Traveling back to ancient times to determine the zodiac

"Yes, Cave Master." Xiaoxing was also very happy and ran to pass on the message.

Everyone had just fallen asleep when they were woken up by Xiao Xing. Everyone gathered under the stage. Qiu came to the stage, stroked his white beard, and said in a joyful voice: "I have good news for you all: Bai Ling just showed up again. He said that in order to defeat the snake king, we must go to the Realgar Mountain, 300 miles southwest, to mine a mineral called realgar. Now, we will organize a team and set off tomorrow."

"Really? That's great!" Everyone cheered immediately.

"If anyone is willing to collect realgar, please sign up now." Qiu said loudly again.

"Cave Master, I will lead my patrol team and ensure that the mission is accomplished." Xiaoxing remembered that he had a disagreement with Dong Banlu when they were picking the 'Bai Du Xiao' grass, so he suggested that he lead the team alone.

Dong was unwilling to be left behind, and hurriedly said, "Master, I will only take ten people with me, and I will definitely bring back the realgar."

"Cave Master, I guarantee that I can complete the task within six days. Let us go." Xiaoxing said again.

"Cave Master, it will only take us five days." Dong was determined to suppress Xiaoxing.

"Both of you should stop arguing. Although the journey is not very far, we should not be careless. I think Zhi should take the lead and lead both teams." Qiu saw that there was some discord between the two and made such arrangements.

The two of them then stopped arguing and fell silent.

"As you command! Cave Master." Zhi heard the order and immediately replied, "When do we set out?"

"You guys should set off tomorrow. Everyone take a good rest tonight and try to come back as soon as possible." Qiu waved his hand at the crowd and announced.

After the meeting, everyone went back to their dormitories to rest and had a peaceful night.

The next morning, everyone got up, took their weapons and prepared dry food, and then set off. Zhi led Xiaoxing and Dong's two teams out of the tunnel as usual. Looking at the back mountain, there were no snake spirits or snake soldiers, so they took the road to the southwest. They cut through thorns and waded through mountains and rivers. They worked hard for three days and walked exactly 300 miles.

On this day, the group came to the foot of a hill. The leader Zhi looked up at the desolate hill and said, "Dong, Xing, fellow warriors, based on my hunting experience of more than fifty years, we have walked for so long, it should be about three hundred miles, and I guess we have almost reached the Xionghuang Mountain."

"Uncle Zhi, Bai Ling only said that there is realgar in Realgar Mountain, but did not explain the characteristics of Realgar Mountain clearly. How can we find it?" Xiaoxing frowned.

"Uncle Zhi, no matter we've arrived or not, let's go up the mountain in front and look for it." Dong said, pointing to the small hill in front of them.

"Yes. Let's go up and look for it. Don't miss it." Xi immediately wanted to climb the mountain.

"Okay, let's go up this mountain and take a look. Everyone, be careful and see who finds realgar first?" Zhi nodded in agreement.

Everyone looked up at the hill, which was only about 20 to 30 feet high. It looked like an ordinary hill, but there were very few plants and no birds or animals. After climbing to the top of the hill, Zhi looked around and said, "Dong, Xing, have you noticed that this hill feels weird?"

"Yeah, Uncle Zhi is right. Why is there no animal on this mountain?" Xiaoxing also felt very strange.

"Uncle Zhi, it doesn't matter if it's strange or not, as long as we can find realgar!" Dong didn't care about anything else and waved his hand to order everyone to start looking.

Under the scorching sun, they took stone knives and scattered around to dig and dig. After searching for a while, Heizi shouted, "Uncle Zhi, Brother Dong, I dug up a lot of ants. These ants are really big!"

Before he finished speaking, he jumped up and down and shouted, "Ouch! I was bitten by an ant! It hurts so much!"

"Heizi, you bastard, you are big but timid, and you make a fuss when you are bitten by an ant. You are such a useless thing." Dong was furious when he saw him acting smart.

He walked towards Heizi, and was shocked to see a mass of black ants at Heizi's feet. These ants were as big as thumbs, and some of them were even bigger than cockroaches. The ants crawled towards Heizi, biting and attacking him.

"Heizi, run!" Dong grabbed Heizi, who kept slapping the ants on his body, and turned around and ran.

"Uncle Zhi, Xing, we also dug up an ant nest." Chen also shouted from the other side.

Soon after, Bei, Zhong, Feng, Yun and others all started shouting. It turned out that they had all dug up an ant nest.

"My fellow warriors, based on my fifty years of hunting experience, giant ants like these can definitely eat people. We must retreat quickly." Zhi was horrified when he saw the ants all over the mountains and gave the order quickly.

Suddenly, a giant ant as big as a mouse crawled out from the middle of the mountain top and yelled to the people: "What kind of animals are you? How dare you come to the mountain to invade my territory and dig up my nest? You are really tired of living and are sending food to my door."

"Ant King, we are not animals. We are humans created by God. Because we were besieged by the Snake King, we came to Realgar Mountain to look for realgar to subdue poisonous snakes. Unexpectedly, we dug your nest by mistake. Sorry, sorry!" Zhi explained to the Ant King.

"You are besieged by the snake king, what does it have to do with us? You want to dig the mountain to get realgar, but I will not let you do it, and I will eat you all. All the ant soldiers, come at me." The ant king glared with bulging eyes, revealing a fierce look.

"Hey, damn it! You are just a tiny ant, but you are so arrogant and boast that you will eat us. I will step on you to death!" Dong suddenly became furious. He let go of Heizi and strode towards the ant king.

Xi hurriedly stepped forward and grabbed Dong's arm, saying, "Brother Dong, don't go over there, they will really eat you up in one go."

Bei followed and quickly advised: "Yes, Brother Dong, don't be impulsive. These ants are big and numerous. Don't underestimate them. Let's retreat quickly."

Dong refused to accept it and yelled, "Hey! Damn it! I am fine with being bullied by the big beast kings, but now I am being bullied by this little ant king. I am really pissed off."

The ant king was not afraid of humans, and ordered the little ants: "My people, come out and eat them all."

The ants then swarmed out of the nest like popcorn. In the blink of an eye, there were tens of thousands of them, hustling and crawling quickly towards the east and west.

Zhi, who was far away, saw that Dong and the others had not retreated yet, and shouted again: "Dong, you guys retreat quickly, otherwise it will be too late."

While Dong was still hesitating, some ants had quickly crawled to his feet and immediately attacked Dong, West and North.

Everyone was wearing leather skirts, and the ants would crawl up and bite them. Their thick claws could easily break the skin and flesh, and then they would start eating.

Dong was bitten by the ants and stamped his feet. He gave up the idea of ​​destroying the ant king and supported Heizi and shouted, "Xi, Bei, everyone run!"

Zhi, Xiaoxing and the others saw that the situation was not good, so they followed Dong and ran down the mountain, with ants following them in overwhelming numbers.

"Uncle Zhi, the ants are chasing us, what should we do?" Dong asked breathlessly.

"We have to run faster and get rid of them. If we let them catch up, we'll be gnawed into skeletons." Zhi said as he ran.

"Uncle Zhi, there is a river at the foot of the mountain. If we run towards there, we will definitely be able to get rid of the ants." Xiaoxing shouted.

"Okay. Let's run towards the river." Zhi looked at the foot of the mountain and saw a small river about ten feet wide, so he led everyone to run towards that direction.

When he came to the river, he swam to the other side without caring about the depth. The ants behind him chased him to the shore, but stopped because of the river water.

Seeing that the ants could not cross the river, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Although they had escaped death, they were all bitten and swollen all over, and the pain was unbearable. Dong gritted his teeth and cursed: "Damn ants, I must kill them all, only then can I feel relieved."

Xi, Bei, Shugen, Shuye and others followed suit and cursed. Suddenly, Heizi shouted, "Uncle Zhi, Brother Dong, I, I can't take it anymore!" After that, he could not stand and fainted on the ground.

"Heizi, Heizi! What's wrong with you?" Dong shook Heizi and called out.

"Heizi was bitten the most by ants. I think he must have been poisoned by ant venom." Zhi said, looking at the lumps all over Heizi's body.

"Uncle Zhi, is there any medicine that can cure it?" Xiaoxing asked hurriedly.

"Where can I find the medicine right now?" Zhi waved his hand and replied.

"Uncle Zhi, we are so unlucky. We didn't find any realgar, but instead found a nest of man-eating ants." Dong said with a frustrated look on his face.

"Dong, with my fifty years of hunting experience, I have never seen such big ants. It's incredible." Zhi looked back at the hill in disbelief.

"Uncle Zhi is right. In this world, even ants can become spirits! It's really unexpected." Xiaoxing followed.

"Xing, these ant spirits are more than ten times more powerful than ordinary ants. If you get bit by them, you will feel unbearable pain at best, or even faint from poisoning like Heizi." Chen said in surprise.

"Yeah, if we hadn't run fast just now, we would have become their lunch now." Feng said with lingering fear.

"Uncle Zhi, brothers, those giant ants are not only extremely aggressive, but also fast and numerous. It is difficult to deal with them if you just rely on hitting them." Dong said.

"My fellow warriors, although ants are small, there are many of them. As the saying goes: although ants are small, they can carry big trees. We must not underestimate these ants." Zhi warned everyone again.

"Uncle Zhi, since the ant demon has occupied the top of the mountain, our plan to dig realgar has failed. It would be better for us to return to the cave now." Xi said dejectedly.

"Nonsense!" Zhi reprimanded him harshly, "Xi, let alone a group of ants, even if it's a group of tigers, we must dig the realgar back."

"Uncle Zhi is right. Now that we are here, we should make the best of it. We have finally come here, how can we give up just because of a little setback?" Dong followed and scolded Jiang Xi.

"If you don't go back, what will happen?" Xi asked, scratching his head.

"Xi, all warriors, if we return empty-handed like this, how can we save the snake army and how can we explain to the cave master? Therefore, no matter what, we must get realgar before we can return." Zhi said to everyone.

"Uncle Zhi, now ants are the kings of the mountain. If we want to dig realgar, we must first defeat these giant ants." Xiaoxing said.

"Yeah, Xing is right. Let's all use our brains and see if there is any good way to deal with them." Zhi said.

Everyone was worried and distressed, and at a loss as to what to do.

Xiao Xing looked at the dense army of ants still moving back and forth on the other side of the river and said, "Uncle Zhi, I have an idea!"

"What method? Tell me quickly!" Zhi asked anxiously.

"Let's go get some firewood, surround the hill, set a fire and burn them to death." Xiaoxing planned.

"Xing, I think this method will work." Zhi applauded immediately upon hearing this, and then gave the order: "All warriors: immediately prepare firewood, wait for the ants to retreat, quietly place it on the top of the mountain, and then set it on fire."

The plan was set, and everyone took their stone knives and started cutting grass or collecting firewood. They were busy until dark and piled up a mountain of firewood.

When they returned to the river, they saw that the ants on the other side had already left. It turned out that ants are diurnal animals and return to their nests at night.

"Dong, Xing, fellow warriors, the ants have retreated. Let's start the action." Zhi commanded everyone.

"Yes, Uncle Zhi." Everyone responded loudly.

So, with the help of the starlight, they carried the firewood across the river and quietly piled it around the top of the mountain. When everything was ready, Xiaoxing drilled wood to make fire, lit a torch, and was about to set fire to the mountain.

"Xing, wait." Zhi stretched out his hand to stop Xiaoxing and said, "It's night time now, and the ant king and his ant army are all sleeping in their nests in the soil. Setting fire to them may not burn them. I think it's better to wait until tomorrow to lure the ant king out, and then set the fire. This way, it will be foolproof."