233: Chapter 233 The Ancient Village in the Thick Fog

"Hurry up and go wash up. There's evidence all over you. If that girl Ayugu sees this later, there's no telling how she'll gossip behind our backs."

Lin Ye patted Frost Star on the back with a mix of exasperation and amusement, the crisp sound echoing particularly loudly in the room.

Frost Star stuck out her tongue before reluctantly climbing out of bed.

Leng Yue, on the other hand, cast a small water purification spell.

A layer of soft spiritual waves flowed over her entire body, instantly restoring her dust-free, immortal fairy appearance.

Afterward, she changed into a simple and elegant cyan casual outfit.

She walked up to Lin Ye and neatly adjusted the collar of his hoodie.

"Let's go, don't keep Ayugu waiting too long."

"That girl doesn't say it, but she's actually terrified inside."

Leng Yue said softly.

...

Half an hour later, the three of them finished washing up and walked down the stairs.

In the lobby on the first floor of the inn.

Ayugu had long been carrying that huge backpack, pacing back and forth like an ant on a hot pan.

She wore a capable set of black Miaojiang short martial arts attire.

Hanging from her waist was the black bamboo tube filled with Gu insects.

She looked ready to either run for her life or fight to the death at any moment.

Helena stood dutifully by the entrance.

Holding two large waterproof luggage bags in her hands.

"Oh my goodness, my The Big Boss!"

"The sun is almost scorching our tails, and you finally decided to crawl out of your nest of tenderness!"

The moment Ayugu saw Lin Ye, she couldn't help but start complaining.

She sniffed the air and suspiciously swept her gaze back and forth over the three of them.

"Strange?"

"Why is there a scent on you guys?"

"And why are your faces all flushed, as if you took some ultimate tonic pill?"

Helena stood aside; as a former nun, although she hadn't experienced it herself, she instantly understood the source of this scent.

A trace of a blush flashed across her ice-blue eyes, and she quickly lowered her head, pretending she hadn't smelled anything.

"Children shouldn't pry into adult matters; this is the natural fragrance of leaking Pure Yang True Qi."

Lin Ye spouted nonsense without even blushing or missing a beat, cleverly changing the subject.

"The car is parked in the inn's backyard, and I asked the innkeeper to keep an eye on it. How do we proceed from here?"

Mentioning business, Ayugu's expression immediately turned serious.

"By water route."

She pointed to a bluestone path outside the inn, which stretched all the way to a large river behind the town.

"That river is called the Black Water River, the only river system running through the outer and inner parts of the Ten Thousand Mountains. The current is swift, and it's dense with hidden reefs."

"The depths of the mountains are shrouded in poisonous miasma year-round, and the land routes have long been occupied by various mutated poisonous insects and fierce beasts. Only by heading upstream along the Black Water River can we reach the edge of our Gourd Ancient Village the fastest and safest."

Lin Ye nodded and waved his hand grandly.

"What are we waiting for then? Let's set off."

...

Half an hour later.

The Black Water River dock behind Phoenix Settlement.

This river lived up to its name, its waters presenting an ink-green color as if bottomless.

The surface of the river was shrouded in a thin layer of white mist year-round, and the swift current emitted a low roar.

Ayugu paid a high price of ten thousand yuan in cash to buy a flat-bottomed wooden boat that looked fairly sturdy directly from a local old boatman.

The old boatman stubbornly refused to personally escort them into the mountains.

He said that there were strange sounds coming from the depths of the mountains every day these past few days, and all the fish in the water had died out; he wouldn't go throw his life away for any amount of money.

Lin Ye didn't force the issue either and directly dismissed the old boatman.

Four women and one man boarded the boat.

This flat-bottomed wooden boat was about seven or eight meters long, with a bamboo canopy built in the middle to shelter against wind and rain.

"Boss, this boat has no motor, only a punting pole. With us heading upstream like this, who is going to row?"

Ayugu looked at the bamboo pole at the stern of the boat that was over four meters long and as thick as a duck egg, feeling troubled.

She was a mage, and her physical stamina was lacking.

Leng Yue and Frost Star were supreme fiends; let them row?

Lin Ye naturally turned his head, his gaze falling upon Helena.

"Helena."

"Here, Boss."

The Western nun immediately straightened her back.

"The time to test your professional capabilities has arrived. Go, punt the boat."

Lin Ye lifted his chin, his tone exuding a justified sense of exploitation.

"Ah? Me?"

Helena was stunned.

"That's right, it's you. Just treat it as a bit of exercise."

Lin Ye walked to the stern, casually picked up the bamboo pole, and shoved it into Helena's hands.

"Hey!"

Helena took the bamboo pole, let out a delicate cry, the smooth muscle lines on her arms instantly tightening as her legs exerted force.

"Whoosh—!"

With a loud crash.

That duck-egg-thick bamboo pole directly gouged out a deep pit in the rocks by the riverbank, and the entire flat-bottomed wooden boat shot upstream with a swoosh, as if pushed by a speedboat's motor!

"Holy crap! What great core strength!"

Caught off guard, Lin Ye almost sprained his waist from the huge inertia, and quickly grabbed the edge of the bamboo canopy.

Ayugu directly fell flat on her rear onto the deck, staring dumbfounded at the Western nun standing at the stern swinging the bamboo pole like an electric fan.

"Is... Is this fucking rowing? This is practically a human-powered propeller!"

Helena seemed to have found a way to vent her energy.

"Boss! Is this speed okay?!"

Helena shouted excitedly from the stern.

"Okay, okay! Maintain this vehicle speed... cough, boat speed! Try to reach the village entrance before dark today!"

Lin Ye smiled and sat right down on the master chair underneath the bamboo canopy.

Leng Yue produced an exquisite set of tea ware from who knows where and began leisurely boiling water to brew tea.

Frost Star lay by the side of the boat, plunging her hand into the freezing river water, attempting to catch a couple of clueless fish to snack on.

...

The wooden boat plowed through the waves, forging ahead on the Black Water River.

As they penetrated deeper, the scenery on both banks became increasingly primitive and eerie.

The originally lush trees gradually turned into grayish-black dead trees.

The branches of these dead trees stretched toward the grey sky like twisted human hands.

The river channel grew narrower and narrower, with towering cliffs on both sides piercing straight into the clouds.

On these steep rock walls, every few dozen meters, one could see black coffins suspended in mid-air by iron chains.

"Suspended coffin burial."

Holding a cup of hot tea and looking at those black coffins on the cliff wall, Lin Ye spoke in a calm tone.

"This is the most ancient funeral custom in the Western Hunan region. Rumor has it that the higher the coffin is hung, the faster the deceased's soul can ascend to heaven."

Ayugu sat cross-legged opposite Lin Ye, her expression somewhat solemn.

"Boss, we have now entered the core area of the Ten Thousand Mountains. Normally, these suspended coffins are very quiet, but today... look at their surfaces."

Lin Ye looked along Ayugu's gaze.

He saw that on the surfaces of those dilapidated black coffins that had hung for hundreds of years, an eerie dark-red blood light faintly rippled.

The thick iron chains emitted a slight "clatter clatter" collision sound even without any wind.

It seemed as though something inside was ready to burst out of the coffin at any moment.

"Ignore them."

Lin Ye withdrew his gaze and leisurely took a sip of tea.

"The eruption of the spiritual veins beneath the Ten Thousand Mountains has caused the concentration of yin Qi in this area to skyrocket by dozens of times."

"It's completely normal for these antiques to absorb the yin Qi and produce some corpse transformation reactions."

He raised his head and glanced at Leng Yue sitting beside him.

"With a living ancestor like your Sister Leng Yue holding down the fort here, even if you gave the desiccated corpses inside these suspended coffins a hundred times their courage, they wouldn't dare lift open their coffin lids and jump down."

Hearing Lin Ye's praise, Leng Yue's lips curled into a faint, gentle smile.

And indeed, that was the case.

A whole day of navigation by water.

Although the scenery on both banks became increasingly gloomy, and the mist on the river grew denser—even occasionally hearing one or two eerie beastly wails echoing from deep within the woods—

within a radius of a hundred meters around this flat-bottomed wooden boat, it was eerily calm and peaceful.

No water ghost dared to come flip the boat, nor did any corpse fiend dare leap down from the cliffs to attack.

The supreme coercion faintly radiating from the Millennium Drought Demon and the Nether Corpse King acted like an absolute safety pass,

causing all those newly awakened eerie existences in this ancient mountain forest to tuck their tails between their legs and shiver in hiding within the dark.

"This business trip experience gets a full score."

Lin Ye stretched comfortably.

Time trickled away bit by bit.

The sun gradually tilted westward, and darkness fell extremely fast deep in the mountains.

In the blink of an eye, the very last ray of the sun's afterglow was completely swallowed by the steep peaks.

The entire surface of the Black Water River plunged into a thick, dark-grey fog.

Visibility dropped to less than five meters.

Helena at the stern also slowed down her punting, her ice-blue eyes vigilantly scanning her surroundings.

"Boss, a heavy fog has risen. The current has become very gentle, and it looks like we've entered a dead-water lake."

Helena reported in a lowered voice.

Ayugu suddenly stood up, ran to the bow, and tightly clutched the black Gu tube in her hand.

Her large, pitch-black eyes stared fixedly into the depths of the thick fog ahead, her breathing growing somewhat rapid.

"Boss... we have arrived."

In Ayugu's voice, a hint of complex emotion was mixed in.

There was the anxiety of approaching one's hometown with timidity, as well as a fear of facing the judgment of destiny.

Lin Ye put down his teacup, stood up, and walked to the bow to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Ayugu.

Ahead.

The dark-grey thick fog seemed to be slowly pushed aside to both sides by some invisible force.

At the end of this dead-water lake,

an ancient Miao mountain village built against the mountain slowly revealed its vague yet oppressive outline in the darkness.

Stilted houses were layered and distributed in an orderly fashion along the mountainside.

The entire village lacked a single lamp or fire, dead silent to an appalling degree.

Only atop the sacrificial grand hall at the very top of the village did a cluster of eerie, dim-green foxfire faintly burn.

"This is the Gourd Ancient Village?"

Lin Ye had his hands shoved into his hoodie pockets, his Pure Yang Eyes narrowing slightly.

"This scale certainly lives up to your title of the number one ancient clan in Miaojiang."

Lin Ye turned his head, looked at Ayugu who was trembling slightly beside him, and reached out to give her head a ruffle.

"Don't be afraid."

"Let's go, The Big Boss is taking you home."