Chapter 28 Mysterious Fruits

Many ancient texts mentioned the Peng bird from the legends. In the Mystical Scriptures’ text on the Desolation, as well as the Water Scripture, there were chapters with relevant descriptions of it. The most famous of all came from Zhuangzi’s Free Travels.

‘In the darkness of the north, there is a fish called the Kun. The Kun is several thousand kilometers long. When it becomes a bird, it is called the Peng. The Peng is also several thousand kilometers long. It flies vigorously, its wings seeming to hang from the clouds in the sky.’

Zhuangzi’s unrestrained and majestic style of writing described a supernatural bird which was over 4500 kilometers long.

This obviously did not match up with people’s common sense of such things. No matter how large a supernatural bird was, how could its body be several thousand kilometers long? This must be an over-exaggeration by the ancient people. But what people didn’t understand was that there were actually many ancient texts that had recordings of the Peng, and many authors had written a majestic description of its existence. However, these descriptions didn’t match up with the legends that said it was several thousand kilometers long.

This inevitably caused people to wonder if there really was a supernatural bird known as the ‘Peng.’

Zhou Yi and the others attentively watched that golden bird disappear behind the cliff. They all revealed shocked expressions.

“A supernatural bird from the legends!” Quite a few people let out exclamations of amazement after recovering from their petrification. A sense of shock filled their hearts. It could easily tear off the head of a giant elephant and then soar away as if it were carrying nothing more than a rat or rabbit. Its immense size flabbergasted everyone, and its huge strength caused them to be dumbstruck.

Kade earnestly stammered, “That huge bird…it’s shaped like a falcon or bird of prey…this is a new species. It’s…a huge discovery.”

“Go be stupid over there!” Pang Bo was truly speechless with this stubborn foreigner. In this kind of situation, he was still trying to use science to look at everything. How did he think he had even gotten here?

“Pang Bo, don’t be such an a.s.s.” Li Xiaoman revealed a displeased expression, her long eyelashes faintly trembling as her pretty eyes cast a glance at him.

“It’s not like I was talking about you…” Pang Bo neutrally muttered.

“Just what kind of world have we come to?” Once they calmed down a bit, everyone had no choice but to think about this question.

After traveling through the dull and lonely universe they ended up in the star field of the Big Dipper and were now in a mysterious world. Was this really the place where G.o.ds returned to?

The question on everyone’s mind was how they were going to survive. The road in front of them was a complete mystery that required extreme caution.

Many people were tightly holding divine relics in their hands, but at this moment all the Buddhist items were completely dark, and some of them had even cracked. Some were riddled with these cracks; it was easy to a.s.sume that they were completely broken.

The last energy of the divine relics had been absorbed by the ancient bronze coffin, and no more divine light flowed within them. The divine relics were not that different from bronze trash now, but no one discarded them. They carefully held them in the hopes that the divine relics might once again condense a divine light. If they could be restored in the future they would be a great support.

Grumble!

No one knew who it was, but someone’s stomach started to loudly rumble. Quite a few people felt embarra.s.sed, but people still had to eat, drink, and pee. Many people s.h.i.+fted their footsteps trying to find an isolated hidden place to resolve their issues.

“If you want to have dignity in death you have to endure in life…” Pang Bo curled his mouth in disdain, saying, “Looks like I’m the one with the most foresight. I already left my huge mark within the Heaven Temple ruins on Mars. In a couple hundred years, it might be one of the greatest pieces of evidence when humanity reaches Mars!”

Cough! Ye Fan had just drunk a mouthful of water before promptly spitting it out, and even the water bottle in his hand was almost dropped as well.

“Please, brother, don’t say such a thing while I’m drinking water, you might cause someone to choke.”

The people beside them couldn’t handle the two of them. They walked further away, all of them resolving their respective problems.

Pang Bo looked at everyone and laughed gleefully. He then proceeded to sneak up on people and loudly cough, shocking people who were trying to hide, causing them to have difficulty relieving themselves.

He then mischievously laughed and crouched down to pick up a couple stones. He threw them behind the vines, and immediately the sound of Li Changqing crying out angrily came out, “Who, who is this lacking morals?” At the same time, the accompanying Liu Yunzhi also let out a cold snort.

Seeing this guy pick up another stone to throw where Li Xiaoman had gone, Ye Fan hastily laughed and stopped him.

Noticing that everyone was running away from him, Pang Bo acted like he was chasing them, before pulling Ye Fan to the top of the mountain to survey the surroundings in the search of some edible fruits.

Although Ye Fan had taken a bunch of the divine alligator corpses from the five-colored altar, unless they absolutely had to, neither of them wanted to try forcefully consuming them.

“There’s a spring there,” noticed Pang Bo suddenly.

Just a few tens of meters away was a bunch of thick vines that were circling around a piece of land with a one-meter wide spring. It gurgled as it flowed, appearing like a sweet divine spring.

Beside the spring were more than a dozen half-a-meter tall trees. There were wide and luscious, with emerald-green, hand-shaped leaves that made the trees appear as if they had many arms. The top of each tree had a bright red fruit hanging from it that was around the size of a chicken egg.

Ye Fan and Pang Bo quickly walked past the vines. Before they even got close to the trees, they smelled a rich fruity fragrance which almost caused their saliva to flow gluttonously out. After all, it had already been a full day and night since they had eaten anything, and if they didn’t quickly find any more food, the two of them were prepared to force themselves to eat the divine alligator meat.

“I’ve never seen a fruit with such a rich fragrance.”

The closer they got, the denser the fragrance became. Even a thousand-year-old wine cellar’s fragrance would be suppressed by it.

“The fruit attracts people…do you think it might be poisonous?” The two of them had their suspicions. Generally, the more attractive and gorgeous something was, the more likely it would be poisonous.

“No matter what, such a fragrant fruit would make me want to taste it even if it was poisonous. I really don’t want to eat those disgusting reptiles that have been drilling through people’s brains.”

“How about you eat it first? Your physique is so st.u.r.dy, even if it is poisonous you can probably get through it.”

“I think that your skin and meat is so tough that even if it’s a hundred times more poisonous it still wouldn’t poison you. You’re the most suitable to test it for poison.”

The two of them were still very careful now that they had arrived at a strange new world. But they didn’t appear miserable; on the contrary, they seemed almost cheerful.

Ye Fan picked a bright red fruit. Looking at it in its hand, it was very alluring, sparkling bright like a carved ruby.

Pang Bo also picked a brightly sparkling red fruit and said, “I’m dying; this fruit is too alluring, I can’t take it any longer. I have to taste it.”

“How about I do it first?”

The two them gently bit into it at the same time, and when the sparkling bright red fruit’s skin broke, an intense fragrance exploded out, filling their whole body.

“It’s delicious!” Pang Bo practically wanted to swallow his own fingers; a bright red juice flowed out, and the fragrance lingered, filling the surroundings.

“I’ve never eaten such a delicious fruit. Is it just that we were too hungry?” After finis.h.i.+ng a fruit, they waited a short time, but neither of them felt unwell or anything. They only felt that their bodies were much more energetic.

“There’s no poison.”

“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s keep going!”

The two of them sat beside the one-meter wide spring and began to ravenously wolf down the fruits, the juice flying everywhere. The two of them were so hungry they were almost swallowed their own tongues, so it was even worse when they were in the face of such a fragrant fruit.

When each of them had only each eaten four, they stopped. Ye Fan said, “We have to bring a couple over to Yiyi and Zhang Ziwen.”

“Right, they should also be starving to death too.”

Although each half-meter tree was lush and verdant, appearing extremely luscious, they only had one fruit hanging at the top. There were a total of thirteen green jade-like trees around the spring, and at this moment, there were only five bright and sparkling red fruits left.

Pang Bo sucked in a deep breath of air, and lowered his body near the flowing spring. Smelling it, he said, “Strange, this spring water also has some of the fragrance.”

Ye Fan cupped some of the spring water in his hands and also inhaled a faint fragrance. Although it was very mild, it was definitely there. “The fact that these small trees can grow such strange fruits should be mostly because of this small spring.”

Pang Bo drank a couple big mouthfuls of the water and said, “There’s a slightly sweet flavor. It’s a pity that it’s just the flavor that’s a bit special; there’s no special feeling from drinking it.” He emptied his water bottles and refilled them with the slightly sweet spring water.

The two of them rested here for a short while. After eating the fruits, drinking the water, and picking the rest of the five fruits, the two of them finally started to walk back. Pang Bo whispered, “Have you noticed that after eating the fruit, your fatigue has gone away? I feel full of energy right now.”

Ye Fan also felt that it was bizarre and nodded, saying, “Looks like these fruits really are not ordinary.”

At this moment, everyone had resolved their individual issues. Some of them were surveying the distant topography, while some of them were grouping together and discussing what to do now.

When Ye Fan and Pang Bo walked over, the dense fruit fragrance immediately burst out, causing everyone to look over. Quite a few of them involuntarily swallowed a mouthful of saliva since most of them were already starving.

“Here Yiyi, quickly eat it.” Pang Bo placed two of the fruits within Liu Yiyi’s hand. The brilliant red fruits s.h.i.+ned in the sunlight as bright as the full moon.

Li Changqing was standing not far, and when he smelled this alluring fruit fragrance, he immediately couldn’t hold back and said, “Pang Bo, where did you find such fruits? Hurry up and split them up with everyone, we’re all extremely hungry.”

Saying this, he walked over as if he were friends with them, apparently having forgotten how he had almost maliciously had Ye Fan killed. He reached out his hand towards the remaining three fruits in Pang Bo’s hand.