Chapter 296 – Escaping the Valley

Translator: Coca5156

Editor: Drea

Spitting blood out of her mouth, Gu Lingzhi dragged her severely injured body to the location in her mind.

At this point, Shao Weiming was no longer in a rush to bring her down. On the contrary, he wanted to see how long more Gu Lingzhi could hold out. In a cat and mouse situation, he followed behind Gu Lingzhi, occasionally creating obstacles in her way. Seeing how his obstacles were causing Gu Lingzhi to suffer, a perverting smile appeared on his face.

Tianfeng Wei had wanted to take Gu Lingzhi down immediately upon seeing her so severely injured. However, upon seeing how Shao Weiming was intentionally playing tricks on Gu Lingzhi, her devilish side rose as well. Watching how exhausted and defeated Gu Lingzhi looked, her mood significantly improved.

Another hour passed. After half a day of running, Gu Lingzhi finally reached the place where she had met the capuchin monkeys.

The dense forest was as quiet as before but only Gu Lingzhi knew what lay hidden beneath this calm façade.

Where were the capuchin monkeys?

Gu Lingzhi’s eyes quickly scanned the trees as she tried to find the monkeys that once caused her to run away in fear.

Alas, she was not disappointed. Just as she thought the monkeys might have relocated, she caught sight of a furry tail hanging off a tree branch in a distance. The signature long tail was hooked firmly on a tree branch as it watched Gu Lingzhi cautiously. It suddenly gave out a shriek, seeming to recognise this human as the one that they had failed to catch earlier. It cried out happily.

Delight bloomed in Gu Lingzhi’s heart. This time, instead of attacking back when the monkey pounced on her, she skilfully dodged its attack. On the contrary, she took out a few spiritual fruits from her Storage Ring and threw it to the monkey.

As Shao Weiming and his group saw Gu Lingzhi do this, they thought that she did this to lower the guard of the capuchin monkey so as to coax it to stop attacking. Gu Lingzhi’s gesture however, bought the monkey over as it hugged the spiritual fruit that Gu Lingzhi gave happily, looking less wary of her.

It seems like she had guessed correctly. The capuchin monkey really liked this kind of fruit and Gu Lingzhi continued to throw out a few more spiritual fruits. When the capuchin monkey got the fruits it chased Gu Lingzhi happily, refusing to leave her alone. This caused Shao Weiming to burst out laughing.

“Is she stupid? Does she think that the capuchin monkey will let her leave after she throws out so much spiritual fruit?”

To the capuchin monkey, whose intelligence was much higher than the average beast, giving it spiritual fruit to distract it was as good as digging your own grave. Not only will it never be satisfied, it will become even greedier. As predicted, Gu Lingzhi had provoked this monkey’s greed and it was calling after Gu Lingzhi, with no intention of letting her go.

Very soon, Shao Weiming could no longer laugh. He suddenly felt an uncountable number of spiritual energy floating towards them from nearby. Curiously, he turned his head in the direction where he felt the spiritual energy and goose bumps rose all over his skin. An entire mass of monkeys were pushing and shoving as they tried to get closer to them. Briefly looking over them, he counted over a few hundred heads.

“Damn it, where did they come from?” Shao Weiming cursed. When they came across here earlier, they did not see any monkeys.

But now was not the time for him to think about this. The uncountable number of monkeys had surrounded them in a never ending circle.

“Don’t worry. This group of monkeys are only targeting the Princess Consort. As long as we do not trigger them, they will not attack us.” Shao Weiming attempted to calm the emotions of his men behind him, but even he did not believe his own words.

Now that they had already entered the territory of the monkeys, how could they hope that the monkeys will leave them alone? At this moment, Gu Lingzhi purposely threw a spiritual fruit behind her and it landed perfectly in front of Shao Weiming. Shao Weiming subconsciously reached out for it and immediately felt ten over gazes locking on him. He immediately retracted his hand as if he had been scalded. All of a sudden, there was a lot of spiritual fruit in front of him.

Previously, in order to get into Gu Lingzhi’s good books, Rong Yuan had regularly collected spiritual fruits for Gu Lingzhi to try. Now, these spiritual fruits had come into good use. These spiritual fruits that were treasured by Martial Artists were now being thrown by Gu Lingzhi behind her as if they did not matter. One by one they landed on Shao Weiming and Tianfeng Wei. Naturally, the attention of the majority of the capuchin monkeys were now focused on them.

Shao Weiming glared angrily at the figure in front of him, regretting not catching Gu Lingzhi earlier on when she was severely injured. Why did he have to find trouble for himself and make fun of her? Now, they had triggered a bunch of monkeys. Not even considering catching Gu Lingzhi, it would be a miracle if they were able to escape safely.

It was too late for regrets now, the majority of the monkeys had turned to them as the subject of their anger. As things came to this, a vicious look appeared in Shao Weiming’s eyes. Since their mission was bound to fail, he could not return back empty-handed. If he could not catch her to threaten Rong Yuan, he could just kill her and make Rong Yuan suffer the pain of losing her!

As the thought crossed his mind, Shao Weiming did not hesitate anymore as he gathered an incredible amount of fire spiritual energy in his palm. In a second, an entire sea of fire formed in front of him. It engulfed the ground and the air as it rushed towards Gu Lingzhi.

At this moment, Gu Lingzhi knew she was at her end. Facing the incoming wave of fire, disappointment flashed through her eyes as she suddenly disappeared.

After his first hit, Shao Weiming threw a few more continuous attacks at Gu Lingzhi, clearly not wanting to give her any chance to counterattack. The fire forced the few capuchin monkeys standing near them to back away as those far away glared at them.

At the same time, Shao Weiming looked for opportunities to escape.

Although his cultivation level was much higher than these capuchin monkeys, there were too many of them. Even an elephant could be bitten to death by millions of ants. If they were to be caught by these monkeys, the only way out for them was death!

“When the fire extinguishes, try to escape. I won’t be able to take care of you,” Shao Weiming ordered coldly.

Tianfeng Wei’s heart stiffened. Was Shao Weiming giving up on them? Without his protection, it would be almost impossible for them to escape the capuchin monkeys.

“Leader Shao...”

“Don’t pin your hopes on me, I can only protect myself.” Before she could complete her sentence, Shao Weiming cut her off brutally.

Tianfeng Wei’s expression darkened as she bit her lip indignantly. She also knew that in this kind of situation, Shao Weiming would not be able to help them escape. But she was not willing to die here, she had yet to see how devastated Rong Yuan would look when he received the news of Gu Lingzhi’s death. She had also not seen how Jiang Feixue, that bitch, would look after she gets despised by Lang Jingchen. How could she die here?

Her only comfort was that Gu Lingzhi was not going to survive this either. Under all that fire, there was no chance that Gu Lingzhi could survive.

After burning for over 30 seconds, the fire extinguished. The area where Gu Lingzhi stood was filled with ashes and there was no sign of her.

Could she have been burnt to ash so quickly?

Shao Weiming was puzzled for a moment before the wave of capuchin monkeys cut off his thoughts. With an angered cry, fire burned around his body as he chose the route with the least capuchin monkeys and dashed towards it.

Tianfeng Wei paused before she automatically followed behind him. If she relied on herself, she would definitely die. Maybe she would have a chance if she followed behind Shao Weiming.

Everyone else had the same mindset as Tianfeng Wei as he struggled to follow behind Shao Weiming. However, their cultivation was definitely not as high as Tianfeng Wei, who was once the young mistress of one of the Four Great Clans. Very quickly, they lost sight of Shao Weiming and were engulfed by the capuchin monkeys.

The mass of capuchin monkeys repeated what happened ten days ago. Unrelentlessly, they chased after Shao Weiming and Tianfeng Wei. Very soon, only vegetation remained where the mass of monkeys once stood.

At the very spot where Shao Weiming had burnt to ashes, a silhouette appeared. It was Gu Lingzhi. She had escaped into her Inheritance Space at the very last minute.

She had a fresh change of clothes and got rid of her previous clothes that were torn to rags. Her exposed face still had burnt scars but she was looking much better than she did before.

Looking emotionlessly at the direction Shao Weiming and the others had run to, Gu Lingzhi turned and headed towards the outside of the Valley of Beasts.

In her Inheritance Space, she could have easily submerged herself in the Spiritual Essence Spring and healed all the parts that were burnt. Under the influence of the Spring, new skin would grow and she would recover extremely fast. However, she wanted to carry her extensive injuries back to the Royal School. She wanted to see how the Royal School was going to be accountable to her. She was the Princess Consort of the Xia Kingdom and she almost lost her life after getting attacked during her final graduating examination!

One day later, after killing a few senseless beasts that tried to attack her, Gu Lingzhi managed to exit the Valley.

Upon seeing someone come out of the Valley of the Beasts, Jiang Xian, the teacher-in-charge who had been stationed to welcome them immediately went up to her. As he neared her, the excitement in his eyes turned to shock.

Although Gu Lingzhi’s clothes were clean, he could see numerous burnt marks on her exposed skin. Her previously elegant and beautiful hair had been burnt unevenly, producing random long and short strands that were a mess behind her head. A large part of her face had been burnt and she was looking extremely pale. Her entire being could only be described by one word, ‘pathetic’.

“Gu- Your Highness, what...” Jiang Xian could not bring himself to complete his sentence. He never would have imagined Gu Lingzhi to look like she did now. It was difficult for him to imagine what kind of dangers she had been in in the last ten over days to appear so miserably in front of him.

Gu Lingzhi pursed her lips as she allowed herself to give a few low coughs. Looking so miserable to the point that she was coughing, Jiang Xian was extremely worried that she was going to fall apart in exhaustion. It was only after she had seen enough of Jiang Xian’s horror did Gu Lingzhi silently hand over her Recording Crystal.