Chapter Eighty-One 'Touring Mountains and Rivers'

  Three months later, in a place more than eight miles deep in the Kalos Forest, where people rarely set foot, on a flat ground next to a mountain stream, there were signs of a fire being lit for cooking. A woman in red clothes covered her mouth and smiled coyly, saying "Look at you all, I really don't know whose family it is that when the young master goes out, they even bring pots and pans!"

  The flattened patch of grass in front, the remains of a fire that had been doused with water, and the leftover food scattered among the bushes all indicated that someone had cooked a meal here. Anyone who had experience cooking outdoors could see this at a glance. Although the woman's words were tinged with unspoken mockery, they also contained a hint of envy. At this point, most of them looked like their clothes were in tatters, and they had been traveling through the mountains for over a month, eating dry rations all along the way, without even having the chance to drink a hot cup of water.

  After all, anyone who has experience living in the forest knows that the more complete the package of things that can be used to guarantee life is prepared, the lighter it will be, and the greater the chance of walking out of this crisis-ridden Karo Forest smoothly. It's common sense, but at this time, I saw someone not only cooking like a wild barbecue here, but also wasting food, and there were many dishes scattered in the grass, what a waste!

  After listening to the red-clothed girl's words, a young man who was similarly dressed in tattered clothes but couldn't hide his elegant and calm demeanor looked around before responding lightly, "This isn't the mark left by some young master with a large entourage of guards, it's highly likely that this is the work of an expert who killed those wolf corpses we encountered earlier. And judging from the situation here, there should only be one person!"

  It was clear that the elegant young man spoke the truth, and the red-clothed woman couldn't help but blush with shame, yet she didn't dare to feel even a hint of anger in her heart. Upon hearing the faint snickering from beside her, she suddenly glared over, but the other party merely responded calmly, "Why is Red Sash sister glaring at me? Although the young master didn't bring along cooking utensils that would allow sister to eat hot meals, he has many attendants following him to protect sister's safety. This is far better than this unknown lone traveler, so sister doesn't need to be envious!"

  "You're talking nonsense, I'm not envious at all. I just find it laughable that the person doesn't know what's good for them, bringing cooking utensils into the mountains..."

  The furious Hong Ying stopped mid-sentence, suddenly remembering the elegant young man's mention of over a hundred wolf corpses that were almost all killed with one blow. She realized she had no right to mock him and immediately fell silent, only glaring at the blue-robed girl with anger in her eyes because of what happened last time. She had already displeased the young master, and if she wasn't careful, it wouldn't be easy for her to keep her position as a noblewoman under his favor.

  Standing beside the elegant youth was a black-clad young man with a pale complexion, yet exuding an aura that made even the Zheng family brothers and their twenty or thirty subordinates unconsciously want to submit. Ignoring the dispute between the two women behind him, he spoke in a cold tone, "This person is indeed extraordinary. Looking at these marks, they seem to have been left in the early morning. I wonder where he has gone by now. If there's anyone who can keep up with us, things will surely go much more smoothly. Can you, Zi Li, identify his trail based on the surrounding environment?"

  "Zi Li was ashamed, just like last time. This week's surroundings didn't leave any trace at all, making it impossible to determine which direction he chose to leave from. Judging from the undamaged trees around him, this person's movements must be extremely agile."

  "Was he deliberately avoiding someone?"

  "It shouldn't be, it's just a habit, from these traces that have not been intentionally destroyed, and there is still the behavior of bringing cooking utensils into the mountain, what can be confirmed is that the other party is not in the mountain to avoid disaster, but rather like..."

  "Roaming in the mountains and playing by the water!"

  At this time, the person who was being talked about because of the cooking traces left behind that morning was thirty miles away, carefully digging up a thousand-year-old spiritual herb with a jade scoop and putting it into a jade box, ignoring a giant bear that had fallen not far away, then looked up at a dwarf tree on the stone wall in front of him that had nine purple-red fruits.

  That is the Zi Ye Ling Guo, to ordinary people, it has an effect that is almost like reviving from death and prolonging one's lifespan, but to cultivators, it is only a main medicine for refining second-grade elixirs of immortality, and can only extend the lifespan of those below the fusion stage by three to five years.

  Because the purple liquid Ling fruit has become extinct in modern times, the recipe for Yishou Dan has become a blank sheet of paper. In some introductory materials on spiritual medicine that are sold in the cultivation world, there is an attachment, and it can be said that it is everywhere but useless. There are actually many recipes like this one that have been made public due to the extinction of medicinal materials, including high-quality recipes, but they are all quite useless. However, for Zuo Xiaoyao, who happened to come to this world with ancient Chinese civilization similar to modern times, it seems that there is a possibility for those elixirs to reappear in the world, provided that she must recover her spiritual power.

  It's a pity to sigh, I heard that the purple liquid spirit fruit tastes good, especially suitable for the fruit of the cultivators. It takes 49 years to bloom and bear fruit, and another 49 years to mature. The modern cultivators have long been unable to enjoy the luxury of using it as a fruit. Nowadays, it's hard to get a tree, and the fruit has already ripened. Zuo Xiaoyao naturally didn't want to miss it, quickly climbed up the cliff and picked all nine fruits down.

  In the three months since she entered the Kalos Forest, although the depth of her exploration was not too far, there were many places that had been searched by Zuo Xiaoyao. After all, the spiritual medicine she was looking for might be completely useless or unremarkable to others, even if it grew on the outskirts for a long time, it could survive until she picked it.

  Carpet-style search for medicinal herbs, it is quite time-consuming, but on this road, she also encountered several good things that are many times more precious than the purple liquid spirit fruit, but they were of no benefit to her recovery, and she had to collect them one by one. Continue to work hard, it was because of this that a group of people who entered the Kalos Forest later than her were not far from her.

  The sky was already late, and coincidentally met a naturally formed stone cave that had not been occupied by wild beasts on the cliff where there were purple liquid spirit fruits. Unbeknownst to Zuo Xiaoyao, whose actions had been guessed as "touring the mountains and playing in the water", her mood was quite good. She picked up a pile of withered branches and leaves, started a fire, and while taking materials from the ground, washed the rice in the pond next to the cave, cooked the meal, and then infused internal energy into the knife she had bought in Luo City for chopping vegetables, and also temporarily bought an ordinary long sword. She cut a large stone into two pieces, took out bedding and other sleeping supplies from her storage bag, and laid them out.

  Finally, she took out some fungi, meat and wild vegetables from the storage bag, put them separately in a basket, carried a basin to the water pond outside to wash the vegetables. It seemed that she suddenly remembered something, Zuo Xiao Yao then took out a few warm-natured medicinal herbs, mainly for nourishing the body, and washed them together with the wild vegetables. The utensils and materials were complete, enough to make people who camped by the mountain stream where she had stayed overnight last night feel jealous and resentful.