Chapter 1458 — No Way Forward
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 3
"Little thing, you still can't feel a thing?" Wei Zhao glanced at the Heavenly Thunder Pig in the passenger seat and asked. "Squeak-squeak—" The creature shook its head lazily.
"What use are you to me, with powers this weak?" Wei Zhao did not know whether to laugh or cry. The little thing had lain flat in the passenger seat the whole way without so much as a sound; he had no idea whether it had sensed the presence of the Fire Spirit Sacred Fruit at all.
"Squeak-squeak! @#$%!" The Heavenly Thunder Pig seemed to grunt twice in displeasure.
Wei Zhao had no choice but to press on in the direction indicated by the GPS coordinates. There was no navigation map for this region whatsoever; the entire screen of the car's computer showed nothing but blank space, so all he could do was set a coordinate and then search, by rough bearing, for a route he could actually travel.
Since he could never be sure whether a road lay ahead, Wei Zhao would often make it halfway before discovering that he could go no farther, and be forced to turn around, retrace his steps, and look for some other way forward.
Every time he doubled back, he also had to drive to the nearest town to refuel. The car did carry a small reserve of gasoline, but Wei Zhao feared that once he pressed further on there might be no gas station to be found, so it was hardly out of his way — he simply filled up whenever he returned.
The town held few residents and few outsiders, yet nobody asked a single question about Wei Zhao's peculiar behavior, which surprised him somewhat. Why were these people not wary of strangers? It was as if his appearing here were the most natural thing in the world.
Still, almost every attempt ended in failure; each road he took eventually petered out with no way to continue. This forced Wei Zhao to take a room for the time being at an inn in the town, and then, drawing on the routes he had traveled these past few days, sketch out a rough map from memory.
What was rather tragic was that every route on the map appeared to be one he had already walked, and still he had found no way to press on.
Just as Wei Zhao was preparing to try another small path on foot, goose-feather snow began drifting down from the sky. The flakes filled the whole heaven until nothing before him could be made out; everything in sight was a haze of white, and visibility was abysmally poor.
This was the visual obstruction caused by obstacles. Even when Wei Zhao entered the jade pendant's space to sense what lay outside, all he saw was still the sky thick with flying snow.
He was not far from the Extreme Cold, Far North now; cold weather and snowfall were only to be expected.
All Wei Zhao could do was take a room at the town inn for the time being and wait for the snow to stop before slowly working out some other plan.
What vexed him was this: he asked the innkeeper how the snow fell here, and the answer he got was that a heavy snow might continue anywhere from three days to a month — a thing that happened often in the Far North.
The car was parked right below Wei Zhao's room. He did not need to sleep, and even while cultivating he could keep track of everything around him, so he had no particular worry that someone might get at Feng Xiaoxiao inside the vehicle.
"Damn pig, can you find the Fire Spirit Sacred Fruit or not?" Wei Zhao was growing irritable. He had come such a long way, and just as the coordinates were nearly within reach he found himself unable to go on — infuriating, to be sure.
"Squeak-squeak..." The Heavenly Thunder Pig let out two small, aggrieved whimpers.
Wei Zhao sighed. The terrain and landforms of today differed from those of ancient times; after so long a time, change was only natural.