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

King Zhou of Han took a deep breath.

He silently withdrew the origami crane that had led him here, and looked Tang Li up and down with a complicated expression.

"...Say something!"

Tang Li broke down in his hesitant silence, letting out a loud, furious roar.

Han Zhou rubbed his temples wearily. Tang Li was urging him on. One minute he saw the old woman in blue, the next he was saying he was lost and about to be trapped underground. That little origami crane was almost covered with words saying it was missing arms and legs. And then, when he went out, that old man and his men blocked his way.

Therefore, Han Zhou hurried along the way, carrying a thousand paper cranes, chasing after Tang Li's location, afraid that if he was late, this little girl would be cut into small pieces and sold at a high price.

He hadn't even had time to explore the upper floors of the Snow-Covered Tower before breaking through the floor and descending directly to the underground. Even though the origami cranes clearly indicated his coordinates overlapped with hers, a wall blocked his path. Han Zhou pulled out the hammer he'd grabbed from the weapon rack while smashing the ground earlier, about to continue using brute force to break the spell, when a loud boom came from the other side of the wall.

Then he watched helplessly as a fist the size of a sandbag burst through the wall.

Then, he met a familiar face.

"What are you doing...you, sigh, take two steps back."

Tang Li took two steps back and saw Hammerhead take over from her fist to finish demolishing the wall. Amidst the flying dust, Han Zhou walked out of the enlarged hole, covering his mouth and nose.

He then reached out and pinched the firm muscles on Tang Li's arm.

"Wow!" the boy exclaimed in admiration.

"Is there a solution?" Tang Li asked with a blank face. "If not, don't resort to sarcasm."

"What exactly did you eat?" Han Zhou asked in surprise. "Or have you really started practicing evil arts and drained the life force of ten or so people to death?"

Tang Li sighed deeply, becoming increasingly reluctant to bother fooling him, and even her words became half-truths: "There are all sorts of things underground. I found dozens of wine jars in there, and I accidentally broke one, and then it became like this."

Han Zhou raised an eyebrow, rummaged through the pouch hanging at his waist, and finally pulled out a small purple porcelain bottle, handing it to Tang Li: "There's still a way... use this."

Tang Li felt that Han Zhou had indeed picked up some of the habits of a player, making him a veritable walking pill storehouse. She carefully spread out her hands to let Han Zhou place the small bottle into her hands, afraid that she might crush the bottle and the pills together if she used too much force.

"What is this?" she asked, looking at the prop panel with anticipation.

"It's said to be used to increase age," Han Zhou explained. "Your current problem is that your strength is not commensurate with your four- or five-year-old body."

"If you want to return to normal as soon as possible, besides trying to eliminate the power again, the only other option is to age yourself and let your body grow a few years older. In this way, you can still retain your current power, but your body will become more coordinated."

"However... there's only one of these pills, and I've never tested it before. As for how big you'll grow, I don't know."

"Think carefully before you use it," he said with a hint of schadenfreude. "If you swallow a pill and instantly grow to twenty years old, it might mean you lose fifteen years of your lifespan."

Twenty years old? What a stroke of luck!

Tang Li was overjoyed, holding the pills reverently, her eyes welling up with tears.

After all these twists and turns, will she finally be able to grow up?

"Don't eat now!" Han Zhou, seeing Tang Li's eager expression, unusually stopped her hastily. "Where are we going to find you suitable clothes?"

Tang Li then came to her senses, and at the same time, a thought flashed through her mind: "Wait a minute, this muscular physique... it seems it can actually come in handy."

"—When you came here looking for me, did you see Lian Sheng, Lian Shi, and Xia Feilin?"

Half an hour later.

Tang Li appeared next to the three people who were originally "having a pleasant conversation".

Xia Fei's hand trembled, and he smashed the teacup that cost a thousand gold pieces.

His originally narrow eyes widened in shock as he stared at the person before him who had changed so drastically in just half an hour. The words that were about to spill from his mouth caught in his throat, and he hesitated, unable to find the right words: "You...you ate several people?"

"Even if a guard drained all his energy, he couldn't have turned you into this, could he?"

It was also thanks to the fact that his mind was completely absorbed by Tang Li that he missed the equally horrified gazes of Lian Sheng and Lian Shi beside him.

Tang Li met Lian Sheng's gaze without making a sound, and Lian Sheng gave Lian Shi a nudging elbow.

Xia Feilin was still in shock. He took a deep breath and looked at Tang Li as if she were a rare treasure. "Could it really be a gift from heaven? Our technique is a bit unorthodox, but it shouldn't be this effective..."

Tang Li knew that taking the pill would get her out of her predicament, and she had regained her composure and even accepted her current appearance.

But she still put on a worried look: "I...I...just now in the corridor, I saw so many older brothers and sisters lying on the ground, and I thought we couldn't waste them..."

Xia Feilin: ...So you 'ate' it all?

While he thought the girl was completely insane, he couldn't help but think that her madness made her the perfect candidate to cultivate evil arts.

They are also one in a million, exceptional servants of the gods.

"You've managed to survive all that stuffing, that's quite a feat..." Xia Feilin stood up, circled Tang Li, and finally remembered to introduce her to the other two, "This is one of my reckless juniors, named Tang Li."

"What a robust and strong young lady," Lian Sheng smiled, giving Tang Li a subtle glare that sent a chill down the latter's spine. "Is she also a follower of that... Phoenix Goddess?"

"All those who cultivate the 'Xingtian Technique' will ultimately become Phoenix Immortals," Xia Feilin said matter-of-factly. "She is no exception."

Meanwhile, Tang Li, playing the role of a naive and clueless girl, bluntly asked, "What is Fengxian Shen?"

Lian Sheng finally managed to calm down: Tang Li's appearance made her genuinely worried that she had practiced some kind of evil magic.

"The Phoenix Goddess is the deity who bestowed the 'Xingtian Technique'," Xia Feilin said without anger, a burning light flashing deep in his pupils as he stared intently at Tang Li. "He possesses boundless power, don't you know that best? If it weren't for the power of a god, how could you have transformed from a girl with poor aptitude into what you are today?"

"Besides," he laughed almost fanatically, "He can bring people back to life."

"Didn't you see it with your own eyes? Ji Chunmu, who is already dead, didn't she greet you the next morning?"

Tang Li stepped forward, her eyes filled with a mixture of fear and longing: "Yes, I... I thought I had seen things wrong the night before. She really did come back to life?!"

"If... if we could be resurrected, wouldn't that be equivalent to... not dying? Immortality?"

Tang Li almost stammered, her eyes burning with even more fervor than Xia Feilin's. She took another step forward and involuntarily grabbed the hem of Xia Feilin's clothes.

"What about me? Can I... do that too?"