After being poisoned by mushrooms, all the strange creatures became fascinated by me.

Tang Li was taken aback, her eyes widening, and she unconsciously repeated, "Lord?!"

A bizarre lord? A series of images flashed through Tang Li's mind: a huge, endless, winding body, blue smoke, and concentric circles.

"You are the only acknowledged follower of the eerie lord Li Dai," Nan Tan said in a low voice, "but the world where this instance is located is not within Lord Li Dai's territory."

Isn't that so? The thought that she could no longer look at that magnificent and inhuman thing made Tang Li feel a little frustrated.

Having no prior knowledge in this area, she simply asked, puzzled, "After obtaining a lord's mark, does that mean I can only run dungeons within that lord's territory?"

That's too restrictive; it sounds like it would be inconvenient for believers to switch allegiances.

"That's not the case." Nan Tan shook his head. "But almost no one knows that this instance is actually the private property of Lord Vanji."

"Fan Ji has a unilateral grudge against Li Dai." This time, even Fang Yingjie frowned. "Tang Li, you are indeed in danger."

Tang Li was utterly baffled: "What level is he, a lord? I'm just a one-star streamer. For him to target me like this is a bit beneath him, isn't it?"

"First, although you are only a one-star streamer in terms of strength, in terms of rank, you are indeed the one closest to Lord Li Dai." Fang Yingjie chose his words carefully and said slowly.

"Secondly," Nan Tan continued, "it won't be Fan Ji himself targeting you, but rather his subordinates... Fan Ji himself is a capricious and ruthless lord, and his henchmen are even worse, a group whose reputation is even worse than that of the 'mad dogs' who follow Li Dai."

"The origin of your sect's name... Jie Bailing, he was one of the administrators."

He stared intently at Tang Li. "You should have already realized the unusual nature of this instance."

"Yes," Tang Li thought to herself.

The dungeon deliberately pits players against native inhabitants, killing each other, whether they are martial arts masters who live on the edge or ordinary old people, women and children living at the bottom of society.

Whether innocent or not.

He could pick up a knife at any moment, and he could be stabbed to death at any moment.

Extreme bloodshed and chaos, a seemingly glamorous but actually foul-smelling quagmire. Lian Sheng's description was incredibly accurate: everyone was like a mudfish entangled, twisting and turning in the quagmire.

The sound of Nantan still echoed in my ears.

"Be careful, here, even if you have no ill intentions, you may already be covered in blood."

"They force the good to sell their flesh to survive, squeeze innocence until it bleeds, teach children to tear open their mothers' entrails, and coax the precarious to slit the throat of the only person who truly loves them."

"—This is the offering their god most likes."

the other side.

"Why are you drinking alone here so early in the morning?"

A sweet, delicate voice asked.

The flower girl covered her mouth and laughed, her head still, but her increasingly bewitching eyes looked to the right.

The porter's enormous body sat there, looking like a dejected black bear, his large, hairy hands, like bear paws, holding a jar of wine, with several empty wine jars scattered around him.

This is the busiest time for "Jie Bailing". Assassin sects are keen on getting up early to practice martial arts, so they are full of energy in the morning. After lunch, if there is nothing to do, most of the assassins who are not on duty will start to go back to their rooms in groups to catch up on sleep and recharge their energy so that they can hone their killing skills in the evening or leave the sect to hunt their targets.

It's quite rare to see someone like a porter sitting at his doorstep drinking alone in the middle of the morning. If he hadn't already completed his apprenticeship, he would have been dragged away by his instructor and thrown into the disciplinarian's room to be whipped.

The porter sneered, still lucid despite having drunk so much: "Aren't you frustrated?"

The flower girl laughed and said, "What's there to be upset about?"

The porter scoffed, "I painstakingly selected these kids from outside, and not a single one of them is any good. All the credit has gone to those sycophantic managers!"

"There's finally a little girl out there, even though she's not very talented, at least Coach Han took a liking to her. Ji Chunmu, wasn't that why you also took a liking to her? Who knew she'd turn out so disappointing!"

The porter, enraged, kicked the wine jars beside him away. He then loudly shouted at the handyman passing by against the wall, telling him to get him more wine.

A hint of disdain flashed in the flower girl's eyes. She tilted her head at the porter, her tone a mix of teasing and mockery: "You talk as if you've done a great service, but last time I saw you, you only brought back one girl. How can that compare to those who buy a whole cartload of children at once?"

The porter roared, "You dare underestimate me? How could I possibly only bring one back after going out once! It's just that I was unlucky..."

As he was talking, the porter suddenly stopped, as if his alcohol-filled brain had finally remembered something.

"Damn it! I'd completely forgotten about it. No wonder it always smelled like that!"

The bear-like, robust body suddenly stood up, and the porter strode towards the wall at the other end of the yard.

There, a familiar carrying pole lay discarded, along with two large bamboo baskets, one in front and one behind.

—This is the refresh point when Tang Li first entered the game.

The flower girl leaned over, still coyly covering her lips with her hand, her slender eyes full of curiosity.

The porter cursed under his breath as he reached out and lifted the two bamboo baskets. The baskets didn't sway even when they were halfway up, as if they contained some heavy objects inside.

With a flick of his wrists, the porter flipped the two bamboo baskets upside down.

Heavy objects fell to the ground, and not just one.

The stench spread unchecked, and the flower girl covered her nose as well, letting out a disgusted "Ugh."

There are three in total. Two come out of the front bamboo basket, and one comes out of the back bamboo basket.

The stiff corpses of three girls, their eyes wide open in death.

They had hair as long as Tang Li's, wore the same braids as her, and dressed in the same clothes. However, by this time, it was impossible to tell what their facial features actually looked like.

It rolled out of the overturned bamboo basket and onto the ground.

The flower seller stood up, her tone full of complaint: "Why didn't you call the servants to clean it up sooner? They were all collected from Tangjiazhuang!"

The porter curled his lip, glancing disgustedly at the corpse on the ground: "Yeah, these little girls, their parents didn't want them, they were stuffed into my basket like they were being sold or given away. Now that I've taken them, I feel a sense of relief."

"They barely eat anything on a regular basis, and their bodies are so weak. They were only put in a basket and traveled for a few days, but they couldn't survive and died. Some suffocated, some were scared, and some died of suffocation. I thought I had made a wasted trip, but I never expected that one of them would actually survive."

The flower seller chuckled softly: "Looks like that girl really is lucky. She's quite a ruthless girl, too. Look at her, just so she could stick her head out and catch her breath, she trampled another child all the way."

With a slight shift in her eyes, the image of that girl's rather innocent face resurfaced in her mind. The flower seller couldn't help but laugh, "Once she entered the sect, she was all smiles, acting like nothing had happened."

The porter grew even more resentful, kicking his bamboo basket: "He has no talent, so he's just a menial laborer. What good is that?"

"Not talented enough?" the flower girl said slowly, her narrow eyes behind the porter filled with an inscrutable expression. "I think so..."

"She seems to be someone with great potential."