Chapter Twelve: The Six Ears Leave the Mountain, The Road is Treacherous

  The six ears were stunned by the scene in front of them, and after regaining consciousness, they ran wildly. Under the loss of reason, the six ears originally wanted to run towards the direction of Huaguo Mountain, but instead ran in the opposite direction. At this moment, all kinds of love, hate, affection, and resentment were thrown out of the six ears' mind, leaving only one thought: to run, to keep running, and to leave this place behind.

  Six Ears was running frantically, with the occasional cry of a crow echoing behind him in this vast wilderness, the sound sending shivers down his spine, as if mocking Six Ears for underestimating himself and leaving Mount Huaguo. When Six Ears came to his senses, he sadly discovered that he had lost his way and could no longer find the direction back to Mount Huaguo.

  Helpless, Liu Er could only grit his teeth and continue on. After a long time of trekking, Liu Er finally arrived at this place where he could temporarily take refuge.

  After a mad dash in the morning, Liu Er finally felt the hunger in his stomach, but when he looked around, he was on the verge of tears.

  In the morning's frantic rush, under the control of fear, Liu Er almost lost all his food. Now he searched his entire body and only had two peaches and a bag of fruit wine left, nothing else was left.

  Helpless, Liu Er temporarily took two rotten peaches to fill his hunger and fell asleep on the tree.

  After a day of searching the entire forest and finding nothing edible, Liu Er continued on his journey forward. If he didn't want to starve to death, he had no choice but to keep moving forward on this path.

  At this time, the revelry on Mount Huaguo had already ended. Sun Yuan continued to stay at the foot of the mountain and gather with Sun Wukong. It's said that they hadn't communicated in fifty years, so their conversation was exceptionally long-winded. The two great kings were busy exchanging feelings, and as subordinates, they naturally had to prepare a banquet. So for these few days, Mount Huaguo was bustling with activity. Except for the few monkeys who discovered that Liu'er was nowhere to be seen, no one else noticed anything unusual.

  Because there were too many monkeys on the Mountain of Flowers and Fruits, news that Six Ears didn't hear almost couldn't reach Tong Bei Hou's ears, so Sun Yuan was even more unlikely to know. After several playmates of Six Ears searched in vain, the crowd of monkeys gradually cast Six Ears aside and started celebrating again.

  While Sun Yuan and the others were drinking and having fun, Liu Er was staring blankly at the juicy fruit in front of him, he had not eaten anything for a day and now felt his stomach churning with hunger, and the fruit in front of him was full of fatal temptation.

  He rubbed his eyes hard, and finally Liu Er was certain that this wasn't his own hallucination. As he stretched out a trembling paw, a gust of wind suddenly blew by, and Liu Er's attention wavered for an instant. He discovered a snow-white wild rabbit darting over at incredible speed, and before he could react, it had already reached the fruit. Its bright red eyes even glared at Liu Er, and Liu Er almost read the triumphant emotion within them: "Hey, this fruit is mine! Scram!"

  In a split second, a flame of anger burst out in his heart, but it dissipated just as quickly. No sooner had the wild rabbit reached for the fruit than a trap was triggered, and two thick layers left two residual shadows in the air, clamping down on the wild rabbit with great force.

  The poor wild rabbit was unable to dodge, only managing to let out a pained cry as its two hind legs were clamped shut, and the fruit used as bait rolled away from in front of it.

  Liu Er was stunned for a moment, ignoring the miserable cry of the rabbit, and quickly picked up the fruit and ran out of the forest. At this time, he remembered the story he heard in the monkey group, and the protagonist of the story was a group of two-legged guys who walked on their feet. Their way of catching prey was exactly the same as what he saw today!

  Liu Er arrived at the tree where he had taken shelter last night, took down his bag of fruit wine from the branch, and left the forest without hesitation. After confirming the existence of humans, Liu Er didn't dare to stay in this place any longer. Just thinking about how he had slept soundly in a forest with human presence last night made Liu Er's hair stand on end, and he felt terrified after the fact.

  At this moment, without mentioning the six ears standing in the forest and continuing on their journey, it is said that near a mountain next to the Flower Fruit Mountain, two monsters were walking side by side. One was a tiger and the other was a wild boar. What's surprising is that these two guys didn't fight at all, but instead got along very harmoniously.

  As they walked, the wild boar suddenly sat down on the ground with a thud and said, "I say, Brother Tiger, tell me why we have to hunt for prey in this place. This is a poor and barren land, where can we find any prey? The king is also being unreasonable, isn't he making things difficult for us brothers?"

  "Brother, don't rest yet. If we can't play the role well later on, the king will blame us and we'll both get whipped. You know the king just married that little fox spirit? Don't forget, she used to be at odds with us brothers. If she finds an opportunity, she won't hesitate to take revenge."

  "Hmph, anyway I'm not going anywhere, how long can this go on? We've been stuck here for two days and haven't even seen a passerby. In my opinion, we might as well just go back and tell the truth. With the king's abilities, where can't he make a stand? Why must he insist on making a name for himself in this place?" Wild Boar grumbled, but refused to get up from the ground.

  "Alright, you and I will take a rest. It's high noon anyway, and it seems no one is in a hurry to rush along the road." The tiger saw that the wild boar had made up its mind, looked up at the high sun, and immediately found a place to lie down.

  "Don't look at the great king, he seems very powerful, but I'll tell you, actually, the great king has only reached the third stage of our demon cultivation." Perhaps due to boredom, after a while, the tiger stretched its waist and leaned in mysteriously, saying to the wild boar, "This is something I overheard when the great king was chatting with an old Taoist master, you must keep it a secret."

  "Brother Tiger, rest assured. I'll let someone know what kind of temper you have, don't you understand? Our cultivation is divided into several stages, when the time comes, say it again, and also let brother have a bottom line?" The wild boar suddenly got up from the ground, humming and crawling to the side of the old tiger, lying down on the ground.

  "Anyway, it's all the same to me. I'll just say what I have to say. In the future, when you've made a fortune, don't forget about your brother!" Laohu said with a serious expression, his tiger eyes blinking once.

  "That's natural, who are you and I? Hurry up and say it." The wild boar was apparently getting impatient.

  "This first stage is where you and I are at, it's what they call opening up spiritual intelligence. The second stage is when one can control the law, like how the great king can command the black wind with just a move, that's the sign of this stage. The third stage is when one can transform their body, apparently the great king has already reached the transformation stage."

  "What about the fourth stage?"

  "The fourth is said to be the formation of a demon pill, it's said that this is the true mark of a demon's success. A demon who hasn't formed a demon pill, even if they go out into the outside world, is only at the level of a small demon. That's why the great king is hiding in this bird-less place and won't move to another location." The tiger looked around cautiously before speaking.