Exotic Treasure

Gu Xiechen lay on the ground, every drop of blood essence in his body drawn into his Dao embryo, black smoke rising from all over him. Even if professional doctors used professional equipment to examine him at close range, they would not find the slightest sign of life.

As for Rú Huá, who had collapsed five or six meters away from Gu Xiechen, he looked even more thoroughly "dead." When it came to playing dead, who could do it better than a zombie?

Several beautiful women carrying firearms walked over to Gu Xiechen and kicked him hard a few times. Only after confirming that he was truly "dead as a doornail" did they leave him alone.

A large troop of female soldiers stormed into Lawrence Lee's castle. Gunfire continuously rang out from within as Lawrence's clansmen and servants were dragged from their hiding places one after another and shot dead. Female soldiers emerged carrying valuable items from the castle, piling antiques and cultural relics into a small mountain before it.

Gu Xiechen tilted his head and watched the castle through narrowed eyes, with no intention of saving Lawrence Lee. That strange silver-haired man was a Realm Master, while Gu Xiechen was merely an ordinary Pluto-level innate fighter. He had no desire to risk his life against a Realm Master with miraculous powers. Rú Huá was also lying nearby playing dead, yet he was not stepping forward to uphold justice either. Gu Xiechen did not think he possessed such an overwhelming sense of public virtue.

A huge airship slowly descended from high above. The female soldiers carried antiques, famous paintings, gold and silverware aboard. As the items on the ground dwindled, the female soldiers continuously turned into streams of light and flowed into Siren's body as he stood before the castle gates. Siren's presence grew stronger and stronger; each stream of light that entered him seemed to increase his power another notch.

At last, a female soldier emerged from the castle carrying a specially made metal case. She saluted Siren. "Master, everything valuable in the castle has been cleared out."

Siren nodded noncommittally. He grabbed an automatic rifle from a female soldier, then sprayed bullets wildly at the twenty-odd thoroughbred horses in the stable. One tall steed after another shrieked miserably and collapsed, pungent horse blood spreading across the ground. Siren shook his head and sighed softly. "What a pity. There was no time to transport these horses away."

Rú Huá, who was also pretending to be dead, instinctively licked his lips. He seemed rather interested in the horse blood.

Gu Xiechen stared in shock at the female soldier carrying the metal case. Unless he had a fever, he remembered that Lawrence Lee's study contained three such metal cases, all holding the Lee family's treasures. Why had only one been brought out?

His heart gave a faint beat, and in his surprise, Gu Xiechen failed to fully control the circulation of his blood and energy.

Siren, over a hundred meters away, suddenly spun around and looked in this direction. Silver light blazed in his eyes. No one knew where he drew an extremely thin, highly flexible soft sword from, but with a flick of his wrist, he slashed at Gu Xiechen. A crescent-shaped sword aura, no wider than half an inch yet more than ten meters long, tore through the earth toward Gu Xiechen. By sheer coincidence, Rú Huá lay directly between Gu Xiechen and Siren. That sword aura would definitely cleave Rú Huá in two before it could reach Gu Xiechen.

"Fuck! You won't even spare the dead?" Rú Huá roared furiously. Thick black corpse energy, carrying intense evil and coldness, surged from his body. The earth suddenly trembled, and Rú Huá sprang over a hundred meters into the air with a whoosh. Blood-red light shot from his eyes as he crushed the demon-head pommel atop his crystal cane. He muttered several strange incantations, and blood light flared within the cane's shaft while the shattered pommel turned into a cloud of black smoke with a piercing shriek and flowed into it.

With a wave of his hand, the cane shot toward Siren through a trail of thick smoke.

Siren sneered and lightly waved his left hand. A broad expanse of silver light flickered, and nearly a hundred fully armed, beautiful women appeared before him. The moment they appeared, they pulled their triggers. A storm of bullets whistled toward Rú Huá, while several women carried small-caliber autocannons, their dull thunder making ears ache.

The silver sword aura swept directly beneath Rú Huá's feet, severing dozens of tall birch trees in the forest behind him at the waist.

Rú Huá hurriedly looked down and was stunned to discover that Gu Xiechen had vanished without a trace long ago!

The instant Siren had drawn his sword, Gu Xiechen had slipped along the ground like an impossibly slick banana peel, darting more than a hundred meters into the forest with a swish. By the time Rú Huá crushed his crystal cane and launched his counterattack, Gu Xiechen had already sprung to his feet. Leaving behind more than a dozen afterimages, he vanished after several leaps. The movement technique Gu Xiechen used also came from the supplementary volume of the Hanyuan Zhen Dian. It was likewise a supreme movement art developed by his father through a century of painstaking study: Miao Yun Bu. When used at full force to flee, it was even faster than an ordinary sports car.

"People these days have no fucking loyalty!" Rú Huá roared in fury, then suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood onto the rapidly flying black smoke.

Five demon heads the size of water vats emerged from the black smoke. Baring their fangs, they gave piercing shrieks and greedily pounced toward Siren, who was surrounded by female soldiers.

The barrage of bullets struck Rú Huá, especially the nearly hundred autocannon shells that exploded against his chest almost simultaneously. Rú Huá grunted and was blasted far backward. He swayed as he fell from the sky, and the instant his feet touched the ground, he stomped down viciously. The ground within a dozen meters sank several inches at once, while several nearby trees exploded from their roots. Borrowing the force of that stomp, Rú Huá shot across more than two hundred meters like a cannonball and plunged into the forest, disappearing after only a few more leaps.

The black smoke, carrying the demon heads, descended overhead. As bone-piercing cold swept through the area, a layer of black ice more than an inch thick suddenly formed over the lake beside Siren. Siren was horrified and hurriedly retreated. The hundred-plus female soldiers before him had already been swallowed by the black smoke, and horrible chewing sounds continuously emerged from within it. Siren's face abruptly turned pale. Two glaring streams of blood slowly ran from his nostrils; he had lost all sense of those female soldiers.

"What terrifying demonic arts!" Siren muttered. "Retreat, quickly. This isn't Western dark magic. It must be the demonic arts of those damned Easterners. Damn it, what are they doing in London? This is fucking Church territory. What are Easterners doing in London?" Clearly, a trace of apprehension had appeared on Siren's face.

After cursing under his breath a few times, Siren hurriedly turned all the female soldiers into streams of light and absorbed them back into his body. He then jumped aboard the airship and directed it to rise rapidly into the sky, fleeing eastward.

Gu Xiechen took a huge detour and arrived at the hillside behind the castle. Sure enough, he found Jack in a thornbush beneath several chestnut trees on the slope.

His clothes shredded by thorns, Jack clutched two metal cases tightly as he curled up in a hole in the ground. His forehead pressed against the earth and his backside stuck up toward the sky as he continuously muttered, "Oh my God! Oh Lord! Oh Holy Virgin Maria! Please keep those terrifying people from killing me!"

After making wishes in turn to the various Christian deities, Jack began muttering another prayer. "Great, almighty Buddha, bless me and help me escape this disaster! Oh, I am your devout believer. Merciful Guanyin Bodhisattva, please forgive my past sins and bless me so that I may return safely to base. I'm so grateful to you!"

Gu Xiechen stared in speechless amusement at Jack, who was trembling like a quail. Yet Jack had begun praying to the Daoist gods. "Supreme Jade Emperor, sacred Three Pure Ones, and all the gods in heaven, bless me and let me return safely to base! If I can leave London safely this time, I'll offer you braised pig head during the Spring Festival!"

"Jack! You're fucking talented!" Gu Xiechen kicked Jack hard in the ass.

Jack, nearly frightened out of his wits, sprang up from the ground like a spring. He swiftly pulled out a small pistol and aimed it at Gu Xiechen. Gu Xiechen slapped the gun away more than ten meters, then pointed at the two metal cases on the ground. "What are these?"

After finally recognizing that the blackened "Black man," who looked as if he had been burned for three days and nights, was his captain, Jack excitedly opened his arms and rushed at Gu Xiechen. Gu Xiechen quickly grabbed Jack by the neck to keep him from getting close, then pointed at the two cases and asked again, "What are these? Hm? You stole Mr. Lawrence Lee's family treasures?"

"No, I didn't steal them!" Jack hurriedly waved his hands. "This isn't theft. I saved them! These treasures shouldn't fall into those women's hands! They killed poor Lawrence Lee and his clansmen. I merely saved these things from those bandits!"

Jack gave Gu Xiechen a crafty grin. "I think they would be happy with what I did too. Those women were the enemies of their former master, while I was their former master's friend!"

Gu Xiechen scratched the tip of his nose and glared fiercely at Jack. When Siren's subordinates had carried only one case out of the castle, he had known that something must have happened. But among the people in the castle, Jack was probably the only one who could have done this.

Squatting down, Gu Xiechen opened one of the metal cases and sneered forcefully. "You can take one-third of the treasures inside. The rest are mine. You can choose to disagree, but do you know the consequences? What you did has disgraced our mercenary group!"

Jack glared at Gu Xiechen, furious and frightened. He wanted to say that Gu Xiechen's actions were no different from banditry, and he especially wanted to stress that he had painstakingly risked his life amid a hail of bullets to steal... no, to "save" these two cases. But before he could speak, the dozen-plus treasures glowing hazily inside the case left him completely speechless.

"My Jade Emperor, God, and Buddha! They're fucking beautiful! How much are these worth?"

Jack's saliva nearly dripped from the corner of his mouth, and Gu Xiechen was momentarily dazed as well.

The metal case, roughly two feet long and two feet wide, was divided into delicate little compartments, each lined with thick velvet. Eighteen treasures, secured in the compartments by soft satin ribbons, lay safely within, continuously emitting a beautiful radiance that could enchant the soul.

A pear-shaped diamond the size of a child's fist, a top-quality sapphire as blue as the ocean, rubies as crimson as pigeon blood—jewels of every color made Jack's heart pound wildly. Blood rushed to his head, and his vision swam red. With his discernment, he could naturally tell that these dozen-plus treasures alone were worth billions. Even one-third of them would let him live in drunken luxury and enjoy wealth and splendor for the rest of his life.

Gu Xiechen was not drawn to those diamonds and gemstones. He merely stared blankly at a jade plaque inside the case.

It was an extremely rare purple jade plaque. Gu Xiechen could not even determine whether its material was truly jade. Yet judging by its luster, this strange object, rounded at the top and square at the bottom and more than a foot long, ought to be made of the finest jade. Still, translucent deep-purple jade was something Gu Xiechen had never seen before.

It was one foot two inches long, six inches wide, and an inch thick, rounded at the top and square at the bottom. Its edges were decorated with magnificent cloud patterns, every cloud so exquisitely carved that it was impossible to believe they were merely carved images on a jade plaque. Each thin cloud seemed to be rolling in the wind. After looking at the plaque only a few times, Gu Xiechen felt as though a fierce wind had risen around him and would soon sweep away the clouds carved upon it.

The plaque's edges bore cloud patterns, while the side facing Gu Xiechen was carved with a complex star chart. The constellations of the twenty-eight mansions and eighty-four thousand stars had been engraved within the jade plaque through some unimaginable technique. Every star emitted a faint silver glow, and at first glance, they seemed to be revolving along some profound, mysterious trajectory.

Looking more closely, Gu Xiechen discovered that layers of clouds and mist actually filled the translucent jade plaque. Purple, gold, silver, red, white, cyan, and blue clouds endlessly appeared, vanished, and transformed within it, creating the illusion that the plaque contained a void of its own.

Gu Xiechen felt as though he were seated atop a cloud, endlessly passing through layer after layer of boundless cloudbanks, gradually arriving in a wondrous void.

The stars of the heavens surrounded him. At the center of the limitless space stood an incomparably enormous Taiji diagram.

The black-and-white yin-yang fish slowly revolved before him. Countless tiny golden particles circled the huge Taiji diagram at high speed, every particle filled with spirit, as though each were a living person. The yin-yang fish drove the stars of the heavens in slow rotation, carrying an indescribable, profoundly mysterious rhythm.

Gu Xiechen's Dao embryo suddenly began to pulse rapidly. Streams of pure energy surged continuously from his heart, gradually filling his entire body.

An ethereal, transcendent aura slowly spread from Gu Xiechen's body. A gentle yet irresistible hidden force pushed Jack far away. The aura surging from Gu Xiechen's body faintly merged with the aura flowing from the Taiji diagram deep within the jade plaque.

All eighty-four thousand stars inside the plaque flashed at once. A curtain of silver radiance covered the space within several meters, and the purple jade plaque suddenly transformed into a streak of violet energy that shot straight at Gu Xiechen.

Before Gu Xiechen could react, the violet energy entered his body through his pores.

The seventeen treasures in the metal case still glittered brilliantly, but the miraculous jade plaque had vanished without a trace. Gu Xiechen only vaguely felt a clear stream rush through his meridians into the Purple Palace sea of consciousness, merging with his Purple Palace sea of consciousness, which had already undergone some kind of mutation.

Jack's face twitched, and he cried out, "Where did that purple jade plaque go? Heavens, purple jade, purple jade! This is rare purple jade! And judging by its carving, it must be an artifact left behind by an extremely ancient dynasty of Ancient China. The writing on it is identical to their most ancient oracle bone script. This is an extraordinary cultural relic, a treasure! Where did it go?"

Writing? Gu Xiechen shook his head. He did not remember seeing any writing on that jade plaque.

After steadying himself, Gu Xiechen picked up the case and glared fiercely at Jack. "If you don't want to die, follow me out of here. Jade plaque? What jade plaque? Was that your hallucination?"

Jack stood there blankly for a while. He looked at Gu Xiechen, whose clothes had been burned completely away when a bomb exploded nearby. That was right—Gu Xiechen could not possibly have hidden such a large jade plaque on his body.

But where had the jade plaque gone?

Had it really been an illusion?

Seeing that Gu Xiechen had already walked dozens of meters away carrying the two metal cases worth billions, Jack glanced back at the castle below the slope, now reduced to ruins by explosions, then cried out and hurriedly chased after him.

Only after Gu Xiechen and Jack had left the castle by more than ten kilometers did three silver-white helicopters slowly descend before the ruins, brimming with arrogance, majesty, and authority.

Dozens of priests dressed in white robes stepped down from the helicopters and cautiously began searching every inch of the castle ruins.

The people of the Church had finally arrived.