Lingering Mountains Grotto

A young man was sitting gloomily at the edge of a cliff.

He watched the clouds drift by before his eyes. He felt the cold wind rushing past his ears.

The chirping of songbirds echoed in his ears. But he did not find any joy in it.

Their songs were like laughter and mockery to him.

He wished he could just disappear and never be seen again.

He's been like this for the past weeks.

Pain gnawed at his chest and emptiness filled his heart.

A voice called out from behind. It was his mother.

"Meng'er, she is gone now. I know this is hard on you, but you have to move on. You need to focus on your cultivation, everything else is just distraction." - His mother said in a sorrowful voice.

"Her flowing sliver hair, her slender figure... Those willful eyes... I can still see her clearly whenever I close my eyes." - Hao Meng replied.

"Come, let mother embrace you. It hurts me to see you like that. Come enter my immortal aperture, mother will protect you from the harsh world." - A jade-like beauty landed gracefully next to the young man. She wore a white dress and had a head of snow-white hair tied into a bun. Her eyes were sharp like blades and her face was fair and beautiful.

"No, mother. I do not want to go back into your frozen blessed land. I am not a kid anymore! Not only that, but I don't need you to watch over my every step!" - Hao Meng said with a chilly voice.

Hao Meng's mother narrowed her eyes in displeasure.

"Why do you do this to me? Mother knows what's best for you!"

Suddenly, a messenger gu worm arrived. It rushed towards the two of them and then circled around before stopping.

"A Frost Sparrow gu! This is from Icy Peak Mountain!" - Hao Meng's eyes flashed with hope.

His mother reached out to receive the gu, but the Frost Sparrow changed course and landed on Hao Meng's shoulder.

"Give it to me. Let me read it. I'm the holder of Icy Peak Mountain." - She said coldly.

"Mother, what do you mean by that? That's my gu! I have the right to know what's inside it." - He said angrily.

Hao Meng didn't yield and read the contents of the gu worm himself.

"Mother, what is the meaning of this?" - He asked in confusion.

"What does it say?" - She asked impatiently.

"Mother, Qinyang is alive! She's been rescued from the avalanche by a gu master. She is currently resting and recovering from her injuries." - He said in disbelief.

"I can't believe my eyes. Mother, Qinyang is still alive! She survived!" - Hao Meng repeated. He was almost jumping up and down from happiness.

Hearing this, his mother's eyes twitched. She thought:

"How can this be? I made sure to kill that wench. My killer move extinguished her life force. How can she still be alive? A mortal can't survive an immortal killer move..." - She thought incredulously.

But then her expression turned from disbelief to fury in a flash.

"How dare that vixen! How dare she survive! This is unacceptable! Unacceptable!" - She shouted angrily.

Hao Meng looked at his mother with a hint of confusion.

"Mother, what's wrong? Qinyang is alive! We can go meet her soon!" - He said.

"No, Meng'er. You can't go meet her." - She said in a stern voice.

"Hao Meng, my dear son, listen to me. That low-born vixen wants to take you away from me. She is just using you to join the main family branch!" - Hao Meng's mother said anxiously.

"No, mother. Qinyang would never do that." - He said in a firm voice.

"You are too naïve, Meng'er. You need to stay away from her. She's just a scheming vixen! She wants to steal your inheritance! You must not see her again!" - She said desperately.

"No, mother. I am going to see her. I have to make sure she's alright." - He said stubbornly.

"Meng'er, her parents are revolting scum! I will not allow you to marry that woman. She is not worthy of you! Do you understand?" - She said angrily as she raised her hand threateningly.

"No, mother. I love her. I will go visit her right now. Don't try to stop me! You can freeze my body but you can't freeze my heart." - With that said, Hao Meng passed the Frost Sparrow gu over and flew away.

"You ungrateful brat! Come back here right now!" - His mother shouted after him, but he was already long gone.

A few hours later, Hao Meng arrived at the foot of Icy Peak Mountain.

* * * * *

Sun Lotus City

There was great chaos. The people on the streets were kicking up the dust, trying their best to escape the calamity. The sea of people flowed onward between the houses like a wild river.

The sounds of screams and crying filled the air as the waves of people surged forward.

Suddenly, the ground rumbled and shook violently.

The moment it started, the flow of people froze.

Bang!

A loud explosion was heard from afar. Then another, and many subsequent ones.

"Stone skin rhinos! Run!" - Shouted someone.

"The city wall has shattered!" - Came another panicked yell from the same direction.

Not far away, Bao Zhi has also felt the tremors. He was currently traveling underground with his Earth Root Transformation killer move.

"Good. Hopefully the city's forces are preoccupied for long enough." - He continued forward, searching for his goal.

After an incense stick of time, he finally reached an obstacle he couldn't dig into.

He started to follow its edge carefully, looking for a gap to dig into. Not much later he found a spot where the reinforcements were weaker.

"This is it."

Bao Zhi pried his way in inch by inch. He arrived in an underground room.

He turned back into his human form and looked around.

The place was cold and dimly lit. The tremors caused loose dust to fall from the ceiling.

"Is this the backroom of the guard post?" - He guessed.

The room was empty, with a few tables and chairs strewn about.

The door was open, and he could hear the sounds of the battle raging above.

He carefully sneaked out to the hallway.

There stood a single guard at the end of the hallway next to a sturdy door.

"There's no way to avoid him." - Bao Zhi assessed the situation.

"Who are you? How did you get down here?" - The guard spotted him almost immediately.

Bao Zhi did not get flustered.

"Sir, is this the treasury? Did city lord send me to the right place?" - He asked with a confused expression as he approached the guard.

"It is. Why are you here? Stop right there, or I won't be polite!" - Said the guard suspiciously.

"There's no time! The city defenses have fallen! City lord sent me here directly with his technique. We have to evacuate the valuables or everything will be destroyed. The city lord is currently putting his life on the line for the people to escape." - Bao Zhi told his fabricated story with an honest expression.

The guard hesitated.

"I need to confirm if what you say is true." - He took out a gu worm and talked into it.

"Are you going to get buried here alive?" - Bao Zhi urged, looking back and to the guard anxiously.

There came no reply from the gu worm in the guard's hand.

Seeing the opportune moment, Bao Zhi took out his Primeval Elder gu.

"City Lord gave me this gu worm. It is rank three, I can't use it." - He gestured at his dirt covered green robes.

"A primeval elder gu? That's a rare rank three gu. A rank one gu master can't possess something like that." - The guard pondered.

Bao Zhi knew he was about to succeed. He directly tossed the primeval elder gu in the guard's hands and proceeded to approach the door.

"You can use the gu worm, right? Come help me open this. There's no time to waste. City lord will come pick us up very soon, but he won't wait if we miss the opportunity!" - Bao Zhi explained as he pushed the door open.

The guard's mind was in a jumble, but he soon recovered.

"No, wait! I haven't turned off the defensive formation!" - He shouted.

But Bao Zhi had already entered the room.

The formation activated at once and a shining thorn the size of a fore arm shot towards Bao Zhi.

The guard acted just in time and used his method to shut the formation off.

The metallic looking thorn landed on the ground with a clang.

"Don't go! Let me lead the way."

The guard had no other choice. He entered the room with trepidation.

The room was large, with a high ceiling. A thick layer of dust covered everything.

As they ventured deeper, rows of shelves caught their eyes.

In the far side of the room, large piles of primeval stones were gathered.

Bao Zhi: "You go get the primeval stones. I'll start with the gu worms."

The guard nodded and they split up.

The guard approached the huge piles of primeval stones and held the primeval elder gu in front of him.

The stones were sucked in one after another in quick succession, and one of the piles was soon all gone.

The face of the primeval elder in the gu worm was still sad, but its back wasn't hunched and its wrinkles have smoothed out. It was about one third full.

At this moment, the tremors continued again, now even stronger.

The guard's face turned pale. He redoubled his efforts and started to collect the other piles.

In the meanwhile, Bao Zhi was busy looking through the gu worms. He knew he couldn't take everything, not even with his helper's assistance. He had to carefully weigh the pros and cons of each gu on the spot.

His gaze landed on a specific gu. It looked like an aged, thousand-year-old ginseng root with a yellow color. Its lower part of the root split in two, resembling human legs.

"There it is!" - He grabbed it without hesitation.

It was the rank five Man Triumphing Heaven gu!

The name was fitting, this was the gu that could awaken an aperture forcefully, even if the person had no cultivation aptitude.

The gu worms here were sealed away to preserve them for a long time without the need to feed them so often. But this meant that they were also unusable until unsealing them.

Bao Zhi did not hesitate to store away the Man Triumphing Heaven gu worm and continued to look through the many gu worms on display.

The atmosphere was tense. The guard was getting anxious as the time passed.

"Come on, what are you doing? We need to leave now!" - He shouted.

"Did you get the primeval stones?" - Bao Zhi asked.

"It's almost full." - The guard showed the smiling Primeval Elder inside the gu.

"Just a little longer. Top it off. I'm almost done here as well." - Bao Zhi called back.

"No, we're leaving now!" - The guard was adamant.

Now the guard was the one urging the matters as larger and larger pieces fell down from the ceiling.

He felt like the whole structure could collapse at a moment's notice.

He was getting more and more uneasy.

"Okay, let's move." - Bao Zhi nimbly grabbed another gu and put it in his storage gu.

The exit was now blocked by a large boulder. They had to use their combined strength to push it away.

As soon as they moved the boulder out of the way Bao Zhi exclaimed:

"You dropped this gu worm just now."

The guard turned back to take a look.

Bao Zhi held a black star-shaped gu in his palm. He crushed the gu and its seal, and the gu burst forth with an explosive force.

Rank four consumable gu: Star Assassination!

The five edges of the star flew out and nailed the guard to the tunnel's wall.

He died immediately. A pool of black blood was slowly gathering at his feet.

Star Assassination was a special poison path gu worm, it could be activated by only crushing it. As the name implied, it was suitable for assassins. Its power was also formidable. But no regular gu masters would choose this gu, because the range was really subpar, and the gu would be destroyed after a single use.

"Spending a rare rank four gu is still worth it." - Bao Zhi thought as he retrieved his Primeval Elder gu from the corpse.

The primeval elder had a bright smile as it floated proudly in the Primeval Elder gu.

The gu contained a million primeval stones!

* * * * *