Crossing the River (Part 2) Chapter 6 of Book 5

  "I think you're tired too, let's rest instead. Haste makes waste." Hai Ji softly advised.

  "Alright, let's set off early tomorrow." I put down the lantern and sat cross-legged, circulating the Xuanji secret technique. The swirling air flowed inside my body, layer by layer, forming circles.

  Yuè Hún blinked her small eyes and said: "You've been working very hard recently, traveling on the road during the day is so tiring, yet you still don't forget to cultivate at night."

  I silently gritted my teeth, it was Chu Du's astonishing power that forced me to work harder. I knew clearly in my heart, one day, I would have a showdown with him. For Master, for Tulufan, and for myself.

  The Xuan Qi circulates slowly around my body, although I have taken the Bi Zhu of the Xuan Gui Chi Jing beast and melted my secular bones. However, to practice various spells to the extreme, it's not something that can be done in one breath. In my heart, I silently calculate that at the current pace, it will take at least hundreds of years to bring all the spells to their peak.

  "In fact, you don't have to master every spell." Yuelun said thoughtfully: "Even if you do master them, you still won't be a match for Chudou, because he has already taken each and every spell to unprecedented new heights that no one before him has ever reached."

  I sighed, knowing that Yuè Hún was right. Chu Du and I were not on the same level as opponents. The night sky was gloomy, with thick dark clouds that weighed heavily on my heart.

  "Unless you can learn the true charm dance. By then, you might be able to fight Chu Du." Yue Hun said lightly.

  "But I couldn't even hear your music."

  "You will hear it." Yuè Hún suddenly smiled, emitting a gentle tinkling sound like the gurgling of a spring: "You definitely will. From the moment you turned back to face Cloud Dàláng, I believed that one day, you would hear my music."

  "I hope that day will really come." I said quietly, the night wind blowing over the small grass by the roadside. From afar in the flower field, a strange and faint noise was transmitted, and the light spots in the flower field became brighter.

  In the morning, I woke up Mouse Lord from his sleep and urged him to hurry on our journey. Not far away, I heard footsteps behind me, turned my head and saw Sun Si Miao again! The old man looked at me with a very awkward expression, glanced sideways, pretended not to see us, and quickly walked forward in three strides as if they were two.

  "Slow down, kid! Watch out for the flower spirit ahead!" I teased. Sun Si Miao's face twitched and she muttered something under her breath, quickening her pace even more. Xiao Bai turned back to me, making a weird face with his mouth agape.

  "I didn't expect the old man to be traveling with us. He must also be going to Xue Shan." I muttered to myself, gazing at Sun Si Miao's back. The old guy's pace was incredibly fast, having crossed the river five times and still managed to get ahead of us, who knows what kind of monster he really is.

  The rat king let out a sigh of relief: "Now that's better, Old Sun is walking ahead. He can scout the road for us."

  Not far from here, the road ahead was submerged in a vast expanse of flowers. Under the brilliant sunlight, the flowers were in full bloom, with thousands of purple and red hues, plump petals swaying in the wind, stirring up the sunlight like sparkling ripples on water, and colorful mist swirling everywhere. The air was filled with intense fragrance, the leaves rustling loudly, and the gentle breeze stirred up a sea of flowers.

  These flowers grow extremely tall, with sturdy and thick stalks that are even higher than me by a head. The flowers are densely packed together, like a magnificent high wall. What surprises me is that there isn't a speck of mud in the flower field, the ground is a deep blue, as blue as transparent seawater, soft and spongy underfoot, swaying gently.

  The figure of Sun Si Miao had long since disappeared from view, and the dense flowers crowded together, stretching towards the horizon, leaving only a narrow gap in an inconspicuous place. I pushed open the flower clusters on both sides and walked forward along the gap. It was a winding path that led to the depths of the sea of flowers. There, countless small paths stretched out from all directions, intersecting and crisscrossing, like a vast maze. Not to mention distinguishing direction, even looking for a moment longer would make one's eyes dizzy.

  "Still don't know the way?" I grabbed hold of Mouse's pointed ears and pulled him out from behind. Mouse looked at me pitifully, spreading his hands: "Young master, I'm not familiar with this place either. If we take a wrong turn, don't blame me."

  "What can we do? We can't just go back, can we?"

  I suggested taking them to fly over directly, but Mouse Lord shook his head repeatedly, pointing to the sky and saying: "Young Master, haven't you noticed that there isn't even a single bird in the sky above the flower field? The flower field has a kind of strange power, anything that flies over it from above will be sucked into the flower field."

  I didn't believe it, but as soon as I blew out a gust of wind and flew upwards. Just after flying for several meters, the flower field below suddenly produced a huge suction force, which firmly pulled me down, almost making me fall flat on my face.

  I slapped my butt in annoyance: "Can't really fly over. Dammit, why are there always some weird things in the demon world!" I glared at Mouse Old Man and said: "You've been messing around in the demon world for so long, but you don't even know the way."

  Master Mouse chuckled and said, "Don't worry, young master. Although the terrain of the flower field is complex, as long as we keep walking north, we'll eventually get out of it. At most, we might take a few detours. However, remember this, young master: no matter what we see or hear in the flower field, we must pretend we didn't see or hear anything and absolutely not respond to it. Otherwise, if we're caught by the flower spirit, we'll be in trouble."

  After repeated reminders, Mouse led us along the small path in the gap towards the inside. The general direction is easy to distinguish because there are three suns in the sky: a crimson one rising from the east; an orange-yellow one rising from the south; and a purple one rising from the north. At dusk, the three suns will set successively in the west. So as long as you gaze at the purple sun, you can roughly determine the direction.

  After walking for most of the day, the flower field was quiet and still, without encountering any monsters. Only the winding flower paths made people's eyes dizzy, and if they weren't careful, they would lose their way, sometimes walking a long distance only to end up back where they started.

  I grew impatient, my left hand transformed into a thick-backed large knife, and I said to the mouse official: "Why follow these winding flower paths? In any case, heading north, simply cut through the flowers, and directly pass through the flower clusters?" With one swing of the knife, I chopped towards the flower cluster, cutting off petals flying everywhere.

  The old mouse's face changed, just as he was about to speak, the petals and leaves that had fallen to the ground suddenly stood up like magic, "swish swish" growing taller, re-growing into a dense flower wall. The flower wall slowly moved forward, squeezing towards me, I had no choice but to retreat backwards.

  "Master, this won't work. The more you cut, the more flowers grow!" Mouse Old Man grabbed me, his voice trembling with fear: "What if we provoke the flower spirit? We'll be in trouble."

  "Hey, little rascal, don't be in such a rush," said Hai Ji. "The Tian Ya is eliminated once a month, and the Demon Lord won't be able to return to the Mo Sha Tian until next month at the earliest. We still have plenty of time."

  "It's hard to say. Ji Danmei must be heavily guarded, and rescuing her will require some effort. Considering the time it takes to return, it may not be possible."

  I sighed, and we had no choice but to follow the flower path and wander around. The sun in the sky sank one by one, and the pale purple mist overflowed. The bright flower field also gradually became blurred in the twilight.

  The silence around was suddenly broken, and a rustling sound arose, as if the eggshell had reached its hatching time, and something was about to break out of it.