Wait a minute, where is my master?

Qing State, near Qingmu City.

Inside an ordinary small hill, there was a deep pit with a diameter of a hundred meters.

In the center of the deep pit, the previously curled-up Little Black insect had now fully stretched out its body.

The long-dormant Insect Queen, it had awakened.

"Ancestor... Great-grandfather, can you... can you make it come down?"

Inside the hill, an eighteen or nineteen-year-old girl dressed in the garb of a foreign tribe, adorned with numerous silver ornaments, pleaded shakily to the man in the green robe beside her.

On her tender little feet, there was a small black insect with two light blue vertical stripes on its back, slowly crawling up her leg.

The man in the green robe did not attend to his great-great-great-granddaughter's cries for help. With a sorrowful expression in his brow, his gaze was fixed on the Communication Jade Token in his hand.

In his ancient eyes... there was a trace of perplexity.

The Jade Token was receiving messages from different people.

"Reporting to the Second Elder, the Secret Realm within Qingmu City has suddenly opened, and the reason is unknown. Subordinates are investigating."

This was from a Hall Master under his command who was responsible for gathering intelligence.

Sometime later.

"Reporting to the Second Elder, the Secret Realm within Qingmu City has suddenly closed again, and the reason is unknown. Subordinates are investigating."

This was also from that same Hall Master under his command.

"I have successfully taken control of five avatars and have sent them into Qingmu City."

This was a message sent by the Third Elder of the Demon Sect half a day ago.

"..."

The Second Elder of the Demon Sect hesitated for a moment and didn't reply to his subordinates. Instead, he quickly edited a message and sent it to Yan Meishan.

"You first withdraw your avatars and bring the Insect Queen with you before infiltrating the city again!!!"

After sending the message, the man in the green robe was about to put away the Communication Jade Token when a white light flickered on it, indicating that someone else had sent a message.

The Second Elder immersed his consciousness into it and after a moment, he turned his head and glanced at the girl in foreign garb beside him with ancient melancholy eyes, his brow slightly furrowed.

The girl responded with a smile uglier than crying.

Written clearly on the Jade Token in the man's hand was:

"Great-grandfather, can you first get the Insect Queen off me."

This message, surprisingly, had been sent by the girl in foreign garb.

The girl felt helpless; she had called out for help, but her cheap great-grandfather ignored her and just kept staring at the Communication Jade Token. Having no other choice, the girl in foreign attire had to resort to this last-ditch effort.

After all, the black insect had finished crawling up her leg and was now slowly moving up her thigh.

"Ha!"

The man in the green robe let out a cold snort as a pitch-black hand holding a small tripod emerged, from which a dark light shone forth. It shot into the air and finally, focused on the girl's thigh.

Of course, that was mainly because the black insect had crawled there.

The little black insect, with two light blue stripes on its back, struggled against the dark light, clearly very unwilling.

But in the end, it couldn't overpower the force of the dark light and, with reluctance, was absorbed into the small tripod.

The girl dressed in foreign attire exhaled deeply after the Insect Queen was taken away, lifted her left hand adorned with small bells, and patted her little chest with a look of immense relief.

The sound of tinkling bells rang out, echoing incessantly in the space.

No wonder the girl was timid; she knew all too well the terror of the Insect Queen.

Little Black might look unremarkable, but it was filled with toxin deadly enough to instantly kill a cultivator in the Divinity Transformation Realm.

And this ability was not even its most formidable; the truly most terrifying aspect of it was its parasitic reproduction.

All things in the world, as long as you are a living being, could potentially become the nourishment and cradle for the spread of its Gu Worms.

The plan of the Demon Sect this time was to secretly send the Insect Queen into the Spirit River of the Qingmu Secret Realm.

The Secret Realm opened once every two hundred years, and communication with the outside world was impossible at other times. As long as they held out for a month and the Insect Queen was not taken out,

it would be just a matter of time before they used it to parasitize the entire Secret Realm and take down the Origin of the Qingmu Secret Realm.

"Thank you, great-grandfather."

The girl dressed in the attire of a foreign tribe said with relief and gratitude.

The man in green, however, appeared deaf to her words, his thin lips moving slightly as he communicated something with the small tripod and that little black insect.

A Gu Worm that had reached such a state had already developed basic spiritual intelligence and could conduct simple exchanges with humans.

...

The time had already reached evening, the sky gradually darkening with the setting sun in the west.

Inside a secluded alley in Qingmu City.

Jin Xu took out two pills and stuffed them into the mouths of the little boy and the orange cat.

Upon ingesting the pills, the faces of the man and the cat froze instantly, their features seeming to squeeze together.

But after glancing at the little Taoist in front of them and seeing the fear in his eyes, they both gritted their teeth and swallowed the pills.

"Ugh, Little Taoist, we've already eaten the poison pills, can we leave now? Ugh!"

The orange cat retched as it addressed Jin Xu in front of it.

"Hmm, go on, but don't forget what you promised me. I will come looking for you in three months."

The little Taoist said coldly, suppressing his urge to smile.

"Don't worry, Taoist, we will definitely complete the task we promised you. In three months, we hope you will keep your promise and give us the antidote for these poison pills."

The orange cat suppressed its discomfort and knelt respectfully before Jin Xu.

The boy beside it followed suit, except his buttocks were so swollen that when he laid down, he resembled Crayon Shin-chan.

"Yeah, get going."

The little Taoist waved his hand impatiently, signaling that they could leave.

The man and the cat stood up, bowed once more, and shuffled away from the alley. Their silhouettes stretched long under the glow of the setting sun.

Once the pair had disappeared around the corner of the alley, the little Taoist, who had not undergone professional training, could no longer restrain his laughter.

"Using Little Yu's cooking as a substitute for poison pills works pretty well. Seems like I should have her make some extra for future contingencies."

Indeed, the poison pills that Jin Xu fed the two were the leftovers from the previous dish Yu Yaoer had cooked.

After teaching the two a lesson, he felt that he couldn't let them off so easily, so he concocted the ruse about the poison pills and gave them two choices.

One, take a hit of "Hand Palm Thunder" from him.

Two, eat the poison pills and within three months, they had to catch a hundred Cultivators with a history of theft in Qingmu City. Then they could come to him to exchange for the antidote and a chance to live.

At the time, the orange cat even tried to use the name of the Kunlun Immortal Palace to pressure the little Taoist, but after seeing the Golden Thunderbolt entwined in Jin Xu's hand, the cat instantly became docile.

The man and the cat weren't fools; they knew that if they took a hit from the Golden Thunderbolt, death was certain. So, they obediently chose the second option.

As for the possibility of others coming to seek revenge, like the small ones leading to the old ones, the little Taoist had considered it.

However, after mulling it over, Jin Xu felt it wasn't a big deal. The Old Dean of the Qingmu Academy and his own master were on good terms, so if someone senior really did come looking for him, he could just invite him out.

"Young Master, what are you laughing at? Oh, right, Young Master, what did you need the leftovers for earlier?"

Deep in the alley, two women who had finished feeding stray dogs came over.

"It's nothing, you finished feeding them all the meat, right? Come on, I'll take you to a nice place."

The little Taoist looked at his little brothers in the alley who had eaten until their bellies were round and plump. He then grabbed the two women and headed towards the entrance to the Qingmu Secret Realm.

Jin Xu remembered clearly that when he previously entered the Qingmu Secret Realm, a mysterious voice had emerged, offering him four choices to choose from.

At that time, he had not yet made his choice.