Dare to Cancel the Engagement? I Will Marry Your Ancestor! - Chapter 22

Mo Ling was startled. He immediately grabbed Long Qianqian’s arm, intending to help her expel the corpse poison. However, Long Qianqian simply smiled and gracefully withdrew her arm.

“You don’t know this yet, but I have a special constitution. This kind of corpse poison can’t harm me,” she said.

Hearing this, Mo Ling’s mind raced. “Could it be that you’re immune to all poisons?”

Long Qianqian only gave him a mysterious smile without answering. Instead, she pulled down her sleeve to cover her arm. “But you should be careful. I suspect this is how the corpse poison spreads.”

Mo Ling nodded and looked up toward the mountain. Despite coming this far, they had yet to find the entrance to the secret realm. The corpses they had encountered all seemed to be ordinary disciples, likely injured outside the secret realm before succumbing to the poison.

It was just as Long Qianqian said—they had been infected, poisoned, and eventually died. Then their corpses were controlled and moved in unison.

It seemed this secret realm was far more dangerous than they had anticipated.

Now that they had experience, the two carefully maneuvered around the white miasma. However, they soon encountered Gu Kewei and his group of disciples again.

Gu Kewei was in a miserable state—his clothes were tattered, and of the seven or eight disciples he had led, only two remained.

And even those two were already infected with the corpse poison.

Long Qianqian stepped forward without hesitation, drawing her sword and cutting a shallow wound on her arm. She let her bl00d drip onto the wounds of the infected disciples.

The moment her fresh bl00d touched their festering, blackened flesh, wisps of white smoke rose into the air. The pained expressions on the disciples’ faces gradually eased.

The two struggled to their feet, supporting each other, and clasped their hands in gratitude toward Long Qianqian.

Mo Ling turned to Gu Kewei and asked, “Elder Gu, what exactly happened just now?”

Gu Kewei was still shaken. He took a deep breath to steady himself before responding, “That thing grabbed my sword and flung me away. I was sent flying through the air, and only then did I get a clear look at it!”

He swallowed hard, his expression filled with lingering fear. “Luckily, the Sect Master was able to suppress it. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have been able to circle around and find you.”

Mo Ling’s gaze sharpened. “Did you see anything unusual from up high?”

Gu Kewei had been waiting to report this and immediately stepped forward. “I saw a ravine in the middle of the mountain, surrounded by white mist, but the mist did not enter the ravine itself.”

Mo Ling’s thoughts turned quickly. He looked at Gu Kewei and commanded, “Lead the way!”

Relying on his fleeting memory of the scene, Gu Kewei guided them forward.

But soon, he stopped abruptly, his face tense. “No good. We can’t avoid the white mist here.”

He hesitated at the edge, not daring to step further, and turned to Mo Ling for a decision.

Mo Ling’s eyes darkened with determination. “We’re going in. This is the closest point to the ravine—there’s a good chance it’s the entrance to the secret realm. No matter what, we have to try!”

Long Qianqian stepped forward without hesitation. “I’ll take the lead. Mo Ling, you guard the rear.”

Mo Ling nodded and followed behind them, stepping into the thick white mist.

The moment they entered, he felt the miasma was far denser here than below. Even though they had taken breath-sealing pills, the mist still burned his throat like sharp blades scraping against flesh.

Just as Mo Ling reached for another breath-sealing pill, a sudden scream erupted from ahead.

A disciple in front of him let out a wretched cry and abruptly turned, lunging straight at Mo Ling in a frenzied attack.

Mo Ling reacted swiftly, leaping into the air. The disciple crashed to the ground at his feet, then lifted his face—

Only for Mo Ling to see that his skin had sprouted sharp, thorn-like spikes.

No, not just his face—his wildly clawing hands were also covered in these vicious barbs!

“Watch out!” Long Qianqian called out. “Don’t step on the thorns on the ground—they’re poisonous!”

Long Qianqian shouted in warning, but it was already too late.

The two infected disciples had fully succumbed to the corpse poison and turned into corpse fiends.

And they weren’t ordinary corpse fiends—they could use magic!

One of the corrupted disciples, unable to catch Mo Ling, suddenly extended both hands. From his palms, two thorny vines shot out like coiled serpents, striking toward him.

Mo Ling swung his spear to deflect them, but the vines twisted midair, looping back around with relentless determination, as if they wouldn’t stop until they hit their target.

“Damn it!”

Mo Ling had initially wanted to avoid harming his fellow sect disciples, but at this point, he had no choice. He raised his spear and drove it straight through the disciple’s forehead.

But to his shock, after the disciple’s skull shattered, the thorny vines on his face coiled upward, reforming into the shape of a new head.

“What the hell? Are you kidding me?”

At this rate, even the corpses wouldn’t stay dead!

Mo Ling let out a sigh, retracted his spear, and gathered his energy.

“Dragon Swallow Dance!”

A massive dragon formed from pure energy shot forward, weaving through the dense white mist. It coiled through the battlefield and, in a single bite, tore the two corpse fiends to shreds.

Long Qianqian and Gu Kewei hit the ground to avoid the shockwave.

A thunderous dragon’s roar echoed through the mountains. The energy dragon soared upward, dispersing the surrounding mist and revealing a path ahead.

But from his vantage point in the air, Mo Ling scanned the mountains and saw no sign of a secret realm entrance.

“Lady, watch out!”

Gu Kewei, who was crouching beside Long Qianqian, suddenly noticed thorny vines creeping toward her from the ground. He immediately leaped up, swinging his sword to cut them down.

Long Qianqian summoned her energy and joined him in battle, destroying the encroaching vines before they could reach them.

From above, Mo Ling observed the battlefield carefully. Though the thorns seemed to be attacking from all directions, he noticed a pattern—the densest concentration was coming from the left, where Gu Kewei was fighting.

Unfortunately, the mist he had just cleared began to gather once more, obscuring his view of the left side.

Mo Ling landed and immediately dashed toward the left, but in his haste, he had underestimated the danger.

Suddenly, a massive wall of thorny vines erupted from the ground, its spikes writhing like countless tiny serpents lunging at him.

A single scratch would be enough to infect him!

Mo Ling knew he couldn’t force his way through. He swiftly retreated, but the thorn wall, despite having no visible force pushing it, moved at an astonishing speed.

With Gu Kewei still behind him, Mo Ling had no choice. He kicked Gu Kewei out of the way, sending him tumbling through the mist and down the mountainside.

Gu Kewei crashed into a tree and coughed up bl00d.

“Sect Master! Lady!”

Ignoring his own injuries, Gu Kewei scrambled to his feet.

That was when he saw it—Mo Ling and Long Qianqian, focused entirely on fending off the thorn wall, hadn’t noticed what was behind them.

They were standing right at the edge of the ravine they had been searching for!

The thorn wall collapsed over the edge, dragging everything down with it—including Mo Ling and Long Qianqian.

“No!”

Gu Kewei surged forward, but before he could dive in, a group of disciples appeared from the mist. At a glance, he recognized them as members of the Xingyao Sect.

“Be careful!” he warned. “The thorns in here—one scratch and you’ll turn into corpse fiends!”

The Xingyao Sect disciples had entered the area to search for their missing comrades. Hearing Gu Kewei’s warning, they immediately stopped and nodded in thanks.

“We just saw two people fall into the valley below,” one of them said. “Were they from your sect?”

Gu Kewei’s face twisted with grief. He didn’t respond and instead charged forward.

The group fought together, trying to clear a path through the relentless thorns. But no matter how hard they fought, the vines kept creeping closer, impossible to fully avoid. Soon, several Xingyao disciples were infected. One by one, they lost control and started attacking each other.

Gu Kewei had no time to worry about them. He crawled to the edge of the ravine and peered down, but all he could see was thick, swirling fog.

There was no sign of Mo Ling or Long Qianqian.

“What do we do now?” he muttered in despair. “I have to return and gather reinforcements!”

He turned back to the Xingyao disciples and shouted, “This place is too dangerous! We need to retreat!”

The remaining Xingyao disciples nodded and moved out cautiously, covering each other as they fled.

“You two, go with Elder Gu to report the situation. The rest of us will continue searching the mountain.”

Back at the base camp at the foot of the mountain, Gu Kewei staggered in.

Hu Xin, seeing the state he was in, immediately guessed what had happened.

“Why are you the only one who made it back?” he asked grimly.