Imperial Treasure
Chapter 371 - 257: Love Deeply Rooted in the Bone

Chapter 371: Chapter 257: Love Deeply Rooted in the Bone

"Put it down!" Sui Yi hadn’t even managed to shout out loud...

"What the hell is this..." The man suddenly dropped the bones and frantically scratched his hand like a madman, "Ah!!"

Screaming, his arm was scratched with deep bloody marks by his own desperate clawing...

"Fuck! Ah Da, have you gone mad?"

The person next to him exclaimed in shock, but they all had plenty of experience and didn’t rush forward immediately, instead they all looked at his hand...

There were white dots on his hand... wriggling on his skin, seeming to seep back into it...

Gao Yi’s expression suddenly twisted as he ran desperately backward. Feng Sha, quick and alert, grabbed the man swiftly. While struggling, Gao Yi let out a scream like a pig being slaughtered, "Those are Acacia Ants!!! These things can swallow us all whole! Don’t pull on me!"

What!

Gong Jiu and the others retreated in unison.

Sui Yi had already seen at least seven or eight bodies from which heaps of white ants were crawling out of the bone ends, as if there were holes. The ants were dense like white sand, accumulating more and more...

It was absolutely terrifying.

The group had quite a bit of equipment, among them Han Gao and Wei Feng’s two men drew wide-mouthed firearms from their waists and pressed the switches.

Whoosh~~

Instead of bullets, a cold white flame tinged with blue shot out, sweeping over the ground, with a quick spurting sound, incinerating the swarm of white ants moving toward them...

The young man named Ah Da was already tormented beyond human recognition by these translucent white ants, his flesh a bloody blur in the blink of an eye... he fell to the ground frothing at the mouth, lifeless.

There was no saving him!

The manner of death was horrifying, categorized as a death from flesh being eaten and decomposed within a few breaths...

Just as everyone’s hearts seized, they saw more and more white ants crawling out of the bones, as if each white bone housed tens of thousands of ants...

They moved quickly, very quickly, and Han Gao and the others could only fend off some of them with their flamethrowers; the rest circled around, attempting to outflank from the sides...

"Run!"

Without daring to linger, the group broke into a desperate sprint...

"Look behind you!"

Brother Ma’s alarmed cry made Sui Yi and the others look back, and they saw a wave of white chasing after them— at first glance, it looked like a white cloth covering hundreds of square meters...

The speed was very fast, the ants were nearly catching up to them after they mounted their camels...

But camels were absolutely indispensable; without them, their journey ahead would be even more treacherous, as the ants were about to overtake them.

"Head east!" Liang Qing and Gong Jiu both had the same conclusion, which differed from the three guides’, but of course, when Feng Sha and Wu Gu’s swords hovered at their necks... their opinions instantly aligned.

Once everyone was on the camels, Sui Yi leaned sideways, hooking the Demon Que from her waist.

Turning around to draw the sword, sword out!

Clang~~ The sharp, clear ring of the sword sang out as everyone heard it. On looking, it was a cold light arching like the crescent moon, sweeping across with one strike!

The ground was slashed by a narrow long sword mark, raising a massive cloud of Huang Sha that rushed toward the mass of white in front...

Covered by it, the ants dug out frantically like tiny white sprouts emerging from the soil...

Hiss~ Wu Gu and the others all inhaled sharply, even Gong Jiu and the others were astounded. Was this Sui Yi’s strength?

Oh, that Sui Yi holding the sword was really... outstanding!

"Impressive," Wei Feng said with a smile, his own blade slashing out of its sheath with similar effectiveness. In a moment, another layer of sand covered the ground, buying time for everyone to make their escape.

After covering five layers of sand, the two of them retreated in unison, turned, and ran, catching up with the team that had run ahead and leaping onto the camels from behind.

"Go!"

Half an hour later, the group finally confirmed they had escaped the pursuit of the white ants.

"I can’t do this, the camels can’t take it anymore, we need to rest..." Gao Yi called out.

Gong Jiu and the others couldn’t endure any longer either. Even if they were accustomed to martial arts practice, they couldn’t take such scorching heat and continuous fleeing... mainly, their butts couldn’t bear it.

"Look, what is that! There’s a ruined compound ahead!"

Finding a compound in the desert, even a dilapidated one, was enough to excite anyone, because it meant that there was, or at least had been, human civilization there.

But indeed, it was very dilapidated. By rough count, there were seven or eight buildings, almost all in ruins, with only one dilapidated structure in the middle, still covered on top by a few tattered mats and broken tiles.

A group of people arrived at the front of the building complex, each one hastily dismounting from their camels... Feng Sha and others had a somewhat strange posture, okay, it must be painful~~

Han Gao almost rolled off his camel, drenched in sweat, his fat quivering, he quickly walked into the building complex and plopped down on a stone, unscrewed his water flask and gulped down a few mouthfuls. Feng Sha reminded him not to consume too much of their water supply or else they’d be forced to drink their own urine to quench their thirst later... Brother Ma from the side added, "No worries, you can have my urine too..."

After getting off her camel, Sui Yi took a sip from her water flask. Her constitution was one of the best among the people there, but she too felt thirsty, just not as intensely as everyone else. She looked at the buildings before her and started walking toward them...

Hearing some noise behind, Gong Jiu came running up, and Sui Yi casually asked, "What’s going on back there?"

"It’s just Gao Yi and those three settling down the camels... Probably the camels are too exhausted and refuse to come in here to rest... so they had to stay outside as well," he said.

As they spoke, the group headed towards the middle building finding shade. Gong Jiu and his people couldn’t care less about formalities and squeezed inside.

"This is the first time I feel so blessed just having a piece of cloth over my head..."

Those words expressed the sentiments of everyone present.

The dilapidated house wasn’t too big or too small, with stone slabs covering the ground, although they were dried and warped, sprouting weeds all over, somewhat dirty. There were also cylindrical stone stools, affording a chance to sit.

Sui Yi noticed some grooves on the wall, each containing pottery jars, and she approached to have a look... Wei Feng, Flower Demon, Liang Qing were doing the same...

Primarily because they needed to understand the origins of these ruins to gauge any help it could provide towards their journey’s goal...

But these pottery jars were too ordinary, lacking any distinctive marks, and their material was very common, just clay...

Flower Demon and Liang Qing were somewhat proficient in this area, yet even they came up empty-handed.

"Miss Sui is an expert in this field, I wonder if you could discern anything..."

As Sui Yi turned the pottery jar in her hands, she responded blandly to Wei Feng’s inquiry, "This type of firing technique combined with the use of clay, and absence of decorative patterns, being from Xinjiang region, should belong to something made over two hundred years ago."

Pausing for a moment, Sui Yi added, "Back then there weren’t many people in Xinjiang skilled in this craft... And..."

She furrowed her brows, as Wei Feng’s gaze flickered as well.

"Over two hundred years ago? Wouldn’t a jar from over two hundred years ago have been weathered away by now?" Wu Gu mocked.

"That’s why it’s so strange! What the hell do you know!" Even if they didn’t trust Zuo Wei’s expertise, Gong Jiu and the others trusted that she never lied. If she said it was over two hundred years old, then it must be.

"Seems like there’s something special about the material of these jars... Such a pity we didn’t bring any specialized equipment." Liang Qing cracked open a jar, took a shard, and pocketed it.

They couldn’t take back a complete jar since there was no room in their backpacks, so why not take a piece back for thorough examination?

"Hey, what are you guys fiddling with? Reminds me of myself..." Gao Yi came running in, shook off the sand from himself, sat down to drink water, huffed and puffed while eating some dry food to replenish his strength, and then said, "I really admire you guys... Such stamina, especially you two... You must be martial arts practitioners."

In fact, most of them practiced martial arts.

Sui Yi faced Gao Yi, examined him for a while, feeling his gaze was evasive... "What do you want to say?"

Uh... Gao Yi pursed his lips, standing in what he felt was a safer spot, "Hey, I’m just saying... Don’t start throwing knives and guns, I’m just reminding you... We’re getting closer to the inside, that’s the Death Zone. Hardly anyone who goes in comes out. Remember those Acacia Ants we saw just now? One little thing can kill a person here..."

With that reminder, Gong Jiu suddenly remembered, "What the heck, you said those terrifying ants are called Acacia Ants? Which ’acacia’ is that? Why such a name?"

"Acacia that pierces the bones," someone said.

Acacia... pierces the bones... pierces the bones... Everyone shuddered at the thought of countless Acacia Ants burrowing inside human bones.

"Heh, you Xinjiang folks really are cultured..."

"Actually, it was a name given by our inlanders many years ago..."

Gao Yi almost got sidetracked but quickly brought the topic back. He was astute, realizing early on that the group actually consisted of two factions, each with their own leader.

The strongest two, Sui Yi and Wei Feng.

"Miss Sui, Mr. Wei, it’s none of my business if you want to go inside, but I really need to warn you, those Acacia Ants are guardians of the Death Zone. Anyone who crosses this line will be burrowed into their skin, eaten alive, and in the blink of an eye, only a skeleton remains. That’s not all; they’ll hollow out the bones and nest inside... That swarm we just encountered is small... If we meet a large one, then we..."

Gao Yi was dramatically yelling, his display quite unnerving...

Ga, ga, ah, ah.

Sounds resembling those of a person with severed vocal cords, suffering the agony of being flayed and cut alive...

Truly terrifying, like an echo of death.

Han Gao, the one with the weakest nerves, jumped up with a shout, "Fuck~ You, surnamed Gao, don’t scare people with sound effects alright!"

This guy had been the first to run at every sign of danger along the way, and even now was deliberately trying to frighten others; he was just too sneaky!

Gao Yi’s face turned pale, his expression distorted as he stared with a mixture of anger and shock, his lips trembling, "No... it wasn’t me!"

Not you?! (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to vote for it at Qidian (qidian.com). Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users can visit m.qidian.com to read.)