Chapter 356 Goodbye Oriental Girl!
Chapter 356 Goodbye Oriental Girl!
"Brother Turtle, please bear with it!"
The mark left by the ligature was three fingers wide, and the chain was embedded deep into the flesh, vaguely visible and shocking.
The wound was covered with barnacles, the size of chicken eggs, densely packed, ugly and terrifying. The giant turtle was huge and bound by iron chains. Even if it had the strength to move mountains and seas, it could not relieve the pain three feet below its neck.
"If it doesn't work, I'll stop."
Such a huge beast must be dealt with with caution even if it shows goodwill.
"We have no grudges in the past, and no hatred in the present. When we met, it was fate, and we must part ways in peace..."
Zhang Yu took out the Shuilongyin dagger and observed the opponent carefully.
"Whoo~"
The giant turtle lowered its head and was extremely obedient, as if it had intelligence and knew that the other party had no intention of harming it.
"It sucks very firmly, I don't know how many years it has been."
Zhang Yu held the dagger in his right hand, slowly inserted it into the bottom, and pried it hard until black blood flowed out, and then it began to loosen. After expending a lot of effort, he was able to completely remove the blood-sucking barnacle at the edge.
If there is any residual tissue in the body, a new one will grow quickly.
The lesion is in the iron chain. If there were no wound caused by the chain, the skin of the giant turtle would be harder and thicker than armor, and the blood-sucking barnacles would just suck in vain. For now, it can only treat the symptoms but not the root cause.
"Whoo~"
Fresh blood overflowed and dissolved into the lake water, immediately attracting three or four snakehead fish, which were over four feet in size, with a mouth full of sharp teeth, and were ferocious and aggressive. They only dared to stop more than ten steps away, unable to stop.
"Huh~"
As the first barnacle was removed, the giant turtle let out a long and cheerful howl. Upon careful listening, one could hear a "yo yo" sound in the "whoosh" sound, which sounded very much like the cry of a deer and could be heard from far away. It seemed that this was the true sound of the old turtle.
"Crash..."
The water waves were shaking, and the black snakeheads thought the old turtle was angry, so they turned around and left.
“No wonder barnacles are so hard to pull out.”
Zhang Yu picked out the barnacle with his dagger and observed it carefully.
This blood-sucking barnacle is shaped like a cone, with a spiral vertebrae at the bottom, covered with dense black roots covered with the flesh and blood of giant turtles. After being pulled out, it continues to twist, as if trying to find a new host.
"It's not adsorption, it's drilling into the flesh."
He dropped the barnacles and crushed them with his foot.
One.
Two…
Ten...
Fifty...
Under deep water, the sun cannot be seen, and it is difficult to distinguish day from night.
I don't know how much time had passed before the giant turtle relaxed and a smile appeared on its weathered old face.
"Damn, there's more to it than I thought!"
Zhang Yu was in a depressed mood and his expression gradually became numb. He felt that the giant turtle had mistaken him for a barnacle cleaner.
Pry out barnacles, crush them, kick them away, and repeat...
"The sixty-sixth one!"
At the bottom of the lake not far away, the barnacles and flesh attracted many guests, including crabs, crayfish, and water insects, who brought their families with them, ate and took away everything, not leaving behind any food residue and quickly cleaned it up.
"Finally cleaned up!"
Zhang Yu sat at the bottom of the lake, reached behind him, grabbed the water bug that was crawling on its back to suck his blood, and threw it far away. He was already exhausted both physically and mentally, but when he saw the old man's smile on the giant turtle's face, he finally understood what it meant to disgust himself and help others.
"Yoyo~"
The water waves rolled, and the shrimp soldiers and crab generals were shaken all over the place, and the undercurrent pushed them to all directions.
"Hoohoo!"
After the giant turtle roared towards the sky, the black water above it shook violently and separated to both sides, as if revealing a passage. Upon seeing this, Zhang Yu hurriedly got up and swam upstream. However, as soon as his feet left the bottom of the lake, his clothes were bitten.
Zhang Yu said helplessly: "Brother Turtle, what else do you want me to do? I am not a fish, how can I stay in the water with you forever?"
The giant turtle nodded slightly, motioning him to stay where he was, then turned and walked away.
"Where is it going? And where does this chain lead to?"
Seeing this, Zhang Yu was curious and decided to follow it to take a look since he couldn't leave for the time being.
"Whoo~"
The giant turtle seemed to guess what Zhang Yu was thinking. After swimming about seven or eight feet away, it turned around and spit out water waves.
"Wow~"
An undercurrent surged, pushing Zhang Yu back to where he was, and it was obvious that they didn't want him to follow.
"Brother Turtle, you won't let me leave, and you won't let me follow you. Do you really think I'm a barnacle cleaner?"
Zhang Yu sighed helplessly. Seeing that there were many fat crabs at the bottom of the lake, he knocked out seven or eight of them. He picked up some water plants and tied them around his waist, intending to take them away as dry food on the road.
"Huh~"
After a while, the water surged and Zhang Yu quickly stuck his feet into the mud to avoid being washed away by the current.
"Brother Turtle?"
The giant turtle came back again. It looked at Zhang Yu, opened its mouth wide and spit out.
"Yoyo~"
It turned out to be a jade toad, about three inches in size, transparent throughout. There seemed to be countless lights flowing inside its belly, shining brightly, reflecting the clear blue water of the surrounding lake for several feet, like a rare jade sculpture.
"Cuck!"
The little thing was still a little dizzy when it floated in front of him along the current.
It was not shy and jumped onto Zhang Yu's shoulder, quacking non-stop at the giant turtle. Although the two were a thousand times different in size, they seemed to have become friends.
"Yoyo~"
The giant turtle gave the jade toad a lot of instructions.
"Quack!"
No matter how skilled Zhang Yu was in martial arts, he still couldn't understand animal language. He also didn't know what other uses this little thing had besides being exquisite and beautiful and being able to be worn on the head as an ornament, he asked with a smile.
"Brother Turtle, will you entrust your friend to me?"
The giant turtle seemed to understand human language. It nodded slightly, then let out a long roar towards the sky, and the waves broke through the black water.
"Brother Turtle, then I'm leaving?"
Zhang Yu leaped up from the bottom of the lake and swam upstream, with the jade toad clinging to his shoulders.
After swimming over ten feet high, he finally touched the black waters. He swam to the passage that the giant turtle had opened for him. He took a last look down and saw the giant turtle dragging the chain and walking alone into the depths of the chaos. His figure looked even more lonely.
In that direction, there is a vaguely raised pillar.
"Brother Turtle, I'm leaving!"
"Cuck!"
The little toad also cried out, as if reluctant to leave.
Zhang Yu immediately entered the passage and swam upstream. In the black waters on both sides, there were countless rapids and whirlpools that constantly eroded the path opened up by the giant turtle. The man and the frog swam upstream for more than twenty feet before they saw the transparent lake water.
"Finally it's out!"
Under the refraction of water light, the bright moon seems to fall into the lake.
"Cuck!"
Zhang Yu looked at the black water below with lingering fear in his heart. He raised his head to look at the full moon, which seemed so beautiful across the sparkling lake water.
The environment at the bottom of the lake was too depressing. It wasn't obvious when he was in it, but after he came out, he immediately felt relieved. He could clearly tell that the pressure was not brought to him by the giant turtle, but there were other things at the bottom of the lake.
"Ok?"
A figure in red floated in the full moon and gradually came closer. It turned out to be a woman so beautiful that she could topple a country.
"Oriental girl?"
When Miss Dongfang saw Zhang Yu, a look of joy flashed across her sword-like brows, but she became as cold as before.
"go!"
The Dongfang girl looked down, then grabbed Zhang Yu's shoulders and swam towards the lake.
She shuttled through the black water thirty-six times, and was squeezed out by the dark vortex each time. This state combines the power of nature and the strange art of escape into one, and is extremely difficult to break. If it is broken through with force, the entire area will collapse, and hundreds of thousands of pounds of lake water will pour down, turning everything on the bottom of the lake into dust.
On the lakeside, the sky is filled with stars, surrounding the moon.
"Brother Lan, didn't you go out to sea? Why are you back again?" "I have no one I can trust. Before I leave, there is something I want to entrust to you."
"No matter what, it's my duty as a brother!"
A moment of silence.
"If I can't come back, go to Orangutan Beach. There is an iron box buried under the bluestone where we first met. The things entrusted to me are hidden in the box. But before that, you are not allowed to move!"
"Okay! But...how do I know that Brother Lan, you won't be able to come back?"
Chi Chi!
"Brother Lan, why did you take out two snakes?"
"This is called the Twin Singing Snakes. They are born from the same egg and can communicate with each other even though they are thousands of miles apart. If that day comes, I will send you a message through the white snake, and then you will understand."
"Understood!"
The green snake was originally timid and listless, as if its spine had been removed.
"Chichi~"
After changing its owner, it immediately became lively, opened its little mouth, spit out red letters, revealing teeth the size of rice grains, and pretended to bite, but a "quack" sound was heard, and the little green snake immediately wilted again, scurried into Zhang Yu's sleeve, coiled up and fell asleep.
On summer nights, there are many mosquitoes near the water.
The campfire burned out the camphor oil in the branches, which was just right for repelling insects. Five or six crabs were wrapped in leaves and yellow mud and roasted by the fire, already emitting the aroma of meat. There were also two Donghu carps on the fire, gradually turning brown.
Zhang Yu talked about what he saw underwater: black water, iron chains, giant turtles...
"If it's freezing cold, then the chain should be made of ten thousand year old cold iron."
"Ten thousand years of cold iron?"
"Legend has it that in the far north, the sky and the earth meet, and thousands of miles of ice cover the land. Stars often fall from the sky, and when they encounter ice, they turn into iron. After being buried underground for tens of thousands of years, they become extremely cold and hard, and can be used to make weapons. All of them are top-notch in the world."
Miss Dongfang picked up the white jade wine gourd, took a sip, looked at Zhang Yu and said, "The Hanyuan dagger I gave you is made of ten thousand year old cold iron."
Zhang Yu nodded and said, "Ten thousand year old cold iron is so rare. It is a waste of resources to use it to make iron chains."
"Where's the dagger?"
Zhang Yu pretended to be confused: "What?"
The oriental girl said coldly, "Humph! Which girl did you use the gift I gave you to please?"
Zhang Yu smiled and said, "Lend it to a friend."
"Miss Yue, Miss Zhao, Miss Lan? It can't be Miss Ren who just sold you, right? That would be interesting..."
The oriental girl was sitting on the ground, and when she saw Zhang Yu's expression, she burst into laughter.
Zhang Yu quickly explained: "How could I give Brother Lan's things away casually? I just lent them to..."
The oriental girl waved her hand and said, "Don't say anything! It's none of my business who you give the things I gave you to."
The oriental girl's temper comes and goes quickly, as if there is nothing in the world worth her mind. Everything in the world is blown away by the breeze without leaving a trace. Only the pursuit of the ultimate realm of martial arts can be abandoned!
"Brother Lan, what exactly is that place? Where did the giant turtle come from?"
Zhang Yu wanted to change the subject, but he was also curious, so he continued asking.
The Dongfang girl took a sip of wine and did not expose Zhang Yu's thoughts, but continued speaking.
"According to what you said, that giant turtle is a different species. Its bloodline is much higher than that of the twin snakes. With a lifespan of hundreds of years, it naturally has some special abilities. Such creatures are very rare in the world. If you look carefully, you should find them in famous mountains and swamps, deep in the earth veins, and on overseas islands. It's just that ordinary people can't see them because of lack of opportunity."
Zhang Yu asked: "Who imprisoned it?"
The Oriental girl shook her head and said, "I don't know the specifics. If you want to know, you can ask those old guys, Shaolin Fangzheng, Wudang Chongxu, and the crazy old man behind Huashan..."
Zhang Yu thought to himself that the first two were both leaders of the orthodox religion and mortal enemies of the Divine Religion. If he rashly provoked them, Buddhism and Taoism would have to join forces to directly liberate them. Brother Lan really was talking without any concern.
"But... I guess it has something to do with Kunlun Mountain."
"Kunlun Mountains?"
Zhang Yu thought of the horse-drawn coffin he met in Xiangtan, Fu Jia who claimed to be from Kunlun, and Gan Hun who pretended to be a miracle doctor. They seemed to be closely connected, and he almost drank the bowl of medicine.
"Those two are the Three Saints of Kunlun. Gan Hun is the Saint of Sickness, and Fu Jia is the Saint of Death. They sound scary, but they only know some unorthodox methods. As long as you can see your true nature and enter the Xiantian realm, you will be able to protect yourself in front of them."
Zhang Yu sighed. The innate realm was not a small ditch that could be crossed with one step.
"They have a senior brother named Zhao Ling. I heard that he has some real skills and has inherited at least 50% of their master's teachings. If we are unlucky enough to meet him and Zhao Ling has bad intentions, then..."
"So...how?"
"Turn around and run, don't... look back!"
Miss Dongfang rolled her eyes at Zhang Yu. For someone like her, even saying the word "escape" felt extremely inappropriate. On the path of martial arts, one must move forward bravely. If gods stand in your way, one must kill gods; if Buddhas stand in your way, one must kill Buddhas. If you die, you die. What is there to escape from?
"You don't need to know about Kunlun Mountain now."
"One day, if you can reach the Grandmaster level, even if you don't want to know, those troublesome old guys will come to you and tell you."
After hearing this, Zhang Yu didn't ask any more questions.
The crabs and carp were already roasted, but Miss Dongfang was not interested, so Zhang Yu took them and ate them himself.
Xinghua Tower, I didn’t have time to eat a single bite.
At the bottom of the lake, I was extremely exhausted and was already very hungry.
It didn't take long for Zhang Yu to finish the feast of fish and crabs.
"Brother Lan, can you lend me a few sips of wine?"
Seeing that there were pieces of fish meat on the corners of his mouth, Miss Dongfang shook her head slightly, but still threw the white jade gourd over to him.
"You have a fishy mouth. Don't pollute my wine."
"How difficult is this!"
Zhang Yu smiled, holding the white jade wine gourd high, and the wine fell like a waterfall, going straight into his throat and heart, and then flowing through his whole body. He felt indescribably refreshed and heroic. He finally understood why Brother Lan drank like this.
It's not about being cool, but it's more intoxicating.
"Wow~"
After drinking half a gourd of wine, Zhang Yu's mind became clearer and clearer. Looking at the full moon, he felt the world was vast and couldn't help laughing.
Miss Dongfang took the wine gourd, took a sip, looked at Zhang Yu, and chuckled.
"Hahaha……"
After all, they don’t know exactly what they are laughing at.
Zhang Yu smiled at himself for escaping death. Having a close friend and a few pounds of good wine was enough to comfort him in his life.
The oriental girl laughed at herself, thinking that this time there was no certain outcome, she would compete with the master of her destiny.
Wine does not intoxicate people, people intoxicate themselves.
At dawn, several pieces of broken wood floated on the lake. They were originally boat planks and had traces of gunpowder on them.
"It's time to go this time!"
The oriental girl slowly stood up, looked at the red sun in the sky, and then glanced at the piano on the ground.
"I heard that Qu Yang and Liu Zhengfeng worked together to compose the music?"
"Swordsman Song."
"Swordsman, what a good name. You can use it to see me off."
"it is good!"
Zhang Yu stood up and placed the guzheng across his knees. His mood was just right at this moment. His mind quickly merged into the sound of the guzheng and he gradually entered a state of selflessness. He temporarily put aside the grudges in the martial arts world and got closer to the true meaning of "Swordsman".
"The vast ocean laughs, and the tide surges on both sides."
"Float and sink with the waves, remember this day."
"The sky is laughing, the world is in turmoil, who will be defeated and who will win, only God knows."
"Where are the sheng and the qin? The sound of the qin is sheathed."
"I use the water of the Yellow River to dip the ink and write, but the road ahead is long and life is like a knife..."
"If I get drunk for a while, I will see that I am not old yet. I want the sea to be vast and the sky to be high, and I will laugh out loud, and laugh my ass off!"
The oriental girl, holding a white jade wine gourd, jumped lightly and landed on the broken log in the lake. The broken log was like a boat, quickly drawing a trail of white waves on the water.
"The music is good, the people are good, there are no more regrets in the world!"
It passes through Donghu Lake, crosses Gan River, enters the Yangtze River, and goes eastward downstream.
She just raised her head and drank all the way, ignoring herself until her back disappeared into the horizon.
The strings of the zither vibrated slightly, like the roar of a dragon.
Zhang Yu loosened the strings of his zither, looked towards the sunrise, and said softly.
"Goodbye, Oriental girl!"
(End of this chapter)