Spoils of War

Late at night.

After completing this round of hunting mission, cleaning up the battlefield, and sorting out all the gains he needed to take with him, Ling Wuyuan spent another two hours or so before successfully returning to the White Crow Gang.

Along the way, when faced with things that were not easy to carry, he simply dug a hole and buried them three or four meters underground.

For example, those weapons.

Although he did not know their exact identities, only roughly where they had come from, and did not even know the names of the three dead men to this very moment, Ling Wuyuan could still clearly tell that the weapons they had used were all high-end goods he previously could not afford at all.

They were at least two grades above the premium weapon he had bought at great expense!

Within the White Crow Gang,

those weapons would probably only be fit for use by Hall Masters and elders, at the very least.

Naturally, Ling Wuyuan did not dare bring those hard-to-hide weapons back with him.

Compared to that,

it would be better to bury them somewhere and retrieve them later.

There was one long saber and two longswords in total.

Since they were made of special materials, Ling Wuyuan did not need to worry about them rusting after being buried for a long time.

For them to rust,

they would have to be buried underground for at least decades, perhaps even centuries.

"Yo, you're back?"

"Why'd you get back so late?"

As he passed through the gang's main gate, although the guards had changed, Ling Wuyuan still ran into the smoking old brother who had chatted with him a little that morning.

Though the lamplight was somewhat dim,

the other man recognized him at once and took the initiative to greet him.

As he spoke,

he also took a hard sniff of the air around them.

He smelled blood.

A thick, overpowering smell of blood.

Soon, his gaze fell upon the basket on Ling Wuyuan's back.

The smell of blood was coming from inside it.

Having caught that scent, he immediately looked Ling Wuyuan over.

Though he did not seem injured, his clothes looked somewhat dirty, and he appeared slightly disheveled overall.

Moreover, the longsword at his waist was gone.

In an instant, the smoking old brother understood that Ling Wuyuan had run into some unforeseen trouble.

In response to the smoking old brother's question,

Ling Wuyuan merely scratched his head with a troubled expression. "Well..."

"I got lost in the forest."

"And I ran into a wolf pack..."

"Though I killed two wolves with my bow and drove the pack away, I still lost the sword I had just bought while running away..."

"To make up for some of the loss, I could only cut off a few big chunks of wolf meat and bring them back."

Hearing that,

the man shook his head with a somewhat speechless laugh amid his surprise.

"A wolf pack?"

"Being able to escape safely after running into something like that means your luck was already pretty good..."

Still,

he privately felt that Ling Wuyuan was a bit too prodigal.

If he had lost that longsword from this morning,

he would have been heartbroken for a long while.

But Ling Wuyuan looked utterly unconcerned.

In his words,

there was only the tiniest trace of regret.

There was none of that heart-wrenching anguish.

Clearly, this was the confidence of a prodigal son.

That composure was enough to make people envy, resent, and hate him...

Upon hearing their conversation,

the other guards nearby also crowded around, chattering away:

"Where did you run into the wolf pack?"

"I ran into a wolf pack once too..."

"What a shame. It'd be great if I could run into one..."

For a time, many of them were quite interested in the wolf pack.

After all,

to the weak, such things were a source of danger, but to those with some strength, they were like moving resource nodes.

As they spoke,

Ling Wuyuan casually took out a piece of wolf meat from the basket. It looked extremely fresh and weighed around seven or eight pounds.

"Here, you can have this piece of wolf meat."

Looking at the wolf meat he offered, the smoking old brother grinned and accepted it.

"Whoa~"

"Then thanks."

"It's pretty fresh."

"Wolf meat is a nourishing game delicacy. We can grill it for a midnight snack..."

At those words,

someone else immediately replied decisively, "I'll go get the seasonings..."

Not long afterward,

Ling Wuyuan, having declined the guards' grilled midnight snack, successfully returned to his residence.

After casually locking the door and shutting the windows tight,

he directly lit the candle in the room.

Then, one by one, he took out the neatly packed items from the basket.

The middle and upper layers were all wolf meat.

There was not much to say about that.

Most of it came from the finest parts of the Wolf King's body, while a small portion came from ordinary wild wolves.

For instance, the piece of wolf meat he had just given away was from an ordinary wild wolf's hind leg.

Though it was also an excellent ingredient,

it was still worth several times less than the Wolf King's meat.

There were nearly a hundred pounds of wolf meat in all.

It was completely enough for Ling Wuyuan to eat for one or two weeks.

Especially the Wolf King's meat.

It was a precious game delicacy whose nutritional value was no worse than tiger meat!

Eating it could entirely count as nourishing himself through food.

After taking out all the wolf meat,

there came the Wolf King's heart and several small bottles.

The Wolf King's heart needed no further explanation.

As for the contents of those bottles, they were blood.

The heart's blood of the wolf pack.

One bottle contained the Wolf King's heart's blood, while the other bottles held the heart's blood of ordinary wild wolves.

In this world, these were exceedingly precious things. Calling them the most important parts of a wolf would not be much of an exaggeration.

Though there were only a few hundred milliliters in total,

drinking them would definitely be far more effective than the hundred pounds of wolf meat plus the Wolf King's heart.

If he sold that heart's blood,

he could fetch at least around twenty gold coins.

At this moment, thinking of the many wild wolf corpses he had abandoned where they lay, Ling Wuyuan could only feel heartfelt regret.

There were many spoils he simply could not carry away.

The corpses of over thirty wolves contained at least several thousand pounds of wolf meat.

And there were also fine wild wolf pelts that could serve as raw materials for expensive clothing...

No matter how he thought about it, those wild wolf corpses were extremely valuable.

If only I had a spatial storage item.

However,

he also understood that such a thing was truly too far beyond his reach.

In this world,

according to what he had learned from books, only someone at least on the level of the White Crow Gang's leader could possess a true spatial storage item.

After that,

the remaining items in the basket were the greatest gains from Ling Wuyuan's trip.

Some spoils taken from that unknown trio.

They were a pile of things he had carefully wrapped up.

Five cultivation manuals.

A stack of currency and banknotes in varying denominations.

Some medicines in bottles, their effects unknown.

And, most importantly, the precious item that had driven the three men to slaughter one another—the treasure map!