Deep within the thorny thicket, two demon beasts were still locked in combat, their roars and dying screams filling the air without interruption.
Li Chunfeng had sown the discord between them, and it was only by riding this wave of chaos that he was able to cautiously make his way toward the outer edge of the brush.
Though the demon beasts in this thicket possessed only mediocre Ling Yun, they were exceptionally ferocious. Once they caught the scent of appetizing prey, they would pursue it relentlessly until they achieved their goal.
Over the years, Li Chunfeng had witnessed far too many brutal scenes—cultivators who, having lost their way, fell prey to various hallucinations and willingly walked straight into the lairs of tigers and wolves.
It was not that Li Chunfeng did not want to save them; he simply lacked the strength. After all, his ability to survive this long was entirely due to luck.
When he first crawled into the Wasteland back then, torrential rain had turned the entire path into a muddy mire. Covered from head to toe in thick mud, he bore no resemblance to a human being.
He had no idea how far he crawled. Numb and devoid of thought, he kept crawling forward endlessly, pushing on as far as he possibly could until he finally passed out.
He had no way of knowing how much time had passed before he was finally awakened by the long-absent sunlight. When he came to, his body felt as though it had been coated in a foul hodgepodge—caked mud, moss, bird droppings, and the feces of demon beasts... everything imaginable was stuck to him.
Barely a quarter of an hour after he finished washing himself clean, a few small demon beasts came fiercely sniffing around. It was only later that he realized it was precisely these disgusting substances that had kept him safe during his long, unconscious state.
Ever since then, he had spent every day collecting these nauseating filth to wrap around his entire body. Over time, he had even developed the unique skill of identifying beasts by their scent.
For seven years, he had smeared himself with this grime, completely devoid of human dignity, utterly wretched, and sickening to the core. No one would ever believe that such a person had any connection to the Li family of Tianchu City.
Walking for a stretch, Li Chunfeng massaged his limping leg. It was an injury he had sustained when he tried to steal bird eggs while a golden sparrow was out foraging, and accidentally tumbled down from the tree.
Fortunately, the eggs had not broken; otherwise, he would have long since been pierced through the heart by the thousands of arrow-feathers belonging to the giant golden sparrow.
He had walked for more than ten miles, originally intending to hurl the eggs viciously into the territory of the nether wolf—hoping for a satisfying "crack" that would smash them to pieces and enrage the giant golden sparrow.
Yet, when he heard the faint "chirp, chirp" sound coming from inside the eggs, he hesitated after all, and instead quietly placed the two bird eggs into the nether wolf's domain.
A wisp of air, unlike anything he had felt before, drifted out from the dense thicket—fresh, sunlit, and dry. Li Chunfeng took a deep breath and sniffed hard.
He knew the exit was not far ahead; his seven years of living in pitch-darkness were about to come to an end.
Yet at this moment, outside the thicket, two sharp pairs of eyes were staring fixedly in his direction, like wolves waiting for a long time, slowly baring their fangs.
Following the bone-strewn path, feeling that the danger had passed, Li Chunfeng broke into a sprint. Despite his stiff and awkward limbs, it did not slow his pace in the least.
When Li Chunfeng burst out with a sharp whistle like an arrow leaving a bow, the grandfather and granddaughter keeping watch at the teahouse were truly startled.
A pitch-black, filth-encrusted monster that could barely pass for human had suddenly materialized before their eyes.
His matted hair had hardened into clumps like icicles hanging from a winter eaves, echoing the muddy state of the Silver Panther pelt draped over his shoulders.
His face was caked so heavily that it was nearly impossible to make out his original features. Aside from his eyes, which remained relatively clear, the rest of him fell short of even a beggar by a factor of ten thousand.
A gust of wind swept by, and a brain-numbing stench billowed out, afflicting countless living things within a radius of a hundred meters.
The grandfather and granddaughter hurriedly covered their noses and mouths, but they still underestimated the potency of that stench.