LWGP - Chapter 191
Chapter 191: The Demon King Approaches
Wang Jiu threw a firebomb, smashing it against the water python's upper jaw and creating a flash of fire. It didn't break through its defense, but it did stop the python from swallowing him in one gulp.
Soon enough, however, a blade flashed past. The water python's neatly severed head fell, plunging into the water along with Wang Shu, who was still in its mouth.
Soaked to the bone, Wang Shu thrashed in the water for a moment before breaking the surface, clutching a stone that emitted a faint, ethereal glow.
"This is spirit ore! The spirit energy is so abundant."
"This spirit vein is definitely much stronger than the one in our Luoyang."
Naturally. It was at least a hundred times stronger.
Wang Jiu reached into the water and scooped up a piece of spirit ore. Her gaze swept across the cavern; the brightness displayed by the bamboo shoot and the depth of the cavern told her—she couldn't finish digging this mine, nor could she even move it.
"The spirit vein's core is below. Bai Bai, can you go down?"
It's always 'Hei Hei' when things are fine, but 'Bai Bai' when there's work to be done.
Heh!
Bai Bai scoffed but burrowed down anyway. It came back up quickly, reporting that the geology below was extremely hard and unusual. It couldn't get through, blocked by a natural barrier.
"So we can't dig it?" Wang Shu's face fell. Wang Jiu also frowned. She checked the auction house, but there were no relevant digging tools. Not unless she could command a race like goblins or dwarves.
"Forget it. Let's take the ore from this stream first."
The quantity was likely considerable, enough to support her flight for some time.
The two humans and one fox began frantically clearing the ore from the stream. Out of boredom, Wang Shu brought up the matter of the formation. "Master, it looks like a formation, but I'm not sure if it's the Yanlie Array I know."
He sent the video he had recorded to Wang Jiu. As she watched it, she stopped searching for stones.
Yanlie Array?
"It sells for 30,000 points in the goblin shop. This thing is super powerful."
"What kind of thing is this? Is the vision of Chongqing's Nine Palaces so small?"
Wang Shu and Wang Jiu spoke at the same time. Wang Shu was embarrassed.
But Wang Jiu didn't mind, believing that while the Yanlie Array's destructive power was impressive, it didn't fit the level of scheming behind the Nine Palaces' arrangement.
While she pondered, she didn't slow down her stone gathering.
Half an hour later, the ore in the stream was all collected. The bamboo shoot's light guide now pointed only underground.
Lacking the proper tools, Wang Jiu gave up on investigating further and had Wang Shu and Bai Bai use a scroll to go to Chengdu first.
"Master, what about you?"
"I'm going back to check the formation again. You'd just be in the way if you stayed with me."
Wang Shu couldn't argue and could only leave with Bai Bai.
At the location of the formation, three dark figures inspected it for a long time, then lay in wait for even longer. Finally, they reported their findings to Zhou Yan, who had already left Butterfly Valley.
They weren't discovered. No one came back to check.
Only then was Zhou Yan relieved, thinking to himself that it seemed Wang Jiu and her group hadn't discovered the formation. But even if they had, it wouldn't have mattered.
After some thought, Zhou Yan recalled his men.
After the three had left, from a tree three meters behind where they had been hiding, Wang Jiu lightly stepped down from the treetop. She landed beside the Yanlie Array and inspected it for a while, but found nothing.
It was just a Yanlie Array.
Could she have been overthinking it?
Wang Jiu placed a Puppet in Butterfly Valley, then left.
As she departed, a round, black-and-white shadow flashed through the space and quickly vanished.
Wang Jiu didn't go to Chengdu. Instead, she swept through the wild monsters on the road from Butterfly Valley toward Deyang City.
That night, under a waterfall on Deyang's Lutang Mountain, the moonlight was hazy and the flowing water was like liquid glass. It streamed over skin of ice and bones of jade, so snow-white and delicate it seemed it could be bruised by the splashing water. Perhaps the faint red marks on her back were born from this very cascade?
The red marks were delicate. As time passed, the red grew more vivid, until finally, without any visible wound, eerie beads of blood began to seep out, only to be quickly washed away by the flowing water.
Wang Jiu faced the cold mountain wall, her back to the sea of trees. No one could see her face, nor the tight frown on her brow, as if she were immersed in a terrifying nightmare.
What broke this dream was a private message.
Someone from across the Atlantic, who rarely contacted her, had reached out.
Straight to the point, a single sentence made Wang Jiu open her eyes, which were as cold and sharp as a winter pool.
Roy: "Wang Jiu, you killed the previous head of the Benroy family for your mother. You came for revenge. Her situation was related to him."
At the same time, far away in the Gobi, Xie Lu received a voice message from Minister Qin.
"News just came from that department. A survivor among the spies who lost contact within the Black Witch Organization has made contact again and sent back a message."
If that department was the country's most elite combat unit both before and after the apocalypse, then military geniuses like Xie Lu were the second unit—independent but always ready to cooperate. Once his application was confirmed, he would also be absorbed into it, so certain information was not currently being withheld from him.
Xie Lu: "What is it?"
Minister Qin said gravely: "Bashu. The Four Demon Kings are coming."
Xie Lu's expression changed drastically.
The Four Demon Kings of the Black Witch Organization had been classified by the country as top-tier terrorists even before the apocalypse. The military had lost a countless number of people at their hands.
Several of them had been his brothers-in-arms.
Xie Lu gritted his teeth.
The sound of the water continued. Wang Jiu spoke.
"Roy, are you looking to settle old scores with me for your so-called grandfather, or just looking for a chance to chat?"
Her voice was soft, devoid of any negative emotion.
Roy heard the sound of water. "I have my family's heirloom journal. It should contain some information you want, like who hired him back then… Don't be so quick to deny it. I know you searched his residence after you killed him. So, there's a basis for a trade, isn't there?"
Wang Jiu: "Your terms."
Roy: "I need a Light Order fragment."
Wang Jiu: "A family journal isn't valuable enough. You should know I can refuse."
Roy: "I only want priority. If you get one, trade it to me. Likewise, I will trade you for the order fragments you want, such as Evil, or the Undead Order you might also possess."
Wang Jiu: "Sounds good. But this matter is from before the game. Why didn't you look for me before?"
With that, an agreement was reached. In terms of reliability, Roy was a more stable partner than Wei Yuan or that mysterious woman.
Wang Jiu was in a good mood, so she asked one more question.
Roy was silent for a moment before saying, "I've said it before. Your marriage displeased me."
The System felt that conversations between these two women always had lesbian undertones. Did those pretty fingers come in handy?
Cupping a handful of water and watching it trickle through her fingers, Wang Jiu seemed to let out a low laugh. Roy heard it and said in a flat voice, "You should be in the wilderness somewhere in Sichuan, grinding monsters for resources. So you're bathing outdoors. Aren't you afraid of being exposed?"
"Exposed? It's the middle of the night. Would some man be peeping?"
Roy was noncommittal, replying with a meaningful sentence.
"Perhaps someone is coming to kill you. A demon king, for example."
Her words weren't a threat, but more of a show of force. Having been schemed against and used by Wang Jiu back then, a proud and aloof person like Roy would naturally hold a grudge. Right now, she was telling Wang Jiu—I'm not completely ignorant about you, either.
After Roy ended the private chat, she had no idea that at that very moment, Wang Jiu was stroking her wet face, turning slightly to look at a tall, hidden black figure standing in the woods behind her.
The figure's form was indistinct. It was holding something that hung down as it slowly walked out, slowly approaching.
Wang Jiu also walked out from under the waterfall, draped on her clothes, and stepped onto a smooth stone. She took the large towel the figure handed her and started drying her hair, looking up at him. The latter actually had his eyes closed.
"What part of my body haven't you seen? Why go to such lengths." Wang Jiu's tone was cool, as if she disapproved of his action.
The latter didn't speak, as rigid as a block of wood.
Wang Jiu didn't mind either, only saying, "Check who Zhou Yan of the Nine Palaces is in contact with. The power behind them is no less than the Nine Palaces, so it should be one of the major powers participating in the alliance this time. Also…"
Wang Jiu said a few more things. Soon, the figure agreed. Apparently, he was also from the Sichuan area and was very familiar with the current situation.
After they finished talking, the man's gaze couldn't help but linger on her back for a moment. There was a hint of worry in his cold, dull eyes.
Wang Jiu noticed, tilting her head to look at him, her gaze faint.
She said nothing, but it was chilling.
He lowered his head, like the humblest straw dog, and retreated into the forest.
The place was empty of people, accompanied only by the mountains and water. A moment later, a Puppet appeared. There was a faint rise and fall of bloodlust, but no living creature dared to approach, because many of the powerful bosses in this mountain had been cleared out by Wang Jiu.
After an unknown amount of time, the man walked out of the woods. There was no trace of Wang Jiu, only an item placed on a wet stone.
Thin, slightly warm, and bloody.
It was a fresh piece of skin.
Human skin.
Holding the human skin, he seemed to fall into a silent, deathly stillness. Suddenly, he turned his head to look southwest.
In that direction, he sensed the powerful undead energy of the Undead Race, surging like a tide.
But in an instant, it vanished without a trace.
They seemed to have hidden themselves.
The Capital of Heaven's Abundance, a land of fertile fields—this was Chengdu.
Unlike Wang Jiu, whose appreciation for Luoyang's culture was based solely on her bias towards the Old Lady's preferences and who personally didn't care, she wouldn't expend effort to satisfy the current people of Sichuan's nostalgia for their ancient capital's civilization.
Liu Wuren, though seemingly taciturn and silent, was a true master of civilized administration. When Wang Shu first arrived in Chengdu, the great Bashu Territory, he discovered that their domain was indeed several times larger than the Gobi's, mainly due to the large number of vassals. Moreover, these people had intentionally followed the architectural style of the Bashu Territory, making the whole place closely resemble the Chengdu of the past. Although many details were not yet perfect, a single glance revealed its grandeur.
As for the Gobi's vassals, well… it was better not to mention them.
"Grandeur, my ass. You fucking came here for the food," Bai Bai couldn't help but retort, roasting Wang Shu, who was holding skewers in one hand and the leg of a Jiuchi pressed duck in the other.
Wang Shu turned his head to look at it. "I'm eating one duck leg, but you ate all the other parts of the duck. You have the nerve to say that?"
"Why should I be embarrassed? I'm not a person. Are you not a person either?" Bai Bai said righteously, while also buying a few boxes of octopus balls from a nearby vendor. It didn't pay, making Wang Shu do it.
Wang Shu: "…"
Could he refuse?
He couldn't win a fight.
When on earth was Master coming? It had been two days. If she didn't come back soon, this little fox was going to bully him to death.
Just as Wang Shu obediently paid, someone called out to him. He turned to see a pretty young woman with short, stylish hair. "Fatty Wang, where's your lord and the people from your territory? Why aren't they here yet? The meeting is this afternoon, and people from the other territories have all arrived."
The pretty young woman was named Liu Sheng. She had a lively and optimistic nature, and she had approached him repeatedly since he arrived in Chengdu.
Was a miracle happening for Fatty Wang?
Unfortunately, she couldn't go three sentences without mentioning a certain person.
"When exactly is your lord coming?"
"Is she very beautiful? I hear she has a lot of suitors."
"I hear that she…"
Wang Shu could barely fend her off and couldn't help but reply, "Who said that? My Master doesn't like to socialize, doesn't have many friends, and isn't interested in any of that messy stuff with men or women."
What was with these people? My Master has so many accomplishments, why does everyone fixate on those old stories? It's all in the past, isn't it?
He had just finished speaking when he saw a group of people walking towards them down the street.
Xiao Jue, his sister Xiao Qing, and Wang Peng.
When the two groups met, the atmosphere became a bit subtle. The skewers in everyone's hands suddenly lost their fucking flavor.
Wang Shu thought to himself: This proves that romantic old stories never really go away—as long as the people from the past meet again.
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