When Zhang Chengling caught the whiff of a refreshing stench, he knew that they had arrived. His nerves were pulled taut, and his ears pricked to capture any sound--he knew that the Black Poison Hag was nearly catching up to them. If it were any other time, he would have been scared to his wits’ end, but in this moment, he remembered that he was carrying another person, and this person was counting on him to save her life. It didn’t matter if something happened to him, but if this Miss Gao was re-captured by those bad women, things would not end well for her. He felt himself grow mightier, as though strength had flooded through his whole body; with a loud shout, he, astonishingly, increased his speed once more.

On this night, Zhang Chengling had actually triumphed over his timid, pushover self unknowingly, and his mentality had advanced by quite a lot. If he went even further, his martial skill would have been elevated a tier as well. Sweeping all other thoughts out of his mind, only what Gu Xiang had said remained in his head--he could not take even one wrong step.

Faster and faster his recitation grew, and like a shadow, he shot along the route, passing underneath the night soil formation that they had set up earlier. Just as the Black Poison Hag had thought that she was about to catch up to them, that little thief sped up out of the blue. How could she be willing to let them go? Instantly, she pursued them madly at full speed.

Abruptly, she felt a thread in the air catch on her sleeve. Something tugged at her; the Black Poison Hag’s first thought was that there was a trap mechanism, and without time to think about it too closely, she darted away. Thereafter, a night soil bucket tucked away in a hidden spot poured onto where she had been standing, its contents splashing forth.

Despite everything, the Black Poison Hag was a woman after all, and was a bit of a germaphobe. How could she stand something like this? Dreading that even a drop of it would get on her, she hastily retreated a few steps, only to feel her foot bump into something. Her heart lurched. Pinpointing its position by listening to the sounds, she dodged another calamity, but before she even touched the ground, the third night soil bucket was toppled by the second, and cascaded right onto the Black Poison’s Hag head.

The crone was livid. She longed to howl, “Little thief, I’ll dice your corpse into a million pieces!”, but she could not open her mouth, for fear that a tragedy would strike once she did. That youth who carried Gao Xiaolian on his back was long gone--she wanted to dice his corpse into a million pieces, but she did not even have a target.