119: Chapter 119 The Tomb Raider Who Follows the Clues

Looking at the three options, Option B perfectly fit his current state of mind of not wanting to exert any effort.

He turned around and snapped his fingers at Frost Star and Ayugu in the car.

"The fatty isn't here, so we'll do it ourselves today. Take the folding chairs and parasol out of the car."

"Frost Star, bring out that iced watermelon you froze in the fridge for most of yesterday afternoon. We're going to bask in the sun here."

Ayugu widened her eyes, looking at Lin Ye as if he were a madman.

"Head Manager, is something wrong with your brain? Eating watermelon right beside this deadly swamp full of dead people's bones? Aren't you afraid of inhaling the poisonous miasma and getting diarrhea!"

Lin Ye pulled a canvas folding chair out of the trunk and set it up on the flat open ground by the cliff edge.

Then, he propped up a huge black parasol, blocking the mottled patches of light casting down from above.

Lin Ye lay comfortably on the folding chair, casually taking the half piece of bright red, ice-cold watermelon handed over by Frost Star.

"When the sky falls, the tall ones will hold it up. Aren't our free pathfinders delivering themselves right to our doorsteps?"

Lin Ye took a large bite of the watermelon, the sweet and icy juice bursting in his mouth, his expression indescribably cozy.

In the densely fogged bushes less than fifty meters away from them, a rustling sound of footsteps rang out.

Second Master Lei, leading Dazhuang, Haozi, and Yaba, walked out of the dense thorn bushes step by heavy step, carrying heavy waterproof backpacks.

The faces of all four men were covered in dark brown mud stains, panting heavily from exhaustion.

They had set out before dawn, intending to arrive at the Ten Thousand People Mud Swamp ahead of Lin Ye, planning to make a high-profile entrance when Lin Ye was at his wits' end.

To showcase their unique family art of "mud digging" so they could occupy an absolute dominant position in the subsequent cooperation.

When they parted the last patch of bushes and saw the scene before them, all four people instantly turned to stone on the spot.

Lin Ye was comfortably lying under the parasol gnawing on watermelon.

This looked like a wealthy young master bringing his family members to the deep mountains and old forests for a vacation and picnic!

Second Master Lei swallowed a mouthful of saliva.

His single eye stared fixedly at Lin Ye, forcing out a smile that was uglier than crying, and walked forward with stiff steps.

"Little brother, what a coincidence. I didn't expect to run into you in this deep mountain and old forest."

Second Master Lei rubbed the mud grime on his hands, attempting to cozy up.

"This Ten Thousand People Mud Swamp is bottomless, and ordinary people die the moment they touch it."

"My name is Lei Er. We four brothers are Mud and Water Travelers on this Xishan territory, possessing an ancestral craft of avoiding mud and parting water. I wonder if the Master is interested..."

Lin Ye didn't even lift his eyelids, casually spitting out a black watermelon seed.

"Not interested."

Lin Ye interrupted him and pointed to the remaining watermelon on the table.

"Do you want to eat watermelon? Fifty thousand yuan a piece, non-negotiable price."

Second Master Lei's face instantly flushed crimson.

"Little brother, open and honest people don't speak in code."

Second Master Lei lowered his voice, his tone carrying a trace of urgency.

"You have King Zhou's Age-Suppressing Key in your bag, and our brothers have the craft to pass through this mire. Win-win cooperation is the way to save our lives. You alone..."

Lin Ye accurately threw the leftover watermelon rind into the trash bag, pulled a tissue, and wiped his hands.

He pointed at Haozi standing behind Second Master Lei.

Haozi's right arm had completely turned into a grayish-white earthy hard skin, and the muddification disease was frantically eroding his vitality.

"Cooperation?"

Lin Ye sneered.

"Lei whatever-er, you're talking to me about cooperation? I'm afraid this little brother of yours might not survive tonight."

Lin Ye stood up from the folding chair.

The aura of the Pure Yang Dao Body erupted with a bang at this moment.

The extremely rigid and extremely yang blood and Qi turned into an invisible pressure, pressing straight towards the faces of the four people.

His gaze was as cold as ice, exuding an absolute arrogance of controlling the overall situation.

"You tailed me all the way, undoubtedly wanting to borrow the bronze box in my hand to enter the demon cave to find the antidote. Now you're talking to me about equal cooperation?"

Lin Ye closed in by half a step.

"Do you think your lives are more valuable, or is the key in my hand more precious?"

Cold sweat poured down Second Master Lei's forehead.

"Thud."

His knees went soft, and he knelt down to Lin Ye on the spot.

"Little brother! I beg you to show mercy and save my brother's life!"

Second Master Lei heavily knocked his head against the gravel ground.

"In this Ten Thousand People Mud Swamp, our brothers won't want a shred of remuneration, and we will pave a mud path for you for free!"

"After entering the mountain, the four of us will act as beasts of burden for you, acting as minesweeping cannon fodder! We only ask that after you get the antidote, you can reward Haozi with a drop of insect blood to continue his life!"

Seeing their boss kneel, Dazhuang and Yaba also knelt on the ground in unison, their faces full of despair and entreaty.

Lin Ye put away the coldness on his face.

He pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it, taking a deep drag. The cyan-white smoke curled around his fingertips, and his eyes were full of the shrewd calculation of a capitalist exploiting labor.

"Deal."

Lin Ye exhaled a smoke ring and pointed to the two heavy military oxygen circulation machines and several large bags of supplies in the SUV's trunk.

"Carry our marching backpacks and all these equipment, and lead the way ahead later. Be snappy with your actions, don't make me wait too long."

As if granted a pardon, Second Master Lei kowtowed repeatedly.

He hurriedly called for his three subordinates to get up.

Without a word, Dazhuang and Yaba hoisted the military equipment weighing dozens of catties onto their shoulders, panting heavily from exhaustion, yet not daring to utter a single word of complaint.

"Fourth, take out the gear, get ready to drop the needle."

Second Master Lei drew out a [Water-Parting Mud-Avoiding Needle] several zhang long, forged entirely from pure copper, from his close-fitting cloth bag.

This copper needle was hollow inside, filled with high-purity realgar and quicklime, and its surface was engraved with waterproof grooves.

He walked to the edge of the cliff, took a deep breath, and circulated the breath-holding and pulse-shrinking art within his body.

Second Master Lei gripped the copper needle with both hands, aimed at the churning black mire below, and stabbed it down fiercely with a single needle.

"Click."

The mechanism at the bottom of the copper needle opened.

The quicklime inside instantly burst out into a fierce high-temperature reaction upon meeting water.

A muffled sound came from the bottom of the mire.

Under the dual action of the high temperature and realgar, the moisture of the black mud within a range of dozens of meters quickly evaporated, turning into pieces of hard earthy rock blocks.

A grayish-white "mud path" just wide enough for one person to pass through loomed indistinctly in the poisonous miasma.

"Master, the road is paved. This hardening time is only half an incense stick's time, we must pass through as soon as possible."

Second Master Lei wiped the hot sweat from his forehead and shouted back.

Just as everyone was about to step onto the mud path.

From deep within the previously calm black mire, a harsh, muffled tearing sound suddenly came.

"Gurgle! Boom!"

A huge blood-red bubble with a diameter of fully five meters suddenly burst in the very center of the mire.

Massive amounts of dark green earth-fiend poisonous miasma, mixed with countless tiny fragments of white bones, whistled and swept over overwhelmingly.

This wave of toxic gas came extremely fiercely, instantly completely cutting off the surrounding vision.

"Cough cough cough!"

Standing on the outermost periphery, Ayugu inadvertently inhaled a breath of residual poison blown away by the wind.

The Miao girl's pretty face immediately turned black, and she clutched her chest and coughed violently, a trace of black blood overflowing from the corner of her mouth.

"This poisonous miasma has corpse poison! Hold your breath quickly!"

Lin Ye's heart tightened.

This sudden outbreak of poisonous gas far exceeded expectations; he had to reinforce the protective barrier for everyone in the shortest possible time.

He grabbed Leng Yue's wrist and took the opportunity to flip over, leaping onto the SUV's wide hood, which had been baked scorching hot by the sun.

Lin Ye sat cross-legged and pulled Leng Yue into his arms.

The metal surface of the hood emitted extremely high temperatures, scalding people's skin with pain.

Without any hesitation, Leng Yue directly straddled Lin Ye's lap.

The scorching intensity of the Pure Yang and the extreme freezing cold of the Drought Demon collided fiercely on the SUV's hood.

Yin and Yang complemented each other, ceaselessly generating vitality.

A naked-eye visible circular Qi shield intertwined with reddish-gold and dark gold quickly expanded outward centered on the two of them.

The Qi shield completely enveloped the SUV, Frost Star, Ayugu, and the four dumbfounded Mud and Water Travelers inside.

The dark green poisonous miasma fiercely crashed against the surface of the Qi shield, making a sizzling corrosive sound, and was blocked outside jointly by the Yang fire and corpse Qi, unable to invade even a fraction.

Lin Ye tightly hugged the woman in his arms, veins bulging on his forehead.

Leng Yue pressed her side face against the nook of Lin Ye's neck, her cool and gentle breath producing a miraculous resonance with his rapid heartbeat.

Her pair of slender jade legs tightly wrapped around Lin Ye's waist, entrusting all of her weight to him.