Chapter 73
Chapter 73
Thick black smoke billowed, carrying a foul, scorched stench.
The people standing on the rock were covered in soot, looking like smoked meat.
Wang Chang couldn’t bear the heat any longer. He pulled down his sun-shielding hood and fanned himself vigorously to get some air.
Seeing this, Wu Er scolded him, “The sun is so fierce, don’t you want your face anymore?”
Getting a sunburn was no joke.
As soon as he spoke, Han Lie also pulled down his hood.
Wu Er was stunned for a moment, then heard Han Lie say, “The temperature has dropped.”
Only then did Wu Er realize that compared to the furnace-like heat from before, a cool breeze was actually blowing from the north.
Aman, who was wrapped in cloth bandages, was even more sensitive to the temperature. He nodded and said, “It really has cooled down!”
Although the sun still hung high in the sky, the oppressive heat that had blanketed the entire region seemed to have been swept away by a cold hand.
Aman not only pulled off his hood but also threw open his cloak.
He let out a long, comfortable sigh. “I haven’t felt such a cool breeze in a long time.”
“Could it be…”
He and Wu Er exchanged glances with the others.
“Could it be that the Supreme Deity acted just now and eliminated the Hanba?”
Before the group could cheer in excitement, Han Lie shook his head. “No.”
The Supreme Deity had said the Coffin had fled.
The smiles on everyone’s faces froze.
Han Lie wiped his face and said, “The Hanba fled and the temperature dropped; it must be injured!”
“We should take this opportunity to pursue it!”
As the Squad Leader of this mission, no one would contradict Han Lie’s decision.
Though they were exhausted, the drop in temperature made the physical environment much more comfortable.
They stepped over the field of snake corpses and headed toward Chixia Golden Saddle Mountain.
Along the way, they encountered some scattered Fei Yi that hadn’t been burned to death, but these Fei Yi no longer showed the intense hostility they had before.
Upon seeing humans, they scurried away into the sand dunes or the shadows of rocks.
Qin Ying, as usual, scooped some into her Preservation Box.
The box was full of snake corpses, covered in fine sand like a bunch of earthworms.
Qin Ying didn’t want her own refrigerator to be contaminated, so she wrapped several disposable ice packs around the sides for temporary preservation.
Once this matter was settled, she would have to buy a new refrigerator first.
Stretching her aching neck, she sat down by the box. The silicone spatula in Qin Ying’s hand was already ruined, covered in charred residue.
She found a sand dune and rubbed the spatula back and forth against it several times.
She didn’t stop until an entire dune had been leveled and the sticky residue was mostly scraped off. Only then did she put it away.
She found a plastic bag to cover it, intending to destroy it with fire in her yard during the day.
With the temperature in the World in the Box dropping and no Monstrous Beasts to block them, Han Lie and the others reached the front of Chixia Golden Saddle Mountain a day later.
This sacred mountain, worshipped by the Sand People of the desert, was shaped like a saddle.
The mountain was composed of crimson rock, displaying various layers of red.
The entrance was relatively narrow, with an upward slope.
There were obvious signs of human activity on the slope; small stone piles built by the Sand People stood on both sides.
Chains made of wolf fangs and snake vertebrae hung over them.
As the wind blew, they knocked against each other with dull thuds.
Because the Thunderbird had lingered here, the stone steps had been locked by lightning for years, giving the surface of the slope a vitrified, obsidian-like texture.
As Aman returned to these stone steps, he felt a phantom pain as if his flesh were being scorched.
That day, to poison the Thunderbird, they had joined forces with nearby tribes and mobilized hundreds of Able-bodied Adults, carefully selecting sixty-six warriors.
But they were all gone.
Han Lie and the others left their Sand Lizards outside the mountain and carried their packs into the range on foot.
As they walked up the gentle slope, Aman’s eyes reddened as his gaze swept over a charred skeleton lying by the path.
He said, “Once we go in from here, we will see a flat area filled with jagged rocks.”
Before he could finish, the relatively silent Cheng Xuan let out an “Ouch.” The blackened stone he stepped on cracked, and he sank into a large pit.
Fortunately, Han Lie was quick and grabbed him.
Aman came over to look and immediately frowned. “It shouldn’t be like this.”
He had been to this place filled with rocks and White Jade many times; such quicksand pits should not exist here.
Han Lie and the others became even more cautious.
As they rounded the mountain pass, the sensation beneath their feet suddenly changed.
At the same time they caught a whiff of a fishy stench, they stepped into a layer of sticky liquid two inches deep.
They also saw white snake eggs scattered all over the mountain!
Most of the eggs had shattered, their viscous fluid spilling across the ground. Amidst the relatively fresh, translucent slime were fine black scales and pieces of flawless White Jade, which would have been worth a hundred gold pieces in Luoyang.
“Good heavens, is this where the Fei Yi hatch?”
Wang Chang noticed a malformed snake egg by his feet; a tiny snake was faintly moving inside the translucent shell. He brought his heavy foot down, crushing the brittle shell.
Egg white oozed out, and the little snake tumbled onto the ground. The Fei Yi had one head and two bodies, while its six legs and four wings looked like tiny, deformed buds. Suppressed by the Toad Venom Wang Chang carried on his person, it hissed twice before breathing its last.
Seeing his karmic recklessness, Wu Er couldn’t help but scold him. “No killing mothers or young without cause-did a dog eat your memory?”
Wang Chang sheepishly withdrew his foot. “I didn’t think it would just die like that.”
“The Fei Yi shouldn’t be this fragile.”
Just then, the ground where he had stepped suddenly collapsed into a pit. It was about as wide as a tar barrel; if Wu Er hadn’t pulled him back, he likely would have fallen right in.
Everyone gathered around to look, only to see a corpse sitting cross-legged, hanging upside down in the hole. Seeing the style of the leather armor on the body, Han Lie and the other Jade Balance Army soldiers all turned pale.
Once they had secured the body with a rope and pulled it out, Wang Chang recognized the face of the mummified corpse at a glance.
“Lao Qi!”
At his shout, Han Lie and the others also felt a pang of grief. This upside-down mummy on the ground was indeed the comrade who had wandered into Golden Saddle Mountain with Commandant Lin that day. The dried skin clung tightly to the skull, but his features were still vaguely recognizable.
Wang Chang grabbed the corpse and began to sob.
Han Lie stepped forward to pull him away and examine the body. He found that the dried skin had turned purple. He must have been poisoned by a Fei Yi, died while sitting in meditation somewhere, and then been dragged here by the Fei Yi to be hidden-or perhaps to serve as a food reserve for the hatchlings.
Han Lie’s chest heaved several times as a surge of fury rose within him. He noticed that the corpse’s hand was partially clenched as if holding something. He knelt to look and found a piece of cloth smeared with blood-red characters in the body’s hand. It was clearly torn from a hem and written by biting a finger.
The handwriting was very scrawled; only after patient deciphering did they realize it was a suicide note. It urged his wife to raise their children and mentioned that he had once borrowed forty copper coins from the big brother next door, hoping his wife would remember to pay it back once she received his pension.
The more Wang Chang read, the harder he cried, cursing under his breath, “You bastard, it would have been better if you just stayed alive.”
Wu Er silently rolled up the blood-stained letter and tucked it into his robe. If he lived to return, he would bring this final letter back.
They had no way to deal with the body now, but they couldn’t leave it covered in the slime of snake eggs on the ground. They wrapped the corpse in a felt blanket, initially intending to dig a pit and place it inside, temporarily burying it with jade discs to see if they would have a chance to take it with them on the way back.
However, before the weeping Wang Chang could start digging, Han Lie stopped him.
“No need to dig. The Supreme Deity will take Lao Qi first.”
Qin Ying’s original words were that if it was inconvenient for them to carry their comrade’s body, they could leave it with her for the time being and she would return it once they were out of danger. But everyone had clearly misinterpreted her meaning.
“Lao Qi has some incredible luck.” Wang Chang looked up at the sky with envy. “He’s actually ascending to immortality.”
Aman didn’t say anything, but his expression was equally envious.
After they left, Qin Ying used her Barbecue Tongs like she was picking up a peanut and lifted the felt-wrapped corpse out of the box. Fearing the body might carry some uncontrollable virus, she didn’t touch it with her hands. She sprayed it with alcohol to disinfect it, placed it into an empty tin candy box, and then sealed it in a plastic bag.
By the time she disinfected the Barbecue Tongs and looked back into the box, Han Lie and the others had already entered the interior of Golden Saddle Mountain. They occasionally encountered a few Fei Yi along the way, all of which they hacked to death with their blades.
After crossing a flat stretch of wasteland, the number of snake eggs on the ground and cliffs visibly decreased. They walked across the crimson mountain rocks. Finally, beneath a precipice, they saw a white stone temple hidden in the shadows of the cliff.
Aman pointed from a distance, gritting his teeth as he spoke. “That is the Divine Shrine of Golden Saddle Mountain!”