let out a muffled grunt. His hot breath washed over her, making her feel dizzy, as if she were drunk. Lin Tang's depleted True Qi began to miraculously regenerate, flowing in a continuous stream.
Instantly, he was bursting with energy and vigor. He grabbed Wei Zichu and pulled her close.
Wei Zichu exclaid, "I have a part in this too?"
"I'm just using you as a human shield and support fra. I hope you don't mind," Lin Tang said in a dead-serious tone.
Wei Zichu almost spat blood. Brother Lin… Brother Lin… you're such a bully!
A few minutes later, WHOOSH!
A figure appeared abruptly. It was Xiao Qingcang! His piercing gaze swept the area, and he imdiately found them… or rather, the footprints Lin Tang had left behind.
The people themselves were long gone.
Now that his True Qi was replenished, Lin Tang naturally had the power to move quickly. He had successfully found a crevice in a mountain ravine. After squeezing inside, he journeyed steadily downward until he reached an underground river in the mountain's core, and from there he went even deeper.
The gurgling water was bone-chillingly cold. The temperature would have made an ordinary man shrink, but Lin Tang was unaffected. In fact, his body temperature was rising. While continuing to swim underwater, he intermittently passed True Qi to the two girls to keep them from suffocating. Finally, he leaped upward out of the water and into a cave.
The dicinal pills, which he had enveloped in his True Qi, began to digest at that very mont.
BOOM!
His consciousness seed to detach from his body, entering a profound and mysterious new world. He beca the master of this "world," omnipotent and able to do as he pleased. Here, ti seed to lose all aning. It felt as if ten thousand years had passed, yet also like a re instant.
The essence of the Golden Core is a miniature world, a newborn planet… I understand now! Lin Tang had an epiphany.
Vast swaths of lightning suddenly filled the void. All the flashes were his own thoughts and realizations colliding, producing sparks of insight and inspiration. Without realizing it, he had broken through his bottleneck and officially touched the realm of the Golden Core.
In the real world, Wei Zichu stood nearby, her eyes wide. But in the pitch-black darkness, she could only hear strange sounds. Suddenly, her entire body tingled as if she'd been electrocuted.
"This…"
Before she could react, a boundless sea of True Qi erupted from Lin Tang. It ford a tornado around her, lifting her off her feet. She shrieked in alarm as she was sent flying around him.
As for Ning Yuexi, she was completely lost to sensation, driven only by instinct to constantly seek more. She was like a parched desert, a desiccated land, greedily absorbing Lin Tang's True Qi, releasing it, and then having it absorbed by him again in a closed loop. As a bearer of the Luli Pure Body, she had a natural "purification" ability. Lin Tang's True Qi, filtered and purified through her, decreased in quantity but increased dramatically in quality, becoming more refined and pure.
It transford from gas to liquid, and liquid to solid—a glittering, golden, round mass.
A Golden Core was born!
「On the surface.」
Xiao Qingcang, forcing himself to ignore his physical discomfort, was still frantically searching. "He was obviously at the end of his rope, so how can he keep dodging ? That damned pest! That cowardly turtle!"
As he was cursing, suddenly, Xiao Qingcang looked up. He noticed the clouds in the sky had, at so point, ford a vortex glowing with auspicious, seven-colored light. These auspicious clouds descended continuously, lower and lower, until they settled over a mountain peak.
"This is…" Xiao Qingcang stood there, stunned.
He instinctively moved closer and discovered that the sinister, deathly aura in the surroundings was automatically dispersing. As a result, he could suddenly sense Lin Tang's exact location.
"Haha, Heaven itself has decreed your death! Let's see you escape now!"
Xiao Qingcang plunged headfirst into the rushing water of the mountain ravine, intent on reaping Lin Tang's life at once…
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