Humanoid Calamity

Dawn broke over East Street in Qingzhou City.

The wooden door of Peng Family Noodle Shop was pushed open from within with a creak, startling several sparrows from the lintel. Their wings fluttered as they flew up onto the roof.

Lu Li stepped outside. Behind him came Peng Wan'er's hushed muttering, while Liu Yueling leaned over the windowsill, her little face pressed against the wooden frame. Her eyes followed him until he turned the street corner, only then withdrawing her gaze.

The money pouch weighed heavily against his waist, stuffed with over a thousand taels in banknotes and loose silver that rubbed softly together as he walked.

In three days, he had to gather enough poison for cultivation and raise his Poison Astral Body to the third layer before heading south by water.

Once the Poison Transformation Realm was achieved, his flesh, blood, and inner qi would all carry deadly poison, freely released and withdrawn. Anyone touching him would be touching poison.

Combined with the Stubborn Qi Field Domain, he would become a true humanoid poisonous-miasma calamity.

This street led north through the city. Shops lined both sides of the bluestone road. Early-rising vendors set up their stalls, steam billowed from the bamboo baskets outside bun shops, and peddlers carrying shoulder poles passed along the street, their cries rising and falling.

An old man selling candied hawthorns pushed a wooden cart past Lu Li. Bright red hawthorn skewers stood upright on the cart, their sugar glaze gleaming in the morning light.

"Sir, want a skewer?"

Lu Li waved a hand without slowing down.

The old man was not offended. He pushed his cart onward, and his calls gradually faded away.

Half an hour later, Lu Li stood at the entrance of a quiet alley.

The alley was narrow, flanked by