Book 2: The Golden Lock of the Eight Gates

Chapter 1: This Sleepless Night

Four hours, it took four whole hours for Zhong Shan to completely heal from his wounds. Perhaps it’s because he used the Demonic Body Toning Method so much that he heals faster than normal. Although he doesn’t recover stamina, his injuries have pretty much all stabilised.

Opening his eyes, he saw Tianling-er’s eyes staring back at his, blinking.

“You must be hungry, come eat something.” smiled Zhong Shan.

“Zhong Shan, I’m so sorry. I’ll listen to you from now on, I won’t be so stubborn. I won’t be so immature anymore.” said Tianling-er voicing her regrets.

“Hmm? Haha, don’t worry. You’re still young, it’s the age when you’re meant to be immature. When you get old and become an old lady, that’s when you should stop being immature and stubborn.” laughed Zhong Shan coolly.

“No, no, no! I won’t grow old, I will stay young forever, I’ll stay beautiful forever!” exclaimed Tianling-er, mood improving instantly.

“Haha, that’s the Tianling-er that I know.” laughed Zhong Shan.

“Zhong Shan, Liu Ming, w.a.n.g Gui and Zhong Di’s disgusting corpses are over there. Thankfully you were here.” said Tianling-er pointing to the three bodies with a distasteful expression.

Seeing the three bodies, Zhong Shan frowned.

“Eat something first, I’ll go deal with them.”

Saying this, Zhong Shan walked towards the bodies.

Seeing Zhong Di’s deformed body, Zhong Shan sighed deeply as he shook his head.

To the side, he spotted his machete. Not far from Zhong Di, he quickly started digging, and soon, he had dug a large grave. Zhong Shan lowered Zhong Di’s body along with his belongings into the grave and with him, went the last traces of Zhong Shan’s mixed feelings. With a heavy heart, he filled in the hole.

Tianling-er watched the whole thing, without interrupting. She watched Zhong Shan wondering why he would do such a thing. The man was trying to kill him, and yet he buried this attacker.

Zhong Shan used his machete and cut out a piece of stone, and placed it vertically on top of the grave. He took a deep breath as he shook his head again. In the end, there was nothing engraved onto the tombstone. It was blank.

Next, Zhong Shan looked at the remaining two bodies, Liu Ming and w.a.n.g Gui.

As for these two people, Zhong Shan couldn’t care less. He looted both the bodies and found a sword on each of them as well as a Storage Bracelet.

“Ling-er, this storage bracelet, can you open it? Also these swords, there ought to be some Kong Ling Gems absorbed inside, can we extract the metal?” he asked Tianling-er.

“Yeah, the storage bracelet and swords all have Kong Ling Gems, however, the Kong Ling Gems have a special property: As soon as the object is destroyed, they become useless.” Tianling-er explained.

“Really?” wondered Zhong Shan as he regarded Tianling-er.

“I don’t know why either, you’ll need to ask my father for that. In any case, as soon as the magic item is destroyed, the Kong Ling Gem originally used to create it will become useless. Like a bubble being popped, once it pops it doesn’t serve as a bubble anymore. Essentially, it just disappears. The storage bracelet was made with a Kong Ling Gem being filled by Sumeru Stones. Once the bracelet gets destroyed the Sumeru Stones will naturally come out, however, whatever was originally inside the bracelets will vanish.” said Tianling-er.

“Vanish? How could they just vanish?” frowned Zhong Shan.

“I don’t know, you’ll have to ask my father for that as well, all I know is that they’ll disappear.” said Tianling-er.

Hearing Tianling-er’s explanation, Zhong Shan was a little frustrated.

“Alright, these storage bracelets, we’ll each take one, same goes for these swords.” smiled Zhong Shan.

“I’ll pa.s.s on the storage bracelet, since I already have one. Mine has a bigger holding capacity anyway, so you can keep those. As for the sword, the material is too poor, when I eventually go and have it reforged, it’ll cost me a lot of time and energy. I’ll pa.s.s on that too.” Said Tianling-er straightforwardly.

“Alright then.” nodded Zhong Shan.

Drawing his machete, he swiftly struck the two storage bracelets. After slicing them, the two white storage bracelets were broken, and a faint light disappeared from both of them and the two turned into ugly grey broken bracelets.

Zhong Shan took out the Kong Ling Gem, that he won from Tang Xiaoyou, from Tianling-er’s storage bracelet. He diligently worked it into a storage bracelet as though it was his first time doing so. This bracelet that Zhong Shan was making was very round and narrow, it’s not very aesthetic and is hard to tell that it’s even a bracelet at all, however Zhong Shan didn’t need pretty, he needed a storage place. If it was thinner, it wouldn’t knock into thing and will be easier to avoid breakage.

Placing the Sumeru Stones inside, he quickly closed them in, and so created a bracelet with colour close to that of human skin. On a cursory glance, it was really hard to tell the difference.

Because Kong Ling Gems are filled with one’s own blood, as such, if one should wish it, one could see inside of it and see an approximately two metres squared storage s.p.a.ce.

The s.p.a.ce wasn’t huge, but it was enough for Zhong Shan.

From Tianling-er, he retrieved all of his belongings and placed them in his own storage bracelet. This exchange carried on for a while and finally when done, Zhong Shan let out a breath with a content expression on his face.

Storage bracelets, storage bags, these magical items, decades ago possessing these would’ve been but a pipe dream but now, he finally has them. He finally has his own storage bracelet.

“Fun right?” The night I got my first storage bracelet, I played with it all night too. The next day, my eyes were so red, my father scolded me thoroughly.” laughed Tianling-er.

Watching Tianling-er, Zhong Shan shook his head smiling. Tianling-er couldn’t possibly experience his own emotions.

Looking at the two swords, Zhong Shan shook his head. The two swords were first tier swords, if the owner dies, it’s impossible to raise the level. These materials, according to Tianling-er, weren’t great. But, however bad these materials are, they still must be better than plain old iron. He sheathed the sword, and thought to cross that bridge when he gets there.

Tianling-er was hurt, so she couldn’t walk. As such, the two just rested at the bottom of the valley. He placed a rug for Tianling-er to rest on and Zhong Shan continued to recover from the rest of his injuries.

Half lying on the fur rug, Tianling-er watched Zhong Shan. He didn’t know what she was thinking about, only that she was watching idly, when suddenly and unexpectedly, the corner of her mouth twitched into a smile.

The sky gradually darkened, but with Tianling-er’s eyesight, and the moonlight, there was still enough light to see the far mountains. Zhong Shan was still recovering, obviously the wounds he suffered were quite severe.

Some time pa.s.sed, and Tianling-er suddenly frowned, and her expression showed frustration. Looking at Zhong Shan, she could feel her emotions becoming unnatural. She wanted to open her mouth and call Zhong Shan, but every time she tried, she would always stop, thinking it was better for him to keep resting.

Watching Zhong Shan, Tianling-er’s face flushed bright red. She carefully watched Zhong Shan, and found that he really wouldn’t wake up any time soon. Knowing this, she carefully tiptoed past Zhong Shan and left far away, to the other side of the valley. She was in a hurry.

Finally, she stood at the cliff face.

Standing far away, she couldn’t find any more giant stones. It’s as though the only large stones around were in front of Zhong Shan already.

Sneakily, she checked up on Zhong Shan and lightly bit her lips. She was increasingly frantic, but she need to pee. It was hard to keep it in, and right now she’s still in Xiantian, unable to reach the Golden Core Stage yet, so she still needs to excrete all of the waste products that her body produces.

Walking next to the mountain cliff, she peeked over at Zhong Shan again, she was panicked as she grabbed her undergarments. Her two eyes stared down at Zhong Shan. She was deathly afraid that Zhong Shan would turn around.

Right now, inside the mountain valley, there is unknown danger around. Zhong Shan naturally wouldn’t throw his entire body and mind into recovering, instead he rested half of his mind and half of his body.

As soon as Tianling-er left the fur blanket, Zhong Shan noticed.

What was she trying to do? Tianling-er didn’t call for Zhong Shan, but instead stalked past him.

Zhong Shan had this habit where he would keep his back to the safest thing in the vicinity. Which is to say, right now Zhong Shan had the entire mountain cliff to his back and in front was the mountain valley pa.s.s.

It was no problem for Tianling-er to walk behind him, however, what was she going to do when she was behind him? Zhong Shan hadn’t called her out and was instead listening carefully, with  his best hearing ability.

Then suddenly, behind him, there was a sudden noise of slow trickling of water accompanied by some splatter sounds on the floor.

Hearing this sound, Zhong Shan frowned and wondered what Tianling-er was doing. Sitting straight he listened intently.

“Hua hua hua……………………..”

The sound of streaming water came from behind, and Zhong Shan’s body stiffened, finally realising what Tianling-er was doing behind him.

A sense of silliness quickly seeped into Zhong Shan’s mind. At that moment, Zhong Shan stiffened and s.h.i.+vered, immediately pretending to have never discovered and pretended to rest.

However, Tianling-er was even more panicked than Zhong Shan, so much so that she was about a hundred times worse. Two eyes stared at Zhong Shan, and as his body s.h.i.+vered, so did Tianling-er. The original trickle sound of the water also stopped.

He found out? Did Zhong Shan wake? Tianling-er’s face was so red it could cook eggs.

However, the water flowed halfway and then being forced back is very uncomfortable, and once she saw Zhong Shan stop moving, Tianling-er couldn’t hold it in anymore and continued to emit this water trickling sound.

Until the end, Tianling-er stared at Zhong Shan.

When the water stopped, there was the sound of clothes ruffling.

Tianling-er awkwardly returned to the fur blanket, however, in Tianling-er’s mind, there were a ma.s.s of questions. Did Zhong Shan wake? Did he hear?

Lying down on the fur blanket, Tianling-er’s face began to burn red.

Impossible, Zhong Shan didn’t wake, if he did then why didn’t he turn his head?

Tianling-er continued to console herself, endlessly consoling herself and finally two hours later, she calmed down enough. With her heart at rest, she thought to a different problem. Regardless of whether Zhong Shan woke up or not, she did something embarra.s.sing anyway, which is all the while as she peed, she had been staring at a man.

“How, how could this happen, how could I stare at a man while I……”  She thought.

Tianling-er buried her face into the blanket, using the pillow that Zhong Shan prepared to cover her head, as if covering up in this way would conceal her burning face.

This night, is undoubtedly going to be a sleepless night.