Another Team

Cao Ya did not move. In truth, he did not care whether he got into Chen Pi A Si's vehicle. He could walk faster than they could drive anyway, so Chen Pi A Si could never shake him off.

His complete lack of concern left Fatty and Wu Xie uncertain.

"Cao Ya, what do you think?" Fatty asked. "This job looks like serious trouble. If we don't go..."

Cao Ya smiled and interrupted him. "Why wouldn't we go? Honestly, I'm quite interested in that Eastern Xia emperor's Nine-Dragon Corpse-Lifting Coffin."

But inwardly he thought, I'm even more interested in the bronze gate beside the Nine-Dragon Corpse-Lifting Coffin, and whatever lies behind it.

Wu Xie looked at Cao Ya, then at Fatty, and gritted his teeth. "How about we catch up with them too?"

Fatty nodded solemnly, and the two of them stood up and ran after the others.

Cao Ya went along, neither hurrying nor dawdling, yet moving no slower than Fatty and Wu Xie were running.

The middle-aged men accompanying Chen Pi A Si whom they had met at the station were his people stationed nearby. They were the ones who arranged transportation, and a Jiefang Truck came to pick the group up.

Once everyone climbed aboard, cargo was piled around them. The truck drove out through Shanhai Pass, joined the provincial highway, and headed straight for Erdaobaihe.

What followed was a tedious process. Everyone inevitably showed signs of fatigue, and even Poker-Face closed his eyes to rest.

Cao Ya, however, felt nothing of the sort and calmly followed the others. After several days of driving, turning this way and that, they reached Erdaobaihe. They dared not continue according to their original plan, though. Baldy had already been arrested, after all, and might well have spilled the entire plan.

Chen Pi A Si's people brought over their supplies, but when they opened them up, they found Whisper sanitary pads, along with rope, ordinary tools, chocolate, a large bag of chili peppers, washbasins, and other everyday necessities.

In short, there was not a single tomb-robbing implement like a Luoyang Shovel or a Black Donkey Hoof.

Wu Xie and Fatty were dumbfounded. Fatty asked what was going on-were they heading out to distribute women's workplace supplies or what?

Chen Pi A Si did not answer directly. He merely said they would understand once they used them.

Cao Ya paid no attention whatsoever.

He followed the Iron Triangle mostly to save himself time and effort. It was not that he could not find these places alone, but doing so would be too much trouble.

Take the Cloud Palace, for instance. He knew it was on Changbai Mountain, but Changbai Mountain was no little hill. It covered dozens of square kilometers. How long would it take him to search every inch?

Why bother?

By following the Iron Triangle's team, he was guaranteed to reach all the crucial places anyway.

Of course, there was also the thrill of taking part in the main storyline.

He had practiced martial arts before, with powerful arms and considerable skill, enough to hold his own against Poker-Face. But this was the twenty-first century. "It," lurking in the shadows, and the Wang Family had immense influence and resources. Even the Nine Gates had to yield to them.

With a few guns aimed at you, even a martial arts master was helpless.

But things were different now.

The power of the Exterior realm from The Masters of This World made him invincible in the mortal world, even with the restrictions imposed by the world of The Grave Robbers' Chronicles.

Truly invincible!

He feared no modern weaponry!

Not to mention that he also possessed the power of his selves from the worlds of Global Martial Arts and Naruto.

That made Cao Ya the most relaxed person in the entire team.

Wu Xie, Fatty, and Pan Zi often muttered about it. Wasn't Cao Ya a little too carefree?

Even Chen Pi A Si eyed him sideways. Was he really that carefree, or was he confident enough to fear no complications along the way?

Chen Pi A Si's gaze grew unfathomable. Now that his men had joined him, he had no fear of Cao Ya either.

No matter how formidable a man was, with a few guns trained on him, he was nothing but a dead dog.

Three of Chen Pi A Si's men were traveling with them. One was Lang Feng, the big fellow who drove; another was Monk Hua, who wore glasses but had scars all over his body; and the last was a relatively young man in his thirties who had not stopped talking the entire way,

named Ye Cheng. When they reached a village in the mountains, they could not find anywhere to stay. Such a small mountain village had no guesthouse at all.

With no other choice, they knocked on the village committee's door. The village Party secretary was quite welcoming and found them a temporarily vacant wooden cabin belonging to a forest ranger. They paid and settled in, stayed in the village for several days, rented horses, and, after considerable trouble, found a local Korean army veteran named Shunzi to serve as their guide.

Shunzi told them that ordinary people did not go up the snowy mountains. With the wind and snow constantly changing, the routes were essentially different every day, and there was nothing up there anyway. Only soldiers like him had to climb them on patrol. He could ascend any of the nearby peaks, so if they really wanted to go up, he could guide them. But once they entered the snow zone, everyone had to obey him.

They agreed on a price and settled the matter, organized their equipment, and bought quite a few more things at Shunzi's request. Then the group set off into the depths of the forest in a grand procession of more than a dozen horses.

Everyone was bundled in thick coats to keep out the wind and snow. Only Cao Ya had casually thrown on a couple of layers. He had not even zipped up his down jacket or put on a sweater, yet his face was rosy and he looked exceptionally spirited.

Everyone marveled, saying Cao Ya must have become some sort of spirit. If they had not known him, they would certainly have taken him for a monster native to Changbai Mountain.

Changbai Mountain's scenery was beautiful. Wherever they looked, each stretch of the mountain displayed a different color.

The others still had to concentrate on keeping themselves from falling off their horses. They dared not relax and admire the forest around them, managing only an occasional glance.

Cao Ya was different. Seated on his horse, he remained as motionless as a great boulder, regardless of how it moved.

What the others did not know was that Cao Ya had even drawn slightly on his power, keeping every ounce of his weight off the horse beneath him.

Otherwise, the horse would have died on the spot.

After practicing the Indestructible Diamond Divine Art, Cao Ya's body weighed over a thousand jin if he did not deliberately control it!

Occasionally, Cao Ya helped take pictures of Fatty, Wu Xie, and the others to keep up appearances for Shunzi. Their cover story was that they were tourists, after all. Although everyone knew the score, they still had to maintain the facade.

As they approached a lake, they discovered another team that had already reached the shore and set up camp. This team far outnumbered Cao Ya's group.

Everyone except Cao Ya and Chen Pi A Si was somewhat surprised.

Does he know the situation here too? Or does he simply not care? Chen Pi A Si glanced at Cao Ya, increasingly convinced that he could not see through this man.

Fatty, Wu Xie, and the others needed binoculars to make out the team beside the lake. Cao Ya did not. A single downward glance let him see everything clearly.

He did not even need to look to know whose team it was.

It was the foreigner Jude Kao's team, led by A Ning.

They, too, had come for the Cloud Palace on Changbai Mountain.

The lakeshore bustled with activity. That team had roughly thirty people and over fifty horses, making it a fairly large mounted caravan.

It was essentially three or four times the size of their own team.

Moreover, the caravan was fully equipped, with plenty of gear of every kind. Half of them carried guns, and they also had satellite phones and a large quantity of advanced equipment.

Cao Ya glanced at them and paid them no further attention. Forget a few dozen guns-they would need to bring a few nuclear bombs to stand a chance.

He remained perfectly calm, but Fatty, Wu Xie, and the others could not.