Under the scorching sun, cicadas chirped incessantly as the two walked along the long river.
The river water was not its normal color; it was a deep red, as if it were flowing not water, but scarlet blood.
"Little pageboy".
No one responded.
"Little pageboy".
Shen Xun frowned, but still remained silent.
"Little page, why aren't you answering me?"
The people behind him kept chattering, but Shen Xun didn't turn his head. He corrected them, saying, "I have a name. Call me Shen Xun."
"Shen Xun, aren't you surnamed Zhu?"
Shen Xun stopped and looked back at him, his eyes clearly saying, "You know that, yet you still give me a nickname."
Mu Dong grinned and said, "Just kidding." Then he became serious and said, "Speaking of which, don't you feel that something is wrong with this valley? I feel that there is something strange about this place."
Shen Xun looked into the distance, his expression calm, showing no emotion at all because of his words.
Mu Dong was still muttering to himself, "I thought this would be so much fun, but we've walked for so long and haven't encountered anything. It's so boring. I wonder where my senior brothers and sisters are. Have they found any treasures yet..."
"Huh?"
Shen Xun stood on the riverbank, leaned over to look into the river, and uttered a question.
Mu Dong thought he had discovered something, so he hurriedly went over and asked, "What did you see? A magical beast? A ghost? Or a rare treasure?"
Mu Dong poked his head out of the river, searching around, trying to find some fun in it. The next moment, he heard Shen Xun exclaim, "I'm so handsome."
Hearing this undisguised self-praise, Mu Dong was thunderstruck and stood there stunned. After a moment, he raised the corner of his mouth, chuckled at Shen Xun, and said, "You're still too green to compare with me in terms of looks, you little brat!"
"I told you I have a name, don't give me weird nicknames."
Mu Dong walked ahead of him, making a face at him, "No way, you little brat."
Shen Xun walked slowly behind him, and after Mu Dong turned around, a faint smile appeared on his lips.
He actually quite liked Mu Dong, a kind-hearted person who was simple-minded, adorably naive, and wouldn't let him down at crucial moments. Even if such a person couldn't become a god in the future, he would still benefit all people with his kind heart and accumulate good deeds.
Moreover, people with such qualities are beneficial to all living things. Simplicity and kindness are the best nourishment. Walking with him, Shen Xun, the spirit of the book, felt much more comfortable in body and mind. For a moment, he even forgot about his old injuries.
A stone rolled to Mu Dong's feet.
He bent down to pick it up, examined it carefully but found nothing special, and then casually tossed it aside. Unexpectedly, two dusty-looking people jumped out of the bushes and began to scramble and fight over the stone.
Mu Dong looked up and recognized the face; it was the same person who had been discussing Yuanbei Valley at the inn.
"Mine! This is mine! Let go of me!"
"No, I found this meteorite first, it should be mine!"
The two were entangled, neither willing to give in.
Mu Dong extracted key information from their conversation: "Meteorite iron? It's clearly a rock."
As soon as the words were spoken, the two who had been arguing instantly stopped and retorted, "What do you know! This is a level ten Heavenly Meteorite Iron, a rare find that only appears once in a hundred years. The divine artifacts forged from it are incredibly powerful; no one can rival them!"
"Exactly! A country bumpkin who can't even recognize meteorite iron. He's a disgrace to cultivators!"
After that, the two began to fight over the "meteorite" again.
Mu Dong and Shen Xun exchanged a glance, both feeling puzzled.
Watching the two men argue over a stone, Mu Dong's gaze grew increasingly strange. His mind raced with thoughts, and finally, he arrived at a plausible answer—
The fact that these two people could mistake a rock for meteorite suggests they suffered some kind of mental trauma, or perhaps it's due to a genetic deficiency in intelligence.
He wanted to say a few words of advice, but Shen Xun stopped him.
"Don't go over there, something's strange."
Upon hearing this, Mu Dong followed his gaze and saw that the two men's eyes were beginning to turn black, with almost all the whites of their eyes being eroded by black turbidity. Looking closer at their brows, a ball of reddish-black gas was gathering, like a dark cloud pressing down, controlling their minds.
The two men, however, seemed completely oblivious and continued to fight over the stone.
The black aura traveled up his palms, up his arms, down his neck, and down to his face, making him look like an extremely black person from a distance.
Seeing the black energy rampantly encroaching, Mu Dong wanted to intervene to save the situation, but after taking only two steps, he was blocked by an invisible force.
During the struggle, the stone fell into the nearby stream. Upon seeing this, the two men recklessly plunged into the stream and reached for the stone.
The river was strange; it had been a trickle just moments before, but as soon as the two entered the water, it became a raging torrent, with the blood-red water instantly forming a huge whirlpool that swept them into it.
"Oh no, the river is going to suck them in!"
This river is truly bizarre; such a small river can form such a large whirlpool, and it exudes a tremendous pressure and a nauseatingly foul, bloody stench.
Mu Dong couldn't stand idly by, but as soon as he stepped forward, Shen Xun stopped him again, saying, "Neither you nor I know what's under the river, so it's best not to take any risks."
"But we are all cultivators, we can't just stand by and watch them get sucked in."
Shen Xun shrugged and said indifferently, "If you want to save people, then go ahead. I won't stop you, but I won't help you either."
After saying that, he turned and left.
Watching his departing figure, Mu Dong gritted her teeth, walked to the shore, and tried to use her strength to pull the two people out.
Before he could exert any force, the invisible power reappeared, sweeping him into the waves with an irresistible pressure.
He yelled, "I just wanted to admire my handsome face!"
But the river wouldn't allow him to explain, sucking the two people from before into it as well.
Shen Xun, who had walked a short distance, sighed, rubbing his forehead, "That idiot."
Turning back to the shore, before the whirlpool closed, Shen Xun leaped into the river.
Almost instantly after he entered, the whirlpool disappeared, the storm subsided, and everything returned to tranquility, as if nothing had ever happened.
At the same time, the same thing was happening at the location where Qing and Qi Rong were.
Several people got into a fight over a dry tree branch, and ended up with blood on their heads.
Qing and Qi Rong watched from the sidelines, occasionally discussing the movements of this person and the cultivation level of that person, thoroughly enjoying themselves.
"Am I too powerful or are they too weak? Why is the poisonous gas in this miasma having no effect on me?"
“Perhaps someone is manipulating them. Although their cultivation levels are not low, they are still far inferior to yours and Li Jiang’s. Moreover…” He raised his hand and swept the cicada that was chirping away into his hand. “Have you noticed that since we entered the valley, we can hear cicadas chirping everywhere we go?”
Qinghe thought about it and realized that seemed to be the case.
“Something is watching us, and not just us, but probably everyone who enters the valley is under its control.”
He didn't say "person," but used the word "thing," which suggests that the person hiding in the shadows and observing was no pushover.
"I'm starting to believe Mu Dong's premonition," she said in a low voice, glancing at the group of people fighting fiercely in the distance.
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