Daoist Master, I'm really not an evil cultivator.

Chapter 82 Daoist Master, I love intense battles in the poison circle the most!

Mei Qianqian gently raised her hand, stopping Ah Li from speaking.

She didn't seem too annoyed; instead, she seemed thoughtful: "What Senior Ape Knight said isn't entirely wrong. However, if they hadn't forced their way in with such drastic measures, it would probably have taken us several more days to break the restrictions on Ziyang Temple. It's a matter of good and bad fortune."

She paused, her gaze fixed on the dark, seemingly endless corridor deep within the ruins, and her tone became serious.

"Alright, stop joking around. Let's go find those cultivators. Otherwise, if these guys wander around like this, things could get really bad. After all, this place is quite treacherous."

As she spoke, Mei Qianqian suddenly pulled a palm-sized paper kite from her bosom, and then her magic surged forth.

The kite swelled in the wind, transforming in the blink of an eye into a flying kite with a wingspan of nearly ten feet and a faint blue light emanating from its body, hovering quietly in front of him.

The kite-shaped body is made of folded black talisman paper, with blank spaces around its eyes and no pupils.

"With this [Blind Kite], these demonic charlatans should be unable to detect us for the time being."

As soon as he finished speaking, several black-clad Taoist priests suddenly appeared in front of him. They were all wearing tattered Taoist robes, the color of which was as dark as dried blood. Their figures were strange, and they uttered indistinct mutterings, which sounded like chanting scriptures or wailing.

Mei Qianqian wasn't surprised, but she said with regret, "I originally planned to have Fellow Daoist Xuming gather more information from within their ranks, but I didn't expect these people to act so quickly. It's only been a day, and they've already taken action. To be honest, this seems a bit hasty, both for Mei Liangxing and for me..."

She paused slightly, her gaze sweeping across the darkness ahead, and added softly, "Hopefully I'll run into him soon. After all, in this place, that guy has a protective charm..."

......

"Achoo achoo..." Xu Changqing sneezed several times, rubbed his nose, and muttered under his breath, "Which bastard is thinking about me, Daoist Master?"

He looked around and saw an endless banana grove. The leaves were thick and broad, layered upon layered, gleaming with a dark, eerie green luster under the hazy, swirling light overhead.

The forest was filled with a damp mist, carrying a strange, sweet yet rotten smell that, when inhaled, made one feel uneasy.

"According to this jade slip and the description of the Mantian Camp, to enter the Ziyang Temple, one must first pass through this eerie forest..."

Xu Changqing took out the jade slip Mei Qianqian had given him earlier from his pocket, his brows furrowing slightly. "But the Ziyang Ghost Path roams in this eerie forest. These are the corrupted and evil creatures of the Ziyang Temple's Taoist priests from back then. If one wants to enter the temple, one must first pass their test?"

His gaze shifted to a spot not far ahead, where a slightly wriggling mass of dark reddish-purple flesh lay sprawled on the damp mud.

A few tattered crane feathers were still stuck to the edge of the meat, and the original outline could still be vaguely discerned.

"Is this a test?" Xu Changqing pursed his lips and muttered under his breath, "Isn't this a death chase game?"

The creature in its previous life was a half-baked crane demon who, in its early years, obtained some fragments of Daoist cultivation manuals and stumbled into the Daoist path. By consuming blood and refining turbid Qi, it barely managed to cultivate to the Qi Refining level.

Having heard Mantianying's proclamation that the Ziyang Temple might contain a complete Daoist scripture, he was consumed by greed and rushed into the forest, eager to be the first to seize the opportunity. Little did he expect that he would perish here so soon after entering, without even a complete corpse.

"I wonder if this guy shouted 'I want to verify the token' before he died?" Xu Changqing thought with a wicked sense of humor. Then, a look of heartbreak appeared on his face. He rubbed his hands together, and a few drops of saliva involuntarily dripped from the corner of his mouth. "Oh dear, fellow Daoist, you died so tragically... But don't worry, I'll keep all your belongings for you. I won't waste them."

He muttered to himself as he cautiously approached the mass of meat, his gaze falling on the leather bag beside it.

Just as Xu Changqing reached out to grab the leather bag, the lump of flesh, which had been slowly wriggling, suddenly contracted and expanded violently, making a gurgling, sticky sound.

Immediately afterwards, several cracks appeared on the surface of the flesh, from which more than a dozen scarlet, slippery tentacles with pale white finger bones at their tips suddenly emerged, like venomous snakes emerging from their holes, and swiftly coiled around Xu Changqing's wrist.

The tentacles emitted a chilling, bone-chilling aura and a powerful suction force, as if trying to drag him into the flesh and merge him into one.

"Heh, still not at peace even in death?" Xu Changqing laughed instead of being surprised. With a flick of his wrist, the killing energy in his palm burst forth instantly, transforming into several thin but incomparably sharp energy blades that slashed upwards along the tentacles.

"Hiss hiss hiss..."

With a sickeningly sharp cutting sound, the scarlet tentacles snapped off, spurting out thick, black blood that sizzled and corroded on the muddy ground.

The chunk of flesh emitted a sharp, mournful wail, as if countless people were overlapping, and suddenly recoiled. The granulation tissue at the wound writhed wildly, attempting to regenerate.

Xu Changqing raised his hand and pressed down lightly. A semi-transparent, golden toad shadow appeared in his palm and opened its mouth to inhale.

"swallow!"

An invisible suction force enveloped the chunk of flesh, which struggled violently, but was trapped in a quagmire, turning into wisps of pure yet impure spiritual energy, which were swallowed whole by the toad shadow.

"Phew, my good senior brother's supernatural powers are indeed impressive, but it's a pity he can't use them too much, otherwise he'll inevitably fall into greed and be unable to extricate himself."

Xu Changqing smacked his lips with satisfaction, as if he had tasted something delicious, before bending down to pick up the blood-stained leather bag from the ground.

"A penniless wretch." Xu Changqing scoffed when he saw that the leather bag was full of low-value spirit jade blood pills, but still hung the bag on his waist.

He straightened up and looked into the depths of the banana grove.

The fog thickened, and in the shadows, there seemed to be twisted figures moving slowly. Whispers, weeping, and strange laughter could be faintly heard, layer upon layer, making it impossible to discern their direction.

"It seems the test is to get through this forest while being warmly welcomed by these cunning Taoists." Xu Changqing clapped his hands, showing no fear on his face, but rather a smile of interest. "Well, I, this Taoist master, love intense battles in the poison circle the most."

Before he finished speaking, the trunks of several giant banana trees split open, revealing dark red, writhing flesh inside. The broad leaves suddenly opened, their veins resembling congested blood vessels, and their edges sprouting gleaming white serrations, like a vast, overwhelming maw of flesh biting down fiercely at Xu Changqing.

"snort!"

Xu Changqing gave a light hum, and a sword light flashed, multiplying in the air into ten, then into a hundred, instantly transforming into countless fine and resilient sword threads, weaving into a dazzling net of light that swept outwards.

"Whoosh,"

As the sword flashed, a faint tearing sound was heard in the air.

The menacing leaves that lunged at them were instantly shredded into a shower of dark green flesh, along with several banana trees not far away, which were also reduced to dust in the sword net, leaving only a few charred stumps oozing foul-smelling sap.

"Swish, swish, swish"

Centered on Xu Changqing, the seemingly endless and sprawling forest of strange trees suddenly seemed to have a unified consciousness, emitting rapid rustling sounds as the branches and leaves rubbed together and quickly receded into the distance.

As if the tide had receded, in the blink of an eye, a sudden, empty area appeared within a radius of several dozen feet around him.