Ten Thousand Miles of Morning Glow

"Human heads growing on trees?"

"On vines."

"Could the heads of those Decapitated Corpses on the ground have all turned into part of the vines?"

"All I know is, if we don't run faster, there'll be two more heads hanging up there soon."

Li Weiyi carried Gao Huan over his shoulder and sprinted through the Dense Forest. Behind them, swift rustling sounds constantly sliced through the trees, accompanied by all manner of hoarse, humanlike laughter.

They fled to a gorge and looked back.

Against the dark teal sky, a massive vine burst from the cliffside like a draconic python. Heads swayed one after another along it, rising straight into the hundred-meter fog canopy.

"Run!"

When they encountered water, they splashed through streams; when they met ravines, they leaped across.

Even when they could no longer hear the vines, they did not dare stop.

When they were utterly exhausted and the vines had still not caught up, Gao Huan took over and carried Li Weiyi. On his back, Li Weiyi practiced the Jade Void Breathing Technique, recovering his breath and strength as quickly as possible.

The two took turns carrying one another, or fled side by side, running for their lives through the entire night.

When they burst out of the dim, murky fog-shrouded Dense Forest, they could no longer hold on. One after the other, they sat down, then collapsed limply onto the grass of a hillside.

Their sweat had run dry, their strength had been spent, as though even their souls had been sucked away.

"I'm not running anymore. I can't run another step, Lord Li, you go on first... Don't worry about me... Let me hang up there. If I take one more step, I'm going to die." Gao Huan lay facedown, exhausted beyond measure, wanting only to sleep himself into oblivion right there on the ground.

"Then I'll hang up there too!"

How could Li Weiyi not be tired? The ground felt so soft, the sky so warm.

He drew a deep breath...

"Huh!"

That dank, rotten, moldy smell from the forest was gone.

Li Weiyi's eyelids flew open. He rolled over and sat up, then smacked Gao Huan on the butt and burst into laughter. "Gao Fish Soup, get up, get up! That vine monster didn't catch us! We've made it back to the human world—blue sky, white clouds, green grass, wildflowers... Hahaha..."

The morning glow was gentle, and a breeze swept down from the mountains.

These things, utterly ordinary on Earth, looked to Li Weiyi at this moment like an immortal realm that could only exist in dreams.

The most ordinary human world, after all they had endured—darkness, slaughter, ghosts and monsters, hunger, anxiety—was more precious to the two of them than any immortal paradise.

Li Weiyi closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.

Earth, fragrant grass, wildflowers... even the blue sky and white clouds were so sweet and entrancing.

All his exhaustion vanished in an instant.

At last, Gao Huan sat up. Once he clearly saw their surroundings, he grinned foolishly just like Li Weiyi. Then, like a madman, he rolled and crawled toward a pale yellow wildflower, plucked it, and pressed it hard to his nose, repeating, "This is the smell... this is the smell..."

After running all night, their faces, hands, legs, and clothes were covered in thorn scratches. Their sweat had dried, then soaked them again, then dried again. They looked bedraggled beyond belief.

Once they gradually calmed down—

Pain, exhaustion, and hunger came crashing back in revenge.

The food and water they had carried had long since been lost in some ravine or stream. Yet the Yellow Dragon Sword, Evil Camel Bell, money pouch, and other inedible things had not lost a single piece.

The two lay back down again.

Gao Huan put the wildflower in his mouth and chewed it weakly. "We can't just lie here. We can eat grass roots, then find a stream and drink our fill."

"Exactly. If we could find a town where humans live, take a hot bath, and have a bowl of noodle soup with cilantro, I wouldn't trade that for being an immortal," Li Weiyi said.

Li Weiyi's words put light back into Gao Huan's eyes. He swallowed hard with his parched throat. "No cilantro for me... I want braised beef..."

Suddenly.

A deep, rich voice sounded above their heads. "What are you two muttering about?"

Though they had already been exhausted, sleepy, and starving to the limit, the two sprang upright as if struck by lightning.

They slowly turned their heads.

Following the shadow cast upon the ground, they looked upward.

There stood a man in his early thirties on a hillside not far away. He had a powerfully built frame, heavy brows, large eyes, a slightly broad face, long faintly curly hair, and rough skin that nevertheless possessed a striking texture.

Gao Huan could not understand what he was saying, but he could sense the awe-inspiring aura surrounding him.

Li Weiyi felt it even more keenly.

This man's abilities were absolutely far beyond his own. Otherwise, there was no way he could have appeared there without making a sound. Even in his state of extreme exhaustion, Li Weiyi had never completely lowered his guard.

Even while lying there bantering with Gao Huan, he had continued circulating the currents of heat and cold to nourish his weary, depleted body, hoping to restore his strength as quickly as possible.

What was terrifying was not merely the man's aura and cultivation.

It was the ruthless indifference toward life in his eyes. Such a gaze could only be forged by killing countless people.

Shi Jiuzhai laughed as he cursed, "Were you two sent out to scout and keep watch? How did you end up in such a sorry state? Don't tell me you ran into a Baleful Intent demon or a departed spirit?"

Li Weiyi could roughly understand what Shi Jiuzhai was saying and instantly grasped the situation.

It was the clothes he and Gao Huan wore that had caused the other party to misunderstand something.

What the other man wore also resembled a monk's robe.

But it was not brown—it was holly green.

How was he supposed to explain this?

Could it even be explained?

Tell him that the two of them had stripped these clothes off corpses and put them on?

The man would probably be more willing to believe that they had killed someone and looted their money as well.

Li Weiyi did not dare gamble on the other man's temperament. He hurriedly nodded, putting on the look of someone frightened out of his wits. Gesturing as he spoke, he said, "Baleful Intent demon! Lots of heads... vines... this thick..."

He had learned this world's language before, but having gone so many years without using it, he was terribly rusty.

It happened to fit his current state perfectly.

"You encountered the Thousand-Headed Dragon Vine?"

A clear flash of wariness passed through Shi Jiuzhai's eyes. He strode down the slope and sent a palm strike through the air at Li Weiyi.

The force of his palm howled.

Li Weiyi felt as though raging winds and towering waves were crashing toward him. His body was like a lone boat in the deep sea. Thinking some flaw had exposed him, he gritted his teeth and mobilized the hot and cold currents within the Sole Spring Eyes, thrusting out both palms.

Then he would fight for his life!

Boom!

Li Weiyi was sent flying. It felt as though his five viscera and six bowels were about to shatter, and he could no longer climb back up.

"Haha, no wonder you managed to Escape Alive. You little wolf pup have already opened three Spring Eyes, haven't you? At your age, that's not bad."

Shi Jiuzhai walked over to Gao Huan, grabbed his cheek in one large hand, and examined him closely. In surprise, he said, "There's even a Pure Immortal Body? Why isn't there a shred of magical power in his body? Did he just undergo his transformation?"

Li Weiyi did not understand at all what "little wolf pup" or "three Spring Eyes" meant.

He had only opened the two Spring Eyes in his feet. Where had a third one come from?

Still, he understood that the man was not suspicious of them, but testing his strength. Afraid that Gao Huan might give himself away, he quickly said, "That's right... he just completed his transformation..."

"The Thousand-Headed Dragon Vine must have already eaten its fill. Otherwise, there was no way you could have escaped."

Shi Jiuzhai released his iron-pincer-like fingers and asked, "Who do you two follow?"

Li Weiyi guessed that the outfit he wore might represent a certain faction. The man before him was most likely a formidable figure of considerable standing within that faction.

Countless thoughts flashed through Li Weiyi's mind in an instant. He smiled. "Who else would we follow but you, my lord?"

"Haha, you've got a clever streak. Good, from now on, you'll follow this king!"

Shi Jiuzhai returned to the hillside, his Tiger Eyes fixed upon the long, narrow river valley between the two mountains, where the sun did not reach. The mountains on both sides of the valley were majestic and precipitous, rising more than a thousand meters high.

A dirt road had been carved out beside the river. A massive coffin-bearing procession streamed endlessly out from the side shrouded in dark mist.

Dragging their exhausted bodies, Li Weiyi and Gao Huan climbed the low slope and appeared beside Shi Jiuzhai.

The terrain here was quite high, offering a broad, distant view.

Looking out—

Under the morning sun, ancient ridges and great mountains lay veiled between white morning mist and warm rosy clouds, like the dragon spines of the earth stretching to the horizon before gradually fading away.

The sky was high and the land vast. Wind whipped their robes like banners, filling one with soaring ambition.

The coffin-bearing procession by the river valley below looked like a trail of ants, all dressed in gray-white hempen garments. Four people carried each coffin, and a thousand coffins marched together like a long white serpent winding into the distance.

Work chants echoed between the mountains on either bank, while the thunder of beast-mounted hooves came and went.

Paper Money littered the dirt road. Some was swept up by the wind and drifted toward both banks of the great river.

The foremost coffin was made of a silver-like material and bound with hemp rope. It was as large as a beam-house, perhaps enough to hold over a hundred people. It rested atop a cart pulled by a Green Ox even larger than an elephant; the rumble of its wheels could be heard clearly even through an empty valley a thousand meters away.

Li Weiyi asked, "Were all these salvaged from the Blood Sea?"

"What else?"

Shi Jiuzhai laughed. "The Jiu Li Tribe salvages Otherworldly Coffins from the Blood Sea Coffin Dock and sells them throughout the Twenty-Eight Prefectures of Lingxiao, making money hand over fist. Such a fine business requiring no capital, yet they alone are allowed to do it—who wouldn't be jealous?"

From this day onward, the Earth Wolf King Army would also take a share of this business.

The world was already in chaos. How could Lizhou remain peaceful alone?

"Come on. We'll return to the main camp first and wait for them at Dragon Slaying Pass ahead."

Shi Jiuzhai exhaled a mouthful of gray mist. The Wind Force was fierce, and the mist spread several zhang away, enveloping Li Weiyi and Gao Huan. Then, crossing cliffs and scaling walls in strides of more than a dozen zhang, he rushed toward the foot of the mountain on the other side.

Within the gray mist, Li Weiyi and Gao Huan felt themselves wrapped in dense clouds. It was as if they had no weight at all, always flying behind Shi Jiuzhai.

Exhaling breath into clouds, crossing sheer cliffs in a single step... Is he even human?

The same thought rose in both their minds.

Li Weiyi was deeply worried. This man's status within the faction had to be extremely high, so it was normal for him not to remember the people beneath him. But once they returned to the main camp, the two of them would inevitably be exposed.

What kind of death awaited them then?

They had to find a way to get away as quickly as possible.

At this point, Li Weiyi had no mind left to track down the White Bone Demon or save Cai Yutong. All he felt was that he and Gao Huan were already standing at death's door.