Monster Hunter, start with a wife!

The gray fog flowed slowly, making Qi Yanshan's voice sound muffled.

After he finished speaking, he fell silent, his cloudy eyes fixed on the fishing line under the ice. The scene in front of Cheng Zhuo transformed back into that frozen lake.

"Quest Activated: The Angler's Liberation"

"Mission Description: Help Qi Yanshan, the soul of a border soldier who has been trapped in the frozen lake for a hundred years, to resolve his obsession and help his soul return to his homeland."

"Mission Reward: King Card - Guardian of the Pass"

"I'll bring it up for you," Cheng Zhuo said.

The angler didn't respond, only muttering repeatedly, "Can't catch it, can't catch it..."

Cheng Zhuo's thoughts stirred slightly.

Black mist surged forth beside him, and Thorne stepped slowly out of it, nodding slightly.

"Owner."

"Go investigate. There's a letter wrapped in oilcloth at the bottom of this lake," Cheng Zhuo instructed. "Be careful not to damage it."

"Yes, ma'am."

Thorne nodded, his figure transforming into a wisp of black mist and vanishing without a sound.

But not long after, he reappeared.

"No, Master," Thorne said in surprise, "I can't go down!"

Cheng Zhuo frowned, his gaze falling on the fishing line that the angler was using to cut through the ice, and then on the dead insect bait at his feet.

"Let me change the bait for you," Cheng Zhuo said.

"it is good."

This time, the angler responded and reeled in his fishing rod again.

Cheng Zhuo reached out and beckoned, and the dead insects under his feet instantly came to life. He hooked the insects back onto the fishing hook and gave the order to retrieve the package.

"Try fishing again."

"it is good."

click-

As the angler cast his line again, a faint cracking sound came from beneath the ice.

Cheng Zhuo felt much more at ease, and the insect-like corpse puppets he had summoned went down.

Unfortunately, my connection with him has been severed.

Cheng Zhuo was a little nervous.

Before long, a continuous scraping sound came from under the ice, and fine ice shards spilled out from the cracks.

A section of the ice suddenly bulged out.

Qi Yanshan tightened his grip on the fishing rod with a sharp click.

A thin crack appeared in the solid ice, and the crack slowly widened.

A skeleton emerged first, carrying a dark, oily cloth bag in its mouth, and slowly floated up along the crack.

The package was small, with frayed edges and a surface covered in ice chips and mud. In the center was an eagle-shaped sealing wax seal, which gleamed with a somber dark red hue in the gray mist.

The angler stood frozen in place.

He slowly raised his hand, his withered fingers hovering above the package, trembling for a long time before he dared not touch it.

It was as if they were afraid that if they touched it, this thing they had longed for for hundreds of years would turn to ashes.

He paused, then took a deep breath, even though his soul no longer needed to breathe.

He slowly hugged the package to his chest, as if holding a lost treasure that had been found again.

The tarpaulin was peeled off layer by layer.

The hemp paper inside was folded neatly.

The angler crouched down and spread the letters out one by one on the ice.

"Dazhu..."

"Old Zhang..."

"Little Fangzi..."

He whispered each name, his fingers lightly brushing across the paper, so gently that he was afraid of disturbing the writing.

When he read the letter from "Commander Chen," his voice faltered for a moment.

On the letter, the three characters "Chen Wangbei" were written neatly, and next to them was a crooked little tiger.

That was drawn by Chen Baihu himself. He said the child was born in the Year of the Tiger and would definitely be tiger-headed and tiger-like.

The angler bowed his head, his white hair hanging down to obscure his decaying face.

His shoulders trembled slightly, and the faint outline of the old armor on his back appeared and disappeared.

There was no crying.

Only the gray mist settled on his shoulders, accumulating a thin layer of white frost, and the angler's decaying body gradually transformed into the appearance of a robust general.

He took a step back, straightened his armor which was no longer on his body, and then bowed deeply to Cheng Zhuo, giving a standard military salute.

He was bent very low, and the bones in his back made a soft, cracking sound.

"Young master, your great kindness will be forever etched in our hearts by Shen and his 372 brothers."

As soon as he finished speaking, the gray mist behind him began to churn.

One after another, translucent figures emerged from the mist.

Soldiers in tattered cotton armor, cooks holding spatulas, boys clutching command flags, and centurions with long swords hanging from their waists.

Three hundred and seventy-two figures stood in neat rows.

Some of them were missing arms, some had arrows embedded in their legs, and some still had bloodstains on their faces. Yet each of them stood ramrod straight, their eyes fixed on Cheng Zhuo with gratitude and the uprightness of soldiers.

As Qi Yanshan moved, all 372 figures bowed in salute.

The gray fog churned even more violently, and the entire frozen lake seemed to tremble slightly.

Just then, the revelation before Cheng Zhuo's eyes was updated once again.

"Congratulations on completing the task! The angler's liberation! Reward: King Card - Guardian of the Pass"

Then, a card landed in front of Cheng Zhuo, glowing with a faint orange light. The center of the card was engraved with an ancient city wall pattern, and the word "King" was printed in gold foil in the upper left corner.

Cheng Zhu put away the cards and focused his gaze on the illusory figures.

Suddenly, a crack appeared behind them, and as Qi Yanshan stepped in first, everyone else followed suit.

Dark red mist churned within the crack, and for some reason, it gave Cheng Zhuo a strange sense of familiarity.

Cheng Zhuo frowned slightly.

This aura... it's kind of like the abyss.

He paused, then focused his mind and called out, "Senior Divine Dragon."

An aged, deep dragon voice then resounded in his mind, carrying a hint of drowsiness from just waking up: "Hmm? What's wrong, my cheap master?"

"Look at this crack, what's inside?" Cheng Zhuo asked. "It looks a bit like an abyss."

The dragon's consciousness swept over the crack and paused for a few seconds.

"I don't know," he said frankly.

Cheng Zhuo was stunned for a moment.

"Is there anything you don't know?"

"I'm not an omniscient being, why would you think I know everything?" The dragon's tone was somewhat dismissive. "I don't even understand what's going on with you Beacon Ruins."

Cheng Zhuo was even more surprised.

"What? You don't even know what a lighthouse is?"

"Why should I know?" the dragon snorted. "In this vast world, there are at least eight or ten thousand cultivation systems, how could I possibly know them all? The place I lived in back then had a completely different cultivation path from yours. If my remnant soul hadn't been trapped in your strange space, I might not have been able to understand your Origin Realm."