Life as a Rogue Cultivator

Chapter 281: Returning North

The Ten-Thousand Great Mountains weren’t easy to navigate. Even with the original path behind him as a reference, Liu Xiaolou almost lost his way several times.Once he plunged into the thick forest, directions that seemed obvious at first became unreliable. Everything was just a little off.

So Liu Xiaolou had to keep edging closer to the original route. The closer he got, the less likely he was to veer off course.

But doing that also made it much more likely he’d be spotted by the people of Miao Feng Mountain. It wasn’t just Lord He conducting the search; every rogue from the Second Peak had joined in. A few times, Liu Xiaolou even saw members of the Zhu family from the Main Peak taking part in the hunt.

The closest call came when a group of Miao Feng Mountain bandits passed within a few yards of him. He had to hide inside a hollow tree for an entire night. By morning the place had drawn in hundreds of arm-length giant centipedes. And he was forced to abandon the hiding spot and hurry off to find another.

It wasn’t just getting lost that wore him down. Every step meant dodging snakes, insects, strange plants, and wild beasts, all while keeping quiet enough not to draw the attention of the Miao Feng Mountain bandits. The whole trek drained him to the limit.

Five days on the trail, and he’d managed little more than sixty li. That night, he spent four hours locked in a staring match with a giant demon toad by a pond. Just as his nerves were giving out, a deep tremor began to roll in from far away, and the rumbling grew louder and louder.

The memory of what happened three years ago came rushing back. But the cries he heard now weren’t like the fierce roars of tigers and wolves back then. These sounded heavier, more muffled.

The giant toad stopped paying attention to him. It dove straight into the pond, disappearing without a single ripple. A herd of wild boars shot past him, tearing into the dense forest ahead, followed by tigers, leopards, wolves, bears… and then deer, sheep, mice, and rabbits...

Liu Xiaolou vaulted up into the treetops, peering toward the source of the commotion. On the summit of a nearby mountain stood a massive ape, howling at the sky. Then, it sprang down the mountainside, tore two huge trees out of the ground. And swung them like twin clubs as it smashed wildly in every direction.

The giant ape was rampaging like a mad thing. It didn’t seem to have any clear direction. It took a few steps east, then bounded a few jumps west. Rocks exploded everywhere and shattered trees flew through the air. But overall it was moving toward him, and because its body was enormous like a mountain, it only looked slow. Each leap carried it dozens of yards, and there was no telling when it might crash right into his area.

After a quick assessment, Liu Xiaolou realized that the wild animals of the Ten-Thousand Great Mountains had the surest instincts. The direction they were fleeing in really was the best route right now.

There was no point in hesitating. A little delay and he might end up as a smear under the giant ape’s foot. Liu Xiaolou broke into a run and merged into the stream of fleeing beasts.

That worked in his favor. With things like this happening, the Miao Feng Mountain bandits had no attention to spare for him. Even that Lord He probably needed to find a place to hide.

After running through the night, putting more and more distance between himself and the giant ape, he gradually left the herd behind. He started heading back toward the path he remembered, got his bearings straight again, and finally found a spot on a mountaintop to rest.

From here, he could watch the giant ape a good ten li away. It was a good place to rest.

He stayed there until dawn. The mountain-sized ape finally lumbered off in another direction. And Liu Xiaolou couldn’t help marveling at it again and again. What kind of strength did a beast like that possess? What sort of innate abilities? How far would someone have to cultivate before they could even hope to face it?

From the peak he looked out and finally spotted a rushing river. It was the same one he had crossed on his way in. Tracing his route back from there, he figured two more days of travel would bring him to the place where the demon tree was.

On the way back, there was no sign of anyone from Miao Feng Mountain. Finally, some luck...

The road became unusually peaceful, and nothing more went wrong. When he glimpsed that monstrous, lone Ghost Banyan from afar, he felt a surge so strong he almost teared up.

Compared with the Wan couple, the Zhu family, and that old bastard He with his nephew, this Ghost Banyan was actually friendly.

He walked all the way around it. The spot where he’d buried his Qiankun Pouch was marked by the same few dead branches. After half a year, the only real change was that two more skeletons hung from the vines, one large and one small. He couldn’t even tell what kind of creatures they used to be.

If he wanted to get his Qiankun Pouch back, the only plan he could think of was the same one the Wan couple had used before: hunt a large number of animals and throw them in, keeping the Ghost Banyan too busy to pay attention to anything else.

More than six months had passed, and the mountains and forests around the tree were once again filled with birds and beasts, including a few spiritual creatures. Liu Xiaolou built several big wooden cages and locked up every animal he managed to catch.

After working for days, he had captured nearly two hundred birds and beasts. Around a dozen had some spiritual nature to them, and they filled four large wooden cages to the brim.

Once everything was ready, he carried the four wooden cages to the edge of the Ghost Banyan’s tangle of vines. He hurled all the cages inside and clapped his hands from a distance, bursting them open. Nearly two hundred birds and beasts scattered at once.

Countless vines shot out, snatching after the fleeing animals.

Liu Xiaolou seized the moment, sweeping in from the side. He sent the Mysterious True Cord snapping around the dead branches, and gave a hard pull. The Qiankun Pouch flew free and dropped into his palm.

Two vines whipped after him, their tips flicking across his back, but they still failed to grab him. He was already sprinting far out of their reach.

He sent his spiritual sense into the pouch. The Glass Shield, the Bone Flute, the Three-Mystery Sword, the Abyssal Blackstone Formation Disk, and everything else were intact. All three Sect Leader tokens were still there as well, filling him relief and delight.

Looking back on these last three years since he headed south, he couldn’t help a long, weary sigh. He turned toward the Ghost Banyan and bowed deep. “You trapped me for two years and helped my cultivation for two years. Our debts are settled. This is goodbye.”

All that was left was to retrace the route he had followed when tailing He Taichang into the mountains. But so much time had passed that his memory wasn’t all that clear, and he took plenty of wrong turns along the way.

Even so, traveling back from the Thirty-Thousand Mountains, through the Twenty-Thousand and then the Ten-Thousand Mountains, the dangers thinned out, little by little. After three months of trekking, he finally made it out safely.

He headed north and entered Bazhong. Within a few days, he arrived at Liu Village.

When Liu Xiaolou appeared, Liu Daoran was almost in tears. “Xiaolou, it’s been three years. Why are you only coming back now? I kept trying to find news of you, but never learned a thing. We all thought something had happened to you after you went into the Ten-Thousand Great Mountains Great Mountains...”

Liu Xiaolou smiled. “Something did happen. But I still made it back alive.”

Liu Daoran nodded again and again. “Good to have you back… good to have you back!”

“Where’s Junior Fang?”

Liu Daoran sighed. “He waited for you for two years. Last year, when he reached the sixth layer, he left. Said he wanted to travel the world…”

That night, the two of them drank themselves under the table. After resting for a few days, Liu Xiaolou decided it was time to move on.

Liu Daoran asked where he planned to go. For a moment, Liu Xiaolou didn’t have an answer. “Just… looking for a good place, somewhere to build a home,” he said. “And you, Brother Daoran, what about you?”

Liu Daoran replied, “I’ve reached the peak and I'm good to go for Foundation Establishment. And from what I can see, you’re ready too. May both of us succeed in breaking through."

... 

The End of Volume 1