Lush towering trees cover the mountains, with their green leaves blocking the sunlight, only allowing scattered patches of light and shadow to fall through. The forest is filled with overgrown weeds, reaching up to people's calves.

In the distance, a man was holding a wooden stick and searching for something. He had a wooden louzi hanging from his waist. Suddenly, it seemed as if the man had seen something horrifying. He let out a scream and started running backwards, trembling and calling out as he ran.

A dense and wriggling mass of snakes all simultaneously raised their bodies, hissing venomously at him. This scene replayed in the man's mind, frightening him even more and causing him to accelerate his speed.

The man was so startled that he didn't pay attention to the bulging tree root beneath his feet. With a loud "thump," he tripped and fell to the ground, hitting his head on the rugged mountain path, immediately losing consciousness.

From the previously startled bushes, there came the sound of rustling. A thin, blue-green snake, about the thickness of a man's index finger, emerged slowly from the tangle of grass and crawled leisurely towards the man.

There was only one snake there.

Apart from this, everything else is an illusion.

It is a small demon with some intelligence, who also knows the trick of concealing its true form.

It crawled to the man's hand and opened its mouth, revealing its sharp venomous fangs. But it stopped just a nail's breadth away from his hand.

It just opened its mouth and maintained this posture for a while, and finally closed its mouth and turned away.

Forget it, even if I bite it to death, I won't be able to eat it, what a waste. It thought to itself, anyway, this human hasn't hurt me either.

Just at this moment, it suddenly sensed the presence of a powerful monster. The air was filled with the monster's aura, though it seemed to have no ill intent, as if it was just informing it of its presence. However, this still widened its snake-like eyes in fear, and it hastened to leave this place—though it could only think about it.

Someone has caught its weak spot.

"He's actually kind-hearted." With this lazy, serpent-like voice, a strand of spiritual energy detached from the person's fingertips, circled around the tiny snake twice, and finally dove into its forehead.

It only felt that its previously muddled consciousness had finally cleared away the fog and became clear.

And then, the surroundings became brighter and brighter, blindingly so - Shen Qing finally opened his eyes.

He stared blankly with his eyes open, only fully coming to his senses after a while.

He had another dream.

This was his second dream in which he could fully remember the content, but just like the previous dream, it felt meaningless.

However, Shen Qing inexplicably felt a bit familiar with the farmer who fainted in her dream.

He sat there in a daze, his mind drifting aimlessly, while his gaze involuntarily wandered around, finally resting on the man next to him who was still maintaining a meditative posture.

I haven't finished cultivating yet.

Shen Qing glanced at the dim and lifeless inner core floating in front of Bai Suzhen, feeling that it should be close to completion.

Then she turned to look at the big monster. Upon closer inspection, Bai Su's eyelashes were indeed very long, like two silver small fans. They looked soft and made Shen Qing couldn't help but want to reach out and touch them.

But when he released his coiled body and crawled a little distance towards Bai Suzhen, he suddenly realized that he no longer had hands. Shen Qing fell silent for a moment, gave the man a glare, and coiled himself back up again.

Why does a perfectly good man have such long eyelashes?!

He looked down upon himself in his heart for being tempted by "beauty" but refused to admit it.

It's not to say that Bai Su is exceptionally beautiful. Bai Su's appearance is completely different from the soft beauty of women. He stands at a towering height of around 1.85 meters, with healthy wheat-colored skin. He is tall and robust, even if he were to wear white garments, he would not exude the scholarly air of a noble son. Instead, he faintly emanates an aura of a reigning king.

That was a kind of masculine and handsome charm that belonged to men.

Even if she had a pair of phoenix eyes, there was not a trace of femininity in them.

Shen Qing used the tail of the snake to hook onto the man's soft silver hair that was scattered on the stone bed, and looked away.

In fact, Bai Suzhen's physique and aura were exactly what Shen Qingyan expected of himself in his eyes. However, no matter how much he trained, he belonged to the type where one couldn't tell if he had muscles once he put on his clothes. So Shen Qingyan could only imagine it.

Shen Qing envied to the point of bubbling over, yet inwardly despised his own lack of ambition. Finally, without realizing it, he looked at Bai Suzhen, feeling as though he couldn't divert his gaze anymore.

Recalling the scene from earlier in the day, Shen Qing couldn't help but feel that this big monster was unbelievably powerful.

He remembered himself again, and he truly couldn't understand why the powerful monster would keep him by their side when there was such a big difference in strength between him and Bai Su.

Shen Qing didn't believe that Bai Su had any harmful intentions towards him. After all, if Bai Su really wanted to harm him, it would be a piece of cake for her. Why would she bother playing any petty tricks?

Not long ago, Bai Suzhen's explanation to him suddenly leaped into his mind: "The great monster originally resided in Emei Mountain, but unfortunately, the giant snake took the opportunity to devour the villagers living at the foot of the mountain. That's how the great monster ended up in Qingcheng Mountain."

He was feeling extremely uncomfortable in his heart at that moment, so he didn't pay much attention to what Bai Suzhen was saying. He only caught the gist of it. Looking back now, Shen Qing only felt that this big monster didn't seem like a scheming monster at all.

I'm just a big monster, it's impossible for me to come up with an excuse to deceive this small monster.

Shen Qing was still lost in thought. He didn't even notice that the inner core, suspended right in front of Bai Suzhen, emitted a soft sound and began to slowly crack apart, with tiny fissures spreading more and more. Finally, with a crisp "snap," the inner core shattered into pieces and dissipated into the air.

Shen Qing was instinctively drawn to look over by that slight sound. His gaze met a pair of deep black pupils, as if they contained countless stars, exceptionally beautiful.

Bai Su woke up.

Shen Qing unconsciously flicked his tail tip, unable to control his urge to crawl onto Bai Su's hand. However, Shen Qing restrained himself and eagerly looked at the man, waiting for him to reach out his hand.

This is not normal.

Shen Qing knew that this kind of dependency was highly abnormal, but he just couldn't restrain himself.

Shen Qing wanted to get closer to this big monster.

Bai Suzhen truly reached out her hand, but she didn't unfold it; she only pointed her finger at Shen Qing's forehead. Shen Qing was indeed petite, so to say it was her forehead would be more accurate if one were to say that the finger completely covered Shen Qing's head.

Shen Qing paused for a moment, his body quickly recalling the electric snake that had shot out from Bai Suzhen's hand during the day, causing him to instinctively step backwards.

"Don't move." A chilling voice resounded, causing Shen Qing to immediately freeze in place.

It wasn't because of being scared, but rather an subconscious instinct to obey.

This is not normal.

Shen Qing repeated it in his heart once again.

A white aura overflowed from the fingertips of Bai Suzhen, coiling around her fingers for a while before seeping into Shen Qing's forehead.

"She is actually a kind-hearted person."

The languid and low snake-like murmurs faintly rang in Shen Qing's ears, barely audible, just like before. Shen Qing's heart trembled, and sure enough, in the next second, the image of the white snake in the temple surged into her mind again. Along with intense pain, various bizarre and dazzling scenes followed, disturbing her brain's peace, causing Shen Qing to involuntarily groan.

"Why are you here again?"

"If you practice diligently, three hundred years later, you will be able to transform and become the mountain king here."

"...My lord..."