Chapter 4251 — The Route Map

To speak loudly in the deep forest was an absolute taboo. Once a powerful, ferocious spirit beast nearby was alarmed, it would be a disaster.

"None." Guo Dengtao and Wang Feng exchanged a glance, then shook their heads one after the other. The route map was marked with perfect clarity, and Wei Zhao's string of follow-up questions just now had made plain to them where the map came from and how reliable it was. There was nothing else worth asking.

"And you?" Chu Bubai looked deliberately at Wei Zhao and lifted his chin.

"I have no questions either. Brother Chu has explained everything very clearly." Wei Zhao gave a faint smile.

He was certainly not like Guo Dengtao and the other, wholly reassured about Chu Bubai. The reason he had asked so many questions just now was, beyond probing the reliability of this so-called heirloom map, also to lull Chu Bubai into complacency.

After all, by any normal person's habit of thought, someone like Wei Zhao was plainly not easy to fool. Had he asked nothing at all, Chu Bubai would truly have needed to stay on guard. But since he had been so cautious as to fire off question after question, by now Chu Bubai's defenses must surely be down, and he could instead relax a little.

If before he had only three parts of a guess, now Wei Zhao was at least fifty percent certain that this Chu Bubai was privately hiding something unspeakable. What exactly the man was scheming, however, he could not yet make out.

"Good, then. Time is short—everyone, gather yourselves and adjust. We set out at once." Chu Bubai nodded, motioned for them to make brief preparations, and promptly took the lead out of the tree hollow.

Feng Hongyu, Guo Dengtao, and Wang Feng followed eagerly, excitement written across their faces. Wei Zhao, bringing up the rear, shot Huang Xiaotao a look that said stay close and be careful, then stepped out after them.

Breathing the chilly air outside, the excitement the infant ginseng had stirred in them faded somewhat, and their heads cleared considerably. One by one they sharpened their vigilance, on guard against everything around them.

Inside the tree hollow they had at least felt a measure of safety, but now, exposed in the forest, even as seasoned Golden Core cultivators they could not help but feel uneasy, dreading a sudden encounter with some powerful, ferocious spirit beast.

Chu Bubai took the lead out front, but he did not immediately set the party moving. Instead he took a compass from the pack Wei Zhao carried and carefully compared and judged it against the surroundings.

He had already roughly fixed their position before, but this time he was leading them deep into the mountains, where the slightest margin of error could cost them all their lives. Repeated confirmation was absolutely necessary.

In deep mountains and dense forests, the greatest fear was losing one's bearings; spirit beasts came second. As Golden Core cultivators, they still had some chance of survival against a powerful spirit beast, but lose their bearings and there was only one outcome: total annihilation.

Wei Zhao covertly watched Chu Bubai's every move and found the man truly extraordinary. Setting aside his inner doubts, from their first contact until now, Chu Bubai's conduct on every front had been flawless—nothing short of perfect.

Take the present moment: even armed with that exceedingly fine heirloom map and a compass besides, an ordinary person would struggle to fix their position for a good while beneath the thick miasma that all but shut out the sky.

Before Wei Zhao first made his name in the mortal world, he had received professional training in exactly this. Yet even he could not, in so short a time, fully match their real position to the map—while Chu Bubai navigated it like the back of his hand.

Part of that was his familiarity with the map, but a more important reason lay in the method Chu Bubai used to identify their position, which struck Wei Zhao as quite novel—or one might say, quite professional.

Not only did he rely on the compass; Chu Bubai also carefully examined the varieties of plants and trees around them, even deliberately seeking out low-grade herbs, identifying them one by one before matching them against the heirloom map in his hand.

That heirloom map indeed carried detailed notes on the plants and herbs of given areas—fine enough to rival a professional survey map. Without real effort invested in this field, even Guo Dengtao and the others holding this top-grade, meticulously detailed map could never have gotten much use out of it.

From this it was clear that Chu Bubai had prepared with great care. Even as Wei Zhao marveled inwardly, his anticipation for the infant ginseng grew a little keener.

Whatever tricks Chu Bubai might play, having gone to such lengths of preparation, he could hardly be doing it merely to make fools of them. The clue to the infant ginseng, it seemed, was eighty percent genuine.

"Everyone, be careful. Stay alert and close to me—whatever you do, don't fall behind." Having confirmed their position and heading, Chu Bubai lowered his voice to address them, then took the lead and moved on.

No one dared slacken in the least, and they hurried after him. To fall behind in a place like this, one would truly have nowhere left to weep.

On they went, checking the map as they moved. Every so often they would stop and reconfirm their bearings to avoid going astray. Apart from Chu Bubai leading the way, the others took turns standing watch, not daring to be careless in the slightest.

To keep unbroken marching from wearing down their spirits, even as Golden Core cultivators they would consciously stop to sit in meditation and rest every six hours. And once the sky went fully dark, they would find a tree hollow or a cave and simply camp for the night, setting out again at daybreak.

For several days on end it was rest and march, march and rest. Now and then they encountered passing spirit beasts, but timely vigilance kept every scare from turning into disaster, and under Chu Bubai's guidance the party pressed on toward the deep core of the Rufeng Forest.

If before this they had still harbored some trace of doubt about Chu Bubai, now, after several days of firsthand experience, Guo Dengtao and Wang Feng were utterly convinced.

Their present position was already within the core territory of the Rufeng Forest. Had they come on their own, far from reaching this place with nothing worse than a few scares, they would never have made it even halfway—long since lost in the vast dense forest, or simply become fodder for spirit beasts.

Chu Bubai's route map was indeed an heirloom treasure money could not buy. The trust Guo Dengtao and the others placed in him deepened at once, gradually verging on reliance; by now, practically whatever Chu Bubai said, they would question no more and simply do as told without a second word.

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