Chapter Eighty-Three: The Lost Forest

Page 1 of 3

Yue Qi seized Bai Lian and ran uphill like a madman. As for Xin Zi, who had fired the cold-blooded shot from behind earlier, no one knew where he had gone, and there was still no sign of him.

Yue Qi believed that although the thing in Xin Zi’s hands was powerful enough, it still did not have the ability to wipe out all seven zombies in one strike. So it would not be long before those zombies caught up.

When he reached the slope, Yue Qi discovered that Xin Zi was already waiting there with Yun Sheng and Yu Qi. It seemed Yue Qi had indeed been badly wounded, or he would not have been running so slowly.

“Run into the woods! Those zombies are catching up!” Before Yue Qi could even thank him, Xin Zi shouted at him urgently, then led the way toward the woods to one side. Sure enough, when Yue Qi looked back, several tiny black dots were closing in on him at speed...

“Damn it, they just won’t let up!” Yue Qi cursed bitterly, but there was nothing he could do. Not to mention that he could not even summon spiritual power now, but even if he could use magic, he still would not be a match for those mutated zombies...

The zombies were drawing nearer and nearer. Yue Qi occasionally looked back and could not help finding their pitiful, disheveled state a little amusing. They had been in an alley just now, and Xin Zi’s hidden weapon had come from nowhere with such unexpected force; clearly all seven zombies had been hit, and none of them were lightly wounded. Yue Qi could see plainly that one zombie had even lost an arm, though no one knew where it had flown off to.

Roaring and howling, the zombies pursued them closely, and on the way they even drew in a few ordinary zombies. But that hardly mattered. Their speed was already slower, and even if they reached Yue Qi and the others, they would not be able to stop them; they would only be coming over to add a few more heads to the tally.

“Quick! Run right! There’s a patch of woods there!” Even in his panic, Xin Zi did not forget to judge the direction. When they came to a fork in the road, after thinking for a moment, he still chose the left path...

“Wait! That place, we can’t go there!” Yue Yunsheng suddenly cried out anxiously from behind, shouting at Xin Zi.

“What is it?” Yue Qi had caught up with the others and stopped to look at Yue Yunsheng. Xin Zi was also a little puzzled and turned back to look at him.

“Ah Qi, have you forgotten? This is the Lost Forest! Don’t you remember how many people in the estate wanted to come here hunting, and none of them ever came back out?” Yue Yunsheng said hurriedly.

“The Lost Forest?!” Yue Qi suddenly remembered this place. When he was little, he had heard his parents mention that a relative of theirs, someone the family was on fairly good terms with and who lived quite comfortably, had somehow gone mad and insisted on entering this Lost Forest to see it for himself. No one expected that once he went in, he would never come out again. There was also an old saying in the Yue family estate, used by adults to frighten disobedient children: if you would not behave, they would throw you into the Lost Forest. Many children would fall silent the moment they heard those words...

“Right! We can’t go there!” Yue Qi said firmly to Xin Zi.

Xin Zi frowned and looked at the two of them, but he did not suspect that they were lying. “But if we don’t take this way, then beyond there is Qingzhou. If Qingzhou also has mutated zombies, then we’ll be trapped on both sides. By then, I’m afraid even with wings we won’t be able to escape!”

“I agree with Xin Zi. Rather than being killed by those zombies, we might as well go honestly into this forest. Maybe after shaking off the zombies behind us, there will still be a way to live,” Bai Lian said abruptly from the side.

“Well then, fine! Let’s hurry, and don’t let the zombies behind catch up!” Yue Qi thought for a moment, then made the decision at once. If it were only him, he might have chosen another route. Once he recovered even a little, escaping would still not be much of a problem. But Bai Lian was still by his side, and that made things harder to say...

“This...” Yue Yunsheng frowned. Clearly he did not agree. But after glancing at the zombies behind them, his fear of the undead clearly prevailed, so in the end he still nodded.

Page 2 of 3

“Move!” Xin Zi roared, taking the lead and running into the woods. In the mere dozen seconds they had spent talking, several zombies had nearly caught up, and one could already make out their features...

A fog gradually began to rise within the woods. Xin Zi deliberately chose the smaller paths, and at last managed to shake off all the zombies behind them. Though they occasionally still heard the zombies’ howls, no figures ever appeared again.

“Yu Qi, do you feel a little dizzy in the head...” Suddenly, Yue Yunsheng stopped, pressed both hands to his temples, and rubbed them lightly.

“Dizzy? No, I feel fine!” Yu Qi had not yet fully recovered her memories, and she still gave a carefree laugh. She had no intention of showing concern for Yunsheng either.

“You’re probably just too tired. Since you say that, I feel it too. Why don’t we rest a bit?” Yue Qi suggested.

Xin Zi nodded without speaking. When Yue Qi was not around, he had plainly become the backbone of the group. With his wit and resourcefulness, he had already resolved several dangerous situations. Now he had led everyone into this forest, and although they were lost, it was still better than being hunted by zombies...

“You all rest for a while and eat something. Brother Yue, make sure you recover as much as you can. We must at least maintain our basic combat strength, or if we run into zombies...” Xin Zi shook his head and took a round object from his chest.

Yue Qi took out a spirit stone and a vial of pills. Bai Lian sniffed them and said they were edible. Though these had all been found in Li Yuan’s residence, they should not be too poor in quality, since they had come from the imperial household...

Yue Qi’s injuries were not the main problem, especially since they had little to do with his spiritual or mental power. It was simply that his body had taken a heavy blow, with injuries even to his internal organs and meridians, which was why he had become so miserable. Under ordinary circumstances, a few healing waters might have been enough to improve the wounds, but now that he could not gather spiritual power, Yue Qi could only feel helpless.

After swallowing the pill, he only felt a warm current flow through his body. “It really is a good thing!” Yue Qi thought excitedly, though his hands never stopped moving. He had still expended a fair amount of spiritual power just now, so he needed to replenish it.

The mist in the woods grew thicker and thicker. Xin Zi, too, stood in place with a frown, the object in his hand repeatedly pointing toward the sky as though searching for some direction...

“Mm...” Yue Qi suddenly frowned. His tightly closed eyes snapped open, and he looked at the others around him and quickly said, “This fog is poisonous. Hurry and cover your noses with wet cloth!”

“No need to make such a fuss. It’s only miasma. Here, take these and you won’t feel dizzy anymore!” Xin Zi suddenly pulled a few blades of grass from the ground and handed them to everyone, keeping one for himself as well.

“Miasma?” Yue Qi naturally knew what it was. Usually in deep mountains and old forests, the decay of animals and plants would give rise to poisonous gases. Some of these were highly harmful to the human body, though not all of them were fatal.

“It does seem a little better...” Yue Qi thought to himself, then gave Xin Zi a strange look. “I never expected this guy to know even something like this...” As he thought, Yue Qi suddenly noticed the torn fragment of the Five Spirits Cast the Heaven and Earth technique within him. It seemed that this thing had not summoned him for a very long time, but the remaining formula was right nearby...

Though Yue Qi was puzzled, there was nothing he could do. As for Xin Zi, Yue Qi felt he had finally seen through him. If one could be friends with him, one must never become his enemy. A person of such vast knowledge was truly terrifying; he might sell you out without the slightest notice, and you might still be helping him count the money.

Perhaps sensing Yue Qi’s gaze, Xin Zi’s lips curved slightly as he looked back at him. “Heaven, earth, fate, and transformation: where there is cause, there must be effect; where there is righteousness, there must be evil. It is the same with this miasma. Since it can breed here, then there must be nearby something that restrains it...”

Page 3 of 3

No one spoke. They listened quietly. Yue Qi’s condition had clearly improved a great deal, though his blood and qi still seemed somewhat unstable.

“But now there seems to be one piece of bad news...” Xin Zi suddenly said to them with a wry smile. “It seems we are lost now. Even the compass has stopped showing the way here...”

“Lost?!” Yue Qi’s expression turned serious at once. In this forest, though he had food and water in his dimensional bracelet, if they were trapped here for long, one day the supplies would run out. And at any moment they might run into the zombies that had entered earlier, which would be disastrous...

“Right. The only way now is to keep walking straight in one direction and hope we can make it out...” Xin Zi thought for a moment, then suggested directly.

Anyone with experience surviving in the wild knew that if one became lost in a forest and could not tell direction, the best course was to keep to a single path. No matter what happened, that way one would eventually get out.

Everyone had rested enough, and Xin Zi still led the way at the front. It could be said that among everyone present, he was the only one with any sense of direction. Of course, if Yue Qi could fly on a sword, he might have been able to rise into the air and see exactly where they were...

They had not gone far before Xin Zi stopped again, his brows knitted tightly as though deep in thought.

“What is it?” Yue Qi stepped forward. By now his body had improved considerably, and at least he no longer needed Bai Lian’s support to walk.

“It’s nothing. It’s just that we seem to have come back to where we started...” Xin Zi looked at Yue Qi and said truthfully.

“Back where we started? How is that possible? We were clearly walking in a straight line! There’s no way we could get lost!” Yue Qi immediately felt that something was wrong. They had obviously been moving in one direction; how could they possibly have returned to the starting point?

“But that is the fact...” Xin Zi gave a bitter smile, then walked up to a tree as thick as a man’s waist and said, “I left a mark here just now. Take a look. Clearly, this is the place without doubt!”

“...” Yue Qi did not know what to say. He looked around. If what Xin Zi said was true...

Suddenly, Yue Qi noticed a discarded spirit stone on the ground. It was exactly one of the stones he had used earlier for healing!

“It looks like we really have come back...” Yue Qi sank into thought. If that was truly the case, then they were in real danger...