Chapter 38

(With just a hundred or so more monthly votes, the fourth chapter of today will be updated, the pressure is immense!)

Chen Xun, regardless of whether the mystic cold spirit body was good or bad, knew that Su Tang was a young lady from a wealthy family. The task of cutting open the abdomen to retrieve the gallbladder was something that had to be done by him, a poor boy from a fallen family.

However, his young face turned bright red as he strained with all his might, but he could not tear open the chest and abdomen of the snow ape by hand.

Chen Xun had never expected that the skin and flesh of the snow ape, even after death, would still be so tough.

He had been training hard for nearly three months and had advanced to the seventh level of the Barbaric Martial realm, the Blood Change stage, with his arms having a strength of no less than six thousand pounds. Yet, he still could not tear open the skin and flesh of the snow ape. How formidable must the snow ape have been when it was alive?

"Snow apes, from a young age, live on the ice plains and can naturally use the mystic cold energy to temper their bodies. Snow apes that have lived for over a hundred years have bodies as strong as those in the Rebirth realm," Su Tang said.

"Why didn't you say that earlier?" Chen Xun said, speechless. No matter how strong he was now, he could not possibly tear open a body as strong as that of a Rebirth realm expert by hand. He was secretly alarmed, thinking about the disaster it would be for the Wuyang and other tribes if that divine power-infused evil ape led dozens of snow apes into the Python Tooth Ridge.

Moreover, the wild beasts on this Great Solitary Peak were excessively strong. Despite the heavy casualties, they did not fall behind in the fierce battle with the dozens of snow apes.

If the wild beasts on this mountain obtained the body of the evil ape, how much would their strength increase?

Su Tang, unaware of Chen Xun's concerns, said with interest, "I thought you could tear open the snow ape by hand after forming your spirit body with the spirit energy."

Chen Xun was speechless.

Fortunately, many of the ape corpses on the ground had already been gutted by other more powerful wild beasts.

Some of the snow apes had their gallbladders damaged, with precious green-black gall fluid flowing everywhere. Some had their gallbladders missing, possibly eaten by the wild beasts. However, Chen Xun still managed to retrieve three intact gallbladders from the damaged ape corpses.

Su Tang, finding the task of retrieving the gallbladders too bloody, ran to the stream valley.

Chen Xun stood naked in the icy snow, with only a piece of animal skin covering his lower body. He held three giant, coconut-sized gallbladders in his hands. From a distance, he saw Su Tang walking out of the stream valley, holding the broken sword they had lost in the depths of the valley.

Chen Xun remembered that he had wrapped the two pieces of the broken sword in animal skin and placed them in the medicine basket. When he jumped off the cliff, his back was struck by the electric snake's lightning, and the medicine basket turned to ashes. However, the broken sword remained undamaged.

Seeing that Su Tang had only retrieved half of the broken sword, Chen Xun asked, "Where is the sword tip? And what about my black-sheathed knife?"

"This half of the broken sword can still be used as a weapon. What do you need the sword tip for?" Su Tang asked. "Your black-sheathed knife has been melted by the electric snake's lightning and is now just scrap iron..."

Chen Xun thought that Su Tang, who had never managed a household, did not understand the value of things. The sword tip, made of an unknown material, weighed two to three hundred pounds and was likely made of the Nine Abyss Iron mentioned in the *Canglan Miscellany*.

Su Tang considered it scrap iron, but if he brought this piece of Nine Abyss Iron to Wuyang, he didn't know how excited his grandfather and the others would be.

Chen Xun had not expected his black-sheathed knife to melt when he jumped off the cliff. He also felt the purity of the divine power contained in the electric snake's lightning. He had only survived by relying on the drop of six-armed giant demon blood in his body.

"Here, keep this well and don't let anyone see it," Su Tang said, handing Chen Xun another item.

Chen Xun saw that it was the two green nuts he had picked up in the Blue-eyed Hawk's stone nest. They must have fallen into the stream valley with the broken sword, and Su Tang had picked them up again.

"What is this? Do you recognize it?" Chen Xun asked.

"If I'm not mistaken, they should be Green Phoenix seeds," Su Tang said.

"Ah..." Chen Xun was shocked, his mouth opening wide.

The *Canglan Miscellany* recorded: Green Phoenix seeds, favored by the Blue Phoenix.

The record about Green Phoenix seeds in the *Canglan Miscellany* was only seven characters long, but for a seed to be favored by an ancient and ferocious beast like the Blue Phoenix, it could not be an ordinary item.

Chen Xun tossed a Green Phoenix seed to Su Tang, "Here, take one as a keepsake."

The Green Phoenix seeds were as precious as the fourth-grade spirit medicine, the Stone Snake Lotus. Su Tang originally intended for Chen Xun to keep both seeds close to his body, but she changed her mind and carefully hid one in her bosom, letting Chen Xun take the broken sword and quickly gut the snow apes with intact bodies...

Su Tang said that her black gold sword, now broken and its spirit dispersed, had become an ordinary object. Chen Xun, using the broken sword, found it very convenient to gut the animal corpses on the ground.

Even the snow ape corpses that he could not tear open by hand were easily cut open by the broken sword, which sliced through the extremely tough skin and flesh. Chen Xun only felt a slight resistance.

It was like a well-fed person not understanding the hunger of a starving one. This broken sword, though only two feet long, was far more precious than the heavy spear and the black-sheathed knife. Su Tang, however, found it too heavy and wanted to discard it in the wilderness, truly a wasteful woman.

"The fighting to the south seems to be stopping. Hurry up, we need to leave quickly."

Su Tang, disliking the bloody task of gutting, stood on the treetop, observing the battle between the wild beasts on the southwest slope of the Great Solitary Peak, while guiding Chen Xun to cut out the most valuable parts of the wild beasts.

Dozens of wild beasts lay dead in the stream valley. Although their blood and flesh were extremely pure, Chen Xun did not have the ability to carry all of them back to Wuyang.

Even if he had several copper carts pulled by scale horses to carry the hundreds of thousands of pounds of blood and flesh, he didn't know how many ferocious beasts would be attracted to the feast on the way.

They could only take advantage of the fact that the ferocious beasts in the mountains were still fighting the snow apes on the southern mountain and try to cut out the most valuable and compact parts from the animal corpses, wrap them up, and bring them back to Wuyang.

Chen Xun, who had been accustomed to the wilderness for years, was very familiar with the task of gutting and skinning.

Snow ape liver and gallbladder, giant python eyes and gallbladder, venom sacs, snake fangs, bear lion belly skin, scale vulture crop...

Chen Xun only selected the most precious parts to cut out. In the time it took to drink a cup of tea, he had already filled four bear lion belly skins.

There was also a huge black leopard in the upper part of the stream valley, half of its body covered by ice chips.

This black leopard was even larger than the two black leopards Chen Xun had seen on the mountain top, which had been killed and eaten by the giant ape. Lying on the stone beach of the stream valley, it was as tall as a person, with deep black fur that seemed to be made of divine iron, still shining with a metallic luster even after being dead for a long time.

This huge black leopard must have lived a carefree life for hundreds or even thousands of years in the Great Solitary Peak. However, seeing that it was larger than any other wild beast in the stream valley, it was clear that it was a rare and powerful ruler in the Great Solitary Peak. How did it die so early in the stream valley?

Looking at its half-crushed head, it must have been smashed by the powerful palm of a snow ape.

Chen Xun did not care how the black leopard died. Knowing that the heart and gallbladder of a black leopard were rare treasures, and that its bones were excellent materials for making tools and medicines, he decided to remove the flesh and bones.

Chen Xun, enduring the pungent smell of blood from the stream valley, dragged the black leopard, which weighed over ten thousand pounds, out of the ice chips.

The ice chips, soaked in blood, had frozen again. Chen Xun struggled to drag the black leopard out, almost falling over from the effort and nearly being overwhelmed by the pungent smell of blood.

"Something's wrong..." Su Tang jumped down from the treetop, noticing something unusual, and stopped Chen Xun from cutting open the leopard's belly to retrieve the gallbladder.

Chen Xun then noticed a slight movement in the black leopard's belly. He touched it and found it unusually soft, with a small fetus moving inside.

Strangely, he could not sense the life force of the fetus through the layer of flesh.

The black leopard was exceptionally large, and from its appearance, it was not obvious that it was a pregnant female.

Chen Xun carefully cut open the black leopard's