Jiang Bohong glanced at them, his face devoid of expression. "Turning on me?"

Zhao Tieying snorted. "Did you really think I took that Anti-Miasma Pill you gave us?"

As he spoke, he held up the Anti-Miasma Pill Jiang Bohong had tossed them.

"Is that the best scheme you could come up with, you old bastard?"

Yue Mountain also took out his Anti-Miasma Pill and crushed it to dust.

Clearly, they hadn’t taken Jiang Bohong’s Anti-Miasma Pill.

Watching the scene unfold, Jiang Bohong showed no annoyance at his plan’s failure. Instead, an even more sinister smile crept onto his face.

"Hehehe..."

He let out a low chuckle. "Younger Brother Zhao, Younger Brother Yue, you have traveled the Jianghu for many years. Such caution is rare indeed. You didn’t swallow my elixir. Very good, very good..."

Before he could finish, the color drained from Zhao Tieying’s face!

His body, which he had been forcing to stand upright, swayed violently as a wave of paralysis shot through his limbs!

His vision swam and turned black. A sweet taste rose in his throat, and with a "PUH!" he vomited a mouthful of dark purple blood that carried a sickeningly sweet odor.

"Ugh... You! You...!"

Zhao Tieying clutched his chest, staring at Jiang Bohong in disbelief. His body staggered backward uncontrollably as large beads of sweat instantly dotted his forehead.

At almost the same moment, Yue Mountain also let out a muffled grunt!

He felt a sinister, venomous cold erupt from deep within his meridians!

He tried to forcibly circulate his True Qi to suppress it, but this only caused his own energy to backlash, turning his face ghastly pale.

"You... you old bastard!"

Yue Mountain’s eyes were crimson, looking as if they might start bleeding. "You... When... when did you poison us?!"

Chen Qing also appeared weak, with a fine sheen of cold sweat on his forehead.

Hearing this, a flash of insight struck Zhao Tieying, and he cried out, "The fragrance! That strange sandalwood scent on your Treasure Ship!"

Jiang Bohong’s Treasure Ship had carried the scent of medicinal herbs. At the time, they had simply assumed it was a habit of an Alchemy Master, or perhaps incense to ward off the swamp’s stench. Given his status as an expert on the Alchemy Path, they hadn’t thought twice about it.

Jiang Bohong stood with his hands clasped behind his back and admitted freely, "Correct. The moment you boarded my Treasure Ship, you were afflicted by my meticulously crafted ’Silk Binding.’ The poison was infused into the special incense. It is slow-acting; so long as I do not activate it, it lies dormant, clinging to you like maggots on a bone, utterly undetectable."

"According to my original plan, I would have given you the antidote once we had safely left the Ten Thousand Poison Swamp, and we could have all parted on good terms. Unfortunately..."

Zhao Tieying’s face was ashen. He could feel a sinister, cold energy assaulting his heart. Suppressing his roiling qi and blood, he said frantically, "Brother Jiang! Brother Jiang! I don’t want any of the Treasure Medicine! I’m begging you, be merciful and give me the antidote! I, Zhao Tieying, swear to the heavens that I will take what happened today to my grave! I’ll never breathe a single word of it!"

His eyes were filled with a desperate will to live.

Jiang Bohong slowly shook his head, his expression unreadable. "Younger Brother Zhao, your reputation as the ’Iron Kite’ is well known among the Assassins in the Fengle and Yunlin prefectures. You have a wide network. Letting you go today would be like releasing a tiger back into the mountains. Once you recover your strength, how could I ever rest easy? Of all of you, you are the one I can least afford to let live."

"Stop wasting your breath on him!"

Yue Mountain’s eyes were blood-red and his expression was crazed, black blood already trickling from the corners of his mouth. "While the poison hasn’t yet reached our hearts, kill him! The antidote has to be on him!"

Before he’d even finished speaking, he desperately channeled his remaining True Qi and lunged at Jiang Bohong like a mad tiger. The Scorpion Tail Whip in his hand lashed out, carrying the tragic force of a man determined to take his enemy down with him!

"You don’t know your own limits!"

Jiang Bohong snorted, a flicker of contempt in his eyes.

Facing Yue Mountain’s hate-fueled, all-or-nothing strike, he remained as immovable as a mountain. Only at the last possible second, as the tip of the whip was about to strike, did he take a sharp sidestep, avoiding the attack by a hair’s breadth.

At the same time, his withered palm instantly turned ink-black—it was his arduously cultivated Poison Palm technique!

He formed his five fingers into a claw. Though he struck second, he arrived first. With a piercing shriek of displaced air, his hand landed with unerring precision on Yue Mountain’s chest, left wide open by the reckless lunge!

"CRUNCH—!"

A muffled thud, followed by the sickening crack of breaking bones.

Yue Mountain’s forward momentum ceased abruptly. His eyes bulged as he looked down in disbelief at his own caved-in chest.

The jet-black Palm Seal was branded into his flesh like a searing iron, the virulent poison instantly invading his heart.

His body convulsed violently a few times before the light in his eyes faded. He crumpled to the ground as if his bones had been removed, utterly silent.

Chen Qing watched Yue Mountain die, then took a deep breath. "Elder Jiang... all I sought was a single drop of Essence Blood. Now that I have it, I won’t touch a single one of the other treasures. As for what happened today, I can also swear an oath to remain silent for the rest of my life." 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

"Could you... give me a chance to live?"

His tone was utterly sincere.

Jiang Bohong slowly shook his head. "Chen Xiaoyou, it’s not that I’m cruel. Your talent is exceptional. You are the lead disciple of the Wutai Sect’s Cyan Wood Institute, and your future is limitless. I dare not gamble on whether you’d harbor resentment over this. More importantly, I dare not gamble against the Wutai Sect’s methods should they choose to investigate. I have survived in the Jianghu for decades by following a single, ironclad rule..."

He paused. "I only trust the dead!"

Hearing this, the expression on Chen Qing’s face turned quite ’ugly.’

"Brother Chen! Don’t listen to this old pig-dog’s lies!"

Seeing that begging was useless, a savage glint appeared in Zhao Tieying’s eyes. Mustering his last ounce of True Qi, he roared, "We’re dead either way, so let’s fight him! If we team up, we might have a slim chance! Kill him, and the antidote is ours!"

Chen Qing nodded. "Alright!"

The word had barely left his lips when he brandished his Cloud-Coiling Spear. The tip flashed with a cold light as it thrust straight for the vital points of Jiang Bohong’s midsection!