Chapter 69

"Help me, help me!" The man on the ground struggled to lift his head, extending one hand toward Lin Yiming and Guoguo, as if he wanted them to pull him up.

"Help me, I'm injured." The man said, using his hands and feet to slide a short distance on the ground. Lin Yiming noticed that the man's left leg was entangled with vines, seemingly injured by something in the forest.

Since I've encountered him, I might as well help him.

Lin Yiming took a step forward, but just as he did, Guoguo's voice suddenly rang out behind him.

"How interesting, so much fun, the monkey can speak human language, too much fun."

"Monkey?"

Lin Yiming stopped in his tracks at the sound of her voice. Guoguo said this was a monkey? This isn't a person? Lin Yiming was greatly puzzled. This is clearly a person, and an injured one at that.

"Wow, discovered, discovered!"

Just as Lin Yiming was still puzzled, the man who seemed to be seriously injured and lying motionless on the ground suddenly leaped up, his agile movements showing no signs of injury.

After standing on the ground, the man's body rapidly transformed. In just a breath, the human face was covered with dense fur, turning into a monkey.

"This... it's really a monkey, and it can speak human language and transform!" Lin Yiming was greatly surprised.

"Discovered, discovered." The monkey screeched twice, pushed off the ground with its legs, and jumped up, landing on a nearby tree. Its arms grabbed the branches flexibly, and with a swing, it flew to another tree over ten meters away, disappearing in a few moments.

Lin Yiming was dumbfounded. This isn't a monkey, it's just like Sun Wukong! This dense forest is indeed not simple. If it weren't for Guoguo's reminder, he would have been tricked by that monkey.

"Guoguo, how did you know that was a monkey?" Lin Yiming turned back to Guoguo, puzzled.

"Because Guoguo knows. Guoguo knows it's a幻猴 (Illusion Monkey), a type of monkey that can transform into a human and speak human language. It can also learn, but only from the people it has seen. It can't do things it hasn't seen people do." Guoguo said in one breath, then proudly raised her little face: "Guoguo is amazing, right!"

"Um, amazing!" Lin Yiming felt strange inside. Guoguo usually seemed to have some mental issues, but at times, she knew many things he didn't, like this Illusion Monkey. When she said those words, she didn't sound like a child at all.

Sometimes, he wondered about Guoguo's background, but he couldn't figure it out no matter how much he thought about it.

Lin Yiming shook his head, clearing his mind of the chaotic thoughts.

"Guoguo, let's go." Lin Yiming called to Guoguo and started to leave. But after walking a short distance, his eyes fell on a nearby tree.

On this tree, a very fat man was tied up. His body was wrapped in thick ropes, his mouth stuffed with a rag, and his face was bruised and swollen, clearly having been beaten recently.

As soon as he saw Lin Yiming and Guoguo, the fat man, though unable to speak with his mouth stuffed, struggled fiercely, writhing in front of the tree like a professional exotic dancer, a rather intense one.

"It's an Illusion Monkey!"

Lin Yiming, seeing the fat man, raised his fist and was about to rush over.

"It's not an Illusion Monkey." Guoguo shook her little head.

"If it's not an Illusion Monkey, then it's a person." Lin Yiming realized his mistake, relaxed his raised fist, and quickly walked to the man, pulling the ropes binding him with force to untie them.

As soon as the ropes were untied, the man immediately removed the rag from his mouth.

"That damn Illusion Monkey, it tricked me. When I see it, I'll make it know what I can do. How dare it provoke me! It doesn't want to live! It even tied me up with a red rope. I'll keep this red rope and use it to tie it up like a dog, walking it in front of female Illusion Monkeys next time."

The fat man, once he removed the rag from his mouth, started talking non-stop, making threats to himself for a while before he seemed to realize something, turning his head to look at Lin Yiming with a grateful expression.

"Brother, thank you so much. If it weren't for you, I don't know how long I would have been tied up."

"It's nothing, nothing..." Lin Yiming waved his hand and took a step back. Although he knew the fat man was grateful, his gaze was too affectionate.

After taking a step back, Lin Yiming asked, "What exactly happened? Why were you tied to the tree?"

"It wasn't a person, it was a monkey!" The fat man gritted his teeth, his face full of anger. "I was walking on the road and saw someone injured, so I went to help him. But as soon as I got close, he threw a bunch of powder, making me dizzy. Before I could clear my head, he turned into a monkey and tied me to the tree with some rope he found.

Then, without waiting for me to speak, he beat my handsome face. The damn monkey, doesn't it know not to hit the face? How will I eat if my face is hit! After beating me, the monkey took all the money from me!"

Lin Yiming immediately understood. This unfortunate fat man had encountered the same Illusion Monkey he had. He was lucky to have Guoguo and didn't fall for the trick, but the fat man wasn't so lucky.

After the fat man finished telling his story, he looked at Lin Yiming again. His face, which had been full of anger, suddenly turned into a smile. "Brother, are you also participating in the examination?"

"Yes, we are both participating in the examination. Are you also participating? But you don't seem like a martial artist." Lin Yiming looked at the fat man with disbelief. He could tell that the fat man had some strength, a martial artist at the first level of the Martial Spirit Heart.

But the problem was, the fat man's physique made it hard to believe he was a martial artist.

He had seen fat martial artists before, but they were more muscular. This fat man, however, was like the coach Anxi from the comics he read as a child, whose face would tremble with every big movement.

The fat man was very short but probably weighed around 300 pounds. His white, tender flesh didn't look like that of a martial artist at all.

"You have a good eye, brother!" To Lin Yiming's surprise, the fat man's fat face broke into a wide grin, and he let out a series of eerie laughs that made one want to punch him.

"Although I am a martial artist, I really don't want to be one. Unfortunately, my family forced me to take the exam, so I had to come. But I want to enter the academy to study mechanics. I'm here to become a mechanic. Brother, you don't know that the Prince Qi Academy offers many subjects besides martial arts, like mechanics, appraisal, alchemy, and more."

Lin Yiming suddenly remembered. Yes, the Prince Qi Academy offered many subjects. He had been so focused on martial arts that he had forgotten.

Just as Lin Yiming was about to respond, the fat man's voice rang out again.

"By the way, since we are both participating in the examination, why don't we go together?"

Lin Yiming thought about it and agreed. The fat man seemed interesting, and adding one more person wouldn't hurt. Before, he didn't want to team up with others because they had been together for a long time and might have ulterior motives, like using cannon fodder to explore the way.

With this fat man alone, he wasn't worried about any tricks.