The fruits were no different from those sold in supermarkets. They could neither increase the spiritual energy within his body nor improve his physical condition.
They were just ordinary fruits.
Yet from the dead old trees nearby, Li Zhi could tell that their ancestors must once have been Spiritual Fruit Trees.
It was only because they had lost the nourishment of Heaven and Earth's spiritual energy that all those Fruit Trees had degenerated.
Carrying more than half a bag of fruits of various kinds, Li Zhi returned to the front of Longevity Hall.
Waving the Luoyang Shovel in his hand, he smashed it fiercely against the Barrier.
"Bang!"
After a deafening boom, Li Zhi was sent flying by the rebound force and crashed heavily onto the ground.
He almost went rolling down the mountain.
After getting back to his feet, Li Zhi headed to the Barrier again.
This time, he did not use all his strength. Instead, he increased his power little by little.
Unfortunately, his strength was simply too weak. He was completely unable to break through the Barrier outside the hall.
Could he really enter a treasure mountain and return empty-handed?
Feeling irritated, Li Zhi drove the Luoyang Shovel hard into the ground.
Then he punched the Barrier.
The impact sent his blood and qi roiling, and he almost suffered internal injuries.
Sitting on the ground, he took a handful of fruits out of the Snakeskin Bag and began to eat.
It was only after eating more than ten fruits that Li Zhi no longer felt hungry.
At that moment, his eyes suddenly fell on the Luoyang Shovel stuck in the ground.
A brilliant idea immediately came to him.
Since he could not break through the Barrier, why not dig a tunnel into the mountain?
Once he had decided to do it, Li Zhi immediately began digging into the ground.
Sure enough, the mountain rocks beneath the earth contained no Barrier power.
Before long, he had dug a U-shaped tunnel.
Eventually, he reached the area beneath the floor of Longevity Hall.
He then began using the Luoyang Shovel to carve through the wooden floor.
Although the floor also contained the power of the Barrier, it was much weaker than the one outside the hall. Every strike of the shovel brought down a substantial amount of wood shavings.
After digging for another two days, Li Zhi finally opened a hole in the floor large enough for one person to pass through.
He then entered Longevity Hall with the Snakeskin Bag draped over his body.
He jogged to the center of the Great Hall and looked at the Divine Diagram floating in midair.
Li Zhi stared at the painting from close range, his face filled with fascination.
Especially when he looked at the Ginseng Fruit, he almost drooled.
That fruit gave him a very unusual feeling. His instincts told him that even an ordinary person with no cultivation who ate it would be able to extend their lifespan by a thousand years.
Finally unable to suppress his impulse, Li Zhi reached out to touch the fruit in the painting.
But at that moment, the painting suddenly released an enormous suction force.
With a whoosh, Li Zhi was swallowed by the painting, leaving behind a Luoyang Shovel and a Snakeskin Bag containing only a little more than twenty fruits.
A ripple then flashed across the image.
In the southeastern corner of the painting, in the lowest-altitude area, a miniature person appeared.
That tiny figure seemed to be Li Zhi.
Moreover, he was struggling along a path between the fields toward the center of the painting.
Unfortunately, it was obvious to the naked eye that his movement within the painting was incredibly slow.
It seemed that even in an entire day, he could not move a centimeter across the painting.
One had to know that the distance from his current position to the Fruit Tree on the mountaintop was nearly 1.6 meters within the painting.
And that was only the straight-line distance. It did not include the stairs between the Medicine Fields.
Based on Li Zhi's height in the painting, the steps were almost all more than a kilometer high.
Within the painting, there were nine levels of Medicine Fields from bottom to top.
Only after crossing all nine levels of Medicine Fields could one reach the place where the Fruit Tree grew on the mountaintop.
At his current speed, he would probably need more than two hundred days to reach the mountaintop.
Meanwhile.
In the outside world, after Old Man Xu, his two sons, and Boss Ke, who had come from overseas, met, they soon reached a cooperation agreement.
Their goal was to obtain the complete Longevity Sutra from Li Zhi.
Previously, Boss Ke had personally brought people to search for his daughter near the Worship Terrace deep in the Qinling Mountains.
Although they had found no trace of Miss Ke, the cave in the cliff had already revealed what had happened that day.
The bloodstains on the ground that had not been completely washed away by the rain also clearly indicated that his daughter had been murdered.
At the same time, he confirmed that his former business partner, Yao Le, had died.
Boss Ke then turned his attention to the Xu Family, which had a grudge against Yao Le's family.
That was how their cooperation came about.
However, their cooperation could not escape the notice of those who were paying attention.
The news quickly reached Li Dapeng, who had always been watching the Xu Family's movements.
Li Dapeng told Zhou Mei about it.
In the company office, Zhou Mei, dressed in a small suit, looked every bit the capable businesswoman.
She was no longer the owner of a small clothing store. She was now the owner of a trading company, a decoration company, and an investment company.
In other words, she already had three companies under her name.
After recovering, Zhou Mei had developed the idea of starting her own businesses.
After consulting Li Zhi, she established those companies.
Li Zhi had told her that the coming ten years would be a period of vigorous development for the real estate industry, as well as for the mobile internet industry.
Zhou Mei had originally planned to enter the real estate business directly, but Li Zhi advised her not to get involved in real estate. It was filled with shady transactions, and once she became entangled in them, it would be difficult to extricate herself.
Therefore, Zhou Mei entered the personal-oriented decoration industry related to real estate.
Although her business had only just begun, she already had more than a hundred employees under her.
That had given her some of the authority of a boss.
When Li Dapeng came to Zhou Mei's office and told her that Boss Ke and Old Man Xu's family were planning to cause trouble for Li Zhi,
Zhou Mei said with imposing confidence, "A mere rural tycoon dares to run wild here? Brother Dapeng, I think it's necessary to have your comrades teach them a lesson."
Li Dapeng smiled. "President Zhou, don't worry. I'll make sure they understand who they must not provoke."
Li Dapeng then left Zhou Mei's office.
But Zhou Mei did not let the matter end there. Instead, she called one of her old classmates and said, "Old classmate, are you free? Let me treat you to a meal."
"It isn't often that Beauty Zhou treats someone. Of course I'm free. We were wondering whether you'd forgotten all of us old classmates after finding yourself a young husband." A hearty male laugh came from the other end of the phone.
Although the good fortune Li Zhi had borrowed had been exhausted, making his trip to Mount Tai fraught with danger,
that did not mean the benefits he had gained while blessed with good fortune had vanished.
At the very least, Zhou Mei had gained enormous wealth, allowing her to reconnect with classmates she had not spoken to in many years.
The old classmate she had called was now a rising young official who held real power in government circles.
It could only be said that maintaining a circle of classmates ultimately depended on one's strength.
With only a little effort from Zhou Mei in the outside world,
she had strangled the potential troubles in their cradle.
But Li Zhi, inside Great Sage's Grotto-heaven, had fallen into genuine trouble.
He had never imagined that insects had also been released into the Medicine Fields of the Hundred Herbs Diagram.
There were bees, butterflies, mantises, spiders, toads, and many other kinds of insects.
Although there were no enormous ferocious beasts, those insects seemed even more troublesome.
Not only did they appear and disappear unpredictably, they were also extraordinarily fierce.
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