Chapter 44: The Upset in the Orchid Palace

  This meal took a long time to eat, although there were just a few pieces of meat in the plastic bag.

  Liu Dapao told us about his childhood, when his family had been searched and confiscated, and the whole family was grateful to have even a bowl of thin porridge to eat. Fortunately, his father had a friend who occasionally helped them out, so although they didn't eat their fill, at least they didn't starve to death.

  These days of having no food to eat continued until he became an orphan. At that time, there was a plague outbreak and in just one night, his whole family was gone, leaving him alone. He didn't know what to do at the time, so he just wandered around dazedly until he fainted on the street.

  The person who saved him was my father. At that time, the Transmission Mountain had just left Longmen and needed manpower, so he followed my father and became a tomb raider.

  Su Qin felt that the topic was a bit heavy, and wanted to change the subject. She looked around, pointed behind me and said: "Hey, look, Uncle Python is..."

  I turned back to look and saw that the snow python was coiled around Zhou Xing's body, its head resting on his shoulder, looking very intimate.

  "Youzi Qidao: 'What's going on? Has it also betrayed us?'"

  Su Qin fell silent for a moment, then shook her head and said: "It shouldn't be, Uncle Mang must have his reasons for doing this. Maybe it's because our lives are in the hands of 'Black Button', so he's compromising."

  I nodded in agreement with Su Qin, but just as I was about to respond, I bit into something hard. Hurriedly, I took out the last piece of meat from my mouth and found a small knife blade embedded in it.

  At this moment, I recalled the scene where Zhou Xing threw sausage to us with a poker face. After a flash of thought, I quickly pulled over my companions and whispered: "You see, this is the sausage that Zhou Xing threw to us, it seems that Uncle Bo's favoritism towards him is not without reason."

  Liu Dapao said: "Young master, you're saying... Zhou Xing he..."

  I nodded and said, "If he really wanted to harm us, why would he give us this? Can't be that he's afraid the sausage is too hard for us to chew, so he gave us this thing to cut it with. Now we don't have a single piece of equipment on us, who knows if this small knife might come in handy at a critical moment."

  "You furrowed your brow and said, 'What can a small knife chip do? Are you still expecting to use this thing to chop people?'"

  I said to Liu Dapao: "Since Zhou Xing secretly handed this thing over to us, it must be useful. Uncle Liu, you're skilled with your hands, so you take it first."

  After saying that, I put the blade back into the meat and handed it over to Liu Dapao.

  Liu Dapao didn't decline, took the half piece of bacon from my hand, and with a swift motion of his knife, it went into his sleeve. Then he said thanks to me, pretending nothing had happened, and started chewing on the meat in his mouth.

  I turned back to look at Zhou Xing, he still had that cold expression, silently eating his dry rations.

  I suddenly thought that he had previously knocked us out in the seventy trays, maybe it was to save us. He first subdued us and then lied to the old man in Tang costume, saying that we still had a use, so "Black Button" would spare our lives. And Zhou Xing infiltrated among them, choosing an appropriate time to help us escape.

  In this way, the conflict between the two sides will be reduced to a very low level. After all, Tang Zuan Lao Tou has already made up his mind to kill, and Zhou Xing's actions have created a relationship of threat and being threatened, but for now, both parties have temporarily entered a state of peaceful coexistence. Even if there is danger, everyone will be forced to face it together.

  Xue Mang is very spiritual and must have known this, so he would be very affectionate towards Zhou Xing. Zhou Xing could then naturally temporarily take Xue Mang under his wing, and "Hei Niou" would allow such a large snake to follow him until now.

  As I thought of this, the shadow that had been shrouding my mind suddenly disappeared. Inwardly, I couldn't help but sigh in admiration - I had originally thought that Zhou Xing was just extremely skilled in martial arts and quick-witted, but who knew that his thinking was actually so meticulous? It seemed as though everything was under his control.

  After all, no matter what he is doing, there will always be sufficient reasons and confidence.

  I looked at Su Qin and others, only to see that everyone was thinking about the problem, and their facial expressions were also becoming more and more relaxed, probably because they had thought of the same thing as me.

  In an instant, everyone looked up at me. I nodded to them and said softly, "Let's just believe him this once."

  The team rested for a long time this time, and after eating, the "Black Button" was sorting out their equipment, only bringing necessary weapons and other things, and throwing away the rest. I looked at their movements and couldn't help but worry again, it seemed that the next section of road wouldn't be easy to walk.

  As expected, when the team continued to move forward, something went wrong.

  As soon as Zhou Xing's "be careful" entered our ears, a black shadow flashed out, and everyone was caught off guard. A member of the "Black Buttonhole" almost got pounced on by the shadow, but fortunately he reacted quickly and closed his eyes to roll away.

  Even so, he still gave a slap on the back of that black shadow.

  I saw the black shadow whizzing past, starting to move away from us. My curiosity suddenly overcame my fear, and I quickly observed the appearance of that thing.

  This dark shadow is precisely the "Mangmang", which is composed of two strange birds that resemble eagles, with one side of their wings growing into hook-like shapes and interlocking with each other, while the intact wings on the other side are spread open for flight.

  These two strange birds are extremely large in size, with a wingspan of over four meters when they lean against each other, no wonder they can grab people into the air.

  As I watched, I became entranced and didn't realize there was danger behind me. By the time I felt a fierce gust of air approaching, it was too late to dodge. At that moment, I just felt someone suddenly push me to the ground, and the next instant, a huge object whizzed over our heads.

  "Close your eyes." Zhou Xing's voice sounded in my ear.

  I only then realized it was him who saved me, and I didn't even have time to turn my head back to look, so I quickly closed my eyes. Zhou Xing soon moved away from my body and lay down beside me, I heard his soft breathing sound, after a while, he whispered to me again: "I gave you the knife not to kill Banban, if you don't want to die, be clever."

  He finished speaking and left, seemingly returning to the side of the old man in Tang suit.

  At this time, only the sound of rustling above their heads was heard, and they were gradually increasing in number. Everyone closed their eyes tightly, lying on the ground without daring to move.

  It took about fifteen minutes for the sound to gradually disappear, and I slowly opened my eyes to find that everyone had gotten up. The old man in Tang suit returned to Zhou Xing's back, looked around, and said to the crowd: "Nothing is wrong for the time being, let's hurry up to the top, these corpse birds seem to be unable to fly, they can only glide, as long as we climb to the highest place, these things will not pose a threat to us."

  The old man finished speaking and Zhou Xing suddenly quickened his pace to hurry up. Seeing him like this, we knew that there was no immediate danger for the time being, so we also followed closely behind.

  Along the way, they rested twice more, but Meng Meng never appeared again. Su Qin pulled me and said: "Long Qiu, have you noticed... Zhou Xing has been looking at a place at the foot of the mountain all along the way?"

  I shook my head this morning, and I really didn't notice this point.

  Su Qin said to me: "Zhou Xing often goes to that place, I thought carefully, it seems to be the forest where Wei Jiu is hiding."

  I heard Su Qin say that, and suddenly thought of when we said goodbye to Wei Chi, Zhou Xing turned back and looked quietly for a moment, at the time I felt his eyes had a fleeting daze, now thinking about it, it seems somewhat understood the meaning of his glance.

  "What are you thinking about?" Su Qin asked, nudging me.

  I shook my head and pulled her up to continue climbing.

  The team quickly climbed to the top of Lan Palace, which is a very wide platform, equivalent to several basketball courts. In the center of the platform, there is an altar over two meters high, with stone steps on all four sides, and above it stands a three-eyed god statue. This statue is the same as the one I saw in the Three-Eyed God Temple, except that its third eye is not made of ore, and it seems to have no curse function.

  Zhou Xing led the team to the front of the altar and slowly put down the old man in Tang suit. The old man in Tang suit turned around and asked Zhou Xing, "Is this the place for the sacrifice?"

  Zhou Xing nodded slightly, "There's a hole on the altar, and below it is the tomb where the Three-Eyed God is imprisoned. The Three-Eyed God requires four human lives, just throw them down there."

  The old man in Tang suit burst out laughing and suddenly said to us, "It's really heaven helping me, if Kevin couldn't hear Chi You's voice and know that opening the Dragon Ball's power needs four human lives, I would have killed you all long ago!"

  He ignored our angry stares and turned back to order the two big men: "You two, go and take a look."

  Two big men nodded and took their guns, slowly walking up to the altar, after inspecting it for a while, they gave an OK gesture to the Tang-dressed old man. The Tang-dressed old man nodded, immediately ordering Golden Finger to tie us up and carry us onto the altar.

  I finally understood why Zhou Xing gave us the small knife blade. I hastily looked at Liu Da Pao - at this time, the knife blade was hidden in his sleeve.

  Liu Dapao saw me looking at him and nodded slightly towards me, indicating that I should be at ease.

  At this time, only to see the old man in Tang costume took out a huge stone ball from his backpack, 80% of which was the dragon bead they got from the Three-eyed Temple. I found it strange, thinking that the dragon bead was a golden shining pearl, but unexpectedly it was just an ordinary stone ball, this stone ball looked like nothing special, what kind of power was hidden inside?

  Only to see the old man in Tang suit holding up the dragon ball, looking at it again and again, then handing the dragon ball to Zhou Xing. Zhou Xing didn't examine the bead carefully either, turned around and stuffed the dragon ball into the open mouth of the three-eyed god statue.

  A miracle happened at this moment, the sunlight in the sky suddenly concentrated into a beam, shining on the third eye of San Yan Shen, and then the outer shell of the dragon ball began to fall off, and a strong golden light shot out from inside. Soon, the entire dragon ball turned into a large, colorful treasure pearl.

  "Hurry...hurry up..." The old man in Tang suit saw the dragon ball change and suddenly became very excited, and hastily ordered the whip girl.

  The whip girl didn't dare to slack off, and quickly took out the golden horn from her backpack. She walked up to the three-eyed god statue. I don't know what she wanted to do, so I stared at her without blinking.

  She slowly raised the golden horn, aimed the larger end at San Yan Shen's mouth, and slammed it on. In an instant, a strong white light shot out of the blowhole of the golden horn, shining directly on Tang Zuan Lao Tou's crippled legs.

  Suddenly, something strange happened. The old man's crippled leg began to tremble and made a crackling sound of twisting bones. I was extremely surprised and quickly focused my attention on it. In an instant, the originally thin and weak leg that was disproportionate to his body suddenly started to thicken slowly.

  I was shocked to see this scene, and it turned out that the true purpose of the Golden Horn was to gather the energy of the Dragon Balls! And the true intention of "Black Button" seemed to be just to use the power of the Dragon Balls to heal the disabled legs of the old man in Tang suit!

  Just as I was feeling incredulous, Zhou Xing suddenly walked to the tail of the three-eyed god statue and pressed one of the tails down. Suddenly, the ground opened up a hole. I bent my head to take a closer look, and all I saw was that the hole was pitch black and bottomless, emitting a strange and eerie chill.

  "The time has come, throw them down." Zhou Xing turned his head and suddenly said this sentence to Jin Shouzhi.

  Golden fingers didn't hesitate, nodded and grabbed us towards the cave to throw, his strength was extremely great, speed also very fast, we hadn't come to scold, already been thrown into the hole by him.

  The passage in the cave was very steep, our hands and feet were tied up, after entering, we couldn't stop at all, and could only roll down along the passage with a thud.

  This rolling lasted for half a minute, I was dizzy, and in the daze, I only felt that my body had stopped, and I hurriedly sat up with support, calling out to Su Qin and others.