Chapter 82.3

Editor: Kat

Proofreader: Junyans

After storing Xiaocui, the insect ball had other functions added to it:

[Your esteemed self is a natural reproducer, and your swarm will have a strong desire to reproduce]

Wei Xun thought that Xiaocui was worthy of being a mother of the swarm. This enhancement was useless to him, but it was very beneficial to the expansion of the swarm.

‘Let’s forge ahead.’

Wei Xun put away the insect ball. He only summoned Xiaocui, and issued two orders.

‘I want the swarm to search through every inch of the ruins in Qianzong Mountain.’

‘I will go down to the deepest part of this cave.’

‘Your esteemed self’s orders are Xiaocui’s goals.’

Xiaocui replied in a soft voice, and in an instant, all the Insects of Evil moved. They drilled everywhere and penetrated into all the ruins in the entire mountain through various small holes that were difficult for ordinary people to go through.

Soon, Dog IV-1, who had been told to stay in the distance by Wei Xun, panicked and asked him for help, saying that he was surrounded by insect swarms again!

But this time Wei Xun ignored it. He found that he could not fully perceive the swarm and could only control it through Xiaocui. After all, he was the [Demonic Insect Dominator], and the current swarm was still ordinary insects. Although they were instinctively afraid of Wei Xun, they would only obey Xiaocui’s orders.

‘The deepest part of this cave is the underground water channel.’

‘Oh? We’ll reach it soon then.’

However, within a few minutes, Xiaocui received a message from the swarm.

‘Yes, the entire cave was dug by the swarm’s insects. My people like dryness and don’t like damp places, so when they reached the waterway, they stopped digging and began to expand horizontally.’

‘Well done.’ Wei Xun was clearly complimenting it, but for some reason, it made Xiao Cui’s heart go cold and her tone grew more respectful.

‘Let’s go. Clean up here and let’s go underground.’

The so-called “clean up” was of course to clean up the high-radiation ores in the insect queen’s area, as well as the bronze wares and gold sacrifices that had been sacrificed by the ancient Xiangxiongs to the Insects of Evil, which were still intact after thousands of years.

After all, if he brought those back to the Travel Services, they could also be exchanged for points. Wei Xun was thinking of buying a few square meters of temporary residence.

The swarm moved silently, assisting Wei Xun by “eating” out a tunnel leading to the underground. With their concealing attribute, they even gnawed at the stones and crawled without making any sound. Occasionally, they found a naturally formed cave with fluorescent fungi or insects in it, but they were all devoured and destroyed by the insect swarm.

They perfectly guaranteed that the road ahead of Wei Xun was dark and silent.

This was simply going to drive the audience in the livestream room crazy!

It had been an hour. Wei Xun’s livestream screen had been black for an hour, and it had been silent for an hour.

Previously, the audience could vaguely hear the cries of the ferret cub, and what seemed to be the rustling of a rock breaking and an insect swarm crawling.

But now they couldn’t hear anything!

Even if the audience in the livestream room stuck their faces in front of the screen, they could no longer hear any sounds or see anything on the screen. Tourists with special titles or who had mastered high-tech means tried to analyze the picture from the black screen, but they quickly gave up.

[I really can’t analyze anything, damn it, I just want to see what’s happening now!]

[I’m so anxious that I’m about to die, what happened to Wei Xun? Where has he fallen!]

[No, it’s simply because his surroundings are dark, right? It’s not because he has a special title that can shield his screen, right? Is it true that no one can see anything after using various means?]

[I can’t see it, I really can’t see it. Anyway, I don’t want to work hard to decipher it anymore. I’ll just rely on the bigwigs.]

However, the bigwigs couldn’t see it either! The livestream screen seemed to be broken, and it was pitch black. Except for the darkness, nothing could be seen.

“Could it be that Teacher Wei got a new title?”

Mao Xiaole was puzzled, and even Wang Yushu couldn’t parse out the scene behind the darkness. And no other tourist or tour guide in the Travel Services could understand the livestream better than Wang Yushu.

That was to say, at the moment, Wei Xun’s livestream split screen was pitch black and couldn’t be spied on by any means because of the rules of the Travel Services!

Whenever this happened, in addition to wearing a title that could block the screen, there was another reason why the Travel Services livestream would shield someone’s screen.

This kind of shielding method was actually not strict, just like when IV-1 had intimidated them at the beginning of the tour when he read out the titles of the newcomers. Although the audience in the livestream room could not hear the specific titles the newcomers possessed, they could tell by reading IV-1’s lips.

Experienced tourists, especially those who wanted to hide their titles and did not want their titles to be discovered by too many people, usually used the trick of “revealing their titles,” just like Miao Fangfei, who took the initiative to reveal the title of [Novice Gu Witch] in order to pledge her allegiance to III-9. Likewise, spectators couldn’t see the titles revealed by tourists, and they couldn’t use any means to analyze and parse the livestream screen. If they did, they would only parse out a mess of garbled characters.

However, from Miao Fangfei’s use of Gu, and from her Gu insects, the scouts from major tour parties would know that she had a title relating to her female gender and Gu.

It could be said that as long as the livestream was always on, everyone’s title would not be an eternal secret.

Unless they were in a dark environment that did not see the light of day.

Just like Wei Xun’s current situation.

Mao Xiaole asked, “After he entered the ruins, we couldn’t parse the livestream?”

“Yep, yep.”

Wang Yushu was sure that although everyone was tortured by Wei Xun’s flashlight that could emit strong light at that time, and was numb from his repeated playing with the Insects of Evil, Wei Xun could likely see in the dark, and he might go down the cave without the flashlight.

After all, the flashlight that could emit strong light would somewhat stimulate the creatures in the dark. When you turned on the flashlight, you were a bright target, and you were very vulnerable to attacks.

From then on, Wang Yushu began to analyze the livestream, but he found that the rules of the Travel Services had blocked him from doing so.

“Wei Xun said he was awarded the title of [Archaeologist], right?”

Wang Yushu pondered, “I think now that what he got at that time should be a series of title tasks.

“They’re exploration related, the kind that increase task progress by exploring ruins. That’s the only way to explain it.

“So as long as Wei Xun is exploring the ruins, the audience can’t use other means to peek at the screen.”

Mao Xiaole felt his teeth aching. Indeed, only this could explain why the audience outside the tour tried their best to get more information from the dark livestream room, but no one was able to obtain any information.

This was how the Travel Services usually acted. Although the Travel Services didn’t mind whether the tourists revealed their title information themselves during the tour, either from lip reading or the appearance they had when using special titles that were usually exposed to public view,. It did prevent off-site audiences from using various means to probe.

This could also be regarded as the Travel Services trying to promote the active participation of tourists and tour guides in the tour, hoping that they would actively communicate and cooperate with each other.

Do you want to know a person’s exact title? If you want to learn more specifically about their titles, then experience the tour with them, or you can find the person yourself.

As for relying on the livestream to find this information out?

No way.

“It’s all protected by the Travel Services. It really seems so.”

Mao Xiaole did not know whether to laugh or cry. At this moment, the audience was just scratching their heads, wanting to know what Wei Xun was doing, but they didn’t think about him trying to complete an exploration related task.

And they didn’t expect that in the end, the Travel Services would directly block his screen.

“That’s also a good thing.”

Mao Xiaole jokingly commented with a wicked smile, “It stops the tour guides from creating trouble.”

If Wei Xun really received a title task because he was exploring the ruins, then as long as he kept exploring and the task completion rate of the title kept rising, people outside would not be able to glean more information from the dark livestream room.

[Treasure Hunter Title Task Series, Task Progress: 30%]

After an hour and a half, with the insect swarm excavating a tunnel for Wei Xun, he reached the bottom of the abyssal-like hole. In fact, when he approached the end of the corridor, he had already heard the gurgling sound of water. The Insects of Evil were afraid of water, but under Xiaocui’s order, they still carried on ahead, digging a way for Wei Xun that led to the underground water channel.

“I don’t know what the altitude is now,” Wei Xun said to himself.

The Ruins of Xiangxiong Kingdom were more than 4,600 meters above sea level, and the altitude of Tangra Yumco wasn’t low. Judging from the height of Wei Xun’s current position, he estimated that he was beneath the lake.

The damp water vapor hit Wei Xun’s face, and there was a flat ground with obvious human traces in front of him. Further ahead was a pitch-black river with fast flowing rapids. It might have flowed under the highlands for thousands of years, from the time Xiangxiong Kingdom was here, or even a long time before that, all the way until now. In its heyday, the Xiangxiong Kingdom had used the Insects of Evil to dig through Qianzong Mountain, and built the famous Dragon God Waterway using this pitch-black river.

The Dragon God Waterway was actually just a section of the intricate river that connected to Tangra Yumco. It was located at the bottom of Xikang Temple. It was probably the place where Bon warlocks used to feed and conduct sacrificial ceremonies to the aquatic reptile.

Wei Xun moved forward along the waterway. He didn’t know how long it took until there were some traces of stone chains on the rock wall, and the black chains went straight into the pitch-black river. The metal had been corroded by moisture and time, but this special black stone chain had survived thousands of years of erosion.

‘Maybe it was used to lock prisoners up. Ah, it’s where Bon warlocks prepare offerings for the aquatic reptile.’

Those who were qualified to be enjoyed by the aquatic reptile must use the water of the holy lake to wash their body inside out, just like Yue Chenghua and others who had been manipulated to drink a lot of lake water and clean their stomachs at that time. This pitch-black river led to Tangra Yumco, and its water should also be pure holy lake water, which could not only detain and torture prisoners, but also wash the “sacrifices,” which could be described as “killing two birds with one stone.”

As Wei Xun judged, when the black stone chains appeared, more carvings and stone sculptures appeared on the rock walls as he proceeded ahead, and the sound of the rapid currents became louder and louder. Wei Xun discovered the human-made hewn stone steps which headed downward. There were many golden lamps nailed to the rock walls beside the stone steps, all of which were made into appearances of slaves kneeling on the ground, carrying lamps on their backs.

Just by looking at these golden lamps, one could guess how rich and powerful the former Xiangxiong Dynasty had been. In addition to the golden lamps, there were more statues carved from black stone. These sculptures were black and green, appearing similar to the minerals with strong radiation. They were not only symbols of gods and demons, but also natural guards. No one could pass through this corridor full of high radiation. They had been guarding the secrets of the Xikang Temple of the Xiangxiong Dynasty for thousands of years.

But Wei Xun, who had subdued Xiaocui, was no longer affected by this radiation. Xiaocui, who was using her mental projection, was sitting on his shoulders, looking in all directions elegantly and curiously. With her current level of intelligence, she could already see that the statues with human heads and insect bodies were offering sacrifices to her.

The Dragon God Waterway deep in the mountains enshrined not only the Dragon God, but also the master of the Insects of Evil.

It was just that Xiaocui was not very satisfied with these stone sculptures. Her aesthetics were divided into two poles. Originally, she naturally considered the appearance of a normal female insect the most beautiful. After she followed Wei Xun, she felt that although demonic insects were strong, her aesthetics were now more inclined to her master’s, so Xiaocui felt that humanoid figures looked more beautiful.

As for these sculptures in front of her, they were terrifyingly ugly in her eyes. They were like monsters.

But—

Xiaocui watched Wei Xun take away several of the small human-insect statues (after all, high-radiation ores could be used as a secret weapon!), and her heart suddenly became entangled.

Does Master actually like these sculptures?

The sound of the water flowing became louder and louder, and when Wei Xun descended to the bottom of the stone steps, the view in front of him opened up. There was an underground lake in front of him! The water of the pitch-black river poured into the underground lake, and on the opposite side of the lake there was a man-made stone platform that extended into the lake.

To the left and right of the platform were two tall black stone sculptures. From the features, it could be clearly seen that the statue of the Dragon God was on the left and the statue of the mother of the swarm was on the right. And on the other side of the underground lake they “guarded” together, another architectural relic could be vaguely seen.

Below Xikang Temple, the Dragon God and the mother of the swarm guarded this relic together. According to the description on the human skin thangka map, it was likely to be the little Tagzig Olmo Lung Ring who suppressed the demon thangka!

[Treasure Hunter Title Task Series, Task Progress: 35%]

[Your esteemed self has discovered the Dragon God Waterway under the Ruins of Xiangxiong!]

The Travel Services’ reminder sounded in Wei Xun’s mind. This was a prompt that he’d made progress in opening up new scenic spots again! Wei Xun was looking at the description for opening up a new scenic spot, but in Xiaocui’s eyes, Wei Xun looked dazed as he stared at the huge black stone statue that was half-human and half-insect. He seemed to be completely immersed in it, and it completely robbed Xiaocui, who was a beauty, of Wei Xun’s attention.

Could it be that Master really likes this appearance more?

‘Does Master prefer human females, or…’ Xiaocui boldly asked.

Although she had been shut down by Wei Xun as they made their way here, the mother of the swarm’s natural ambition and desire to grasp control of the situation made it so that she had to constantly please Wei Xun, a person of higher authority.

Who wouldn’t like a little pixie like her!

“I don’t like women,” Wei Xun replied inattentively.

He had long since felt that the mother of the swarm was restless and ambitious, always hoping to regain authority. Therefore, he had to shut her down every time, without giving her the slightest hope, and show his attitude.

This time, his attention was still on the side task that made progress. He was too lazy to think about an answer, and casually replied, “I like men.”

The author has something to say:

Mother of the swarm: ??? How should I try QAQ

Mao Xiaole: Teacher Wei likes men?!

Wang Yushu: Wei Xun likes men!

II-49: Wei Xun likes men?

Puppeteer: Wei Xun likes men??

Wei Xun: No, I’m just being perfunctory to the mother of the swarm!

Congratulations, Teacher Wei, everyone knows that you like men now!