A Significant Background

"You little devil! I knew you weren't normal, but I never imagined you were this abnormal!"

Perhaps due to years of exposure, Zhang Xuezhou had no fear of water hyacinths.

He had also consumed gourd pills made from the purple-gold gourd, and knew how to remove residual substances from the body.

The problems of Li Shaojun and others were resolved relatively easily.

Microorganisms are difficult to eliminate from the body, but they are much easier to grow back.

Zhang Xuezhou looked at the gourd, then glanced at Li Shaojun, and reached out to pluck the tender bud from Li Shaojun's mouth.

Zhang Xuezhou felt as if he had pulled on a wire. When he pulled half of it out, blood gushed from Li Shaojun's mouth. Li Shaojun, who had been looking happy, turned deathly pale in just a few seconds.

"He's dead?"

Zhang Xuezhou reached out and exerted force, and the tender shoot, along with some roots and bits of internal organs and flesh, was pulled out, with some foul-smelling slime sticking to the roots.

"This thing has grown into the stomach?"

Zhang Xuezhou tore Li Shaojun to death with one swift motion, but dared not lay a hand on Gongsun Hong, leaving Gongsun Hong with the grayish-white plant in his mouth.

"If it were going to grow, it would have grown much earlier. It wouldn't have waited until now. Could it be because it drank the spiritual spring water?"

If Zhang Xuezhou had to find a reason, he could only look at the influence of the spiritual spring water, which was even related to the growth of tender leaves on the water hyacinth.

A tender leaf with two buds sprouting from their mouths— Zhang Xuezhou found it all very strange.

Just as he was about to pull the tender leaves out of the water hyacinth, he heard a sound in front of him, and a green dragon emerged from the depths of the underground space.

"Dragon?"

The blue dragon's body was winding and its length was unknown, while its head was almost as tall as two people.

When the stench hit him, Zhang Xuezhou almost turned and fled for his life.

But in just a short moment, Zhang Xuezhou made up his mind.

"Break!"

He shouted, and the azure dragon in front of him instantly turned into smoke and vanished, leaving only a green tree root shaped like a coiled dragon swaying back and forth.

"Is this thing causing the problem?"

When Zhang Xuezhou looked closely, he saw that there were no tree roots as thick as an arm next to Li Shaojun and Gongsun Hong.

The two people's bodies were attached to their backs by the tendrils that extended from the tree roots, as if the roots were sucking their blood.

However, Li Shaojun and Gongsun Hong were not the main focus of this tree root; the tree root was truly targeting the water hyacinth.

Both trees have tendrils that entwine the water hyacinth, but the tree roots drill holes under the water hyacinth, as if trying to pierce it and dig out what's hidden inside.

At the mouth of the gourd, the two tender leaves resemble two observing eyes.

Perhaps believing Zhang Xuezhou to be an accomplice, and not being manipulated, and still in a perfectly normal state, the two tender leaves rapidly grew upwards, transforming into a vine that coiled around the tree roots.

Countless tiny tendrils emerged from the vines, constantly burrowing inwards like the tentacles of tree roots.

"A newborn calf is not afraid of a tiger!"

Looking at the slender tendrils of the vines and then at the hard, old bark of the tree roots, Zhang Xuezhou felt it was almost impossible for the vines to penetrate them.

He didn't think vines were anything special, but Zhang Xuezhou similarly didn't think tree roots were anything good.

As the calf fought the tiger, he quickly began to observe.

"Li Shaojun, I know you can hear me. Hurry up and get to work! There are tree demons everywhere outside. Once their roots burrow into this area, we won't be able to escape underground!"

Zhang Xuezhou exclaimed.

He used the Golden Crow Great Emperor's feathers to burn the large tree at the entrance and then released a petrification spell, making this underground tree root space extremely stable. However, if any other tree demons enter this place, they will be at a great disadvantage.

"You haven't drunk the water from the gourd yourself, so how do you know there's something wrong with it?"

Hearing Zhang Xuezhou's call, Li Shaojun, who had been pulled to death by Zhang Xuezhou's vines, had no choice but to get up again.

He touched his mouth, his face full of displeasure.

Zhang Xuezhou tore off a vine, but as long as he is resurrected, this thing will still exist in his body.

Li Shaojun's fearless resurrection would choose a point in time when his body is still alive, and the point in time he can choose right now is when he has already consumed the water from the gourd.

For Li Shaojun, it was only a matter of time before a deadly vine grew out of his mouth; even death wouldn't save him.

"This gourd was pawned to me by Zheng Wukong. He used it for decades. I only know so much right now, and I dare not speculate on things that haven't been confirmed," Zhang Xuezhou said. "Besides, as someone who practices the art of Grain Avoidance, what do I need water to drink or meat to eat? If it weren't for the spiritual spring water here, I wouldn't even need to drink a drop of water!"

You definitely tricked me!

"If we went back three days, would you have drunk water or not?"

There are no "what ifs" in these situations!

"So, even though I didn't invite you to drink water, you still secretly drank from the gourd. Is that my fault for stealing it?"

"You shouldn't have brought that thing with you!"

Li Shaojun cursed. He would die of thirst if he didn't drink, but drinking would have consequences. What could he do?

Even if things happened all over again, and he knew the problem again, Li Shaojun felt he would still drink water.

"You know I've been busy with that Life-Creating Pill lately. That pill can cure anything, so curing this ailment shouldn't be a problem," Zhang Xuezhou said. "I've always had health issues, so we can work together to develop the medicine."

"This growth was probably induced by our excessive consumption of the spiritual spring water!"

Although he was furious, Li Shaojun knew exactly where the problem lay.

They didn't sprout earlier or later, but they took root and sprouted after drinking the spiritual spring water. The spiritual spring water must have been the catalyst for it.

His gaze swept across the area, and he saw that the endless vines were growing out of the gourd's mouth, tightly binding the tree root and spreading outwards.

Li Shaojun hated the vine, but he also knew very well that the real enemy this time should be the natives of this secret place, namely the strange-looking tree root that the vine was entwining.

If it weren't for the stimulation from this tree root, he felt that even if the vine inside his body had the conditions to grow, it would have remained hidden for a long time, instead of being forced to grow wildly as it is now.

A faint ache stirred in Li Shaojun's heart, as if something was about to grow inside.

This made him glance at Gongsun Hong, then he reached into his pouch and stuffed a lot of medicine into his mouth.

However, this method of taking poison is clearly only treating the symptoms, not the root cause. To resolve the long-term health problems, Li Shaojun felt that both the vine and the gourd had to die, as only in this way could the effects be prevented from being triggered within his body.

"I'm injecting poison into my body now, a way of fighting poison with poison," Li Shaojun said after swallowing a mouthful of powder. "If you want to treat yourself with poison, I can work with you!"

"Can't afford it!"

Zhang Xuezhou waved his hand.

Upon seeing the appearance of the vines that Gongsun Hong described, Li Shaojun quickly suppressed the abnormality in his body, nipping the problem in the bud.

His face was grim, and before Zhang Xuezhou could remind him, he began to perform a spell by stepping on the Seven Stars.

"This thing is likely something big; it's good at deception and intimidation. If this vine doesn't stop it from attacking, you'll have to lend a hand!"

Li Shaojun used the Six Ding Divine Fire Technique.

He shouted, and the spell was cast several times faster than when he was on the back of the Kun.

A flame quickly erupted from his palm.

Before Li Shaojun could even ignite the flames, his face inexplicably turned red, and his body swayed unsteadily.

In Zhang Xuezhou's line of sight, a woman slowly walked over.

The beautiful woman from before had transformed into Ren Anran.

The ability to transform a beautiful stranger into a familiar person is a sign of a further step in the infiltration of thought.

Clearly, Zhang Xuezhou was no match for Zhang Xuezhou in this close-quarters battle of control.