You are looking at the HTML representation of the XML format.
HTML is good for debugging, but is unsuitable for application use.
Specify the format parameter to change the output format.
To see the non HTML representation of the XML format, set format=xml.
See the complete documentation, or API help for more information. 
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<api>
  <query>
    <search>
      <p ns="0" title="Meaning of Wild" snippet="[[Image:scsht.jpg|right|thumb|A screenshot of &lt;span class=&#039;searchmatch&#039;&gt;Meaning&lt;/span&gt; of Wild taken on September 20th 2008.]]&#10;&#039;&#039;&#039;&lt;span class=&#039;searchmatch&#039;&gt;Meaning&lt;/span&gt; of Wild&#039;&#039;&#039; is a play-by-post realistic [[wolf]] [[roleplay]] set on an isol&#10;" size="1914" wordcount="292" timestamp="2020-09-22T21:07:56Z" />
    </search>
  </query>
</api>