There is no such thing as a free lunch.

  The next day, I slept during the day to recharge my energy and got up in the middle of the night to wander around the mountains and valleys. In a secluded corner of the valley, I found Turpan again. He was lying under a wild jujube tree, his belly open, with small people the size of jujube pits cleaning his internal organs.

  "Turpan, hello!" I shouted loudly, my voice piercing the sky and echoing through the entire valley. The jujube kernel people were startled and immediately rolled around on the ground, turning back into jujube kernels.

  Turpan's expression changed slightly: "It's you again, what do you want to do?"

  "Hey! Are you okay? Have you had dinner?" I shouted at the top of my lungs, and the leaves were shaken off by my voice.

  Turpan was so angry that smoke was coming out of his seven orifices: "Damn you, shouting like this will attract the attention of my enemies!"

  "Oh." I nodded and shouted: "Then I won't talk to you anymore!" I aimed at a large tree, let out a loud roar, and punched the trunk with one fist. The tree split in two. "Rumble rumble", the big tree slowly fell down, I didn't even look at Turpan, let out another loud shout, and pounced on another big tree.

  Turpan shouted: "What are you going to do again?"

  "It's you who wants to talk to me! Don't blame me again." I used all my might and shouted loudly: "I ate too much, it's so uncomfortable, let me practice some moves to digest it!"

  "Shut up!" Turpan was so angry that his whole body was shaking, his lips were trembling. I quickly pedaled the wind and soared into the sky. Luckily! Just where I stood earlier, several shiny threads burst out.

  "What are you doing, trying to kill me?!" I yelled in mid-air, blowing air wildly and rapidly dodging around, making it impossible for him to grasp my exact position and use his curses.

  Turpan's face changed color, and he was silent for a long time. Suddenly, he burst out laughing: "Good kid, you've got guts! Come down, I won't hurt you, let's have a good talk."

  I flew back to the ground with a proud smile, Turpan stitched up my belly, just stood up, suddenly changed color, shrunk quickly and drilled into the grass.

  Hai Ji flew over from afar and scolded, "You little rascal, what are you yelling about in the middle of the night? Your voice is so loud that even I can hear it!"

  I took a glance at Tulufan hiding under the bushes and laughed: "Can't sleep, come out to practice some boxing."

  "Hey, I think you've been a bit off the past two days, must be from overexerting yourself in your training. Tomorrow I'll accompany you to Dacheng City to clear your mind and we can get you some new autumn clothes at the same time. This lotus robe of yours is filthy, if Lan saw it she'd definitely die from anger. And those tattered grass shoes of yours really stink."

  "The beauty thinks really thoroughly." I was moved to hold her, sweet words and said for a while, until Hai Ji left, I turned back to see, Tulufan still silly lying under the grass.

  "Come on, I didn't sell you out." I kicked him lightly with my toes, "thud", Turpan rolled down and turned into a date pit. Dammit, this guy actually ran away early, making me curse loudly.

  "Who is this stinky brat scolding?" On the branch, a ripe wild jujube fell to the ground and transformed into Tuluobo's appearance, with fierce eyes flashing.

  I was both angry and amused: "Among the monsters I've seen, you're the most cunning." This guy must have been afraid that I would reveal his secret to Haiji earlier, so he used magic to confuse my vision, while hiding in the corner to spy on me.

  Tulufan sneered, "You think you can play tricks with me? You're still a bit tender. But since you were relatively honest just now, I'll tell you straight out - the secret incantation technique is an extremely evil and poisonous art that requires nourishing the curse with one's own flesh and blood. Your nature is slippery and cunning, your words and actions don't match, learning the curse will only harm yourself. Think about it, once you start speaking without keeping your word, the curse will backfire on you. I see you laughing at every other sentence, do you think you can learn the curse?"

  I suddenly lost heart. Yeah, I'm used to speaking nonsense. If I want to be a credible gentleman in the future, it's better to reincarnate.

  Tulufan continued, "Even if you learn the secret incantation, it's not the ultimate path. Four thousand years ago, I had already entered the final stage of evolution. But four thousand years have passed, and I'm still stuck in the same place, to the point where I suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the Qiu family, and was forced to flee from the Demon Slaughter Heaven, exiled to this place."

  I shouted: "So you've already evolved to the eighth heavy Manna state, damn it, one step away from Alaya state! Who's your enemy? Are they even more powerful than you?"

  Tulufan's face turned pale and he stopped talking. I curiously asked again: "The northern border is vast and boundless, why do you insist on escaping to this place?"

  "Because I was born here." Turpan sighed, gazing at the colorful mist suspended in mid-air, even in the dead of night, the colors of the mist were still so gorgeous, like a flower crown embedded in the black velvet.

  "After messing around for half a day, it turns out you're the local snake here." I was shocked and my mouth was wide open.

  "Isn't this place beautiful?" Turfan's gaze never left the miasma, his lips trembling slightly, as if filled with longing: "Why didn't I think so 6,000 years ago? At that time, I just wanted to leave this ghostly place as soon as possible and never come back."

  I laughed and said: "If you thought the same way 6,000 years ago as you do now, wouldn't that mean you've wasted these 6,000 years?"

  Tuluban burst out laughing and patted my shoulder: "Well said! But for me, these six thousand years have been a bit like living in vain. Constantly cultivating, constantly avoiding calamities, constantly killing... now that I think about it, it's all rather meaningless." After a moment of silence, he muttered to himself: "If I were to die here, at least I wouldn't become a lonely ghost."

  I was startled: "You're not waiting for death at home, are you?"

  Tulufan's expression was calm: "This is my third calamity, I'm afraid I won't be able to hide it anymore. Someone has cast a curse on me, the curse poison has invaded my entire body's essence and blood. These past few days I've been bitterly treating my injuries, but they're getting heavier by the day. Even if I thoroughly cleanse my internal organs, I still can't expel the curse poison."

  I was a bit surprised: "You boast that you are a master of secret skills, yet you were actually injured by the enemy's secret skill?"

  Turpan let out a low growl, and I started pestering him again: "When a demon is about to die, its heart becomes kind. Since you're going to die anyway, why not teach me some of your unique demonic skills before you go? Are you going to take them with you into the coffin?"

  Tuluban burst out laughing, stared at me for a while, and asked: "What do you want to learn? Disemboweling? Planting spirits in trees? Shape-shifting? These demonic arts take at least decades to master, I don't have time to teach you!" He then looked up at the miasma again. I waited for half a day, seeing that he wouldn't pay attention to me anymore, knew it was hopeless, and could only leave with a sulk.

  "Little one, tomorrow if you go into the city, get me a catty of Liu Xu Tian Ma, a catty of Bing Yan Huang, a catty of Dan Mu seeds, a catty of honey from bamboo bees, and a catty of Qilin horn powder." Before he had gone far, Tulu's voice came echoing from behind.

  I turned around and stretched out my hand: "Where's the silver? Where's the travel expenses? There's no such thing as a free lunch in this world."

  Tulufan suddenly spat three mouthfuls of saliva at me, saying in a strange and eerie tone: "One shape one body, four limbs eight heads. The old father is paralyzed and relies on his son's back." Then he jumped onto the branch and disappeared without a trace.

  Looking at the wild jujube tree, I was confused by the words of Tu Lu Fan before he left. What did he mean by "four limbs and eight heads"? I thought the old monk had gone mad, asking me to buy things without paying and spitting on my face. After thinking for a while, the sky brightened up, and the sun rose in the east. In the mountain valley, grayish-white aphids were flying around everywhere. Under the colorful misty light, the aphids seemed to be wearing rainbow-colored clothes, dancing happily.

  "Every day at dusk, the aphids die. But before they die, they are no longer dull and gray, their whole body becomes colorful, probably because they have absorbed the colored aura." I don't know when, Hai Ji came to my side and said in a soft voice.

  "I smiled and said: 'Perhaps it's because they sucked in the miasma and got poisoned that they only have a one-day life.'"

  "But after all, we had a beautiful moment, didn't we?" Hai Ji casually caught a cicada, and I suddenly found that the yellow eyes of the cicada were somewhat similar to those of Tulufan.

  ;