Their journey towards the Yellow Dragon River had gone extraordinarily smoothly.
The members of the merchant caravan were still shuddering at the memory of what had happened to them earlier, fearing that misfortune would strike them once again like lightning from a clear sky.
However, nothing that could be considered to be extremely unfortunate happened to them.
They did run upon a group of six-legged crocodiles near the bank of a river while stopping. However, they were only headed by a hundred-beast king, and the other elders, as well as Qing Shu combined with the other clansmen could easily take care of this group. If the caravan had lacked the numbers afforded to them by the Gu Yue clansmen joining them, this would have been a big issue, but the Gu Yue clansmen mostly had several gu worms they could use - whether their clan's signature Moonglow Gu or Bone Path Gu that Fang Yuan had brought with him.
They feasted upon crocodile meat that night, and for once, the entire caravan's bellies were full and were naturally in good spirits. Qing Shu managed to find a Crocodile Strength Gu from one of the corpses and intended to sell it later down the line after using it himself.
The caravan stopped there for another day to store crocodile meat, leather, teeth, etc. as refinement materials and possible food and medicinal ingredients, as well as to replenish their water supply. Naturally, this vacuum after the crocodiles would not last for long, and if they had gotten rid of one crocodile group, another crocodile group would come as well. So they continued on their journey.
They happened upon a lava crocodile, though it was easy enough to avoid it by going around the valley it was located in. None of them wanted to provoke a Thousand Beast King unnecessarily.
For the next three days, absolutely nothing untoward had happened, and the morale of the people within the merchant caravan had greatly increased. Even Jia Fu seemed to be in better spirits now, as it seemed that their streak of bad luck had finally ended.
With that said, he did not want to get complacent. Disaster could strike at any minute. That was how he felt during the journey. He felt like he still could not even properly sleep, given how many bad things had happened up until that point.
They encountered a group of white apes along their journey and decided to simply take a detour around them rather than trying to challenge them.
Along their journey, they had stumbled upon what looked like evidence from a demonic Gu Master. This no doubt put many of them on edge, as they had been attacked by two demonic Gu Masters in the past. However, it looked like this demonic Gu Master was a lone traveler and only had rank three cultivation. While they continued to keep their eyes and ears alert, it looked like that the Gu Master did not antagonize them out of fear, or had either left the area entirely.
Qing Shu made a note of this route, as well as various other things while they were traveling. He had spent his entire life within Gu Yue Village. Now, however, he took the opportunity to learn a bit more about the merchant caravan and how trade was conducted. In addition, he wanted to flesh out a proper route for the village to get to Bei Gu Mountain in the future. There were many corrections that he had made to the initial route that he had planned out.
"This young lad takes very good care of his clansmen," Jia Fu noted. Qing Shu would leave every evening to make sure that all of the Gu Yue clansmen were in good health, that they were not injured, and that they were well fed.
He did not even discriminate between Gu Masters and mortals, which is what really shocked Jia Fu.
In addition, Qing Shu was an excellent fighter, as he demonstrated by his progress against the crocodile they had run into earlier. No wonder the Gu Yue Clan managed to survive the attack of such a powerful demonic Gu Master,' he thought to himself. 'It's filled with exceptional figures such as Fang Yuan and Qing Shu.' He knew that Qing Shu was too loyal to Gu Yue Village to leave. Otherwise, he would have offered Qing Shu a stake in the merchant caravan and asked him to come along with him.
Along the journey, they ran into the corpse of the Xuan Yuan Divine Pheasant. Many of them shuddered at the thought of how terrifying it would have been had it still been alive. Not even Jia Fu could have dealt with it, and they would have been forced to cower in some caves or hide themselves as well as possible while waiting for it to fly on by. However, something had clearly already killed it rather brutally.
"This is not good," Jia Fu said, wiping the sweat off of his brow.
"Why so?" Qing Shu asked. They had stopped for over two hours, and he had gone to the front of the line to wonder as to what was holding them up.
"Something managed to kill this Xuan Yuan Divine Pheasant," Jia Fu explained. "And that 'something' might still be in the area. If there's a Myriad Beast Emperor..."
Qing Shu took a look at the Xuan Yuan Divine Pheasant's carcass and said, "You don't need to worry. This is something that Fang Yuan killed on his way here."
"What?"
"Yes, he told me that he had ran into one, and he had ended up killing it. I'm surprised that its remnants still stand," Qing Shu said. Much of the bird had decomposed, with only its skeleton and a few remnants of flesh and feathers remaining.
However, they had all been able to very easily identify it from these remains alone. Jia Fu had been going under the impression that they were wandering into the lair of some powerful beasts, but Qing Shu's words assured him to some extent.
"I think that we should continue pressing forward," Qing Shu said.
Jia Fu considered the matter. Everything that happened until this point had made him twice as cautious. At the same time, though, the longer they lingered here, they could be going under the threat of a wild attack if there was no real danger.
"I think it's better that we stay here for now."
Jia Fu said something Qing Shu disagreed with, but he did not want to argue given Jia Fu's experience with running this caravan.
"All right, then."
Nothing happened, and they slowly made their way past a large group of monkeys whom they avoided. The monkeys seemed to be enraged by something, but they also did not want to leave their home. The merchant caravan finally arrived near the foot of Bei Gu Mountain to a pleasant surprise.
There was a welcoming committee for them!
The Bei Clan had set up a small array of tents near the foot of the mountain and had meat, vegetables, and other refreshments ready for the Gu Yue clansmen and the merchant caravan.
"Thank you," Qing Shu said, emerging from his caravan, accepting these as if it was only natural. However, from the way that he spoke to the Bei Clansmen, it looked like this was the first time he was meeting them. And yet, Qing Shu happily accepted all that they gave him as if they had been friends for a long time.