Feasibility of Mermaids Infiltrating Qilin

"The peak is shaped like a tower, with a jade belt encircling its base. Yes, this is the place."

Zhang Haike's tone was filled with barely suppressed joy.

"What we're looking for is inside this tower peak."

Before the three of them stood a tall, tower-shaped mountain.

The mountain is located in a sunken sinkhole, which is about the size of a football field. The sinkhole contains a small circular lake formed by water accumulation, which looks like a jade belt encircling the mountain in the sunlight.

The mountain peak at the center of the sinkhole is forty or fifty meters high, with jagged rocks that reflect dazzling light faintly between them under the sunlight.

Su Xingze tilted his head, wrinkled his nose, turned his face away with some disgust, and buried his head in the side of the little Qilin's neck.

It stinks here!

The scenery is beautiful, but it smells terrible.

Smelly?

Upon hearing this, Zhang Shenglin also took a sniff. The mountain air was thick with moisture, and the fresh air carried a faint smell of decaying leaves, which was by no means unpleasant.

Zhang Shenglin didn't think the little mermaid had a problem with its sense of smell. Looking at the peculiar tower-shaped mountain in front of him, he secretly increased his vigilance.

"Let's go down first."

The sinkhole is not very deep, only about twenty meters deep. A steep cliff forms at the edge of the sinkhole. The cliff is not smooth, with protruding rocks and small trees growing tenaciously on the edge.

Zhang Haike took out the rope provided by Master Lin and tied it securely to a large tree nearby, with the other end tied around the waists of the two men.

After pulling hard on the rope to make sure it was sturdy enough, the two stepped on the rocks on the cliff and descended to the bottom of the sinkhole one after the other.

Perhaps because of the low-lying terrain, the bottom of the sinkhole is severely waterlogged, and the ground is so wet that it feels like a sponge soaked with water. Walking on it makes a crunching sound, and a puddle of muddy water bubbles up with every step. If you are not careful, you may slip and fall into the mud.

Zhang Haike's shoes were completely covered in mud, but he didn't care about getting any dirtier, and he walked through the mud with great ease.

Zhang Shenglin followed closely behind. He looked down and saw something wriggling in the footprint pit left by Zhang Haike. He called out a warning: "Be careful, there's something in the soil!"

Zhang Haike became alert and tried his best not to linger in the mud, but because the mud was too sticky, his feet kept sinking into it, and he couldn't speed up no matter what he wanted.

"Damn it! Something's biting me!"

As Zhang Haike cursed, he pulled his foot out and shook it a few times, then flung out several slimy leeches.

"Damn it, there are leeches in the mud!"

The leech was dark brown and long; if you didn't look closely, you might mistake it for a small snake.

Sensing the presence of living humans, small bulges appeared in the soil around the two, from which countless leeches emerged, the longest of which was over twenty centimeters long.

Countless leeches wriggled closer to the two of them, giving Zhang Haike goosebumps.

"That's disgusting!"

Su Xingze nodded in agreement. It was indeed disgusting. He glanced at the leeches, each one of them quite plump, clearly indicating they were well-nourished.

Zhang Haike stomped the nearest leech into the mud and crushed it. He felt something was wrong with the texture under his foot, so he poked around in the mud puddle and revealed a hard object buried in the mud.

It was a corner of a skeleton, and judging from its shape, it should be a sternum. There were also a few smaller leeches clinging to the skeleton.

Zhang Haike looked up at the outside of the sinkhole, then looked down at the skeleton in the mud.

Perhaps this unknown animal accidentally fell into the sinkhole, died or was seriously injured, and eventually became food for the countless leeches in the sinkhole.

As the number of leeches increased, Zhang Shenglin released the aura of a Qilin. These little creatures were most afraid of the aura of a Qilin. The invisible aura spread out, and almost instantly, the leeches were stunned.

Zhang Haike raised an eyebrow and noticed that the leech that was wriggling closer had stopped moving. Although he didn't know why, he seized the opportunity and immediately sped up to leave the swamp.

The edge of the swamp is the small lake that surrounds the tower-shaped mountain.

Perhaps because this place is rarely visited by people, the lake is full of aquatic plants and the water is so clear that you can clearly see the lush green aquatic plants stretching out in the water, as well as schools of fish and snakes playing and chasing among them.

snake!

Looking at the snakes in the lake that could easily be mistaken for water plants if you didn't look closely, Zhang Haike said with a bitter face, "Why are there snakes again!"

He's almost developed a phobia of snakes.

Zhang Shenglin wasn't afraid of the snakes. He estimated the distance between them and the opposite bank to be about ten meters. If they didn't have a boat, they would have to go into the water to get across.

"Looks like we're going to have to fight snakes again." Zhang Haike said helplessly. After this, he definitely didn't want to see snakes again.

Fortunately, the water looks quite clean, if you don't look at the snakes swimming and tumbling in the lake.

Zhang Haike was the first to enter the water, clutching a dagger for protection, constantly on guard against attacks from the snakes.

Contrary to his expectations, the snake at the bottom of the lake, perhaps not on good terms with the group in the mountains, merely flicked its tail lazily upon seeing him, without making any further movement.

Zhang Haike breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed that the water snakes in the lake were not the same species as the group of irritable land snakes on the mountain. Their temperaments were really too good.

The snakes did not attack them, but just in case, Zhang Haike decided not to linger in the lake any longer.

"Hurry up, hurry up! What if those snake brothers want to try human flesh? We'll be in big trouble then."

The water is not like the land; no matter how good they are at swimming, they can't compare to these water snakes.

The snakes watched silently as the two-legged creatures swam across the lake and climbed ashore without any reaction.

When Zhang Shenglin and Su Xingze were crossing the lake, Su Xingze got off the little Qilin's shoulder. The water was full of snakes and smelled terrible. The little mermaid, who was a clean freak, didn't want to go into the water at all, even though the water quality looked excellent.

Looking back at the swarm of leeches rolling around in the mud, I realized that leeches of such good quality were hard to come by.

Su Xingze wagged his tail, took out a shoebox-sized box from his personal space, lit a piece of brown spice, and threw it into the box. He then placed the box with the burning spice on the ground, and leeches were immediately attracted by the spice and crawled into the box.

The box was a breeding box made using space folding technology; no matter how many leeches were put in, it always seemed to be full.

The "Ten Spirits Scripture" obtained from the Zhang family records more than a dozen kinds of witchcraft medicines made from leeches. These medicines can be made with effects such as stopping bleeding, detoxifying, numbing and relieving pain, and of course, they can also be made into poisons with special effects.

As for using it to raise Gu worms, Su Xingze lost interest in it after trying it once or twice. The main reason was that he found the Gu worms he raised too disgusting. If he ever needed Gu worms, it would be more convenient for him to just buy ready-made ones from the store.

After setting up the trap box, Su Xingze flew over the small lake to meet up with Zhang Shenglin.

Zhang Shenglin and Zhang Haike were half-squatting beside a few rocks, looking down at what was on them.

Su Xingze landed on Zhang Shenglin's head and curiously peered over. There was a white, membrane-like substance on the stone—it was a snake's shed skin.

Around the shed snake skin, several grayish-white snake scales lay scattered.

Zhang Shenglin straightened up and looked at the tower-shaped mountain in front of him. There were many snake molts like this on the mountain, the largest of which was estimated to be more than 20 meters long.

Zhang Haike looked at the snake-skinned face and became somewhat dazed.

"It's just a snake, isn't it? Haven't we seen plenty of snakes along the way? It's just a snake, maybe a bit big."