The others weren’t asleep yet and were also alarmed. All of them drew out their weapons, ready for battle.
“Could it be that the other student groups have come to launch a sneak attack?”
Li Fen was very nervous.
She had heard that it was a very common thing for the student groups to fight and kill each other for the sake of getting a better ranking.
“Shut up!”
Zhang Yanzong let out a low bellow. He was afraid that if they were to speak or give out commands, the enemies would hear them. Therefore, he threw a glance, wanting to let the members scatter away. However, these guys didn’t notice it at all.
“Foolish!”
Zhang Yanzong was speechless, but he felt even more upset toward Xuanyuan Po. This guy had picked up his silver spear and took the initiative to face the enemies.
“Do you have brains?”
Xuanyuan Po’s battle prowess was very powerful, and Zhang Yanzong had been planning on using him as a main attacking force. They should just let cannon fodder go scout things out.
Tantai Yutang hid at the side, looking at Zhang Yanzong who was feeling very upset. He couldn’t help but want to laugh.
This Zhang Yanzong was strong, but he didn’t understand that sometimes, things wouldn’t go the way one wanted to. One should make the best of new opportunities.
When your authority wasn’t enough to let the students abide by your words, then you shouldn’t be angry nor discouraged. Instead, you should try to guide them to complete your orders.
Xuanyuan Po dashed out for over 30 meters and came to a stop.
“It’s you guys!” Under the moonlight, Xuanyuan Po saw that Li Ziqi had come back. She was riding a big white tiger, and it seemed quite impressive.
The tiger landed in front of Zhang Yanzong with a few leaps.
“Leader, is this ok now?”
Li Ziqi asked as she stroked the big white tiger’s fur.
Zhang Yanzong’s lips twitched, not knowing how he should answer. It was because now that the little sunny egg had the tiger as her ride, she’d be able to catch up with the rest of the group.
“Li Ziqi, how did you manage to do that?”
Li Fen was surprised.
“Are you a spirit controller?”
Shi Qiao was surprised.
“Keep an eye on your pet. Don’t let it bite others!”
After saying that, Zhang Yanzong ignored Li Ziqi.
Women had no resistance toward such big furry cats. Li Fen ran over, reaching out her hand and wanting to pet it. However, when she saw the tiger baring its fangs at her, she felt a little nervous.
“It’s fine!”
Li Ziqi stroked the big white tiger’s head to console it.
After the round of ruckus, the campsite quietened down again.
Li Ziqi lay down, leaning against the big white tiger, her expression dull.
Although the problem of her catching up with the others had been resolved, the little sunny egg wasn’t happy.
Li Ziqi had a photographic memory and extremely high intelligence. Therefore, she was able to learn everything very quickly.
Sun Mo had taught her well, and with the Soul Imprint, he taught Li Ziqi everything he knew.
Li Ziqi knew that nothing good would turn out from being too greedy and thus devoted all of her energy to the study of spirit runes and cultivation. Recently, she also took some time to go to the Wind King Hall to listen to the Wind King sharing his experience and learning his secret arts.
Li Ziqi had reached the elementary-grade of the art of spiritual beast control very long ago but didn’t dive too deep into it. It was because she’d need to nurture the relationship with the spiritual beast if she wished to catch them. It was too much of a waste of time.
That morning, after ascertaining that it was too difficult for her to keep up with the team, Li Ziqi thought of catching a pet as a ride. However, she didn’t do it.
It was because the idea of spiritual beast control was to treat the pet as a friend and not a slave to oppress.
This was what the saint who had founded this subject back then had always said. Li Ziqi had caught a pet to deal with the emergency, and this was considered to be a violation of this ideology.
The big white tiger seemed to have noticed Li Ziqi’s guilt and got closer to her, reaching out its big tongue to lick her face.
“Haha, stop it, it tickles!”
Li Ziqi wanted to push the big white tiger’s head away, but it was too persistent.
Lu Zhiruo sat at the side and looked at this scene enviously. Then, her expression turned into disappointment.
(Eldest Martial Sister is really talented. She shouldn’t have studied much on the art of spiritual beast control but still succeeded on her first attempt.)
This was too much of a blow.
In fact, the reason why Li Ziqi was able to find this big white tiger so quickly was thanks to the spirit qi roaming dragon’s help. Early the next morning, the sky had just lit up when the group went on their way again. With a ride, Li Ziqi’s speed became faster. Moreover, she also had to stop occasionally to wait for the rest of the group.
This made Zhang Yanzong’s countenance even grimmer. “You can catch pets? Then why didn’t you do so earlier? You’ve wasted everyone’s time for nothing!” “Stop it. There’s a divergence in front. Which way should we go?” Xu Jialiang tried to act as the mediator.
“Go right!”
Zhang Yanzong snorted. Everyone turned to head right, but after traveling for over ten meters, Lu Zhiruo suddenly came to a stop. She tiptoed and looked toward the path on the left.
“What’s the matter?”
Lu Qi asked. He liked this big-chested girl a little.
“I... I feel that we seem to have taken the wrong path.”
Lu Zhiruo’s gaze wandered off.
“It’s wrong?” Zhang Yanzong frowned and took out the map to check. “The right path is correct!”
“But... But I keep having the feeling that we should go left!”
Lu Zhiruo’s character was on the weaker side. If it was in the past, she wouldn’t dare to raise alternative views. But this time around, her teacher’s honor was on the line and she mustn’t bring shame to his name.
“Your feeling is more accurate than the map?”
Zhang Yanzong sneered. Why were Sun Mo’s disciples so troublesome?
“I... I...”
Lu Zhiruo lowered her head, poking her two index fingers together like a pet cat who had done something wrong. In the past, she had relied on dropping branches to decide on the path to take.
The method was to find a branch that was one meter long, put it in the middle of the road, then let go. She’d take the path the branch fell toward.
Then, in the several thousand lis distance from Shengjing to Jinling, she had only taken the wrong path for that few times she used that method! However, the papaya girl knew that this reasoning wouldn’t work.
“Li Ziqi, if you have any dissatisfactions, then raise it to me. Can you not get her to do such things anymore?”
Zhang Yanzong pinched his forehead. He felt that Li Ziqi had instructed Lu Zhiruo to do this to create trouble for him.
Li Ziqi had wanted to explain, but after seeing Zhang Yanzong’s fatigued look, she gave up. She knew that this guy had slept very late last night, thinking of how they could win. He was really exhausted after racking his brains.
“Set off!”
Zhang Yanzong took the lead. In another hour, they would arrive at the Human-faced Canyon. The real challenge was going to start from there.
On a hill that was 400 meters behind them, Fan Yao’s group was observing them. When they saw Zhang Yanzhong’s group suddenly stopping at the diversion, he felt agitated.
“They’ve finally noticed that there’s a problem with the map!”
“That might not be the case!”
Sun Mo shook his head. As they were too far away, they couldn’t hear what the students were saying. However, from everyone’s gazes, the one who had proposed something was Lu Zhiruo.
Lu Zhiruo was someone who relied on her intuition. This reason wouldn’t be able to convince Zhang Yanzong and the others.
As expected, a few minutes later, the group continued on their way, taking the wrong path. “Sigh!”
Fan Yao sighed and rubbed his hair vigorously. What were they going to do?
“Teacher Gu, what are the chances that Zhang Yanzong will notice a problem with the map?”
Song Ren asked. If they were delayed by another two days, it’d be too late even if they were to notice it then.
“I’m not sure.”
Gu Xiuxun frowned so deeply that the crease on her forehead could kill a crab.
“Ziqi, quickly notice the problem!”
Sun Mo prayed. As for Tantai Yutang, even if he were to notice it, he might not say a word about it.
At 11 a.m, they arrived at the Human-faced Canyon.
This was a huge and meandering mountain that spanned across the land. It’d be too much of a waste of time to go around it, but the danger would be too high to cross it. It was because those places were desolate and the best route would be to pass through the canyon.
Why was it called the Human-faced Canyon?
Everyone understood after arriving there. The walls on both sides of the entrance to the canyon had human faces of different sizes engraved into them.
Some were several ten meters long, some the size of a millstone, some with strange shapes, and not all of them were human faces.
Lu Zhiruo took a look then grabbed onto Li Ziqi’s sleeves nervously.
Li Ziqi gulped, feeling a little nervous as well.
Some of these faces had enraged expressions, and some with strong killing intent. It was not known who had carved them, but they were very lifelike and gave people the chills.
Zhang Yanzong and Tantai Yutang didn’t look at the faces, but they looked at the student group that wasn’t far away from them. As Li Ziqi had a ride, she was able to travel faster and not be a burden to the others. The group ended up catching up to the student group from Chongde[1]. “Let’s set off!”
Zhang Yanzong urged. “Xuanyuan Po, you lead the way. As for the rest, don’t leave the group without my orders.”
At the sight of this scene, Chongde’s group leader also urged his members to go on their way.
Both parties tried to move quickly, not wanting to fall behind the other.
Looking down from the sky, the canyon was like a huge meandering python that lay on the mountain.
The two groups continued traveling for about ten minutes when they suddenly heard screams and fighting sounds.
“Everyone, stop and quickly hide!”
Zhang Yanzong urged. There were crevices and caves on both sides of the canyon, some as wide as two to three meters while others as narrow as a finger.
“Remember, be in groups of at least two. Don’t go out by yourself.”
Just as everyone went into hiding, a group retreated from the Human-faced Canyon in a battered state.
The group that started off with 20 people now only had 15 remaining, and all of them were covered in bruises. One of them was carried on the back of a tall guy. His entire body had turned green and was emitting green poisonous gas.
get poisoned as well!”
A girl cried and pleaded.
“No!”
The tall guy immediately refused. “Where are the signal tubes? How many more are we left with?”
“There are three more left!” “Set off another one! Quickly!”
The tall guy urged, “Where are those human-faced spiders? Are they still chasing after us?”
“We don’t see them for now.”
Although they couldn’t see the spiders, none of them dared to let down their guards. They quickly hurried on their way as fast as they could.
A signal tube was set off.
Bang!
As a loud sound rang out, a ball of red fireball rose into the sky with trailing flames.
This unlucky group left. The students from both the Central Province Academy and Chongde came out from the crevices on both sides.
“This... Isn’t this too dangerous?”
Someone appeared horrified and anxious.
This was no joke. They might really die!
“What should we do? Should we take a detour?”
Li Fen suggested. The green student had given her a big fright.
“What detour? Continue on!”
Zhang Yanzong spoke firmly. If they were to take a detour, they wouldn’t have a chance of getting into the top 50, let alone getting into the top 3.
“What are you guys still standing there for? Move on!”
Chongde’s leader clenched his teeth and gave the order. (Since the Central Province
Chongde would dare to do the same!]
[1] Chong can mean esteem/worship, while De can mean morals/ethics.