In order to reassure Wei Tingyu, Xiaocao made preparations for three days. Finally, as he wished, his whole body was covered with "poison", visible and invisible. If there was an accident caused by man, he would be able to escape without any problems unless there were hundreds of people involved.
Xiaocao was speechless about what had happened, but Prince Wei was very satisfied.
For convenience, Huayu was also among the accompanying personnel, and Xiaocao also gave her a portion of the "poison".
After making all the preparations and finding a suitable place, Xiaocao entered the mountain under the escort of dozens of other people. Although these people were not traveling with her, she had seen all of them before entering the mountain. Moreover, Xiaocao looked at them very carefully from head to toe, giving her the feeling of being dissected from the inside out.
In fact, their feelings are not much different. Xiaocao recognizes people by "dissecting" them.
These hundreds of miles of mountainous areas are mostly barren, with very low vegetation. The tallest trees are no more than five meters tall, and the air is very dry. This makes it more convenient to travel than in the deep mountains and dense forests.
Huayu had seen Xiaocao go into the mountains to collect herbs, therefore, she was not worried about her at all. On the contrary, the others were worried about the delicate skin and tender flesh of the Madam at first, and that the journey would be difficult and dangerous. However, as time went on, they found that they were thinking too much. Not only were they worried about the Madam, but the Madam turned around and asked about their situation.
The face was slapped with a loud slapping sound, and the person who did not show up retreated further away silently.
The vegetation was sparse, and accordingly, there were few herbs. What I saw along the way were mostly common ones. I hardly even glanced at the common ones, but I basically picked the more precious and rare ones as long as they were within my sight, without straying from the road to look for them.
Traveling in the mountains is naturally very different from walking on a flat road. Not to mention that you can only rely on your feet, you have to either go up or down, and every place you step on may not be flat. In addition, it takes a little time to collect herbs. Therefore, it is good to walk dozens of miles in a day. From the starting point to the destination, the whole journey is estimated to take at least seven or eight days.
When they camped outdoors the night before, Xiaocao was glad that she had stopped Wei Tingyu from following them.
However, because of the grass, all kinds of insects have been stopped. However, it is already October, and in the north, the temperature has dropped, not to mention this night.
The people under Wei Tingyu had often slept in the wilderness when they were on missions in the past, but it was rare for them to be able to sleep peacefully at night like they do now.
They are all veterans in this area, but Xiaocao still reminded them to be careful about fire prevention. The grass and trees are all dry and yellow, and if the fire spreads, the consequences will be unimaginable.
After several days, we finally saw our destination. Standing on the top of the mountain and looking around, we could see that the vegetation was almost extinct. The "sinkholes" were quite spectacular and could be called wonders, belonging to a special landform.
Except for a dozen or so "sinkholes", the whole place has returned to its normal appearance, so it is really amazing.
If you are just searching for herbs in places like this, it is not difficult. After all, at a glance, the green places are very obvious, and even if you search them one by one, it won’t take much time.
"Okay, fix it up and then get to work. I hope we can get what we want."
Getting what one wants is naturally the wish of everyone present. There is no one among them who does not hope that their prince will recover and live a long life. At this moment, their hearts are filled with excitement and anxiety.
However, when we really reached the edge of the "sinkhole", we found that it was a bit difficult to go down. It was full of gravel and sand. It was very steep, almost ninety degrees, and formed sand flows like waterfalls. You can tell by looking at it that it must be very slippery. In such a place, even if several people were pulling on ropes, they might not be able to hold up one person. Once you go down, it will be difficult to come up. There is no place to step on. You either have to rely on your arm strength to come up, or the people above pull you up.
In addition, the plants that can grow in this place must have very developed root systems. If they grow in mid-air, it would be a big problem to dig them out. After all, as you dig, the sand and gravel above will keep rolling down. It will take a lot of effort to dig them out.
"Those on the edge can use the rocks and trees farther away to fix the ropes, but that's not the case for the 'sinkhole' in the middle. All the ropes combined are not long enough. We can only trouble you to dig holes and erect logs on the sides of other 'sinkholes'."
"Fourth Miss, what are you talking about? It's just a small matter. You are the one who worked hard."
Xiao Cao smiled and said, "Okay, let's not talk about these empty words. Anyway, we are all for the same person. Let's split up and act separately."
After the rope was fixed, the buckle was put on and tied around the waist, Xiaocao slowly went down along the "sand flow". Several people stayed on it, watching nervously, fearing that something might happen. Fortunately, the worrying thing did not happen. Xiaocao went down about 70 to 80 feet and reached the first target. He put on gloves, picked a small leaf, crushed it between his fingertips, sniffed it, and then took out a small medicine bottle from his body and poured a little white powder on the green juice.
It's just an ordinary weed with no medicinal properties at all.
Xiaocao looked around again and there were two or three more weeds nearby. She had good eyesight and knew there were no more below. All she could make out were weeds that looked the same, without any very subtle differences, not even in color.
Xiaocao raised her hand and signaled the people above to pull her up.
Even though he moved very lightly and carefully, a lot of dust still fell on his body. Xiaocao patted it without caring and went to the next place. Still in this same "sinkhole", it must be said that although there are few plants here, there are actually more than expected. Xiaocao even wondered if these plants could grow in the desert? Well, now is not the time to think about this.
Going up and down like this non-stop was very exhausting even for the grass. It had to stop to rest in less than an hour. The grass asked Huayu to give it a massage to cut off its rest time.
Even so, the rest time became longer and longer. After the whole day, they only managed to search the second "sinkhole" and found nothing. This result was somewhat frustrating, but no one showed it.
That night, Xiaocao used silver needles on herself and took some medicine that no one else knew about.
On the second day, the grass that looked weak and limp the night before seemed to be full of life again.
This third "sinkhole", this first target, made Xiaocao's eyes sparkle with joy. Although its appearance was a little different from the picture on the animal skin scroll, but since it had medicinal properties, Xiaocao would definitely not let it go, so he started the first excavation.
The people above couldn't help but be surprised when they saw this. Although Xiaocao had said before that even if it had medicinal properties, it might not be their goal, and they would need to test the medicine later to draw a conclusion, but what if it was
Another rope was lowered and a man came down to help.
As expected, the process of collecting herbs is not easy, but as long as there is hope, everything else will be fine.
There were relatively many of these unknown herbs. At a glance, there were about a dozen of them. Based on this, the possibility that it was the target was low, but it could not be let go. Xiao grass picked five plants in total, just for testing, which was enough. After all, it was unknown whether the raw medicine was better or the processed medicine was better. As long as the medicinal properties were figured out and the location of the medicine was known, people could be sent to pick it later.
There was no harvest in the next three days, but some of the plants had been seen in the "sinkhole" before, and they were confirmed to be weeds from above, so there was no need to go down and check again, which saved a lot of effort.
On the sixth day, they arrived at the largest and deepest "sinkhole". To be honest, standing on the edge of this "sinkhole", their calves were trembling. Xiaocao estimated that the depth must be more than 100 meters. Even if all the ropes they brought were connected together, it would not be enough to reach the bottom. Now they could only hope that the medicine they needed was not at the bottom. Of course, even if it was, they had to get it.
There was nothing much to say. Xiao Cao stretched his muscles and prepared to go down again.
"Miss," a guard suddenly stopped her, "Let me go this time. I'll pick some leaves for you to check. If it's an herb, it won't be too late to go down and pick more."
Xiao Cao shook her head. "Even if it's a medicinal herb, its medicinal properties are uncertain. If it's deadly, you might be in danger if you can't handle it. I'm different. Even if it's a highly toxic thing, I can handle it. Don't worry, this 'sinkhole' is just deeper, and everything else is the same as before. Nothing will happen."
The grass slowly grows down, and the area with green plants is quite large, almost more than half of the total area.
When approaching the first target, she found that this grass was most similar to the picture on the animal skin scroll. Xiaocao's heartbeat quickened a bit, but she did not rush to act because she soon discovered something strange. Although it was only one grass, if you look closely, it was like twins. The only difference was the slight difference in color. If it was just occasional, it would be fine, but it was clearly divided very evenly in half, which made people pay attention.
Xiaocao was very careful. He took the seeds, leaves, and rhizomes one after another, and each of them was taken in two. Then his eyes gradually changed, with shock and surprise coexisting. It was obviously a complete plant, but the effects were completely opposite. On one hand, it could be said to be highly poisonous, but on the other hand, it could be called a holy medicine. Such a strange thing was simply unheard of.
However, because of this special reason, Xiaocao almost concluded that this must be her target. Even if she didn't know whether this medicine would work on Tingyu, she must not let it go.
Afterwards, Xiaocao started to collect herbs. Because of its special nature and because it was the only one it had seen, Xiaocao moved very carefully and was determined to dig out every one of its roots.
All the ropes were tied together, so if the people on top wanted to come down, they could only use this one rope. In this way, it was naturally inconvenient to move, so they could only wait on top. However, the root system of this plant was unexpectedly long, and the sand and gravel on the surface were completely dug up. The sand and gravel on the surface no longer slipped down, and the mud and rock layers underneath were visible, but they had not been completely dug out yet.
At some point, Xiaocao's feet suddenly collapsed, and because of the wrong force, the buckles on his body loosened, and he fell along the rope...
"Girl—" The person who had been keeping an eye on her felt his heart leap into his throat.
However, this was not the first time that Xiaocao encountered such a situation. She reacted very quickly and grabbed the rope to stabilize her body in time, then pulled the rope to tell the people above that she was fine. Later, Xiaocao found that the terrain was wrong. The place that seemed to have collapsed was a protruding position on the cliff. Now a part of it was concave, and the rope below was still hanging in the air. She didn't notice this before coming down.
Xiaocao looked at the herbs that had not been dug out, hesitated for a moment, and slowly went down to the bottom of the protrusion. Then, Xiaocao was stunned. There were not many protrusions. Even if you couldn't see them, you could touch the rock wall with your feet. This was not the key point. It was just that under the protrusion, there was a dense patch of herbs, and the leaves seemed to be shining with light.
However, Xiaocao looked up and then down, and found that because of a protruding rock layer, the top was facing the sun and the bottom was in the shade, but the medicine above and below was indeed the same.
Because most of it had collapsed, there were not many protruding rock layers left. Xiaocao could reach the herbs with his hand. He tried to dig it with a small medicine hoe. Although it was not sand and gravel that could slide, it was still granular stone and was easy to dig. Looking at the root stem he dug out, Xiaocao was speechless again. He estimated that this root system was more than two-thirds shorter than the one facing the sun above.
Who is being discriminated against? The distance between the upper and lower parts is only two meters.
Forget it, it’s more important to collect herbs quickly.
After making sure Xiaocao was okay, the people above couldn't fully return their hearts to their original places and could only wait anxiously.
Not long after, someone else came to report, "Leader, we found a lot of people outside the tiankeng. They are not ordinary people, but are probably Liukui soldiers. Moreover, they are probably elites. They may have discovered us."
The man who looked very similar to Wen Xin frowned, with a fierce killing intent, and looked down, almost invisible to Xiao Cao, "How many people are there?"
"About a dozen."
"There's no way to avoid it now. Bring people over there and strike first. Don't leave anybody behind."
The appearance of Liuqi's soldiers in this place must not be a coincidence. They might be harboring some conspiracy. However, we are unable to investigate now. To be on the safe side, we can only deal with all of them and leave here as soon as possible.