This Taoist priest is so unprofessional!

Zhang Chen's face wasn't just ugly, it turned completely green.

Of course he recognizes these things.

The Five Poisons!

Moreover, these are not ordinary poisonous insects; they are Gu worms raised using secret Miao methods and used to control others, each one extremely poisonous.

"That crazy woman..."

Zhang Chen squeezed out a few words through gritted teeth.

"How did she find this place?!"

He suddenly shoved Wang Xiaoer backward.

"Back off! Don't come any closer! You'll die if you touch these things!"

Wang Xiaoer stumbled as he was pushed, and looking at the terrifying "insect gate," he felt a chill run from the soles of his feet straight to the top of his head.

Zhang Chen took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down.

He rummaged in his canvas bag and pulled out a yellow talisman with cinnabar runes drawn on it, holding it between his index and middle fingers.

His lips moved slightly, and a wave of magical power, invisible to the naked eye, began to gather at his fingertips.

Just as he was about to cast a spell to burn all the filth with the pure Yang magic of Taoism,

"jingle--"

A crisp doorbell rang.

Across the street from the firm, the door of the 24-hour convenience store was pushed open.

A figure slowly walked out of the store.

That was a girl.

She was around twenty years old and wore an extremely exquisite and elaborate Miao costume. The indigo fabric was embroidered with gorgeous totems, and her neck and wrists were adorned with layers of glittering silver ornaments.

She had a head full of fine braids, with tiny silver beads hanging from the ends. She was pretty, with a pair of large, clear eyes.

Yet, those beautiful eyes were filled with a murderous aura and coldness that were completely at odds with her appearance.

She was still holding a half-finished bubble tea in her hand. When she saw Zhang Chen holding the yellow talisman and about to make a move, a disdainful sneer curled at the corner of her mouth.

She casually tossed the milk tea cup into a roadside trash can with an elegant movement, then untied a small silver bell from the ornate silver belt around her waist.

The bell was no bigger than a thumb, and it resembled a lotus bud about to bloom, covered with intricate and strange patterns.

Upon seeing the bell, Zhang Chen's face instantly turned as pale as a corpse.

Wang Xiaoer stood at the back, his mind completely blank. He looked at the insect gate, then at the Miao girl who had suddenly appeared, and finally at Zhang Chen beside him, who looked as if he were facing a formidable enemy.

"What's going on?" Wang Xiaoer lowered his voice, leaning close to Zhang Chen's ear, his voice trembling, "When did you offend her?"

Zhang Chen's gaze was fixed on the girl, without even turning his head, his voice squeezed out from between his teeth.

"It's a long story..."

He paused, his Adam's apple bobbing, and added.

"In short... she's a formidable woman."

The Miao girl completely ignored Wang Xiaoer's presence. Her bright eyes were fixed on Zhang Chen, filled with strange and complex emotions.

She raised the hand holding the bell, her slender, fair wrist drawing a graceful arc in the air.

Then, she gently shook the bell in her hand.

jingle--

The sound of the bell was as clear and crisp as a mountain stream dripping water.

But when the sound entered Zhang Chen's ears, it was more terrifying than a thunderclap from the heavens.

"Longhu Mountain, it's been five years. You still haven't mastered your footwork. All you do is stand there in a daze."

Zhang Chen's face instantly darkened, and his fingers, which were holding the talisman, froze in mid-air.

He gritted his teeth, each word sounding like it was being squeezed out from between his back teeth.

"Ah Yue! What are you doing here?!"

Ah Yue, jingling her delicate silver bell, walked step by step from across the street.

With each step she took, the nauseating insect blanket on the office door stirred.

As she took her last step onto the curb, the thousands of poisonous insects on the door seemed to hear a silent command, rustling like the receding tide, and disappeared without a trace along the corner of the wall and the crack in the door.

In the blink of an eye, the glass door returned to normal, as if the terrifying scene just now was just an illusion.

A-Yue stopped three steps away from the two of them and tilted her head.

She cleared her throat, then shouted suddenly, "Of course it's for the tribe! Cough... no, it's for my grandmother's request!"

Her eyes flashed, and she pointed the bell in her hand at Zhang Chen.

"Hand over the Golden Silkworm Gu, or you'll taste my newly mastered 'Withering Entanglement'!"

Wang Xiaoer listened in stunned silence.

What tribe?

What withers and lingers?

This girl's way of speaking is so strange, it's like she's acting in a TV drama.

He looked at Zhang Chen and found that although Zhang Chen's face was ugly, his eyes revealed a sense of normalcy.

Zhang Chen was clearly familiar with her rhetoric. Far from being intimidated, he retorted without backing down, "What Golden Silkworm Gu? Your worthless worms are long gone! Go ahead and unleash a Withering spell if you dare! See if my 'Holy Storm' can purify it!"

Ah Yue's eyebrows shot up: "Whose bug are you calling a worthless bug? That's my 'Crypt Lord' skill, which I finally mastered with great difficulty!"

Zhang Chen scoffed, "Your little beetles? Crypt Lords? Be careful, or I'll stomp them into their burrows with one 'War Stomp'!"

The two of them talked back and forth, using words that Wang Xiaoer couldn't understand.

It sounded impressive, but the atmosphere, though tense, had an inexplicable eeriness about it.

Wang Xiaoer became more and more confused as he listened. He quietly tugged at Zhang Chen's sleeve and lowered his voice.

"Brother Chen, are you guys... using secret codes? Which sect's slang is this?"

Amidst his busy schedule, Zhang Chen turned around and glared at him, his voice low and filled with frustration.

"Ignore her! A girl addicted to World of Warcraft is mentally unstable!"

Wang Xiaoer: "Huh?"

World of Warcraft?

He seemed to have heard this name before when Zhang Chen was watching the video.

So... all those impressive-sounding terms were actually skill names in the game?

Wang Xiaoer felt like his brain wasn't working properly.

He looked at the beautiful girl in front of him, who exuded a fierce aura and was dressed in a mysterious Miao ethnic costume, and then thought of the red-eyed teenagers in the internet cafe with their messy hair and shouting "Kill them!"

This...this art style doesn't match up!

Just as Wang Xiaoer was having an existential crisis, A Yue was completely enraged by Zhang Chen's words.

She gritted her teeth, and her pretty face turned even redder.

"Fine! You Alliance dog, are you never going to stop?! Want to try out my 'Death Coil'?"

Before she finished speaking, she twisted her wrist sharply, and the silver bell emitted a series of rapid and piercing sounds!

"Ring ring ring—"

A-Yue's wide sleeves suddenly twitched.

A streak of dark light and a blood-red shadow shot out from her sleeve like lightning!

It was a beetle that was completely black with a shiny back, and a spider with a swollen abdomen covered in blood vessels!

Two poisonous insects, one on the left and one on the right, transformed into two streaks of light, carrying a foul, sweet-smelling wind, and rushed straight at Zhang Chen's face!

The speed is astonishing!

Wang Xiaoer only felt a blur before his eyes, and the two beams of light were already less than a meter away from Zhang Chen.

He could even see the black beetle's ferocious mouthparts and the blood spider's eight compound eyes that gleamed with a cold light.

"Be careful!"

Wang Xiaoer exclaimed in surprise.

Zhang Chen's expression finally changed.

Jokes aside, and banter aside, he knew better than anyone how powerful Ah Yue's Gu worms were.

This is not a game at all!

This can really kill people!

He dared not be negligent in the slightest. His other hand swiftly reached into his robes and immediately pulled out several yellow paper talismans covered with runes, preparing to set up a defensive formation.

The righteous Dharma he cultivated at Longhu Mountain was extremely powerful and yang, making it the nemesis of these insidious and poisonous insects.

Even so, facing these two treasures that were clearly Ah Yue's most prized possessions, he wasn't entirely confident that he could escape unscathed.

But at that moment...

Just as Zhang Chen was about to crush the talisman...

A hand reached out from beside him.

That hand had distinct knuckles, was clean and slender, and its movements, though seemingly slow, were surprisingly fast, even faster than his already blurry movements.

That hand reached past his fingers that were holding the talisman and went straight for the two deadly streaks of light.