"Afraid?"
Lu Li let out a soft huff. "You dare to go, so why should I be afraid?"
He certainly wasn't being provoked by a challenge; rather, he urgently wanted to refine the Meridian-Nourishing Pill.
Only by possessing the Meridian-Nourishing Pill could he take the Piercing Acupoint Pill without worry. With fifty-five Piercing Acupoint Pills, calculating at two acupoints per pill, it would be enough to directly raise his cultivation by a minor realm.
Seeing Lu Li agree, Wu De finally relaxed. This time, he wasn't trying to deceive Lu Li, but genuinely wanted Lu Li to go with him, because with his current cultivation level, that place was truly difficult to handle alone.
Otherwise, he would have gone to retrieve it himself long ago.
After getting the details, Lu Li learned that the place Wu De mentioned was actually the Great Marsh in Dongzhou.
This wasn't the first time Lu Li had heard of this place. The fat man from Qinglei City had told him last time that the mysterious person who commissioned him was in the Great Marsh. Now, it seemed these two matters had coincidentally come together.
This way, he absolutely had to make the trip, not just for the Soul-Calming Flower, but also to thoroughly resolve that mysterious person once and for all. Since Wu De was coming along, if they truly couldn't defeat the foe, he could make use of him to some extent.
Having made up his mind, Lu Li discussed further with Wu De, who noted that they needed to make some preparations before entering the Great Marsh to avoid being caught off guard inside.
According to Wu De's suggestion, they first went to the rogue cultivator market in Dongzhou to buy necessary supplies, such as poison-avoidance pills.
Lu Li wasn't familiar with Dongzhou, so he only said, "I'll leave everything to you."
Thus, the two changed direction and headed south.
Dongzhou was located in the easternmost part of Great Qian, covering an area of fifty to sixty thousand square miles. It bordered the Eastern Sea to the east, Xinzhou to the west, Liangzhou to the north, and Yunzhou to the south. Perhaps because it was too close to the Eastern Sea, seawater had eroded the eastern lands, turning over ten thousand miles of eastern territory into marshland, also known as the Great Marsh.
Most of Dongzhou's common people lived in the western parts, while the central area was a gathering place for explorers. As for the eastern Great Marsh... that was a place even cultivators dared not easily set foot in, known as a forbidden land.
On this day, two people arrived outside a mist-filled valley in the north-central part of Dongzhou.
The older one looked to be around sixty years old, wearing a gray robe, and was currently stroking his goatee while looking up at a stone tablet outside the valley.
The three characters 'Beiwang Valley' on the stone tablet had weathered over time and looked rather indistinct.
"This is the place. Let's go make some preparations; who knows when we'll return from this trip." The old man withdrew his gaze and spoke to the dark-cyan martial-attire youth beside him.
The youth glanced at the valley full of white mist, seeming unconvinced. "Are you sure there's a market inside here?"
These two were Wu De and Lu Li, who had come from the Thunderfire Mountain Range in Liangzhou.
Wu De said somewhat proudly, "Kid, you've seen too little. Let me tell you, this mist is just an illusion meant to prevent ordinary mortals from entering. You just need to use your Divine Sense to easily find the way in."
"Oh?"
Hearing this, Lu Li immediately released his Divine Sense to probe. The scene within fifty zhang ahead instantly became completely visible.
It turned out that at the center of the mist stood stone mountains over ten zhang tall, with roads between them twisting and turning complexly. If ordinary people entered, they would simply wander around in circles and end up back where they started.
However, Lu Li could sense through his Divine Sense that these seemingly ordinary stone mountains actually held deep mysteries, because every ten-odd zhang, there was a stone mountain inside which special runes were arranged that could be detected with Divine Sense.
Lu Li guessed that only by following these rune-arranged stone mountains could one find the correct path inside.
While Lu Li was investigating, Wu De had already stepped into the mist first.
Lu Li hurriedly followed.
Sure enough, Wu De was heading straight along the direction of the rune-arranged stone mountains.
After twisting and turning through the mist for about a hundred breaths of time, the two finally emerged, revealing a broad street. People came and went, with shops lining both sides, resembling a small town.
Moreover, Lu Li was shocked to discover that everyone walking here was a cultivator, without a single mortal in sight.
Wu De didn't speak along the way, keeping his head down as he walked forward. Lu Li guessed the old man had been here before, paused slightly, and then followed.
Just as the two were walking forward with their heads down,
In the town center, on the second floor of the Shuntian Restaurant, a black-robed man who was drinking suddenly removed the jade plaque from his waist, holding it in his hand with pleasant surprise. "It really was found."
"Senior Brother He, what was found?" the black-robed girl at the same table asked suspiciously.
The girl's figure was curvaceous, her face refreshingly beautiful, combining purity and coldness with a hint of cunning and charm. She truly deserved to be called a peerless beauty.
"Oh, it's like this. Master asked me to help find a place with heavy Yin energy, saying it would be used to refine a spirit corpse. I felt searching alone would take too long, so I found some rogue cultivators to help look..." Senior Brother He explained.
"What spirit corpse?"
"Junior Sister, don't ask. I don't understand either, and Master's affairs are better left unquestioned." He stood up. "Junior Sister, will you wait here, or come with me?"
The girl hesitated for a moment. "I'll go with you. I have a feeling Master might be about to return. If he discovers we sneaked out this time, I'm afraid it will implicate Senior Brother. We'd better hurry back."
"Hey, it's fine. Master has always been elusive, appearing and disappearing unpredictably. He won't return that quickly from a trip. But your concern isn't unreasonable. Let's go meet that person and return straight to the Great Marsh. Next time, I'll bring you out to play again."
"Thank you, Senior Brother." The girl immediately smiled radiantly.
On the other side,
Wu De and Lu Li walked out of a sundry shop. Wu De handed a jade bottle to Lu Li. "One bottle each should be enough."
The jade bottle contained poison-avoidance pills, said to prevent miasma invasion. As for their specific effectiveness, only trying would tell.
Lu Li nodded and took them. "Is there anything else to prepare?"
Wu De thought for a moment. "Nothing else major. Let's go to the Myriad Treasure Pavilion shop and buy some Inedia Pills. Most Demon Beasts in the Great Marsh are poisonous and cannot be eaten."
"Inedia Pills?"
"You kid wouldn't even know about Inedia Pills, would you?" Wu De gave Lu Li a contemptuous look as he walked and spoke.
"Inedia Pills are what Qi Refining stage cultivators use to replace food. They're quite similar to the dry pancakes you often eat, and very convenient. But... they're much more valuable than your dry pancakes. One Inedia Pill can sustain you for three days without eating or drinking, and it won't affect bodily functions."
There was such a good thing.
Lu Li immediately became interested. If he had known about this stuff earlier, why would he have bothered making pancakes?
The two walked forward and soon arrived before an extremely luxurious three-story building. The plaque above read precisely 'Myriad Treasure Pavilion.'
Lu Li stared at the plaque, suddenly recalling that Dihu Town seemed to have a shop called Myriad Treasure Pavilion as well, though it had been closed at the time. Compared to this grand establishment, that one was like a pheasant compared to a phoenix.
He couldn't help but curiously ask, "Old man, are the one in Dihu Town and this one owned by the same boss?"
"Same boss?" Wu De chuckled. "You could say that, but this Myriad Treasure Pavilion is far from as simple as what you see on the surface. Once inside... don't be too conspicuous. Otherwise, I'll pretend I don't know you."
With that, he stepped inside...