Telyn!
Damn it, why didn’t any weapons drop?
Isn’t it just embarrassing to keep beating monsters with the soles of my shoes? A noble player deserves the Draconian Blade!
The Xuanyuan Sword! The Italian Cannon! Or at least some blue-glowing Healing Buffs!
Yun Miao, disappointed, stuffed the two gland sacs into her bundle. But as soon as she lowered her head, she felt some warm liquid trickle from her upper lip down to her chin.
Puzzled, she wiped it with her hand and brought it to her eyes: What’s this red stuff?
The Black-faced Man cried out, “Nosebleed! Why is this kid bleeding?”
Oh, so it’s a nosebleed.
With Poison Resistance as high as 12.7, Yun Miao calmly wiped away the blood, exposing the corrosion marks left by venom on her raised arm.
“It’s nothing, just a little dirt on my dress hem.”
The Tall Thin NPC also exclaimed, “Your lips are purple!”
Yun Miao continued to calmly wipe her nosebleed, “It’s fine, just a bit of hardship.”
She glanced at her Health Bar, which had only 36 points left, and realized she was losing health at a rate of ‘-0.1, -0.1, -0.1’.
Without hesitation, she grabbed a Steamed Bun from her bundle with her bloody hand and started munching.
When a player’s Health Bar drops, Satiety is automatically deducted to restore one point of health per second.
If Satiety drops below 70%, health no longer recovers. Some foods with a Healing Buff can directly restore health.
Although the Steamed Bun and Baked Flatbread in her hands had no buffs, they were good enough for an emergency.
The Black-faced Man and the Tall Thin NPC stood there dumbfounded, clearly not expecting someone’s first reaction after being poisoned to be eating a Steamed Bun.
Huaxin strode forward to check her pulse.
“This is bad, the poison has attacked her heart! Granny Hua, do you have any Detox Pellet? Give it to me, quick.”
Granny Hua snapped back to her senses, pulled out a Small Porcelain Bottle from her storage pouch, and tossed it to Huaxin. Huaxin caught it one-handed, poured out a Detoxification Pill, and handed it over.
“Stop eating Steamed Buns and take this Detoxification Pill right away.”
[Detoxification Pill]: Contains a small amount of spiritual energy, can detoxify and restore some health.
Free medicine from an NPC?
Yun Miao’s eyes lit up, and she snatched the Detoxification Pill, stuffing it into her little bundle in a flash.
“Thank you. Do you have more?”
Seeing this, Huaxin seemed to think of something, and directly handed over the entire Small Porcelain Bottle.
Yun Miao took it, stuffed it into her bundle, and conveniently pulled out a Baked Flatbread, munching away with a Steamed Bun in one hand and a Flatbread in the other.
If ordinary food could solve the problem, there was no need to waste precious medicine.
Huaxin frowned. “This is a real Detoxification Pill, I’m not lying to you. If you don’t believe me, I can take one first…”
“I know it’s real.”
Yun Miao stuffed the rest of the Steamed Bun into her mouth and, hugging her bundle tightly, mumbled, “You gave it to me, so it’s mine. You’re not poisoned, so why should you eat my Detoxification Pill? I’m not giving it!”
Huaxin: …If you know it’s real, then why aren’t you taking it?”
Yun Miao: “Oh, I’m keeping it for my collection.”
Huaxin clearly couldn’t understand this bizarre player logic, her brows furrowed even deeper, and her tone turned cold.
“I gave you the Detoxification Pill for you to take, not to keep as a collectible. Have you seen how awful you look right now?”
“Are you so reluctant to use it that you’re planning to bribe a Ghost Messenger in the underworld with it?”
Yun Miao was shocked, “Eh? This Detox Pellet can be used to bribe a Ghost Messenger?”
Huaxin raised her voice, “What’s wrong with you, are your ears broken or is your brain broken? I’m telling you to take your medicine, do you understand?!”
Yun Miao quickly stuffed the Flatbread into her mouth, hugged her bundle tightly with both hands, and puffed out her cheeks, shouting loudly, “I don’t understand!”
“You—!”
Huaxin was so angry that her sword-like brows shot up. She rolled up her sleeves, ready to teach this strange child a lesson.
“Xin’er, don’t be rash.” Granny Hua suddenly called out, stopping the flustered and angry Huaxin, and gestured for her to look closely at the girl’s complexion.
Huaxin looked carefully and finally noticed the girl’s nosebleed had stopped at some point. Her lips were fading from dark purple to light purple, and her pale face was regaining a hint of color.
Even the dark purple poison marks on her arms and ankles were rapidly fading.
What a powerful self-healing ability!
A flash of shock appeared in Huaxin’s eyes, but she didn’t ask anything. She silently accepted the basket of food Granny Hua took out from her storage pouch and placed it in front of the girl.
The Black-faced Man and Tall Thin NPC also opened their bundles, gathering all their rations to hand over.
Yun Miao looked up in surprise. “For me?”
“Yes, all for you.”
Huaxin cupped her hands, her gaze showing a hint of respect. “Thank you for earlier, and I apologize for my rudeness. You’re very strong.”
The Tall Thin NPC also cupped his hands in salute. “Although we don’t really know what happened, from what that elder said, it seems you saved us, little one. Thank you so much.”
The Black-faced Man followed suit. “Many thanks.”
Granny Hua said, “Indeed, we should thank you. Child, I will remember this favor. If you ever run into trouble, you can find Granny Hua on West Street in Luo Hua Town, fifty li to the west. I won’t refuse you.”
Yun Miao nodded. Got it, this is definitely a quest step for later.
Seeing the girl bury her head in food again, Huaxin turned to look at the small spider corpse on the ground.
“Granny, what exactly happened? Was the Ruined Temple and Mountain Spider we saw just now all an illusion created by it?”
“That’s right. Come with me.”
Granny Hua pulled a burning stick from the campfire and led the group behind them, where there was a lush old tree as thick as two people could embrace.
The Tall Thin NPC hurriedly grabbed two burning sticks, handing one to the Black-faced Man, and holding the other himself as he quickly followed.
Yun Miao sat on the grass, eating as she watched the NPCs continue the storyline.
The four of them reached the tree. Huaxin was the first to notice a pitch-black hole at the tree’s base, about half a person’s height—just enough for someone to crouch and crawl through.
“Granny, this hole seems a bit odd.”
She tilted her head, bringing her left ear closer to the opening. “There are sounds coming from inside…”
The Tall Thin NPC’s pupils shrank. He immediately pointed in alarm at the man lying unconscious not far away.
“This spot… Isn’t this the same dog hole he kept telling us to crawl through earlier?”
The Black-faced Man gestured with his large hands in a panic. “That’s right, the location of the dog hole in the Ruined Temple matches this hole.”
“Don’t panic. Stay calm.” Granny Hua’s hoarse voice cut through, instantly quelling the panic in the Black-faced Man and Tall Thin NPC’s hearts.
The Black-faced Man mustered his courage, took two steps forward, and stretched his torch toward the hole.
“I want to see what’s in there.”
It was a sloping tunnel leading underground. The opening wasn’t big, but the cave inside was vast and deep, dark as pitch.
The torch only illuminated a corner.
The group could vaguely see that the inside was covered with layers upon layers of white-green spider webs, so dense there was hardly any place to step except for the relatively clean entrance.
The Black-faced Man pushed the torch in further, trying to get a better look. The webs closest to the flame suddenly began to tremble as if alive!
It was then that Huaxin and the others noticed that the spider webs were crawling with countless rice-sized, semi-transparent, milky-white baby spiders. Startled by the light, they retreated deeper into the darkness like a tide—the sheer number of them making everyone’s skin crawl.
The Black-faced Man sucked in a cold breath and quickly stepped back.
“There are so many spiders in here! Good thing we didn’t listen to that guy and crawl into the dog hole earlier, or we’d have been eaten down to the bone!”
Granny Hua shook her head. “Although the Demon Spider’s venom is deadly to ordinary people, they themselves don’t eat humans.”
“These are Demon Spider hatchlings. As juveniles, they look just like normal spiders, but once they safely reach adulthood, they’ll transform into Qi Refining Stage monsters and gain illusion abilities.”
“The Ruined Temple and Mountain Spider we saw earlier were probably illusions created by the Demon Spider.”
“Since they’re small, they don’t need much food—even adult Demon Spiders usually eat only poisonous insects, rarely hunting large prey.”
“If an adult Demon Spider starts hunting large prey, even humans, there’s only one reason… It’s a female Demon Spider preparing to lay eggs.”
As Granny Hua spoke, she lifted her torch overhead. Huaxin and the others looked up and saw that the tree’s canopy was also densely covered with spider webs.
Deep within the branches were several human-sized cocoons wrapped in silk!
The three of them grew pale, clearly thinking of something unpleasant. At that moment, a voice broke the eerie atmosphere.
“So that’s it. The Demon Spider wanted to use human corpses as incubators for its hatchlings? No wonder that guy was acting so weird earlier.”
Everyone turned to see that the strange girl had somehow squatted down next to the unconscious man, still munching on Flatbread, poking his arm with a twig.
The man’s hand was riddled with holes, but instead of blood, milky-white ‘liquid’ was flowing from the wounds.
As the ‘liquid’ spread, Huaxin and the others realized in horror that the ‘liquid’ was actually a swarm of sesame-sized baby spiders. As they poured out, the man’s body visibly deflated.
Yun Miao raised her foot and stomped, crushing who knows how many baby spiders. Unfortunately, these spiders weren’t aggressive red-named monsters, so there was no loot drop.
The Black-faced Man covered his mouth, retching. “This person… could he be…”
Granny Hua looked at Yun Miao. “Since you could see through the Demon Spider’s illusion, you must have known from the start that this man was already a corpse, right?”
“Mm, I had my suspicions.”
Yun Miao nodded sagely, continuing to poke the corpse with her twig. With every new hole, more baby spiders crawled out, along with clumps of silk.
She examined it closely and commented, “Other than the baby spiders, it’s just silk used as filler. There’s not a drop of blood left—this corpse is nothing but skin and bones now.”
Huaxin swallowed hard, trying to suppress her nausea.
The Black-faced Man and Tall Thin NPC looked even worse. Before the others arrived, they’d spent half an hour in the Ruined Temple with this man. Now they were being told he’d been a moving corpse all along?
No, the Ruined Temple was fake too!
That meant they’d spent half an hour sitting in the wilderness across from a corpse stuffed with spiders, with a Fiend Tree full of spider cocoons behind them, and the spider demon that liked to lay eggs in human corpses probably watching them from nearby the whole time!
If it weren’t for that strange child… their fate would have been the same as this corpse!
***
For a moment, the Black-faced Man and Tall Thin NPC looked at the girl with deep respect and gratitude.
A few Steamed Buns and Flatbreads seemed far too little compared to having their lives saved, but they had nothing more valuable to offer right now.
Granny Hua also glanced at the girl. The biggest difference between a Qi Refining Cultivator and a Foundation Establishment Cultivator was Spiritual Sense.
Qi Refining Cultivators couldn’t cultivate Spiritual Sense, but Foundation Establishment Cultivators could, using it to control Magical Items and sense their surroundings.
If she had Spiritual Sense, she might have discovered sooner that the man wasn’t alive. But she didn’t.
So… how did this girl notice something was wrong?
Judging by her pulse, she seemed like just an ordinary person. But no ordinary child could have such sharp insight, strong Poison Resistance, and such eerily calm composure.
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