Chapter 230 - 229: The Procession’s Destination

Chapter 230: Chapter 229: The Procession’s Destination

"This isn’t the same team as before," Li Qing said with a frown. "In the Divine Travel Team we saw earlier, the Immortal in the sedan chair was the Jade Emperor. In this team’s sedan chair, it’s the Golden Flower Lady."

"The Golden Flower Lady?" Feng Ling paused, stunned, and looked toward the sedan chair.

Because she was looking down from above, she couldn’t see the Immortal’s face, only the ornate robes visible outside the sedan chair.

But Li Qing, like Huangfu Miaomiao, could see the names of these Maze Creatures, so he immediately noticed the difference.

"The Golden Flower Lady is also known as the Childbearing Goddess, an Immortal in charge of fertility," Li Qing explained. "The seventeenth day of the fourth lunar month is the Golden Flower Festival. Devout worshipers will go to her temple to kneel and pray for children, or for a safe birth. I hear she’s very efficacious."

Feng Ling watched the procession move forward, her expression turning glum. "If the Immortal being worshiped is different, does that mean the Wandering God’s route is also different? If so, even if we follow them, we won’t find Little Skeleton. We need to find the Jade Emperor from before."

Ye Zheng frowned. "What are you talking about? Even if the Immortal is different, we can still find some clues if we follow them. We can’t lose our focus just because one person on the team is in trouble. Our purpose for entering the Maze is the Divine Statue and the Maze Master, not to find Little Skeleton."

"You can’t say that..." Xu Yiming began hesitantly. "Miao Miao is missing because she was trying to help us. We can’t just abandon her."

Ye Zheng replied coldly, "I’m not saying we should abandon her. I just don’t want us to deviate from our main objective. A team must have a clear goal and be able to distinguish its priorities. Otherwise, it lacks both discipline and efficiency, and the mission is likely to fail."

Xu Yiming found Ye Zheng’s words too harsh and couldn’t help retorting, "We’re not Inspectors, so why do we need all this discipline? We’re just freelance Hunters. If the operation goes south, we can just retreat!"

Xu Yiming’s words were particularly grating to Ye Zheng. Her blood-red pupils widened as she roared, "Do you think you’re an Alien Species?! Humanity has no retreat! You can run away, but where are the people of Guangshan City supposed to go?! That Crow was lucky enough to survive this long. If it dies, the rats we see now will be the future of Guangshan City!"

"You...!" Xu Yiming felt completely wronged. He just wanted everyone to feel less pressure. ’How did that turn into me not caring about whether the people of Guangshan live or die?’

"Both of you, shut up." The argument was giving Feng Ling a headache.

She said to Ye Zheng, "I can give you another shot of sedative if you’d rather be a burden."

Ye Zheng lowered her gaze, and the two moth-like antennae on her head drooped along with it. She fell into a sullen silence.

Feng Ling then turned to Xu Yiming. "I told you not to provoke her. Don’t provoke her."

Xu Yiming felt foolish as well, saying sheepishly, "She’s so strange. She talks like an Inspector."

Feng Ling pursed her lips and casually made something up. "She’s just a Hunter with an extremely high sense of duty. She idolizes Ye Zheng, and that’s why she’s like this."

Xu Yiming was taken aback. He slowly turned his head to look at Ye Zheng again. "...No wonder."

Ye Zheng: "..."

Li Qing reminded them, "The Divine Travel Team is getting away."

"Let’s go, we’ll follow them and see." Feng Ling took a few steps back, then got a running start and leaped high into the air, landing on the rooftop of the next building.

She turned back and saw Ye Zheng jump over as well.

The gap between the buildings was nothing for Xu Yiming; without carrying any weight, he could jump over ten meters.

Only Li Qing was left standing alone on the other side.

Feng Ling thought, ’Crap, I forgot about the Daoist.’

"I’ll get him, I’ll get him." The kind-hearted Xu Yiming immediately jumped back, hoisted Li Qing onto his back, and rejoined Feng Ling and Ye Zheng.

The four of them followed the Divine Travel Team from the rooftops, running and stopping intermittently, always careful to maintain their distance.

The journey was unusually safe.

It seemed that as long as they followed the Divine Travel Team, they were granted protection, free from the endless harassment of the Mouse Monsters.

Their state of mind began to shift as well. They felt an inexplicable sense of relaxation, of joy and cheer, as if they were longing for something.

The moment Feng Ling noticed this change in her mental state, she immediately slowed down, putting more distance between herself and the Divine Travel Team to prevent her mind from being affected.

She thought: ’This is so creepy. Is this how Little Skeleton got lost?’

As Feng Ling slowed, the others slowed down with her.

Xu Yiming couldn’t help but say, "This is supposed to be dangerous, but I don’t know why, I feel so relaxed. It would be nice if we could just keep following them like this, all peaceful and quiet, without having to worry about the rats at all."

Ye Zheng snorted. "Who said there aren’t any rats? What’s that, then?"

Hearing this, Feng Ling looked toward the Divine Travel Team, then scanned the area left and right. Sure enough, she spotted a rat in an alleyway.

It was an exceptionally gaunt, humanoid rat. It was slowly crawling out of the alley, then stood upright, like a person, and walked into the Divine Travel Team, blending into the crowd.

Feng Ling was a little surprised. "I thought there were no rats nearby because the Wandering God’s Spiritual Suppression drove them away. I never expected a rat would just join the procession on its own. What’s it trying to do?"

Ye Zheng furrowed her brow. "The spiritual power of the Divine Travel Team is strange. Although you can feel a sense of suppression, it doesn’t make you feel scared. Instead, it creates a feeling of longing."

"Here comes another one," Li Qing reminded them.

Everyone looked down from the rooftop and saw another humanoid rat limping toward the procession. A mournful cry, like weeping, came from its mouth.

Seeing this, Li Qing seemed emotionally affected. His voice was low as he said, "It looks like they’ve been abandoned by the swarm."

Feng Ling frowned and took a few steps forward, wanting to get a closer look, but she was wary of the Divine Travel Team’s spiritual power and didn’t dare get too close.

"Were they abandoned because they’re injured?" she asked Li Qing.

Li Qing watched the two Mouse Monsters without speaking.

"Hey~" Feng Ling waved a hand in front of his eyes.

Li Qing came to his senses and explained, "I was thinking, if the Divine Travel Team’s spiritual power doesn’t have the ability to repel Mouse Monsters, then there’s only one other possibility for why this street we’ve been following is so clean: the Mouse Monsters are consciously and actively avoiding the Divine Travel Team."

Ye Zheng frowned and asked, "How would they actively avoid it? Do they know the Wandering God’s route?"

"They are Maze Creatures, after all. They’ve survived in here for a long time, so it wouldn’t be strange for them to know the Wandering God’s route," Li Qing said. "My guess is they have a way to predict the next route and clear out of the danger zone ahead of time. And these two rats, because they were old and frail, were abandoned by the swarm during the evacuation."

Feng Ling looked toward the Divine Travel Team. It was getting farther and farther away, and she could only faintly see the few rats at the rear of the procession through the hazy mist.

"If your theory is correct, then this team’s destination might be the most dangerous place in the entire Maze," she murmured.