Looking at Bai Miaojin, Chen Mu’s heart skipped a beat.
“He’s finally escaped.”
Seemingly feeling Chen Mu’s gaze, Bai Miaojin turned to look back.
Chen Mu controlled his expression, meeting the other’s eyes like any ordinary passerby.
Then he showed a slight surprise at the other’s figure before indifferently shifting his gaze away.
After that, he followed the crowd, browsing the streets within the white glyptodon shuttle with feigned nonchalance.
“If he’s escaped, he’s escaped. It’s none of my business anymore.”
Although he wanted to avenge his previous capture, he was helpless to do so.
Bai Miaojin was one thing, but Cui Cui, who had recovered her original form, was not someone he could easily handle.
“After all, it was Sun Dawang who made those harsh statements, not me.” Chen Mu thought leisurely to himself.
He wasn’t worried about any trouble either.
Shape-shifting Technique: 27/10000/Fourth Rank;
Chen Mu looked at the grey wall with a chuckle: “Find me first, then we’ll talk.”
“Fourth Rank Shape-shifting Technique, if you can still find me, I’ll consider it a loss!”
…
The year 642 in Da Liang, the fifth day of the eleventh month.
The departure date for the white glyptodon shuttle had arrived.
Over a hundred people were scattered around the very front of the white glyptodon shuttle.
There, a giant transparent screen wall allowed a clear view of the sea outside the white glyptodon shuttle.
The white glyptodon is a rare kind of spirit turtle with a snow-white shell and a head as red as fire, innately able to manipulate water and fire. The white glyptodon shuttle was forged from its shell.
The very front used to be the area of the white glyptodon’s forelimbs and head.
The flesh and blood were removed and sealed with a special transparent material, forming a large transparent viewing window resembling a glass curtain wall.
“How come you’re missing an arm!” Tu Shan stood in front of Cheng Yi, wearing a face full of heartache: “What a pity I wasn’t there; otherwise…”
Cheng Yi’s face was cold: “Otherwise, you could have taken the opportunity to kill me and steal my Thousand Mechanism Token, right?”
Tu Shan looked at Cheng Yi with an incredulous face: “You’re way too suspicious of me!”
Cheng Yi glanced at Tu Shan: “Your skin has gotten thicker!”
Tu Shan bared a grin: “Learned it from your junior brother.”
Cheng Yi was taken aback: “You’ve met Cheng Ming?”
“Indeed, his abilities far surpass yours,” Tu Shan clicked his tongue in wonder: “Can you believe he actually fought me to a draw?”
Cheng Yi’s brows furrowed tightly, a teenager more than ten years old?
“That person is not my junior brother!” Cheng Yi affirmed with certainty.
“That’s impossible,” Tu Shan shook his head in disbelief: “He has a bell identical to yours, how could he not be your junior brother!”
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Cheng Yi’s pupils suddenly contracted, and his complexion instantly became as dark as water: “Where did you see him.”
Tu Shan looked at Cheng Yi from top to bottom with a tilt of his head: “Tsk tsk… Something’s off about you…”
“That bell, could it be that he stole it from you?”
Cheng Yi’s eyes narrowed, and he remained silent.
“Oho! That arm of yours, it wasn’t chopped off by him, was it?” Tu Shan’s eyes widened in shock.
Cheng Yi’s face turned pitch black.
Tu Shan immediately broke into schadenfreude laughter.
“It seems that person really isn’t your junior brother,” Tu Shan then proposed with a grin: “How about we join forces to deal with him?”
Not far away, Chen Mu, who was peeling sugared chestnuts, paused momentarily.
“Discussing how to deal with me right in front of me?” Chen Mu’s eyes narrowed.
He quietly took out the Heartless Bell, the ghostly black smoke of invisibility taking shape, turning into a megaphone aimed at Tu Shan.
Hum!
Tu Shan’s face instantly stiffened, then quickly twisted into a rictus grin, his whole body shaking like a sieve, and then his mouth split into a wide smile: “Oh… hohoho… hahaha… hiss hiss hiss…”
Cheng Yi: “…”
What the hell is wrong with you!
He immediately sidestepped subtly, distancing himself from Tu Shan.
“It’s not what you’re thinking…” Tu Shan hurriedly tried to explain.
Hum!
“Oh hohoho…”
Tu Shan: “…” It’s not what I want either!
Being stared at by over a hundred people with strange looks, even someone with as thick a skin and black a heart as Tu Shan couldn’t help but feel his face tighten.
Seeing that the effect was about to wear off and fearing another onslaught, he immediately glared around in anger: “I surrender!”
Hum!
“Oh hohoho…”
Chen Mu: “…”
Sorry, couldn’t hold back.
Watching Tu Shan dance on the spot with a face full of joy, Chen Mu popped a sugared chestnut into his mouth with satisfaction.
He then slowly and leisurely raised his head to look towards the transparent curtain wall.
Accompanied by a faint drone, the Bai Geng Shuttle gradually sank towards the seabed.
Gazing at the increasingly tall Shouyang Mountain, Chen Mu couldn’t help but feel a tinge of reluctance.
“This journey is fraught with uncertainty; who knows if I can ever return.”
The Bai Geng Shuttle only comes once every century; whether I’ll still be alive by then is a mystery.
“The chances of returning are slim,” Chen Mu sighed.
“I wonder how Jie Jia will fare in the future?”
He immediately shook his head and chuckled, “Why worry about something that doesn’t concern me!”
Jie Jia was no ordinary man. Even if I were in trouble, it wouldn’t necessarily mean he would be too.
…
Scanning the nearby crowd, besides Tu Shan and Cheng Yi, he also saw Wu Yin and Zuo Sheng.
Apart from having an Innate Taoist Bone, these hundred or so people either had exceptional talents or possessed magical bloodlines.
Otherwise, they couldn’t have cultivated the Shell Soul and seized the Thousand Mechanism Token.
Thinking of what these people’s lives would be like in the next ten or twenty years, Chen Mu’s expression turned peculiar.
“Once the heroes of the land, will they, like me, end up mining and farming for others?”
With that thought, Chen Mu’s previously stifled mood suddenly lifted.
“Compared to myself, these people are probably truly miserable. Heh heh…” Chen Mu shook his head and chuckled disbelievingly.
“What about Chao Fang?”
“Has he resorted to disguising himself too?”
Chen Mu looked around and saw no familiar faces, then shook his head and stopped pondering the matter.
Although fighting was forbidden inside the Bai Geng Shuttle, with disputes settled in the arena,
this enclosed space had no escape if someone was determined to cause trouble.
“The key is to safely reach Jilong Mountain.” Glancing once more at the increasingly dark waters, Chen Mu turned and went back to his room.
“I should think about how to pass these next three to five months.”
…
Three days later, inside the Bai Geng Shuttle, at the Envious Immortal Tea House.
The tea house was spacious, with its ground floor hall as big as two basketball courts, and it even had three storytelling stages.
The tea house was open all day, each time I came in, the occupancy rate was never less than half.
Chen Mu found a secluded corner to sit down, casually ordering a pot of tea and a plate of pastries.
These items cost him twelve taels of silver.
“Really expensive!” Chen Mu clicked his tongue.
Since boarding the ship, other than the impressiveness of the Bai Geng Shuttle’s massive luxury, his most direct experience was the expensiveness; everything was expensive.
To have a meal without spending twenty or thirty taels of silver was to go hungry.
To eat well was even more exorbitantly priced.
“Luckily, I prepared the Bigu Pill well in advance,” Chen Mu felt relieved.
“I should also thank Wu Yin,” Chen Mu thought happily.
Without the tens of thousands of taels of silver he contributed, I wouldn’t have the confidence to be strolling around here.
…
Pouring a cup of tea to savor slowly, Chen Mu pricked up his ears, attentively listening to the conversations around him.
At a table nearby, two men dressed in brown tight-fitted clothes caught his attention.
One of them had a scar from the corner of his eye to his jaw on the left side of his face, making him look particularly fierce.
He frowned at his companion, “How much longer do we have to drift at sea?”
His companion, a man with small eyes and a large nose, rested one foot on the ground and the other on the chair, casually listening to the storytellers while leisurely cracking melon seeds.
“No rush, I heard there are still a couple of places left to visit before we reach Yunzhou in another three to five months.”
“Not in a hurry? We’ve been drifting for a year, and our silver is almost spent, how can I not be anxious?”
“If we don’t land soon, I’ll have to earn money by fighting in the arena,” the scar-faced man said with annoyance.
“Then you should go,” the small-eyed man looked sideways at his companion.
Scar-face grew despondent, “I don’t dare!”
“This ship is filled with what kinds of monsters… Each one heartlessly cruel, with formidable strength.”
The small-eyed man rattled the melon seeds, “Every island only takes about a hundred people. If they weren’t monsters, could they have boarded the ship?”
Scar-face became even more morose.
“I wish I had a Daoist Bone too,” Scar-face said with full-blown envy, “Free food, drinks, and fun, all in one package. Alas…”
“Go to bed early when you get back, you can have everything in your dreams.”
“Get lost!”
Chen Mu’s eyebrows raised, “Is consumption this high on the Bai Geng Shuttle?”
“It seems I’ve underestimated the cost of living here.” Anyone who could board must be wealthy.
With over forty thousand taels of silver in hand, Chen Mu thought he was quite rich, “Looks like I need to plan my spending.”
“Moreover, Da Liang is an… island?!” Chen Mu was surprised to hear.
In the four years he spent in Da Liang, he hadn’t even ventured out of Nanyang Prefecture.
To think such a vast place was referred to as an island.
“How much bigger must Yunzhou be?” Chen Mu thought with anticipation.