Life as a Rogue Cultivator

Chapter 280: Escape

He Taichang stood off to the side, barely able to hide his excitement. For the sake of the Spirit Spring on Second Peak of Miao Feng Mountain, he had been running around for years. A single spring like that could support an entire sect for generations. Why was the Zhu family on the main peak always stood above all the other peaks? Wasn't it simply because they controlled a Spirit Spring?When the formation disk finally stopped, his uncle went over to check it. And he stumbled. His arms flailing, struggling to keep his balance. Whatever had caught him off guard, no one knew. He then slowly sat down right by the rock crevice, staring deep into the mountain mist, totally lost in whatever he was looking at or thinking about.

He Taichang followed his uncle’s gaze. . The fog was thick over that part of the mountain, curling and roiling. And something inside it looked ready to burst through. His heart jumped into his throat. He braced himself alert, but... he couldn’t sense anything at all.

“Uncle? Uncle? Uncle!” he called out, but it was as if his uncle didn’t hear a word and paid him no mind. So He Taichang shouted, “Li Mu, what’s going on? Li Mu! Li Mu…”

“Give it a moment. Maybe the fengshui shifted and the formation needs some adjustments. I’ll go check,” Liu Xiaolou answered and hurried off.

“Stop!” He Taichang snapped to attention. He was responsible for keeping an eye on Liu Xiaolou, and when he saw Liu Xiaolou heading straight into the thick mist, he rushed forward to block him. “Don’t move around blindly. Just tell me what’s wrong with the formation…”

“Stop!” He Taichang was super alert. He was supposed to be keeping an eye on Liu Xiaolou, and now that Liu Xiaolou was trying to slip into the thick fog. He stepped forward to block him. “Don’t move. Just tell me what the hell’s wrong with this formation…”

Before he got to finish, his vision blurred. A rope shot toward him and wrapped around him. Shocked, he tried to dodge, but there was no way to escape. In the blink of an eye the rope had coiled tightly around him, sealing every acupoint in his body. He collapsed onto the ground.

It was the Mysterious True Cord, which had already fused itself with Liu Xiaolou’s veins. All the other magical tools had been left with the demon tree, and this was the only one that didn’t draw attention.

Now that Liu Xiaolou had reached the peak of Qi Refinement and opened all the acupoints in his body, the Mysterious True Cord had become the tool that benefited him the most. All the shadow acupoints linked to the cord had fully matured. Anyone still cultivating their meridians and acupoints below the Qi Refinement or Foundation Establishment stages would be captured the moment the cord wrapped around them, since the shadow acupoints would cover and seal their own completely.

With no Eightfold Restriction Cord on him, with the formation disk temporarily trapping Peak Lord He, and with the thickest mountain mist he had seen in half a year rolling in, Liu Xiaolou couldn’t hold back anymore. The urge to escape filled his entire mind, and he struck.

Right now it was life-or-death. There would be no second chance. Without a moment of hesitation, Liu Xiaolou brought his palm down and crushed He Taichang’s skull. He Taichang died instantly.

He hurriedly reeled back the Mysterious True Cord. And didn’t even consider searching the corpse. He veered off to the right and rushed down the mountain.

Faster. Faster. Faster.

The thick fog let him see only about twenty feet ahead; anything beyond that vanished into white. It gave him the best possible cover, but it also slowed him down badly.

He nearly smashed into trees several times. And in the end, he even missed a step and plummeted from over ten stories high. He was a master at the peak of Qi Refinement now. In a rush, he sent out a flurry of palm strikes around him, using the recoil from his strikes against the cliff walls to land safely.

Hitting the ground, he immediately sprinted forward again. A shadowy figure suddenly appeared in the fog ahead, and Liu Xiaolou had no time at all to dodge. He crashed straight into it.

The person he collided with went flying, let out an “Oww!” of pain, crashed into the ground farther ahead, and immediately started cursing up a storm.

It was probably a cultivator from Second Peak. Liu Xiaolou couldn’t tell whether it was a relative or disciple of He Taichang and his nephew. But their cultivation was far inferior. Even so, they were making quite a racket.

Liu Xiaolou had no time to double back and kill them. He quickly changed direction again and kept running for his life.

He had no idea how long the formation disk he’d spent months refining could hold Lord He in place. After all, he’d refined it right under the man’s nose. The design, materials, and workmanship were all less than ideal. And on top of that, Lord He was already mid-Foundation Establishment.

If it could trap Lord He for even the time of one incense stick, that would be more than enough. He needed to get off Miao Feng Mountain as fast as possible. Or at least make it past Second Peak, and use the fog as cover to keep escaping.

He burst out of a chicken coop, sending birds squawking and dogs yelping in every direction. Amid the chaos, Liu Xiaolou finally remembered the way he’d come in, nudged his course just a little, and kept bolting down the mountain.

He barreled through several herb gardens and smashed down two fences before finally spotting a narrow gap in a sheer cliff. It was shrouded in fog just like the rest of the mountain, and it had to be the “Sky-Slit Gorge” from when he first entered.

Liu Xiaolou’s spirit soared. He dove straight into it, clearly feeling the terrain slanting downward. After sprinting for a short while, he suddenly burst out the other side and heard someone nearby call out, “Who’s leaving the mountain?”

Liu Xiaolou shouted back, “Herb gathering…”

A guard behind him yelled, “Don’t leave the mountain in this fog…”

Liu Xiaolou didn’t give a damn. He was already long gone.

After running for the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, he leapt over a sheer rock face. The paths he’d taken when he first entered the mountain flashed back in his mind. He slowed down a bit and followed his memory, picking his way carefully.

A jumble of stones twisted into a maze-like formation, something shaped by the work of nature itself, not by human hands. Liu Xiaolou could certainly study the formation’s core and break his way out, but right now there was no time for that. When they entered the mountains, the Wan couple had circled three times to the right. If that was the way in, then doing the opposite should be the way out: circle three times to the left…

After leaving the formation and marching another hundred zhang, three unusual trees appeared ahead. He remembered that the Wan couple had moved sideways to the left for about ten paces…

A waterfall formed by a mountain stream. The Wan couple had circled around that too…

A sheer cliff wall stood before him. It was not very high and looked like he could leap over it, but he chose instead to do as the Wan couple had done and slowly squeeze through the small hole off to the side...

After passing seven or eight such terrain features, his memory of the route ahead started to blur. All he could vaguely recall was that this place was about five or six li from Sky-Slit Gorge.

Liu Xiaolou understood very well the shortcomings of the formation he had hastily set up. He figured that Lord He had probably already broken free. If he followed this same path in pursuit, it was only a matter of time before he caught up with him.

He'd only been on the run for about the time it takes to burn two sticks of incense. That meant at least an hour remained before the fog cleared, and that hour was his last shot.

After thinking it over briefly, he rolled down the slope to the left, scrambled up the next hill, keeping the path he’d come in on always in sight. He did not dare stray too far from it, for fear of losing his bearings out here.

By the time the fog finally lifted, he realized he’d gone less than two li. Glancing back, the hundred-li stretch of Miaofeng Mountain rose behind him like a towering wall... now seven or eight li away.

And the original path he had started from was only forty or fifty zhang from where he stood.

Liu Xiaolou broke into a cold sweat and scrambled horizontally to the left. He kept going until he was over a hundred yards away before he finally started to feel a little more secure.

He found a tall stone peak and could not resist climbing up to take a look. What he saw made his heart jolt.

A familiar man stood atop a high peak along the original route, surveying the mountains. It was Lord He.

Peak Lord He had already broken free of that crude trap formation and had come ahead in pursuit.

If Liu Xiaolou had kept running along the original path, he would likely already be caught by now.

He had killed the man’s nephew, ruined the formation key and formation disk, tricked him for half a year, and cost him who-knows-how-much in spirit materials and spirit stones. There was no need to imagine what would happen if Lord He got his hands on him.

Liu Xiaolou quietly climbed back down from the peak and soundlessly slipped away.