Zu An felt a shudder run through his mind as he heard her words. He wasn’t some crass and unromantic man. How could he miss the implied meaning behind them?

His eyes roamed across her beautiful face, taking in her affectionate and charming eyes and her moist, red lips. He could resist no more, and moved in to kiss her.

Pei Mianman stiffened for an instant, but then immediately softened, responding to him with the same intense passion.

After what seemed like eternity, their lips parted again. He looked down at the lovely Pei Mianman, snuggled in his arms, then sighed suddenly and said, “Aren’t we letting Chuyan down by doing this?”

He wouldn’t have cared so much if it had been someone else, but Pei Mianman and Chu Chuyan were close friends. He had no idea how he was going to explain this to her in the future. One misstep, and Chuyan would feel betrayed.

Pei Mianman rolled her eyes at him. “Aren’t you two already divorced?”

Zu An froze for a moment, then a smile appeared on his face. “Oh, you’re right. Let’s continue then.” With that, he went in for another kiss.

Pei Mianman snorted. “Hmph! Playboy!”

Zu An knew that she wasn’t actually upset, so he continued to look at her, a big smile on his face.

Pei Mianman pushed him away. “Stop causing trouble already. Help me take a look at my shoulder injury.”

“Okay!” Zu An undid her collar button, and then tugged at her clothes. Her skin looked extremely soft and fair, and seemed almost pale in contrast to the bloodstains on her clothes. The skin along her cleavage一which was just barely visible一seemed especially inviting. He stared at it in a daze.

“What are you staring at? I told you to look at the wound…” Pei Mianman protested playfully.

“Oh yeah.” Zu An’s face heated up. He tore his gaze away from those snowy mountains and lightly touched the scab on her shoulder. “Your wounds are pretty much healed already. The itch is coming from the scabbing over your wound.”

“Really?” Pei Mianman was overjoyed. “Will there be a scar?”

“Of course not.” Zu An had suffered many wounds himself, yet none of them ever left a scar.

“Are you sure?” Pei Mianman was still a little worried. “Help me check my back as well.”

Zu An looked over her back while saying with a smile, “Don’t worry, even if you do end up with a scar, I’ll still want you.”

“Hmph, like you even stand a chance. I have guys lining up all the way from the entrance of the Academy to Hidden Dragon Mountain,” Pei Mianman said in annoyance, dressing herself again and fastening her clothes.

Zu An laughed loudly. “All right, all right. Let’s get out of here first.”

As if they could sense the taotie’s death, the strange snakes that were hidden in the shadows seemed ready to emerge again. He didn’t want to end up in the situation they were in earlier on.

Pei Mianman nodded and extracted herself out of his embrace. With her injuries now recovered, she felt as though she could move about properly again. Even though she wasn’t back at her peak, she had no problem protecting herself now. She grew even more amazed at Zu An’s miraculous medicine, and her eyes gaze softened further when she looked at him.

Zu An stood in front of the hole in the wall, then suddenly turned around and stored the taotie’s corpse away.

Pei Mianman clutched her nose and said with disdain, “What in the world do you need that thing for?”

Zu An said, “This is a monster that no one outside this dungeon has ever seen before. Its corpse might be useful for something.”

His Brilliant Glass Bead already contained a lot of things, and he didn’t know if the taotie’s corpse would roll around, leaking blood and corroding the other things inside.

Zu An examined the interior of the Brilliant Glass Bead and discovered that the taotie corpse seemed to occupy an independent space within it. The things inside didn’t seem to be disturbing each other. He heaved a sigh of relief.

“What use could such an ugly and nasty monster have?” Pei Mianman felt a wave of nausea when she recalled her earlier experience. “By the way, your spatial artifact has a ridiculous amount of storage. I can’t believe it can even hold such a massive monster!”

Zu An smiled and said, “Did you forget about that huge dragon from earlier on? If it can store something like that, what’s so difficult about this thing?” As he said this, he took out the Brilliant Glass Bead and showed it off to her.

Pei Mianman sighed in amazement. “This spatial storage artifact might not be any less valuable than your Phoenix Nirvana Sutra! Aren’t you afraid of revealing your secret to me? What if I end up having some evil thoughts?”

Zu An smiled. “It would be too tiresome to live in this world if I can’t even trust my beloved.”

“Beloved?” Pei Mianman felt her heart tremble. His words clearly left her deeply moved.

Zu An changed the topic and said, “Of course, if big Manman wants to have any wicked thoughts about me, you are welcome any time. You don’t have to pity me just because I look like a beautiful and tender flower.”

Pei Mianman immediately wanted to smack him. “You’re always like this. You can’t maintain your sense of decency for longer than a few moments.”

After a little more back-and-forth, the two of them finally returned to the opening that led to the sloped tunnel. “Be careful,” Zu An warned her, as he looked at the mucus coating the walls.

Fortunately, this mucus wasn’t too corrosive. It was just sticky and gross.

“Okay.” Pei Mianman was already moving on her tiptoes before his warning. As a girl, she felt a natural aversion towards such things.

The two of them followed this slope upwards. They were actually a little thankful to that taotie. It had helped them deal with those strange snakes, and the mucus that it secreted made the climb up the slope a little easier.

After a while, they finally crawled out of the pit. Somehow, seeing the familiar greenish-gray mist gave the two of them a strange sense of comfort.

“We have to be careful. We can’t fall in again.” Zu An looked at the slope beneath them, fear still lingering in the back of his mind.

Pei Mianman raised her head to look at him. “Don’t worry, I’m already more or less recovered. I can back you up if we run into any danger.”

Zu An smiled and said, “I would still prefer not to encounter any further danger.”

Suddenly, he sensed something amiss. He pushed Pei Mianman to the side. “Be careful!”

Pei Mianman shouted these two words at the same time.

Both of them dodged in opposite directions. A greenish-gray tongue speared into the ground where they had been standing just a moment ago, sending up a plume of dust.

They both shuddered when they saw that familiar-looking tongue, and quickly looked at where it had come from.

A terrifying figure slowly shambled out of the greenish-gray mist. That strange head, white fangs, sticky drool, and eyes on its shoulders were identical to the fellow that they had just dealt with.

It was another taotie!

“What the hell is up with our luck today? I can’t believe we’ve run into more of these strange things!” Zu An let out an exasperated sigh. However, he wasn’t all that worried. They had been ambushed by that taotie earlier on, and he had no knowledge about how to fight it. Now that Pei Mianman had recovered, and he already knew what this taotie was capable of, it was much easier to deal with.

The taotie seemed to have sensed his contempt. It wailed as it charged at Zu An. It pushed off its hind legs and reached him in a single bound.

Zu An was already prepared. He slid down beneath it and thrusted his sword upwards from underneath, intending to hack its belly straight open.

However, even though the taotie was large, it was extremely agile. Leaping to one side, it pushed his sword to the side with a swing of one of its paws, and struck at his face with the other.

At the same time, its long tail also stabbed towards his stomach.

Zu An quickly arrested his momentum and clambered out from underneath the monster in a rather sorry state. He couldn’t be bothered with how stupid he looked right now.

“Damn it,” he cursed. “I knew the keyboard warriors on those online forums were dumb. Sliding under a tiger to kill it? What a stupid idea!” 

The taotie had already landed on the ground. It slammed its forearms into the ground, then screeched again as it charged at him. Its agility far surpassed that of an ordinary human,

A torrent of black flame flew through the air and wrapped itself around the taotie. Pei Mianman had made her move.

The taotie roared in shock. It still sounded like a wailing baby, just with a slightly different pitch.

The creature’s skin seemed rather special. It rolled around the ground a few times, and the black flames, which were usually so hard to deal with, gradually disappeared.

Zu An was astonished, but he still moved in anyway. While the taotie was distracted by the black flames, he stabbed his sword into its eye, the same way he had dealt with the previous taotie.

The taotie screamed in horror, then went limp as life drained out of it. It hadn’t expected to die so easily. It still had other skills that it wanted to show off!