The sharp blades on the stone wall almost tore his entire back apart, his entire back.

Meng Ziqiu smelled the blood on his body, and in his daze, he even heard his own voice, that heart-wrenching scream.

It hurts so much.

He had never bled so much in his life.

He thought he might be going to die.

Is he going to die here before he even finds that brat?

"...Your surname is Meng?" A cold voice came from afar.

...

The air was filled with a strong smell of sulfur, and wherever the flashlight shone, visible dust particles were flying up and down.

In addition, there was a rustling sound, 'click, click,' which was especially clear in the dim light.

Meng Ziqiu braced himself on his elbows, but before he could exert any force, he found that he couldn't move at all. The pain coming from his back was bone-deep and flesh-deep, affecting his entire body.

"Awake? Looks like you're recovering well." It was that same cold voice.

Meng Ziqiu forced open one eye despite the pain and, by the light of the flashlight, saw the speaker's appearance. The speaker was very young, probably only fifteen or sixteen years old, but his attire was strange... somewhat like that... He suddenly remembered something and his eyes widened.

—Yes, it's that zongzi!

"Your companion is too heartless, just abandoning you like that."

Meng Ziqiu swallowed the blood that gnawed at his throat and looked again, trembling, at the unusual 'zongzi'. His mind was racing: It could talk, and it could save him... What on earth was this thing?!

Xu Qian, the 'zongzi' that person was thinking of, put down the compressed biscuit in his hand, which was only half left. It was not hard to imagine that the rustling sound just now was his handiwork.

"And you, don't be too sad. That's just human nature," the man said again, but this time there was a hint of mockery in his tone.

Meng Ziqiu wanted to tell that person that those people were not his companions. Unfortunately, he didn't even have the strength to speak.

The passageway here was very low, and Xu Qian couldn't even stand up straight. What's more, there was a rather tall adult blocking the way. If they were to clear a path upwards, they were afraid that he might bump into something and cause the mountain to collapse, which would be a real problem.

So Xu Qian could only put on his sheep vest, lower his body and crawl toward the 'blood man' in front of him. Calling him a blood man was no exaggeration; the person looked like he had walked out of blood. If he hadn't cut off Hua Ge's blood and drawn a line of blood for him, he would have been dead long ago.

As soon as you get close, information about the 'blood man' pops up.

[Name: Meng Ziqiu]

[Guild: None]

[Faction: Meng Zhongtang and Qi Sanzhi]

[Favorability: Encounter in the Jianghu (20)]

Meng Zhongtang.

His thirteenth senior brother.

Besides these, this person, who is suspected to be a descendant of his senior brother, also has a bleeding debuff that even Qingfeng Chuilu cannot remove. Judging from the rate at which he is losing health, this person will die in less than an hour. In other words, Xu Qian has to get this person out of this passage within an hour and then switch to Wanhua Vest to extend his life.

Xu Qian looked at the map again. If nothing unexpected happened, it would take at least another half hour to climb out.

He sighed, thinking to himself that being unable to stand up straight was no pleasant experience. His gaze returned to the burden he carried, and he said in a displeased tone:

"Since your surname is Meng, I will save you this once."

After he finished speaking, Meng Ziqiu was forced to hang on the boy's back like a salted fish, covered in blood. At that moment, he smelled the boy's scent, which was very similar to a kind of incense that his grandfather often burned.

On the other side, Xu Qian, having safely brought the burden along, subconsciously reached for his sword. However, the Crimson Lotus was gone. Xu Qian paused, then touched another sword, the Sword Pure's special weapon—[Jue Fuyun]. He had picked it up cheaply from the Qin Emperor's Mausoleum at number 25, intending to give it to his youngest son to complete the set. Unexpectedly…

Sigh, perhaps this is what the old village chief meant by "it's all about timing and fate"...

It all started like this.

On Earth, one day in the 21st century, an ordinary Xu Qian was playing the ordinary JX3 game in his ordinary dormitory room. Then, JX3 crashed, and so did he.

When he woke up again, he found that he had traveled through time with his old Jianwang 3 player account, and had been transported to a world of immortals and heroes.

Upon waking, Xu Qian immediately checked his condition:

Once the package can be opened, just silently repeat "B" in your mind.

Game skills still work, and you can still just say the name, but the special effects are almost nonexistent. (Xu Qian thought for a moment, and concluded that it might be because he was playing on the lowest graphics settings.)

More importantly, he can switch between multiple accounts, with a 15-second cast time. His account is an old one, having been merged with other servers several times. He has nine characters: two Chunyang, one older son, a Taoist priest, and another younger son, Meitai, though he doesn't really raise them. The other characters are Wanhua, Tian Ce, Cangjian, Tangmen, Mingjiao, and a monk, with one male Cheng character each. And then... he also has a Xiutai, but that's not important!

Now that you've arrived in a world of immortals and heroes, how can you not cultivate immortality?

Just like in the transmigration cultivation novels Xu Qian had read, after undergoing some trials (which he didn't actually experience), Xu Qian successfully became a cultivator on Wuqi Immortal Mountain.

The person who picked him up was a swordsman. According to his thirteenth senior brother, his master was at least seven hundred years old, although she looked like a mature woman who was no more than thirty.

After that, Xu Qian lived a very successful life on Wuqi Mountain. After all, with the game cheat in hand, everyone would have to say that he was "exceptionally talented", and the acceptance of the other world was simply skyrocketing.

However, it's not that he's heartless. After all, he was all alone before he transmigrated. His parents died early, and he didn't have a cat to take care of. The only person he cared about was probably the dean. But now that things have come to this, he can't think of any way to go back.

However, just when Xu Qian thought he was about to reach the pinnacle of his life, fate said he was no good, that he was a cheat code, and so he, the chosen one, became a discarded pawn.

Finally, Xu Qian, who had been cleaved to the point of near death and had all his cultivation destroyed during his tribulation, was personally placed into an ice coffin by his master, who then whispered in his ear:

"You asked me before if I took you as my apprentice because... I'm telling you now, yes."

Xu Qian, frozen in an ice coffin: ...

Let's return to the present.

After climbing along the tunnel for more than half an hour, the two finally escaped. As soon as they came out, they collapsed on the snow. All they could see was a vast expanse of white, so white it was blinding.

But Xu Qian did not want to close his eyes because of this.

It had been too long; he hadn't seen a sky like this in far too long.

Hi! Fresh air, so refreshing!

Xu Qian lay on the snow for a while, reminiscing about the feeling of seeing the light again, before finally getting up again; he still had important business to attend to.

After a fifteen-second loading bar, the ponytail boy on the snow was gone, and a young man with waist-length hair appeared in the scene, with a 'silver tiger' with a very unhappy expression pinned to the back of his silk-like hair.

Hua Ge's tattered military uniform is also known as 'Bamboo Shoot Flower'.

It was wrapped in layers upon layers, just like a bamboo shoot.

However, now is not the time to admire the school uniform. Xu Qian first gave the burden in front of him, whose health bar was about to drop to zero, a hand-held needle to calm him down, then three consecutive needle lifts, and finally two long needles to pull the health bar back to a safe level.

Alright, I can hold on for another three hours.

After doing his good deed, Xu Qian sat down again. Before heading down the mountain, he needed to change his appearance a bit. Clothes were easy to solve; he had taken two down jackets from the corpses of those people and they were in Brother Hua's backpack. The problem now was his hair. Xu Qian looked himself over but couldn't find a suitable one, so he finally had to change into a slightly shorter wig.

Hmm, after all that dressing up, it looks pretty good...?

Moreover, the down jacket is warm. Xu Qian sighed that modern things are so much better. If it were in the past, it would be hard to say whether he could have survived to walk down this snow mountain without the protection of his cultivation.

Xu Qian was no longer cold, but Meng Ziqiu was freezing. It would have been alright in the tomb since there was little wind, but here in the snow, the mountain wind was howling. Even though his blood was fully drawn, his face was still deathly pale, partly from the cold and partly from the blood he had lost earlier.

Xu Qian also noticed the change in Meng Ziqiu's debuff value. At this rate, it wouldn't last three hours. He hesitated for a moment, then took out a tiger hat from his inventory and put it on Meng Ziqiu. He then carefully tucked Meng Ziqiu's down jacket in, covering him up completely.

Sure enough, the debuff value gradually decreased.

After settling things in, Xu Qian looked at the boundless snowfield again. As an old relic whose grave had just been dug up, he seriously considered his current situation. Besides the Crimson Lotus in his hand being stolen, a layer of the Taoist priest's school uniform had also been stripped off. If he thought about it carefully, it didn't seem like such a bad deal if he had to see the light of day again...

However, he still has to repay the Crimson Cloud!

That was something he had painstakingly acquired after spending half a year grinding at the Qin Emperor's Mausoleum. More importantly, it was the only Qi Pure weapon he had left, and the feeling of not having a suitable weapon was not pleasant.

After summarizing the current situation, Xu Qian silently recited the bounty list in his mind and quickly saw the only one:

[Name: Yan Jiudu]

[Bounty Amount: 1000 Gold]

[Location: Desert Crossing]

[Duration: 6 days]

This is the name of the person who picked up the Crimson Lotus that Xu Qian found in the game records. Only by finding this person can he get his Crimson Lotus back.

Okay, so here's another question—how do you get across the desert?

Apart from the Changai Mountain beneath his feet, he had zero unlocked maps on his world map.

Oh, this damn tectonic movement!

Xu Qian looked at the only green name behind him.

[Name: Meng Ziqiu]

[Guild: None]

[Faction: Meng Zhongtang and Qi Sanzhi]

[Favorability: Encounter in the Jianghu (40)]

Wow, this favorability rating is rising a bit too fast.

Xu Qian smiled, picked the person up and carried him back on his back, then used his superior lightness skill to run down the snow mountain.