"Hee hee hee, tell me, do I look more like a human or a god?"
Something in the forest made the branches shake incessantly, and the voice grew shriller.
"You look like a human! You look like a human! Merciful monster grandpa, all of us are wretched folks, just trying to scrape by with a meal!"
The terrified Top Scholar Lv disregarded everything else and hurriedly prostrated on the ground, continuously kowtowing in the direction of the forest.
But as he kowtowed, he suddenly stopped because he saw at the edge of the forest a pair of small feet clad in embroidered shoes standing upright like two spikes.
The chilling sensation at the back of his neck made him confusedly and slowly lift his head, only to see a lone woman dressed in a brand-new flowered cotton-padded jacket standing there.
Her face was very pale, but her mouth was extremely small, with eyes that seemed like black beads entrenched in her face, never blinking.
The whole white face concealed in the darkness, appeared like a small gasbag floating in mid-air.
"Hee hee, do you think I look like a human?" The woman with tiny feet giggled behind her hand, her slender little feet moving towards the campfire,
When he saw how the woman walked, her body twisting and turning as if boneless, Top Scholar Lv's last sliver of hope was completely extinguished; he had encountered the real deal!
"Little child!! Little child! Stop sleeping! Hurry, pee the child's urine!!" Top Scholar Lv's fear-filled wailing awoke the others.
A burning piece of firewood was falteringly picked up by the panicked Lv Elevated Man and thrown forcefully.
However, the attack had no effect; the firewood passed directly through the woman's body.
As the tiny-footed woman was about to approach the fire, her body suddenly stiffened; her large head turned abruptly towards the forest to the east.
The branches rustled as Li Huowang and others, holding a few glowing Luminous Stones in their hands, emerged from the woods.
"Hmm?" Having removed her sash, Bai Lingmiao noticed something off. "Senior Brother Li, look, this woman is really strange! She doesn't have the back of her head, there's a face on both sides!"
With a "clang!" the Longsword was drawn, and Li Huowang eyed the eerily odd woman with tiny feet warily. "What are you?"
"Hee hee, I am human, don't I look like one?" After her extremely delicate voice resounded, the tiny-footed woman, like a centipede, twisted her slender body and began to change her target of approach.
Li Huowang, naturally unwilling to sit still and await his doom, immediately reached with his left hand, pulling out a deflated Taoist Bell.
"Linglinglingling~" The grating sound of the bell rang out, causing everyone present, including Li Huowang himself, to grimace in pain and cover their heads.
Li Huowang did not stop, continuing to shake vigorously because he saw in his field of view that everything was violently twisting and shaking, including the tiny-footed woman.
As she shook, her brand-new flowered jacket began to split open, and dark mists steadily seeped out from within.
The bronze bell was effectual against this woman!
All at once the tiny-footed woman shrieked, her gradually collapsing body wildly flailing as it retreated into the forest, and after a while, she vanished from Li Huowang's view.
The bell sound gradually ceased, and Li Huowang, looking down, unexpectedly eyed the Taoist Bell in his hand. "Although it failed to summon the Wandering Lord, I really didn't expect it to be of use this way."
I don't know if it was because he was flattened, or if there was another reason. Although Li Huowang got Master Danyang's Taoist Bell, every time he shook the bell, the lines around him would chaotically sway instead of gathering to form Mr. You like before.
With more exposure to this world, he became even more perplexed. What the heck is all this mess?
"Great master, great master! Thank you for your help! I really didn't recognize an expert when I saw one. Come, come, come over and warm yourself by the fire."
Top Scholar Lv, with tears of gratitude, bowed and greeted Li Huowang, pulling him enthusiastically toward the bonfire.
Compared to that thing from just a moment ago, the creatures following this Taoist master seemed much friendlier. After all, with the Taoist master in control, these things were at most frightening, but that thing from before was truly life-threatening.
"Ah! That damned beast! If it hadn't suddenly run off like it caught the plague, how could I have neglected such an esteemed guest?" Top Scholar Lv began to make a show of tapping on his saddle with his smoking pipe.
After tapping a few times, he turned around and shouted, "Hey, Juannhua, quick, quick, quick—get the bread and fetch water! Get the largest white bread! And bring three... no! Five salted duck eggs!!"
Top Scholar Lv's sudden enthusiasm made Li Huowang feel somewhat uncomfortable. "Elder, there's no need to trouble yourself, may I trouble you with a few questions instead?"
"Ask away! Anything at all! The little Taoist master just saved the lives of our entire family! Haha, ask whatever you like!" Top Scholar Lv promised, thumping his chest.
Feeling that he wasn't enthusiastic enough, he stuffed the pipe's mouthpiece into the crook of his arm and forcefully drew on it a few times before relighting it and presenting it to Li Huowang with both hands in a pleasing manner.
"Uh... thanks, elder, but I don't smoke. Do you know what that thing we encountered just now was? What's it called?" Li Huowang pushed the well-polished dry smoking pipe aside with his hand.
As for this world, he was currently utterly ignorant. To survive safely, he had to learn as much as possible.
Top Scholar Lv was clearly baffled by the question, "What? This... How would I know that, Taoist master, wasn't it driven away by you? You don't know?"
Seeing the confusion in his eyes, Li Huowang realized he had asked the wrong person. In this regard, the old man might not know more than he did.
"I heard you mention using apprentice's urine. Can it harm that thing from before?"
"Yes, yes, yes! Definitely! Those things are afraid of filthy things! I heard even rubbing snot on them works, but the most effective is still apprentice's urine, full of yang energy and filth."
"Really? Elder, have you used it before?"
Top Scholar Lv, who had been so certain just a moment ago, laughed awkwardly and looked away when Li Huowang asked him this, "Perhaps it works, the elders in the village all say so. If everyone says so, it must be right."
Li Huowang sighed in resignation. Why is it always about ancestral knowledge? Are people here so behind in passing down their experiences?
"Alright then, elder, I'll ask you about something you do know. How often do you encounter things like that?"
"Not often, how could you encounter such wicked things every day? If such things happened every night, I would have sold my belongings long ago and taken my son back to farming." Top Scholar Lv put the dry smoking pipe in his mouth and began to puff on it.
"I've been out here for many years, and I've only encountered it four times."
"So that's how it is..." Li Huowang, gazing into the dark forest around him, gained a new understanding of this world.
Having been with Master Danyang for a while, he had thought that creatures like Black Taisui were everywhere outside. Now it seems it's not like that at all.
These beings, while known to common folks, are actually quite rare.