Volume Three: Rising Fame - Chapter Seventy-Four: The Gathering Storm

The two moved with great speed. Although the group had fanned out, they had heeded Li Yu’s instructions and remained relatively close, so it took Li Yu only a brief moment to reach them.

"What’s going on?" Li Yu landed on a branch, looking down at Wen Xiangxuan, who had let out a cry of alarm.

Opposite her, a large, emerald-green snake was coiled. Li Yu squinted at it; although the serpent had assumed an aggressive posture, its strength was merely at the peak of the eighth grade, and it did not appear to be a venomous exotic beast. He narrowed his eyes and did not immediately intervene.

"Sister!" The others arrived shortly after.

Wen Yongsi’s expression changed when he saw the snake. He stepped forward, shielding Wen Xiangxuan, and faced the beast without much concern. With his cultivation at the early sixth grade, he was confident he could easily defeat an eighth-grade peak-level beast.

"Hah!" Wen Yongsi infused his hands with spiritual energy and lunged at the green snake.

"Hiss!"

The battle between man and beast was over in an instant.

Only then did Li Yu drift over, appearing as though he had just arrived. Despite his internal suspicions, he asked, "What happened?"

With that cry, everyone had gathered around. Hearing Li Yu’s question, Wen Xiangxuan blushed deeply and muttered, "I’m afraid of snakes..."

"My cousin was bitten by a snake when she was a child," Wen Yongsi explained from the side. "She has been terrified of them ever since—even non-ranked snakes can frighten her!"

"..."

*So, once bitten, twice shy, huh?*

Li Yu was speechless, though the tension in his heart eased slightly. After a long moment, he waved his hand. "It’s fine. Everyone, spread out and continue searching for Snow-Blowing Ghost Crystals."

Xing Chengping and Xiong Xiuer left while suppressing their laughter. Li Yu gave a few more instructions before turning away to resume his search.

"Why were there so many visible from the outside, yet now that I'm in here, I can’t find anything?" Li Yu grumbled. Aside from the few he had found initially, he had come up empty for quite a while.

Can Yishuang looked around and pointed. "There are two over there!" She quickly went to retrieve them and looked back at Li Yu.

"Great job!" Li Yu smiled as he took the crystals.

He had realized that this 'Treasure Spirit' had spent her life wandering alone without anyone to talk to, which was why she was now like a walking 'one hundred thousand whys,' wanting to ask and know everything.

Receiving his praise, Can Yishuang beamed. Her transformation had not been a total failure; at the very least, her physical form had changed, completing the better part of the process. Perhaps because her transformation had been forcibly interrupted, she had assumed a human shape—a case of 'if you can't beat them, join them'?

Li Yu pondered this for a moment before his ears twitched. He leaped onto a high branch and looked into the distance.

"So, others have entered as well?" Li Yu squinted. Although he had been prepared for the possibility that other teams might have discovered the secrets of the foggy zone, he had not expected them to be so close to his own group. *Are they also trying to quietly strike it rich?*

Just then, a loud boom echoed. Two figures were locked in combat with a rhinoceros-like beast. They looked disheveled, but the outcome was already clear.

"There are quite a lot of exotic beasts in these hills," Li Yu mused. Outside, the area was swarming with sixth-grade beasts, and he had learned from Xiong Xiuer that a fifth-grade beast was likely nearby. Yet, even within these fog-shrouded hills, low-grade beasts still roamed.

"There are several Snow-Blowing Ghost Crystals over there!" Can Yishuang called out, spotting something in the distance.

Li Yu looked. Not far from where the two were fighting, several snow-white stones lay on the ground. He squinted—there were at least ten of them.

"So many?" Li Yu was delighted. Since those two hadn't noticed them, they were ownerless. If he picked them up, they were his!

With that thought, he signaled to the others and soared toward the spot.

"Who goes there!" As the two men were about to finish off the struggling beast, they saw a youth land nearby and scoop up all the crystals.

"Keep fighting your battle. I’m not taking your loot, so why are you yelling?!" Li Yu waved a hand and turned to leave.

One of them shouted in a rage, "Damn you, what you're holding *is* our loot!"

"Did you brush your teeth with honey today?" Li Yu turned back, his expression darkening. "You weren't hunting these Snow-Blowing Ghost Crystals; why claim them as yours? Did you write your names on them?"

"If the Lotus-Colored Rhinoceros hadn't been blocking us, we would have collected them already! Why would we waste energy hunting this beast otherwise?!"

As the youth was about to continue his impassioned speech, his companion tugged on his sleeve. "Don't fidget," the youth complained. "What if I lose focus and the rhino hurts me?"

"That one is a fifth-grade beast," the other whispered urgently. He was relieved when he saw Li Yu about to leave, but he hadn't expected his companion to be so oblivious as to call him back.

"Fifth grade? So what if it's fifth grade—" The youth suddenly realized. He looked at Li Yu with a forced smile. "My apologies, young master. We need to hunt this rhinoceros. Since you’ve taken the crystals you need, would you mind leaving?"

"..."

Li Yu said nothing more, only offering a cryptic remark: "Even when a lion hunts a rabbit, it uses its full strength." He then turned and walked away.

"What does that mean?" The youth, now relieved, was about to ask his companion when a massive force slammed into him from behind.

"Pfft!"

The youth only had time to turn his head. The Lotus-Colored Rhinoceros, which he had been kiting until it was covered in wounds, now stood behind him with blood-red eyes. He coughed up blood, and as he looked down, he saw a horn protruding from his chest.

"So that’s what he meant..."

His voice grew faint, and the panicked cries of his companion faded into the distance.

...

Back at his original spot, Li Yu returned quickly. Can Yishuang looked at him, and Li Yu asked, "Do you feel anything unusual?"

"What kind of unusual?" Can Yishuang asked, surprised.

"Hard to say. Ever since I picked those up, the feeling has grown stronger. Let’s get out of here!" Li Yu frowned.

"I know why—you're afraid of retaliation!"

"Nonsense!" Li Yu straightened his expression, looking righteous. He beckoned for them to leave.

"Ah! My beloved!" The long-haired youth standing by the rhinoceros wailed in grief. He decapitated the beast in a single strike and knelt beside the dying man, who was gasping his last breath.

"Do you know? I actually loved you!" His hands trembled as he closed his companion's eyes. He glared with hatred in the direction Li Yu had left before turning away.

In their team, only the fool who had died didn't know of his feelings; everyone else was aware. And now, even the chance to quietly protect him had been snatched away!

He might not be fifth-grade, but Xiang Yadan was. Li Yu’s group had fewer than ten people. If he reported this to Xiang Yadan and embellished the story, she would surely be unable to resist the urge to eliminate them! He knew the dirty thoughts of the others—he was simply observant enough to have noticed that Xiang Yadan looked down on them all; she was not a decent woman!

If not for the one he loved insisting on following her, they wouldn't have come here, and this tragedy wouldn't have occurred. If he could provoke a conflict between the two fifth-grade powers, he would be more than happy to stir the pot.

Li Yu, already far away, felt a chill run down his spine. Shrugging it off, he continued to collect Snow-Blowing Ghost Crystals under Can Yishuang's guidance. For some reason, she was remarkably sensitive to their presence, leading him to several caches buried shallowly in the soil.

"Twenty-seven!" Li Yu counted them again with satisfaction.

"Are you very interested in these?" Can Yishuang asked curiously.

"Of course. With these, I can accelerate my cultivation significantly!" Li Yu nodded. For him, the most important use was the simplest: extracting the internal fluid to boost his strength. If he absorbed them all, he could likely reach the peak of the fifth grade!

"Let's go. We should have cleared this area," Li Yu said, looking around. He realized he had wandered quite far. He checked his bearings and headed back toward their intended path.

Meanwhile, the grieving Cai Junshuang had buried his lover and found Xiang Yadan. Red-eyed, he bowed. "Sister Dan, I ran into some trouble."

"Where is Shi Jianmu? Weren't you together?" Xiang Yadan asked, startled.

"He's dead!" Cai Junshuang said in a low, heavy voice. "We found a place dense with Snow-Blowing Ghost Crystals, but as soon as we started to collect them, we were ambushed. They stole everything! The person even drew a beast to finish us off!"

No one could see the expression on Cai Junshuang’s face as he bowed to the ground, but he continued, "There were at least eighty of them! It’s a pity they were all looted. I only managed to see that the person who attacked us was the leader of that six-person team."

If fifth-grade experts were cautious of each other, adding such an exorbitant number of crystals would surely stir greed. He didn't believe a conflict wouldn't arise.

"Eighty?!" Xiang Yadan’s heart skipped a beat. She looked at Cai Junshuang, whose injuries seemed genuine. "Shi Jianmu was our partner; how could he be killed so easily? I will seek justice for him. Do you remember which way they went?"

"I do!" A flash of mockery crossed Cai Junshuang’s eyes. He adjusted his expression and stood up. "I am willing to lead the way!"

Xiang Yadan gathered the team and they set off.

"Achoo!"

Li Yu rubbed his nose, muttering, "Why do I feel like someone is cursing me?"