"You dare! Since the village chief has agreed to trade with you, don't push your luck! This is not a place for the likes of you to enter! Get out!" Seeing Hao Yun daring to approach the village chief to demand the ticket, the hot-tempered one couldn't help but roar again.
However, before the village chief could stop the hot-tempered one again, he took a swift step towards Dao Lao and delivered a heavy blow to Dao Lao's cheek. And Dao Lao, seeing the hot-tempered one rushing towards him, neither panicked nor dodged. Dao Lao just smirked coldly and said, "Humph! Come on!"
Then, a scene that shocked everyone on the side of the village chief appeared. Just as the hot-tempered one's fist was about to smash into Dao Lao's face, Dao Lao casually raised his hand and caught the heavy blow. Then, with a forceful grip, as bone-crushing sounds that made people's hair stand on end and screams of pain filled the air, the hot-tempered one's entire body instantly softened as if all his bones had turned to mush, and he knelt directly in front of Dao Lao.
"Ah—! You—, you actually—, ah—!" The hot-tempered one looked at his right hand, which had been completely crushed by Dao Lao, and roared in shock and anger. At the same time, his whole body convulsed violently under the intense pain.
But that wasn't the end of it. Hao Yun, having finally vented his anger, strode forward and, with all his strength, kicked the hot-tempered one in the chest, sending the burly hot-tempered one flying. After a muffled groan as he was slammed into the courtyard wall, he quickly lost consciousness.
After Hao Yun had finally let out a sigh of relief, he spat towards the direction of the hot-tempered one, "Huh! This is what you asked for!"
Dream Jia ignored the situation where Dao Lao and Hao Yun jointly killed the hot-tempered one. She approached the stunned village chief, who was shocked by the easy defeat of the hot-tempered one, and impatiently said, "We just wanted to help return the Tiger Pill to the village chief and, at the same time, make a deal with the village chief. If you're not sincere about trading and just want to play tricks, we don't mind killing you all."
Dream Jia knew, of course, that if they really killed the village chief, their mission would fail again. But now, she had to intimidate the other party into completing the transaction in this way. After all, the hot-tempered one, as one of the most powerful figures in the village, could be easily crushed by Hao Yun and his group, and the others present should now have a clear understanding of Hao Yun's strength.
Sure enough, the village chief soon realized that, apart from agreeing to the demands of these three strangers who had inexplicably appeared, he had no other choice if he wanted to obtain the Tiger Pill to prolong his life. After all, from the strength shown by these three people just now, it was obvious that they had the power to forcibly snatch the ticket from him. But instead of choosing to do so, they had proposed the idea of a fair exchange with him. In that case, it was better to have more troubles than less! Anyway, even if they boarded the light boat, there was no guarantee that they would survive to enter the Blissful Island.
Thinking of this, the village chief suppressed the panic in his heart, and then handed the ticket to Dream Jia, saying, "Ah! Well, let's do as you say."
Dream Jia took the ticket without hesitation and said, "Very well. Let's check the goods first. Once we've successfully boarded the ship, we'll give you the Tiger Pill."
The village chief nodded in agreement with Dream Jia's proposal. So, he took the initiative to lead Hao Yun and his group back to the royal boat dock and informed Hao Yun and his group of how to use the ticket. As Dream Jia waved the ticket and woke up the scarecrow on the light boat, telling it where she wanted to go, the scarecrow slowly sailed away from the royal boat dock.
Seeing that the ticket given by the village chief was indeed genuine, Dream Jia exclaimed, "Next!"
Then, she threw the Tiger Pill to the village chief, who was anxiously waiting by the dock. The village chief hurriedly caught the thrown Tiger Pill, and as if he had obtained the most precious treasure in the world, he carefully held it in his trembling hands and showed a relieved smile on his face.
The group of servants standing beside the village chief immediately picked up their weapons and prepared to attack the light boat carrying Hao Yun and his group. However, the village chief reached out to stop them, halting their actions. It seemed that he was very satisfied with being able to obtain the Tiger Pill as he wished. And he was also very happy to be able to keep away these inexplicably powerful and strange guys from him. Therefore, he didn't want to stir up any trouble anymore. At least until he took the Tiger Pill and successfully completed the task of prolonging his life, he didn't want to cause any more trouble. So, the village chief waved his hand, indicating that the group of servants should immediately help him back to the house.
Hao Yun looked at the village chief leading the group of people away, relievedly sat down on the deck, and said, "Phew! I wonder what unexpected things will happen next?"
"Well. Although we skipped the task of bringing Xiao Hu back to the village of Yinxingmu this time, everything has gone smoothly so far. I hope we can succeed this time!" Dao Lao said somewhat nervously.
At this moment, the atmosphere on the light boat fell silent again because Dao Lao mentioned Xiao Hu again. Finally, Hao Yun broke the silence and asked, "Hey, I really don't understand. Since we could easily bring Xiao Hu to the Glowing Forest, why didn't those guys from Yinxingmu Village do it earlier?"
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"Perhaps this is also part of the task setting, and it's also a choice left to us by the Countess! This damn Countess, she treats us like toys and plays with us as she pleases!" Dream Jia gritted her teeth.
At the same time, Dream Jia also expressed her annoyance towards Hao Yun for constantly bringing up the matter of refining Xiao Hu into the Tiger Pill. Everyone clearly didn't want to discuss it anymore, but he had to bring it up again. As a result, after Dream Jia's scolding, the atmosphere between the three of them fell silent again, and each person put on a mask of pain as they recalled what happened in the Glowing Forest.
To alleviate the pressure and guilt in their hearts, the three could only focus more on the situation on the Blissful Lake. Just like the last time they rode the light boat, as the light boat gradually entered the center of the lake, the surrounding white mist became denser. So, involuntarily, the three looked at the straw man still rowing the boat and then glanced at the light boat under their feet. They feared that in the next moment, they would hear some bad news from the straw man and see their light boat sink again.
The light boat sailed briskly on the lake, and the unexpected events that Hao Yun and the others worried about did not happen again, gradually easing their tense emotions. However, as soon as their minds relaxed a bit, a hoarse voice suddenly came from the straw man standing at the stern: "Destination reached ahead—Bliss Island, please prepare to land."
As soon as the straw man finished speaking, there was a dull sound from the bow of the boat. It seemed that the light boat had hit something, causing the entire boat to vibrate violently. The three, who were trying to stabilize themselves in the center, hurriedly looked towards the bow and found that the reason for this situation was that the light boat had collided with a wooden pier that suddenly appeared on the lake.
With very anxious hearts, they all jumped onto the pier. Then, they found that as soon as they stepped onto this crude pier, the surrounding white mist immediately thickened. It was so dense that they could only see the path about two meters ahead leading to the pier, and they couldn't see anything else around them.
"Is this Bliss Island? Have we arrived at Bliss Island? Does this mean we've completed the mission?" Hao Yun asked.
Dao Lao shook his head, indicating that he didn't know either, and then suggested, "Let's go ahead and see first. The white mist here is very thick, so be careful not to get separated."
The pier was not as long as imagined. After Hao Yun and the others walked about five meters forward, they quickly stepped onto a path paved with colorful gravel. The lawns on both sides of the path looked like they had just been meticulously trimmed, very neat. Moreover, it seemed that in order to indicate the direction for Hao Yun and the others, the lawn mower who trimmed the lawn had deliberately trimmed an arrow pattern on both lawns on their sides.
After seeing these two arrow patterns pointing forward, Hao Yun and the others couldn't help but feel danger. But at the same time, they also felt that they seemed to only have a chance to know if they had completed the mission and if they could leave this ghostly place by following the direction indicated by the arrows.
So, after exchanging glances with each other, they took a deep breath simultaneously and bravely decided to follow the direction indicated by the arrows.
However, before they had gone far, the white mist around them suddenly intensified, and soon enveloped them completely again. Seeing this, the three felt uneasy and quickly stood back to back, ready to fight and endure pain at any time.
But to their surprise, none of the above happened this time. The dense white mist quickly dissipated, sending them into a pale space again. Seeing the sudden change in front of them, Hao Yun and the others didn't panic, but appeared unusually happy instead. Because they knew that this change meant that they had finally completed the mission assigned by the Countess.
Before they could make a celebratory move, all the light shining into the pale space suddenly disappeared, and they immediately entered darkness again, feeling their bodies being tightly enveloped by some powerful force. Hao Yun immediately wanted to ask loudly what was happening, but when he opened his mouth, he found that his voice seemed to be blocked and couldn't spread out at all, but only echoed around him constantly.
"Hao Yun! Dream Jia! Can you hear—, what I'm saying—, to you? Are you—, okay?!" Dao Lao's voice came intermittently through the system channel. Obviously, like Hao Yun, he couldn't speak normally at this moment.
"I—, am—, okay. What's—, going—," came Dream Jia's voice. As the pressure on their bodies increased, the transmission signal of the system chat channel became more unstable.
As the pressure on their bodies increased, Hao Yun and the others soon found themselves in a state of breathlessness due to the high pressure, exhausted and starting to feel drowsy. However, unlike before, the three did not really fall asleep this time, but quickly woke up after struggling several times. And as their consciousness regained clarity, the pressure on them and the darkness surrounding them began to dissipate, and the three once again returned to that pale space.
But that's not all. This pale space quickly became blurry. And the fully awake Hao Yun and the others immediately noticed that the reason why the space in front of them gradually became blurry was that the dense white mist spread out from nowhere again, and soon enveloped them again.
"Huff! Are you guys okay? What's going on?" Hao Yun looked at the constant changes happening before him and subconsciously asked again. Then, to his surprise, he found that he could now speak normally.
"Huff! I'm——" Dream Jia wanted to be the first to respond to Hao Yun, but her words were abruptly interrupted by the sudden, faintly discernible enthusiastic shouts appearing around them. Almost simultaneously, the dense fog enveloping the three quickly began to dissipate. Then, Hao Yun and the others found themselves in a bright and spacious room. The room looked like a deluxe suite in a high-end hotel, exuding extreme luxury from every corner. The shouts, meanwhile, came from the huge French windows outside, with exaggerated designs and massive size, their voices echoing into the room.
After quickly surveying the surroundings, Hao Yun also noticed that he and Dao Lao were both dressed in exquisite formal wear. Dream Jia, on the other hand, wore a low-cut black gown, a tiara adorning her head, and a golden necklace adorned with jewels around her slender and fair swan-like neck. Dream Jia's attire showcased her noble and luxurious demeanor, making her look like a wealthy heiress, radiant and dazzling in the room, even illuminating the entire space exceptionally brightly.