Chapter Seventeen: Return to the Ancient Castle (Part One)

  "Damn it!" Zhang Fan landed on the edge of the cliff, and although he knew it was hopeless, he still stretched out his head to take a look. —— As expected, this cliff was at least several hundred meters high, and it was steep and straight up and down, even if it were a real legendary martial arts master, falling from such a height would only result in death: He still remembered a famous book he had read years ago, where the protagonist jumped off a cliff into a city and had to tie a kite to his body.

  Even if Zhang Fan had the ability to manipulate air, he wouldn't be able to land safely. He didn't think the air cushion formed under his feet was enough to offset the acceleration of gravity from several hundred meters. Probably only those with flying abilities could descend to the bottom of this cliff unscathed.

  As for why Longyi suddenly went berserk, Zhang Fan had a rough idea. As an expert in mental control, he naturally knew some tricks of the trade, such as planting something like a logical lock in someone's mind. When triggered, it would cause a sudden explosion, leading to devastating consequences. Longyi's condition was still relatively mild; sometimes this logical lock could even make people unable to live or die!

  So Zhang Fan's "damn it" was 30% due to the sudden change in the situation, and 70% because he himself had been too careless and hadn't discovered this little trick. If it were just this kind of trickery, he would have been able to discover it if he had only paid a bit more attention, and Long Yi's tragedy could have been completely avoided. But he had thought that as long as he opened the seal, everything would be fine, and yet this situation had appeared!

  Although Zhang Fan and Long Yi didn't have much of a relationship, and he didn't have a good impression of this type of government tool either, but in the end, there was still some lingering sadness in his heart. What made him even more disheartened was that with Long Yi's death, this lead was now severed! Originally, discovering Long Yi had given Zhang Fan a sense of "the mountain is exhausted and the water has dried up, but then suddenly a village appears beyond the flowers". But at this moment, everything was cut off!

  But the information revealed by Longyi before his death was still very useful. —— At least, he told himself that before he disappeared, he had been to the ancient castle of the female countess and encountered something in the ancient castle that shocked him extremely! It was precisely because this matter was so impressive to him that someone would install a logical lock like this small thing.

  And the "Yekaterina" that Longyi muttered to himself before he died also proved Zhang Fan's idea - Zhang Fan didn't think that Longyi still had the mood to miss which famous female tsar at that time, no doubt, what he said should be the name of the countess!

  A top agent, why before dying still called the name of a famous high-society courtesan? And this female countess, had just died in front of Zhang Fan not long ago, and let him suffer unjustly!

  "It seems that I have to go back to the ancient castle again!" Zhang Fan furrowed his brow and said to himself in a low voice. He was not very happy about this decision in his heart. —— Of course, his experience in the ancient castle was absolutely not pleasant.

  What happened in the ancient castle was too strange and involved too many twists - a tycoon who controlled the Middle Eastern oil lifeline, a behind-the-scenes emperor of many small African countries, both died under extremely mysterious circumstances. This alone would have been enough to make Zhang Fan, who had always tried to avoid getting entangled in political whirlpools, keep his distance. Not to mention that the female countess's sudden death was still on his mind, and the mastermind who could trap him in an illusionary realm made him somewhat reluctant to confront them.

  Although Zhang Fan had that confidence, if he was prepared himself, the other party would absolutely not succeed, but even so, out of the idea of having less trouble being better, Zhang Fan still did not want to run into such a super master.

  So at that time, he could leave the ancient castle without any hesitation. Otherwise, according to his usual character of wanting to intervene in interesting things, if it were a mysterious and confusing event, how could he bear to just walk away like that?

  But as the saying goes, there are always things that don't go as planned in life. Although Zhang Fan didn't want to have anything to do with what happened at Gu Bao, now he had no choice but to return to Gu Bao once again!

  ——————————————

  "Finally, we're almost there!" Zhang Fan raised his head and looked at the outline of the ancient castle, which was still shrouded in light amidst the dancing snowflakes, and couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief.

  Compared to going down the mountain, crawling up through knee-deep snow against the wind and snow is a truly arduous task. Zhang Fan's first two trips up the mountain were by cable car and the Countess's private plane, so he hadn't felt any hardship at all. But this time, he really did feel exhausted to the point of collapse. It was precisely because of this that he gained a whole new appreciation for Long Yi's abilities.

  Although the wind and snow were not so strong when Longyi went up the mountain last time, and the accumulated snow was not so deep, it was still quite surprising that he could climb up the mountain with his own strength. ——After returning to the small house, Zhang Fan carefully searched the surrounding environment and finally found the small road mentioned by Longyi, so he took the same path as Longyi when going up the mountain.

  The original road was indeed too steep and dangerous, going down is okay, but going up is absolutely impossible.

  From that small path - or rather, it can't even be considered a road, only a narrow path that barely allows people to pass through, and many places in the middle of this path were cut off by snow - climbing up the mountain, the feeling is really not something that can be described to outsiders. When Zhang Fan came out, he was already somewhat flustered and fleeing, without any warm clothing on his body, although his physical quality was quite good, but being exposed to the biting cold wind with palm-sized snowflakes hitting his body for over ten hours, even someone made of iron would find it unbearable. In the end, he had no choice but to waste his superpower, condensing the air in front of him into a thin wall, just barely able to withstand it.

  This, however, was also the reason why he felt a bit exhausted when he was about to reach the top of the mountain. Spiritual power is actually the source of all superpowers. Although manipulating air doesn't directly use spiritual power to probe into others' minds like some other superpowers do, the prolonged consumption still made Zhang Fan feel somewhat unable to hold on.

  But as he saw his goal within reach, he couldn't help but let out a deep sigh of relief from the bottom of his heart.

  But indeed, as the saying goes: "In the world, there are not as many pleasant things as unpleasant ones." When Zhang Fan finally saw the entire ancient castle clearly, he couldn't help but let out a long sigh: "Suffering!"

  Less than twenty-four hours after he left, the ancient castle's defense was like heaven and earth compared to when he left!