260: Map_1
“I’ll go back and ask Bald Tuo again,” Zhang Lan said.
“Mm.”
Mo Hua nodded, feeling there was something eerie about the situation that needed to be clarified.
For the rest of the time, Zhang Lan had the Enforcement Leaders log the ill-gotten gains, registering each item into the records. Tomorrow, officials from the Taoist Court would come over to transport these items back to Tongxian City.
Mo Hua and his companions planned to spend the night on Inner Mountain.
After tidying up the cave, they prepared to set off toward the camp.
Just as they were about to leave, Mo Hua suddenly uttered, “Huh?”
Zhang Lan turned around and hastily asked, “What’s wrong?”
Mo Hua pointed to a small corner, “There’s something here.”
On hearing this, Zhang Lan’s eyes lit up. He walked to the corner Mo Hua had pointed to, released his Divine Sense, and after inspecting carefully, exclaimed in surprise,
“There really is a hidden compartment.”
Previously, it was obscured by clutter, which is why no one noticed it.
Now that the cave was cleared, Mo Hua’s Divine Sense detected the hidden compartment.
“Is there a formation?” Zhang Lan asked.
“No,” Mo Hua shook his head.
Zhang Lan then looked at Mo Shan, “Brother Mo, it’s up to you.”
Mo Shan nodded, clenched his fist which soon flared with intense fire, and slammed a punch into the corner’s rock wall.
The rock wall creaked and cracks appeared.
Mo Shan continued this way for several rounds until all the rock was shattered.
Behind the broken wall was a small hidden compartment the size of a square inch, within which there was a wooden box.
Zhang Lan took out the wooden box, scanned it with his Divine Sense, found no danger, and opened it.
Mo Hua also leaned in to take a look.
Inside the wooden box were two books and a map.
One book was “Changfeng Jue,” and the other was “Gale Technique.”
Changfeng Jue is a cultivation technique related to wind-based spiritual power, while Gale Technique is a movement technique of the same category, both of which were learned by Bald Tuo.
It appeared that this hidden compartment was where Bald Tuo used to stash his things.
As for the map, it looked like a navigation map.
The lines on it roughly sketched the mountainous terrain and cliffs. The handwriting was sloppy, and there were no annotations, making it difficult to determine what the map was at first glance.
Zhang Lan said, “These cultivation techniques and movement techniques are valuable, but since cultivators with a Wind Spiritual Root are rare, there’re few who can learn them. Copy them down later; you could sell them or trade for other Taoist skills. They should be worth quite a bit of Spirit Stones.”
“As for this map…” Zhang Lan frowned and asked Mo Hua, “Can you make out where this map is of?”
Zhang Lan was not familiar with the area surrounding Tongxian City, especially the paths on Big Black Mountain.
He didn’t use maps often.
He remembered that Mo Hua had hand-drawn a map of Big Black Mountain, marking every road, stream, forest, and tree with great clarity.
If it really was a map of Big Black Mountain, Mo Hua should be able to recognize it.
Taking the map, Mo Hua scrutinized it, feeling puzzled.
It looked both familiar and strange to him.
“This mountain outline, it resembles a map of Big Black Mountain, but the specifics are beyond my recognition,” Mo Hua commented, then turned to ask Mo Shan,
“Dad, can you make it out?”
After studying it for a while, Mo Shan found it peculiar and suggested, “Didn’t you draw maps of the Inner and Outer Mountains? Bring them and compare.”
“Oh, right.” Mo Hua nodded, took out the map he had drawn, and spread it on the ground.
Bald Tuo was captured, the den of the Sin Cultivators was destroyed, and Lu Hui was dead; with nothing pressing at hand, the three of them began studying the maps in detail.
After half an hour of thorough inspection, they could not locate a corresponding area.
Zhang Lan suggested, “It might be a map of the mountains outside of Tongxian City around Big Black Mountain.”
Mo Hua nodded, feeling that was very likely.
Big Black Mountain was vast, and beyond the section near Tongxian City, its terrain spread across other regions.
If that were the case, it was no wonder Mo Hua found it familiar yet couldn’t locate the corresponding landforms.
“We can go back and ask Bald Tuo where this map came from and what it’s for,” Mo Hua considered, then said.
Bald Tuo had hidden this map with his cultivation techniques and movement techniques, clearly attaching great importance to it, which likely meant it held significant secrets.
Mo Hua also copied down the map.