Chapter 701: Gold Mine (1/2)
In the early morning, the sounds of birds merrily singing woke up the deeply asleep Xiaocao. She popped out her arms from her sleeping bag and stretched lazily before rubbing her groggy eyes gently.
Suddenly, she felt the side of her cheek tickle. She used her hand to feel the area and discovered that the little divine stone had come back at an unknown time. Its butt was against her face and it was currently snoring peacefully. She rubbed its soft head and wriggled out of her sleeping bag.
After using the clean mountain water to brush her teeth and wash her face, she applied a layer of skin care. Only when she was done did she realize that her husband wasn’t by her side.
“His Highness left early this morning and said that he wanted to find some wild fruits for you to eat. These past few days, we’ve only been eating roasted meats and he was afraid that you might end up with excessive heat in your body.” Wutong had finished assisting her mistress in her morning ablutions and was currently packing away their luggage and sleeping bags. When Hou Xiaoliang came back, he would be in charge of transporting these items.
The first to come back was Su Ran, who was dressed entirely in white. In his hands were some banana leaves and nestled inside of them were some wax apples about the size of a person’s fist. They were bright red and looked very appetizing. Wutong hurriedly took them from him and washed them clean in the spring water before presenting them to her mistress.
Xiaocao chose a wax apple and began eating it. The fresh and ripe wax apple was juicy and sweet. It tasted quite good! She divided up the remaining apples to Wutong and Chunhua. Recently, Chunhua had a bit of excessive heat build up in her body and a large canker sore had appeared in her mouth, so she needed to eat some foods with vitamins in it.
“Surnamed Su, you are very sly and tricky!!” Zhu Junyang, who was dressed entirely in black and had a similar dark expression on his face, came back with a bunch of wax apples. When he saw his wife gnawing happily on a wax apple, the displeasure on his face became very apparent. If it weren’t for that fellow Su Ran tricking him, saying that there was a glade of wild lychee trees, then he would have definitely come back first. He was truly too loathsome!
Xiaocao had already gotten used to the two of them quarreling and bickering over mundane things. She took a wax apple from her husband’s hands and began eating it with relish. Compliments flowed out of her mouth as she exclaimed that the apple was ‘so sweet’. Only then did the dark look on her man’s face finally recede a bit. Argh! Men were truly childish and silly creatures.
After getting some crucial information from the little divine stone, Xiaocao finished her breakfast before pointing in a direction and said, “How about we go over there to take a look today?”
The prince from Myanmar looked at the mountain that she was pointing at and he frowned, “The terrain over there is steep and arduous and there’s a section of miasma and marshland too. If we’re not careful, it’d be very easy to fall into danger. How about we go there another time after bringing on some suitable tour guides?’
“No need, I have a method to counteract the miasma. As for the marshland, all we need to do is go around it!” Yu Xiaocao had found out from the little divine stone that the spiritual energy there was very dense, so there must be a large vein of jadeite ore there. She needed to go there.
The young prince looked over at Imperial Prince Xu, hoping that he would make his wife back down. However, contrary to his expectations, the imperial prince didn’t say anything and agreed. Argh! Everyone said that the Imperial Prince Xu doted on his wife to the heavens and now he had experienced to what degree the prince was willing to favor her!
With the little divine stone as a silent guide, the group managed to successfully go around the section of treacherous marshland and arrived at the area blanketed by poisonous miasma. In the gloomy forest, they could see a multi-colored fog gently permeating the area. It made it look as if they were within some heavenly clouds and it was quite a mesmerizing sight.
The expression on the Myanmar’s prince’s face became even more solemn as he said, “I never would have thought that the miasma here would be the dangerous peach blossom miasma. As soon as it touches you, your skin will start to rot and, following that, the flesh within. In the end, it’ll penetrate a person's bones...Your Highnesses, are you sure you want to go there?”
The mountaintop that Princess Consort Xu had pointed at only had marshland or the highly toxic peach blossom miasma around it. It looked like they would need to return without getting to the top.
Yu Xiaocao lightly frowned and took out a very strong and potent detoxifying pill. The little divine stone had said that this pill would have no issues in counteracting the peach blossom miasma. However, if this mountain truly had a large jadeite vein, they needed to find a way to get rid of the peach blossom miasma in the forest. Otherwise, it’d be too difficult to open up the mine and take out the ore!
Zhu Junyang watched as she took out a bottle from her medicine box and poured out a pill. He snatched over the pill from his wife’s hands and stuffed it into his mouth as he said, “You all wait here for a bit. This prince will go first to investigate…”
Hou Xiaoliang was so alarmed by this that sweat poured off of him. He blocked his master’s way as he said, “Your Highness, this subordinate should go instead…”
“What if there are some other dangers lurking in the forest? With your poor skills, will you be able to fight against them?” Zhu Junyang stopped Hou Xiaoliang’s movement with a glance, “Keep the princess consort safe. This prince will look around and come back.”
As he spoke, he leapt into the multicolored fog and disappeared quickly. Su Ran saw the worried look on Xiaocao’s face and also took a strong detoxifying pill before he said, “I’ll follow him and take a look. With two people in there, there should be no issues.”
With two experts inside, Xiaocao felt her worries go down by half. However, if her husband was right, the forest might have many dangers looking around. Although the peach blossom miasma couldn’t harm them, she didn’t know if there were other perils just waiting for them.
Fortunately, the two men didn’t make the rest of them wait for too long. After an hour, a black and white figure, who both looked quite similar, appeared back in their eyes.
When the Myanmar prince saw that Imperial Prince Xu and Chief Steward Su came back without a single hair on their heads harmed, his eyes almost fell out of his head. The tyrannically poisonous peach blossom miasma had absolutely no effect on them. The young prince looked over at the medicine box in Xiaocao’s hands and became incredibly excited.