Supreme Ridge

The three of them chatted on and off through the night, trekking over who knew how many mountains.

By dawn, they finally found an old cemetery in some rural town.

"Damn... buried two hundred years ago?"

"The corpse hasn't decomposed, has it?"

"It's fine. As long as the skull's still there, Old Xia can teleport over."

They picked a secluded spot at random, noted down the name on a grave, then informed Xia Heng through Plant Communication. He teleported over himself.

Whoosh!

Xia Heng appeared directly atop the grave. He was dressed in a sunny beach outfit, wearing a straw hat, clean and neat.

He held an iced fruit juice in one hand and a suitcase in the other.

Looking down, he saw that his flip-flops had stepped right into the grave soil. His brow furrowed slightly, but he was used to it by now. He hopped down and handed the suitcase to the three of them.

"Here. Six new skin-shifts." Xia Heng spoke flatly as he took a sip of juice.

Yang Chunsha was stunned. "Brother Xia... how are you so rich? Even Gold-tier mercenaries can't treat skin-shifts like consumables, can they?"

Six skin-shifts, even at the random price of 5 Bitcoin each, meant spending 30 Bitcoin.

And as always, this stuff couldn't be bought with cash, so buying it was equivalent to sacrificing cultivation.

"Of course Old Xia's rich..." Luo Yi was about to say.

Xia Heng waved him off. "Don't say it. Let them guess."

He was asking both of them to guess, but his eyes were fixed solely on Wu Zhong.

Wu Zhong thought for a moment. "Teleportation itself is extremely profitable. You can grind delivery missions as much as you want."

Then his eyes lit up. "Wait, Brother Xia, can you teleport to the universe where your host body is and bring products from other worlds back?"

Xia Heng shook his head. "No. I told you before, the multiverse may not exist at all."

"The power awakened ones borrow is probably something the Primordial Tablet manifests entirely one-sidedly in our universe. At the very least, I can't retrieve bodies for people in my host body's universe. Even if I know more than their names—if I know their appearances and other anchoring information—I still can't do it."

Wu Zhong pondered. "I see."

"Then, Brother Xia, did you rob tombs? Your teleportation ability lets you enter ancient tombs directly and find the remains of famous historical figures."

"And you can teleport to powerful figures from the Calamity Realm whose names and identities you know but whose bodies you can't find. Find them and loot the inheritances on them."

"Sure, there's some danger involved, but if you succeed even once, you'll make a fortune. You can take your time scouting in advance, gathering intelligence, and finally settling on a suitable target for a huge score."

"One job and you're rich!"

Xia Heng merely smiled, neither confirming nor denying it.

Luo Yi clapped his hands. "Correct!"

"Haha, this guy loves scavenging bargains. Once, a Platinum-tier mercenary died in outer space, and his body was speeding away at forty-seven kilometers per second..."

"No one went to retrieve the body, so this guy went over. With the Void Exosuit's life-support functions, he looted the corpse and struck it rich."

Wu Zhong nodded, deeply moved.

No wonder Xia Heng was so wealthy, with so many unusual assets. Things like this probably weren't rare in the Calamity Realm. As soon as news got out, all Xia Heng needed was a name to go make a haul.

Yang Chunsha was green with envy. She envied this kind of work where you went three years without a job, then ate for three years after landing one.

"Little Wu, you handled two Silver-tier mercenaries on your own this time. You really opened my eyes."

"Your strength has already undergone a qualitative leap. The road ahead will be much easier now."

Xia Heng's eyes were full of gratification.

Wu Zhong said, "I also have to thank Brother Xia for finding such a great matching trait as the Madblood Clan for me."

Xia Heng waved his hand. "No need to be polite. You improved so quickly and developed it so well. At least my efforts weren't wasted."

"The pursuit by ghosts and gods is no longer a concern for the time being."

Wu Zhong glanced at Luo Yi and replied, "Yeah. With the Madblood Clan, I can also make up for the life force the mark drains from me."

"Besides, I know how to use the mark's shield effect now."

He gave Xia Heng a heads-up so their stories would match.

Xia Heng raised an eyebrow and immediately understood. With a double meaning, he said, "You adapted fast."

Wu Zhong pressed his lips together. "Brother Xia, you taught me well. A lot of what you said has been useful."

"Pah!" Luo Yi spat.

"Alright, alright, quit bullshitting."

"We're in Southern Sichuan now, right? Why not keep heading south and go all the way through the rainforest?"

Xia Heng shook his head. "No. We'll go west, to Supreme Ridge, and eventually cross the Final Snow Range to leave."

Luo Yi froze. "Cross the snowy mountains? Why? Wouldn't the southern route be much easier?"

Xia Heng did not answer. He only said, "The easier the road, the less we should take it."

The others exchanged glances. Wu Zhong thought that made sense. They had slipped away after fighting the mercenary group this time; 985 would definitely be furious and expand the search area.

The easy route would instead be full of hidden danger and become difficult to travel. The snowy mountains were empty, desolate, and harsh. They were hard to cross, but precisely because of that, no one would be lying in ambush. Any danger there would be visible and tangible.

Luo Yi lit another cigarette. "I don't care. The kid's body is no weaker than mine now. Anywhere works."

Yang Chunsha swallowed. Her physical condition was the worst among them, only twice that of an ordinary person.

Of course, she could still improve, but she could never be like Wu Zhong, fearless of the cost.

Next, the three changed into their skin-shifts, bought a used car in a nearby county town, and headed west.

Two days passed without incident.

They weaved back and forth along county roads, taking the time to replenish supplies. They also took Yang Chunsha to a psychiatric hospital to help two people get discharged.

After that, they did not stop to rest. They drove straight onto National Highway 318 and gradually entered the mountains of Western Sichuan.

The scenery along the way was delightful: lush hills, gorges, and tea plantations.

Luo Yi drove while Xia Heng browsed his phone in the passenger seat. He also gave phones to Wu Zhong and Yang Chunsha, telling them to check the news regularly.

But as time passed, Wu Zhong became deeply absorbed by the view outside the window.

They were about to enter Supreme Ridge, the vast plateau west of the Huaxu Kingdom and the highest plateau on the entire planet.

The landscape outside abruptly opened up. Especially after they crossed the Zheduo River and climbed Zheduo Mountain, they had to cross several mountain passes above 4,000 meters in elevation, and the grandeur of the plateau lay fully before them.

For someone like Wu Zhong, who had never traveled far from home in all his life, it was a soul-shaking blow.

"Uh... uh..." Wu Zhong's pupils trembled.

Just moments ago, the car had been winding through the mountains, with trees and rocks on both sides.

Then, all of a sudden, they rounded a bend, and the whole world whooshed open before him!

Wu Zhong's mind went blank, completely filled by the scene before him. Words like "breathtakingly beautiful" and "magnificent" would not come to him at all. He simply froze there, his mouth falling open on its own.

"This... this is too overwhelming..."

It took Wu Zhong a long while to force out that sentence. His entire upper body leaned out the window, eyes wide as he enjoyed the cold wind striking his face. Goosebumps rose all over his body.

Yang Chunsha looked up. "You've never seen snowy mountains?"

Wu Zhong gazed at the continuous snow-capped peaks. Prayer flags snapped loudly in the wind, and the sight was so stunning that his scalp tingled.

"No. Never!"

He nearly shouted it, his tone strangely urgent. It was like someone who had never seen purple before suddenly seeing it for the first time.

"To be precise, I'd only seen them on my phone... but it's different. It's completely different from seeing them with your own eyes."

"Photos are fake, but they're not fake either. It's just... no! You understand? It looks nothing like this. It's misleading, you know? Do you get what I mean?"

Wu Zhong was becoming incoherent, trying his best to express what he felt.

Seeing him nearly die of anxiety from not having the words for it, Yang Chunsha laughed. "I understand, I understand. I was the same the first time I saw it."

She rested her arm against the window frame, propped her chin on it, and admired the view. "I've only been here once too, but seeing it again still moves me."

"Don't you feel like your heart is a mess, yet somehow especially clean?"

"It's a mess because you're too shocked. You feel like all those landscape photos you've seen before, no matter how beautifully the colors were adjusted, looked fake—like they were fooling you."

"Because they can't let you smell that cool air carrying the scent of grass. They can't let you feel the warmth of sunlight on your face, or the force of the wind blowing against you."

"Videos don't work either. They're just rectangular frames, framing in heaven and earth. No matter how vivid they are, they're still fake."

"But right now, you're truly here. This whole sky, this entire land—it's all yours!"

"All those messy worries in your heart are thrown to the back of your mind... the wretchedness of your past life suddenly seems so unimportant."

"It's like nature reached out a hand and wiped away the ash in your heart and the tears in your eyes in one stroke."

"You feel an urge to cry. Not because you're sad, but because you feel so lucky to witness a sight like this with your own eyes. It's like heaven gave your heart a bath. It feels incredibly refreshing."

Wu Zhong's eyes reddened. "Right... right, that's exactly how it feels."

He really wanted to cry, because he felt as if he had wasted his life.

Only when he stood here and saw it with his own eyes for the first time did he realize that heaven and earth could be so vast, mountains and rivers could be so immense, and nature could be so beautiful. The feeling was both overwhelming and grounding, something he would never forget for the rest of his life.

He could imagine that if he had not gone through these enormous changes in his life, he might never have left his hometown. He might never have set foot among plateau snow mountains or witnessed the magnificent rivers and mountains of his homeland.

He would have spent his entire life trapped in work, drowning in all kinds of troubles until the day he died.

He would have narrow-mindedly believed that reality was no different from what he saw on his phone, that there was nothing special about it. He might even have arrogantly mocked people who had been there for talking about spiritual cleansing, calling it nothing but showing off and putting on airs.

Wu Zhong could picture his past self acting exactly that way. How tragic would that have been?

At that thought, he could not help but throw back his head and howl at the heavens and earth. "Aahhh!"

He vented all the ash in his heart.

His long howl seemed to infect others as well. Other self-driving tourists were on the road, and someone else leaned most of their upper body out a window, spread their arms, and shouted into the distance.

Then came a third, a fourth... more and more people stuck their heads out and yelled, the sound passing from car to car along the road.

Wu Zhong was somewhat introverted. Seeing more and more people looking at him, he immediately shrank back into the car.

Yang Chunsha burst out laughing.

Xia Heng laughed too and told him to keep shouting. "Come on, yell some more. Why weren't you this hyped at karaoke?"

Luo Yi grinned and handed him a bottle of liquor. "Come on, come on, have a couple drinks to build up your courage."

Wu Zhong shook his head, shrinking back. "No, no, no. I quit. Lord Luo, hurry up and speed up."

The car was filled with cheerful energy.