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Return the same way we came?
Wait, whose way are you referring to?
At this moment, the creature was sweating profusely, its head splitting with pain, its mind a complete blank. Its upper teeth clattered against the lower ones, trembling with the precision of a metronome, its voice quivering oddly.
It looked at the youth in front of it, elegant yet uttering threats too vicious even for the most bloodthirsty of monsters, unable to believe what was happening to it.
Feeling the thickness of the vine that bound it, the creature swallowed hard, and after a long time, it opened its mouth, tremblingly saying, "I... can't say."
After uttering this sentence, it curled up in agony, the pain and tightness in its chest relentlessly eroding its nerves. Just then, it heard a voice clear as a spring, and the pain in its chest eased slightly.
"Looks like you won't shed tears until you see the coffin."
Tang Wan, at his side, rolled up her sleeves to reveal her fair, onion-like arm. She made a fierce face, which, due to her petite and exquisite features, made her look like an angry kitten, somewhat furious but more so cute. Zhou Li, seeing this, simply rubbed his forehead and sighed, uncertain what to say.
"I..."
The creature looked at the radiant and delicately-figured Tang Wan, obviously a proper person, and found its speech function in disarray, wanting to speak but failing to do so. At this point, Tang Wan spoke.
"Then let me show you how the Tang Family's Silver Needles can reverse the sensory perceptions of your upper and lower mouths!"
Fuck!
How is this a proper person? She's even more hardcore!
"That's not appropriate, you're going too far."
Zhou Li, unable to watch any longer, waved his hands, stopping Tang Wan. Under Tang Wan's shocked gaze, Zhou Li turned to the creature, cleared his throat, and said, "You said you 'cannot say,' right?"
Already prepared for an indescribable death, the creature became excited at Zhou Li's words, its head nodding so vigorously it almost left afterimages.
"Upper half or lower half?"
Upon hearing Zhou Li's question, Tang Wan's eyes suddenly widened, and she couldn't help but form an 'O' with her mouth. Just as she was about to blurt out something absurd, Zhou Li was already one step ahead, covering her mouth with his hand, then looked at the creature and asked:
"Where was the mystical restraint placed on you?"
The creature didn't speak but indicated its chest with the movement of its mouth and the twisting of its body. Zhou Li didn't hesitate, pulling out a short dagger and making a shallow cut on the creature's chest, then placed his hand over the wound.
"Snake Gu?"
After sensing the mystical restraint within the creature, Zhou Li paused, then withdrew his hand, while Tang Wan immediately took out a water flask and rinsed the blood off Zhou Li's hand. After a brief pondering, Zhou Li looked at the creature, which was full of hope, and said:
"The monster that placed the mystical restraint on you, is it a Serpent Demon?"
It nodded vigorously, showing a longing for the light, causing Zhou Li to fall silent. After a while, he turned away, saying innocently:
"You know, spiders can't defeat snakes. You're beyond saving, just wait for death."
What does that have to do with anything?????
The creature was dumbfounded, completely lost as to what Zhou Li was talking about. However, Tang Wan, who had witnessed Zhou Li's Spirit Techniques, came to a realization. Zhou Li cultivated the Ten Thousand Spiders Poison Scripture, and spiders are restrained by snakes.
Therefore, Zhou Li's Spirit Technique would have no effect on the mystical restraint inside the creature. It was after realizing this that he made such a statement.
"Snakes, huh..."
Just as Zhou Li was about to grant the creature controlled by the monster a swift end, Tang Wan, standing beside him, suddenly spoke. She looked thoughtfully at the pouch on Zhou Li's waist, and after a brief contemplation, said:
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"Zhou Li, I do have a method."
"Hmm?"
"Just like this, this, then this, and finally... like this."
"Will that work?"
After fiddling around for a while, Zhou Li looked at the finished product in front of him and asked anxiously, "Won't this kill him before the prohibition takes effect?"
"I don't think so..."
Crouching on the ground, Tang Wan scratched his head, clicked his tongue and repeated, "It should not, I believe."
Both people and the tree sprite looked at the object of their labor—a pill, rough and large, at least the size of a baby's fist. The pill was coated with a shiny layer of green powder that had seeped into the surface. They exchanged a glance, a silent understanding passing between them.
"Woo! Woo!!"
At that moment, the sprite, rendered speechless by the prohibition, twisted its body frantically, looking at Zhou Li—who was walking toward it with a grave expression, holding the pill—with sheer terror, almost evolving a language function for the second time. Standing in front of the sprite, Zhou Li took a deep breath, then said:
"Once you eat this pill, the moment you sense it touching the prohibition, you must struggle violently. I'll detonate the toxins inside the pill, activating the realgar and lime to extinguish the Snake Gu in your body. Of course, I must warn you, if the pill explodes too early or too late, you'll die instantly. Understand?"
Upon hearing this, the sprite let out a sigh of relief.
Huh?
Zhou Li was stunned; he had thought the sprite would fear death. But for some reason, upon hearing his words, the sprite seemed to feel as if a huge weight had been lifted from its heart, feeling much relieved.
Seeing this, Zhou Li did not say much more, assuming that the sprite regarded the chance to break free from the monster's control as more important than life itself, hence the immense relief. Zhou Li, seizing the right moment, stepped forward and forcefully stuffed the pill the size of a baby's fist into the sprite's mouth.
"Eh! Woo!"
After emitting a short, ambiguous sound, the sprite hardly managed to swallow the pill, far too large for a human to bear. It then closed its eyes, trying hard to sense inside its body, while Zhou Li and Tang Wan observed attentively. About two or three minutes later, the sprite suddenly nodded vigorously, then started to struggle in agony.
Zhou Li's heart tensed instantly; with a slight pinching motion of his right hand, the Spirit Qi hidden in the pill detonated instantly, and the poison covering the pill's surface spread rapidly. Tang Wan, holding realgar powder, grabbed the sprite's throat and poured it straight in.
"Cough cough cough cough, vomit!!!"
The sprite's agonized howls and the prolonged sounds of vomiting followed, and a small, sinister young snake emerged from its mouth, then frantically tried to escape from the place.
But only a few seconds after the snake crawled out, a dagger had completely pierced through it. Zhou Li looked at the small snake nailed to the ground, his eyes flashing with a peculiar gleam.
Gilded Destiny Line.
At that moment, the sprite knelt on the ground, hands firmly clutching the soil in front of it, tears streaming down its face, unable to stop crying.
"Ah, this is the relief of breaking free from someone else's control."
Tang Wan, arms crossed by his side, sighed, "I felt the same way when I escaped from my family's house, just without this level of excitement."
"Being controlled by a monster is not a pleasant feeling."
Zhou Li shook his head and gave a light sigh before adding, "The cruelty and bloodlust of the monster must have left a deep psychological scar on him. Now that he has finally broken free from the monster's control, his emotions are bound to take some time to calm down."
At this point, the sprite finally moved on from the wild joy of surviving the ordeal. It raised its head, looking up at the moonlit and starry night sky, roared with gratitude:
"Thank heavens the pill was to be swallowed!"
Huh???