Chapter 773 - 463: A Dangerous Place Becomes a Treasure Land

Chapter 773: Chapter 463: A Dangerous Place Becomes a Treasure Land

They’d pay some compensation afterward, and that would be the end of it.

Ordinary people don’t have much money. For a family that isn’t well-off to begin with, having to pay for seriously injuring someone is a devastating blow—it just makes a bad situation worse.

"I hope Ms. Zhang’s heavy-drinking husband learns his lesson this time and doesn’t do this again." Qin Muqing stood at the main gate, watching the figure hurry off into the distance as she mumbled to herself.

Then, she turned and went back inside, pulling the large iron gate of the villa shut.

TAP, TAP, TAP...

Dressed in a linen blouse, with a simple wooden pin securing her coiled hair, her embroidered shoes made soft sounds as they stepped on the pebble-paved path.

Though her face was plain, Qin Muqing had a graceful figure. She swayed gently as she walked toward the courtyard.

She reached the clothesline and bent down to pick up the large basin on the ground. As she prepared to head back to the villa, she suddenly remembered something, and the happy expression on her face slowly froze.

"Oh no..." A gasp escaped Qin Muqing’s small, rosy lips.

"I lent Ms. Zhang sixty Silver Coins, and now I only have two hundred thirty-three Copper Coins left.

There’s no way Ms. Zhang can pay me back anytime soon, and I only have two hundred and thirty-three Copper Coins... How am I going to live?"

The kind-hearted Qin Muqing had been so eager to help that she’d lent the money without a second thought. Only now that she had calmed down did she belatedly realize how little she had left for herself.

WHOOSH...

CHIRP CHIRP...

A gentle breeze rustled the leaves. A few birds perched on the swaying branches stared curiously at Qin Muqing, who stood frozen with the large basin in her hands, her expression dazed, looking utterly lost in the wind.

......

WHOA...

The carriage driver pulled on the reins, bringing the horse to a halt.

"We’ve arrived, sir," the driver called back to the passenger inside after the carriage came to a complete stop.

Lin Li reached out and pushed aside the carriage curtain, then ducked out. He handed the prepared fare to the driver and jumped down from the carriage.

A short distance ahead stood an arched city gate, where a squad of soldiers stood guard, split into two groups on either side.

Lin Li strode toward the city gate, and in a moment, he entered the deep, shadowy tunnel of the gatehouse.

It was cool inside the gate’s tunnel. Stepping out the other side, he had officially left Dongwu City.

He glanced back at the people passing through the gate. Those entering the city wore relaxed expressions, while those leaving looked somewhat tense.

It didn’t take much thought to understand why there was such a difference in their expressions.

It was simple: inside the city, you were safe. Outside, in the wilderness, you had to constantly face the threat of Mutant Beasts.

Lin Li tore his gaze away from the city gate and looked out into the distance.

He set off, heading into the desolate wilderness far from Dongwu City.

According to the intelligence he had gathered, the chances of encountering a Mutant Beast would increase dramatically about twenty kilometers north of Dongwu City.

Unlike the others leaving the city on business, who were tense with fear of a Mutant Beast attack, Lin Li was eager to advance his cultivation. He couldn’t wait to run into Mutant Beasts; in fact, he was hoping they would attack him.

...

The farther he got from Dongwu City, the worse the roads became. The flat dirt path gave way to a pitted, uneven track. Running on such a terrible road kicked up a considerable amount of dust, and it was easy to get filthy.

He was getting filthy before he’d even started hunting Mutant Beasts. Once the sun baked him and he started to sweat, the dust would turn to mud and stick to his skin. It was easy to imagine how uncomfortable that would be.

"The infrastructure in this world is just awful..." Lin Li grumbled, fed up with the pitted dirt road beneath his feet.

He then veered off the dirt road and started running across a nearby grassy field instead.

After leaving the main road and running for a few hundred meters, he was completely alone.

Lin Li stopped. Then, with a mere thought, he summoned his black off-road motorcycle from the Mysterious Small Island.

VROOOM...

He put on his helmet, straddled the motorcycle, and with a loud roar of the engine, sped off, advancing recklessly through the perilous wilderness.

......

Time flew by. The sun spent the morning climbing slowly into the sky until it was directly overhead.

The scorching sun beat down on the earth, and the plants wilted under the heat, their leaves drooping.

A crystal-clear stream flowed out from the distant mountains, heading toward Dongwu City tens of kilometers away.

The distant mountain range was extremely treacherous, home to all sorts of ferocious Mutant Beasts.

Many years ago, the ferocious Mutant Beasts living in the mountains would frequently emerge to harass Dongwu City.

However, ever since Li Dingtian became the City Lord of Dongwu City, that had changed. Thanks to his efforts over many years, such incidents had become virtually nonexistent in the last two or three years.

Under Li Dingtian’s powerful rule, the ferocious Mutant Beasts of the mountains had learned a clear lesson: if they continued to emerge from the mountains to harass Dongwu City as they had in the past, they would pay with their lives.

You can’t reason with Mutant Beasts. Only a hard enough fist, one that can beat them into submission, will teach them fear.

Of course, while the Mutant Beasts in the mountains feared Li Dingtian and no longer dared to emerge and cause trouble, the humans, in turn, didn’t dare to go too far either. They wouldn’t venture into the mountains to provoke the ferocious beasts on their own turf.

In the region north of Dongwu City, the two sides maintained a sort of tacit understanding. Neither would cross the boundary to do anything excessive.

But now, a visitor from another world had arrived. He was completely unaware of the unspoken agreement between humans and Mutant Beasts in the area north of Dongwu City.

Throughout the morning, Lin Li rode his black off-road motorcycle far to the north of the city, heading toward the mountain region rumored to be home to a great number of ferocious Mutant Beasts.

According to the intelligence he’d gathered, in the wilderness north of Dongwu City, the strongest Mutant Beasts one might encounter were no higher than Tier One, High Stage—as long as you didn’t get too close to the distant mountains.

As for Lin Li, he was practically praying to run into Tier Two Mutant Beasts. His goal was crystal clear: push deep into the mountain range where the Tier Two Mutant Beasts lived in great numbers.

When Lin Li stopped his black off-road motorcycle at the foot of the mountains, he immediately spotted a massive gray wolf on a nearby mountainside, its piercing gaze fixed on him.

He was too far away to probe the Mutant Beast’s condition with his Spiritual Perception.

Lin Li stored his black off-road motorcycle in the Mysterious Small Island and immediately charged toward the giant gray wolf that was watching him.

Reality played out just as his intelligence had suggested. The giant gray wolf Lin Li encountered upon entering the mountains was indeed a Mutant Beast—and one with the cultivation of a Second Rank Initial Stage at that.

At first, the giant wolf Mutant Beast was a little confused to see a human charging toward it with a look of excitement.

But it wasn’t about to turn down a delicious meal that had delivered itself to its doorstep. It immediately lunged forward to meet him.

The outcome was predictable. For other Cultivators, a gray wolf Mutant Beast at the Second Rank Initial Stage would have been a ferocious and difficult opponent.

But for Lin Li, it was no match at all. He killed it in a single exchange.

After getting off to a good start, a cheerful Lin Li continued deeper into the mountains.

Throughout this mountain range—a place the ordinary folk of Dongwu City considered treacherous—miserable beastly roars echoed continuously in broad daylight, drifting out from the peaks.

......