Chapter 401: That Ass-Kissing Chicken
Translated by Rachel of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Ling Xiao folded his arms and looked at You XiaoMo with his eyebrows raised. “Are you imagining yourself as a lizard?”
You XiaoMo ignored his ridicule and beckoned him over to speak, “Pretend to walk over as if nothing is happening. I have important things to tell you.”
Ling Xiao did as told. But instead of acting like nothing was going on, he pretended to walk over as if he was a man with a purpose. “Spit it out. What are you playing at?”
“I found out that there could be a secret mechanism here.” You XiaoMo whispered.
“Really? Let me see.” Ling Xiao pried You XiaoMo away from the wall that his body was pressed against. Sure enough, he saw a fine crack on the wall, not more than one centimetre in width and twenty centimetres in length, forming a square.
“I suspect this could be a mechanism. Maybe if you press down on it a door of some sort would appear.” Before this, You XiaoMo felt that for such a big place there must be some of secret mechanism somewhere. If not, it would surely not live up to the name of being an underground palace. So he felt around and had really found it.
“You give it a try.” Ling Xiao said.
Rubbing his hands together with enthusiasm, You XiaoMo was itching to proceed.
“Then I’m pressing it.” His hands had already reached for it.
Ling Xiao was about to say something, but You XiaoMo had already pressed down on it.
Then… there was no then.
At this moment, a female practitioner in front suddenly whipped her head around to look back. Seeing the empty space behind her, she made a sound of confusion.
The male beside her heard her voice and turned his head to ask, “Shimei, what’s wrong?”
“Shixiong, I think I heard something from the back. And I think I saw two people there just now. They disappeared when I turned around.” The female practitioner kept thinking that it was her eyes playing tricks on her but it didn’t feel like it either. She seemed to have really heard something.
“Maybe it’s just two weirdos. There are a lot of eccentric people who entered the underground palace this time. Just ignore them. We just need to watch out for ourselves.” The man chuckled.
“Ahhhh!!!”
In the pitch black tunnel, a high pitched scream, mixed with the sound of surfaces scraping each other, could be heard, amplified several times in the narrow space.
You XiaoMo tightly clinged to Ling Xiao but his body was constantly sliding downwards due to inertia. This blasted thing! He didn’t think it was really a secret mechanism. After he activated the mechanism, a long and winding sliding tunnel appeared. They didn’t know where it led, all they knew was that they were sliding down non-stop.
Ling Xiao wrapped his hands around You XiaoMo’s waist as he changed their positions. After he was sure that they were in no imminent danger, he took the time to scrutinise the sliding tunnel. The tunnel was about a meter wide and pitch black. He then felt the surface of the sliding tunnel. It was slippery and ice cold too, like it was made from some sort of metal.
After sliding for nearly twenty minutes, a trace of light appeared in front of them.
It was like a beacon in the pitch black tunnel.
You XiaoMo had also noticed and he asked fearfully, “There aren’t spikes at the end of the tunnel, are there?”
“That’s great. It just happens to satisfy your hunger for secret mechanisms.” Ling Xiao replied.
You XiaoMo chose to ignore him as he wrapped his arms around Ling Xiao’s neck even tighter, the crushing force of his arms directly conveyed to Ling Xiao that ‘I die, you die too’.
Ling Xiao grunted.
“Ah!” When the two of them reached the end of the tunnel and fell downwards, You XiaoMo let out yet another high pitched scream. Even though he already braced himself for the impact, he was still separated from Ling Xiao when they tumbled out.
You XiaoMo flailed his arms in the air frantically and made all sorts of weird poses as he glared at a gloating Ling Xiao not far away.
Ling Xiao was greatly amused. He only went to catch him after his eyes were tired from watching You XiaoMo flail around.
Meanwhile, You Ming and the rest had finally reached a conclusion. The palace gates weren’t just ordinarily heavy, from their estimations, they definitely exceeded a hundred million tons. Blasting them open was not an option as it might cause the palace to collapse so they could rely on the powerhouses to do something.
But there was the problem.
There weren’t many that were deemed as true powerhouses and You Ming and his gang had no intention of being the cat’s paw for these people. Other than the Vermillion Blood Clan and a few other big forces, there were many others there.
For this matter, they argued again before finally deciding that each of the major forces were to send two powerhouses out. As for the those practitioners not belonging to any faction, they also had to select twenty representatives. As for who to send, it was up to them to decide.
You Ming looked at the noisy crowd and suddenly frowned.
You QingShan, who was standing beside him, voiced out his thoughts. “The two of them don’t seem to be here.”
“It’s not ‘seem to be’, they are not here.” You Ming said. He originally wanted to take this chance to test out Ling Xiao’s power but there’s nothing he could do if the man himself wasn’t present.
You Ming initially thought that they would definitely show up but now, the two of them were nowhere to be seen. He started to have his suspicions. Don’t tell me they weren’t the ones who killed and set fire that night?
Not long after, the group of practitioners without factions had selected their twenty representatives.
With the concerted efforts of everyone present, the tightly shut palace gates gave a heavy rumble. Under the intense gaze of everyone, the gap between the gates got wider and wider. When the gap widened just enough for one person to pass through, the ground started to shake and the faint sound of chains pulling could be heard. It continued for about ten seconds or more before the people pushing the door jumped aside at the same time.
It looked as if the gates had triggered some mechanism as they automatically opened, the sight at the gates leaped into their eyes.
……
You XiaoMo’s butt plopped onto the ground. Not one part of his body was clean.
This wasn’t the first time he had fallen. Ever since he fell, not once was he not unlucky. He always thought some exquisite or ornate infrastructure would be waiting for him at the end of he sliding tunnel but what he got was an underground world made up of yellow dirt. There was yellow mud everywhere, causing him to keep falling.
“When can we get out of here?” You XiaoMo groaned as he took a handful of mud and flung it forward forcefully. Only a small bit left his hand, while most of it remained stuck to it. This was the part he hated the most, he didn’t know what kind of mud it was but it was especially sticky. He had to clean up every time.
Ling Xiao flicked the sticky mud off his robe and said, “Just bear with it for a little while longer. We should be near the exit.”
At that moment, You XiaoMo asked in a puzzled voice, “Oh, what’s this?”
Ling Xiao looked sideways towards him. Not only did You XiaoMo not get rid of the mud on his hands, he knelt down and started digging a hole. Not long after, a yellow crystal appeared in his hands.
The crystal was buried in the mud and was almost not visible. It was about as big as a nail and if not for his accidental discovery, they probably wouldn’t know that there were such things laying around in the mud.
You XiaoMo’s intuition told him this was good stuff. He kept the crystal before resuming his digging. Eventually, he really did dig out another crystal of a similar size.
Ling Xiao picked up a yellow crystal and studied it. He found some glittering gold spots in it.
You XiaoMo raised his head and asked, “Do you know what this is?”
“Your man isn’t multi-functional.”
You XiaoMo pursed his lips and ignored him. If he didn’t know about the crystal then forget it. Anyways, all that mattered was that he thought that it was good stuff. The more good stuff, the better. Even if it wasn’t, it was sparkly and it looked nice. SheQiu and the rest should like it.
Thinking of SheQiu, You XiaoMo’s eyes glimmered. Ever since they came to Tong Tian Continent, he had only summoned CatQiu. The main reason being that too many things were going on during this time. Now was as good time to bring them out to help find yellow crystals.
The once empty place now had five people and one beast after You XiaoMo hatched that thought in his mind. The beast being the little chick that had yet to learn how to take on a human form.
When he saw the little chick, You XiaoMo realised he had accidentally let the chicken out. Just as he was about to put it back into his dimension, it was as if the little chick read his thoughts and quickly flapped its way up to PiQiu’s head. Its two feet had a vice grip on poor PiQiu’s already sparse hair as it spread its wings and chirped at You XiaoMo with a defiant look that said, ‘I’m definitely not going back’.
You XiaoMo almost burst out laughing, but he was also quite puzzled. Why did it choose PiQiu?
Very soon, he got the answer to his question. SheQiu and the rest seemed accustomed to seeing this, as if it wasn’t their first time witnessing such a scene. Looked like even the little chick knew how to choose the weak ones to pick on. You XiaoMo was once an easy target to pick on too.
“Master, what do you need us to do?” MaoQiu, the only female present, lowered her head to look the yellow mud that quickly stuck to her dress and frowned slightly. She was a bit of a clean freak.
You XiaoMo didn’t notice the looks of disdain his contract beasts were giving him as he showed them the yellow crystals in his hand. “Help me dig for this stuff.”
The beasts looked towards each other but no one took action.
In the end, the first one to react was the little chick on Piqiu’s head instead. Its claws finally released PiQiu’s hair and flapped its bare wings, taking its own time to land before You XiaoMo. Then, it stared intensely at the yellow crystal that peeked out from the mud. About ten seconds later, it resolved itself and aimed its sharp beak at the crystal precisely, picking the crystal up with its beak before quickly dragging it out of the sticky mud.
The little chick soon swelled with pride. With a yellow crystal in its beak, it flew over to You XiaoMo to take credit for its work.
You XiaoMo had nothing to say. Clearly, he was the one who dug up that crystal and placed it on the ground. And this chicken actually took the crystal he dug in front of him to kiss his ass! After staring down the chicken for a moment, You XiaoMo finally extended his hand to retrieve the crystal from its beak. But as a result of his carelessness, the sticky mud on his hand got stuck on the little chick’s beak.
The little chick froze. A moment later, a shrill sound pierced the air.
Chirp! Chirp!
