One person: Senior brother Zhang Zhiwei, the Celestial Master begged me to descend the mountain.

The night was as dark as ink, and the mountain wind howled.

On the mountain road leaving Biyou Village, the group was slowly making their way forward by the moonlight.

Leading the way was Zhang Taichu, dressed in a white robe with his hands tucked into his sleeves.

Two figures followed half a step behind him.

One of them is Chen Duo, who is wearing an oversized SpongeBob SquarePants T-shirt.

The other one is Feng Baobao, who is wearing the same old Nationwide uniform and has messy hair.

Feng Baobao always carried a backpack, and every now and then she would reach inside and rummage around, making a rustling sound.

Chen Duo walked mechanically, her clear eyes blinking occasionally, but mostly staring blankly at the road beneath her feet.

Sudden.

Feng Baobao stopped in her tracks.

Chen Duo also stopped and turned her head around, looking somewhat bewildered.

Feng Baobao took out a bright green, prickly cucumber from her bag and casually wiped it on her clothes.

Click.

Feng Baobao took a bite with a blank expression, the crisp sound particularly clear on the quiet mountain road.

She chewed twice, seemingly sensing Chen Duo's gaze beside her.

Feng Baobao turned her head and stared at Chen Duo for two seconds with her big, clear black and white eyes.

then.

She reached into her bag again and pulled out another cucumber.

"Want some?"

Feng Baobao handed the cucumber to Chen Duo, speaking in a standard Sichuan accent:

"They were just picked, and they're very crisp."

Chen Duo was stunned.

She looked at the cucumber in front of her, which smelled of earth, and then at Feng Baobao's expressionless face.

In her memory, no one had ever given her such a thing.

Previously, at the Medicine Fairy Society, she ate medicinal dregs and poisonous insects.

Later, at Duhutong, she ate a fixed amount of nutritious meals.

"For me?"

Chen Duo's voice was very soft.

"Um."

Feng Baobao nodded and pushed the cucumber forward a little further:

"There's only this one left. Xu San said not to eat too many, or it'll cause diarrhea."

Chen Duo reached out and carefully took it.

Imitating Feng Baobao, I put it to my lips.

"Click."

A crisp sound rang out.

A burst of cool juice exploded in my mouth, with a faint, sweet taste.

"tasty."

Although Chen Duo's face, which had been tense, remained expressionless, her eyes brightened noticeably.

"What a tragedy..."

From the very back of the line came a mournful wail, tinged with sobs.

Zhang Chulan carried a huge suitcase on his back, two bags of local specialties he had just taken from Ma Xianhong's house in his left hand, and a Taoist robe bundle that Wang Ye had forced on him in his right hand.

He looked like a refugee fleeing famine.

He looked at the two elderly ladies leisurely munching on cucumbers in front of him, then at the old man with empty hands, and his mentality completely collapsed.

"Old Wang, why don't you lend a hand!"

Zhang Chulan complained to Wang Ye, who was also standing next to him with his hands in his pockets:

"So I'm the only one doing the manual labor? That's not fair!"

Wang Ye yawned lazily, without even lifting his eyelids:

"Old Zhang, you're wrong about that."

"This is what I call conserving my energy."

"Think about it, which of those three is easy to deal with?"

"One is a biological weapon that could release poison at any time, another is a crazy woman who buries people without using a shovel, and there's another..."

Wang Ye pointed to Zhang Taichu, who was walking at the front, and lowered his voice:

"That's a living Yama."

"If something goes wrong later, someone with common sense needs to make a run for it, right?"

"Is that what you call running away?"

Zhang Chulan rolled his eyes and, panting, bounced the suitcase up.

"That's called betraying your teammates!"

As they were talking.

Suddenly, a rustling sound came from the bushes ahead.

Followed by.

"Woof! Woof woof woof!"

A burst of frantic barking shattered the tranquility of the night.

Seven or eight stray dogs sprang out of the bushes, baring their teeth and their eyes gleaming with a fierce green light, clearly regarding these people as a midnight snack delivered to their doorstep.

"Oh my god!"

Zhang Chulan was startled and instinctively shrank back:

"Where did these stray dogs come from in this desolate wilderness?"

Before he could even put down his luggage and get ready to start...

call!

A blur flashed by.

Before Feng Baobao could even put down the cucumber in her hand, she shot into the pack of dogs like a cannonball.

boom!

The lead black dog, which had been barking the loudest just moments before, received a solid slap on the head. Without uttering a sound, its eyes rolled back, and it collapsed to the ground.

Followed by.

boom! boom! boom!

Feng Baobao moved through the pack of dogs with simple, direct, and efficient movements.

There are no unnecessary fancy moves.

One slap at a time.

In just three seconds.

The seven or eight stray dogs that were just moments ago so ferocious were now lying neatly on the ground, each one foaming at the mouth and twitching, clearly having been knocked unconscious.

Immediately afterwards, Feng Baobao squatted down and skillfully took out a folding entrenching tool from her bag.

With a whoosh, it was flung away.

"I'm dizzy."

Feng Baobao glanced back at Chen Duo, who was preparing to release the poison, and said seriously:

"No need to poison them."

"The meat doesn't taste good, and the skin is useless."

"Just bury it."

As she spoke, she found a spot with relatively soft soil, picked up a shovel, and began digging a hole.

"Sister Bao'er!"

Zhang Chulan dropped his suitcase and scrambled over, grabbing Feng Baobao's leg in a hug:

"Don't bury me! Don't bury me!"

"These dogs didn't deserve to die! They just wanted to bite us a couple of times. You could have just knocked them unconscious. Isn't burying them alive a bit too cruel?"

Feng Baobao tilted her head, the shovel still raised in mid-air:

"Xu Si said, 'To cut weeds, you must pull them out by the roots.'"

"It's awake and still bites people, what a nuisance."

"No trouble at all! Not trouble at all!"

Zhang Chulan, with a mournful face, desperately pressed the shovel back:

"Let's hurry up and go! Our martial uncle is already far away!"

Hearing this, Feng Baobao reluctantly put away her shovel, glancing regretfully at the neatly arranged items waiting to be buried on the ground.

"oh."

She patted the dirt off her hands, picked up the half-cucumber she had placed on the stone, and popped it into her mouth.

"Let's go."

Chen Duo stood there, watching the poison gas slowly dissipate from her fingertips, and then looked at the wild dogs that had only fainted but were still alive.

For the first time, a thoughtful expression appeared on her usually expressionless face.

original……

Does encountering a threat necessarily mean you have to kill the person?

You could also... knock them out?

Or... was it buried?

Chen Duo felt as if she had opened the door to a new world.

She turned her head and glanced at Zhang Taichu, who was walking ahead of her.

Chen Duo pursed her lips and quickly followed.

……

We walked for about half an hour more.

As the group rounded a huge mountain pass, the view suddenly opened up before them.

The pitch-black night was dispelled by a cluster of dazzling lights in the distance.

It was a town located at the foot of a mountain.

Although it was late at night, the commercial street in the town center was still brightly lit and flashing neon lights.

The traffic flowed through the streets like a glowing river, and the sounds of people, car horns, and music from shops drifted faintly on the night breeze.

"call……"

Zhang Chulan plopped down on a large rock by the roadside and wiped the sweat from his forehead:

"Finally, we can see signs of human habitation!"

"After all that running around tonight, whether it's eating or finding a hotel, I need to find a place to lie down for a while."

however.

Just as everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

Chen Duo, who had been quietly following behind Zhang Taichu, suddenly froze.

Her pupils contracted sharply.

The neon lights flashing in the distance seemed to her as countless menacing monsters.

The faint noise was like some kind of piercing high-frequency noise, frantically drilling into her ears and pricking her eardrums.

Too much.

It's too bright.

Too noisy.

For someone who lives year-round in a closed laboratory, quarantine zone, or deep in the mountains, this sudden, high-density information bombardment is undoubtedly a disaster.

fear.

An instinctive fear stemming from the unknown and unfamiliar environment instantly overwhelmed Chen Duo's rationality.

"Well……"

A low, painful groan escaped Chen Duo's throat.

She clutched her head with both hands, and her body began to tremble violently.

Om-! ! !

As her emotions spiraled out of control, the primal poison within her body, which had just subsided, surged up again like boiling water.

Dark purple poison gas gushed uncontrollably from her seven orifices and pores.

hiss hiss hiss—

The weeds at her feet withered and turned black instantly.

The surrounding rock surfaces also began to show signs of corrosion.

"Wow!"

Zhang Chulan, who had just sat down, jumped up as if he had a spring in his butt, his face instantly turning deathly pale.

"Not again?! This old lady is more sensitive than a time bomb!"

"Stress response"

Wang Ye frowned, his compass spinning rapidly in his hand:

"This girl has never seen anything like this before, she's terrified."

"Taoist Master! Quickly, suppress her! We're too close to the town; if the poison gas spreads down, it could lead to a massacre of the entire city!"

No need for Wang Ye to remind me.

Zhang Taichu had stopped walking.

He turned around and looked at the small figure crouching on the ground, clutching his head and emanating deadly poison gas.

This time.

He did not reprimand or use domineering pressure to forcibly suppress them.

He simply walked past calmly.

The poisonous gas, strong enough to corrode metal and stone, parted automatically three inches in front of him, as if in fear or as in submission.

Zhang Taichu walked up to Chen Duo and bent down slightly.

A warm, large hand reached through the cold, poisonous fog and gently but firmly pressed down on Chen Duo's still trembling head.

"What's the panic?"

Zhang Taichu's voice wasn't loud, but it had a strange penetrating power, instantly drowning out the distant clamor and clearly resounding in Chen Duo's ears.

"That's a lamp, used to light up people's lives."

"That's a car, for people to ride in."

"There's nothing to be afraid of."

Chen Duo's trembling body paused slightly.

She slowly raised her head, and in her eyes, which were now filled with a purplish-black color, was reflected Zhang Taichu's calm and indifferent face.

"But……"

Chen Duo's voice was choked with sobs, broken and intermittent:

"I...don't know..."

"I...feel unwell..."

That feeling of being out of place in the world, that sense of panic as if she could be swallowed up at any moment, made her want to destroy everything around her to protect herself.

Zhang Taichu looked into her eyes and gently stroked the top of her head with his palm.

A warm and mellow golden Qi flowed slowly into Chen Duo's body through his palm.

"Hold on tight if you feel unwell."

Zhang Taichu straightened up, but instead of withdrawing his hand, he took Chen Duo's cold little hand in his.

He pointed to the brightly lit town in the distance, his tone carrying a hint of nonchalant arrogance:

"I am here."

"Everything under this sky, whether human or ghost, lamp or fire."

"If I dare to make you unhappy..."

"I'll let it perish."

Chen Duo stared at him blankly.

The warmth of that large hand traveled from its fingertips all the way to my heart.

The lights and noises that had previously frightened her seemed to recede at this moment, becoming distant and blurry.

In her world, only the person in front of her and this hand remained.

It was a sense of security I had never felt before.

It's like a small boat that has been adrift at sea for a long time finally finding a harbor to dock in.

The purple aura in Chen Duo's eyes slowly faded, returning to its clear and transparent state.

She sniffed and gripped the corner of Zhang Taichu's wide sleeve tightly.

"Um."

Chen Duo nodded, her voice still trembling slightly, but much more determined than before.

"Let's go."

Zhang Taichu felt the pull from the hem of his clothes, and a slight smile appeared on his lips.

He turned around, took the Gu-body holy child, who looked like a frightened little quail, and strode towards the bustling lights.

"Let's find a place to stay first."

"Tomorrow morning, I'll take you to get these tattered clothes changed."