Another heavy blow landed on the giant serpent's head, its body slammed to the ground and utterly immobilized. Zhou Yan gripped the serpent's head with his left hand and pressed it down hard, while his right fist continued to rain blows upon its skull without pause.
Zhou Yan's fists were like hammers, each strike shattering the serpent's skull, its head becoming a bloody mess.
Under Zhou Yan's brutal assault, the giant serpent lay dying. Finally, unable to withstand Zhou Yan's attack any longer, its head exploded with a thunderous boom. A mixture of red and white matter splattered outwards along with foul-smelling blood, its pungent odor permeating a hundred-zhang radius.
Having finished, Zhou Yan leaped off the serpent's corpse, dragged it to the center of the dense forest, and buried it beneath an ancient tree.
Zhou Yan did this because he worried the giant python might not be completely dead and could launch a surprise attack, so he decided to finish it off first.
With everything settled, Zhou Yan finally felt at ease and prepared to return to the villa. After all, it was Qin's father's birthday, and his prolonged absence would surely arouse suspicion.
However, after only two steps, Zhou Yan's gaze suddenly caught a few glints of silver light in the depths of the forest. Zhou Yan frowned, then his figure vanished instantly from his spot. A few seconds later, Zhou Yan appeared deep in the woods, where he saw the silver glints were actually a few pebbles, the size of a thumb, now flattened.
"You wretched beast, how dare you scheme against me! I won't let you off." Zhou Yan roared, his body transforming into an afterimage as he charged into the depths of the forest.
When Zhou Yan reappeared, he was accompanied by a dog, snow-white, corpulent, with sharp horns on its head. The dog was staring intently at a few pebbles in the distance with cold, fierce eyes.
"Woof woof woof..."
Seeing Zhou Yan appear, the dog barked excitedly and then charged towards the pebbles.
"Awooo!"
The next moment, the dog let out a growl from its mouth, then leaped forward, its mouth opening to reveal sharp, white fangs. It bit at the pebbles, swallowing one in a single gulp, and then devoured the remaining ones.
"Pfft!"
After swallowing the last pebble, the dog suddenly spat out a mouthful of thick, dark red liquid and then tilted its head back, barking loudly.
Hearing the dog's cries, Zhou Yan hurried over and crouched down to examine it. He saw that the dog's fur had been corroded to a dark brown, and even its internal organs were almost completely eaten away.
"You damned beast!" Zhou Yan's eyes turned crimson as he looked at the blood-covered, dying dog. He cursed bitterly, then took out a medicine bottle he carried and fed the dog a pill. Afterward, he pulled out silver needles and performed acupuncture to treat its internal injuries.
Half an hour later, the dog had regained a little spirit but remained unconscious.
Looking at the dog's weak state, Zhou Yan sighed, "Fine, saving you once will be repayment for saving my life. When you wake up, never tell anyone that I saved you."
Zhou Yan picked up the dog, gently placed it aside, and then turned to leave.
"Huh?" Just then, Zhou Yan seemed to remember something, his expression suddenly changing. He turned sharply and saw a corpse lying silently on the ground a few meters away.
Zhou Yan examined the corpse closely, noticing that its chest was sunken and its ribs were broken, clearly indicating a brutal murder. Zhou Yan also caught a faint scent of blood.
"Could it be that venomous snake?" Zhou Yan guessed.
Zhou Yan slowly approached, then bent down and picked up a copper coin hanging around the corpse's neck. It was a hexagonal coin, likely made of jade.
"Truly, where there's a will, there's a way. To think I'd actually encounter something like this." Zhou Yan chuckled with satisfaction.
Zhou Yan recognized this item as 'Wudi Qian,' or Five Emperors' Coins, which were specially made by ancient emperors to decorate palaces and tombs. Legend had it that Emperor Liu Bang of the Han Dynasty used them as burial goods when building his imperial tomb at Mount Li, south of the Yellow River.
Looking at the treasure, worth several hundred million yuan, in his hand, Zhou Yan's face showed a bitter smile, and he mocked himself, "To think that in my past life I was a tomb robber, and in this life I still have to dig up graves!"
"Alas, who made me so unlucky? Since heaven has given me a second life, I must change my destiny and live a happy and fulfilling life. Otherwise, wouldn't that be a waste of this chance of rebirth?" Zhou Yan murmured. He then collected his thoughts, put the Five Emperors' Coin into his pocket, and continued to search for other treasures.
Thus, Zhou Yan began to frantically search the surrounding trees for other treasures. Although he knew that there wouldn't be any antiques from this period, what if he was incredibly lucky? He was idle anyway, so it was better to find a few more valuable items. This would also be considered saving resources for the national treasury.
The more Zhou Yan searched, the more surprised he became, for there were simply too many treasures here: all sorts of rare treasures, gold and silver, jade, calligraphy and paintings, ceramics, antiques, and jade carvings.
Zhou Yan found many rare and precious treasures among them, including the mutton-fat jade Guanyin statue. This type of jade was extremely rare, a very special kind of jade whose extremely low content caused its price to be incredibly high. The market estimated it could sell for two to three hundred thousand yuan per gram.
In addition, Zhou Yan also found a thousand-year-old Polygonum multiflorum. This herb was essential for refining spiritual elixirs. It was said to be worth millions per gram, but this thousand-year-old Polygonum multiflorum was a full fifty centimeters long, conservatively estimated to be worth tens of millions.
Zhou Yan was incredibly excited but did not show it. He pretended to be nonchalant and continued his search for treasures.
Suddenly, Zhou Yan discovered a small pit under an ancient tree. Inside the pit lay a palm-sized black stone. The stone was oval, its color indistinguishable, but it emitted a faint glow.
Zhou Yan reached out to pick up the black stone, but a shocking scene unfolded. The black stone seemed to have a will of its own and directly lifted itself out of the soil, flying and landing in front of Zhou Yan.
"Holy shit!" Zhou Yan couldn't help but curse, then picked up the black stone.
The black stone felt incredibly cold to the touch, smooth and slippery, as if touching water. It was also heavy in his hand, Zhou Yan estimated it weighed at least seventy to eighty catties, undoubtedly a treasure.
Just as Zhou Yan was admiring the black stone, he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his ankle.