Spider Demon

Li Qingjun probably wanted to go out to relieve herself as well. With a large group of outsiders arriving, it was hard for her to swallow her pride and go relieve herself, so she could only hold it in and sit back down beside the campfire. Qin Yi could only dejectedly sit back down too, enduring Li Qingjun's gaze as though she were looking at a lecher.

He only wanted to know whether the arrival of these wandering martial artists would startle the demon.

The campfire flickered as a group of wandering martial artists casually entered, laughing and talking loudly.

Taking shelter from the rain in a Daoist temple and running into fellow travelers was an everyday occurrence for people of the martial world. They paid Qin Yi and the others no mind at all, though their gazes lingered a little longer on the long spears of the Li Family Siblings. Rather than avoiding trouble, someone even clicked his tongue and laughed. "Such a pretty boy, and he actually plays with a spear."

Qin Yi secretly thought things were going badly, yet Li Qingjun merely ate her dry provisions slowly and ignored the provocation.

Since she did not respond, the others had no reason to deliberately stir up trouble. They merely sneered and said nothing further, turning back to discuss their own affairs.

Qin Yi looked at Li Qingjun in some surprise. This girl's temper was not supposed to be this good...

Li Qingjun shot him a sidelong glance. "Didn't you say you were going to clear away the spiderwebs? Why are you sitting here doing nothing?"

Qin Yi casually replied, "When it's just us, we can do a thorough cleaning for the sake of tidiness. Why should I clean up for this bunch of strangers?"

"Pah, who's one of your own?" Li Qingjun spat, but she did not press the matter of clearing the webs. Apparently, she too felt no desire to clean up for people who had such foul mouths.

The martial artists' laughter and chatter drifted over, sentence by sentence.

"Have you heard? Zhang Family Village outside Hengshan County is haunted. Even the village chief was killed by a ghost."

"What haunting? Pine Hermit Priest went to take a look. When he came back, he said there was no ghost. The man died of illness."

"If Pine Hermit Priest said there was none, then there was none." The others looked utterly convinced. "He's a true man of the Dao, one who can hold true fire in his mouth and put his hands into a cauldron of oil."

"In that case, the Zhang family must have failed to cultivate good karma and suffered their retribution."

The few of them reached a unanimous conclusion and all laughed loudly. "Precisely. What good reputations do those wealthy households have? One day, we might just rob the rich and help the poor with them."

Li Qinglin sipped his wine, a faint smile on his face. Qin Yi knew what he was smiling about. It was a cold smile. Even the people of the martial world in this kingdom believed in immortals and gods; tricks like putting one's hands into boiling oil could pass for the truth. No wonder those with insight harbored dissatisfaction in their hearts.

Qin Yi's heart was aching even worse than Li Qinglin's right now, because this group was shouting so loudly that they were very likely to anger the demon here, yet he could not find any reason to persuade them to stop.

This was not his place. What right did he have to tell people not to speak? And expecting martial artists to speak in soft, gentle voices was hardly realistic.

The martial artists changed topics again. "That matter with the Lin Family..."

Someone immediately answered, "They deserved it. The National Teacher wanted Blazing Flint, and they searched the entire country without finding any. That old man of the Lin Family clearly had some, yet he still dared to hide it."

"That was for refining an immortality pill for King Wude, wasn't it? This time it was Blazing Flint; last time, they picked Vermillion Violet Grass throughout the realm, searching and scraping everywhere until public resentment boiled over. I say Old Lin did the right thing. He should not have given it to that foolish monarch."

"What do you know? What does it have to do with us whether the foolish monarch lives or dies? The National Teacher is a true immortal. He can't be offended!"

"Ah... tell me, if he's such a true immortal, why would he refine pills for a foolish monarch?"

Li Qinglin was still smiling, but Li Qingjun could no longer hold herself back. She angrily said, "Vermillion Violet Grass and Blazing Flame Stone were all the National Teacher's doing. You don't blame the National Teacher, yet you blame the king instead?"

One of the martial artists gave her a sidelong look. "If the king hadn't ordered the National Teacher to refine pills, why would a true immortal like him bother with such things? The county and prefectural officials use these things as a pretext to scrape the land three feet deep. Was that the National Teacher's doing too? Isn't the root of it all still the king?"

Li Qingjun wanted to retort, but Li Qinglin handed her a flatbread. "Eat."

Li Qingjun swallowed her words and resentfully began eating the bread. This time, however, the martial artists did not let her off. A burly man mocked, "Yo, even eating bread looks so effeminate. You must be some rabbit from the Capital City, right? Probably selling your ass to high officials and nobles. No wonder you're speaking for the king."

Seeing Li Qingjun's face turn purple from holding herself back, Qin Yi suddenly said, "I advise everyone to watch your words."

Someone sneered. "What, are you going to report us to the authorities and have us arrested?"

A burst of thunderous laughter shook the roof tiles, and dust and sand rustled down onto the spiderwebs.

Qin Yi said blandly, "Don't blame me for not warning you. You can laugh even louder."

The burly man who had mocked Li Qingjun as a rabbit stood up and threw back his head in laughter. "I'm laughing. What do you think you can do about it?"

Before his words had faded, his laughter abruptly stopped in his throat as if it had been severed by a blade. Everyone clearly saw a little spider drop from the beam, landing right in his open mouth. The burly man's face turned green.

"Big Brother!" The group panicked and hurriedly supported him. The burly man bent over, trying to vomit out the spider, but how could he possibly bring it up? He could only dry-heave. Even Qin Yi's balls ached for him just listening.

Li Qingjun quietly asked Qin Yi, "Your doing?"

Qin Yi replied in a low voice, "No. There's probably a demon lurking here. Be careful."

Li Qingjun's expression changed. "You stopped me from touching the webs earlier, and stopped me from going outside..."

"Mm."

Li Qingjun said nothing more.

The martial artists likewise no longer dared to be loud. Qin Yi had warned them not to make noise, and in the blink of an eye, one of them had truly swallowed a spider. It felt rather sinister, and for the moment, they forgot to keep picking fights. The burly man clutched his throat and headed toward the back door, intending to rinse his mouth with rainwater.

As soon as he went around the Daoist temple's shrine, his eyes suddenly lit up. "There's a huge coral tree by the back door!"

Qin Yi and Li Qinglin exchanged a look. When they had first entered, they had already looked around and seen no coral tree. Qin Yi understood now. The demon had surely arranged everything beforehand, and was now casting out bait.

There was no fundamental difference between catching people and catching insects. Both were simply a matter of casting bait to lure them in.

That group of martial artists all surged toward the back door. Li Qingjun could not help shouting, "Don't go out! It's a trap!"

Who would listen to her? In the middle of the courtyard beyond the back door stood a treasure tree, shimmering with flowing radiance beneath the night rain, incomparably alluring. The burly man had already rushed outside first and placed a hand on the tree. "It really is coral. Such a huge coral tree..."

Nothing happened when he touched it, so even fewer people heeded Li Qingjun's warning. The whole group rushed forward, their eyes filled with greedy light.

Li Qingjun stood beside the shrine and looked out through the back door, watching helplessly as wisps of white thread hissed from the burly man's eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. The scene was extremely strange, yet the people surrounding him seemed utterly unaware.

The sight of white threads emerging from a person's seven apertures was simply too disgusting. Li Qingjun covered her mouth and nearly vomited.

The next instant, the white threads exploded outward. Countless streaks of white light seemed to burst from every pore of the burly man's body, and in the blink of an eye, they wrapped everyone around him tightly, turning them into seven or eight human-shaped white cocoons. The burly man himself exploded completely. A spider tore through his chest and abdomen, emerging from where his heart had been, then slowly grew larger until it became a spider monster as large as a carriage.

Its body was still that of a spider, but a human face had grown upon its head. Fangs protruded from its mouth, and its appearance was savage and ferocious.

There was no coral tree at all. It was clearly just a crooked dead tree covered in spiderwebs. The treasure-like colors of the coral now proved to be nothing but the rotting flesh of rats and cockroaches.

Li Qinglin drank silently. Li Qingjun stood to one side and watched the entire scene, gripping her long spear tightly, her hands trembling slightly. It was clear that the Spider Demon's appearance frightened her somewhat as well.

The demon tiger had at least still looked like a tiger, but this giant spider had a human face. The feeling it gave was completely different—utterly disgusting.

On top of that, the burly man's corpse lay sprawled on the ground, its insides entirely hollow, while little spiders crawled all over the body. The scene was even bloodier and stranger.

Qin Yi also found it disgusting, his scalp tingling with horror. For no reason at all, he suddenly recalled those predecessors who had transmigrated into DND and romanced the spider queen Lolth. They really were men among men...

Liusu's voice rose in his Sea of Consciousness. "You have two choices. First, this demon still has an understanding with us. As long as we do not disrupt things, we can remain at peace, and may even gain a certain degree of friendship. But I suggest you choose the second option. This demon has already developed a human face, and its spells are quite interesting. These are signs that it is about to achieve major success in the Spirit Communication Stage. If it eats all these people, it may make a breakthrough and form a Demon Core. Then we can kill it and take the core, and we can..."

Before Liusu could finish, Li Qingjun took a deep breath. Her spear shot forth like a streak of silk, charging straight at the Spider Demon. "Demon, do not harm human lives!"