Hearing her words, everyone looked over, but they couldn’t see anything unusual in the silk thread barriers entangled in the depths of the courtyard.

However, Cui Xiaoxiao suddenly turned and rushed toward the gate behind them, shouting: “Run quickly! It’s about to break out of its cocoon!”

At the same time, the gate seemed to be manipulated by silk threads and suddenly closed tightly by itself.

Immediately after, from the depths of the silk farm buildings, there came ripping and tearing sounds, as if something was splitting open.

Everyone immediately became fully alert, and the Talismonger Sect members searched for cover behind water vats, wood piles, and similar obstacles.

Jiang Nanmu and Junior Brother A’Yi happened to hide behind stacked silkworm boxes. When she steadied herself and looked for their incompetent Sect Leader Cui Xiaoxiao, she discovered that Cui Xiaoxiao had jumped behind that handsome sword sect disciple.

This Cui Xiaoxiao! Did she think the sword sect disciple would protect her? That person had been ruthless even to his fellow disciples—he would probably use her as a human shield later!

The woman beside that handsome sword sect disciple also seemed not to have expected Cui Xiaoxiao to suddenly appear behind them. She couldn’t help but raise her delicate eyebrows and instinctively wanted to wave her sleeve and channel her qi to push Cui Xiaoxiao away.

But at this moment, Cui Xiaoxiao suddenly spoke up and asked: “Sect Leader Qin, have you ever raised silkworms?”

Both the handsome man and the woman beside him were stunned, seemingly not expecting that such a female beggar could call out “Sect Leader Qin.” They couldn’t help but look at her.

Cui Xiaoxiao smiled slightly and said to the man with the smooth forehead, “The concealing paste on your forehead isn’t adhering properly. In all the world, only the Jiuxuan Sword Sect’s Sect Leader Qin Lingxiao could have eight red lotus line marks…”

That handsome, tall man looked down coldly at Xiaoxiao and said, “Concealing paste? I used an illusion technique. Even someone with cultivation comparable to mine couldn’t see through it… How exactly did you discover the flaw?”

This… Xiaoxiao couldn’t answer that.

When she was eight years old, she had suffered from a high fever. After recovering, her eyes became different from ordinary people, gaining the ability to see through things.

It was just that when she had mixed in the martial world and marketplace before, this ability was mostly used to help her adoptive father identify whose money pouches were full and who were fat sheep worth targeting.

During the day at the government office entrance, Cui Xiaoxiao had seen at a glance the eight deep red lines on this man’s forehead, concealed and twisted into a lotus mark.

Hadn’t Second Senior Sister Jiang Nanmu said so? Those red lines represented the sword sect’s cultivation level—the more lines, the deeper the cultivation.

Having eight red lines meant this person’s cultivation had transcended mortality, having experienced eight tribulations, with only one final tribulation separating him from ascending to immortality.

Cui Xiaoxiao had wanted to retreat at that time precisely because she recognized this person as Sword Sect Leader Qin Lingxiao.

Why would such a renowned figure personally come to this place just to solve a small county magistrate’s silk farm demon problem?

This showed that either this Qin fellow was bored out of his mind, or the situation here was deeper and more treacherous than ordinary people could handle.

Ji Wuqi had said that for the honor of the Lingshan Talismonger Sect, they couldn’t eat others’ vegetarian meals for nothing. Since that was the case, Cui Xiaoxiao could only risk her life to accompany this gentleman.

However… Cui Xiaoxiao looked at Qin Lingxiao again. This Qin Lingxiao seemed somewhat different from during the day, but she couldn’t say exactly what was different.

No time to think more. Cui Xiaoxiao looked at that terrifying large cocoon in the depths of the silk threads, took a deep breath, and continued speaking to Qin Lingxiao: “Anyone who has raised silkworms knows that when silkworms molt and shed their shells, you can’t help them by hand, or the silkworm’s life will be in danger. Now that demon is molting. We can’t just wait for it to emerge from its shell—perhaps we can interrupt the demon’s transformation.”

Hearing her say this, Qin Lingxiao immediately understood her meaning.

That demon seemed to have an increasingly powerful demonic nature. Even with him present, dealing with it would require considerable effort.

If Cui Xiaoxiao’s speculation was correct, only by disrupting its molting timing could they find its weakness.

Thinking this, Qin Lingxiao flew toward the depths of that dense web. Cui Xiaoxiao quickly retreated and hid behind a water vat.

When Qin Lingxiao’s figure moved and approached the depths of the courtyard, countless strange silk threads shot toward him again.

Qin Lingxiao knew he couldn’t activate his qi sword to touch them, so he could only retreat. His long finger hooked, drawing up a long tree branch from the ground, simultaneously swinging it rapidly to entangle those silk threads.

Just then, Ji Wuqi wanted to show off his abilities again. He flashed forward, pulled out a fire curse talisman, wanting to burn those fine threads that had entangled around them. When Cui Xiaoxiao noticed his intention, she immediately shouted: “Stop quickly, don’t light a fire!”

Unfortunately, when she shouted, it was somewhat late. Ji Wuqi had already activated the yellow paper talisman, manifesting dazzling tongues of flame that surged wildly toward the silkworm threads.

The Talismonger Sect’s methods weren’t all illusions and trickery. For disciples like Ji Wuqi who had cultivated bitterly in the sect for many years, using talismans to gather the true qi of the five elements and activate water and fire techniques was effortless.

So Ji Wuqi activated true fire. When it met those strange silkworm threads, the fire’s heat was similarly absorbed greedily by the silkworm threads. Not only were those threads not burned through, but they instantly transformed into millions of “fire lines” that wrapped around Ji Wuqi’s body.

Jiang Nanmu and A’Yi saw Senior Brother wrapped in fire lines and hurriedly rushed over to rescue him. But these threads could absorb people’s true qi and essence blood even without catching fire—there was no way to touch them.

Seeing Senior Brother trapped in a sea of fire with his clothes being burned, Jiang Nanmu couldn’t care about herself and directly reached out to pull those fire lines.

Just then, Cui Xiaoxiao poked her head out from behind the water vat and shouted: “Wait!”

As she spoke, she pulled out a paper packet from her bosom, threw it into the nearby water vat, stirred it with a water ladle, scooped up a ladle of water, and quickly splashed it toward Ji Wuqi, who was on fire and screaming in pain.

After that, water touched the silk threads; within moments, it extinguished the great fire on Ji Wuqi’s body, and those threads also withered and contracted back.

Ji Wuqi had nearly been sacrificed to fire. Now, having escaped death, even though his body hurt terribly, his heart relaxed.

However, the Talismonger Sect disciples never expected that Cui Xiaoxiao could repel the demon threads with just a few ladles of water.

Qin Lingxiao finished entangling the obstructing silk threads and now turned back to ask: “What did you put in the water?”

Cui Xiaoxiao scooped another ladle of water and poured it on several fellow disciples, then replied: “It’s powder ground from tobacco leaves.”

It turned out that when Cui Xiaoxiao was eating earlier, she had chatted with the gatekeeper for a long time, carefully asking about the people and events since the silk farm’s demonic incidents began.

Among those who kept night watch, not everyone had met with disaster. There was one who was the gatekeeper’s cousin by marriage, who had originally been keeping watch with two murdered bailiffs, but that night, he alone survived.

It was said that at the time, thousands of silkworm threads suddenly dropped from the roof beam, wrapping around several people. But the threads that wrapped around that cousin became fewer and fewer. Later, when several people were dragged away alive, only that cousin broke free from the silkworm threads and escaped.

Perhaps he was badly frightened—after that cousin returned, he developed lung disease and coughed constantly all day. It looked like his oil was running out and his lamp was dying.

But according to the doctor who treated him, this cousin’s illness had little to do with evil demons. It was because he never put down his tobacco pipe ordinarily, even his teeth were yellowed from smoke, and his lung disease had existed long before.

The speaker was unintentional, but the listener took it to heart. Cui Xiaoxiao felt that the demon probably hadn’t suddenly grown a kind heart and spared only this smoker cousin.

So she had a sudden inspiration and wondered whether that demon disliked the smell of smoke.

Therefore, she specifically asked the gatekeeper for a bag of tobacco leaves. She not only ground and wrapped them well, keeping them in her bosom, but before coming, she had also used lit tobacco leaves to smoke her clothes.

When they first entered the courtyard, those silkworm threads had attacked the sword sect people several times but never came toward Cui Xiaoxiao’s direction, which verified her thinking.

Now testing it, it was indeed so, barely saving Senior Brother Ji Wuqi’s life.

Hearing her explanation, the Talismonger Sect members finally understood what their Sect Leader junior sister’s earlier preparations were about.

The others were fine, but Ji Wuqi was somewhat embarrassed. He wanted to thank this female swindler, but couldn’t open his mouth.

However, no one cared about his awkwardness at the moment. Hearing that this demon feared the smell of smoke, the other sword sect disciples all walked over, wanting to seize Cui Xiaoxiao’s water ladle to pour water on themselves.

But Cui Xiaoxiao raised the water ladle and looked at these disciples: “The dignified Jiuxuan Sword Sect doesn’t rely on its sword qi to subdue demons, but learns from us heretical side paths instead. If word gets out, how bad would that make you all look?”

During the day when they mocked the Talismonger Sect and Master, every one of them had participated! Cui Xiaoxiao had kept this firmly in mind all along.

Saying this, Cui Xiaoxiao looked at Qin Lingxiao again, with an annoying smile at the corner of her mouth: “Sect Leader Qin, don’t you think that’s the reasoning?”

Qin Lingxiao didn’t speak, only looked coldly at his several disappointing disciples, glanced at Cui Xiaoxiao, then, with slightly darkening eyes, flew up and rapidly attacked toward the deepest part of the silk farm.

The exceptionally beautiful woman who had been following closely beside Qin Lingxiao hadn’t spoken all along. However, when Qin Lingxiao looked at Cui Xiaoxiao, she also glared coldly at Xiaoxiao, seemingly with some hostility.

However, at this moment, Cui Xiaoxiao’s attention was firmly fixed on Qin Lingxiao flying forward.

As the founding ancestor of the Jiuxuan Sword Sect, his cultivation far exceeded that disciples. When he rushed forward, his body emanated a layer of true qi armor like water mist.

Although those demon threads wanted to entangle Qin Lingxiao, when they touched that misty true qi armor, they quickly froze into frost. Qin Lingxiao transformed his hand into a sword and forcefully swung, shattering those demon threads.

This display greatly shocked the Talismonger Sect disciples.

Everyone knew that Qin Lingxiao had once righteously eliminated his relative, slaying his own demonic master, and had absorbed that demon head’s supreme cultivation. It was said that demon head Wei Jie practiced the demonic path’s Heart-Devouring Great Method. Those who practiced it needed to eliminate the seven emotions and six desires to achieve the way.

Qin Lingxiao surpassed his master. While absorbing most of Wei Jie’s power, he used the righteous methods of his self-created sword sect to successfully resolve the Heart-Devouring Great Method’s backlash.

However, strictly speaking, most of Qin Lingxiao’s cultivation was from the demonic path. This was probably why he could neutralize the power of the demon threads.

Before everyone could think much more, Qin Lingxiao had already shattered most of the demon threads in the depths of the silk farm. Under the pale moonlight, a huge black pupa was revealed above the roof beam in the depths of those buildings.

This black pupa was slowly writhing, and its rough surface had slightly cracked open a fissure—just as Cui Xiaoxiao had predicted, this demon cocoon was indeed beginning to molt.

Qin Lingxiao slightly narrowed his eyes, feeling that this female sect leader from the ninth-rate Talismonger Sect had some ability. You should know that just now the demon threads were entangled and nothing could be seen clearly—how could she be the first to know that this cocoon was about to break its shell?