Bachelor [EN]: Chapter 81

Han Li let out a soft sigh. It seemed he would have to retreat. He didn’t want to engage in an all-out battle over a spirit herb that wasn’t even essential.

“Come out! I’ve already seen you, there’s no need to hide.”

The man from the Heavenly Punishment Sect stopped about ten steps away from the Frost Smoke Grass and shouted. Han Li, startled, checked to see if he had accidentally made a sound, but then noticed that the man was still looking around, not even in his direction. It was clear he was bluffing.

He chuckled wryly again, watching as the man, after muttering to himself, finally relaxed and began to gather the Frost Smoke Grass.

The shallow trick was laughable, and he briefly considered attacking while the man’s guard was down.

Before he could decide, the man had already plucked three or four roots. In the end, Han Li shook his head and decided to retreat.

His main goal was the three ingredients for the Foundation Establishment Pill, and he needed to conserve his strength until he obtained them.

Having made up his mind, Han Li quietly slipped away. He was about to run, anticipating that the man would come after him once he finished gathering the herbs.

Just as he was about to move, a scream echoed from the pond. Judging by the voice, it was the man from the Heavenly Punishment Sect, dying.

Han Li hesitated, but gritted his teeth and quietly returned to his original spot. When he returned to the pond, he saw two men with cruel faces he had never seen before. Judging by their fancy clothes, they were from Spirit Beast Mountain.

They were rummaging through the belongings of the dead Heavenly Punishment Sect disciple, and over ten dark blue toads were lying prone around them.

Looking at the man from the Heavenly Punishment Sect, his body was riddled with holes, and it was clear he was dead.

“Senior Brother Wu, that was a great plan. Instead of killing that idiot right away, we first sprinkled Beast Repelling Powder in the Dragon Pond! He probably never imagined he’d die at the hands of these low-level demonic beasts. But this guy had quite a lot of stuff on him. Senior Brother, instead of wandering around looking for spirit herbs, why don’t we just use the Frost Smoke Grass as bait to hunt other disciples here?”

After dividing the loot, the younger-looking man placed his foot on the corpse of the Heavenly Punishment Sect disciple and muttered greedily.

“Tsk. You have big dreams! If you had any brains, you’d think a little. It’s already a great stroke of luck that the two of us were sent to the same place, which greatly increases our chances of survival compared to others. And it was also luck that we dealt with that guy. Are you planning to make the same mistake as the man who waited for a rabbit to run into a tree stump [a reference to a Chinese fable about foolishly waiting for luck]? Do we even have the ability to do that? If we meet someone much stronger, we’ll be the ones who die. Besides, who else would come to such a remote place? It’s best to go to the center of the forbidden area and take advantage of the chaos to get what we want.”

The older Spirit Beast Mountain disciple was much stronger and more cunning than the younger one. He refuted the other’s opinion while still being vigilant of his surroundings.

At this, Han Li became even more cautious, using his Concealment Technique to the extreme to completely eliminate his breathing. He didn’t even consider the foolish idea of taking on two people alone.

One of them was at the twelfth level of the early stage, and the other was at the twelfth level of the late stage. If they attacked together, he would have almost no chance of winning.

So, he simply watched as they plucked all the Frost Smoke Grass by the pond and turned the Heavenly Punishment Sect disciple’s corpse to ashes.

Finally, they put the Frost Smoke Grass into a red leather pouch and disappeared into the bushes.

Even after the two had left, Han Li didn’t immediately get up. After some time, he brushed off the fallen leaves that had accumulated on his body and stood up. He looked in the direction they had disappeared and fell into thought. It seemed there were many others who had similar ideas to his.

Since they had risked their lives to participate in the Blood Gold Trial, most of them would head to the center to gather the treasures of heaven and earth.

As spirit herbs became rarer each year, it was extremely difficult for each sect’s disciples to share them equally, and they were also hard to find, so conflict was inevitable.

Han Li’s expression darkened. The man from the Heavenly Punishment Sect had been just as cautious as he was, yet he had been killed right before his eyes.

Moreover, he didn’t know how many similar incidents were happening within the forbidden area, so his confidence in achieving his goal wavered slightly.

He wasn’t sure if this trip to the forbidden area was a good thing or a huge mistake. If he could succeed in Foundation Establishment with two Foundation Establishment Pills, he wouldn’t have needed to take such a risk.

His mind became troubled, and he even began to hesitate about retreating at this point. It was easy to say, but matters of life and death were not to be taken lightly.

Several hours passed, and Han Li was still heading towards the center of the forbidden area. After much thought, he concluded that the reasons he had considered giving up were just excuses.

He regained his composure and decided to continue on his path.

He didn’t follow the path the Spirit Beast Mountain disciples had taken, but instead chose a slightly longer route, going around them. Han Li didn’t think the Spirit Beast Mountain brothers were skilled enough to see through his concealment.

However, he had already seen their strange technique of controlling demonic beasts, so there was no guarantee they couldn’t find him using some special method. It was best to stay away from them for now.

Hadn’t he encountered a Jianghu [a term for the martial arts world] person who used a Cloud Wing Bird that could understand human speech to monitor him from a distance?

There was no way Spirit Beast Mountain wouldn’t have similar techniques, and their level would surely be higher and their effects more bizarre.

In any case, a cultivator’s techniques were definitely superior to those of a Jianghu person. Thinking of the Cloud Wing Bird made him feel a little depressed.

When he had entered the Yellow Maple Valley, he had released it in Mount Tai’e to avoid drawing attention and allowed it to roam freely.

At first, it would occasionally visit Han Li, its owner, to get some Yellow Chestnut Pills.

But as time passed, such visits gradually decreased, and when Han Li realized it, it had already become a wild bird, finding its freedom and not returning.

This saddened Han Li. If not for that, it might have been useful on this trip to the forbidden area.

Han Li didn’t know that his decision to take a detour had saved him from a great disaster. Immediately after leaving the Dragon Pond, the two Spirit Beast Mountain disciples released colorful moths from their pouches.

These beautiful insects immediately spread their wings and flew in all directions. As they settled within a hundred-zhang [a unit of length, approximately 3.3 meters] radius, they gradually changed color, blending in with their surroundings, making them difficult to spot with the naked eye.

Even if someone with keen eyesight spotted the moths, they would likely assume they were just insects native to the forbidden area and wouldn’t pay much attention.

In this way, the moths became the two men’s sentries, allowing them to know immediately if anyone entered their surveillance range and to respond accordingly.

This method of creating a surveillance network using countless creatures was seamless and a specialty of the Spirit Beast Mountain disciples.

Even if other sect disciples knew about this, it would be difficult to launch a surprise attack without being detected.

In this sense, Han Li had been lucky at the Dragon Pond. It was fortunate that they hadn’t released the moths beforehand, or else how could he have avoided being discovered?

The reason they hadn’t done so wasn’t because they had forgotten or lowered their guard, but because the moths were naturally afraid of the cold and would freeze to death if released in a place with even a slight drop in temperature.

The water in the Dragon Pond had a unique energy that made it very cold, so how could they dare release the moths to their deaths while planning to lie in ambush there for a long time? Han Li, completely unaware of this, arrived at the bottom of a strangely shaped cliff and stared at two gruesome corpses at his feet.

One was a burly man dressed in tight-fitting black clothes. There was a thin line of blood on his neck, and his eyes were wide open, as if he hadn’t accepted his death even at the moment of dying. Judging by his attire, he was a disciple of the Giant Sword Sect.

The other was of average build, but his face was covered in blood. A huge sword had pierced through his face and was stuck in the ground, and the ground was soaked with the blood and flesh he had spewed out. There was a strange, transparent thread between the fingers of his right hand, which shimmered faintly in the sunlight. Han Li stared at the Giant Sword Sect disciple’s corpse for a long time, then lightly touched the thread-like line on his neck, and the huge head immediately rolled away. It had already been cut in two.

Han Li looked again at the corpse with the mangled face, and seeing that he was wearing the same yellow robe, it was clear that he was one of his fellow disciples from the Yellow Maple Valley.

Looking up at the edge of the cliff, he could almost see the scene of the two men fighting.

Now, all he could do was pray that his fellow disciple would rest in peace and be reborn soon.

Han Li began to search the corpses of the two dead men without hesitation. Since they were already dead, he would gratefully accept what they had.

But there was nothing. Feeling strange, he searched again, but still nothing.

Han Li felt a chill run down his spine. His heart began to beat faster. It turned out that there was another person besides Han Li who had already taken their belongings. Most likely, they had already left, but there was still a chance that they were still nearby, using the corpses as bait to wait for their next victim.

Facing the cliff, there was a pile of straw about the height of a person, which was just the right size for someone to hide in.

Han Li felt even more uneasy as he bent down to examine the corpses with his back to the pile.

Someone could be hiding behind him. He remained motionless, maintaining his posture. From behind, he still looked like he was engrossed in the corpses.

In fact, he was very carefully taking out his magical artifacts and talismans, concentrating his mind and chanting incantations to search for any hidden attackers. However, he couldn’t detect any unusual fluctuations of spiritual energy.

If someone was hiding, they would have definitely used a technique like the Spiritual Sense Concealment to hide their magical power. Still, Han Li had tried to search to let them know that he was on guard.

As he had expected, nothing happened. After a while, Han Li stood up, looked at the pile of straw with a cold gaze, and then silently concealed his figure.

He had already become a black dot, gradually moving further away. As Han Li’s figure completely disappeared, a person walked out from behind the silent pile of straw.

She was fluttering in white clothes and looked no more than six years old. The girl’s face was so innocent that it was too incongruous to appear at such a scene of carnage.

The cute girl was wearing the uniform of the Emei Sect. The girl looked in the direction Han Li had disappeared and smiled, pursing her lips.

“His courage and intelligence aren’t bad, but his magical power is a bit lacking. And his aptitude, with no potential at all, is even more of a problem. If not for that, he would be a talent worth nurturing. Still, his movement technique, though from the mortal world, is quite interesting.”

From the young girl’s mouth came a tone like that of an old man who had experienced all the ups and downs of life. If Han Li had heard it, he would have been dumbfounded.

Every word she said was accurate, and even though she hadn’t said much, she had listed Han Li’s strengths and weaknesses. It was as if she had seen through him more than he had seen through himself.

“I have things to do, so I’ll let you go this once. But if we meet again, don’t think you’ll be able to escape so easily!”

The girl wrinkled her nose and made a playful expression, but she seemed a little regretful.

It was as if she were a mischievous child who had just gotten a new toy and couldn’t leave because she wanted to play with it.

In the end, the girl pouted, took out a talisman, and waved it, and a green light covered her, and her figure disappeared.

If someone had seen that scene, they might have clutched their chest in pain and scolded the girl.

She had wasted a Wood Escape Talisman, which was difficult to obtain even in the cultivation world, for no good reason.

The Wood Escape Talisman was a mid-level early-stage talisman. With it, one would have a golden opportunity to escape from any danger.
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