A gash opened on Perfected Mohe’s face, blood streaming down, yet he paid it no mind.
He was just about to mock Li Qiuchen’s naïveté when a wave of dizziness struck him. His expression changed drastically at once.
The wooden spike had been coated with poison!
The poisons in Li Qiuchen’s hands could hardly be called high-grade, but every one of them had been personally tested by him, bite by bite, out in the mountains.
All natural, pesticide-free—their effects were especially obvious against the Apothecary lineage.
Ordinary toxins had no effect on those of the Apothecary lineage. At most, they would feel a little uncomfortable after eating them, and after enduring it for a while, the toxins would be transformed into nutrients.
Only hallucinogenic toxins could take effect.
The principle was very simple: most ordinary toxins affected the blood, while hallucinogenic toxins affected the nervous system.
And the nervous system, to those of the Apothecary lineage, was something optional—something they would never focus on cultivating.
As the toxin spread, Perfected Mohe immediately felt dizzy and light-headed. Darkness swam before his eyes, and he could no longer lock onto the boy’s position.
He reached out to grab, but caught nothing.
When he turned his head again, he found Li Qiuchen standing beside him, the corners of his mouth slightly raised, as if he were mocking him.
This little bastard actually has some ability! I underestimated him!
Perfected Mohe’s heart jolted, and without realizing it, his state of mind began to change.
After desperately escaping from Qingshitai, his strength had already been greatly diminished, and the trump cards he carried had been mostly exhausted. Those government hounds were elite and formidable, not so easy to shake off. If he could not deal with this brat before him in a short time and ended up draining the last of his strength, then once the government hounds really caught up, things would go terribly wrong.
Thinking of this, Perfected Mohe decided to change tactics. He would hold back no longer and end the fight swiftly. He immediately formed hand seals with both hands, cast a spell, and chanted an incantation. Two great trees beside him suddenly uprooted themselves from the ground, brandishing their branches like claws as they surrounded Li Qiuchen.
Li Qiuchen neither dodged nor evaded, allowing the great trees to lash their branches down upon him.
Dust rose into the air. His figure was nowhere to be seen.
Perfected Mohe looked around in alarm and suspicion, only to find that Li Qiuchen had appeared again not far away, the smile on his face growing ever more eerie.
What is this brat scheming?
Li Qiuchen was not scheming anything at all. After using his ocular technique to guide the poisoned Perfected Mohe into a hallucination, he turned and ran.
Who’s fighting you? For no reason at all, why would I tie myself to this karma with you?
Of the Thirty-Six Stratagems, fleeing is best.
Of course, with his current strength, the illusion he cast could not trap Perfected Mohe for long.
Li Qiuchen only hoped that after this fellow came to his senses, he would hurry up and run away instead of constantly chasing after him.
The forest is so big. Where can’t you find a bite to eat? Why insist on messing with me?
But clearly, Perfected Mohe did not agree.
He had not run far before he heard Perfected Mohe’s furious roar from behind him.
“Little bastard! How dare you toy with your grandfather!”
This idiot actually caught up again.
Are you sick? Your brain is genuinely sick.
Hearing the footsteps behind him rapidly drawing closer, Li Qiuchen abruptly turned his head. His eyes met Perfected Mohe’s gaze, which was filled with fury and greed. A faint glimmer flashed, and Perfected Mohe once again froze in place.
A crane cry rang out in the sky. A white crane spread its wings and swept over the treetops. A streak of sword light flashed past, piercing straight through Perfected Mohe’s head.
The white crane landed, spreading its wings that were nearly a zhang wide, circling in steps both elegant and deadly.
Its wings crossed up and down, their sharp feathers slicing through Perfected Mohe’s body like chainsaws, cutting him into three sections.
Perfected Mohe felt utterly aggrieved, yet had nowhere to vent it.
He had already paid a heavy price to escape Qingshitai, and now he was outwardly strong but inwardly spent.
After much difficulty, he had finally run into a little bastard who was alone, and the boy actually possessed such pure Apothecary’s blessing.
He had thought this was the Apothecary’s mercy, specially allowing him to pick up such a miraculous pill for free.
Yet he had never imagined that the other party’s degree of insidious cunning would far exceed his imagination.
Not only did he use such despicable tricks as poison, he even had an accomplice lying in wait in the dark!
How could a person be shameless to this degree?
Do you have even the slightest moral awareness as an ingredient?
He lay on the ground pretending to be dead for a while. The surroundings were deathly quiet. That little bastard had no intention whatsoever of coming over to verify the results of the battle.
Perfected Mohe struggled to raise his head and saw that the other party had already fled without a trace.
Shameless! Beast!
As he cursed, he grabbed the lower half of his body and fitted it back into its original position.
The magical power that had already been nearly depleted within him was now finally completely exhausted.
Giving up was impossible.
The current situation was like a person walking out of an uninhabited wasteland, starving for three days and three nights until his eyes glowed green, desperate to eat.
Although grass roots and tree bark could barely fill the stomach, if such a huge braised pork knuckle flew past right before your eyes, could you resist chasing it?
Even if hope was slim, he had to stake everything on one struggle!
Those who cultivated immortality were meant to seize a sliver of life from heaven and earth. If not now, then when?
After recovering his injuries, he lay in the forest panting for a while. Feeling that he had regained a little strength, Perfected Mohe gritted his teeth and chased after the footprints Li Qiuchen had left behind.
“This man really is persistent. Don’t tell me he was born in the Year of the Donkey.”
Sensing the disturbance coming from the mountain forest behind him, Li Qiuchen could not help sighing. “This one has a ruthless temperament and decisive will. His future achievements may well be limitless.”
The stupid bird threw him a roll of its eyes.
“Ga ga!”
If you’d let me strike him with one more sword, he might have died for good.
“That’s absolutely impossible. Since he was able to escape from Qingshitai, he must have some life-saving trump card. Either a magical treasure or a secret art. In short… you must never underestimate an Apothecary believer’s will to survive.”
Li Qiuchen judged others by himself. Even a good child like me can’t help the impulse to fall into depravity—what kind of good birds could anyone else be?
You say this isn’t dignified?
What right does a little brat like me have to talk about dignity?
Give me a cheat right now and let me possess Jiang Tingyue’s cultivation, and I’ll immediately stop where I am and teach that Perfected Mohe what dignity means.
Li Qiuchen did not dare slow his pace in the slightest. At the same time, he was pondering an important question in his heart.
How could it be such a coincidence? He had already run so far, yet Perfected Mohe, who had escaped Qingshitai using the Earth Escape technique, had somehow spawned right in his face with such precision?
It couldn’t possibly be that the escape route he had so carefully chosen just happened to match what the other man had thought of, could it?
Logically speaking, he had never met Perfected Mohe, and the other party could not possibly know of his existence.
People who likewise possessed the Apothecary’s blessing could indeed sense the hidden aura on one another at close range.
But that was at close range—at the very least, within line of sight.