Chapter 168
We decide to head out by noon the next day, bringing Betty with us, of course. Elder Song has a good feeling about heading up the valley, the way we were going to get to the city, so we’re going to head that way in search of the Lightning totem.
We make our way quietly out of town, not wanting to draw attention from the local authorities. We did, after all, kill an entire Sect of cultivators within the city limits. They might have been idiots, but they were locals. Best not to attract attraction and trouble to ourselves at this point, since nobody has raised a fuss about it yet. With the scene I caused at the awards they might still be investigating the culprit.
"What are we looking for? The traveling merchants told me all sorts of stories about strange and wonderful things along their travels." Betty asks Elder Song, riding in his arms as we jog along.
"We’re looking for an area with a lot of lightning, or a place people don’t go, where a treasure might be hidden." Elder Song says, ruffling her hair. "Do you know a place like that?"
"There’s the cursed ruins, half a day North of where the two rivers meet, by merchant wagon." She points off to our right. "Strange things happen there, so nobody goes, not even the cultivators."
"That sounds like just the place that might be hiding a good treasure. Thank you Betty."
Betty seems to be having the time of her life, bouncing through the woods in Elder Song’s arms at speeds only strong cultivators could accomplish. I’m not even sure she can see anything but a blur.
It takes us a mere two hours to come to the place where the rivers meet, and she verified that this is in fact the spot she was talking about. There’s a collapsed chunk of cliff face that looks vaguely like a Buddha statue, which she was told is the sign. Once you can see it, turn north.
A days travel by merchant wagon is an hour’s run for us, and we reach a clearing just outside the Cursed Ruins just in time to stop for lunch. We’re still working out way through all the food Elder Song had me make for the examination, but Betty didn’t mind eating leftovers in the least. Even before she was kidnapped she didn’t eat well, her family was broke and terrible at business, plus her mother wasn’t a good cook. Her parents married for business connections, not domestic skills.