In the depths of the Nevada desert, Johnny Blazer naturally wanted to take Roshan on a motorcycle, while Ling Xiao and Jonathan could only move forward by their own methods, but now after all, it was different from the night, but Johnny Blazer in an ordinary state was not much faster, so everyone did not rush back to San Francisco directly, and after confirming the specific location, the group rushed to the nearest city, Salt Lake City.

At the Salt Lake City airport, the four of them ran into Hill, who had been waiting there for a long time.

For last night's incident, it was naturally impossible for S.H.I.E.L.D. to ignore it, and on the way back to San Francisco by the way, Hill had already asked all the ins and outs of the matter.

"Ling, in the future, you'd better say hello in advance for this kind of thing." After getting off the plane, Hill complained with some dissatisfaction.

"Even if I don't say anything, S.H.I.E.L.D. should know what it should know." Ling Xiao said in a flat tone as he walked out, "And in this matter, I don't think S.H.I.E.L.D. can help much. ”

Ling Xiao couldn't say anything about Hill, after understanding what happened, even Hill, who has always been proud of S.H.I.E.L.D., had to admit that they really couldn't exert much effort in this matter, unless it was with a nuclear bomb...... Of course, no one dared to bring up this topic casually.

After returning to San Francisco, Ling Xiao did not stay long, and that afternoon, he said goodbye to Johnny Blazer and Roseanne Simpson and returned to Los Angeles.

And Thunderbolt Jonathan had already rushed back to New York one step ahead of him, and the Invisible Woman had already called him personally to reprimand him in her eyes, and asked him to rush back to New York immediately to explain the ins and outs of the matter in detail.

Although this matter can be regarded as a temporary end, Ling Xiao knows in his heart that this matter is not over, and he even has a faint feeling that the story of Evil Ghost Knight has just begun.

Back in Los Angeles, Ling Xiao had just rested for a few days before he started to get busy again. This time, however, he was not busy with spiritual matters, but with buying land, a farm in the Central Valley on the western side of the Sierra Nevada.

After an experience, I came to the Sierra Nevada again, and I was directly at the summit of Whitney Mountain. It is covered with snow all year round, the peaks are littered with rocks, the howling wind blows around you, and the thunder and lightning seem to be visible in the clouds overhead.

The height of Whitney Peak is actually not very high, 4420 meters, which is exactly half the height of 8842 meters of Mount Everest, but it is already the highest mountain in the continental United States, and not only that, Whitney Peak is only one step away from the lowest point in the continental United States, Death Valley.

In contrast to the slightly desolate eastern side of the Sierra Nevada, the central valley on the western side of the mountain range is a densely forested and thriving scene, and the contrast is even more pronounced by the national forest parks that can be found almost along the western side of the mountain range.

At the summit of Mount Whitney, the trees are long gone, except for the rocks, mountains, canine walls, and alpine glacial lakes that can be seen everywhere. To the north, Russell Peak, which is only 120 meters shorter, to the south, is Muir Peak, which is lined with dogs' teeth, and on the west side of Whitney Peak, this is Hitchcock Peak, which has the same name as the great director.

The whole mountain system is like this, because the earth's crust stretches east-west, and pulls into many long strips in the north-south direction, each of which is like a door panel, and the underground magma rises against the east end, and the west end of the next door scrapes the east side and sinks, so the east side of the mountain is a terrifying cliff, and the west side is slower; Because all of them are underground magma solidification, all of them are large granite stones.

Because the weather is not good, so on this day the management office is forbidden to tourists to climb the peak, everywhere, on the top of the entire peak, there is only Ling Xiao alone, and there is one, I don't know when it was built up of the unmanned stone house.

Ling Xiao walked along the mountain range, to the west, and not long after, he saw a stream formed by the melting of the glacial lake water flowing down from the peak, the stream water was extremely cool and clean, and after a little sip, there was a refreshing feeling.

Looking for the node of the mountain stone, Ling Xiao's figure flickered, and he had already appeared at the end of his sight, along the way, he did find a lot of places where spiritual energy gathered, but it was far from enough to provide him with a solo practice.

After spending a whole day, Ling Xiao finally appeared in the forest at the foot of the mountain range on the west side, but this is not a national forest park, but a forest called Anderson Private Park, with a forest area of about 5,000 acres, or about 20 square kilometers.

In this forest of redwoods, there are lakes, streams, and a small pasture at the bottom of the mountain, where hundreds of cows are raised.

The reason why he stayed here was because Ling Xiao found a hidden narrow mountain cave at the back of a peak outside this private park, and the slightest aura was revealed from the cave, and he walked in the mountains and forests belonging to the national park, making this area of mountains and forests exceptionally dense and full of wild beasts.

This narrow cave leads to a depth of hundreds of meters, and along the narrow, rugged cave, Ling Xiao enters the belly of the mountain, and finally stops in a wide cave that is located somewhere, which is the end of the entire cave.

In the cave with a width of tens of meters, although there is a spiritual lake, the whole cave does not appear to be damp at all, and the small cave leading to the outside world brings in a burst of refreshing mountain wind, making the whole cave appear extraordinarily dry.

And this cave, which is located in the southern part of the Sierra Nevada, is one of the final nodes of the mountain's trend.

Reaching out into the Spirit Lake, a bone-chilling feeling immediately penetrated Ling Xiao's body, if it wasn't for his timely conversion of his physique into Loki's Frost Giant body, I'm afraid his body would have been frostbitten a long time ago.

After staying in the cave in the belly of the mountain for a while, Ling Xiao used the ability of the phantom cat to investigate every passage leading to the outside of the cave, but he did not block all the passages, but only narrowed each passage, and made some obvious holes in one or two places to make it no longer so easy to find, and at the same time completely blocked the middle section, which looked like it had been to the end from the outside.

When Ling Xiao came out of the cave in the belly of the mountain, people appeared in this private park. In this park, there is a lake with a radius of 50 meters, a small river formed by the melting ice water of the high mountains in the middle, and a waterfall in a mountain pass, and the environment is extremely beautiful.

However, it was such a place that looked very much like a private resort, and Ling Xiao inquired a little and found that such a place has been being sold to the outside world, and the owner of this land used to cut down trees, which was protested by many environmentalists.

What is more troublesome is that in recent years, there have been several large fires in the mountains and forests of Sierra Nevada every summer, and this alone has been implicated three or four times, and the annual damage is in the millions.

The land has been on the market for a long time, with Anderson Park first listed for sale two years ago for $14 million. In two years, the price of the land dropped to $11 million, and Ling Xiao asked a little about the price, if Ling Xiao was willing to take over, the land could be sold for $10 million later.

According to the summer weather forecast released by the Ministry of Land and Resources, this summer will also be a dry season, and the chance of forest fires will exceed 70%, so when summer is coming, someone is willing to take over, naturally it is not wanted.

If Ling Xiao wanted to, the price could still be pushed down, but Ling Xiao left after asking the price, and it didn't take long for him to buy a 200-acre stream ranch opposite Anderson Park for $7.32 million.

The ranch has nearly 100 acres of watery or underground irrigated areas, 4 houses, several outbuildings, ponds, year-round streams, and views of the Sierra Nevada mountains and forests in the distance, where deer, turkeys, quails and pigeons can be seen year-round, and bass can be caught in the reservoir. Migratory geese and waterfowl land in the pastures and reservoirs in winter.

Half a month after the stream ranch was bought by Ling Xiao, the ownership of the private park opposite quietly changed.

(End of chapter)