But the Jiang family elders will definitely arrive the next day. No, they will arrive today. Once they arrive, given the Jiang family's current power, Lin Yao has no confidence in his future freedom, because Xiao Cao doesn't know what happened or how long she will need to recover.
The last time he merged with Mother Earth, it took three days. Yi Yang said that during those three days he neither ate, drank, nor moved, like a statue. He couldn't even sense breathing or heartbeat, and his whole body was radiating a green light.
According to Xiaocao, they found an ancient spiritual object on par with the Earth Mother, but her own body showed no abnormalities. Only Xiaocao, who had lost contact with the Earth Mother, was missing. There must be something wrong here.
Lin Yao dared not think too much at this moment, and only decided to follow Xiao Cao's advice to flee immediately and run as far away as possible. As for Dika's senses, he only hoped that she would not fully cooperate with his instructions out of consideration for their relationship. At this moment, Lin Yao could only place his hopes on her character, because he was under strict surveillance and had neither the ability nor the possibility of taking Dika with him when he fled.
Even if they had the idea to kill the Gu worms, they had lost the ability at this point.
Panting heavily, Lin Yao climbed up the steep cliff and the pine branches growing wildly, his heart pounding violently.
That's too difficult! That's too exciting!
At this moment, a single misstep, or a mishap with the silver hook and rope, would mean saying goodbye to this lovely world. The path had shifted from a slightly sloping hillside to a steep section, avoiding the more mushroom-shaped section. Now, the "passage" beneath the pine trees was suspended in mid-air. In the event of a fall, there would be no chance of being cushioned by a single tree.
Teasing, calming the nerves.
After recovering slightly, Lin Yao continued to throw the silver hook at the pine tree above him.
Although medical true qi is useless in combat, the derived perception and attachment to objects are extremely powerful. If it weren't for this method, Lin Yao would never have been able to control the hemp rope and the silver hook so skillfully, because most of the time he needed to use the hemp rope to suspend himself to another pine tree instead of climbing directly. At this time, he had to rely on the true qi attached to the hemp rope to shake and take the silver hook out of the tough bark.
This is a remote operation, which can only be achieved with medical internal energy.
Lin Yao spent a full hour and a half navigating the final section of the cliff, which was thirty meters high. During this time, he had to make numerous choices and repeatedly return to the original path to choose a new direction. Finally, he managed to find a safe passage by using the sparse pine trees, and reached the top of the mountain.
Looking down at the valley below the cliff, which was still pitch black and without a trace of light, Lin Yao calmed himself down and turned to run in a direction he had guessed.
Lin Yao wasn't confident he could reach the more than 200 kilometers of primeval forest quickly, so he absolutely couldn't choose the direction leading out of the valley to other areas, because doing so would inevitably mean being caught along the way.
Lin Yao chose a direction that was 37 or 38 degrees from the direction of the outer city, because when he was in the outer city before, he noticed the location of the only road leading out of the mountains in that small town, and thought that even if he was far away from the outer city, he could still intercept the road along the way.
Once he reached a place where he could see people, he would be basically safe, because he believed that the Yi family's large force was heading this way. As long as he made contact, given Yi Potian's Heaven-level strength and style of doing things, he would definitely be able to get transportation to meet him as soon as possible.
The pitch-black night was perfect for escape, but it also caused Lin Yao to completely lose his way.
The crisscrossing rocky mountains, the complex terrain, the dense jungle, and the occasional wild animals that forage at night were all reasons why Lin Yao changed course temporarily.
Without the guidance of the stars or the aid of the mountain outlines, Lin Yao wandered around for only a few tens of minutes before losing track of which direction he should take. With a perception range of only fifteen meters, Lin Yao could only memorize the large mountain behind him that he was trying to escape from, and blindly fled in a direction that was far away from that mountain.
Time, like a woman's beauty, is a constant and unwavering change that cannot be altered by human will.
The dark sky finally changed; a ray of dawn appeared from the direction of the mountaintop, revealing the outline of the cliffs and the shadows of the trees.
Lin Yao was dumbfounded...
After a whole night of fleeing, he was still wandering around at the foot of the same mountain, only about 500 meters away from that distinctive steep cliff!
This... makes one want to cry out to the heavens and have a good cry.
Escape! Even if it means death, escape to safety!
Lin Yao swallowed hard, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and ignored the direction he had set beforehand. He charged straight into the dense forest. As long as he got away from the valley, he would be victorious. The primeval forest in Hunan was not large, at most a few hundred kilometers. He did not believe that he could not break through the forest and reach the human settlement.
Fortunately, the medical true qi has no other abilities, but it is quite effective in restoring physical strength and increasing endurance, which also gives Lin Yao the ability to continue expeditions.
The sweat on his forehead was from nervousness.
Lin Yao kept running, running for his life, because he sensed danger, a danger that could drive him to despair.
He could sense Dika's longing!
Daylight broke, and the Daika tribe already knew that Lin Yao was not in his wooden hut, so Dika must have been notified as well. Although Dika's location hadn't changed, it was likely that the old fox was using Dika's senses—whether to lure or coerce him—to track him down.
This is a signpost with almost no solution.
At this point, the only thing Lin Yao could do was to increase the distance from the valley as much as possible, making the capture operation as unsuccessful as possible. He could only race against time with the Daika people to see if Lin Yao would reunite with the Yi family first, or if the old fox would capture him first.
"I'm such an idiot!" Lin Yao cursed himself as he ran, regretting wasting several hours of the night.
At that time, although it was pitch black everywhere and there were no stars or mountain outlines to indicate the direction, he had Dika as an indicator. He could use Dika as a marker to get as far away as possible, so that he wouldn't waste the whole night only to escape the cliff by 500 meters.
Although he had never used this "Thousand Mountain Gu" sensing method before, Lin Yao knew from Dika's perception that he could easily use it flexibly with a little thought and experimentation.
"I'm a stupid pig, I'm a stupid pig!" Lin Yao stuffed a wild fruit into his mouth and moved through the dense primeval forest like a nimble ape.
"Fortunately, Dika's location hasn't changed yet. I just don't know how long this stubborn little girl can hold out." Lin Yao swallowed the bitter wild fruit juice. "I suppose the old fox won't just kill Dika and take her with him, right? If that's the case, not only will a kind girl die, but I might not escape either, because of Xiaocao..."
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[PS] I have personally verified a truth—drinking leads to trouble! I am reflecting on my actions and writing this while suffering from a headache. I hope it won't have too much of an impact.
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Chapter 240 Joint Seclusion
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Lin Yao has food.
Although the accident involving Xiaocao was too sudden, and she didn't have time to get some of the "Bigu Dan" and other elixirs from her leaf axis for Lin Yao, there was no need to worry about her starving to death in the primeval forest.
Lin Yao learned a lot about witch medicine from Le and had a lot of hands-on experience. The plants and animals used in witch medicine are very extensive, which allowed Lin Yao to accumulate a lot of experience. He has a pretty good understanding of the useful resources in the forest.
Good teachers are hard to find, and by the same token, outstanding students are also extremely rare.