Chapter 824: Chapter 824

“The intervals between day and night here are much longer,” Huang Dinggou explained as he wiped his face clean of dog pee. “How long have you all been here?”

Li Xiaofei did a quick calculation and said, “About twenty-four hours or so.”

Huang Dinggou’s expression turned grave and said, “Then it’s just as I thought. In ten more hours, Heaven will enter nighttime. That’s when the Night Fiends awaken. They’ll start sweeping the land and exterminate all foreign lifeforms. Let me remind you, they’re powerful, their methods bizarre and impossible to guard against, and worst of all, they come in overwhelming numbers. They’re very difficult to deal with.”

Li Xiaofei could sense the genuine danger in Huang Dinggou’s tone. In Heaven, vigilance was essential at all times. There was no room for carelessness.

This place is just too eerie.

“If we’ve got ten hours, we’d better use that time to get out of here,” Li Xiaofei said. “Now that we’ve found you, Black Emperor will lead the way. You can all get out of here quickly.”

“We can’t,” Huang Dinggou shook his head. “Anyone who enters this place has to endure at least ten days and nights before the tide of the Heavenly River recedes and the Magpie Bridge appears. Only through that bridge can one cross the river again.”

Li Xiaofei frowned and asked, “We can’t cross by boat?”

Huang Dinggou’s expression turned dark and replied, “You mean the Youming Ferryman? I have a bad feeling about him. I don’t think he’s going to take us across.”

Li Xiaofei turned to the mute girl. She shook her head. She didn’t share that premonition. Li Xiaofei ran the numbers in his head. In the end, he decided the best course of action was to escort the group back and take a chance, see if fortune might smile upon them after all.

"You're really going back? Well, alright then." Huang Dinggou hesitated for a moment, as if making a difficult decision.

After a bit of thought, he pulled out a man-sized jar, returned to the ten-thousand-year-old cesspit, and began scooping out large amounts of half-liquid, viscous black horse dung until the jar was completely full. He then strapped it to his back.

This ancient muck was the accumulated excrement of celestial horses from the stables, fermented over millennia until it had become a substance nearly as toxic as poison.

When he saw the group's puzzled expressions, Huang Dinggou explained in an incredibly wise tone, “Better prepared than not. I’ve got this ready for you, just in case we don’t make it back before nightfall. You’ll all be thanking me then.”

Li Xiaofei couldn’t help but give him a thumbs-up for his foresight. With this decision made, Chu Xiang and Hua Dongcheng had no choice but to part ways with Li Xiaofei and his group.

“I haven’t found the Nine Yin Bone-Rebirth Grass yet. I can’t go back.” The striking red-haired woman showed perhaps a hint of fear in her eyes, but her choice remained firm.

Hua Dongcheng said nothing, but it was clear, he would follow wherever Chu Xiang went.

The two groups separated. Li Xiaofei and his companions set out at a fast pace for the Heavenly River. Since they were effectively on a forced march, they reached the riverbank about two hours later.

The river surged with muddy waves, shrouded in thick, drifting mist. At first, there was no sign of the Youming Ferryman. Then Li Xiaofei cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted several times into the depths of the river, which actually worked. Not long after, the Youming Ferryman rowed up in his white-bone skiff.

“What do you want?” His voice was as lifeless as ever, like a corpse just risen from a coffin.

Li Xiaofei stated their request. The ghostly fire flickered faintly in the Ferryman’s empty eye sockets. After a moment of eerie silence, he replied, “In your dreams.”

Without another word, the Youming Ferryman rowed away.

What the— So arrogant?!

Li Xiaofei had wanted to negotiate further. But the moment he opened his mouth, the bone skiff suddenly accelerated like a jet-powered motor boat, slicing a white line through the Heavenly River as it rocketed away into the mist.

Li Xiaofei was shocked. He was stunned.

That little boat could move that fast? Then why the hell was it crawling along so slowly before? Was he slacking off on purpose?

“Told you so...” Huang Dinggou shrugged, completely unbothered. “I tried negotiating with that scarecrow-looking freak for days. He wouldn’t budge. Once, I even threatened to dump dung into the Heavenly River, and he still refused.”

Li Xiaofei’s eyes widened and asked, “You threatened him?”

“Of course,” Huang Dinggou grinned. “No need to worry. As long as we don’t go into the river, he can’t touch us. Land-based creatures aren’t within his jurisdiction.”

“Oh,” Li Xiaofei nodded, then immediately exploded in fury. He spun and kicked Huang Dinggou hard in the rear. “So it was you, you damn mutt! You pissed him off earlier, didn’t you? That’s why he won’t give us a ride!”

Li Xiaofei’s face was dark with rage.

Huang Dinggou laughed awkwardly and rubbed his butt. “I told you all before, but no one listened...”

Li Xiaofei was at a loss for words. All that effort was for nothing. Now, there were less than eight hours left until nightfall.

“Let’s hurry back to the stables,” Huang Dinggou urged. “Hall Master, listen to me, once night falls, you must hide. Don’t try to fight back, no matter what. If you do, you won’t even have a whole corpse left.”

Li Xiaofei agreed with the suggestion. So, the group quickly turned back and began their return journey. Over two hours later, they arrived at the celestial stables once again.

Huang Dinggou warmly invited everyone into his humble abode. It was a stone hut slathered with over a dozen layers of ancient horse dung, inside of which sat multiple massive jars filled with ten-thousand-year-old manure, prepared just in case.

“Come, come, don’t be shy. One jar per person, you’ll be totally safe through the night!” said Huang Dinggou who puffed up with pride. “This, my friends, is the pinnacle of survival wisdom.”

Li Xiaofei couldn’t even be bothered to respond. Instead, he busied himself by constructing some special devices.

Night arrived in the blink of an eye. There was no warning as daylight vanished and darkness took its place. It was as if someone had suddenly flipped a switch.

“It’s night. Eyes closed.” Huang Dinggou, clearly practiced in this routine, slathered the stone hut in ancient manure and huddled inside, trembling like a leaf. Chapters fırst released on 𝕟𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕝~𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖~𝕟𝕖𝕥

Li Xiaofei, on the other hand, activated the surveillance system he had installed outside and began monitoring the surroundings. Not long after darkness set in, faint wisps of bluish mist began to spread across the area. Then, a solitary figure emerged from within the fog.

This was Li Xiaofei’s first time seeing the creature Huang Dinggou had called a Night Fiend. It walked upright on two legs, and had four arms. A long, serrated tail dragged behind it, its pointed tip resembling a barbed javelin.

Its entire body was pitch-black, and was encased in an armored exoskeleton that gave it an extra layer of defense. Its feet had four clawed toes, sharp and curved like a bird of prey’s talons. Each one gleamed like a polished blade.

The creature’s four arms were absurdly long, at least two meters each, with four joints apiece and six fingers per hand. Each finger ended in a curved, narrow claw like a metal hook, horrifyingly sharp.

Li Xiaofei was a little surprised. It looked like a low-tier creature. Its head was disproportionately large, its mouth filled with countless razor-like teeth that resembled a bed of daggers. Thick saliva dripped from between the fangs, giving it a savage, grotesque look that radiated a primal, animalistic threat.

For a fleeting moment, Li Xiaofei felt a strange sense of déjà vu. He studied it closely. The creature wandered aimlessly through the ruins, just like randomly generated mobs in a video game, programmed to wander until a player got too close, then swarm and tear them apart.

Only when it approached Huang Dinggou’s dung-covered stone house did it show signs of higher intelligence, recoiling with a look of utter disgust and instantly moving away.

Li Xiaofei watched for a while and began to feel that the creature wasn’t as terrifying as Huang Dinggou had made it out to be. He assessed the situation and silently calculated that he could easily wipe out something .

There was no need to cower in a dung-coated shack. But Huang Dinggou kept shooting him anxious glances, shaking his head frantically as if to say, don’t do it, don’t be reckless.

Li Xiaofei opened his mouth to say something, when suddenly, everything outside changed.