Chapter Twenty-Nine: Deep into Mount Wen

Hearing the increasingly dense and rapid noises drawing closer, Gu Weiyu no longer cared about gathering up the female pheasant. She summoned her Thunderflash technique, chose a direction where there were fewer rainbow pheasants, and, summoning every ounce of strength, fled for her life!

She moved with astonishing speed. Her efforts in recent days had not been in vain; she shot forth like lightning, weaving nimbly through the dense forest, dodging tree after tree. In no time, she encountered a rainbow pheasant amid the woods!

The moment the rainbow pheasant saw the human before it, it attacked without hesitation. Clearly, this detestable human had dared to steal the eggs of their kind!

It leapt forward, spewing out a jet of red flame from its beak, and raised its sharp claws to swipe at Gu Weiyu’s face.

Rainbow pheasants were not known for their intelligence. Countless of their kind met their end at the hands of cultivators each year, prized for their tail feathers. Yet the rainbow pheasant clan did have their lines that must not be crossed. The adult males, if slain, so be it—but the females, especially those nurturing the next generation, were never to be touched!

Most especially their offspring—the eggs—striking at those was a crime beyond forgiveness!

If anyone knew that Gu Weiyu, on her first mission, had brazenly snatched away an entire nest of pheasant eggs, they would surely be awestruck by her audacity!

But Gu Weiyu herself had no inkling that her current predicament was the direct result of her taking the whole clutch.

Such is fate: every cause has its destined effect.

She lobbed a fireball at the male pheasant. Struck, it fell to the ground, and she swiftly stored it in her spatial ring before continuing her desperate dash.

She would be out of her mind to tangle with them at this moment. She couldn’t worry about depleting her spiritual power; swift and decisive action was her only chance. There were so many pheasants on this mountain—if she were surrounded, she’d be finished.

There were clearly so many pheasants about, yet she hadn’t encountered a single one earlier. Was her luck good or bad?

She had barely run two steps when her spiritual sense detected two more rainbow pheasants in the forest ahead—two, without a doubt!

She’d just been mocking the pheasants for their stupidity, but now she found herself beset by them, working together to corner her!

Gu Weiyu paused for a heartbeat, then casually switched direction and kept running.

After a while, she didn’t even bother to check her bearings—she simply ran wherever there were the fewest pheasants!

Fireballs thrown, vine-driving technique unleashed—changing direction—fleeing—throwing more fireballs, driving more vines—running again—Gu Weiyu felt as if she’d fallen into an endless cycle with no escape.

She had no idea how long she’d been running. When the clamor behind her finally faded and she heard no more crowing, she stopped, panting heavily, so exhausted she could barely stand. She collapsed to the ground.

She sucked in a sharp breath and gingerly touched a spot where she’d been scratched by a pheasant’s claws, gritting her teeth against the pain.

She pulled a small porcelain bottle from her storage, dabbed some medicinal powder onto the wound, and tended it briefly. Only then did she lean back against a tree, intending to rest for a moment.

Suddenly her hand brushed against something cold. She looked down to see a small, vivid green herb with six leaves. Around it grew many others with three, four, or even five leaves.

The more leaves, the more vigorous the life force she sensed from them.

“Could this be—sixty-year-old Jade Scale Grass? And the ones beside it too?” Gu Weiyu’s breath quickened with excitement. Energy surged back into her limbs as she grabbed her medicinal trowel from her storage pouch and began to dig. This was a rare treasure, a spiritual herb not easily found!

As she dug, she gradually calmed down. Wait—wasn’t there something she was forgetting?

Jade Scale Grass loved the shade, growing in cool, damp places, and was often protected by snakes, with leaf veins that resembled snake scales. Hence, it was also called Serpent Scale Grass...

Suddenly, information about Jade Scale Grass surfaced in her mind. She realized with belated alarm: the area was indeed dark and damp, and at this moment, an unnatural stillness hung in the air. Even the whisper of wind in the leaves was absent; the insect chirping she’d heard before had abruptly ceased. A sense of foreboding pervaded everything, and she’d been oblivious.

She carefully stowed away the five stalks of Jade Scale Grass and looked around, growing ever more uneasy. Where was she? In her desperate flight, she’d lost all sense of direction.

A strange hissing sound came from behind her, accompanied by a chill that crept up her neck.

She spun around, heart pounding to a near halt. From the giant tree behind her, a massive snake as thick as a bowl had silently lowered itself, its head less than a meter away. Its tongue flicked in and out, sending shivers down her spine.

The snake’s appearance seemed to trigger something. All around, the forest rustled as countless snakes of various shapes and sizes emerged from the shadows, fixing the intruding human with deathly stares.

With a cry, Gu Weiyu shot upright like a spring, hurling several fireballs behind her as she ran for her life, barely able to catch her breath.

The hissing pursued her relentlessly. She didn’t even dare to look back. Thunderflash pushed to its limits, her spiritual energy nearly spent, and a wave of discomfort ran through her meridians.

She groaned inwardly. What a disastrous start to her mission—was she truly about to die here, on her very first task?

Fortunately, she soon realized that the snakes did not move quickly. After she’d run a fair distance, her spiritual sense told her they had stopped chasing, as if they respected territorial boundaries.

Finally free from danger, Gu Weiyu was on the brink of collapse. Her spiritual energy almost completely depleted, she dared not simply sit and rest as she had before.

This time, she first used her spiritual sense to carefully examine her surroundings. Only when she was certain nothing was amiss did she find a clearing, set up her tent, and lay a concealment formation beside it before slipping inside.

With her spiritual power drained, neither pressing forward nor returning was wise. She decided to rest and recover most of her energy before making any plans.

A pang of hunger struck her belly. She quickly ate some rations, then settled into a meditative pose to cultivate.

Even with the concealment formation in place, she left a thread of vigilance in her mind, wary of any danger that might arise outside her tent.

She checked her meridians and found them tingling from spiritual exhaustion, but the problem was not severe. Only then did she truly relax.

Time slipped by. When Gu Weiyu finally emerged from her cultivation, dusk had already fallen outside.

Remembering what her Sixteenth Uncle had said in the jade slip—that the woods were far more dangerous at night—she knew she couldn’t linger here.

She rose swiftly, packed away her tent, summoned a pink paper crane, and nimbly climbed atop it to depart.