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

Deep within the Valley of Broken Souls, in a special protected area.

This place seems like a completely different world from the noisy and chaotic camp of independent cultivators outside.

There were no arguments, no hawking, and even the groans of the injured were rarely heard. The air was filled with a heavy, suffocating smell of disinfectant, mixed with an even colder stench of decay.

Rows of gray-white tents were arranged neatly like coffins in a morgue. Every ten feet, there was a protective stone pillar engraved with runes, emitting a faint spiritual light, isolating this area from the outside world.

"Area C...it's over there."

Gu An clutched the wooden plaque with the bloody handprint in his hand, his back hunched, his steps unsteady as he walked along the lime-paved path.

His current identity is "Lu Guan," a rogue cultivator, a greedy gambler who would risk his life for five spirit stones. Therefore, his face wore an expression of tension, timidity, and a hint of excitement, which he performed flawlessly.

Occasionally, a few drug users in white protective suits could be seen hurrying by. The way they looked at Gu An was as if they were looking at a dead man, cold and with a hint of pity.

"New here?"

A one-armed cultivator responsible for guarding Zone C stopped Gu An, his gaze sweeping over the bloodstained wooden sign. A mocking smile curled at the corner of his lips. "Go to tent number four. That place was just vacated. The previous caretaker... heh, was just carried to the incineration area."

Gu An hurriedly nodded and bowed, "Yes, yes, thank you for showing me the way, Immortal Master. May I ask, Immortal Master, who was the previous caregiver...?"

"He died of poisoning." The one-armed cultivator waved his hand impatiently. "His body has turned black, and even his storage bag is half-dissolved. Be careful when you go in, or you'll turn yourself into a poisonous corpse before you even get your spirit stones."

Gu An's face turned pale, and he seemed to tremble with fright, but he still gritted his teeth and moved toward the fourth tent with a look of "I'd rather die for money".

The closer you get to Camp 4, the colder the surrounding air becomes.

This is a chilling cold that penetrates to the bone marrow, not from the weather, but from the leakage of some kind of extremely yin spiritual energy.

The protective barrier surrounding the camp was thicker than in other areas, and even had several sealing talismans affixed to it.

Gu An stopped at the entrance of the tent, not in a hurry to go in.

He first took a deep breath, circulated the "Turtle Breathing Technique" to suppress his heartbeat to the lowest level, and then took out a face towel that had been soaked in the detoxifying herb juice from his pocket and covered his mouth and nose tightly.

"This taste..."

Even through the face mask, Gu An's nostrils twitched slightly.

It wasn't just the stench of a corpse, but an extremely sweet smell, like a ripe, rotten peach, or the smell of some kind of fermenting, highly poisonous nectar.

If an ordinary person were to take a whiff of it, they would probably hallucinate on the spot and cough up blood and die in a state of bliss.

"Splash—"

Suddenly, the tent flap was lifted, and two servants, wrapped up like dumplings, rushed out carrying a stretcher.

On the stretcher lay a severely deformed corpse. The body was an eerie purplish-black, and the skin was dripping slowly like melted wax, the white smoke emanating from it corroding the wooden poles of the stretcher with a hissing sound.

The two servants didn't dare to linger; they carried the corpse away as if avoiding a plague.

Gu An stepped aside, his gaze lingering on the corpse for a moment, a hint of solemnity flashing deep in his pupils.

"Such a potent toxicity."

"With this level of corrosive power, even a protective aura from a mid-stage Qi Refining cultivator wouldn't last more than half an hour. No wonder Steward Ma called this a death trap."

But he did not back down.

Gu An touched the broken Concealing Breath Pendant at his waist, confirming that his cultivation fluctuations were still at the useless level of the third level of Qi Refining, before injecting spiritual power into the wooden plaque in his hand.

"Buzz".

A crack appeared in the barrier of light outside the tent, just wide enough for one person to pass through.

Gu An lowered his head and crawled inside.

……

The space inside the tent was not large, only about two zhang square.

There were no tables or chairs, no furnishings, only a white jade bed that exuded a chilling aura placed in the very center.

This cold jade bed is clearly an entry-level magic artifact, crystal clear throughout, and is currently releasing cold air continuously, attempting to suppress a certain state of the person on the bed.

However, what truly alarmed Gu An was not the priceless jade bed, but the floor.

Inside the tent, clusters of colorful mushrooms were growing on the wooden floor.

Red like fire, blue like ice, and purple like an eeriness.

They crowded densely around the bed, emitting a mesmerizing and dangerous glow in the dim light. These were not ordinary mushrooms, but "multicolored phantom fungi" that only grow in highly poisonous places and feed on poisonous gases.

"This is no hospital ward, it's a den of drugs."

Gu An held his breath, carefully avoiding the seemingly fragile but actually explosive poisonous mushrooms, and approached the cold jade bed.

There was a person lying on the bed. To be precise, it was a girl wrapped in layers of specially made rune bandages, like a mummy.

She looked young, thin and frail, as if a gust of wind could blow her away. The few strands of hair peeking out from under the bandages were withered and yellow like grass, lifeless.

At this moment, her eyes were closed, and her chest was rising and falling weakly, as if she had fallen into a coma.

But from the gaps in the bandages, thick, green pus kept seeping out. This pus dripped onto the cold jade bed, making a hissing sound, canceling out the cold air, and turning into wisps of sweet, toxic mist that nourished the poisonous mushrooms all over the room.

Just as Gu An was three steps away from the bedside.

The [Spirit Plant Affinity] talent that had been dormant in his mind suddenly began to surge wildly without warning.

[Warning: Extremely high concentration of wood-attribute mutated toxin detected!]

[WARNING: Danger level... Extremely high!]

But amidst that piercing warning, Gu An distinctly felt an extremely strange... hunger.

That was an instinctive desire stemming from the newly cultivated "Life Forest Wood Technique" within him.

It's like someone who's been starving for three days suddenly smelling the aroma of braised pork.

"Um?"

Gu An paused slightly, his heart filled with surprise and uncertainty.

This technique... it actually intends to refine this poison?

Just then.

On the jade bed, the girl who had seemed to be unconscious suddenly opened her eyes.

Her eyes had no whites; the entire sockets were pitch black, like two bottomless black holes, exuding a despairing stillness and coldness. There was no pain, no fear, only an extreme indifference to life—including her own.

The girl tilted her head slightly, her lifeless eyes locking onto Gu An.

"Get out of here."

Her voice was hoarse and grating, like two rusty pieces of iron rubbing together, "Either... die."

As the word "death" was uttered.

"boom!"

The green pus that had been slowly seeping from the girl's body suddenly seemed to boil over. A dense, almost tangible, dark green poisonous mist erupted from her center!

This poisonous fog came too fast and too fiercely!

If it were an ordinary Qi Refining Level 3 cultivator, their only reaction at this moment would be to turn around and run away, or crush their life-saving talisman.

But Gu An is different. His current identity is "Guan Lu," a slow-witted and unsophisticated low-level rogue cultivator.

So he paused for a moment.

In that brief moment of distraction, the dark green poisonous fog, like a gaping maw, completely engulfed him.

"Sizzle sizzle—"

Gu An's blue cloth robe was instantly corroded with countless small holes, and his exposed skin immediately felt a burning pain.

"Cough cough cough! Ah—Help! It's poisonous!"

Gu An let out a piercing scream, flailed his arms wildly, and staggered backward as if his bones had been removed, crashing heavily into the pile of colorful poisonous mushrooms.

"Bang!"

Several phantom venomous fungi were crushed, and the spore dust exploded, mixing with the poisonous mist, completely engulfing Gu An.

The girl on the cold jade bed watched this scene indifferently, her eyes showing no emotion whatsoever.

Another one died. How many is this now? The fifth? Or the sixth?

She closed her eyes, ignoring the greedy rogue cultivator who was about to turn into a puddle of pus, and continued to wallow in endless pain.

However, the moment she closed her eyes, Gu An, who was lying deep in the poisonous fog, underwent a dramatic change in his expression.

The screams continued, utterly devastating.

But in his eyes, which were narrowed to slits, there was no trace of pain or fear. Instead, there was an undisguised shock and... ecstasy.

The moment the poisonous fog invaded his body.

Within his dantian, the once quietly flowing turquoise Yi Wood Spirit Liquid suddenly erupted, like an enraged monarch or a gluttonous beast encountering a powerful tonic!

There was absolutely no need for Gu An to take the initiative to guide them.

The "Life Forest Wood Technique" operates on its own, a kind of extremely domineering devouring.

The deadly poison that invaded the meridians was enveloped, crushed, and assimilated by the blue spiritual energy before it could destroy the flesh.

Wood can produce poison, and poison is also a variant of wood!

The technique passed down by the patriarch Qi Yunmeng is known as "Eternal Life". Its essence is to plunder all the life force of wood attribute for its own use, whether it is orthodox spiritual energy or this mutated poison!

"hiss……"

Gu An felt a chill creep into his pores, instantly traveling through his limbs and bones.

The deadly poison that was originally strong enough to corrode metal was transformed into an incredibly pure wood-type spiritual power after being processed by the "Life Forest Wood Technique"!

The purity of this spiritual energy is even three times higher than what he cultivated using the Spirit Gathering Array in Youying Valley!

This single puff of poisonous mist is equivalent to three days of his usual arduous training!

"This is... incredibly nourishing!"

Gu An's heart pounded wildly.

He originally thought this special protected area was a dangerous place that he had to venture into in order to get closer to the Nine Dragons Demon-Suppressing Cauldron.

But to everyone's surprise, there was actually a living cheat device for cultivation hidden here!

If he could stay here for a year... no, even just half a year, and use this poisonous fog to cultivate, wouldn't breaking through the bottleneck of the fifth or even sixth level of Qi Refining be as easy as drinking water?

This isn't some kind of poison source at all! It's clearly a walking, ancient herb!

Gu Anqiang suppressed his elation, knowing he absolutely could not reveal his secret now.

This girl's identity is definitely not simple. She can live on the Jade Bed and is protected by so many layers of security. If she knew that she was not only not afraid of poison, but could also absorb it, she would probably be captured and dissected for research by a Foundation Establishment elder in the next moment.

"We have to keep going."

Gu An lay on the ground, his body convulsing violently, making strange "gurgling" sounds from his throat. He frantically pulled a porcelain bottle from his pocket; it was a cheap, low-quality antidote pill he had bought earlier to cover his tracks.

He poured out a handful of dark pills, and without thinking twice, stuffed them all into his mouth, chewing them loudly.

At the same time, he secretly activated the "Turtle Breathing Technique," making his skin flushed and swollen, pretending that he was deeply poisoned, and even forced out a mouthful of black blood to spray on the ground.

"Cough cough... Ugh..."

Gu An struggled to turn over, panting heavily, looking weak as if he had just survived a disaster.

Hearing the noise, the girl on the jade bed opened her eyes again.

She looked at the middle-aged rogue cultivator lying on the ground, disheveled and with black blood at the corner of his mouth, yet still stubbornly writhing. A hint of surprise finally flashed in his lifeless eyes.

This person is still alive?

The concentration of this poisonous fog would cause even a Qi Refining Level 6 cultivator to suffer severe burns if exposed to it. Yet this useless cultivator, whose Qi Refining Level 3 cultivation is only at the third level, managed to withstand it with just a few low-quality antidote pills.

"you……"

The girl was about to speak.

But then the rogue cultivator staggered to his feet.

He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth while cursing, his voice trembling but revealing a ruthless determination to value money over life:

"Damn it... this money is really hard to earn... cough cough... I almost lost my life here..."

As Gu An spoke, he pulled out a pair of rusty iron tweezers and a cloth bag from his waist.

He didn't approach the Jade Bed again, but instead turned his back to the girl, squatted on the ground, and began to carefully pick up the colorful poisonous fungi on the ground.

"My lord, please calm down... I'm just a servant... cough cough..."

Gu An's voice trembled, but his hands were steady as he carefully placed the poisonous mushrooms one by one into the cloth bag. "Manager Ma said... if mushrooms grow in this room... they have to be cleaned up... otherwise, spirit stones will be deducted..."

"The young master isn't married yet... we can't deduct his pay..."

He kept muttering to himself, as if the life-or-death separation he had just experienced was not as important as those few spirit stones.

Shen Wan, lying on the cold jade bed, gradually lost the surprise in her eyes and returned to her cold and lifeless appearance.

Turns out he was a fool who would gamble his life for a few spirit stones.

There are far too many of these ants in the cultivation world, so many that she can't even muster the will to kill them.

Since he's not dead, let him be. Anyway, he's going to die sooner or later.

Shen Wan closed her eyes again, no longer paying attention to the figure that was busy on the ground like an insect.

Meanwhile, Gu An, who had his back to her, was squatting on the ground, "laboriously" pulling out mushrooms while secretly placing his fingertips on a large phantom venom fungus under the cover of his body.

The "Life-Generating Wood Technique" within his body was still quietly operating.

The poisonous mushroom withered instantly, and a subtle but pure poisonous spiritual energy flowed from his fingertips into his meridians, instantly transforming into a cool, refreshing wisp of Yi Wood True Qi, which flowed into his dantian.

Gu An's lips curled up in a strange arc from an angle no one could see.