Who let him join the Sword Sect!

Chapter 425 Who stepped on my foot!
The communication with the fireflies went more smoothly than Zhang Ze had imagined; just as he had thought, these fireflies were no different from children.

Zhang Ze only used two and a half years' worth of skill to lure the Fireflies onto his pirate ship.

"In the first year, our Qianji Pavilion will invest 50 billion yuan in Changzhou to build the first launch base in the four continents."

"The following year, we launched the first satellite... Don't interrupt me, I'll explain what a satellite is later."

"In short, in the third year, the 'Homecoming Dinner' rocket conducted its first test flight."

"In the fourth year, we will fly out of the four continents, head towards the stars, and grow bigger and stronger!"

"Understand the applause!"

The fireflies, each holding a small flying toy given to them by Zhang Ze, all cheered and clapped.

Although I don't understand the language and don't know what a satellite or 50 billion is, I still think this place called Qianjige is really amazing.

Zhang Ze put down the microphone, giving the Fireflies time to process the information.

However, after successfully reconciling with the Fireflies, Zhang Ze soon encountered another problem.

That is, at this moment, he only felt that the world was noisy.

Especially during the free discussion, the dark green fireflies that had been unhypnotized put aside their differences with the white fireflies and teamed up together.

Because of the reconciliation, the Fireflies no longer distinguish themselves by color; instead, they adjusted their color codes and unified into a standard green.

Now Zhang Ze could only hear gurgling, drowning-like voices.

He raised his hand several times and lowered it several times, but couldn't find a good opportunity to interrupt and quiet these little things down.

Finally, Ah Li couldn't stand it anymore. She climbed onto Zhang Ze's head, raised her hands, and shouted with all her might.

"All eyes are on me! I have something to say!"

The fireflies, who were indistinguishable from one another, all turned to look at Zhang Ze and A Li.

To be honest, it's quite unsettling to have so many big eyes staring at you.

After confirming that they had really quieted down, Zhang Ze coughed lightly.

"Could you please lift the blockade here and let us out?"

Faced with Zhang Ze's question, the commotion resumed, and the square, which had just quieted down, became chaotic again. The gurgling sounds blended together, as if Zhang Ze felt as if he were seeing soap bubbles rising from the entire ocean.

After a tense and exciting exchange and discussion, the Fireflies all shook their heads.

"It's impossible! It's broken! We can't get out either!"

Zhang Ze: "Is it broken?"

Firefly Spirit, "That's right!"

The fireflies held hands, their starlight twinkling, as the hexagonal barrier covering the inner boundary of Rainfall Mountain began to peel away. As the silvery boundary disappeared, the original appearance of Rainfall Mountain was revealed to everyone.

It definitely looks broken.

The metal blended seamlessly with the mountain, and scarlet ravines spread everywhere, with a light film resembling vomit appearing and disappearing intermittently.

Zhang Ze squinted; he had seen this scene before.

Central Wasteland.

"I'll go take a look!" Ah Li, who was lost in thought, suddenly felt that her moment to make a difference had arrived.

Flying closer, Ah Li endured her nausea and observed for a while, but couldn't discern any restrictions or seals, only thinking it was just ordinary nausea.

After hesitating for a moment, it made up its mind and charged upwards, wanting to see if its golden dragon head could break through the chaotic mountain rocks.

Hmm... failed, yet not failed.

Ah Li didn't fail because she put in all her effort and actually plunged in headfirst. She failed because, just as she was about to break free, she was bounced back by a force with a distinctly different aura from Xiao Jing's—a force that was remarkably gentle.

Zhang Ze watched as Ah Li, bounced back, slammed straight to the ground.

A quarter of an hour later.

Two fireflies floated over and dragged back Ah Li, who was sleeping peacefully with her hands behind her back on the ground.

"Wake up." Zhang Ze squatted down, patted A Li's big face, and checked her breathing.

Her breathing was steady, but Ah Li showed no reaction whatsoever.

"It's not our fault," the two fireflies murmured.

Zhang Ze thought for a moment, recalling the strategies written in his junior sister's "Guide to Raising the Goddess of Glass". He pulled out A Li's tongue with two fingers, and then hummed a tune and played "East Wind Breaks".

[Ah Li is in a coma. When will she wake up? What is the extent of her injuries? She needs to be diagnosed by listening to music with her tongue clicked. See the appendix for specific music to be listened to.]

—Your little junior sister

After the east wind stopped, Zhang Ze played another piece by Chopin, then took a pulse by suspending his tongue, and only felt relieved after confirming that A Li was alright.

Zhang Ze placed A Li on the small cushion and let her lie down comfortably. He recalled his previous conversation with the illusory image of the sect leader, comparing the scarlet patterns with the array patterns in the pyramid one by one.

Before long, some clues became apparent.

Emperor Xiao Jing's left hand somehow replaced the wasteland of Zhongzhou with the interior of Luoyu Mountain, and those magic arrays acted as a kind of fuse.

This thing is indeed a bomb, and the stone and the pyramid are the ignition devices for this bomb.

'But what about the power that stopped Ah Li without harming her?'

Zhang Ze frowned slightly, tapping his hard head.

"Could it be Master and the others?"

He had sent a message to Fu Ji long ago, and given that countless protective artifacts had just been shattered, it was impossible for his master, Lao Tang, and the others not to have sensed it.

According to the Firefly Spirit, after the first attempt failed, they tried several more times, but still could not succeed.

There was a force that bound them.

It seems that Old Tang and the others have already reached the outside, and the force blocking Ah Li was set up by them...

Zhang Ze was having a headache; things seemed to have gotten a bit awkward.

They were now sealed inside a bomb that could blow up the entire Changzhou at any moment.

In order to prevent the bomb from exploding, the blockade cannot be lifted; but if the blockade is not lifted, they cannot leave this place...

If Shi Xiu is the fuse, then he can't act rashly. If he makes a mistake and cuts the wrong red and blue wires, causing the Rainfall Mountain to explode from the inside, that would be ridiculous.

The thought of fighting right next to the fuse of the explosives still sent a chill down Zhang Ze's spine.

"So complicated……"

Ultimately, the most urgent task now is to re-establish contact with the outside world.

As a younger player, he desperately needs the wisdom and strength of his predecessor.

'If my magic bag hadn't broken, there might have been a way, but unfortunately...'

'But Ah Li might still have some left. I'll have to ask her about it when it wakes up.'

Not wanting to think about Ah Li, Zhang Ze turned to look behind him, intending to seek the wisdom of his fellow disciples first.

Some distance behind Zhang Ze, a group of cultivators were sitting, staring at each other.

Those were the cultivators who had been kidnapped by the Firefly Spirits to work as laborers. Now, with Monkey King's help, they had all regained their senses, but the atmosphere between them was very subtle.

They were currently in a state of mixed feelings, a mix of shame and indignation, schadenfreude and regret, and a desire to bang on the toilet door.

The reason things turned out this way is entirely the responsibility of those Blackstones.

To break the hypnosis of the Black Stone, one needs to evoke emotions, and most of these emotions are secrets within the mind of the hypnotized person.

Just as Monkey King likes his grandmother's cow sister, Ah Li refuses to admit that she is a square pig.

Because there are so few people in Changzhou, the relationships between those who were arrested are more or less intertwined, so some secrets are no longer secrets.

Monkey King first found one of his friends among the hypnotized people. After waking him up with the tragic memory of eating feces when he was a child, the two fought and a winner was determined. The warrior who dared to eat anything limped over and looked at a young man from the Beast Taming Sect.

As a tavern vendor, he was quite gossipy. A few days ago, he overheard the young man's drunken ramblings and learned that he liked the Sword Sect senior sister who was traveling with him, but he didn't dare to express it.

After being awakened by this secret, the virgin younger brother of the Beast Taming Sect was filled with shame and indignation, breaking his great defense and momentarily losing his self-cultivation. He then used the story of the peddler eating excrement to mock him.

The vendor was baffled, wondering how he knew about this while under hypnosis. Then he suddenly remembered that when the unfortunate monkey held up the black stone and accused him of eating excrement, it wasn't done in secret, but in full view of everyone.

Hypnosis is not amnesia; you will remember what you should remember.

Therefore, everyone present who can see the black stone already knows about this matter.

Similarly, he didn't hide it from anyone when he took the Black Stone to get rid of his younger brother from the Beast Taming Sect.

Everyone knows that. The two, their faces flushed and pale by turns, discussed for a long time. After abandoning their plans to kill each other to silence the witnesses and to flee the Eastern Continent, the Beast Taming Sect brother and the peddler reconciled and decided that if they were going to die, they would die together, and they couldn't let themselves be the only ones who lost face.

Therefore, the younger brother from the Beast Taming Sect looked to his bald-headed senior brother from the Buddhist sect...

"Senior Brother Mingxin both loves and fears spiders... the kind that don't wear clothes..."

"It's said that Junior Sister Qin confessed her feelings to her master, Fairy Suxin, when they were young..."

"When Junior Brother Wang was a child, in order to get revenge on his master, he used the Five Ghosts Moving Technique to steal his master's underwear. After succeeding, he even used the underwear's elastic band to hit his master's window paper..."

"Before cultivating his spiritual path, Brother Wei was a bricklayer. When he saw someone he liked, he would secretly call them 'Mom'..."

Based on the principle that brothers are like hands and feet, and that they should die together, this truth or dare game in the Resident Evil mode has no possibility of stopping.

One by one, the dark history of my childhood and present-day past has been exposed.

In short, everyone became an accomplice, and everyone became a 'close comrade-in-arms'.

After everyone was completely wiped out, and after careful consideration, this group of people signed an alliance, a mysterious and unpredictable Changzhou Alliance in the eyes of later generations.

Those who join the alliance swear an oath to the heavens and the earth, promising to watch over and help each other, monitor one another, and jointly keep these secrets, guaranteeing that these secrets will never be revealed again...

"By the way, what's wrong with you guys?"

Zhang Ze, whose head was still aching from the noise of the fireflies, hadn't paid attention to what was happening on their side. But when he saw their strange expressions, he asked them a question.

"No! Nothing's wrong." One person quickly shook his head.

“Yes, yes, yes, we’ve all been through the same thing, it’s fate. Let’s chat, let’s chat…” another person immediately chimed in.

Zhang Ze, "..."

Oh well, everyone has their own little secrets.

Without delving further, Zhang Ze directly shared his earlier speculation and asked them if they had any good ideas for communicating with the outside world.

As soon as the problem arose, suggestions were immediately offered.

One of the barbarian cultivators spoke up, "How about losing a shoe? It's a family heirloom method. This method can predict good or bad fortune, and send messages..."

The long-haired rogue cultivator wearing a straw hat next to him nudged the barbarian.

"Get lost, who cares about your stinky shoes. Why not try my Thousand-Mile Thunderclap Secret Sound? By combining long and short signals to form a secret sound, we might be able to transmit it by finding a specific frequency. This is my exclusive secret technique. I wouldn't have revealed it if I hadn't encountered such a strange thing."

"So, only you know this method?" One person calmly discovered the blind spot.

“That’s right!” Long Hair said proudly. “I only just comprehended this method last month. I am the only one in the world who knows its secrets. I didn’t even tell my master.”

"Then get out of here too. What's the point of passing on the password if you're the only one who knows it?"

The barbarian kicked the long-haired man from behind and then prepared to continue selling his smelly shoes.

Inspired by these two, the others also offered their suggestions, and all sorts of folk remedies and secret formulas came up one after another.

Aside from the fact that none of them have a method that a human could come up with, they have no flaws.

It can be said that there are countless talented individuals in Changzhou, and this poor place alone has eight of them.

Just as Zhang Ze was about to find a quiet place to think about his strategy, a junior sister from the Sword Sect suddenly stepped forward.

She hesitated for a moment, then quickly walked up to Zhang Ze, as if she had something to say.

Before Zhang Ze could ask, she made a sword incantation with her hand, and a three-inch-long exquisite sword flew out from her sleeve, turning into a green light and flying to Zhang Ze's front.

"This sword? Do you have a solution?"

Zhang Ze looked at the exquisite sword soaring into the sky and thought that it might be a treasure given to her by one of her senior uncles or aunts, and it might even have the power to penetrate the heavens and the earth.

"No." The unfamiliar junior sister shook her head vigorously, took several deep breaths, and then spoke again.

"I'm a fan of yours, senior brother. Could you sign my sword? I'm afraid that if I die here with you, I won't even get your autograph. Wouldn't that be a huge loss for me?"

Zhang Ze, "..."

He thought this unfortunate kid seemed a bit tongue-tied, but oh well, he'd just have to sign...

While Zhang Ze was signing autographs on the sword for his female admirers, Ah Li slowly woke up.

It rubbed its eyes, got up, curled its tongue back into its mouth, and it took a while to sit up, but it was still somewhat disoriented.

It looked around and saw that everyone was talking.

Zhang Ze and his group were having a heated discussion about things like shoes, tortoise shells, resurrection, and drinking more hot water.

The fireflies sipped their Apa tea and whispered amongst themselves.

In a daze, Ah Li suddenly heard a somewhat familiar voice.

"Who stepped on my foot!"

Why does this word sound so familiar? I feel like I've heard it somewhere before.

Ah Li groggily got up and, as if walking into a thicket of grass, entered the fireflies. She parted their ahoge (cowlicks) and walked into the deepest part.

Arriving at the source of the sound, Ah Li rubbed her eyes and saw a somewhat different firefly spirit.

While ordinary fireflies can switch between reality and illusion, their appearance is usually quite fixed when they appear.

The ahoge (cowlick), the big head, and the little skirt are all made of plant materials; only the body hidden under the skirt is soft and limp.

But this firefly in front of us was different; its entire dish was limp, slimy, and had a bluish tinge.

It was holding a large cup of Apa tea, looking dazed and making a lot of noise.

"Don't step on my foot! Give me another drink, I want more!"

As it became increasingly intoxicated, the firefly revealed its true form.

A lump of rotten princess.

No one knows where this rotten princess came from, but she had infiltrated the Firefly's team and was now completely drunk.

Soon, the entire blob of bouncy slid into the large cup, turning into a cup of rotten bouncy.

Even though this woman was drunk, she was still muttering, "Who stepped on my foot... Don't step on it again... It hurts..."

"Didn't you... notice that she's different?" Ah Li asked, her words slurred.

The fireflies shook their heads, not understanding what Ah Li was talking about.

Ah Li yawned, picked up her cup, and walked towards Zhang Ze.

If there's something you don't understand, just show it to Zhang Ze.

……

Rain falls outside the mountains.

It's quite lively now.

The area within a hundred miles has been encircled by Qin Lang, with countless old mountains within it, and the most central Luoyu Mountain is under tight guard.

The most stubborn sect leader, Master Li, single-handedly suppressed the pressure, while Longhu Mountain on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, Tianzong on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and the bald-headed monk from the Buddhist sect on the remaining day, came in batches to help Master Li share the burden and strengthen the array and barrier they had set up on Luoyu Mountain.

In the distance, in a watchtower of a thousand machines, the junior sister and Lily were drawing the figure eight and spinning around in the room.

The junior sister was anxious, while Lily was having an obsessive-compulsive disorder attack, feeling that it was asymmetrical for only one person to spin around, so she joined in the spinning.

Just as Zhang Ze was unaware of the situation outside, they were also unaware of what had happened inside. The only thing they were certain of was that Zhang Ze was still alive for the time being.

The only person in the room who was quiet and didn't make a fuss was a rotten princess.

As a species classified by quantifiers, this one is indeed excessively normal.

It can be said that Fuhime is the ultimate being, embodying the essence of her entire being—her normal life force, wisdom, and power.

The ultimate wisdom-wielding Fu Ji sat quietly behind the table, toying with the empty teacup in her hand, while browsing the official, ad-free edition of the Changzhou Local History.

Suddenly, she shot out a tentacle, pulling Lily, who was spinning around, off balance.

"Lily, what is Apacha?" Fukihime asked.

Lily, who had fallen with a thud, grumbled as she got up from the ground, pointing at her junior sister, "I don't know, I've never heard of it, and why did you pull me? Why didn't you pull her!"

The junior sister who was pointed at stopped, glanced at Lily, and then continued spinning.

Fuhime remained silent, tilting her head cutely.

"Sorry, I just got used to pinching it."

Lily: "…"

(End of this chapter)