Chen Ping'an and the others had entered the mountain range from the north and were now heading toward the south. After traveling for a while, they coincidentally came across another group of people who were heading toward the north. Their leader was an old Daoist priest who had a peach wood sword on his back and a string of silver bells hanging from his waist. His Daoist robes were aged, and there was nothing but straw sandals on his feet. He had barely any immortal aura, but he was indeed brimming with an aura of poverty.

There was a lame and awkward-looking young boy behind the old Daoist priest, and apart from carrying a large bag on his back, there was also a banner that read "subduing demons and capturing ghosts, eliminating fiends and safeguarding Dao" resting diagonally across his shoulder. However, the fabric had already started to wear and lose its color, and this was perhaps because the banner had been washed too many times. The characters on it were also fading.

Apart from him, there was also a little girl with a round face who looked to be around seven or eight years old. She was small and skinny, and she was using her arms to support the old Daoist priest whose eyes remained shut for some reason.

The old Daoist priest suddenly looked up and "gazed" at the winding azure and black mountain range in front of him. There was astonishment in his voice as he exclaimed, "Huh? These mountains aren't very far away from the river god shrine of the Embroidered Flower River, yet there's actually such obvious demonic energy soaring into the sky? There's definitely some hidden secret behind all this. Even though boundaries exist between mountains and waters, with neither interfering with the other, this place is indeed very strange. Extremely strange."

When the little girl with rosy cheeks heard this, she asked anxiously, "Master, then what should we do? You failed to capture the demons in Three Twigs Mountain last time, and the people who hired us were so angry that they ultimately didn't pay us anything. We're genuinely running out of copper coins now, so why don't we take a detour instead?"

"Take a detour?" the old Daoist priest humphed coldly. "If I didn't encounter these demons, then so be it. I can simply view that as the luck of these demons. However, since this Daoist priest has come across them, is there any reason for me to spare them?! Are the characters written on the banner, eliminating fiends and safeguarding Dao, merely a show to outsiders...?"

"Master, there aren't any outsiders here," the little girl reminded...