novelraw Chapter 28 : Chapter 28
Chapter 28 : Chapter 28
Chapter 28: Dawn Over Ten Thousand Miles
“Human heads growing on trees?”
“On vines.”
“The headless skeletons on the ground— are their heads part of the vine?”
“All I know is, if we don’t escape fast, two more heads will hang up there soon.”
…
Carrying Gao Huan on my shoulder, I sprinted through the dense forest. Behind, the trees echoed with rapid rustling and eerie, human-like laughter.
Reaching a canyon, I glanced back.
In the dark cyan sky, a thick vine, like a dragon, burst from the cliff, heads swaying, stretching into the hundred-meter foggy canopy.
“Run!”
I crossed streams, leaped ravines.
Even when the vine’s sound faded, we didn’t dare stop.
Exhausted, with the vine not catching up, Gao Huan carried me. I practiced the Jade Void Breathing Technique on his back, recovering strength quickly.
We took turns, fleeing all night.
Emerging from the dark, misty forest, we collapsed, sprawling on a grassy slope.
Sweat dried, strength gone, souls drained.
“No more running… can’t move. Lord Li, go on… leave me… let me hang. One more step, I’ll die,” Gao Huan panted, wanting to sleep forever.
“Then I’ll hang too!”
I was just as spent, the ground soft, the sky warm.
Taking a deep breath…
“Huh!”
The forest’s moldy stench was gone.
I opened my eyes, sat up, slapped Gao Huan’s rear, and laughed: “Gao Fish Soup, get up! The vine didn’t follow. We’re in the mortal world— blue sky, white clouds, green grass, wildflowers… haha…”
Soft dawn, mountain breeze.
These ordinary Earth sights were, to me now, a dreamlike paradise.
After darkness, killing, ghosts, hunger, and anxiety, the mundane was more precious than immortality.
I closed my eyes, breathing deeply.
Soil, grass, flowers… even the sky and clouds were sweet.
Fatigue vanished instantly.
Gao Huan sat up, seeing the surroundings, grinning like me. He scrambled to a goose-yellow wildflower, sniffed it, and muttered, “This is it… this scent…”
Fleeing all night, our faces, hands, legs, and clothes were scratched by thorns, sweat drying and wetting. We looked wretched.
Calming down, pain, exhaustion, and hunger hit hard.
Our food and water were lost in some ravine or stream. The Yellow Dragon Sword, evil camel bell, and money pouch— inedible— stayed.
We lay down again.
Gao Huan chewed the flower, weak: “We can’t lie here. We can eat roots, find a stream to drink.”
“If we find a town, take a hot bath, eat a bowl of noodle soup with cilantro— no immortal would trade,” I said.
Gao Huan’s eyes lit up, swallowing: “No cilantro… I want beef…”
Suddenly.
A deep, rough voice boomed above: “What’re you two muttering?”
Exhausted, starved, we jolted upright like shocked.
Turning slowly.
Following the shadow on the ground, we looked up.
A man, about thirty, robust, stood on the slope. Thick brows, large eyes, wide face, curly hair, rough yet textured skin.
Gao Huan couldn’t understand him but felt his fearsome aura.
I felt it stronger.
His skill far surpassed mine— he’d appeared silently. Even exhausted, I’d stayed vigilant.
While joking with Gao Huan, I’d been channeling hot and cold airflows to recover.
His terrifying aura wasn’t just skill— his eyes held a ruthless disregard for life, forged by countless killings.
Shi Jiuzhai laughed, cursing: “You two scouts look pathetic. Did you meet a fiend or a departed spirit?”
I understood his words roughly, realizing our clothes caused a misunderstanding.
He wore a monk-like robe too.
Not brown, but holly green.
How to explain?
Could I?
Say we stripped corpses?
He’d likely think we killed and looted.
I didn’t dare bet on his temperament, nodding, feigning fright, gesturing: “Fiend! Many heads… vine… this thick…”
I’d learned this world’s language but was rusty.
It fit my panicked state.
“You met the Thousand-Headed Dragon Vine?”
Shi Jiuzhai’s eyes flashed with wariness, striding down, striking a palm at me from afar.
The force roared.
Feeling a tidal wave, I thought he’d seen through us. I gritted my teeth, channeling both airflows, thrusting both palms.
Time to fight!
“Boom!”
I flew back, organs feeling shattered, unable to rise.
“Haha, no wonder you escaped. You’ve opened three fountain points at your age? Not bad,” Shi Jiuzhai said, grabbing Gao Huan’s face, examining: “A pure immortal body? No mana— just transformed?”
I didn’t understand “little wolf cub” or “three fountain points.”
I’d only opened two— where’d three come from?
But I realized he wasn’t suspicious, just testing my strength. Fearing Gao Huan’s slip, I said, “Yes… he just transformed…”
“The vine must be full, or you’d never escape.”
Shi Jiuzhai released his iron-grip fingers: “Who’re you with?”
Our attire likely marked a faction. This man was a big figure in it.
My mind raced, smiling: “We’re with you, sir.”
“Haha, clever! Follow me from now on!”
Shi Jiuzhai climbed the slope, eyes fixed on a narrow, shadowed river valley between mountains, over a kilometer high.
A massive coffin-carrying procession emerged from the misty side.
I and Gao Huan, dragging our tired bodies, climbed the low slope beside him.
The vantage point was high, the view vast.
Under the sunrise, ancient ridges and mountains, cloaked in white mist and warm dawn, stretched like dragon spines, fading into the horizon.
The sky vast, the earth wide, wind flapping robes like flags, stirring boundless heroism.
Below, the coffin procession, like ants in gray-white hemp, moved. Four carried each coffin, thousands in a white snake-like line.
Chants echoed between mountains, beast hooves clattering, paper money scattering, some blown to the riverbanks.
The lead coffin, silver-like, bound with hemp ropes, large as a house, could hold hundreds. Pulled by a giant ox bigger than an elephant, its cart wheels echoed through the valley.
I said, “These were salvaged from the blood sea?”
“What else?”
Shi Jiuzhai laughed: “The Jiuli tribe profits from fishing alien coffins in the blood sea dock, selling across Lingxiao’s twenty-eight provinces, raking in riches. Such a lucrative trade, only they do it— who wouldn’t be jealous?”
From today, his Earth Wolf King Army would take a share.
The world was in chaos— how could Leizhou stay peaceful?
“Let’s go to the main camp, to Dragon-Slaying Pass ahead.”
Shi Jiuzhai exhaled gray mist, spreading meters, enveloping us. He strode ten meters a step, crossing cliffs, racing down the mountain.
In the mist, we felt weightless, floating behind him.
“Breath to cloud, crossing cliffs in a step. Is he human?”
The thought struck us both.
I was deeply worried. This man’s high status meant he wouldn’t know every subordinate. At the camp, we’d be exposed.
What death awaited?
We had to escape.
My thoughts of chasing the bone demon and saving Cai Yutong vanished— Gao Huan and I were already doomed.