I was hurt all over and didn’t have the strength to counter him. I closed my eyes and waited for my last moment to arrive.

Then, a gold light flashed. I heard metal clanging, just as though weapons were hitting each other. I opened my eyes and was thrilled to see Senior Shu next to me. He had used his Holy Mother Scepter to parry the taming master’s Nepalese saber. Senior Shu looked at me and smiled. Then, he took the Emei Piercer from his waist and threw it at me.

My desire to live was awakened. I grabbed the Emei Piercer and used it to support the weight of my body. I tried to get up on my feet.

“Hey, don’t you feel ashamed while dealing with a little kid like him?”

Senior Shu’s opening remarks were always provoking. He held the Holy Mother Scepter horizontally in front of his chest, aiming for the head of the taming master.

The taming master rolled his eyes in worry. Most of the taming masters that could keep corpses and ghosts had a fatal weakness: Their close-combat skills were awful!

These people were good at harming others while staying hidden. Today, he had shown up to kill me because he knew that I didn’t bring any weapons with me. He believed that he could get rid of me here. However, Senior Shu had abruptly shown up, which messed up his plan.

“Do you really think you’re my opponent?” said the taming master coldly. Then, he took something out of his pocket and threw it at us.

I knew it was just a smoke grenade, so I boldly jumped into the thick smoke and screamed, “Senior Shu, hurry! After him!”

Unexpectedly, Senior Shu didn’t run after him. With a pale face, he looked at me in panic. “Not good…”

“What’s wrong? I’m all right.” I thought that the fog was toxic, but I felt alright.

“If I’m not wrong, kid, you are under his taming technique!” Senior Shu said with a sullen face. Gritting his teeth, he lifted me. With the Holy Mother Scepter in his hand, he rushed outside.

When we came to the gate of the school, I saw the Holy Mother Scepter release a gold hue gas that formed an arrow. Senior Shu followed the lead of the arrow and ran without a care for the obstacles in front of us, such as the wall or the dark cliff.

Everywhere we passed, the surroundings turned into a normal mountainous trail. After walking for half an hour, the gas from the Holy Mother Scepter disappeared. Senior Shu exhaled and put me back on the ground.

“Senior Shu, how did you find me?”

“I knew you were tricked by that man after checking the hotel’s surveillance cameras. As for how I found you, hahaha…” Senior Shu sniggered disdainfully. “Kid, did you do a bad thing in the hotel today?”

I looked at the Emei Piercer in my hand and realized that he had visited my room. I recalled the used tissues in my room and blushed. Senior Shu patted my shoulder. “Oh, it’s understandable that young men sometimes want to have fun. If it weren’t for the ‘essence’ on the tissue, I wouldn’t have been able to find you.”

On the way back to the hotel, my back felt itchy. I kept scratching it. Senior Shu’s face grew darker as he walked faster.

When we got to the hotel room, I felt like hundreds of thousands of ants were marching on my back. I hated that I couldn’t just simply use a knife to cut off that piece of skin. The taming technique had begun to work on me.

Senior Shu asked me to lay face down on the bed. He heated a small knife on the flame of a lighter. Then, he pricked a hole in my back and squeezed some blood into a wine tumbler. “How do you feel now?”

“Comfortable…” I answered. Before I could finish, a heart-piercing pain came from my wound. It felt like my entire body was being roasted above a big fire. I tried not to scream, but the flesh of the cut on my back convulsed.

“It’s good that you got just the Taming Five-Poison.”

While I was in pain, Senior Shu exhaled in relief. He showed me the wine tumbler. The red blood inside had turned dark. Many bean-sized worms floated in there. After taking a closer look, I shivered when I recognized those were small scorpions!

“He must have collected your blood while fighting with you. Fortunately, it’s just a Taming Five-Poison. If it was something stronger, I’m not sure I could have saved you,” Senior Shu said sternly.

I recognized that I’d been extremely foolish to jump into the fog. I said through gritted teeth, “Please help me deal with it.”

Senior Shu nodded. “You will feel a lot of pain while I’m helping you. Be patient.”

Then, he took out something that looked like a long wallet. When he opened it, I saw rows of silver needles.

He stabbed all the needles into my back and took them all out after a while. Then, he poured saltwater on my back.

“Aaahhh!” I couldn’t help but scream. My back felt like it didn’t belong to me anymore. Senior Shu lifted me and punched right at my chest!

He had controlled his force well so that I wouldn't feel much pain. However, my chest felt so stuffy that I had to curl my body into a ball.

Senior Shu turned to my back again and poured another bowl of saltwater. I couldn’t stand this. I slumped to the edge of the bed and vomited.

Around five minutes later, I felt better. Then, I saw that I had vomited all the scorpion eggs!

“All right, go sleep in my room!” Senior Shu waved his hand at me. It seemed the Taming Five-Poison was solved. I didn’t linger. I went to his room and slept right away.

When I woke up the next morning, my back was still hurting. However, my whole body felt light and flexible, just as if I had been reborn. Senior Shu told me that while treating the Taming Five-Poison, he had accidentally opened up the acupoints in my body, which promoted my blood circulation. That was why I felt so refreshed.

I thought to myself that if taming masters could use this sort of skill to treat people’s sickness, it would be so wonderful. They could have both wealth and fame. Why did they have to walk on the evil path?

Senior Shu saw that I had recovered.

He said with a sullen face, “We have to deal with that taming master tonight. We’ve spent enough time on him. If we waste any more time, we won’t be able to save my life-bound rat.”

“What should we do?”

I agreed with Senior Shu’s ‘fight fast, win fast’ point of view. However, I didn’t know how to lure out the taming master.

Senior Shu sneered coldly. “If he likes to play with appearance changing, we will go along with him! If I’m right, he should still be lurking in the dark. I will disguise myself as you and go downstairs alone. I think he will do it again. Then, we will trap him!”

I understood Senior Shu’s idea. He wanted to take advantage of the fact that the taming master looked down on me to capture him.

“What can I do to help you?” As we didn’t have any other ideas, I reluctantly agreed with him. However, subconsciously, I thought that it wouldn’t be easy to trick the other party.

Senior Shu asked me to stay upstairs and keep watch. As soon as something expected happened, I would show my face. If Senior Shu failed and let the taming master run away, I should jump in to help him.

At noon, the sunlight was scorching. Senior Shu and I were sitting in our room, eating watermelon and chatting. Suddenly, someone called me. I walked out and saw it was the hotel owner. He was bringing two big carton boxes that he was having difficulties lifting.

Seeing me crane out my neck from upstairs, the hotel owner looked relieved. He gingerly said, “Brother, could you please come down here and give me a hand?”

“All right!” I agreed with him. There were many hostels and homestays in this area. Almost all houses in this place had been renovated to be hostels. However, there weren’t many people that stayed in them. I could be the only young man in this hotel.

When I went downstairs, I saw the owner climbing the stairs. “I’ll help you carry that. You can go fetch the rest of the stuff.”

“What do you mean?” The hostel owner looked bewildered.

I was surprised. Then, I returned to my room and pressed myself by the window to watch. Another hostel owner was waiting for me at the patio!

I turned and said to Senior Shu, “The hotel owner outside is probably a fake one.”

“Yeah?” Senior Shu was completing his face-shifting technique. He smirked and said, “I want to see who disguises himself better!”

He quickly fiddled with his face and applied some strange potions. Immediately, he wore my face.

“Take this. In a critical moment, you can use it alongside the Big Dipper Sirius Spell.” Senior Shu gave me the Holy Mother Scepter while grabbing the Emei Piercer. Then, he turned and left.

A moment later, I saw Senior Shu walking away with the taming master while holding a box. Senior Shu’s movements slowly became stiff. It seemed he was controlled by the taming master.

I was worried that I would lose track of them if I stayed here. I hurriedly walked behind them. On the way, Senior Shu acted as if he had figured out something was wrong. He turned and ran. The taming master grabbed him and took him away. They disappeared from my sight.

His trick was the same as before. I thought he would go to that abandoned school. However, that school was an illusion he had made. I couldn’t get in there. Feeling helpless, I had to wait at the spot they had disappeared.