My gaze moved slowly upward from the black dress partially covering the feet of the woman sitting on the box, and she leaned forward to look at my face. "You want to play 'invite the enemy into the urn'? Why don't you see who's really entering the urn?"

As she spoke, the sound of rushing water suddenly surged beneath us. A moment later, water began to seep out from the cracks in the basement floor.

At first, the cold water, source unknown, merely trickled through the cracks. But within moments, the powerful current pried open the bricks, and water gushed out from beneath the floor.

In just a few seconds, the rising water had submerged my feet.

The woman in the black dress cackled coldly, "In this basement, you prepared seven coffins for me, including the box I'm sitting on. It's a pity I've turned this place into a well."

"Your coffins are useless. I, however, can turn you into drowned souls."

I patted Xie Yueling twice. "Shouldn't you come out now?"

The black-dressed woman laughed. "There's no need to call her. Xie Yueling should be called Xie Yue Ling (evil moon spirit). She can only be unrestrained where there is moonlight. From the moment you locked her in the room, she was nothing more than an ordinary person."

"I admit, you're good at scheming. But you don't know the characteristics of Xie Yueling and me. Otherwise, I would be the loser today."

The difference between ghosts and deities lies in their individual powers. Only by understanding a ghost or deity’s specific traits can you strike effectively.

I stared intently at her. "You're not Xingzha Po. What kind of ghost or deity are you?"

"I am Long Shi Yi!" the woman in black said. "Guess the rest yourself!"

I smiled coldly. "I thought you were somebody, but you're just livestock raised by a powerful being!"

The woman's expression darkened. "You dare mock me when death is upon you? Who gave you the nerve?"

I responded with a cold smile. "Am I wrong? You're called Long Shi Yi, but it's not eleven (十一), it's 'shi' (食) for food, and 'yi' (一) for one, two, three. To put it bluntly, you're just food used to raise a demon snake."

"The flesh on your feet is gone because someone tied you to a well and submerged you waist-down in water, letting venomous snakes devour you. That's why you look like this now."

"And because you died in the well, the resentment condensed and lingered, giving you some of Xingzha Po's attributes."

Long Shi Yi didn't speak, but her face twitched uncontrollably.

I continued unhurriedly, "Xie Yueling said she saw your body without a tongue when she was a child. Did someone cut out your tongue to stop you from screaming, or did a venomous snake that likes to eat human tongues crawl into your mouth and bite it off?"

"Shut your mouth!" Long Shi Yi roared, her hair standing on end. Each twisting strand resembled countless black snakes raising their heads and hissing behind her.

Long Shi Yi said fiercely, "You want to know how I lost my tongue? Fine, I'll let you know right away. You'd better hold on a little longer. The ancestors don't like to eat dead meat."

During our exchange, the cold water rising from the ground had reached my waist.

As soon as Long Shi Yi finished speaking, serpentine shadows surfaced in the water.

Dense scales covered the surface, blurring the line between ripples and snake bodies.

Long Shi Yi clapped her hands, and countless black snakes raised their heads from the water, their red tongues flicking as they swarmed us from all directions.

Long Shi Yi seemed to enjoy frightening us. She deliberately prevented the snakes from attacking, controlling hundreds of them to slowly tighten the circle around us.

I chuckled with my arms crossed. "I thought you were a ghost or deity, but you're just a ghost servant! You died, and you still have to work like a dog. Not only do you have to find food for your master, but you also have to manage its descendants."

Long Shi Yi roared in anger, "You don't know anything! I am..."

She stopped abruptly, swallowing the words she almost blurted out.

Long Shi Yi's desire to devour Xie Yueling might not be as simple as I thought. Perhaps the one who truly wants to devour Xie Yueling isn't Long Shi Yi, but the snake behind her!

Long Shi Yi's gaze turned cold. "I have no more patience for your nonsense. I'll wait and see you being devoured by venomous snakes until only your white bones remain!"

Snakes certainly don't gnaw on things, nor do they eat rotten flesh. People who fall into a group of snakes might be bitten beyond recognition, but they wouldn't be devoured until only bones remained, as if they had fallen into a swarm of rats.

However, these black snakes surrounding us had already surpassed the realm of ordinary snakes. Just from the fierce light flowing in their eyes like humans, I could tell that they were a group of spirit snakes born with intelligence. Given enough time and the right conditions, they would transform into demon snakes.

The snake-worshipping cultists who disappeared overnight in the mountains probably became their meals.