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

In the deathly darkness, only the sizzling sound of decay echoed in my ears, the sound of raw meat being tormented in boiling oil.

An indescribable, excruciating pain forcibly pulled Gu An back to his senses. Before he could even open his eyes, a sweet, metallic taste welled up in his throat—fragments of his internal organs that had been forced out.

Gu An struggled to open his eyelids.

Before your eyes is a dark red fleshy wall, covered with a thick, yellowish slime, slowly writhing and contracting like a millstone. Each writhing movement produces a teeth-grinding sound of bones cracking—that's the giant monster grinding the jumbled stones it just swallowed.

He was lying on a boulder that had not been fully digested, with a pool of gastric juices beneath him that smelled of sulfur.

"hiss……"

Gu An looked down.

His once-proud "copper skin" now resembled pigskin scalded by boiling water, curling and peeling off in large pieces, revealing the bright red muscle texture beneath. The penetrating wound in his left arm was even more gruesome, with the edges of the wound already blackened and rotten, exposing the stark white bone in the acidic mist, emitting fine white smoke.

[Warning: Physical defenses are about to be completely corroded]

Lifespan: 19/90 (Corrosion Acceleration: -2 years/month)

The numbers on the panel seemed to be counting down to his death, but that wasn't the worst part.

Not far away, the body of Wang Mazi, who had fallen with him, was now stuck between the folds of two fleshy walls.

The physical body of a fifth-level Qi Refining cultivator was as fragile as tofu in the face of the Tai Sui's gastric juices. Wang Mazi's robes had long since vanished, and his fat was rapidly melting into pools of bright yellow corpse oil, dripping into the acidic pool below.

As the corpse dissolved, the pure spiritual energy contained within the flesh and blood began to dissipate. This spiritual energy was like a beacon in the darkness for the starving Tai Sui.

"Buzz—"

The surrounding flesh walls suddenly began to tremble violently.

Countless dark red buds emerged from deep within the fleshy wall, like a swarm of ants that had smelled blood, frantically extending and wriggling towards this side as they fed.

Gu An's pupils contracted sharply. He was too close to Wang Mazi. If those fleshy buds pounced, they would definitely grind him, this "living person," and that "corpse" into a pulp, suck them dry, and chew them up.

In this situation, the only option is to run, but how can we run? We are surrounded by enclosed walls of flesh, with a deep abyss of strong acid beneath our feet, and the entrance above us has already been closed.

Moreover, his meridians are now completely severed, and he can barely lift a finger. The slightest movement would cause him to faint from the excruciating pain.

The fleshy bud drew closer, bringing with it a pungent, fishy stench. Several of the thickest tentacles were already waving in the air, less than three inches from his nose. Fine barbs could even be seen in the small openings at the tips of those tentacles.

"Don't move... to move means death."

Gu An bit her tongue hard, forcing herself to calm down.

Tai Sui is a low-intelligence demon that has no eyesight and relies entirely on sensing spiritual energy fluctuations and vital signs to hunt.

Wang Mazi died, and his spiritual energy dissipated, so he became "food".

As long as one is alive, with a heartbeat and body temperature, one is, in the eyes of Tai Sui, a fresh and "nutritious meat".

If you want to survive, there is only one way: to become a lifeless, soulless, smelly, and hard rotten rock.

Gu An closed his eyes, and the last trace of spiritual power remaining in his dantian was no longer used to protect his body. Instead, it was suddenly reversed and slammed into his heart meridian.

The Turtle Breathing Technique began to reverse! His heart clenched violently, as if gripped tightly by an iron hand, and then almost stopped abruptly.

Blood stopped flowing, and body temperature plummeted from scalding hot to freezing in just three breaths. All 84,000 pores on the body instantly shut down, forcibly suppressing that faint glimmer of life deep into the bone marrow.

His entire being vanished in an instant.

Just as his heart stopped beating.

"call--"

A fleshy tentacle, as thick as a wrist, swept across, carrying sticky acid, and lashed hard across Gu An's back.

Snapped!

The skin was torn open and the flesh was ripped open.

Gu An lay motionless on the rock, not even his eyelids twitching. Even as the acid seeped into his bones through his wounds, he remained like a true corpse, making no sound and revealing not a trace of pain.

The tentacle lingered on Gu An for a moment. Its proboscis at the tip rubbed against Gu An's rotting flesh, seemingly puzzled.

The thing in front of me just now had an enticing aroma, but how did it suddenly become as cold and hard as stone, and reek of a nauseating poison?

Tai Sui dislikes eating stones, and even more so, it dislikes eating poison.

Therefore, the whiskers hesitated when they made contact with Gu An.

Just then, a crisp sound came from Wang Mazi's corpse next to him—the sound of ribs breaking due to acid corrosion.

A dense burst of blood spiritual energy instantly erupted. The tentacles trembled violently, instantly abandoning Gu An, this "rotten rock," and turned to pounce on the steaming hot meal beside it.

"Pfft! Pfft!"

Countless fleshy buds followed closely behind, instantly enveloping Wang Mazi's remains in a red cocoon. The sounds of chewing and sucking exploded in the air, sending chills down one's spine.

Gu An remained lying face down, his heartbeat stopped, and his consciousness hovered on the edge of oxygen deprivation.

The panel faintly appeared in the darkness:

[Breathing beyond the boundary of life and death in a desperate situation, breaking through the Turtle Breathing Technique]

[Turtle Breathing Technique: Mastery (1/600)]

[Understanding the Trait: Deathly Stillness (Perfectly suppresses life force, enters a state of suspended animation, greatly reducing physical consumption)]

[Current environmental corrosion has slowed down, resulting in a reduced lifespan: -6 months/month]

That was close; I almost became this Tai Sui's meal.

Gu An silently exhaled a non-existent breath of stale air.

As Wang Mazi was devoured, the writhing flesh around him seemed to be satisfied, and the suffocating feeling of being squeezed was slightly relieved.

The fleshy buds were busy digesting the spiritual energy and couldn't pay attention to him, this "dead thing," for the time being.

Gu An cautiously opened his eyes. He saw the fleshy cocoon encasing Wang Mazi writhing rapidly, and the corpse was dissolving at an alarming rate.

Suddenly, Gu An's gaze froze.

On Wang Mazi's waist, which was about to turn into bones, a dusty leather bag was teetering on the verge of falling.

That's Wang Mazi's storage bag! This thing is made of special material, mostly animal hide, and it's engraved with some arrays, so it can withstand strong acid corrosion for a short time.

That contains all of Wang Mazi's wealth, and more importantly—it may also contain the healing pills and spirit stones that Gu An urgently needs!

Without these supplies, even if he could survive here for a while, he would eventually be worn down and die.

"Clatter".

The belt holding the storage bag was corroded and broke. The storage bag slipped off, sliding down the pool of slippery corpse oil into the abyss of strong acid below.

It was only three feet away from Gu An's hand.

But those three feet represent the difference between life and death. If one were to reach out with too much force, it would inevitably cause a disturbance in the airflow, startling the tentacles that were feeding.

But if I don't take it...

The storage bag wobbled at the edge of the rock, about to fall.

Gu An gritted her teeth and decided to go all out!

He did not release his breathing state, but instead controlled the muscles in his arms, moving them towards the bag little by little in an extremely slow and stiff manner, like a piece of dead wood being blown by the wind.

One inch, two inches. A tiny fleshy bud, seemingly sensing something amiss, slowly turned its head and peered over.

Gu An stopped abruptly, his fingers frozen in mid-air.

The fleshy bud hovered half an inch above his fingertip, its mouthparts opening and closing, exhaling a stream of hot air.

Gu An was as still as a dead stone.

The granulation tissue circled around, found nothing amiss, then shrank back and continued to join the feast of the gluttonous King Ma Zi.

Now! Gu An suddenly hooked his finger, his fingertip touching the cool leather of the storage bag.

He scooped up the storage bag and gripped it tightly in his hand. Then, using the force, he slid silently down the slope of the rock towards the shadowy corner on the other side.

That area is the folds of the Tai Sui's stomach, where many indigestible minerals and remains are piled up, making it a temporary safe zone.

Gu An shrank into the shadows, and only then did his heart dare to beat cautiously again.

A soft thud.

He quickly opened the storage bag and forcefully broke through the remaining array marks on it with his divine sense.

With a whoosh, several bottles of pills rolled into his palm.

Rejuvenation pills, fasting pills, and some... ammunition of unknown quality?

Gu An grabbed a handful of Rejuvenation Pills, didn't even look at them, stuffed them into his mouth, and swallowed them whole without chewing.

The medicinal properties dissipated, and the parched meridians finally received some nourishment.

Gu An leaned against the foul-smelling flesh wall, tightly gripping the flying sword "Cloud Piercer" that he had taken out of his storage bag.

Although trapped in a desperate situation, and although covered in wounds.

But he survived. And it seems that there's more than just danger inside the belly of this giant monster.

Gu An raised his head and looked at the writhing fleshy wall above him.

Now that we're in here, how can we leave without taking some interest?

This Tai Sui, which has consumed countless cultivators and spiritual herbs, has a stomach that is itself a giant alchemy furnace.

His current situation is no different from when Sun Wukong entered Princess Iron Fan's stomach.

Since we're already here, why not explore it a bit!