Su Fan and the other two immediately perked up. He had said that the other party wouldn't last as long as them, and they had left in just half an hour.
Su Fan confidently passed through the water curtain and, with a flash, appeared in a beautiful mountain valley. Hu Xuelan and Su Bei, along with the other two, also appeared behind Su Fan.
Su Fan looked back. The water curtain had disappeared after he entered, making it impossible to return.
No wonder they hadn't gone in earlier, and no one had come looking for them.
The air here was fresh, and the environment was beautiful, truly a paradise on earth.
"Su Fan! Come quickly!"
Just as Su Fan was marveling at the environment, Su Bei suddenly shouted at him, pointing to a gully.
Curious, Su Fan and the others walked over to Su Bei.
"This..."
When they saw the scene in the gully, a chill ran down their spines.
In the gully lay several corpses. Everyone except Long Gongzi's people was there, not a single one missing.
At this point, Su Fan could confirm that the danger they had just faced came from Long Gongzi and his group.
They had actually killed everyone after arriving here!
Hu Xuelan was also somewhat shocked. Among them, she knew Long Gongzi the best. In her mind, Long Gongzi was a gentle and powerful person with strong methods, but he wouldn't kill innocents indiscriminately.
This situation forced her to re-evaluate Long Gongzi.
"What is the origin of this Long Gongzi?" Su Fan asked Hu Xuelan.
He had wanted to ask for a long time but never had the chance.
"Long Gongzi's real name is unknown. He comes from an ancient aristocratic family, the Long family. The Long family rarely appears in public, but their traces can be found in every era. Almost every generation, members of the Long family are geniuses among geniuses, so everyone highly respects those with the surname Long," Hu Xuelan slowly revealed Long Gongzi's origins.
"The Long family?" Su Fan never expected another mysterious Long family to appear.
"Do you think there might not be a Long family at all, and it's just a guise used by others to deceive you?" Su Fan suddenly had a wild idea and said it jokingly.
Hu Xuelan was taken aback.
What Su Fan said was not without reason.
From ancient times to the present, the Long family as a whole had never appeared. Each time, only one person emerged into the public eye. Although they were geniuses, it was not impossible for others to impersonate members of the Long family using their name to show off.
"You have a point," Hu Xuelan even felt that Su Fan's words were very reasonable. She would have to discuss this matter with her master when she returned.
Su Fan:?
Su Fan was dumbfounded. He was just joking, why was she taking it seriously!
"What do we do now? Should we follow them or take a different path?" Su Bei asked Su Fan.
"Let's follow them. Since they dared to kill people after coming in, Long Gongzi must have some understanding of this place. Following them will save us a lot of trouble," Su Fan said after thinking.
Su Fan and the other three followed in the footsteps of Long Gongzi and his group.
The area was overgrown with weeds, a completely uninhabited deep mountain forest. The traces left by Long Gongzi and his group were obvious, and Su Fan and the others could follow these traces to know which direction they had gone.
Along the way, the group saw more signs of fighting. A massive creature lay dead on the path. It was a large black bear, about twice the size of a normal black bear, but its head had been severed by a single sword strike.
Su Fan knew from the wound that it was Long Gongzi and his group who had done this. Their technique was the same as when they killed the "Qiongqi" in the cave: they had blocked all the bear's attacks, and the final sword strike was fatal.
"There might be other dangers here. Everyone be careful, Xiao Lan, keep an eye on the surroundings." Seeing the large black bear, Su Fan knew that there were other creatures here, and danger could strike at any moment.
Su Fan discovered that this small world was vast. They had walked for so long without finding any borders to this world, and Long Gongzi's footprints were still leading further in. Along the way, Su Fan and the others found more carcasses of wild beasts, each different from those outside. They were either larger or strangely shaped.
For example, they encountered a creature that resembled a deer, with a horse's body and a deer's head, and particularly large antlers.
"Wait for me a moment, I need to relieve myself." Su Bei suddenly felt the urge to urinate and said to the other three.
"Go ahead," Su Fan waved his hand. This was a good opportunity for them to rest for a while.
Su Bei whistled and walked towards a nearby rock face to urinate. If there hadn't been two girls in the group, he wouldn't have needed to walk so far.
"Hmm?" Su Bei looked at the rock face beside him and was stunned. He pulled away some weeds, and a cave entrance suddenly appeared before his eyes. The entrance was smooth, not like a natural formation.
"Come quickly! I found a cave!" Su Bei shouted to Su Fan and the others.
Hearing Su Bei's call, Su Fan rushed over.
"What's wrong?" Su Fan asked Su Bei curiously.
"Look," Su Bei pointed to the cave entrance he had discovered.
Su Fan followed his gaze and saw a cave that had been artificially excavated.
At this moment, Hu Xuelan and Xiao Lan also arrived.
"Xiao Lan, is there any danger inside?" Su Fan asked Xiao Lan.
Xiao Lan sensed carefully and shook her head.
"No."
Su Fan was immediately relieved.
Having Xiao Lan around was indeed very useful, a veritable artifact for avoiding disaster.
Su Fan and Su Bei cleared away the weeds at the cave entrance, revealing an opening large enough for one person to pass through.
"This place probably isn't the final inheritance site, is it?" Su Fan said softly.
If it were, then Long Gongzi and his group would have walked all this way in vain, missing this place.
"We'll know if we go in. Didn't Xiao Lan say there's no danger? Let's go in," Su Bei said. He was becoming increasingly reliant on Xiao Lan's abilities and trusted her intuition implicitly.
Hu Xuelan nodded.
"Then let's go in and take a look."
Seeing that everyone wanted to go in, Su Fan had no objections. He took out his flashlight, illuminated the path ahead, and walked into the dark cave.
The cave was dark but not damp.
The cave was not deep and soon reached its end.
Inside the cave were stone beds, stone tables, and stone stools, as if someone had lived there, with some daily necessities.
"Someone lived here before," Hu Xuelan shone her flashlight around the environment.
"Su Fan, come quickly." Su Bei had made another discovery.
Su Fan walked over and saw that Su Bei had found a large number of bamboo slips behind a stone table.
Recording text on bamboo slips was common in dynasties before the invention of paper, meaning before the Western Han Dynasty. The owner of this place was from before the Western Han Dynasty.
"What does this say? Let's see." Su Bei opened the bamboo slips and immediately felt overwhelmed. He didn't recognize a single character.
"You should look at it," Su Bei handed the bamboo slips to Su Fan. He didn't want to embarrass himself by not knowing the characters.
Su Fan glanced at the content, then calmly closed it and handed it to Hu Xuelan.
"You look."