Sudden Incident

That fern grove covered several dozen meters.

At its center stood the thickest giant fern, its main trunk as thick as a man's waist and seven or eight meters tall.

The stones Wu Tie sent flying shrieked through the air as they smashed into the fern grove. Two stones easily punched through the central giant fern, spraying fragments seven or eight meters away, while more than a dozen lush ferns were snapped cleanly in half.

The stones hit the ground, then flew up again like maddened hornets, battering the remaining giant ferns.

Down, up, down again, up again.

A whole cluster of ferns was smashed to pulp, broken branches scattered everywhere across a hundred-meter radius.

"This is my territory. No fighting allowed!" Wu Tie unclenched his left fist and pointed forcefully at Luolin and the other two.

For some inexplicable reason, Wu Tie was inclined to protect Shi Lingqing's group. Perhaps it was because she, like him, had seen her entire family slaughtered. Perhaps Luolin and his companions' aggressive manner displeased him. Or perhaps there were other reasons...

Who knew?

Shi Lingqing smiled. Her dislocated foot lightly touched the ground as she beamed brilliantly at Wu Tie.

When she saw dozens of stones rising and falling again and again, sending the thick ferns' branches and leaves flying everywhere, her smile became even more radiant, like spring blossoms—so beautiful it intoxicated the heart.

Luolin's expression changed drastically, and he suddenly shouted.

The young man beside him holding a longbow shouted as well. He strode toward Wu Tie, covering seven or eight meters with every step. Within a few breaths, he had advanced more than a hundred meters.

The bow was drawn into a full moon. With a muffled boom, an arrow streaked through the air, aimed straight at Wu Tie's heart.

Wu Tie drew a deep breath and clenched his left fist. Within a hundred-meter radius before him, the invisible force field trembled violently. Layer upon layer of unseen power surged toward the arrow, and its speed abruptly slowed, visibly slowing before the naked eye.

Amid sharp hissing sounds, faint milky-white rings of air spurted from the arrowhead. At last, when the arrowhead was only three feet from Wu Tie's chest, the arrow slowly came to a halt, suspended motionlessly in the air.

Wu Tie raised his head and glared at the young man with the longbow.

The young man shouted. The longbow suddenly erupted with rolling thunderous booms, firing seven or eight arrow shadows in rapid succession straight at Wu Tie.

Wu Tie hurriedly activated the force field to intercept them. He had never faced such a fierce assault, and caught off guard, two arrows hidden behind two arrow shadows traced small arcs and slammed heavily into the tail of the first arrow.

The first arrow, only three feet from Wu Tie, suddenly accelerated. With a piercing explosive shriek, it tore through the force field and slammed into his heart.

A tiny spark burst from his pale tight-fitting armor. The pure steel arrowhead shattered, but the armor, bright enough to reflect light, did not bear the slightest mark.

Luolin and his two companions' pupils shrank abruptly. They let out sharp whistles at the same time, then turned and fled without a word. They retreated with astonishing speed, vanishing into a grove of towering mushrooms after only a few leaps.

Wu Tie was so frightened that cold sweat covered his forehead. He gasped sharply, gritted his teeth, and turned to leave as well.

He had already foreseen his miserable fate.

He had been shot at point-blank range. If not for his armor, his heart would already have been pierced through.

This place was quite some distance from the Ancient Divine Weapon Camp, and the Metal Spiders could not come this far. If he were injured by an arrow, he would have no strength to return to the Ancient Divine Weapon Camp.

In other words, if not for the armor, he would already be dead!

Heaven knew how Old Tie would deal with him this time.

Shi Lingqing called gently from behind him, "Sir, sir..."

Wu Tie did not hear Shi Lingqing calling him. He merely ran forward with his head down, occasionally leaping high and gliding forward, covering more than a hundred meters each time. Before long, he had fled back into the Metal Spiders' range of activity.

He looked back once. The rolling earthen mounds and fern groves had already blocked his view, and he could no longer see what was happening over there.

Wu Tie let out a breath and walked toward the Ancient Divine Weapon Camp with a dark expression.

With several hundred meters still between him and the entrance to the Ancient Divine Weapon Camp, Wu Tie stopped in astonishment.

A neatly constructed wooden shed had appeared over the original deep pit.

Large fern branches formed its frame, and its four walls were plastered with a thick layer of mud. The mud had been smoothed evenly, then baked hard with high heat. A thick layer of fern branches and leaves covered the roof, making it look quite sturdy.

When had this wooden shed appeared?

Wu Tie had only been out for less than half a day. How had a wooden shed suddenly appeared?

More than a dozen Metal Spiders darted out from all around, silently gathering beside Wu Tie before scurrying one after another into the wooden shed.

Wu Tie froze for a moment, then hurried after them into the shed. He discovered that the original deep pit had been covered with a thick layer of fern branches, overlaid with another thick layer of mud, then covered with a thick layer of Giant Hippopotamus hide. It looked rather comfortable.

The Metal Spiders reached one corner of the shed and deftly lifted a cover about a meter square.

Old Tie's voice came from beneath it. "Outsiders have come in, and neither side is anything good. Your grandpa can't be bothered dealing with them... so I hurriedly built a shed to hide this entrance. Well? How are your grandpa's house-building skills?"

Wu Tie suddenly relaxed. He moved to the entrance leading into the Ancient Divine Weapon Camp, lowered his head to look at Old Tie, who was being carried by four Metal Spiders, and snorted. "It wasn't you who did the work, was it? You don't even have arms or legs. How could you build a house?"

Old Tie fell silent. Blindingly brilliant electric light suddenly flickered across his two rows of big teeth.

Wu Tie hurriedly raised both hands. "I was wrong. This house is built wonderfully. Old Tie, you are truly wise, valiant, and peerlessly magnificent!"

Before Old Tie could speak, Wu Tie lowered his head and voluntarily confessed his mistake. "I was wrong. I should have dodged those arrows instead of blocking them head-on... I never expected that guy's arrows could actually turn?"

"More than arrows can turn. People can be crooked too. Have you ever seen that?" The lightning on Old Tie's teeth gradually faded. He snorted. "You still have plenty of Foundation Establishment Potions stockpiled these days. For the next few days, don't come down. Cultivate on your own every day..."

Old Tie's tone suddenly turned exceedingly strange. "Also, go make proper contact with them. Some things can only be understood after experiencing them yourself... especially those little dealings between men and women. Ha, ha, ha, ha..."

A streak of electricity flashed through the passage leading into the Ancient Divine Weapon Camp. The silvery metal cover wriggled, and Old Tie and the four Metal Spiders sank into the tunnel below.

Wu Tie's face flushed red. He muttered under his breath, "Dealings... between men and women? What kind of dealings are those?"

Old Tie's words made Wu Tie feel a little uneasy, a little excited, a little expectant, and a little yearning...

Instinctively, he recalled certain topics Wu Jin and Wu Yin had secretly discussed in private at night in the Wu Family's stone fortress.

They had gone to great lengths to whisper quietly, but Wu Tie had hidden himself well and still overheard some of what they said.

"Old Tie, what are you talking about?" Wu Tie blushed slightly, and his heartbeat inexplicably quickened.

For no reason, he thought of Shi Lingqing's lovely face, especially her exquisite lips dyed pale purple... Wu Tie felt his own lips growing dry.

Two lean, capable figures quietly approached the wooden shed. They stopped two hundred meters away, hiding behind an earthen mound as they secretly watched this direction. The lone wooden shed was so conspicuous that the two guards belonging to Shi Lingqing stared at it in surprise.

"Check the traces around it," one figure muttered quietly. "Only one person?"

"One person is fine. He seemed able to block those three brats, Luolin and the others." The other figure took a deep breath. "He doesn't look very old, yet he has such strength. One person... very good."

The two figures quietly withdrew.

They had been extremely careful, but they did not notice that, within the distant mushroom grove, two Metal Spiders' scarlet eye-devices were fixed upon them. Countless invisible red lights densely swept back and forth over their bodies.

Wu Tie sat alone in the wooden shed, dazed for a while. He did not know what he should do now.

After sitting blankly for quite some time, he shook his head and dug out a Gray Rock Lizard's hind leg, a fattest section of Black Ring Snake meat, and a huge chunk of fat from a Giant Hippopotamus's belly from the corner of the shed. Drawing his long blade, he busied himself outside the shed.

After working for a while, he cut the meat into strips and hung them outside the shed on wooden poles. He took a piece of snake meat, built a fire with dried mushroom roots, and roasted the snake until it was golden brown all over and dripping with fragrant oil.

He took out a fist-sized chunk of rock salt, scraped a little salt powder onto the meat with his long blade, then took a huge bite of snake meat and gave a satisfied hum.

The aroma of meat filled his mouth. As the fragrant snake meat entered his stomach, his powerful body swiftly digested it, and a warm current called "satisfaction" spread through him. Wu Tie shuddered all over in comfort.

"Sir!" Shi Lingqing's soft, gentle voice drifted over from afar.

She wore a black long dress that had somehow been washed clean. Her formerly mud-caked hair had been washed as well, hanging smoothly down her back with a glistening sheen.

Her lovely little face was clean too, and her pale purple lips had returned to their natural faint flesh color. Her moist, lustrous lips showed not the slightest wrinkle, full and tender like flower buds just beginning to bloom.

Compared to when her lips had been pale purple, Shi Lingqing now looked elegant and pure, like an epiphyllum newly blossomed in the night, brimming with intoxicating beauty.

She stood delicately beneath a fern grove several dozen meters away. Her large, watery eyes looked timidly at Wu Tie, her lips trembling slightly as though she wanted to speak but did not dare.

"Sir, this little woman is Shi Lingqing. Thank you for saving my life." Shi Lingqing's slender, delicate body trembled slightly as she suddenly knelt toward Wu Tie like a flower branch broken by the wind.

Wu Tie froze.

Over the past few days, Old Tie had taught him how to hunt prey, how to sneak and ambush, how to dissect prey, and how to preserve his life and escape.

But Old Tie had never taught him what he should do when a beautiful, captivating, incomparably delicate young girl only a few years older than him suddenly knelt before him.

Wu Tie's face stiffened, and his entire body tensed.

He was nervous to the extreme, but because his face was so taut, he appeared utterly calm and stern, as hard-hearted as iron, like a man who would not be startled even if the sky collapsed.

He even instinctively raised the strip of snake meat and took another savage bite.

Having completed the first level of Foundation Establishment, Wu Tie's powerful body gave him exceptionally sturdy teeth. Like two rows of millstones, they ground the snake bones with crackling sounds, crushing a mouthful of bones to powder before he swallowed them.

Shi Lingqing's expression changed slightly.

She secretly watched Wu Tie's cold, "heartless" face and listened to the sound of snake bones being crushed in his mouth. For a moment, she had no idea what Wu Tie was thinking.

Shi Lingqing had never prepared for a situation like this.

How could Wu Tie remain unmoved by her?

Her fair, delicate hands trembled slightly. Gritting her teeth, Shi Lingqing pressed one hand into the muddy ground covered with slick moss. Her slender hand immediately sank three inches into the mud, and dark, rich sludge welled up through her fingers, completely coating her snow-white hand.

Shi Lingqing's entire body began to tremble. Together with her pale face and slender, fragile frame, she looked so pitiful that one's heart could not help but ache.

"Sir, this little woman, Shi Lingqing, has fallen into hardship here. I beg that you..."

Shi Lingqing's eye sockets reddened. Her voice trembled, and tears glimmered at the corners of her eyes.

Wu Tie's entire attention was fixed on Shi Lingqing, and he completely ignored every movement around him.

Thus, Wu Tie naturally did not notice that behind Shi Lingqing, a Blood-Scarred Fang-Breaking Snake—black from head to tail, with a blood-red stripe running along its back—was stealthily, sneakily approaching her.

Naturally, he also did not notice that this vicious venomous snake, which broke off its mouthful of barbed fangs inside its prey after biting them, had opened its jaws and was biting down at Shi Lingqing's pert rear, raised high as she knelt on the ground.

Wu Tie's mouth was dry, and his throat felt as though someone had stuffed a handful of sand into it.

He looked at Shi Lingqing kneeling on the ground and wanted to tell her to get up, but he did not know how to begin.

Old Tie had taught him much knowledge of "survival" and "combat," but had never taught him how to handle interpersonal relationships, how to socialize with others, especially how to interact with women of the opposite sex who made one's heart stir.

And yet...

Neither Wu Zhan, Wu Jin, Wu Yin, Wu Tong, nor even Master Hui, who had been a bachelor his entire life, had taught Wu Tie such things.

Wu Zhan only knew how to expand the Lineage's territory, only knew how to teach unruly neighbors a lesson with fists and blades.

Wu Jin, Wu Yin, Wu Tong... none of them had ever interacted with girls their own age.

As for Master Hui, apart from muttering, "In a little tower, one listens to spring rain through the night"... when had he ever seen true "spring rain"?

Wu Tie stared blankly at Shi Lingqing, his mind filled with her sweet, lovely face.

Then came a miserable scream.

The Blood-Scarred Fang-Breaking Snake bit viciously into Shi Lingqing's buttock. Its mouthful of inch-long venomous fangs, densely covered with tiny barbs, broke off at the roots, remaining inside Shi Lingqing's body along with a large amount of neuroparalytic venom.

Shi Lingqing sprang up as though her backside were on fire, flailing her arms and legs as she screamed hoarsely.

After only two or three cries, the neuroparalytic toxin took effect. Shi Lingqing foamed at the mouth, collapsed to the ground, and began convulsing madly.

More than a dozen figures charged over from afar like a violent gale. They hurriedly helped Shi Lingqing up, then fled into the distance in utter disarray.

Only Wu Tie remained where he was, staring in stunned disbelief.

And the equally dumbfounded Blood-Scarred Fang-Breaking Snake—before it had even blinked, why had its prey vanished?

Mm, what a pitiful girl... In a little tower, one listens to spring rain through the night; today, a snake bit her butt!