Chapter 4251 — The Route Map
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
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.