Chapter 2209 — Arriving at the Destination

"I really won't eat," Wei Zhao said. "I can replenish my energy through cultivation."

"Fine, then I'll eat by myself," Sun Jingyan said with a nod.

Half an hour later, Wei Zhao drove off the national highway and came to a small town. Passing a gas station, he filled the tank and then filled the spare fuel can in the trunk as well, after which he parked in front of a congee shop open twenty-four hours a day. "Shall we go in and sit for a while?" he asked.

"Sure." The few biscuits Sun Jingyan had eaten did little to help; she had slept for a whole day and gone hungry for a whole day too. She was not like Wei Zhao, who could replenish his energy merely by cultivating, without food or drink.

The two of them went into the congee shop together. Inside, a few tables were scattered with customers in twos and threes; it was not very crowded.

Wei Zhao and Sun Jingyan ordered two baskets of soup dumplings, a bucket of century egg and lean pork congee, and a few side dishes, and began to eat. Prices here were not high at all—the whole meal cost less than a hundred yuan—yet the two of them ate very well.

After finishing their meal, Wei Zhao continued driving. A thread of dawn appeared on the horizon: it was the second day.

"About a thousand kilometers to go…" Wei Zhao glanced at the navigation prompt in the car and said to Sun Jingyan.

"It's getting more and more sparsely populated around here." Sun Jingyan looked out the window and sighed. "Why would my parents leave behind a map of this place?"

"Who knows? We'll only find out once we get there," Wei Zhao said.

Toward noon, Wei Zhao and Sun Jingyan arrived at the last small town before the border. Beyond this town lay another country, and most of the Wulonghaote Mountains stretched beyond the border.

The border surely had patrols and guards stationed there, so Wei Zhao did not rashly drive up to the frontier. Instead, he parked in front of a hotel in the town that combined a restaurant with lodging, intending to eat something first and, while eating, ask around about the situation here.

"Dragon Gate Inn"—four large characters in a bold, flowing hand leaped into view! The style of the whole inn was basically the same as that of the inn where Wei Zhao had stayed in the Ice-Snow Spirit Town: the same decor, the same rustic antiquity, the same way of naming.

At the inn's entrance, however, there were clearly not many vehicles. Apart from Wei Zhao's Grand Cherokee, there were just two ordinary vans—one with local plates, and the other with no plates at all, apparently a scrapped vehicle that had sat there for a long time without being driven.

In short, the place gave one a feeling of quiet seclusion and rustic antiquity.

Yet after Wei Zhao parked, he did not draw much attention, as though visitors like him were an everyday sight to the people here.

Wei Zhao and Sun Jingyan had just gotten out of the car when a man dressed like a local came up to them and asked, "Are you two adventurers heading to the Tagan family in Ruileida Town?"

"Oh? How did you know?" Wei Zhao asked lightly, betraying no emotion.

Ruileida Town was the last town on the way into the Wulonghaote Mountains, but it was not within the country—it lay beyond the border. And according to the intelligence Sun Jingyan had gathered, Ruileida Town was in fact a town with no government at all; its real rulers were not any single person but several great families in the town who held it jointly.

The Tagan family was one of the actual controllers of Ruileida Town! The town's public order was a mess—or rather, there was no public order at all. It was a paradise for criminals and adventurers, and many international fugitives fled to this town to escape the sanctions of the law.

In fact, the land the town stood on should have belonged to another small country nearby. It was just that this place had originally been the foothold of a very large sect, and that sect's power had been astonishingly great, so the small country had had no intention of reclaiming the mountains.

Later, the sect declined and vanished overnight, but some fierce bandits seized the opportunity to occupy the place. Over time, many forces great and small took shape—some families, some gangs—and so many adventurers and criminals threw in their lot with them.

Of course, just how chaotic Ruileida Town really was, the information online said little. After all, it was a town beyond the border and had little to do with most people in the country; only scattered bits of information existed.

This was also why Wei Zhao had parked his car in the last small town on this side of the border, near Ruileida Town, to ask around for information.

Though this small town and Ruileida Town were separated by the border, they faced each other across no great distance, and the people here were certainly better informed about conditions over there.

"Hey, this is a small border town, not some tourist resort. The people who come here are either criminals looking to throw in with Ruileida Town or adventurers hoping to earn a handsome bounty!" The local analyzed smugly. "You two drove here openly and boldly, and your car has proper plates, so I figured at once you're no criminals—which means you must be adventurers."

"Heh…" Wei Zhao neither confirmed nor denied it.

The local seemed in no hurry to give up striking up a conversation with Wei Zhao, and went on, "My name's Local Know-It-All—I know everything about this place. Are you two cultivators?"

Wei Zhao's gaze sharpened slightly. He had not expected this man to know he was a cultivator, and it surprised him greatly! Cultivators, though common enough in Wei Zhao's own circles, were beings many ordinary people never encountered in their entire lives. He had not expected that Local Know-It-All really did know it all—he even knew cultivators existed.

"How do you know?" Wei Zhao asked in return.

"Heh heh, nine out of ten adventurers heading to Ruileida Town are cultivators. If you're not a cultivator, it's hard to be valued and given important posts by those families and gangs—you can only be some small fry!" Local Know-It-All said. "But if you are a cultivator, even a mere early-stage Yellow-rank one, you'll be respectfully invited in as a guest of honor and entrusted with important tasks like hunting spirit beasts or gathering herbs in the Wulonghaote Mountains!"

"Oh… so we couldn't be ordinary people?" Wei Zhao did not answer a single one of Local Know-It-All's questions directly.

"At ordinary times, sure, you might be ordinary people throwing in with some gang or family. But these past few days…" Here Local Know-It-All paused deliberately…

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