The Days of Being Forced to Become the Savior of a Cultivation Civilization

Zhiyue exclaimed in surprise. One of the two items was actually the rare and precious Mirror Essence, a treasure that even the Kun family's treasury might not be able to find.

As its name suggests, it is smooth as a mirror and unlike ordinary heavy salt crystals which are angular, it is round and lustrous, with a restrained beauty, yet it gives people a sense of vitality. When held in the hand, it seems to be pulsating.

Qian Xintong had never seen this before, so he was naturally completely bewildered.

"Oh, this looks like something good!"

Yingzi sighed:

"This mirror marrow is truly a treasure. Seeing one again after so many years still evokes a sense of wonder."

Salt is inherently a land of death, a place where life is forbidden, yet the more it is nurtured in this lake, the more vibrant life becomes, a phenomenon reminiscent of the reversal of extremes. Interesting, truly interesting.

Zhiyue then looked at another item, a photograph.

The little girl in the photo is holding a string of candied hawthorns, sitting on a man's shoulders, smiling broadly with her eyes squinted.

Zhiyue looked at the photo, then at the old man:

"Is that you in the photo?"

The old man's salt-laden cervical spine drooped downwards with difficulty, roughly as if he were nodding.

He glanced at the photo again:

"Is this little girl your granddaughter?"

The old man nodded again, grinding away a lot of the salt residue.

Yingzi leaned back on Zhiyue's back, just enough to see the photo:

"Ah, this background looks like the Huanlong Market."

The old man nodded mechanically, his expression unchanged.

Zhiyue thought for a moment, then tentatively asked:

"You mean, you want me to...protect this little girl?"

The old man nodded again. His smile remained frozen on his face, and Zhiyue realized that his facial muscles had also been assimilated.

"Then why are you looking for us? And this little girl, how am I supposed to find her?"

The old man shook his head.

Snap, snap, salt crystals suddenly spread across his face at a visible speed, quickly climbing to the top of his head—

He died and turned into a salt sculpture.

Suddenly, Yingzi whispered in her voice:

Put the treasure away, someone's coming.

Sure enough, Wen Hongling, who had been leading the group, came over.

He watched as the old man completely turned into a statue, then shook his head, as if he had expected it:

"We all called him Old Wood because he was like a block of wood."

Nobody knows his real name; he's just been soaking in this salt lake for seven years.

Zhi Yue pondered for a moment and then raised his own doubts:

"Is there absolutely no way to reverse the assimilation process of this salt lake?"

Wen Hongling shook her head:

I understand what you mean.

Generally speaking, the boss won't let one person have lens extractions for more than fifteen consecutive days. Every now and then, he'll send us to soak in Ward Spring to the south, which minimizes the risk of crystallization in the body.

He glanced at the motionless old Wood, his eyes filled with sadness:

But he's different.

From the first day he arrived, he seemed to have some kind of obsession with these salt crystals. Apart from eating and sleeping, he was almost constantly digging and shoveling.

It wasn't that he was hoarding salt crystals to sell for money; he was acting strangely all the time, and nobody knew what he was really thinking.

The boss tried to persuade him countless times, but to no avail, so in the end he had no choice but to let it go.

Wen Hongling was grumbling and cursing, but his sunken eyes didn't lie—he was very sad.

Zhiyue glanced down at the photo in his hand. The old man in the photo was smiling kindly, like the type who would dote on his granddaughter. But in the blink of an eye, he had become a cold corpse.

Wen Hongling: "That little girl is indeed his granddaughter, but they got separated shortly after the photo was taken."

The little girl's parents met with misfortune, and she has lived with them alone since she was a child.

These are things Old Wood said himself when he was still relatively normal.

"How could this be..."

Qian Xintong sighed.

Wen Hongling sighed:

"I don't know why the old man chose you, but now that he has made his choice, his heart is at peace, and I hope you can carry on his last wishes."

Even if it's just something I happen to be looking for along the way, it would be nice.

-

Wen Hongling turned and left. Zhi Yue silently put away the two items and stared at the sculpture for a long time.

"Alright, that's enough, we should go."

Yingzi kicked him.

But Zhiyue frowned, narrowed his eyes, and slowly approached the old man's body, gently lifting the thin robe with his hand—

He has a hole in his chest.

Get even closer, close enough to see the texture of the crystallized surface, and through the hole to see the similarly crystallized organs in the chest cavity—

It has no heart.

Zhiyue gripped the mirror marrow tightly, and then, thud, thud, it stopped beating.

-

Qian Xintong lowered her head and muttered to herself:

"Such a grown man, turned into a salt sculpture. His granddaughter will be heartbroken when she finds out."

Zhiyue glanced at her and comforted her:

"The old man looked like that; perhaps death was a relief for him."

He entrusted us with his granddaughter's photo, which fulfilled one of his wishes.

Qian Xintong shook her head:

"I see."

Zhiyue stroked his chin thoughtfully:

"What kind of person do you think Wen Hongling is?"

Yingzi: "Nothing much, I think. He's a very loyal person."

Zhiyue still frowned:

"But I always felt that something was off about this guy."

Qian Xintong recalled for a moment, then shook her head:

"I couldn't find anything wrong with it."

Zhiyue also shook his head:

"Actually, I don't have it, but I just have this feeling, this... intuition."

Qian Xintong raised an eyebrow:

"Huh? Aren't you the most cautious one?"

Aunt Liu told me, "You're the smartest kid. Even when the prey's blood is all drained, you'll still grab a rock spear and wring it around in its skull three times."

As Qian Xintong spoke, he made a "stirring" motion with his hand, which was incredibly vivid and descriptive:

"So, how can you say you have this kind of 'intuition'?"

Qian Xintong looked shocked, took a half-step back from Zhiyue, and raised her hand to cover her mouth:

"Ah! Could it be that you, too, are an imposter, a fly in disguise!"

Zhiyue twitched the corner of his mouth:

"If I were you, would you two still be alive today?"

Qian Xintong laughed heartily and waved his hand:

"Sorry, sorry, I was just kidding. Although I've lost all my cultivation, I'm still very sensitive to the scent of those flies."

Yingzi seemed to be deep in thought:

"But this is definitely not normal. Aren't you going to explain?"

Zhiyue scratched his head:

"Hmm... I can't explain it. I used to completely disbelieve in intuition, until... a mysterious feeling led me to find you two treasures."

The feeling was the same this time; that intense sensation made it impossible for me to ignore it.

Qian Xintong raised an eyebrow:

"Hmm? Two babies? Me too?"

Zhiyue's lips curled up slightly:

"Those who hold something in their hands for fear of breaking it are treasures, aren't they?"

Qian Xintong's expression changed drastically, and she put her hands on her hips:

"What do you mean?!"

Yingzi: "He said you're bad at it."

Qian Xintong became even more anxious:

"you!"

Zhiyue laughed heartily:

"Alright, alright, let's not talk about this anymore. Just pretend I was having a tantrum. Let's hurry to the post station, our next stop."

Yingzi quietly slowed her pace, moved closer to Qian Xintong, and whispered:

"What? You've become desensitized? I didn't see you blushing."

"you!"

When Qian Xintong saw his cheeky little face, she couldn't help but curse him out, but at the same time, her face also started to turn red.

"Hmm? What's wrong? Why is your face so red?"

Zhiyue turned around in confusion.

"No, it's nothing, it's just a little hot."

Zhiyue looked up and saw that the sun was almost directly overhead.

"Oh, it is indeed getting late."

Yingzi quickened her pace:

"That's right, let's hurry up and see if there's anything to eat at the inn."

Zhiyue: "Reborn, my uncle has become a super glutton."

Yingzi rolled her eyes at him:

"In the end, it just became someone's backup energy source."

Zhiyue shook his head; the mirror marrow in his pocket had stopped pulsating, just like an ordinary piece of jade.