Chapter 178: Snatching the Treasures
Calmly looking at Scarblade Qiang’s wry smile, Tang Xiu was actually quite satisfied. He nodded and said, “I heard that you’re already married. Do you and your wife already have a child?”
“Yes, we have a son, and he’s already in primary school. I want him to have a good education so I send him to a prestigious primary school in the city. As for my wife, she followed him there to take care of him.” Scarblade Qiang replied.
With a smile, Tang Xiu said, “Since you sent your wife and child to settle properly, then, you do want to have a stable and promising business in the future, don’t you? If you want it, I can give you a way out.”
“What way?” Scarblade Qiang asked with a surprised expression.
“I have an ancient recipe for winemaking. If you can adhere to the requirement I gave you and ferment good wines I need, I can build a winery and give it to you to manage. It’s also fine if you only want to only brew wines, I can give 10% of the shares and you can become the Master Distiller there.”
Out of his curiosity, Scarblade Qiang asked, “You… how much money are you going to invest to set up this winery?”
“I can’t say the exact number right now. But I want to set up at least one big winery. As long as the production line can keep up, the sales won’t be a problem. Also, you’ll take the role as its director to manage this winery as a subsidiary company under my company group.” Tang Xiu said with a smile.
“Your company group is…” Scarblade Qiang asked again.
“It’s the Magnificent Tang Corporation.” Tang Xiu replied.
Scarblade Qiang hadn’t heard the name, but he nodded and said, “Can you give me some time to think about it? This is a big and important matter to me.”
“I’ll leave you my cell number. I’ll be staying here for the next few days, so I hope you can give me the answer before I leave. Ah, right. If you decide to go with me, you must follow me back to Star City. The Magnificent Tang Corporation resides in Star City, and the winery I’m going to set up, will be there also.” Tang Xiu said.
“Alright!” Scarblade Qiang nodded.
Noon of the next day.
Miao Wentang and Shao Mingzhen’s men had purchased the needed things from Cangbei City and returned to Qingshan Town. They were unable to find explosives, but got a lot of fireworks.
The group consisted of nine people ventured into the Primeforest Mountain Range once again.
This time, Tang Xiu didn’t instruct Miao Wentang and Shao Mingzhen’s men to stay in the mountainside. He also brought them to the Sky Cavern and let them help with the boulders, prepared the needed things and delivered those things down with the ropes.
Within a full two days, everything was ready under Tang Xiu’s arrangement.
Whilst standing next to the Sky Cavern, Miao Wentang asked, “Brother Tang, everything’s ready. The men are also done with all of the arrangements you’ve instructed. So, what will the three of us do now?”
“We wait.” Tang Xiu said.
“We wait?” With a puzzled expression, Miao Wentang asked.
“I can feel the changes in your and Shao Mingzhen’s aura these days. You’ve begun to practice the set of Immortal cultivation technique I sold you, haven’t you? It’s a pity that your foundations are not that good. Perhaps, it would take quite a long time for you two to upgrade your True Qi into True Essence. Anyways, we’ll have to take a rest from now until tomorrow morning to restore our condition to the peak. Whether we’ll be dead or alive tomorrow, it will depend entirely on ourselves.” Tang Xiu said.
"Understood!" Miao Wentang and Shao Mingzhen nodded in unison.
The next day.
Just as dawn came, the Tang Xiu trio arrived at the bottom of the Sky Cavern. They were wearing helmets with searchlight and held a torch in hand. Three ropes had been laid down from the top of the Sky Cavern, which they prepared for the escape, and they also carried along nylon bags on their waists.
“Brother Miao, after we go inside two minutes later, ignite the gunpowder train. The exploding sounds of the fireworks will lure the Fire Qilin from the inside, that will be our chance to snatch the things inside. Remember, you’re responsible to aid us. Wait for us here and prepare a big bamboo basket, tie it up with the ropes above and be ready to pull us at once when we give you the call!” Tang Xiu instructed.
“No problem! I’ll bear it in mind!” Miao Wentang said.
Tang Xiu and Shao Mingzhen glanced to give a sign to each other. Then, they raised their torches and walked toward the cave entrance. After two minutes, they heard the exploding sounds of the fireworks clearly.
“Now!”
Tang Xiu had been using his perception to observe the Fire Qilin in the space inside the cave. He could see that the Fire Qilin instantly flashed towards the direction of the explosion, so he and Shao Mingzhen instantly rushed inside.
“Grab those things quickly!”
After Tang Xiu arrived in the large space inside the cave, he immediately ran to the wooden table, grabbing the jade box and ancient sword on it, and hastily stuffed them into the prepared bag. Then, he sprinted toward the sky sandstones and stuffed two pieces weighing a hundred pounds each and also stuffed them into the bag.
His strength was quite powerful, but Shao Mingzhen was even stronger.
He didn’t have a minute’s hesitation in grabbing these things. Fast as though lightning, his body then flashed and rushed out toward the passageway. Shao Mingzhen, on the other hand, also acted very fast. He quickly loaded three sky sandstones into the nylon bag while also grabbing one with his hand as he followed Tang Xiu to rush outside through the passageway.
The time spent from the beginning to the end was not more than ten seconds.
After they sprinted and arrived at the Sky Cavern’s bottom, Tang Xiu immediately threw the nylon bag onto the big bamboo basket that had been tied up with a rope. Then, he took the piece of sky sandstone weighing a hundred pounds from Shao Mingzhen’s hand and clamped it with his armpit as he began to climb up.
Shao Mingzhen also moved very quickly. He tied up the nylon bag around his hand and quickly climbed up to the trench above.
They were racing against time, struggling to snatch their own life from the Grim Reaper.
Just as they climbed up to the top of the Sky Cavern, Miao Wentang had already pulled up the big bamboo basket.
At this moment, a deafening roar came out from the cave entrance at the bottom of the Sky Cavern.
“Run now and do your best to escape! As long as we escape from this natural maze, we’ll be safe!” Whilst holding the piece of sky sandstone, Tang Xiu released everything he had and ran.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
As though ghosts, three figures flashed through within the forested mountains.
"Roar……"
Just as the trio burst into the maze, a terrifying heat wave surged forth. As the roaring sounds became louder, it shook their eardrums, as they could feel a faint, dull pain inside their ears.
Whilst running, Miao Wentang and Shao Mingzhen took a moment to turn their heads and take a glance back. But what they saw immediately shook their hearts violently. They clearly saw a four or five-meter-high Fire Qilin with blazing flame all over its body that had just jumped out from the Sky Cavern.
“RUN…”
With such a soul stirring stimulation, their potential was also stimulated, as at the same time also boosted up their speed. They were even twice faster than Tang Xiu. They sprinted and caught up with him. With extremely tacit understanding, they grabbed Tang Xiu’s shoulders with their empty hands from both sides.
“Whoosh…”
As the trio was about to rush out of the natural imaginary array, they felt a burst of blazing heat from their back. In a split second, the back of their clothes was burnt to ashes. The heat also burned their back’s skin, as a smell of burning skin and meat emitted out from it.
Run! Run! Run!
At the moment, it was the one and only thought that occupied Miao Wentang and Shao Mingzhen’s heart. It was this very moment that they were wished they had a few more legs, so as to make them run better and faster; for Tang Xiu had said that as long as they could escape this natural maze, they would be safe and could completely forget everything behind.
Only after they had sprinted to the mountain foot were they able to sober up from the running away thought. As they stopped running, they looked to the back and felt greatly relieved from the tense feeling as they didn’t see the Fire Qilin chasing them anymore.
“Huff, huff… damn… we almost died.”
They put Tang Xiu down as Miao Wentang said and panted with a pale look.
Tang Xiu looked at the both of them with a grateful expression and said, “Thanks for the rescue, both of you. If you didn’t grab me, I would have died by that Fire Qilin!”
Miao Wentang and Shao Mingzhen paused and glanced at each other as the two suddenly burst into a happy laughter.
They just survived a disaster! So they were especially ecstatic. They could feel that after having gone through such experience, their relationship with Tang Xiu got much closer.
Miao Wentang said with a laugh, “Hahaha, Brother Tang, if it weren’t for your planning, we simply wouldn’t have been able to snatch those things from the inside. I can even say that we’d meet our maker there! So we don’t need to say thanks to each other. But damn! The flame sprayed by that Fire Qilin was so damn terrifying. My back is really hurting!”
Shao Mingzhen also said with a smile, “It really is painful. But it’s worth the price though. Let’s take these things and get the hell out of this place. If that Fire Qilin comes out of that natural imaginary array and chases us, we might not be able to escape later.”
At the moment, Tang Xiu also felt the pain from his back. But he didn’t pay much attention to it and said with a smile, “No, that Fire Qilin won’t be able to come out from that natural imaginary array. The might of that array is ten times more powerful than its cultivation. If it was able to come out, maybe it’d have already left a long time ago. Anyways, let’s leave here quickly, and go back with these treasures.”
“Alright, let’s go!”
The trio no longer stayed as they rushed as though the wind and lightning toward Qingshan Town’s direction.
Even after a long one-day of traversing through the hills and dales, the trio still hurriedly rushed back to Qingshan Town even though they were already exhausted. Their pace was even twice faster compared to when they went.
In the hotel.
Tang Xiu quickly took a bath. After he changed and put on clean clothes, he came out of his room and saw that Shao Mingzhen had also just come out from his room. The two looked and smiled at each other as they then knocked Miao Wentang’s door.
“Come here quickly!”
Miao Wentang opened his door. He spoke whilst wiping his wet hair with a towel.
After the two of them went inside, their eyes fell onto the two nylon bags with the sky sandstones above them.
Tang Xiu walked toward it. He took out six pieces of sky sandstones from the two bags, as well as an ancient sword and a crystalline jade box.
The sky sandstones then divided as each one of them got two pieces.
Miao Wentang and Shao Mingzhen said they had no interest in the ancient sword. So their eyes focused on the jade box. Only Tang Xiu who took the ancient sword, as he looked at it with a trace of smile on the corner of his mouth.
It was not an Immortal sword!
But it was actually a flying sword used by a Daoist cultivator. Although he didn’t know how did this flying sword was left behind inside the cave, Tang Xiu gladly accepted it. He was confident that after he re-tempered it, he would definitely be able to refine it into a top-notch quality flying sword. In the Immortal world, a top-notch flying sword was perhaps considered as garbage, but on Earth, it was a rare and hard-to-come-by treasure.
Finally, his vision shifted toward the crystalline jade box. The jade box was 30cm long, 15cm wide and 10cm in height, with a beautiful carving pattern on it.
“Open it and take a look what’s inside!”
Miao Wentang said with a low tone.