Chapter 98: The Thief

  Luo Yu stared tightly at the jade bamboo slips in her hand, stuttering: "I, I haven't even started learning array techniques, giving them to me is a waste!"

  "I'm in no hurry," said Hou Yong with a smile: "You can learn slowly."

  Accepting this would put her in his debt, she didn't want to owe anyone a favor, but she really needed this ancient array method. Only when she was building her foundation did she discover that advancing required such a massive amount of spiritual energy, far beyond what her ordinary spirit gathering array could provide. Thinking about it, she clenched the jade bamboo slip tightly in her hand.

  "Thank you, Senior Hou, for your generous gift. Luo Yu has accepted it with a humble face. Once I understand this formation, I will definitely draw the Ancient Gathering Spirit Formation in your cave abode, no matter how many there are. Besides, I still owe Senior a favor, um, within my bearable range."

  When he heard Huang Shimei emphasize the last "humanity", Hou Yong was very helpless. He seemed to hear a sentence that Huang Shimei didn't say - killing people and setting fires are not included!

  Hou Yong smiled slightly: "Alright, after Shifu's sister flies high into the sky, I'll go ask for this favor again. If I went too early, wouldn't that be a huge loss!"

  "Haha... then you'll have to wait for a hundred years."

  A small joke finally eliminated many of the barriers between the two, but Luo Yu still planned to act alone, and she was anxious to find a place to study space.

  "Take me out first." Luoyu urged.

  "Alright!" Hou Yong nodded his head.

  After a long time, Hou Yongli stood beside the giant stone, raised his head and looked into the distance. The sky was filled with morning glow, and a white cloud floated gently in the air. His mouth slowly curved upwards.

  Luoyu was very worried, finally able to fly in the sky, but the technology is not mature, several times almost fell on the Gobi.

  Luoyu took a deep breath, stabilized her mind and input, directing the cloud to fly slowly. This speed was not much faster than the Divine Step, but the cloud finally flew steadily.

  In the late afternoon, Luo Yu fully mastered the flying skills. The speed increased a lot and finally arrived on the grassland.

  "I didn't see the pack of wolves, nor did I see the herd of deer. I wonder who won or lost in their last fight. Could it be that they both suffered losses?" Luo Yu muttered to herself, "Forget it, I don't care about them anymore. I'll just go find some Deer's Tongue Grass instead."

  Following the map's indication, I found two places, but only saw less than 100-year-old antlered grass. It seems that she came too late, and the older ones have all been harvested.

  It has been four months since then, and the places marked on the map as the origin of the spiritual medicine should have all been visited by the sect's disciples, even if they are loose cultivators. They may also have obtained the map from the sect's disciples, but it is unknown whether it was a peaceful exchange or a bloody robbery, and the latter is likely to be more common.

  "After gathering enough spiritual medicine, those with weak strength will find a place to hide and wait for two months before being transported out; while those with strong strength will also hide, but it's to rob lone cultivators. And I've already established my foundation, it's not good to pretend to be a pig to eat the tiger, can't I just honestly go find spiritual grass?"

  Luoyu reluctantly looked at the map and finally chose a place with dense deer, where most of the Qi-refining cultivators did not have the ability to snatch food from the deer's mouth; Foundation-building cultivators were strong enough. But they didn't have this task, so they wouldn't go disturb the deer either.

  Sneak into the earth slope, see three or five white deer in a group, leisurely eating spiritual flowers and strange grasses, but carefully avoiding the deer velvet grass on the ground.

  Luoyu remembered the introduction in Yu Jian, that Lu Rong Cao grows on the dung of the white deer on the grassland. The leaves are green and long, with white fluff on the surface, and after a thousand years, they will be eaten by female deer to help them give birth to the next generation. Therefore, when collecting Lu Rong Cao, one must not touch the deer herd, or it will be a fight to the death.

  Luoyu didn't know that last time, several black wolves were driven into the deer group by Renxiu, trampling a piece of deer velvet grass, which led to a fight between the wolf pack and the deer group. Renxiu took advantage of the emptiness and stole a lot of deer velvet grass, leaving only a few places where the male deer guarded and didn't get their hands on it. The earth mound she chose was one of them.

  Night falls, crescent moon hangs, starlight twinkles, deer lie down, slowly entering sleep.

  A small red flower slowly crawled to the edge of a deer herd, and from its pistil came out a jade scoop. The green vines wrapped around the jade scoop, carefully digging, and after a moment, it finally dug out a single piece of deer hair grass.

  Hongmi dug the soil with a bitter smile while continuously cursing Luo Yu.

  Have you ever seen anyone's demon plant digging grass? I'm the first one with red rice!

  I'm like a common weed, with an aura that's hard to detect, so the deer won't notice me, making me most suitable for this thieving profession.

  Get out of my sight, you thief! I am the noble Hong, a ancient evil plant. How can I do such a lowly thing? But that annoying woman threatened to confiscate my spirit stone, so I had no choice but to agree. However, there absolutely won't be a next time, I, Red Rice, also have temper.

  Hongmi chose a digging object more than 10 meters away from the White Deer each time, with slight movements, and dug up over a dozen deer grasses.

  At this time, it had just picked up the last clump of deer grass and was preparing to withdraw.

  Suddenly, a white deer seemed to be alert, stood up with a rustle, scanned the surroundings in a circle, didn't find anything unusual, only as if saw a red flower swaying, and then it fell asleep.

  On the second morning, the awakened deer herd found that there were more than a dozen holes in the grassland around them, causing a commotion.

  Last night, the white deer that woke up vaguely felt that the red flower it saw seemed to be related to this matter. However, this matter is very strange, and it's afraid that if it speaks out, its companions will kick it to the ground with their hooves and spray it with deer musk. If flowers can steal grass, then white deer can change from vegetarianism to carnivorous!

  As the loss was not great and no thief was seen, this matter in the deer group only caused a stir for one day and then came to nothing.

  In the woods far away from the deer herd, in a hollow of a giant tree, Hong Mi complained to Luo Yu nonstop: "You said it was foolproof, but I almost got gnawed by the white deer. Just thinking about it makes me shudder all over."

  Luoyu poked at the flower petals and teased: "Come on, shake one out for me to see."

  Hongmi dodged her magical finger, and Luoyu didn't mind either. "Actually, you're not afraid of being bitten by the White Deer, but rather resentful that I wouldn't let you swallow it whole. Hehe, if you could safely return after swallowing a whole White Deer, then you can ignore my advice. But rest assured, I absolutely won't rush into the deer herd to save you."

  Perceiving the chill of the words "won't", Hongmi actually trembled slightly, and hastily leaned forward to pretend to be clever: "How could that be? Hongmi is the most obedient to Master, you say go west I absolutely won't go east, you say dig grass I absolutely won't swallow deer!"

  The conversation between the master and servant, if heard by the white deer that woke up last night, would probably scare it so much that it would collapse to the ground, trembling with fear: "Qiaohua wants to swallow the deer, the world is too dangerous!"