The little wooden chest opened. The first thing that entered their eyes was a waterproof bull-hide package.
“Wait…”
Sun Mo was a cautious person. He was worried that there might be traps and wanted to do a check before opening them. However, Xuanyuan Po and Ying Baiwu’s movements were too fast.
Ying Baiwu took the package and Xuanyuan Po directly took the long sword that stuck to the chest’s wall.
“Give it to me!”
Li Ziqi stretched her hand toward Ying Baiwu. Although the packages weren’t opened yet, she could already roughly guess what was inside.
A package made from bull hide could protect books from water and nibbles of worms. Looking at the color of the paper and words, it should be quite some time since the item was placed in the package.
Li Ziqi took it and flipped open the accounting book. There were many pieces of content recorded. For example, when was a girl abducted, where was a girl sold to, how much was the girl sold for, etc. The little sunny egg continued reading and felt her scalp turning numb.
The content inside was too shocking. Every sum of money recorded represented the future of a girl being destroyed.
“Scum!”
Li Ziqi was enraged. Letting that Daoist White Bird die so quickly was truly too easy of a death for him. He should have been tortured longer before he slipped into the sweet oblivion of death.
Sun Mo’s heart softened, couldn’t endure this anymore. He flipped through a few more pages and placed the book down.
“Ziqi, I will leave it to you to uncover the mastermind.”
“Alright!”
Li Ziqi rapidly flipped the pages and read ten rows of information with a single glance, selecting the most important information. All of a sudden, her hand stopped.
A familiar name appeared on one of the pages.
Li Ziqi didn’t know her personally but heard of her before. She was the young miss of a famous wealthy clan in her circle of acquaintances. Three years ago, when she had gone for a hike in spring, she disappeared.
Someone said she drowned, some also said that she had eloped with a man. In any case, after she went missing, the reputation of that clan declined sharply.
Moreover, after losing his precious daughter, the clan lord also didn’t have any mood to run his business. His business gradually fell and in the end, after he sold his business, the whole clan decided to leave Jinling, which was a sad place for them.
One couldn’t help but say that Li Ziqi’s memory was truly very good. Also, her logical deduction ability, which enabled her to deduce many things from just one case, was so strong that it was terrifying. Very soon, Li Ziqi discovered that this wasn’t just a simple incident of human trafficking. There were also illegal competitions in terms of business here.
Kidnapping the daughter of a businessman, the ultimate motive was to destroy the businessman.
Although Li Ziqi never went to find out why, she could deduce that at that point of time when the young miss had gone missing, her clan’s business must have been at a crucial moment, in the midst of a business war against competitors.
“Scum that ought to die!”
Li Ziqi cursed before coldly laughing.
“What’s wrong?”
Sun Mo frowned.
“The mastermind is the Zhou Clan as expected!”
Li Ziqi gritted her teeth.
“Let me take a look!”
Sun Mo took the accounting book. “Can we convict him?”
“Even if he wants to argue, there are no excuses!”
Li Ziqi’s lips twitched. Either the Daoist White Bird’s education level was too low and he didn’t know how to keep his accounting book using a secret language only known to him, or he was worried that the Zhou Clan might kill him after he had outlived his usefulness. Nevertheless, he had recorded everything in such a clear manner, writing Zhou Yuanzhi’s name over a hundred times in the book.
This crime wouldn’t be able to be washed away.
Li Ziqi searched through the leather sack. Other than the accounting books, there were a few personal letters. It was fine if she didn’t read them. But after the little sunny egg read through the content of the letters, she knew Zhou Yuanzhi was dead for sure. Completely dead.
“Do you feel there are more people involved in this?”
Sun Mo furrowed his brows. He recalled Li Can and his father Li Zixing. “You are talking about Prince Li?”
Li Ziqi also thought of the same problem.
“Zhou Yuanzhi is just a rich merchant. No matter how great his power is, can it be greater than the provincial governor of Jinling?”
Sun Mo knew that the Middle-Earth Nine Provinces were the same as ancient China. It was ruled by feudal authorities, and authority weighed heavier than gold.
“Let alone Provincial Governor Yu, Zhou Yuanzhi even has to kneel before the prefectural magistrate of Jinling.”
Li Ziqi knew that all rich merchants like Zhou Yuanzhi had strong backers in the imperial court acting as their protective umbrellas. However, there were no solutions to this. Without backing, all the money they made would have long since been targeted and sucked away by others.
“What are the two of you talking about? Quickly come and admire the spoils we obtained!”
Ying Baiwu found two little porcelain bottles with alchemy pills in them. “What is this?”
Li Ziqi took a glance. “This is a Blood Pill, you can use it to stop your bleeding or to nourish your blood. From the looks of it, it should be at the heaven-tier.”
The grades of alchemy pills were classified the same way as cultivation art. They were divided into three tiers, saint, heaven, and earth. Each tier was further divided into inferior, average, superior, and peerless.
As the porcelain bottle’s stopper was removed, an intense medicinal fragrance began to permeate the air.
The grade truly wasn’t low. Given the amount of shady business Daoist White Bird had done, he understood he might face situations of danger and have to risk his life. Hence, he had prepared many recovery medicines and they were all at the mid-grade of heaven-tier.
For these medicines, he had bought a portion of them himself, and another portion had been given to him by Zhou Yuanzhi. All in all, they were worth over 100,000 taels.
Every time he headed out, Daoist White Bird would bring sufficient recovery medicine. It was just that this time around, he hadn’t expected Sun Mo to suddenly slaughter his way into his nest. Hence, all his stash now belonged to Sun Mo.
Dang!
Xuanyuan Po tossed away the long sword he was looking at. “What are you doing?”
Ying Baiwu was very unhappy. She had long since admired this long sword, but Xuanyuan Po was holding it then and she felt embarrassed to ask him for it. But now Xuanyuan Po had tossed it away so casually.
“I’m not doing anything.”
Xuanyuan Po loved to fight, and he naturally had a special fondness for weapons. But after admiring the sword for a while, he tossed it away. (No matter how good the other weapons are, they definitely cannot be better than my silver spear.)
“Che, it’s actually the named sword, White Bird. The daoist title of that human trafficker can’t possibly be from this sword, right?”
Li Ziqi was surprised.
“This is a named sword?”
Ying Baiwu’s eyes gleamed. She immediately kept the sword.
“Mn, from the looks of it, it seems to be the case!”
Li Ziqi was widely read and knew many things.
This sword was a finger-and-half wide and five chi* long. The sword body had pictures of flying birds and exuded an air of grace and beauty. It was like a budding beauty.
The sword’s crossguard was also manufactured in the form of a bird spreading its wings. The hilt was adorned with a tassel of pearls. Under the light, they looked extremely beautiful.
“What tier and grade is it?”
Xuanyuan Po was curious.
“A superior-grade spirit weapon.”
Li Ziqi recalled the information of this sword. “The toughness of this sword might be inferior to other weapons, but it has a unique characteristic. The user can imbue spirit qi into the sword edge and shoot out a blast of sword qi in the form of a White Bird, allowing the user to kill people from a thousand miles away.” “Wow, a thousand miles away?”
Lu Zhiruo exclaimed.
Everyone turned their head and saw the papaya girl coming over. Earlier, she had been busy bringing the female captives out and taking care of them.
Speaking of kindness, Lu Zhiruo was absolutely ranked #1.
“Just giving an example!”
Li Ziqi explained.
“Why do you want to hit Bi Fang again? Who is Bi Fang exactly?”.
Lu Zhiruo scratched her hair, feeling that this Bi Fang was very miserable. However, he must have done something really bad because she heard many people saying they wanted to hit Bi Fang before.
Ying Baiwu couldn’t wait anymore. She circulated her spirit qi and channeled it into the sword edge. After that, she slashed out with the sword.
Swish!
A coconut-sized White Bird whistled as it swooshed through the air. It was like a rain swallow arcing through the sky, and the blast of sword qi smashed into the wall over 30+ meters away.
Ca!
A sword scar of half-a-finger deep was left on the wall.
“Good sword!”
Ying Baiwu exclaimed. She instantly fell in love with this sword. Her ambition was to be able to become someone like Gongsun Jianniang in the history of Tang Country. Her fame stretched across the world, and she mainly focused on sword dances for a living. Even after her passing, her descendants didn’t need to worry about being in dire straits and could depend on hardwork to make a living. After stroking White Bird for a few times, Ying Baiwu suddenly inclined her head and looked at Sun Mo. She really wanted this sword but was embarrassed to ask for it.
No matter how insensible she was, she also knew that this was a superior-grade spirit weapon. It was extremely expensive.
The higher tiers of weapons could be classified as spirit weapons and saint weapons. Each tier could be further classified into inferior, average, superior, and peerless.
For some people, they wouldn’t even be able to obtain a spirit weapon.
“Is there anything else?”
Lu Zhiruo stood beside the chest and searched through it with curiosity on her face.
Li Ziqi took out a small case from it. There was a walnut-size voice-retention stone within.
“Just these?”
Xuanyuan Po felt very disappointed.
“Play it!”
Sun Mo indicated for Li Ziqi to activate the voice-retention stone.
Ying Baiwu sighed again. She then sheathed White Bird and placed it close to her chest. She was truly like a knave, using the yardstick in her heart to measure the motives of her senior martial sisters. She was worried that they wanted the sword too.
But they didn’t seem to care for the sword at all.
Li Ziqi channeled her spirit qi into the voice-retention stone. A moment later, a burst of strange laughter immediately rang out.
“Jejeje!”
“Ah!”
Lu Zhiruo instantly screamed. She ran to Sun Mo’s side and hugged him. Although Li Ziqi didn’t do so, her hand, which was holding the stone, was trembling. “Who is that person?”
Xuanyuan Po furrowed his brows. When the sound of laughter rang out, he felt immense terror akin to the large hand of a death-god clutching his neck. He felt stifled and was shuddering.
“All of you trash wants to kill me, the Heretic King? Go and continue dreaming! Ji Zongyuan, just you wait, I will annihilate your entire clan!”
“What?”
Li Ziqi blinked. The content of this voice recorder was truly stunning.
“All of the Nine Greats, the royal clans of the various countries, the hundred wealthy clans, all gather together to kill me. Isn’t it simply because of my treasure trove? Haha, I precisely won’t allow things to unfold the way you all want them to. I will use my treasure trove to nurture a successor. The successor shall topple the Saint Gate, cripple the Nine Greats, and destroy the various countries. Just you all wait. My successor will definitely slaughter his way back!”
“My treasure trove is buried in Cloud’s End. If you can pass my test, you will be able to obtain my peerless-grade saint-tier cultivation art and receive my endless wealth!”
Each word in these three short sentences was boundless tyranny. (Look at the people he offended, any one of them could cause us to die without a burial ground.)
“A treasure trove?”
Ying Baiwu’s eyes brightened as she touched White Bird in passing.
“Don’t believe it, you will die if you do so.”
Jiang Leng who had always kept silent suddenly spoke.
“Cloud’s End?”
Xuanyuan Po had a look of shock on his face. “That should be a place in the Darkness Continent, right?”
“That’s for sure. Only in a lordless land like the Darkness Continent would a person like the Heretic King be able to move about freely. If he was in the Nine Provinces, which king would allow his unrestrained behavior of plundering and looting?”
There was no need for Li Ziqi to explain the origins of the Heretic King to everyone. This name was a name known to everyone in this world and was even able to stop babies from crying at night.
When children were growing up, as long as they were disobedient, their mothers would say if they continued to be disobedient, the Heretic King would capture and eat them.
The Heretic King lived and grew up in the Darkness Continent. He was overflowing with talent. Ever since he was young, he was already famous in the Darkness Continent.
In the earliest records, the Heretic King made his living by being a guide. Other than money, he wanted secret manuals, cultivation arts, alchemy pills, secret treasure, powerful spirit and divine weapons, and everything else.
The Heretic King would even dare to go to places where no one dared to go. One could say that he was a living map of the Darkness Continent.
On one of his guiding trips, the Heretic King got to know a girl. As time passed, both of them fell for each other. However, this girl was none other than the fiancee of the Saint Gate’s Sect Lord’s son back then.
At that time, the Heretic King could be considered to have poked a beehive.
A series of events then happened. In the end, for the sake of the Heretic King, the girl committed suicide by cutting her throat. The frenzied Heretic King had nothing to hold him back now. Hence, he infiltrated the Saint Gate and slaughtered the vast majority of the Saint Gate’s Sect Lord’s clan members.
From then on, the Heretic King started to recruit soldiers and buy horses, raising a large army. He then formed an extremely powerful bandit group. He specially targeted people who entered the Darkness Continent from the Nine Provinces.
This was especially so for great teachers and students. Because these people were considered under the unified administration from Saint Gate; hence, whenever the Heretic King saw them, he would capture and force them to make vows to quit the Saint Gate, or they would all be killed.
The Saint Gate had sent people to hunt the Heretic King, but he was too powerful. Regardless of individual strength or skill in commanding forces, his ability was outstandingly rare. He had killed many elites of the Saint Gate.
In the midst of all the slaughter, the Heretic King’s fame grew greater and greater, and the amount of wealth he accumulated also grew exponentially.
The existence of the Heretic King was a shame of the Sect Lord of the Saint Gate. Hence, after his son was killed, his fury was ignited.
The Sect Leader had spent a huge sum of money to gather elites from the Nine Greats, the royal clans from the various countries, and the hundred wealthiest clans to arrange a heavenly net to trap and hunt the Heretic
King.
After that great battle, it was sa number of people who died was so much that their blood even caused the sky in the Darkness Continent to turn blood-colored.
After that, the Saint Gate’s Sect Leader announced that the Heretic King had died. But half a year later, due to him being heavily injured in the hunt of the Heretic King previously, the Saint Gate’s Sect Leader also passed away.
However, during the burial ceremony of the Sect Leader, the Heretic King suddenly appeared and created a big scene, overturning the coffin. He then announced the content of the voice-retention stone to everyone.
It was said that there were a total of ninety-nine voice-retention stones that recorded the location of the Heretic King’s treasure trove. The stones began to circulate throughout the world.
“Is this treasure trove real or not?”
Ying Baiwu glanced at Li Ziqi. Among everyone, the status of this girl was the highest. She naturally was able to come in contact with some secrets.
“The story of the Heretic King having a treasure trove is true. But as for the messages in the voice-retention stone, I don’t know if it’s true or false!”
Li Ziqi passed the voice-retention stone to Sun Mo.
In the pugilistic world, who wouldn’t have a few enemies? Hence, some people with evil motives began to use the news of the Heretic King’s treasure trove to create various traps to kill their enemies for their own secretive purposes.
For a time, the voice-retention stones of the Heretic King were circulated everywhere.
If Ying Baiwu paid a visit to the underground black market, she might even be able to find two or three vendors with such a voice-retention stone.
“Who wants this?”
Sun Mo glanced at it and wasn’t interested at all. Finding a treasure trove? He might as well put his efforts in guiding his students and do his best to gather favorable impression points. What would the system’s merchant store lack?
If he managed to earn 100,000 favorable impression points, he would be able to purchase a peerless-grade saint-tier cultivation art. Wouldn’t that be much safer compared to risking his life in the Darkness Continent to search for the Heretic King’s treasure trove?
When Jiang Leng hesitated whether to raise his hand or not, Lu Zhiruo and Ying Baiwu already raised their hands.
Sun Mo casually threw it to the papaya girl.
“I feel this is real.”
Lu Zhiruo caught the stone and touched it. When the voice within was activated, it caused her to feel extremely afraid. It was the aura of a powerful expert. Ying Baiwu’s lips twitched. “If you want White Bird, just take it. But you better forget this matter about the treasure trove, understand? Just do your utmost in cultivating. That is the correct path.” Sun Mo lectured. He had long since noticed the little actions of Bai Yingwu. This girl was good at everything, other than the fact that she was terrified of poverty. Hence, she was a little money-grubber.
Ying Baiwu immediately took White Bird and hugged it. She stroked it and guaranteed, “Teacher, I will definitely work hard and make you proud.”
Ding!
Favorable impression points from Ying Baiwu +100. Friendly (700/1,000).
(Mn, when I have the time, I will look for Zhiruo and do some research into the content of that voice-retention stone. If the content is real, wouldn’t I have struck it rich?)
(That’s the treasure trove of the Heretic King!)
[1] 1 chi = 1/3 meter
[2] The chinese characters for ‘example’, can be read as ‘bi fang’.
[3] Gongsun Jianniang – Gongsun is a surname, the characters for Jianniang can mean Sword and Maiden/Lady.
