Dusk deepened.
At the southern exit of the Sky Fortune Tribe, Xian He had waited for most of the morning and all afternoon, but Grandma Chen still hadn't returned.
He couldn't help suspecting that the heartless members of Greedy Wolf had killed her.
The Tianyun Plateau was a harsh place, with plenty of cannibals. Could Grandma Chen have been...
"Why hasn't she come back yet?" Xian He fretted, pacing back and forth with his hands behind his back.
He'd made do with a simple lunch inside the Mountain River Society Diagram, eating half a Crystal Pomegranate.
After spending over a month together, Yun Ling had become close with the three maids, and even called Chen Jingjing her sister.
However, Xian He had noticed a problem: food.
A thousand Crystal Pomegranates should have been enough to feed Yun Ling for a year, but with three more mouths to feed, their supply was dwindling fast. In just over a month, a large portion of the stock in Cold Storage had disappeared.
Aside from Crystal Pomegranates, there was no other food inside the Mountain River Society Diagram. He and Yun Ling had eaten all the wood powder months ago.
So getting more food inside was an urgent matter.
If Grandma Chen didn't return soon, he would go to her house and get the Muyang Tree saplings himself. She had promised them to him that morning, so it wouldn't count as stealing.
Just as Xian He was about to leave, he spotted those two bastards, Li Zhen and Xiao Yang, coming down the street.
"Uh-oh, dogs! Retreat!" Xian He immediately summoned the Mountain River Society Diagram from his Soul Sea, rolled it into a stick, shoved it into a crack between the boulders by the roadside, quickly covered it with dirt, and climbed inside.
Xian He had barely left when Li Zhen came rushing over.
Li Zhen narrowed his eyes and glared around, shouting, "Come out! I saw you!" He leaped onto the boulder, only to find that Xian He wasn't hiding behind it.
With that good-for-nothing's Two-star Azure Obsidian cultivation, he shouldn't have been able to run very fast. How had he disappeared in the blink of an eye?
Li Zhen's face was swollen like a steamed bun, and it hurt so much that he'd barely eaten lunch or slept during his nap. He'd been looking forward to catching that good-for-nothing and giving him a sound beating, but the man had gotten away.
The angrier Li Zhen got, the more his face hurt. Furious, he stomped on the boulder, leaving a shallow footprint.
"Stop looking. We have more important business to take care of." Xiao Yang arrived a moment later.
"Yes, Boss Xiao Yang!" Li Zhen jumped down from the boulder and followed at Xiao Yang's heels as the two headed deeper into the forest.
On the way, Xiao Yang and Li Zhen found Grandma Chen.
Covered in mud and disheveled, Grandma Chen lay facedown on the ground with a tattered straw mat on her back. Her hands were torn up from digging, pricked all over by sharp stones.
"Grandma Chen, what happened? Why are you lying in the woods? Aren't you afraid the bugs will eat you?" Xiao Yang asked in surprise, pinching his nose.
If it were anyone else, he wouldn't have bothered with them. But Grandma Chen had delivered his mother's baby and helped him come into the world safely. He owed her.
Grandma Chen told them the whole story, from beginning to end.
She knew Xiao Yang and Xian He were at odds, so she didn't mention anything about Xian He. She only told them how she'd gone to ransom her son, and how the kidnappers had killed him anyway.
As Grandma Chen spoke, she wept until she ran out of tears and could only wail.
Neither Xiao Yang nor Li Zhen was heartless, and they were both moved.
"Li Zhen, help Grandma Chen take her son's body home. I'll go look for those scum from Greedy Wolf and see if I can avenge her son," Xiao Yang ordered through gritted teeth.
He was only being polite. He still needed to ask Greedy Wolf to help assassinate Xian He. There was no way he'd fight them.
Grandma Chen clung to their offer like a lifeline, immediately kowtowing. "Thank you! Thank you both! I have nothing to repay you with. In my next life, I'll work like an ox or horse for you kind souls."
She didn't know why Xiao Yang and the others had come to the Black Oil Forest, nor did she want to know. All she wanted now was to take her son home, bury him in the ancestral grave, and lay him to rest.
"Boss, can you manage by yourself?" Li Zhen asked worriedly. At the same time, he glanced at the tattered straw mat on Grandma Chen's back with distaste. If he touched that thing, he didn't know how many baths it would take to wash away the bad luck.
He was a Four-star White Obsidian martial artist, with more than nine hundred pounds of strength in one arm. Carrying Grandma Chen and her son home would be no problem.
The problem was that he didn't like touching dead people. It made him feel queasy.
Xiao Yang pondered for a moment, then said gravely, "Then hurry back. I'll wait here, and we'll go help Grandma Chen get revenge together." As he spoke, he gave Li Zhen a meaningful look.
Li Zhen nodded, understanding what Xiao Yang meant.
"Leave it to me! Grandma Chen, let's go!" Li Zhen grabbed one corner of the torn straw mat with one hand and Grandma Chen's belt with the other, then sprinted off.
Li Zhen ran at full speed, and in the time it took to brew a cup of tea, he had dumped Grandma Chen and her son near the southern exit of the Sky Fortune Tribe.
"Grandma Chen, I'll leave you here. Call someone to help you. Boss Xiao Yang is waiting for me!" Li Zhen dusted off his hands and declared confidently, "Don't worry. We'll do everything we can to kill the murderers and avenge your son."
Before you continue