Two hours later, after they had eaten their fill and finished their meditation, the five of them restored the small island to its original state. They applied Stealth Talismans and dove back into the sea.
They circled the seabed several times to shake off any potential tails before following the compass back to the Blue Lake region.
They didn't know if any other cultivators were following them, but they were being cautious. It was better to spend effort outwitting thin air than to let someone else play the oriole to their cicada.
Unlike the bustling scene from the day they first arrived, only a few scattered cultivators remained near the Blue Sea Coral.
The five of them avoided the others, heading to a deserted area far away.
First, they scouted several locations and dug up twenty clumps of Blue Sea Coral. Gu Ningyun transplanted them into her portable herb garden to provide a habitat for the Blue Lake Scallops.
Finally, they found a spot where no cultivators had set foot to serve as the starting point for their lure.
Gu Ningyun mangled the small spider corpses until they looked like the remains of a sea beast's meal, showing no signs of human interference, before dropping them near the Blue Sea Coral.
Jiang Yao and the others had originally intended to just throw the legs in, but seeing Gu Ningyun's actions, they immediately understood and began mangling the corpses as well.
Starting from the Blue Sea Coral, they laid a trail of remains leading away. They used about two hundred sea spiders, enough to lure the Blue Lake Scallops at least a kilometer away.
Finally, Gu Ningyun took the leg tips she had trimmed during the barbecue and scattered them randomly along the route to make the "predation remains" look more natural.
Once finished, the five of them applied fresh Stealth Talismans and waited at the end of the trail, a kilometer away.
After waiting for about fifteen minutes, a bowl-sized Blue Lake Scallop emerged from a crevice in the coral, pulsing seawater. It peeked out from the edge of the reef, looking around cautiously.
The water outside the coral was silent, with only the drifting remains of sea spiders floating in the current.
The scallop left the coral colony and approached the nearest spider leg.
It opened its shell and bit off a section of the leg, its two shells grinding together like teeth to chew the meat. After a moment, it snapped its shell shut, then opened it again to take another bite.
Before long, the five of them watched in silence as it finished the entire leg, leaving not even a fragment of the shell behind.
Neither the Almanac of Heavenly Wonders nor the travelogues had mentioned how Blue Lake Scallops ate these hard legs. Gu Ningyun had been curious, but she hadn't expected the creature to be so hardcore as to chew them raw.
The way it snapped its shell shut after chewing suggested it was consuming the thoroughly crushed remains.
“Why is there only one? Why aren't the others coming out?” Jiang Yao asked via divine sense transmission, watching the lone scallop eat while the coral remained still.
“Wait a bit longer,” Gu Ningyun replied.
She wasn't worried. She suspected this scallop was a scout sent out to check the situation.
Sure enough, after eating another leg, the scallop patrolled the remains for a few laps and then suddenly began to vibrate its shell gently.
Shortly after the vibration began, a faint, bubbling sound came from the coral reef, like many tiny currents striking the coral.
Gu Ningyun instinctively held her breath.
Like a massive army on the move, sheets of Blue Lake Scallops poured out of the coral colony, swimming toward the nearest sea spiders.
There were many wolves and little meat.
The nearby spider remains were quickly devoured, and the scallops began swimming further away, following the trail. A kilometer out, hundreds of small spiders had been piled into a small mound.
The scallops swarmed toward it, getting closer and closer to the spider mountain.
Gu Ningyun waited patiently until the majority of the scallops had reached the mound. Then, she swung Jiang Yao's ten-meter dip net, scooping up over a hundred in a single pass.
Using the net as a medium, she directly transferred the live scallops into her space, placing them on the seabed five thousand meters deep. She didn't give them a single chance to react or escape the net.
While studying her space previously, Gu Ningyun had discovered that with her current divine sense, she could directly collect rank one demon beasts into it, whether they were tamed or not.
Once they were inside, she only needed a thought to make them submit; they wouldn't dare cause trouble.
The same principle applied to the portable herb garden when it came to collecting demon beasts and sea beasts. However, if the beasts were unwilling, they would run rampant inside.
Although there were arrays to contain them, those arrays consumed spirit energy. If the garden's energy supply was insufficient, the cultivator would have to manually replenish it with spirit stones.
In the eyes of Jiang Yao and the others, this was a potential issue for Gu Ningyun's portable herb garden.
Therefore, while on the island, the four of them had given most of the small spiders to Gu Ningyun, telling her to feed and pacify the scallops as needed.
While Gu Ningyun's space didn't have that limitation, the spiders might be useful for future farming, so she had accepted them.
Now, on the seabed within her space, Gu Ningyun threw in ten sea spiders alongside the twenty clumps of Blue Sea Coral to appease the newcomers.
She only hoped the scallops would maintain a good mindset so their meat would stay tender and delicious.
Observing that the hundred scallops in her space had submissively accepted their new reality, Gu Ningyun stopped dividing her attention. She circulated her spirit energy and, in just ten breaths, cast the net twenty-six more times, nearly emptying the scallops at the end of the trail.
The remaining Blue Lake Scallops stopped eating and began to vibrate in unison.
“Go!”
As soon as Gu Ningyun's transmission landed, Mu Chenze grabbed her forearm through her sleeve and swam toward their pre-planned escape route. Wen Xuan and the others followed close behind.
Feeling that they weren't moving fast enough, Gu Ningyun slapped a Swift-Walk Talisman onto each of the four before swallowing two Spirit-Replenishing Pills to restore her own energy.
The water was Mu Chenze's domain. Even while pulling someone along, his swimming speed was still a notch faster than the other three.
They had only traveled about a kilometer when a powerful pressure erupted from the direction of the Blue Sea Coral.
“A rank two Blue Lake Scallop. Those little ones were calling for their king. Switch to Plan 2—head for the surface!”
Mu Chenze immediately began pulling her upward.
They had discussed two escape plans for after the harvest.
If the scallops didn't pursue, or if only rank one scallops followed, they would use Plan 1: circle around the seabed to shake them off before returning to the spirit ship. Solving everything underwater was the best way to avoid other cultivators on the surface.
However, if a rank two or higher scallop appeared, they would ascend immediately.
Water currents interfered with the effectiveness of Stealth Talismans. For the sake of their lives, reaching the surface where sea beasts struggled to follow was the best choice.
They had already swum over two kilometers away from the coral. Even if they surfaced now, they would be far enough from the spirit ships anchored in the Blue Lake region that they wouldn't be easily noticed.
They had only ascended eight hundred meters when Gu Ningyun felt that rank two pressure suddenly close in.
Jiang Yao's voice was heavy. “They're catching up.”
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