The colour didn’t just drain from his face. He was utterly, completely and comprehensively bewildered. He just leaned back casually, yet he could still be “stabbed” by someone of the same sex.
“Oh, my gun struck you?” Liu Kongcao pulled out the Desert Eagle from his belt and stuffed it back into his wallet.
“…” Li Xianyu was perplexed. “Why do you put both guns in one place?”
“It’s more convenient for me to pull them out when there’s danger. I can put a gun on someone’s head every minute,” Liu Kongcao said.
Yeah, guns were the most intimidating things around.
Men were most afraid of their heads being held at gunpoint, while women are most afraid of their throats being held at “gunpoint.”
When the ruckus subsided, sounds of strange laughter echoed across the valley. The various demon descendants thronged towards the entrance of the cave. They behaved like sharks who had smelled blood: consumed by insanity, excitement and becoming irrational.
Fu Shan snorted coldly, spun a knife in her left hand, and drew it back. The bright light of the knife radiated out.
The God of Apes immediately stretched out his hand and pressed at the empty space. The gleaming light of the knife was instantly extinguished.
Fu Shan stared sharply at the God of Apes, who smiled, “Why kill indiscriminately?”
The woman, one head shorter than the God of Apes, snorted coldly again. “When we’re out of the cave, I want to spar with you and hone my knife skills.”
The God of Apes laughed loudly and said, “Anytime.”
He took the lead in entering the cave.
After the five of them entered the cave, the practitioners followed up. Li Xianyu saw several practitioners disappearing directly into the ground near him. He lamented that the soil awakeners had an advantage here.
“Come here, my dear great-grandson, and follow me,” Great-Grandma waved her hand and said in a delicate voice.
“Come on, go ahead. If your hand is fast, you get the beauty,” Liu Kongcao excitedly said.
“Given your limited skill, you’d die if your hand was fast,” Xia Xiaoxue chattered behind him. “The God of Apes is leading the way. There’s nothing to worry about. We got this. Just don’t get assaulted by anyone else.”
The frontline team entered the cave.
The entrance of the cave was full of weeds. After walking more than ten meters, the weeds under their feet became more and more scarce.
In the cave, it was pitch-dark. In the distance, the lighting of cell phones were visible. The rear sweeper, Thunderbolt Battle Lady, opened up a pack of light sticks and passed them down one by one.
The five senses of demon descendants were far superior to ordinary people. The experts in qi had even stronger five senses. Although the light sticks lit up the cave, for the people present, the cave was no different from daytime.
Li Xianyu, who had cultivated the skill of “detecting beauties according to their fragrances,” finally put it to good use. He could smell the fragrance of the shower gel on his great-grandmother’s body, the faint perfume smell on You Mengyu’s body, and the fragrance of Thunderbolt Battle Lady, and the body odour of Liu Kongcao… However, he could not detect any smell from Xia Xiaoxue.
Xia Xiaoxue seemed to have a special way to hide her breath. If she was able to conceal herself, she would definitely be able to assassinate silently in the dark cave.
Thunderbolt Battle Lady was right. Combat prowess did not mean everything. If the time and place was right, even David could beat Goliath.
There were at least two hundred practitioners and family aristocrats here. It wasn’t known if any other forces were approaching at this instant…
Li Xianyu gathered his thoughts and remained vigilant. Even the “small” figures were not to be underestimated. He hoped that their attention would be on the treasure, and not him. He hoped that they would not find trouble for Baoze as well.
As this idea just came to him, he suddenly saw Great-Grandma swinging her right arm, punching against the stone wall. The thuds echoed around the cave as the limestone rustled down. Great-Grandma cracked the stone wall with a punch, as streams of blood flowed down from the cracks.
Great-Grandma grunted, “They don’t know their limits.”
She had a loud voice with a strong disdain. It could be heard clearly by the people in front and behind her.
Someone was secretly preparing to deal with us indeed… Li Xianyu smiled slightly. Had I really become smart enough to qualify as a godly analyst, or did I understand affairs well enough now?
They walked for a long while, encountering many twists and turns and crossroads along the way. The inner part of the cave was like a cobweb, or a maze. The frontline team advanced silently, with their footsteps almost inaudible. For fear of being ambushed, they did not dare to walk too fast.
The quiet environment helped them to explore and listen to the movement around them.
There were cell phone lights and several shadows standing in place, in front of the party. They seemed to have found something as they whispered to each other.
“I thought it was some treasure. They are actually useless hand grenades.”
“These are all things of the last century. There’s even a sanpachi-shiki hohei-ju.”
“Doesn’t this helmet look like those worn by the Japanese soldiers?”
“Before coming, I conducted a check into the background of this village. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the people from this village assembled their own team to fight the Japanese. However, their location was never discovered. Don’t tell me, this is the place?”
“Isn’t this the location of the treasure? Did the Demonic Path join the war of resistance in that year?”
“Haha, don’t think too much about it. Isn’t he pro-Japanese?”
The people seemed to detect that forces from Baoze were approaching. They talked softer and left quickly.
Great-Grandma walked up quickly and looked around the pile to make sure there were no traps. She turned around and said, “All clear. Come over.”
The crowd gathered to watch.
A rotten wooden box was opened. Inside it were several wooden grenades, round grenades, a few pistols and two helmets. Three rifles were placed beside the box. Even a military idiot like Li Xianyu could recognize what gun it was. It was very famous during the Second World War. It was Japan’s signboard rifle, Sanpachi-shiki assault rifle. The layman term was Sanpachi-shiki hohei-ju.
A team member blew the dust off the gun and checked it for a moment. “These guns are decayed. The grenades must be useless as well.”
Another team member with the ability to control fire said, “This is the old site of the team that fought the Japanese that year?”
Liu Kongcao added, “Why is that so? This is the location of the treasure. Shouldn’t it be full of traps and secret formations? This is different from what I expected.”
Li Xianyu interrupted, “You’ve read too many swordsmen stories.”
Xia Xiaoxue mended her knife and added, “Or maybe, tomb robbery novels?”
As they walked forward, a sound echoed beneath Li Xianyu’s feet. His whole body was thrown off the ground by a huge force. With a dazzled expression, he fell into You Mengyu’s arms. Liu Kongcao and Great-grandma, who were in front, turned back.
The members of the frontline team acted as if they had encountered a major adversity.
“What’s the matter?”
“Ambushes… Be careful, everyone.”
Liu Kongcao scanned the floor with a light stick and said, “It looks like… it’s a mine?”
There was a smell of gunpowder in the air. A deep crater was formed under Li Xianyu’s feet. Several pieces of shrapnel were embedded in the soil.
Everyone wandered over and said, “It’s really a land mine. How can there be a mine here?”
Thunderbolt Battle Lady provided her analysis. “It must have been prepared for the islanders. The terrain here is very accessible. The resistance team must have braced themselves for the possibility of being discovered, and resolved to play games with the Japanese. Hence, the mines are buried in the ground. They must have marked the places where the mines are buried.”
Xia Xiaoxue was befuddled. “So many years and the landmines are still useful? Why didn’t anything happen to us when we walked over it?”
Everyone did not speak and looked at Li Xianyu with strange eyes. Li Xianyu was speechless. Why did nothing happen to everyone else, but only me? Even the landmine targeted me?
You Mengyu remarked in envy, “What a strange and unique experience.”
She helped Li Xianyu pull out the shrapnel from his leg and whispered, “Li Xianyu, let’s swap places. I’ll walk in front.”
“Up to you.” Li Xianyu indicated that he was okay, and that everyone could carry on. He limped and left two bloody footprints on the ground. Everyone knew that he is famous for his self-healing ability. It wouldn’t take long for him to recover.
You Mengyu walked back and stepped delicately on the shrapnel fragments, all the way until she was beside him. She put Li Xianyu’s arm around her shoulders and gave him a chilling, yet radiant smile. “I want to walk together with you.”
On the way, they saw many things left behind by the resistance team. Most of them had no more value. They did not step on any more mines. However, You Mengyu and Li Xianyu fell into a pit with many pieces of rusted spikes inside. It did not pose much of a threat.
After a short walk, the light appeared at the end of the tunnel. Another huge cave suddenly appeared. The cave was very large; it was able to contain dozens of practitioners while ensuring that there was still space for a lot of people. The first wave of people who had arrived started to ransack the place, in search of the treasure.
Barring an accident, this cave should have been the place where the resistance team lived. The pots and pans, the water tanks and the stove were all filled with dust.
The five experts, including the God of Apes and Fu Shan, looked on coldly.
“Where is the treasure? Where is the treasure?”
“Stupid treasures. They are all useless pieces of junk.”
“This is the site of the resistance team. There is no treasure.”
“Impossible. If there was no treasure here, why did the Demonic Path seal this place up?”
Other people also speculated on why the treasure’s location coincided with the location of the resistance team.
Li Xianyu listened to their incessant complaints and cursing as he gained a better understanding of the situation. The practitioners did not find anything as they searched along the passageways. They found many relics of the last century, but those things had nothing to do with the Demonic Path.
“What do you have in your hand?” someone suddenly said.
Everyone looked at that practitioner. Fu Shan sat in the corner, turning the pages of a yellowed book. After decades of corrosion, the book had turned yellow and crisp. Fu Shan turned it carefully. If she was not careful, she might tear the pages.
The previous moment, disappointment shrouded the cave. At this moment, dozens of people in the cave suddenly became excited and stared at Fu Shan’s book with fervent eyes.
“Interesting, interesting…” Fu Shan turned a deaf ear to everyone’s questions, and continued to mutter.
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