An Linghui's face was full of resentment. Earlier, she had felt somewhat touched, thinking Xu Mu was a proper gentleman—who would have guessed he was this shameless.
One woman wasn't enough for him; he actually wanted to call every woman over.
Didn't he worry about wearing himself out?
"Your tone is a bit too big for your britches," the distant stone statue spoke.
"It's you who underestimates me. Do you really think I've never seen a woman before? A woman is not going to stop me from getting the treasure."
Xu Mu walked toward the stone statue. "If the treasure here can make me a top-level powerhouse, what kind of woman couldn't I have?"
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
As Xu Mu approached the statue, vines appeared around it again.
This time, three vine-formed figures lunged at Xu Mu.
Seeing this, Xu Mu's figure flickered rapidly as he weaved through the vines.
Whoosh!
A single sword aura sliced all three vine-people apart.
"The formation here mainly targets those with high cultivation levels. For someone like me, who has low cultivation but real strength far exceeding those at the same level, it's basically useless."
Xu Mu, longsword in hand, had already arrived before the statue and placed his palm on its surface.
"I advise you not to move. Turn around and look at your companion," the statue opened its mouth and said.
Xu Mu didn't turn around. His perception saw everything clearly.
An Linghui had already raised her hand, clawing at her own neck. Her face was already turning purple.
"She's not my companion, so she can't threaten me. However, I do like this old woman—I want to play the game of the old hen and the young chick. If you let her go, we can still talk. If she dies, then I can go all out without restraint."
"Brat! Don't think I don't understand what you mean. Careful, I'll cripple you!"
Xu Mu acted as if he hadn't heard, not lowering his hand. He was carefully examining the formation on the stone statue.
So far, he had never seen such a human-like formation—there had to be something wrong with it.
Sure enough, Xu Mu discovered that the statue was carved with an incredibly intricate formation.
Xu Mu frowned. Why were there spatial-type formations similar to those on space rings?
Any spatial formation was bound to be at least level nine or above.
Xu Mu crouched down, touching the throne beneath the statue, and found that it, too, was covered in many formations.
Just then, An Linghui came up behind Xu Mu.
Xu Mu immediately turned around, only to see An Linghui holding crackling lightning in her hands, slamming it right onto Xu Mu's mouth.
"Damn!"
Xu Mu was pinned to the ground by An Linghui, staying in that awkward position.
"What are you doing? Let go of me!" Xu Mu quickly said, but his speech was muffled since something was in his mouth.
"Xu Mu! Stop playing dumb! I can't control myself—can't you just push me off!"
An Linghui was already frantic with anxiety, tears streaming down her face.
Her mouth had been sealed shut, preventing her from speaking earlier; otherwise, she would have warned Xu Mu to dodge.
"Oh! I forgot. I thought I was trapped too."
Xu Mu pushed An Linghui off and immediately stood up, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. "Disgusting! I hate that thing!"
"But the look on your face—seems more like you're enjoying a smoke?" the stone statue said emotionlessly.
"Nonsense!"
The moment Xu Mu said that, An Linghui lunged at him again.
"Damn it! Xu Mu, get the hell away from me!" An Linghui shouted curses, yet her hands were tightly wrapped around Xu Mu, completely beyond her control.
Xu Mu raised his hand, gathering the water element from all around, freezing An Linghui's hands and feet.
"This move should only control limbs—she can't use chi. Just wait. If I'm not wrong, this stone statue must be the key to obtaining the treasure."
Xu Mu continued studying the statue.
Finally, he spotted the statue's mouth.
"What are you looking at?" the statue spoke again.
"I find it strange. Every part of your stone body is covered in dense formations, but your mouth here—there's no formation at all."
Xu Mu pointed at the statue's mouth. "So I'm guessing something's off about your mouth."
"You are indeed terrifying! But so what? Under this Heavenly Dao-level formation, even masters above the ninth rank would be forcibly suppressed to below the Boundary-Breaking stage."
The statue continued, "To break the formation on my body, you'd need at least a ninth-rank expert. So, as long as I'm within this Heavenly Dao-level formation, I can never be destroyed."
"You have a point. Many of these intricate formations are ones I've never seen before, but that doesn't mean I can't get in."
Xu Mu said with a smile.
"Absolutely impossible! Unless you can undo the formations on my body—otherwise—"
Whoosh!
A black shadow shot out from Xu Mu, like a wisp of gas, and dove straight into the statue's mouth.
"No wonder there are so many spatial formations. So your belly is a hidden world after all."
Xu Mu shook his head slightly. "Good thing I didn't fall for that earlier."
The statue had deliberately tried to mislead him, telling Xu Mu to leave and warning that going deeper would be dangerous.
In truth, neither path led anywhere.
If Xu Mu had left, who knows where he might have been teleported to.
Going deeper would also lead to certain death.
The statue's purpose was to create the illusion that this formation only had these two paths.
The real treasure wasn't behind it at all—it was hidden inside the statue's mouth.
"Impossible! How could you know that?"
The statue asked with its mouth open.
Xu Mu didn't answer her. He turned around, dispelling the ice that bound An Linghui. "I'll go in and take a look first."
With that, Xu Mu's figure vanished on the spot.
An Linghui raised her hand, about to say something, only to find that Xu Mu had already disappeared.
Suddenly, she spun around and noticed more people arriving.
Two figures in black robes came first, followed closely by Chen Xuan and Yang Lielan.
An Linghui suddenly realized she could move her hands again. She quickly pulled a black robe from her spatial ring and slipped it on.
"Hey! Auntie, it's you!"
Chen Xuan spotted An Linghui from a distance and walked over. "Elder Ji told me and Brother Mu to come find you. I didn't expect you'd actually be here."
"Is it Xu Mu?"
An Linghui asked.
"That's right. So you two already met? Where's Brother Mu?"
As Chen Xuan spoke, he turned his head again and saw more black-robed figures approaching in the distance.
"Xu Mu he—"
An Linghui, seeing so many people around, didn't answer right away. "Let's talk about that later."
Even though something had happened between her and Xu Mu earlier, she still regarded him as one of her own.
Xu Mu had just discovered where the treasure was hidden. If she revealed it in front of all these people, wouldn't she just be creating more competition for him?
Chen Xuan nodded, standing still where he was, and looked toward the two black-robed figures ahead.
The people behind them likewise didn't advance any further.
An Linghui asked in a low voice, "What's going on? Why aren't these people moving forward?"
"The previous stages were all solved by those two leading the way for us," Chen Xuan explained.
"What?"
An Linghui frowned, staring at the two black-robed figures over there.
They walked toward the distant statue, and one of them pulled out a round, black jade pendant.
After pressing the pendant against the statue, a formation glow flickered around its body.
"Someone already went inside earlier," the statue said, opening its mouth wide. A swirling, vortex-like light appeared at its mouth.
The two black-robed figures vanished into that light.
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
close your eyes and open them again, only to find yourself transmigrated into the role of a villainous male supporting character. Readers familiar with urban wish-fulfillment novels know that it is only through the relentless antics of the villainous male supporting character that the plot between the male and female leads can progress. As the villainous male supporting character, Long Aotian not only has to bully the female lead, harass the second female lead, and flirt with the third female lead, but he also has to go all out to antagonize the male lead. In the end, when his body is discovered, he is still clutching half a moldy fried dough stick in his hand. Fully aware of the plot, Long Aotian is determined to change his fate, starting with the female lead! In the beginning, the female lead lacks confidence: "Big brother, I hope I didn't scare you?" In the middle, the female lead treads carefully: "Brother Long, please don't hit me, okay?" Later on, the female lead becomes coquettishly clingy: "Aotian, it's time to pay the 'public grain' tonight." Long Aotian's legs go weak, and he feels like crying: "I taught you to be thick-skinned, not shameless!"
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
