Indeed, a year and a half had passed. Blackstone City had been under siege for a year and a half, and the siege was still ongoing with no signs of relief.
Despite holding out for so long, the Heaven Ancestor, Shi Haojun, had not given up. He continued to command an endless horde of plague zombies to launch ferocious attacks on Blackstone City.
To reduce the consumption of spirit stones needed to maintain the city’s protective array, the various clans within the city had to stand on the walls every day to defend it, continuously clearing away the plague zombies below.
The two sides were at a stalemate, and the battle had continued like this until now.
Many forces observing this battle were astonished by Blackstone City’s resilience.
However, if not for the clandestine efforts of the Long Clan of the Western Lands secretly distributing food and water within the city, Blackstone City would have fallen long ago.
Shi Haojun’s attack was so sudden that none of the clans had time to prepare. While the city was not lacking in spirit stones, food and water were its true weaknesses.
It could be said that it was the existence of a certain small spatial house that miraculously allowed Blackstone City to hold on until now.
If it weren’t for the unexpected appearance of Long Xuan, bringing with him so many things not of this world, the destruction of Blackstone City would have been a foregone conclusion.
The Long Clan of the Western Lands had been covertly selling food and water all this time, making an enormous fortune in the process. They had profited immensely.
Long Yuanshan smiled so widely every day that his mouth couldn’t close. Over the past year and a half, the wealth of the Long Clan of the Western Lands had increased more than a hundredfold. They were truly raking it in.
At this point, he wished Shi Haojun would continue besieging the city for a while longer. He believed that if the siege lasted another year and a half, the treasuries of all the clans in the city would be completely looted by the Long Clan.
Just the thought of such a scenario made him burst into maniacal laughter.
However, despite his excitement, his body was utterly exhausted, and he looked haggard, his hair disheveled, and his body reeking of foul odors.
He was risking his life to earn this money. Although he wasn’t short of food and water, he couldn’t bathe or eat his fill.
Otherwise, if people saw him dressed so cleanly and looking well-fed every day, they would surely suspect he had a stash of supplies at home, which would lead to big trouble.
To play this role convincingly, not only did he, as the head of the clan, have to starve, but the other elders of the various clans and the Gu King-level ancestors also had to go hungry, all pretending to be extremely poor and starving.
The entire clan had to starve. Most of the Long Clan members didn’t even know that the family had more food than they could eat. They had to eat dirt and drink urine every day, living in extreme hardship.
This was unavoidable. The Long Clan had so many people. If they knew the family had a large stockpile of food, the whole city would quickly find out.
At that time, if the despicable city lord tried to use moral coercion, they wouldn’t be able to refuse to hand over the food.
Therefore, even though the Long Clan wasn’t short of food, thanks to the small spatial house, they were living in extreme hardship, starving to the point of dizziness, their chests almost sticking to their backs. They were truly risking everything to earn this money.
However, recently, many Gu Kings in the city had been experiencing health problems, causing widespread panic. People feared that a terrifying plague had infiltrated the city.
Every family in the city was in quarantine, and the city lord, Yan Po-jun, was also in an extremely weakened state, pacing back and forth anxiously. With the Gu Kings in the city all falling ill, no matter how strong he was, he was starting to panic.
This situation had actually started appearing intermittently a year ago. However, since every Gu King was strong and could hold on, they hadn’t taken these issues seriously.
But as time went on and every Gu King lacked water and food, while still expending energy daily to clear the plague zombies below the city walls, their bodies were gradually starting to give out.
At this time, the alchemists from the Yao Clan and the Dan Clan were already researching a solution. They could only suppress the illness but not completely cure it.
He planned to ask her now. If she found it difficult to awaken the sword intent, he would find a way to help her with his creativity. After all, there’s nothing in this world he can’t achieve.
With a confident expression, Long Xuan slowly walked towards the place where the Sou Gu was located.
That Sou Gu had been diligent and hardworking, already completing the ten big houses he had asked for. He arranged one of these houses near Long Ziyan's residence, so that he could sneak over easily in the dead of night.
After all, their residences were quite a distance apart. Having a Sou Gu hut there made it much more convenient to visit each other.
As for the remaining nine Sou Gu huts, Long Xuan had asked his clan members to place them in various distant regions. These locations were extremely far from the westernmost region, reaching the limit of what a fourth-grade Sou Gu hut could reach.
The clan had long been in the logistics business, with Long Clan Gu cultivators distributed even in peripheral regions, so it wasn’t difficult for him to use some of his contributions to send his Sou Gu huts to those far-flung places.
He didn’t have the time to personally travel to each region, so he could only rely on others.
However, once the Sou Gu huts were in place, he needed to make time to teleport there and change the location of the huts, which took up a lot of his time.
After all, finding a hidden spot that others wouldn’t easily discover was no easy task.
When he arrived at the location of the Sou Gu, preparing to crawl into Long Ziyan's residence from the Ice and Fire Hut, he unexpectedly found two Sou Gu's in the hut.
"Huh, isn't this Long Ziyan's Sedge Gu? Did it get lured over by my Sou Gu again?"
Long Xuan was amused. Could these two little creatures be in love? Can Gu insects even fall in love?
Since it was summer and the weather was unbearably hot, the two Sou Gus were hiding in the ice-cold part of the Ice and Fire Hut to escape the heat, lounging on small chairs, lazily sipping iced juice, just like him. They seemed to be living a pretty comfortable life.
"Stop messing around, enough with the juice. Hurry up and take me over there."
With a dark expression, Long Xuan yanked the little creature up from the chair.
The Sou Gu looked reluctant but had no choice but to submit to Long Xuan’s oppressive presence, leading him to Long Ziyan’s residence.
When Long Xuan emerged from a strangely shaped large house, he saw Long Ziyan lying on a lounge chair, drinking iced juice, looking very relaxed.
"What are you doing here? I'm already at tenth-grade bloodline purity."
Seeing Long Xuan emerge from the Sou Gu hut, Long Ziyan gave him a sideways glance, as if suspecting he was here to cause trouble.
Long Xuan's expression stiffened, and he quickly said, "Don’t be like that! Your bloodline purity has advanced, but mine hasn’t yet. You can’t just discard me after the task is done. You have to be fair!"
Hearing this, Long Ziyan frowned and asked, "How many more times do you need to advance?"
"Um..." Long Xuan looked embarrassed and said, "You know, my aptitude is really poor, nowhere near yours. It only took you a hundred times, but I might need a few thousand more!"
"A few thousand times?" Long Ziyan suddenly lost her composure and shouted out loud. Her hand shook, spilling the juice onto the ground, and her face turned completely dark.
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