Chapter 516

Chapter 516: Call In Reinforcements! Bring Back Everyone Who Can Still Move!
A storage pouch was handed to Yu Zhao.

Yu Zhao looked at Bookworm Senior.

In his eyes there was encouragement and urgency, and also deep guilt.

Yu Zhao went quiet for a moment, then reached out her small hand to take the storage pouch. She said seriously: “Thank you, Senior.”

A relieved smile appeared on Bookworm Senior’s face.

“I should be the one thanking you. You came to the Middle World all by yourself. You must have suffered a lot. Now I am putting such a heavy burden on you again. I am really… sorry.”

Bookworm Senior’s voice grew choked as he spoke.

In his eyes, Yu Zhao was still a junior who needed others to look after her.

Yet he selfishly put the responsibility that should have been his onto her shoulders.

Bookworm Senior lowered his head and hunched his back, as if he had suddenly aged more than ten years for no reason.

Yu Zhao smiled and said: “Senior, reopening the Heavenly Ladder is not only your wish, it is also mine. Before, all of you worked hard for it. Now it should be my turn.”

Bookworm Senior lifted his head. Light shimmered at the corners of his eyes. He seemed to want to say something more, but a hearty laugh cut him off.

Black Old Daoist strode over, holding a big bunch of skewers dripping with oil. He shoved them straight into Yu Zhao’s hands and said: “Here, little Yu Zhao, try the meat skewers I grilled. Bookworm, stop frowning over there. Come drink a few cups with me!”

Bookworm Senior was half dragged, half pulled away by Black Old Daoist.

Yu Zhao shook her head with a smile, picked up a skewer, and took a small bite.

The smell of meat spread everywhere. The roasting time was just right.

She had just finished one big skewer when Beastkin Little Stone ran out from the crowd.

His small face was flushed red, and he was clutching a bunch of freshly picked wildflowers.

Because he was squeezing too hard, the wildflowers looked a bit wilted.

He pushed the flowers into Yu Zhao’s hands, his face even redder: “Th-These are for you!”

After he finished, he did not wait for Yu Zhao to respond. He dashed away like the wind, leaving Yu Zhao standing there in a daze.

Yu Zhao looked at the flowers in her hands. The corners of her lips lifted slightly.

The next day.

Yu Zhao and the others said goodbye to the Giant Spirit Bear clan and rode a starship toward Qi Lan Realm.

On the starship, Yu Zhao opened the storage pouch Bookworm Senior had given her. Inside were many jade slips and books. Most of them were about formation array arts and spatial teleportation arrays.

From the contents alone, she could tell these jade slips were not common goods sold on the market. Bookworm Senior must have spent a lot of effort to gather them.

After Yu Zhao told Ancestor Sui Bian and Black Old Daoist about it, both of them sighed.

During the rest of the journey, Yu Zhao kept studying the contents of the jade slips and completely forgot about the passing of time.

A few days later, when they were less than three days away from Qi Lan Realm, Ancestor Sui Bian’s transmission talisman suddenly lit up.

He glanced at the talisman and muttered under his breath, then tapped it to activate it. In the next instant, his face suddenly changed.

“What is it?” Black Old Daoist asked at once.

Ancestor Sui Bian’s expression was ugly. He said: “Something happened in Qi Lan Realm. Huang Zhong says someone is searching all over Qi Lan Realm for people related to us. It looks like Yan Yi and the others have been taken too. He told us not to come back and to hide somewhere for a while.”

“What!?” Black Old Daoist exploded with rage. “It is one thing for them to come after us, but they dare to touch them too!”

Hong Wei, who had finally regrown six tails and was resting with her eyes closed, also changed expression sharply.

“This is going too far!”

“We cannot hide! If we do not show ourselves, they will be in real danger!”

Yu Zhao also put down the jade slip, her eyes turning serious.

She was wondering which force had done this.

Was it the Tu Clan, the underground black market, or Auspicious Palace?

Or was it all three working together?

If it was the last case, then things were very bad.

Xiu Yu glanced at Ancestor Sui Bian with worry, then turned her pleading eyes toward her elder sister Linglong.

Linglong asked Ancestor Sui Bian in a low voice: “What do you plan to do?”

Ancestor Sui Bian let out a cold laugh.

“They have already hit our doorstep. How can an Ancestor like me swallow this anger? They are just relying on their numbers and think we are easy to bully. I will let them know that people who ascended from the cultivation world have never been easy to mess with!”

Then he looked at Black Old Daoist and said: “Call in reinforcements! Bring back everyone who can still move!”

Black Old Daoist was still angry, but when he heard the old man’s words, he could not hide his excitement.

“Alright!”

Madam came out of the sheath and fell into his hand.

Black Old Daoist gripped the blade and dragged it hard across his palm.

Then, using the blood on his fingertips, he quickly wrote a line of tiny characters.

“Go!”

The sword tip tore open space.

The wriggling blood characters split into dozens of streaks of spiritual light and disappeared into a spatial passage.

At the same time, Ancestor Sui Bian kept pulling transmission talismans out of his sleeve and sending messages one by one.

Xiu Yu and Linglong, the two sisters, also sent messages to people they trusted.

Yu Zhao looked around and felt like she could not help with anything. She let out a soft sigh.

Ancestor Sui Bian was actually still paying attention to her. He reached out and rubbed the little tuft of hair on top of her head.

“Little Yu Zhao, this time I will let you see your Ancestor’s skill.”

Yu Zhao instead looked at a special jade talisman in his hand and said: “Ancestor, is that from Godsfall Land…”

Ancestor Sui Bian lowered his head to take a look and said carelessly: “Yes. Back then, the people we saved all left the tokens of their clans. I just used them to send messages too. If they do not come, that is fine. If they do come, they can still give us some extra help.”

Yu Zhao looked at Ancestor Sui Bian with admiration.

Ancestor Sui Bian waved his hand, acting like it was no big deal.

Right now, Yu Zhao still did not know how big a wave Ancestor Sui Bian and Black Old Daoist had stirred up.

The cultivators scattered all over the Middle World who received their message transmissions all began to move.

Cloud Marsh Secret Realm.

A training ground that only opened once every hundred years.

What it was most famous for was the Xuanhuang Earth Lotus that only grew deep inside the Cloud Marsh.

It was said that someone who ate a Xuanhuang Earth Lotus could keep their body from rotting and their soul from disappearing.

But a Xuanhuang Earth Lotus might not bloom even once in a thousand years. To see it, you also had to be lucky.

This time, the cultivators who entered the Cloud Marsh Secret Realm were without a doubt very lucky.

They had happened to catch the moment when a Xuanhuang Earth Lotus was about to bloom.

Right now, everyone was gathered around the Cloud Marsh, staring like tigers at the Xuanhuang Earth Lotus in the very center.

Among them were two young women, one fat and one thin. One carried a huge axe on her back as wide as a door panel. The other wore clothes covered in bright, messy colors.

Their exaggerated appearances made the two of them stand out even in the middle of a crowd.

From the wary looks around them, it was clear everyone here had already tasted their strength and was very afraid of them.

The two women ignored all those looks and only stared at the Xuanhuang Earth Lotus that was about to open.

Right at that moment, a streak of red light suddenly drilled out of the space in front of them and quickly turned into a line of tiny characters.

When the two of them saw it, their auras surged at once.

They looked at each other, then turned and sped straight toward the exit of the Cloud Marsh Secret Realm without looking back.

The cultivators nearby were all stunned.

What was going on?

These two were strong contenders for the Xuanhuang Earth Lotus. Why did they leave at the most important moment?

Did they get news about some treasure even more important than the Xuanhuang Earth Lotus?