From the ground to the branches, the distance was nearly five hundred meters. When climbing up this stone tree, it caused people to feel even more insignificant and small. Without internal qi, one had to rely on their physical body to climb, which was like carrying a heavy burden. It wasn’t known how many times harder than usual this task became.
Gu Zuo clung to Gongyi Tianheng’s back, and only felt that the movements of his family’s big brother were very deft and nimble. In a short period, they moved up several dozens of meters. Their speed hadn’t slowed one bit.
Tianheng’s foundations were firm. Although travel was more difficult with Gu Zuo on his back than by himself, his movements never stopped. It didn’t take long to approach the branches.
Gu Zuo raised his head a little. Right before his eyes, he saw the densely-packed and incomparably huge canopy layer.
Tianheng spoke: “Ah Zuo, be careful.”
Gu Zuo held his breath with rapt attention: “I know, big brother.”
The two had a clear understanding. After getting onto these branches, they reckoned that it would be easy to be attacked. When they were below, the number of Earth Worms wasn’t high, but it wasn’t guaranteed now that they had reached this canopy of layers upon layers of branches.
According to their observations, places that had Earth Worms didn’t necessarily have stone ova, but locations that had stone ova were more than likely to be guarded by mature Earth Worms — After all, heavenly resources and earthly treasures were often surrounded by vicious beasts.
The facts weren’t outside the two’s expectations.
Tianheng exerted his strength once more to stamp his foot against a section of protruding tree bark. As he propelled himself directly into the canopy layer, a streak of gray light suddenly appeared!
Gu Zuo had long prepared his psychic power, which had already formed a shield to cover their front. Since he had sufficient quantities, he quickly condensed a large saber. When that gray light hurtled towards them, he instantly removed the shield to chop at it. After that, seven or eight more sabers followed in close succession.
That gray light didn’t anticipate that Gu Zuo’s counterattack would be this fast. Before it could approach them, it had already been sliced apart. Its corpse was likewise collected by Gu Zuo.
Gu Zuo loosened a sigh, but he wasn’t careless either.
If nothing else, he had to keep his guard up against other Earth Worms.
Tianheng voiced his praise: “Ah Zuo did great.”
Gu Zuo smiled with a bit of embarrassment: “Big brother, let’s start looking!”
Tianheng’s figure turned around, and immediately stepped onto a thick and sturdy branch. Gu Zuo’s psychic power discharged, and expanded along the length of this branch.
In the spaces between these branches, besides creating a continuous, tangled network, numerous nest-like hollows were formed. These hollows were of various depths, and could be found at all elevations. Many took the shape of pitch-black caverns. Settled within those countless branches, these hollows appeared somewhat strange.
This time around, Gu Zuo’s psychic power couldn’t be used to envelope the area. Instead, he divided it into several portions. Some smoothly looked through each stone leaf on this thick and sturdy branch, while others explored and searched inside every one of those tree hollows.
Based on his way of thinking, if this stone tree could produce stone ova, any ovum ought to be surrounded by stone leaves like a real fruit or was hidden away inside these termite-like tree hollows…
As Gu Zuo continued this search, he came across a place that wasn’t quite right.
Because his psychic power was fairly compacted this time, it suddenly seemed to be missing a bit after entering a certain tree hollow… He reacted immediately. Ah, it had been gobbled up!
Gu Zuo’s heart trembled. To prevent his psychic power from being completely devoured, he instantly withdrew what was left. The astonishing thing was that an abrupt sense of danger also gradually emerged. When his psychic power hurriedly gathered itself up, an Earth Worm that was a little more than two meters long suddenly burst out from the explored tree hollow!
Gu Zuo subconsciously released a sharp blade from the space between his brows to violently wage battle against that Earth Worm! After several rounds, the Earth Worm was stabbed a number of times and its severed body perished. The corpse was collected, but Gu Zuo, who had been given a fright, also put away the rest of his psychic power.
Tianheng felt Gu Zuo stiffen on his back, and gently asked: “Ah Zuo, are you hurt anywhere?”
Gu Zuo shook his head. After that, he remembered that his family’s big brother couldn’t see his own movements, and spoke without delay: “I’m not injured. I just didn’t expect it.”
He continued: “I used very little psychic power and retreated quickly. Although the Earth Worm consumed a bit of my psychic power, that small amount is lost with any normal wear and tear. It’s not worth mentioning.”
In fact, Gu Zuo was a little exasperated as he recalled the matter just now.
When he took back his psychic power with the Earth Worm in close pursuit, it was practically the same as hooking a fish…
Afterwards, Gu Zuo’s psychic power once again explored the tree hollow that contained the Earth Worm. After putting it inside, Gu Zuo’s eyebrows rose in delight with laughter in his eyes: “Big brother, let’s go in there! That tree hollow seems to have a stone ovum!”
Tianheng arched a brow: “Then, let’s go.”
After he finished speaking, his foot pushed against the branch’s bark. Then, Tianheng carried Gu Zuo straight to that place in a flash.
Assumptions couldn’t be made when looking at these tree hollows from a distance. This tree hollow wasn’t small, and its diameter was nearly five feet across. Sure enough, the interior was dark and deep.
Once Gu Zuo got here, he peered inside.
The interior of the tree hollow weren’t flat and smooth. Instead, it seemed like a mountain cave with numerous rocky folds and crevices. A stone ovum the size of a chicken egg was embedded at the very bottom. Its texture was as smooth as a river rock, but not the slightest wisp of qi emissions was emitted.
Gu Zuo furrowed his brows.
Could it be that it was a dead ovum?
Tianheng propped up Gu Zuo with a hand: “Ah Zuo, hold on tight.”
Gu Zuo promptly exerted the muscles in his limbs, and clung tightly: “Yes, big brother.”
Immediately following which, Tianheng’s other hand stretched forward, and swiftly plucked out that stone ovum like a bolt of lightning!
Then, he flipped away and landed on a nearby, drooping tree branch: “Ah Zuo, take it.”
Gu Zuo received this stone ovum, and carefully inspected it. He discovered that this stone ovum’s outer shell was even more jade-like than the ones he had seen before. It wasn’t known whether it was because the quality was so good that the medicinal fragrance didn’t leak out, or because the contents had basically wasted away.
However, their luck was very good to be able to find another stone ovum this quickly.
Gu Zuo shook his head. He didn’t overthink it, and put away the stone ovum.
In any case, when it came to this thing, the more the better. He would wait until the end to use his psychic power to examine them. Right now, he needed to conserve his psychic power so that he could slay the Earth Worms.
After finding this ovum, Gu Zuo’s confidence rose. Soon after, he followed the previous method, searching branch by branch and examining one tree hollow after another.
Not every tree hollow had an Earth Worm, and not every tree hollow with an Earth Worm would produce a stone ovum. Most of the time, they were completely and utterly empty.
After roughly two hours passed, no more than five stone ova were found inside the tree hollows.
At this time, Gu Zuo voiced his thoughts: “Big brother, I feel that relying on my psychic power to search isn’t the best way to do it. How about we try our luck and look around using our normal eyesight instead?”
Tianheng smiled: “We can do it that way, too.”
Yes. Because the amount of his psychic power already used up wasn’t small, Gu Zuo decided to recover some first before broaching the subject again. But if they stopped like this, it would waste a lot of time. Thus, they would try to look around with their eyes.
Hence, Gu Zuo vigorously absorbed medicinal qi in the storage space and hurriedly operated his inner cultivation method. That pearl-like psychic core in his Tianfu Acupoint was continuously oscillating as it sucked in the newly-generated, drifting psychic power, which caused it to circulate with rays of brilliant light. He recovered bit by bit.
Meanwhile, Tianheng’s strong and healthy body shuttled along the branch.
As he searched with his eyes, it wasn’t done haphazardly. He only followed the length of the branch and walked ahead. Every time he moved past a cluster of stone leaves, he parted them and carefully looked around. And when he passed through areas with tree hollows, he would get close to them and examine the interiors…
Just like this, after traveling along more than half of the branch, Tianheng suddenly paused his steps. He faced a cluster of stone leaves, and leaped over! He brushed away the leaves with a hand, and abruptly reached to grab something — Clack!
With a crisp sound echoing out, a stone ovum the size of a large cantaloupe appeared in Tianheng’s hand!
His way of getting it was really similar to plucking a fruit…
After this, his other hand stretched forward, and firmly captured something else.
Gu Zuo listened to these movements, and opened his eyes.
What first came into view was an ashen-white stone ovum whose entire surface was covered in downy rays of light.
As well as an Earth Worm whose mandibles were opened wide.
Gu Zuo: “…”
Mobilizing some extra psychic power, it was condensed into a sharp blade. With a few swishes, he got rid of the Earth Worm.
With another direct observation of his dear big brother’s luck, he felt pressured.
Tianheng smiled: “Ah Zuo, can you put it away?”
Gu Zuo silently collected the Earth Worm corpse and the stone ovum: “I think that the probability of there being something really good in this stone ovum is extremely high.”
Tianheng: “Everything good belongs to Ah Zuo, too.”
Gu Zuo: “Many thanks, big brother.”
After the two halted the conversation, Tianheng continued to move once more.
With the same method as before, he searched, looked, and investigated.
Gu Zuo straightforwardly multitasked, and split his attention. As he continuously recovered, he followed his big brother’s lead and started to distinguish the interior of each cluster of stone leaves.
Perhaps, it was because the luck of the Tiandu Body was too good. During this stroll, Tianheng swiftly and meticulously looked through a handful of branches. On almost every branch, he was able to harvest a stone ovum — Even if there were occasional misses, Tianheng seemed to be prompted by sudden impulses or whims to look in certain places. Following that, he would coincidentally discover an ovum hidden underneath the stone leaves.
These stone ova were as small as a clenched fist or as large as a watermelon. Based on their exterior appearances, all of them were of excellent product grades.
That’s right. In the beginning, besides a very small number that exuded medicinal fragrances, all of the stone ova looked the same to Gu Zuo. He didn’t know if his own psychic power was special or not, but after he and Tianheng harvested ten stone ova together, he unexpectedly discovered that, when he sent his psychic power into the storage space, he was able to make out the subtle distinctions in these stone ova.
Some surfaces were covered in extremely tiny bubble-like pores, while other surfaces were completely sealed. The ones that had pores usually had fine fragrances. As for the ones that were completely sealed, the degree of each ovum’s luster had extraordinarily minute differences.
Gu Zuo swallowed a mouthful of saliva.
He had a hypothesis. Perhaps, the higher the luster of a stone ovum, the better the object inside and the greater the life force? As for the ones that had dim rays of light, maybe they were approaching death or were already dead ova?
Currently, it was pointless to talk about all of this. Once he harvested even more, he could try cutting open a few samples that fell into those categories. Then, he would see whether his hypothesis was correct or not.
After having this idea, Gu Zuo immediately became even more enthusiastic: “Big brother, I have recovered a lot of my psychic power. Let’s split the work. You can look around the stone leaves, and I’ll check the tree hollows!”
Tianheng sensed his excitement, but chose not to pry. He simply raised an eyebrow, and smiled: “Okay.” He gave brief pause, “Ah Zuo, do you want to have a competition to see who can find more stone ova?”
Gu Zuo stiffened. For some reason, his pride flared up: “Let’s compete! But, will there be a prize for winning?”
Tianheng pondered for a moment. Once Gu Zuo seemed a little nervous, he finally said: “If there’s no prize, it won’t be interesting. What prize would Ah Zuo want?”
Gu Zuo paused.
I want big brother to confess whether he likes me or not!
Of course… That was out of the question.
Gu Zuo was slightly dispirited.
Though, what else could he think of?
For the time being, he couldn’t think of anything.
Gu Zuo asked: “In that case, what does big brother want as a prize?”
Tianheng thought deeply for a short while: “If this elder brother wins, Ah Zuo will warm my bed.”
Gu Zuo: “! ! !”
He had a dumbstruck look on his face. What did his big brother mean by that?!
His heart wanted to jump out of his chest!
Soon after, Tianheng promptly splashed a bucket of cold water onto Gu Zuo. One would only hear him laugh and speak: “That day I reunited with Ah Zuo, we lived and slept together. In my heart, I felt it was quite interesting. If Ah Zuo loses, we’ll find an opportunity to do it again. We can while away the time in bed, talking freely and intimately. Nowadays, Ah Zuo is always busy refining medicine and my training can’t be put on hold. As such, let’s use this as an excuse to rest and relax for a day.”
Gu Zuo immediately spurned his own wicked thoughts, but a hint of disappointment couldn’t help bubbling up.
However, he quickly threw out this state of mind, and spoke with a blushing face: “W-warming a bed is just warming a bed! It has also been a long time since I’ve had a proper chat with big brother, so losing isn’t a big deal. But if big brother loses, then you’ll find a day to keep me company when I go out to stroll around and… En, buy lots of medicinal ingredients before going back.”
Tianheng smiled and said: “What’s the difficulty in this? Your elder brother accepts. We’ll treat these things as the prizes for winning!”
Gu Zuo’s mood was delighted, but he was also a bit nervous.
Although his big brother was mischievous and liked to tease him, his own prize…was actually a date.
In any case, this matter was a common sight only in the modern era. His big brother definitely wouldn’t realize it.
T/N: Thanks for the correction, Charysa.
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