Lu Yaoyao’s group wasn’t alone in the Wind-Thunder Bamboo Forest; there were other disciples there to temper their bodies. The vastness of the forest made it unlikely for disciples to cross paths, and even if they did, it was customary to respect each other’s need for solitude and not disrupt one another.
Lu Yaoyao encountered a fellow disciple today. From a distance, she saw a person sitting cross-legged among the bamboo stalks, half-naked. One after another, the dense thunder and lightning hit him relentlessly, spreading sparks of electricity across the surface of his skin, which made Lu Yaoyao hiss.
She didn’t go towards the disciple; rather, she changed her direction and resumed her hunt for bamboo shoots. After quickly finding several more, Lu Yaoyao, curious to test her luck, decided to keep digging in the same spot. Surprisingly, it was as if she had found a cache of bamboo shoots, as they kept coming one after another.
Still, she wanted to explore different areas, so she continued moving from one place to the next, finding bamboo shoots in every spot she dug at. They had allocated five days for this mission, so there was plenty of time. Just as Lu Yaoyao was about to move again, she spotted a small head peeking from behind a bamboo stalk. If she wasn’t so observant, she might have missed it.
Noticing Lu Yaoyao looking its way, the small head swiftly pulled back, yet Lu Yaoyao could sense that the little bamboo beast was still close by. She wondered why the bamboo beast had come back, but when she saw it was clearly eyeing the bamboo shoots but not attempting to snatch them, she felt reassured—perhaps it had taken her words to heart.
Thus, Lu Yaoyao decided to ignore her little ‘stalker’ and let it tag along.
When Lu Yaoyao stored another bamboo shoot in her pouch, the little bamboo beast could no longer restrain itself. It ran up to her, but instead of trying to snatch the shoot, it just chirped at her — Cheep!
Lu Yaoyao hesitated, then took out a bamboo shoot and offered it to the little bamboo beast, “I can only give you this much, okay? I need the rest.”
“How about I come back to the forest next time to help you find more?” She pondered for a moment, then tentatively reached out her hand.
The little bamboo beast backed away two steps, chirping, “Cheep! Cheep!”
Lu Yaoyao sighed, “I don’t understand what you’re saying.” She didn’t understand the language of spirit beasts.
The little bamboo beast quickly grabbed the bamboo shoot Lu Yaoyao had offered and ran off.
Lu Yaoyao thought she had finally managed to send the little foodie on its way and breathed a sigh of relief. However, after only a few steps, the familiar chirp returned.
“Cheep—” The little bamboo beast called out to her, moving forward while continuously looking back at her.
“Do you want me to come with you?” Lu Yaoyao tentatively walked forward, and the bamboo beast chirped more loudly: “Cheep!”
The bamboo beast ran ahead, and Lu Yaoyao followed, puzzled: Where is it trying to take her?
One person and one beast quickly passed bamboo after bamboo, leaving behind a trail of blurry silhouettes. As they neared the center, the lightning grew more intense, and at one point, even the barriers from the talismans could no longer withstand the powerful onslaught. The last of the barriers broke when a bolt of particularly powerful lightning struck directly, and Lu Yaoyao had to quickly use two more talismans to avoid being electrocuted. But a moment later, everything suddenly quieted—the wind and thunder ceased.
Lu Yaoyao paused and looked around, guessing that this might be the true center of the bamboo forest. The scroll they obtained from the mission hall didn’t describe such a place. Lu Yaoyao had expected the center to have the most intense wind and thunder, yet it was surprisingly calm.
The little bamboo beast also slowed down. It turned its head to look at Lu Yaoyao and walked forward slowly.
Lu Yaoyao followed. After a short distance, the little bamboo beast stopped in front of a majestic purple flower. It then sat down on its hind legs and looked at Lu Yaoyao. The fully blooming flower looked noble and mysterious, extremely beautiful. Lu Yaoyao quickly recognized it as the legendary Thunder Bamboo Flower, a very rare spiritual material crucial for crafting Great Ascension pills.
Lu Yaoyao tentatively approached the flower. Seeing the little bamboo beast showed no particular reaction, she instantly realized, “Do you want to exchange this flower for food?”
“Cheep—” The little bamboo beast let out a crisp cry. Although this two-legged creature had disrespected it before, it was a magnanimous beast and didn’t hold a grudge, taking into account the two-legged creature’s ability to find a lot of food.
“Okay, I can exchange with you, but we currently need a large amount of bamboo shoots, so I can’t exchange too much right now…” Lu Yaoyao thought for a moment, “If you don’t mind, I’ll bring you more when I visit the forest again.”
“Cheep—” The little bamboo beast chirped again. Lu Yaoyao didn’t know if this little thing understood or not, but she took its chirp as a positive answer anyway and began digging up the flower, planning to take it back with her.
Lu Yaoyao glanced at the little bamboo beast several more times, thinking to herself: this cub’s quite clever… knowing that it couldn’t snatch the bamboo shoots with force, it used items to barter.
Fortunately, this clever little beast was not malicious. Could it have awakened its spiritual consciousness? But if it had turned into a demon, how could it stay safely in Guiyuan’s back mountain?
Lu Yaoyao figured her friends would probably dig up some shoots too, so she took out ten shoots to give to the little bamboo beast. She knew these weren’t even worth one-thousandth of the Thunder Bamboo Flower’s value, so she also took out some beads and pretty-looking artifacts from her pouch, “These are for you too.”
Seeing shiny beads, artifacts, and ten bamboo shoots piled together, the little bamboo beast understood that the two-legged creature was exchanging these for the flower. Clearly delighted, the little bamboo beast danced excitedly and tried to push them all back to its den.
Watching the little thing attempting to push a pile much larger than itself using its head, Lu Yaoyao considered lending a hand to bring them home. However, the bamboo beast became instantly wary, fearing that she may have changed their mind about the barter.
So Lu Yaoyao had no choice but to leave. Of course, she didn’t go far. She watched from a hidden spot as the little bamboo beast diligently carried back and forth all the items she had given, and only after it had moved everything did she finally leave.
…
Lu Yaoyao’s group spent three days and two nights in the Wind-Thunder Bamboo Forest. Thanks to Lu Yaoyao’s bizarre luck, they completed the mission ahead of schedule, finishing it two days earlier than the planned five days.
Perhaps Wen Zixing and the others really did benefit from Lu Yaoyao’s luck, for although their individual harvest was far less than Lu Yaoyao’s, each of them found seven or eight shoots. Combined with Lu Yaoyao’s finds, they collected significantly more than the hundred shoots required for their mission.
After exiting the back mountain, instead of immediately turning in their results, the group went straight down the mountain to undertake their second mission. This mission was not complex; with some effort, they completed it in two days. They rested for a night at Lu Yaoyao’s home in Tianyan City before renting a spirit beast carriage the next day to head to Cold Mountain Forest.
Because flying with a sword consumed spiritual aura, various magical instruments were invented to traverse a long distance, with the largest means of transportation being flying ships. Of course, other convenient transportation methods were also available. For people like Lu Yaoyao and her group, who had relatively lower cultivation levels and were not traveling too far, it was common to rent a carriage driven by spirit beasts.
Some trained spirit beasts were very intelligent and, once harnessed to a carriage, could run smoothly, covering a thousand miles in a day. The carriage they rented was spacious; Lu Yaoyao and her three friends could sit around a small table with plenty of room to spare. The ride was so smooth that, unless one opened the carriage windows to view the swiftly passing scenery, it felt as if they were not moving at all.
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Most of the recent chapters aren’t showing up on novel update.
Thought you were on a break until I visited the site.
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