When it comes to mice digging a hole, no preparation is needed; Li can just start eating.

However, before starting to dig, Li suddenly made a stop gesture.

He jumped up, tugged on Zhang Ze’s collar to make him squat down, and then leaned on Zhang Ze’s shoulder to sniff around intensely.

"Something’s not right, nine out of ten. Has someone used your shoulder?"

Li, looking like an old construction expert, somehow pulled out something like a level and began measuring his exclusive throne.

Zhang Ze patted Li’s head, "Crazy, Fuji just touched it, no one’s used it. Get to work."

Li huffed, stretched out two short, chubby fingers, made a gesture indicating he would be watching forever, and then turned around to start digging.

However, the way of digging was not the messy eating Zhang Ze imagined but somewhat unique.

Li’s round head suddenly became blurry, his features blurred into a lump, like a cursed photo in a horror film.

With this porridge-like head, Li suddenly made a head-butting motion, and then his lump of a head connected with the ground.

The connected part began to be assimilated by Li’s head, and the assimilated part started expanding, like ink flowing from a faucet onto paper, filling an area of one and a half meters centered on Zhang Ze.

Next, the ink took shape, and Li’s big face appeared as a 3D to 2D conversion at Zhang Ze’s feet.

Li smiled at Zhang Ze, then opened his big mouth, swallowing Zhang Ze along with Fuji.

As he was being swallowed, Zhang Ze heard Li’s voice in his ear.

"How about it, cool move, right?"

Zhang Ze was indeed startled, feeling a moment of daze, just like when he entered Baiyujing.

However, the feeling came quickly and disappeared just as fast.

When he regained his senses, he found himself still standing near the mountaintop, and Fuji was still floating behind him.

Meanwhile, Li was munching away, saying, "That barrier is invisible and intangible. What I actually ate were the coordinates under your feet."

Zhang Ze looked back, seeing a faint circle a yard behind him.

Not understanding what Li was talking about, he turned his head to look towards the Imperial City.

In that distant place, the earth’s disintegration and restoration accompanied by rumbling thunder could be seen.

At this moment, Giant Turtle Zhulu had taken on a dragon-like form, coiled in the air, battling with Xiao Maoniang.

Amidst the winds and clouds surrounding Zhulu, Li was quite envious, wishing he had a pen to jot down the technique for later use when he himself transformed into a long strip.

Just as he was about to engrave something on Zhang Ze’s leg, Zhang Ze gave him a small kick, "Shush, stop messing around, bring that thing here."

When dealing with acquaintances, Zhang Ze always spoke like this, always with ’this’ and ’that’, ’here’ and ’there’.

Fortunately, Li understood, and he delved into his mouth with his hand, soon pulling out a turtle shell.

He wiped it on his body and then handed it to Zhang Ze, "Here."

The turtle shell was a gift given to Li by Zhulu earlier, used to ward off evil spirits, dispel dampness, stabilize the home, accumulate treasures, and even transform the taste of water poured into it to become an imagined drink, making it an essential item for home and travel.

Of course, its most important function was for communication with Zhulu.

Zhang Ze tapped the pattern on the back of the shell, pressing it a few times and drawing a few circles before dialing and placing the turtle shell like a bowl over his ear, speaking.

"Hello."

On Zhulu’s side, he commanded the clouds and rain, with dozens of turtle shells he had refined into Magical Artifacts floating around him, resplendent and colorful as if charged for 500 years of VIP premium.

He was trying to use the turtle shells to trap the frenzied creature and then enter the Imperial City Baiyujing, several times nearly succeeding, but each time being blocked.

Outside the city, Xiao Maoniang was manageable, but once inside, she was like a dragon in the sea, rampantly invincible.

As Zhulu was preparing to try again, a sudden ringing sounded in his ear, followed by Zhang Ze’s "hello, hello, hello" in his ear.

"Hello, can you hear me? If you can, please draw that annoying cat out a bit."

"Yes, this is Zhang Ze. I’ve found a way to deal with that pest. Yeah, just pull that cat a bit further away, yes, just drag it along..."

After Zhang Ze finished speaking, he handed the turtle shell back to Li, gestured to him, indicating they should head over there.

Zhang Ze didn’t directly enter Baiyujing but continued directing Li to start ’digging holes’, traversing between several dimensions where the Old Ascenders were located, reporting the situation.

After grasping the situation from Zhang Ze, the others were reassured, and consciously began to draw Xiao Maoniang away from Baiyujing, yet not too far, just holding her at a distance, neither too far nor too close, keeping her at arm’s length.

Despite Fuji’s influence making Xiao Jing somewhat dull-witted, his intuition or rather his instincts remained.

"Ha, something’s not right, not right, there are mice! There are mice!"

He always felt mice were scurrying around him, but every time he turned his head, he couldn’t catch a shadow, and the intruders were annoyingly bothersome, always interrupting at crucial moments of his thoughts...

"Ha..." His thoughts were once again interrupted as Wei Zhuang’s Sword Realm enveloped the dimension of Xiao Jing again.

In the Sword Realm, there was no light nor color, only eight gates wide open, and behind those gates, besides the word ’death’, there was also ’vegetable’.

Wei Zhuang felt that as an Old Ascender, he needed to keep up with trends. In the Thousand Mechanism Pavilion’s Underground City, using vegetables as a substitute for death surely held some mystery.