Chapter 121: The Monster

In the past, the village head had been more familiar with the rear mountain than with any other place. Ever since childhood, he had gone there countless times—far more than ten million, or so it seemed. Yet even he could not say when it had begun to feel like a nightmare. Indeed, it had been a very long time since he himself had ventured into the mountain behind the village. And people of his age were often even more frightened of things like monsters.

He had not dared accompany Zhang Pu and the others for more than a short distance, afraid that the monster might settle the score with him afterward.

For people like Zhang Pu, finding the mountain behind the village was hardly difficult, especially since the family who lived there earlier had explained the route in detail.

As they made their way toward the rear mountain, Zhang Pu keenly sensed that the village at night was truly somewhat unusual. Every household seemed to shut its gates the moment darkness fell—the sort of mountain village where ghosts were said to roam at night.

Then again, had they not heard that there were monsters here?

The thought suddenly made Zhang Pu want to laugh.

Yet after seemingly casually extending the spiritual sense he had only recently begun cultivating, Zhang Pu once again detected something amiss. There was even a faintly familiar quality to it.

Had he actually become acquainted with someone in this remote mountain village? How strange!

Naturally, Zhang Pu was astonished.

With his current cultivation, his spiritual sense could not yet reach several hundred meters in every direction. But his innate sharpness seemed capable of extending that far, even encompassing the mountain behind the village, allowing him to sense that something unusual was present.

And that very strangeness seemed to drive him forward almost involuntarily, quickening his pace.

The moment Zhang Pu sped up, Liu Yingde noticed. He assumed Zhang Pu had suddenly discovered some new continent, like Columbus, and that the mountain behind the village was bound to be no ordinary place.

Liu Yingde did not believe the mountain behind the village could be more dangerous than Poison Dragon Pool. Besides, he now knew that Zhang Pu had another unusual assistant—the Ghost Shadow.

Liu Yingde himself had previously been defeated by that Ghost Shadow.

Thus, while keeping close behind Zhang Pu, Liu Yingde secretly sensed for the Ghost Shadow who had naturally come along with them.

If Liu Yingde had not known for certain that the Ghost Shadow had already joined their group, then whenever it deliberately concealed itself at the height of its power, he felt he might easily overlook its presence.

But now, if he focused his attention, he could sense and feel that the Ghost Shadow was somewhere nearby, to the left of them.

Zhang Pu and the others soon reached the mountain behind the village.

Under the moonlight, the Goldenwood trees Zhang Pu had imagined came into view. Having already formed an impression of them beforehand, he found that their appearance did not differ much from what he had expected.

But Zhang Pu was not some unconventional tourist who had come expressly to admire the Goldenwood. He had his own purpose.

Although they had heard that strange things occurred here at night, the group noticed nothing unusual in the valley when they first arrived.

The Goldenwood trees were concentrated throughout the valley, numbering perhaps several hundred, both large and small. In the moonlight, they looked as though gold had been streaked with silver.

It was indeed a peculiar kind of scenery, but Zhang Pu had not come to admire the view.

Maintaining his vigilance, Zhang Pu walked over and plucked a leaf from one of the Goldenwood trees. Even beneath the moonlight, he could clearly see that the leaf itself was a deep golden color.

To ordinary people, dark-gold leaves and golden trees offered nothing beyond a golden landscape. Even the uneducated villagers who had never heard that the wood was unsuitable even for firewood would have dismissed it without a second glance. After testing it himself, Zhang Pu could tell that, in the eyes of ordinary people, Goldenwood truly had no practical value.

But to him—and to certain unusual people—it was like the ugly duckling that ultimately transformed into a beautiful swan.

Zhang Pu performed a minor spell from the world of cultivation, and at once he glimpsed another wondrous world within the leaf.

“What excellent material for refining pills,” Zhang Pu exclaimed.

At first, he had thought that the Goldenwood found on Earth was some rare tree from the Wood-element Star Realm of the cultivation world. Now he saw that it was not the same species. Yet his recent examination had genuinely revealed an abundance of wood-element energy within it. Judging from that alone, the medicinal value of the Goldenwood was certainly no lower than that of the strange trees from the Wood-element Star Realm.

What a pity that the people of Earth did not recognize its worth!

Even Divine Doctor Li, most likely, could never bring himself to compare the Goldenwood with the immortal herbs growing beside Poison Dragon Pool. But to Zhang Pu, the immortal herbs beside Poison Dragon Pool were far inferior to Goldenwood.

As Zhang Pu sighed inwardly over this, he never imagined that the tiny spell he had just cast would immediately cause a tremendous commotion in a cavern beneath the mountain.

“What was that just now?”

Deep beneath the Goldenwood forest lay a cavern. In one of its chambers, illuminated by the shimmering radiance of a luminous pearl, a disheveled figure sat in a fur-covered grand chair. He looked neither human nor ghostly, and suddenly opened his eyes, which had been tightly shut.

“Master,” a young man hurried in from outside the chamber and respectfully asked, “I’ll go outside and take a look at once.”

“Wait,” the man in the fur-covered chair suddenly said. “Call Hongbin first.”

The young man acknowledged him and hurried away.

A short while later, before the man in the chair had finished gathering his thoughts, a swift and capable middle-aged man arrived.

“Senior Brother—”

The newcomer was Hongbin. Had Zhang Pu been there, he would immediately have recognized him as Lin Hongbin, the man who had accompanied them to Poison Dragon Pool and with whom he had previously crossed paths.

Yet no one would have expected him and the man here to address each other as fellow disciples.

“Hongbin, although you and I call each other senior and junior brothers, what we learned is entirely different. You used to look down on the spells I practiced here, believing they were nothing more than charlatan tricks and ghostly theatrics, but…”

“Oh, no!” Before the man in the fur-covered chair, Lin Zhifa, could finish, Lin Hongbin suddenly interrupted him with evident shame. “Senior Brother, you speak too harshly. I understand now how shallow I was. At last I realize that no matter how great one’s physical strength may be, before certain spells, it is utterly helpless.”

Lin Hongbin’s words seemed to bring Lin Zhifa immense satisfaction.

For a moment, he leaned back in the grand chair with the smug complacency of an ancient grand tutor.

Before the two could say anything more, the man Lin Zhifa had sent outside to keep watch hurried back in.

He reported that someone had entered the Goldenwood forest under cover of night.

“As expected. I knew it,” Lin Zhifa said, still seated in the grand chair. He stroked the few whisker-like hairs on his chin and spoke as though to himself. “And whoever has come is no ordinary person.”