Braised Dragon with Soy Sauce

In the days that followed, the two walked and stopped along the way, constantly searching for a route back.

Although they encountered several dangers, they successfully overcame them all thanks to their teamwork and courage.

After two days of effort, they finally emerged from the Ruimu Forest and arrived at Yishi Valley.

As they approached the party hall, the two could hear Shi Potian's distinctive hearty laughter coming from inside.

Xinlan and Mo Yuming exchanged a glance, realizing there must be something fishy going on, and they were furious.

Xinlan was so angry that her face turned red. She clenched her fists and was about to storm into the party hall to make a scene.

But Mo Yuming reacted quickly and grabbed her.

He lowered his voice and said:

"Lanmei, don't be impulsive. Making such a scene is too easy on them. We need to calm down and think of a way to fight back."

Upon hearing this, a sly glint flashed in Xinlan's eyes, and she immediately asked excitedly in a low voice:

"Brother Ming, do you have any good ideas?"

"Let's sneak around to that side first, without letting them spot us, or we won't have any fun!"

As Mo Yuming spoke in a low voice, he pulled Xinlan and quietly retreated to the edge of the woods, then led Xinlan around to his house.

They secretly took some of the commonly used pills that Old Man Mo had refined, then slipped into the storage room and threw a lot of cooked food and fruits into their storage bags, enough for the two of them to eat for a month or so.

With so much food, there's no need to worry about it spoiling; the excellent preservation ability is one of the basic functions of storage bags.

Even the most perishable foods can be kept fresh for a long time in a storage bag.

Because Shi Potian's storage bag was a basic one with limited storage space, Mo Yuming would have thrown even more things into it.

The storage bags he obtained in the Cave of Oblivion were left with Zhang the blacksmith.

At that time, Mo Yu brought out many crystals, gold and silver treasures, as well as swords and weapons from the cave.

The gold and silver ore was originally brought out to be used by the old man Tieqiao to make items, while the weapons and armor were for Tieqiao to appraise their quality.

After examination, it was determined that although the artifacts were all valuable treasures, they were extremely old and had not been properly cared for, resulting in some degree of damage.

Zhang the blacksmith, deeply attached to his treasure and unwilling to let it be damaged, offered to help Mo Yuming repair it. Mo Yuming was naturally happy to oblige, and so he left the storage bag at the blacksmith's house as well.

Now that I've sneaked back, it's definitely not an easy time to retrieve it. So I have no choice but to give up.

However, since it wasn't a long journey, Shi Potian's basic storage bag was sufficient.

Therefore, there's no need to risk being discovered by taking other storage bags.

Still feeling unsatisfied, Mo Yuming looked at the overflowing storage bags and muttered to himself:

"It should be almost done, right?"

If this were today, and someone knew what was in his bag, it would absolutely shock everyone, because besides food, the bag contained everything else, such as clothes, sheets, bowls, chopsticks, and kitchen utensils.

"Let's go now. Aren't they testing us? We'll do as they wish and go on an adventure! We'll make sure they can't find us!"

"Hehe... Hmm! Let them be anxious! Hehe!"

Xinlan covered her mouth and chuckled softly. After quietly crossing the thick reed meadow, the two changed course and headed towards the woods on the other side, closer to the cliff of self-sacrifice.

I remember Old Mo once said that he fell from the cliff of self-sacrifice.

Mo Yuming decided to take this opportunity to go there and see if he could find any clues left by his current body when it fell off the cliff, and maybe even solve some mysteries!

Mo Yuming's actions were actually driven by other motives.

His reluctance to spend all his time cultivating profound arts was partly due to this.

Since realizing his situation, he has been trying to find a way out of the valley in his own way.

He didn't want to spend his entire life in this canyon. What use would it be to cultivate the highest level of profound skills if he couldn't leave the canyon? Just like Old Man Dugu, who lived in the canyon for one or two hundred years and whose profound skills reached the pinnacle, what was the point? He was still like a savage, living a life without any value.

However, his current body is that of a seven or eight-year-old child, and the abilities he can exert are extremely limited.

Moreover, given his current status, it would be impossible for him to persuade those old men to act according to his own ideas.

So you have to take it all slowly on your own.

The old men couldn't give him what he wanted, so he had to find it himself.

Therefore, when the old man Dugu asked him to cultivate the profound skill, he deliberately made excuses.

But those old men had no idea what he was thinking, so he was forced to cultivate the profound art for more than half a year before he was finally freed.

Now that he had this opportunity, Mo Yuming naturally couldn't let it slip by. What he wanted to do now was to thoroughly explore the terrain of Ruimu Valley.

All indications suggest that the most likely way out of the canyon is through the Ramu Valley.

“It’s so hot in here!”

The two approached the cliff face, looking around as they walked, stopping frequently along the way.

After walking for two or three hours in the woods, we came to a place covered with low shrubs.

Suddenly, they felt the air here was incredibly hot, much hotter than the surrounding temperature, as if they had entered a huge greenhouse.

"There's a red spring at the foot of the mountain not far ahead. The spring water is boiling hot, so it's very hot!"

Xinlan explained.

How far is the Cliff of Self-Sacrifice from here?

Mo Yuming remembered that the old man Mo Wen had said that he must have fallen from the cliff of self-sacrifice.

"The Cliff of Self-Sacrifice is located in this area above the Red Spring, but its exact location is unclear."

After passing through the bushes, what appeared before them was a frozen lava field. The crimson lava was arranged in a water-like pattern, in concentric circles, forming a large fan-shaped landform with a radius of hundreds of feet.

Mo Yuming stood on a relatively high rock, looked at the rocks beneath his feet, then looked up at the cliff that seemed to pierce the clouds and had no top. He asked, somewhat incredulously:

"Is this really the Cliff of Self-Sacrifice?"

Xinlan smiled as if she knew what he was thinking and said:

"This is the Cliff of Self-Sacrifice. My grandfather and the others said that the Cliff of Self-Sacrifice is a very large inverted cliff, which is wider at the top and narrower at the bottom. It protrudes hundreds of feet from the mountainside, so even if you fall straight down from the top of the cliff, you won't land on this rock. You'll at least be at the edge of that shrubbery."

"Oh, I see."

I originally wanted to check where I fell, but now it seems the plan is ruined. The surrounding area is too vast, and Old Man Mo didn't give a specific location. If Old Man Mo hadn't come in person, there would have been no way to check.

Mo Yuming had no choice but to temporarily suppress his search and instead examine the red spring flowing through the ravines and crevices of the rocks.

Blood-red spring water flows out from the crevices of the cliff and meanders through the rocky gullies. Due to geothermal activity, the red spring water is a nearly boiling hot spring.

The hot spring water did not flow outside, but instead circled several times in the large fan-shaped rocky area before flowing into a small pool in the center.

The small pool, only about ten feet wide, never overflowed despite being continuously filled with the red spring water, maintaining the same water level.

Although the water temperature of Chiquan Spring is very high, and the heat is intense even from a distance, Chiquan Spring does not emit water vapor like ordinary hot water. Instead, it is more like boiling oil, without producing any steam, which is quite strange.

Mo Yuming even doubted whether this was actually spring water.

"Not far ahead is a pool called 'Nine Nether Cold Pool,' where the water is crystal clear and incredibly cold, a stark contrast to this red spring!"

Mo Yuming looked ahead in the direction Xinlan pointed, and sure enough, a hundred feet away from the rocky circle ahead, there was a place shrouded in white mist.

That lingering, thin mist was actually the chill emanating from the cold pool below.

The area within several feet around the pool was covered with a thick layer of ice crystals, which remained frozen year-round, as the cold air permeated the rocks, trees, clay, and sand. This demonstrated the extremely low temperature of the pool water.

Strangely, the water in the pool, which was colder than ice, showed no signs of freezing, and some strange plants grew in the pool.

What's even stranger is that if someone tries to use a container to collect the water from the pool, they will immediately find that the water freezes into ice crystals as soon as it leaves the area shrouded in mist around the cold pool, and it won't melt for several days.

The contrast between the extremes of temperature and cold is truly remarkable. But what's even more amazing is that, above a cliff several dozen feet above the ground, there is a cave called 'Fire Cloud Cave'.

The huge, deep cave is bottomless. Every evening, a low, rumbling sound, like muffled thunder, can be heard from inside the cave, lasting for at least the time it takes for an incense stick to burn.

After a thunderous roar, a cloud of reddish-brown and burnt-yellow mist with a strong, pungent odor will rapidly spew out from the cave, accompanied by a piercing noise.

The rapidly ejected cloud of mist shot directly into the air, hundreds of meters high, merging with the clouds above.

Fortunately, Mo Yuming was a transmigrator with a very high level of mental fortitude, so he wasn't surprised.

After marveling at the wonders of nature, my thoughts suddenly shifted, and I had a sudden inspiration that the mist above the canyon was somewhat like the work of the Fire Cloud Cave, which constantly spews out large amounts of smoke.

If this hypothesis is correct, then there is some clue to the existence of this mysterious fog array that isolates the outside world.

The culprit that caused Old Man Dugu to feel dizzy and lose all his magical powers must have been the toxic gases mixed in with the smoke.

"Let's go check out the 'Fire Cloud Cave' first!"

Driven by intense curiosity, Mo Yuming couldn't wait any longer and grabbed Xinlan's hand, running towards the rock face.

"Use this to cover your nose!"

When Mo Yuming climbed to the cave entrance, he smelled a strong, pungent odor and immediately realized that the gas was poisonous. He took out two handkerchiefs from his bag, wet them with water, and gave one to Xinlan.

"Brother Yuming is so clever to come up with this idea. It really makes the food taste bland!"

After Xinlan followed Mo Yuming's method and tied a wet handkerchief to her face to cover her nostrils, she found that her breathing was much easier and the unpleasant smell was completely blocked. She couldn't help but sigh.

Mo Yuming smiled slightly after hearing this, without offering any explanation.

This most basic self-rescue common sense is understood by anyone on Earth with even a little experience.

Only Xiao Xinlan, who grew up in such a closed little space and has never experienced any risks, would feel a sense of novelty.

The entrance to the cave was smooth, and the walls were very damp, covered with water droplets.

Because the cave entrance is angled upwards, light can shine directly in, so the cave is not completely dark inside. Standing at the entrance, you can clearly see a large area inside the cave.

About two or three zhang (approximately 6.6-7.6 meters) inside the cave entrance, the path forks, leading to several stone caves of varying sizes.

Taking advantage of the early hour before the cave was ready to release its poisonous gas, Mo Yuming led Xinlan into the cave entrance.

After some careful observation, Mo Yuming chose to walk through one of the larger side tunnels in the middle.

This side tunnel is relatively dry, and there is no unpleasant smell inside.

Before entering the cave, Mo Yuming had already taken out a fresh branch about the thickness of a finger from his storage bag.

This is not an ordinary tree branch, but a very special plant.

Its entire trunk, apart from its hard bark, is filled with a thick, jelly-like substance, somewhat resembling that of ferns on Earth.

However, it has a very special characteristic: when you scratch it on an object, it will leave a sticky residue that will solidify into a very tough filament after drying for a period of time.

This translucent filament has another characteristic: when exposed to light, it emits a colorful fluorescence that lasts for a long time.

With this powerful tool, Mo Yuming no longer needed to worry about getting lost inside the cave.

This unidentified plant was mentioned unintentionally by the old man Mo Wen when he was introducing the species in the canyon to him.

Because the sap it extracts solidifies and is indistinguishable from silk threads, and can even refract colorful light, Mo Yuming named it the Illusionary Silk Vine.

Originally, it was just an inconspicuous shrub here, but in Mo Yuming's hands, it became an essential item for exploration.

Besides being used as road signs, it can also be used as a rope in emergencies. Simply pull it out and stretch it into a thin thread, let it solidify, and then weave several threads together to form a very strong rope, which is several times stronger than silk threads on Earth.

The cave was dark, so Mo Yuming took out two fluorescent stones, one for himself and one for Xinlan. Using the light from the fluorescent stones, they groped their way deeper into the cave.

After stumbling through a winding and narrow cave, a huge underground palace appeared before them.

The shimmering fluorescent stones in their hands looked like two stars hanging in the sky in the pitch-black underground palace, only able to illuminate themselves.

The two could only make out the outline of the underground palace up close by, and could not see the whole thing at all, thanks to the fluorescent light.

Fortunately, fluorescent stones are not rare, and Mo Yuming had a large number of them stored in his storage bag as spares.

So Mo Yuming took out a few more pieces, tied them together with the colorful threads drawn from the colorful vines into two long strips, and made them into glow sticks, which were both practical and convenient.

With the light emitted by more than a dozen fluorescent stones, the brightness in the cave was significantly enhanced.

The outline of the cave is already very clear in the foreground, and you can also make out the general shape in the distance.

The underground palace, spanning several hundred feet in circumference, was situated on a flat and open terrain. On the ground of the underground palace, only a few enormous stalagmites stood side by side in the center. These stalagmites were arranged in an arc shape, as if someone had deliberately placed them there.

The dome, however, is covered with all sorts of stalactites, like a honeycomb.

The stalactites are covered with water droplets, which emit colorful crystal light under fluorescent light, making them exceptionally beautiful.

The underground palace is surrounded by uneven and mottled walls, with countless interconnected caves of varying sizes.

If the two hadn't been prepared, finding the original exit again wouldn't have been an easy task.

The two arrived at the center of the underground palace. After passing a giant stalagmite, they were surprised to find a crescent-shaped shallow pool in the middle of the area surrounded by stalagmites.

The water in the pool was crystal clear, and the bottom of the pool was a flat expanse of golden sandstone.

Under the fluorescent light, the entire pool looked like a plate filled with fine gold dust, magnificent and splendid.

What's even more peculiar is that in the center of the pool, there's a densely packed mass of translucent, milky-white beads—thousands of them. These spheres, about the size of pigeon eggs, are crystal clear, like jade bodhi beads carved from soft jade. They seem to contain a strange energy, smooth and vibrant, as if each bead harbors a tiny life within it.