Chapter 44: A Turn for the Better

Immediately after, a fierce whistling tore through the air above and behind them! Eight helicopters simultaneously aimed at the direction where Ye Tian had leapt and unleashed a relentless barrage of gunfire!

With the M134’s rate of fire, a hundred rounds could be discharged every second. In just over a dozen seconds, the eight helicopters rained down more than ten thousand 7.62mm bullets like a raging storm!

Under the hail of bullets, the dense canopy above was shredded to splinters; great trees, thick enough for two to encircle, toppled one after another, crushing terrified wild beasts below. Even birds quick enough to take flight were shot from the sky, their bodies tumbling amid the chaos.

“They’re insane—eight machine guns at once!” Hiding deep in a mountain ravine, Ye Tian still felt a lingering sense of dread, his gaze darting upward. No matter how formidable he was, faced with such an intense barrage, even his protective qi would eventually be shattered. At that point, he'd be nothing more than a living target. And besides, he was carrying his senior sister on his back.

“Why is the army attacking us?” Gu Qingcheng’s delicate face was taut with fear. She, too, had been rattled, her brows furrowed as she peered nervously at the treetops above.

Through the gaps, they could still make out several helicopters circling overhead, showing no intention of leaving.

“That’s not the army,” Ye Tian said solemnly.

A true military unit would have numbered markings on every aircraft. But before he jumped, Ye Tian had glimpsed the choppers—none bore official insignia.

Arms smuggling.

The thought struck them both at once.

And in the capital, who had the power to run arms smuggling operations?

The Qian family.

Qian Wanbao, the head of the Qian family, was renowned for his wealth and lack of caution. In recent years, the family’s assets had nearly surpassed the combined fortunes of the other two great houses. Such audacity bordered on the absurd.

If there wasn’t something fishy behind it, Ye Tian refused to believe it.

So, if these weren’t the military, then most likely, they were the Qian family’s mercenaries.

“What do we do now?” Gu Qingcheng, still shaken, instinctively held Ye Tian tighter.

“Don’t panic. All roads lead to Rome. There’s more than one way to the treasure,” Ye Tian reassured her, pointing at the sheepskin map. “We can follow this mountain stream. It’ll take a bit of a detour, but we’ll get there.”

…

The Qian family estate.

“Reporting, Family Head, we’ve located Ye Tian and his group. We launched a round of suppressive fire, but they jumped down to the valley floor and we’ve lost their position for now!”

“Keep searching. Track him if you can, and when he finds the entrance to the treasure, kill him.”

“Master, should we send men down to the ground to search?”

“Absolutely not!” Qian Wanbao’s eyes bulged with alarm. “Once you set foot on solid ground, no matter how well-armed you are, you’re no match for that lunatic!”

“But Master, we have high-caliber rifles and heavy machine guns. No matter how fierce his martial arts, he can’t possibly be a match for us, can he?”

“Don’t ask why—you simply cannot go down!” Qian Wanbao roared, repeating his warning before hanging up.

Damn these idiots, thinking of going down and clashing head-on with Ye Tian—were they looking for death? Qian Wanbao broke out in a cold sweat just imagining it.

Luckily, these fools, though slow-witted, at least knew to report first.

Just thinking of the news from the Wu family yesterday made his scalp tingle. The mighty Wu family, famed for its martial prowess and the highest number of elite fighters in the capital, had been single-handedly annihilated by Ye Tian from within. According to those in the know, Ye Tian had taken on five martial masters of the Taishan rank and dispatched them all in a one-sided slaughter.

Though Qian Wanbao was no martial artist, he knew enough: to kill Taishan-level warriors in an instant, one had to be at least at the Beidou level. For someone of that caliber, catching bullets bare-handed was child’s play. Normally, even standing still, rifles posed no threat to them. Only heavy machine guns offered a faint glimmer of hope.

Terrifying—utterly terrifying. Such overwhelming force, and now this man had even unified the underground gangs under his banner. If someone like that wasn’t eliminated early, the consequences would be disastrous.

That was why Qian Wanbao was willing to risk exposure, bringing out his carefully hidden private arsenal.

“Thank goodness Old Sun got me the latest intel—Ye Tian’s gone to Qianlong Mountain.” Qian Wanbao muttered to himself as he reclined on the sofa. “He must have found the treasure map at that idiot Wu Ba’s house…”

“But it doesn’t matter!” A ruthless glint flashed in Qian Wanbao’s eyes. “With so many high-grade weapons, there’s no way you’ll leave here alive!”

“As long as we finish him off before Tang Zhenguo gets word, the two remaining families can still coexist in peace!”

…

Elsewhere, Ye Tian moved in a crouch along the edge of a low-lying marsh.

“Oh no, my shoes are soaked,” Gu Qingcheng grumbled, her displeasure clear on her face. But though she complained, she showed no sign of stopping.

“Just wait till I find out who fired that machine gun at me!”

“When I get home, I’ll hunt them down one by one and kill them all!”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Ye Tian said, his face equally grim as he shifted the large travel pack on his back. But as his eyes fell on the sheepskin scroll in his hand, his mood lifted instantly.

According to the map, they were almost at the treasure site!

“One kilometer left. Let’s hurry!” he urged.

At his words, they both picked up the pace. Gu Qingcheng, invigorated, drew in a breath and seemed to grow lighter; she bounded across the treacherous marsh, each leap covering several yards. Ye Tian kept to the bank, sprinting even faster.

Before long, the two arrived near the treasure site.

“Something’s wrong,” Ye Tian frowned, pointing out the location on the map to Gu Qingcheng. “According to the directions, the burial site must be entered through a cave, but the entrance is on the other side of this mountain.”

“Look,” he said, gesturing uphill. “This mountain forms a yin-yang slope. The other side is barren—no trees, just wasteland…”

The implication was clear: with no vegetation for cover, they’d be easily spotted by radar.

Through the canopy above, Ye Tian could still see two helicopters circling in the distant sky.

“How long would it take if we made a dash for it?” Gu Qingcheng asked.

“Half a minute.”

“Should we gamble on a sprint?” she suggested impulsively.

But Ye Tian rejected the idea at once. “No. If we’re spotted, even if we make it into the treasure cave, our supplies won’t last more than a few days. We’d be trapped and hunted, and the moment we showed ourselves, we’d be dead.”

“So what now? We can’t exactly dig a tunnel from this side to the other, can we?” Gu Qingcheng complained, stomping over to a human-sized boulder at the base of the mountain and shoving it aside in irritation.

With a thunderous crash, the boulder toppled, revealing a pitch-black opening in the rock face before them.