Longevity: Starting as a menial servant in the Green Wood Sect

Gu An did not turn around. He slowly loosened the transparent silk thread that was fastened in his sleeve and wrapped it back around his fingertip.

At the entrance of Youying Valley, killing someone is easy, and disposing of the body is not difficult either. The real challenge is explaining to Zhao Feng, who has just left. An outer disciple who had just escaped with his life by offering a treasure turned around and killed a fellow disciple right at his doorstep. This act was too blatant, and without a suitable reason, it would be impossible to justify.

Moreover, in most people's eyes, Gu An was just a cowardly and timid servant. Would such a person really dare to risk the sect's taboo by killing a fellow disciple? Obviously not.

Therefore, he had no choice but to endure! Before he had absolute strength, this was the best solution for survival in this world.

Gu An, his back hunched, staggered across the rocky beach, muttering incoherently, "That damned Zhao the Skinflint... he's going to add another ten percent... this is going to kill me..."

As he walked, he deliberately tripped over a protruding tree root, his hoe clanging against a rock and sending sparks flying. He sat down on the ground, clutching his chest and breathing heavily, his ashen face etched with despair and resentment.

Behind the distant rocks, the chilling sense of being watched flickered slightly before disappearing even deeper.

Xun Yin did not move.

Gu An glanced at the shadow out of the corner of his eye, and his lips twitched almost imperceptibly.

That old devil is quite composed.

He lay on the ground for a while before groaning as he got up, dragging his hoe, and entered the valley like a walking corpse. He ignored the mulberry trees and went straight back to the No. 13 courtyard halfway up the mountain.

Close the door and lock it.

As the isolation barrier hummed, Gu An's hunched back straightened instantly, and the turbidity and timidity in his eyes vanished, replaced by a chilling calmness.

He strode into the stone house, closed the doors and windows tightly, and then took out the glass bottle covered with talismans from the deepest part of his storage bag.

Through the bottle wall, the rice-grain-sized "corpse-listening gu" was lying at the bottom of the bottle, its eardrums on its abdomen trembling slightly.

"Heh, trying to eavesdrop?"

Gu An looked at the ugly little bug, his fingers gently stroking the bottle. "Then I'll let you listen to your fill."

He walked to the corner, where he usually stored miscellaneous items in a cabinet.

Gu An took a deep breath, adjusted his facial muscles, and even subtly controlled the cartilage in his throat.

The next moment, a sickeningly suppressed groan echoed in the room.

"Uh...cough cough cough!"

His voice was hoarse, like a broken bellows being pulled, followed by a dull thud as something heavy fell to the ground. Gu An deliberately knocked over a stone bench, then slammed heavily onto the bed, letting out a painful gasp.

"Damn it... Zhao Lingjue..."

He cursed intermittently, his voice filled with a final, venomous resentment, "That fan... shattered my meridians... cough cough... pfft!"

Gu An bit his tongue hard, spitting out a mouthful of blood onto the ground. The sweet, metallic smell instantly filled the air. He didn't stop, but struggled to his feet, making noises as he ransacked the place. The clatter of porcelain bottles and the creak of wooden boxes being opened were particularly clear in the quiet night.

"The medicine... the Rejuvenation Pill... isn't enough... it's simply not enough to heal the injuries..."

As Gu An searched, he muttered to himself, his tone growing increasingly anxious, "Those hundred spirit stones... and that fragment of the map... if they find them... I'm really done for..."

One hundred spirit stones and a fragment of a map.

As soon as those two words were uttered, the Corpse Listening Gu in the glass bottle trembled violently, and the vibration frequency of its abdomen instantly soared, clearly indicating that it had received extremely important information and was frantically transmitting it to the mother worm.

Gu An stared at the excited Gu worm, a hint of mockery flashing in his eyes. He was going to continue acting and lure people into his trap. Once they were determined to kill him, he could kill them in self-defense. After all, there were quite a few people with whom he had conflicts of interest. As long as he was still of use, he could be spared the death penalty.

"No...we can't leave it here...we have to hide it..."

He stumbled to the space under the bed, a hidden compartment he had dug specifically to hide his secret stash of money. Instead of actually opening it, he picked up a stone and rubbed it hard against the loose brick.

"Sizzle—sizzle—" The ear-piercing friction sound simulated the movement of a heavy stone slab being moved.

Then, Gu Anqi picked up a handful of spirit stones and threw them one by one into the empty pottery jar.

Ding, ding, ding. The crisp, melodious clinking sounds were, to the greedy, nothing less than the most beautiful celestial music in the world.

"Hidden here...no one would have guessed..."

Gu An muttered to himself, then coughed violently again, as if he were coughing up his lungs. "Once I've recovered from my injuries... I'll go to the Ghost Market and exchange that map... Foundation Establishment... Hehe... Foundation Establishment..."

The sound gradually faded, eventually turning into heavy snoring with a bellows-like noise.

The room fell silent again, but Gu An did not sleep. He sat cross-legged in the darkness, his eyes clear as a mirror.

[Acting Experience +15]

[Setting up a trap experience +10]

[Turtle Breathing Technique: Proficient (40/200)]

He slowly raised his hand, a faint blue light flashing at his fingertips, his affinity with spiritual plants spreading outwards like a tide. He passed through the stone wall, crossed the fence, and reached the deep bamboo forest next door.

The wind rustled through the bamboo forest.

But in Gu An's perception, there was a hint of noise in the originally regular sound of the wind.

That was the sound of a heartbeat. Like a lone wolf, starving all winter, smelling the blood of a fat sheep.

That direction leads directly to Courtyard No. 12, Building B.

Gu An could sense that Xun Yin's aura was becoming restless. The cold, gloomy corpse energy that had been dormant inside the house was now churning like boiling water, and even a wisp of its senses was brazenly probing out, lingering outside the restrictions of Courtyard No. 13.

"They've taken the bait."

Gu An's lips curled into a cold, hard smile.

One hundred spirit stones were the bait, the incomplete map was the hook, and his "severely injured and dying" body was the most delicious piece of rotten flesh.

For a heretical cultivator like Xun Yin who practices the path of corpses, there could be no more perfect prey. Strike while the iron is hot, kill him, plunder his treasures, and incidentally obtain a top-quality material for corpse refining.

Anyone would have been unable to resist.

Gu An took out the "Thousand-Thread Knot" from his pocket. The transparent threads wrapped around his fingertips, silently merging into the darkness.

He stood up, his steps as light as a black cat's.

However, Gu An did not set up a complicated formation, because for a cautious old ghost like Xun Yin, too obvious spiritual energy fluctuations would only arouse his suspicion.

He simply laid the transparent silk thread coated with the deadly poison across the doorway.

The height is just right to reach Xunyin's Adam's apple.

Then, he buried a "thunderbolt" that he had taken from Zhao Feng under the stepping stone in front of the bed.

The fuse is extremely short; it explodes instantly with just a step.

After doing all this, Gu An returned to bed and adjusted to a seemingly defenseless sleeping position.

He closed his eyes and began to practice the "Turtle Breathing Technique".

The heartbeat gradually weakened until it was only a faint three beats per minute. Body temperature dropped, and breathing became barely perceptible.

He was waiting, waiting for the inaudible cicada to make its final cry in the darkest hour.

As the night deepened, the sounds from the bamboo grove ceased.

The sense of probing was withdrawn.

Everything seemed to have returned to calm.

But Gu An knew that this was just the calm before the storm.

The third quarter of the hour of Chou (1-3 AM) is when people sleep the most soundly, and it is also when the yin energy is at its strongest.

"Squeak—"

The protective barrier outside the courtyard gate trembled very slightly. No alarm was triggered; it was as if a breeze had passed by.

Gu An didn't even blink, but the leaf blade he held in his palm had already been slightly adjusted in angle.

coming.

Although the footsteps were very light, almost blending into the wind, the person seemed to be a habitual thief, or perhaps a seasoned murderer and robber.

However, Gu An immediately sensed the other party's aura. It possessed the affinity of spiritual plants, and he simply regarded it as the dissipation of spiritual energy. Every blade of grass and every tree became his eyes.

The footsteps stopped in front of the stone house.

Gu An could even smell the nauseating stench of corpse oil seeping in through the crack in the door.

Before long, a blade as thin as a cicada's wing silently slipped into the gap of the door bolt. With a gentle flick, the bolt slid off without a sound, and the wooden door was pushed open a crack.

Gu An remained motionless, as if he had truly fallen into a deep coma, but the muscles hidden under the blanket were taut as iron.

A foot wearing a tattered cloth shoe stepped across the threshold.

One step, two steps.

The man didn't rush to make a move. Instead, he stood at the door, his murky eyes fixed on the figure on the bed, as if trying to confirm whether his prey had truly lost the ability to resist.

Gu An's "snoring" remained heavy.

Finally, the person moved.

He raised the green-glowing boning knife in his hand, a cruel smile spreading across his face, and took his third step toward the bedside.

This step landed exactly half an inch in front of that transparent "thousand-thread buckle".

The next step is decapitation.

However, at that moment, the man's steps abruptly stopped, and the knife hanging in mid-air did not fall for a long time.

Gu An's brow twitched slightly. Had he been discovered? No, that wasn't right. The person didn't back away, but slowly turned his head to look at a dark corner of the room, where Gu An kept a cabinet for storing odds and ends.

"Junior Brother Gu..."

In the darkness, Xun Yin's voice echoed softly, tinged with a hint of mockery and derision, "Since you're awake, why pretend to be asleep?"