Stealing Heavenly Secrets

The fruits were no different from those sold in supermarkets—they couldn't increase the spiritual energy in his body or improve his physical condition.

They were just ordinary fruits.

But from some of the withered old trees nearby, Li Zhi could tell that their ancestors had once been spiritual fruit trees.

It was just that without the nourishment of heaven and earth's spiritual energy, all those trees had degenerated.

Carrying a half-full snakeskin bag of various fruits, Li Zhi once again arrived before Longevity Hall.

He swung the Luoyang Shovel in his hand and slammed it hard against the barrier.

"Boom!"

With a loud crash, Li Zhi was sent flying by the recoil, crashing heavily to the ground.

He nearly rolled down the mountain.

Getting back up, Li Zhi approached the barrier again.

This time, he didn't use his full strength but increased his power bit by bit.

Unfortunately, his strength was far too weak to break through the barrier outside the hall.

Was he really going to enter a mountain of treasure and come away empty-handed?

Frustrated, Li Zhi stabbed the Luoyang Shovel deep into the ground.

Then he punched the barrier with his fist.

The shock sent his qi and blood churning, nearly causing internal injuries.

Sitting on the ground, he pulled a handful of fruits from the snakeskin bag and started eating.

It took him a good ten or so fruits before the hunger in his stomach subsided.

At that moment, his gaze suddenly fell on the Luoyang Shovel stuck in the ground.

A brilliant idea struck him.

Since he couldn't break through the barrier, why not dig a tunnel into the mountain?

Without hesitation, Li Zhi began digging a hole in the ground.

Sure enough, the mountain rock had no barrier energy.

Soon, he had dug a U-shaped tunnel.

Eventually, he reached the floor beneath Longevity Hall.

Then he started chiseling through the wooden floor with the Luoyang Shovel.

The floor also had barrier energy, but it was much weaker than at the hall's entrance. Each strike sent wood chips flying.

After two more days of digging, Li Zhi finally opened a hole in the floor large enough for one person to pass through.

Then, draped in the snakeskin bag, he entered Longevity Hall.

He jogged to the center of the hall and stared at the Divine Diagram floating in midair.

Li Zhi gazed at the scroll up close, his face filled with infatuation.

Especially when he looked at the Ginseng Fruit, he nearly drooled.

That fruit gave him a very special feeling. Intuition told him that even an ordinary person with no cultivation could extend their life by a thousand years by eating it.

Finally, unable to suppress his impulse, Li Zhi reached out to touch the fruit in the scroll.

But at this moment, the scroll suddenly released a tremendous suction force.

With a whoosh, Li Zhi was swallowed by the scroll, leaving behind only a Luoyang Shovel and a snakeskin bag with just over twenty fruits left.

Then, a ripple flickered across the scroll.

In the lowest-altitude area of the scroll's southeast corner, a tiny figure appeared.

That little figure seemed to be Li Zhi.

And he was trudging along a field path, painstakingly climbing toward the center of the scroll.

Unfortunately, it was visible to the naked eye that his movement within the scroll was extremely slow.

It seemed that even in a day, he couldn't move even a centimeter across the scroll.

After all, at this moment, the distance from his position to the fruit tree at the mountaintop was nearly one meter six on the scroll.

And that was just the straight-line distance, not counting the terraced fields and the steps between them.

Based on the height of Li Zhi's figure in the scroll, those steps were almost a thousand meters high.

In the scroll, there were nine layers of medicinal fields from bottom to top.

Only by crossing all nine layers could he reach the mountaintop where the fruit tree grew.

At his current speed, it would probably take over two hundred days to reach the summit.

Meanwhile.

Outside, after Old Man Xu and his two sons met with Boss Ke, who had come from overseas, they quickly reached a cooperation agreement.

The goal was to obtain the complete Longevity Sutra from Li Zhi.

Earlier, Boss Ke had personally led a team deep into the Qinling Mountains to search near the Worship Terrace for traces of his daughter.

Although no sign of Miss Ke was found, the stone cave on the rock wall had already revealed what happened that day.

And the bloodstains on the ground, not yet washed clean by the rain, all indicated that his daughter had been killed.

At the same time, he confirmed that his former partner, Yao Le, was also dead.

After that, Boss Ke turned his attention to the Xu Family, who had a grudge against Yao Le's family.

And so, their collaboration came to be.

But their alliance couldn't escape the notice of those paying attention.

This news quickly reached Li Dapeng, who had been keeping an eye on the Xu Family's movements.

Li Dapeng then reported this to Zhou Mei.

In the company office, Zhou Mei, dressed in a small suit, exuded an air of competence.

She was no longer just the owner of a small clothing store; she now ran a trading company, a decoration company, and an investment firm.

In other words, she already owned three companies.

After recovering her health, Zhou Mei had developed the urge to start a business.

She consulted Li Zhi for advice and then established those companies.

Because Li Zhi had told her that the next ten years would be a decade of rapid growth for the real estate industry, as well as for the mobile internet sector.

Originally, Zhou Mei planned to dive straight into real estate, but Li Zhi advised her to stay away from it, as it was rife with shady deals—once you got caught up, it would be hard to extricate yourself.

So instead, Zhou Mei entered the home decoration industry, which was tied to real estate.

Although her business was just getting started, she already had over a hundred employees under her.

That had given her a bit of a boss's authority.

When Li Dapeng arrived at 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 an air of dominance, "Just some country bumpkin with a bit of money, daring to act wild here. Brother Dapeng, I think it's time your comrades helped them clear their heads."

Li Dapeng smiled. "Rest assured, President Zhou. I'll make sure they understand who not to mess with."

Then, Li Dapeng left Zhou Mei's office.

But Zhou Mei didn't stop there. She called an old classmate and said, "Old classmate, got time? Let me treat you to a meal."

"Beauty Zhou rarely plays host, so of course I've got time. We thought you'd forgotten all about us old classmates after finding yourself a young husband." A man's hearty laughter came through the phone.

Although the borrowed fortune that Li Zhi had used was now exhausted, making his trip to Mount Tai fraught with danger, it didn't mean the benefits he gained while fortune was on his side had disappeared.

At the very least, Zhou Mei now held considerable wealth in her hands, allowing her to reconnect with old classmates she hadn't contacted in years.

The old classmate she called this time was a rising figure who already held real power in the political arena.

In the end, maintaining a circle of classmates still came down to strength.

Outside, Zhou Mei exerted just a little effort, and she nipped those potential troubles in the bud.

But inside the Great Sage's Grotto-heaven, Li Zhi had fallen into real trouble.

He had never imagined that the medicinal fields in the Hundred Herbs Diagram were also stocked with insects.

There were bees, butterflies, mantises, spiders, toads, and many other kinds of bugs.

Though there were no large beasts, those insects seemed even more troublesome.

Each one was elusive and ferociously aggressive.