Chapter 66: Spirit Bone Light Boat

  "What does it mean?" The Golden Cannon coming afterwards didn't understand my meaning for a moment.

  "Xiao Hei Lin is a Taoist disciple, after death, his bones contain spiritual energy, and can float up in this lake water. Let's make a boat, tie his bones under the hull, maybe it can take us out." I shouted with joy.

  "Whoosh~~~~~~~~~~~~~" As soon as my voice fell, a strange fish of unknown name darted out from the depths of the lake, its huge mouth open wide and swallowing the floating finger bone on the water's surface, shaking its head and tail before sinking back to the bottom.

  "This thing... Ahh, my god!" The Golden Cannon hadn't even had time to rejoice before being scared back several steps by that strange fish not far away, his face pale.

  The strange fish that just swam out was over three zhang long, with a bright red body, huge mouth and sharp teeth, and two whiskers on its mouth. If it weren't for the all-red color, it would look somewhat like a carp.

  "What's eating the dead man's bones?" Jin Gang pao came back to his senses and pointed at the lake surface.

  "It's possible that the skeleton contains residual spiritual energy, which would be helpful for its cultivation." I speculated.

  "If we use dead men's bones to build a ship, won't it swallow us whole?" Gang Cannon expressed his concerns.

  "First build the ship, other problems can be discussed later." I turned and walked towards the giant tree that was knocked down by the cannon a few days ago.

  Theory is always much easier than practice. What was imagined to be easy turned out to be extremely difficult when actually put into operation. From dawn till dusk, the ship that was built not only was extremely small but also had holes all over it like a sieve.

  "Old cow, take a break, our skills can't build a boat. Even if we could, that skeleton's buoyancy wouldn't be enough to support the three of us." I plopped my butt onto the ground. With an empty stomach, working was especially exhausting.

  "Lao Yu, have you seen a dugout canoe?" Jin Gang Cannon wiped the sweat beads on his forehead and asked as he pointed to the big tree by the shore that we hadn't cut down yet.

  "It's too narrow, can't seat three people." I understood Jin Gang Pao's idea, he wanted to use the remaining big tree to make a single-log canoe.

  "Just sit down and you'll be fine." Jin Gang Pao thought he'd just go ahead and do it, so he grabbed the dusk blood and rushed past the big tree.

  "Old cow, we brothers will die together, I won't leave." I was really moved by Jin Gang Cannon. It's easy to add flowers to brocade, but it's hard to send charcoal in the snow. At a critical moment, leaving hope for survival to others is absolutely not something an ordinary person can do.

  "Don't think about good things, I'm going to send you out to break the array." Jin Gang Pao had already knocked down that big tree while speaking.

  "What if I couldn't break it?" I took out a bayonet and went up to help.

  "Then you'd better escape with your life, don't forget to burn some paper money for me every now and then, sprinkle some wine, and if there's good food, send some down too." Jin Gang Pao said with a playful smile.

  “……”

  A dugout canoe is relatively easy to make, just chop off both ends and hollow out the middle. Start a bonfire and dry out the wood for a night to remove its own moisture, then bind that skeleton to the outside of the canoe, and basically it's done.

  "There are seven bottles of mineral water, eight packs of compressed biscuits. And a large pile of coffee, that's all." Jin Gang Pao said as he threw over the water and biscuits "Pad up, good to go."

  "Can't you say something auspicious? You're talking as if you want to behead someone." I threw the cookie back, twisted open the bottle and took a few sips to moisten my throat.

  "What a pity that Murong Zhui Feng's mind is not clear, and my Taoist skills are not as good as yours. Otherwise, I would have gone myself. Do you think the three big brothers in the lake are vegetarians?" Jin Gang handed over a divine turtle cannon and a bag of bullets, "The bullets are already fully loaded, sixteen rounds."

  I took over the divine turtle cannon and tied it around my waist. "A distance of 50-60 li, the sound of guns can be heard, one shot represents safety, two shots represent danger."

  "Alright, I remember, one safe and two emergencies." The Gatling gun nodded repeatedly.

  I turned around and summoned the white wolf, looking at the hungry look of the white wolf, my heart ached endlessly, and I fed it the remaining water in the bottle. My right hand pointed to the "Guard, Raid, and Tour" on the deserted island.

  As I watched the white wolf slowly walk away with a reluctant gait, my eyes reddened.

  "It's just grass, what's the big deal?" Jin Gang Pa was unimpressed by my tears.

  "Old cow, it has followed me for four or five years now. From birth till now, I haven't had a good day yet. If it weren't for it biting the tail of the three-yin water devil in the dead water pond, perhaps I would have lost my life..."

  "Alright, alright, I know, I'll take good care of it, don't worry." Jin Gang Pao urged anxiously.

  "I didn't mean it that way, if you really can't hold on anymore, just... but you have to give it a good ending." As soon as I said this, I felt like I had become a despicable and ungrateful person, but I couldn't be selfish for the sake of my own feelings with White Wolf and let Jin Gang Pao and Mu Rong Zhui Feng starve to death. My heart is bleeding!

  "Don't worry, old chap, even if I, Jin Gang, starve to death, I will absolutely not kill your dog!" Jin Gang patted his chest and guaranteed me.

  "Thank you, Old Cow. Remember, no matter how thirsty you are, don't drink the water from the lake." I wiped away my tears and stood up, carrying two magical tools with me. I threw a package to Jin Gang Cannon, "This contains the finger bones, toe bones, and teeth of that corpse. Go to the other side of the island and lure those three giant fish, buy me some time."

  "In about five or six miles, you must hurry up." Jīn Gāng Pào urged, weighing the small amount of spiritual energy and skeletal remains in his hand.

  Watching Jin Gang Pao walk away quickly and Mu Rong Zhui Feng following behind him, they finally disappeared from view. Only then did I carry the wooden boat to the water's edge, light a cigarette, and wait for Jin Gang Pao to create an opportunity for me to set off.

  The red aura beneath the water's surface finally fluctuated, it seems that the Golden Cannon has already cast its bait.

  One fish swam by, then another, three in all.

  "Go!" The angry roar of the cannon came from the other side of the island. I bit my cigarette, quickly pushed the dugout into the water and sat down on it. Took up the oars and started rowing out.

  The wooden boat sank deep into the water, but I managed to float it up. I had learned to row a rubber dinghy in the army, so I wasn't unfamiliar with rowing either. After getting into the water, I frantically rowed the oars back and forth, rushing towards the opposite bank.

  Six li, five li, four li, three li... The scenery by the lake became clearer and clearer, but my physical strength was getting weaker and weaker. I panted heavily, commanding my arms to repeat the left and right rowing motion.

  "Rumble, rumble~~~~" Just then, two gunshots suddenly rang out from behind me, and the golden cannon fired a warning shot. These two gunshots sounded like the funeral bell of hell to my ears. "Oh no, the big fish is charging at me." This thought suddenly appeared in my mind, I let out an angry shout, and once again quickened the pace of my rowing.

  There's an old Chinese saying that goes "heart has more than enough, but power is insufficient", and my current situation is exactly like this. After several days of hunger, my physical strength has been greatly weakened, so even though I'm paddling with all my might, the speed of progress has slowed down.

  "Less than a mile left, hang in there." I encouraged myself silently.

  "Bang!" The right side of the wooden boat shook violently, and then the entire hull began to tilt to the right. It was clear that the spiritual bone frame on the bottom of the boat's right side had been torn off by the strange fish.

  "When anxious, the breath is disordered; when disordered, it must die..." I leaned to the left, trying hard to steady the balance of the boat, and paddled with all my might towards the shore.

  Before I could recover from the shock, there was another jolt on the left side of the boat, and a huge red fish head appeared on the left side of the canoe.

  "I'm going to kill you!" I shouted, pulling out the divine turtle cannon and firing a shot. The blood-red glow was visible in the water, and the strange fish sank beneath the surface. It seemed that these strange fish didn't have much cultivation after all, they were just relying on the special properties of Qing Hu's lake water to bully others.

  Defeated the strange fish, picked up the oar and rowed fiercely again, "Still a hundred meters." The distance of a hundred meters was my most accurate judgment, because I had run countless times in the army. If it were on land, I would only need ten or twenty seconds, but now this hundred-meter distance made my hands tremble with fear, cold sweat dripping down. My physical strength had reached the verge of collapse.

  After paddling for a while, a cracking sound came from the rear of the canoe. Another strange fish rushed over and swallowed the spiritual bone at the rear of the canoe without hesitation.

  I fired a few shots to drive the strange fish away. The loss of control over the stern's spirit bone made it even harder to balance. With no other choice, I stood up and stepped on the bow of the boat. I vigorously rowed the oars, causing the canoe to sway back and forth as it moved forward several dozen meters.

  "There are still fifty meters, and after a few more strokes, I can use the Wind Movement Technique." Thinking of this, he secretly rejoiced in his heart, and just as the feeling of excitement had risen to the surface, bad luck arrived. A strange fish much larger than the previous two opened its huge mouth and bit down on the tail of the wooden boat, violently shaking its head, trying to shake him into the lake.

  "My goodness, this method of throwing isn't afraid of my head getting dizzy." I cursed silently. Throwing away the oars, abandoning the small boat, I rode the air and flew towards the shore.

  At the critical moment, I threw out the boat paddle, inspired by some martial arts movies, and attempted to borrow power in mid-air. Who knew that reality wasn't like that, and after taking off, I found that my speed couldn't catch up with the boat paddle in front of me.

  "Wuxia movies are going to be the death of me!" The shore was right in front of my eyes, but the tens of meters between us seemed so far away at this moment. With a mind full of chaotic thoughts, I rapidly fell downwards.

  Just as I was about to fall into the water, a strange fish suddenly jumped out of the water and tried to drag me in. Seeing the situation in front of me, my desire to survive reignited, and I carefully adjusted my falling posture, stepped on the strange fish's head with my right foot, and used the Wind Movement Technique to barely land in the snowdrift by the shore.

  Mental relaxation made me feel weak all over, lying in the snow without moving, and even hearing the sound of a cannon's inquiry gun didn't have the strength to respond with a shot.

  After a while, I finally came to my senses, struggled to sit up, grabbed the snow beside me and ate it blindly, the icy cold water slowly calming myself down.

  I stood up and found that I was completely soaked from head to toe, the wet clothes clinging to my body made me feel colder. I took out a cigarette box, lit one, and began to size up the mountain peak in front of me.

  When I went down, I chose the right side, that is to say, I chose the breath of wood in the five elements. My five elements belong to water, and naturally, I don't want to go to the left mountain peak for a thrilling adventure, so I chose what looked like an easier wooden spirit.

  I came back to my senses, pinched the observation incantation to try to confirm the specific location of the wood attribute spirit energy, but after messing around with the incantation and mantra for half a day, I couldn't see even a hint of special aura.

  Why can the green gas be seen on the isolated island, but it cannot be seen when approaching? Is it because the people of the cloth array set up a barrier back then?

  Forget it, I still remember the general location, let's go find it based on memory first.

  I thought of the golden cannons on the isolated island and Mu Rong chasing the wind, so I didn't dare to delay for a moment. However, my stomach was growling with hunger, so I had to find something to eat first.

  Forget it, White Wolf is still on the island. Although Golden Cannon promised not to kill it, if it's really starving, that's hard to say. Let's go up the mountain first!

  I turned back and took a glance at the distant island in the middle of the lake, pulled out the divine turtle cannon, loaded a bullet, and fired...