Parsing XML containing illegal characters with xpath, issue with angel brackets

I build a SharePoint form with dynamic rows (repeating sections in Nintex form) that have four fields in each row. Users could enter ', &, <, > in the first two text fields. The data of the dynamic rows are saved as XML.

Below is two rows of data:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?><RepeaterData><Version /><Items><Item><Milestones type='System.String'>test1's & <name></Milestones><Descriptions type='System.String'>test1's name</Descriptions><Recipients type='System.String'>user1, user2</Recipients><DueDate type='System.DateTime'>11/1/2021</DueDate></Item><Item><Milestones type='System.String'>TEST 2 </Milestones><Descriptions type='System.String'>TEST 2 </Descriptions><Recipients type='System.String'>user1, user2</Recipients><DueDate type='System.DateTime'>10/27/2021</DueDate></Item></Items>

</RepeaterData>

I use a Compose action to escape &: REPLACE(outputs('getRepeatingActions'),'&','ZZZ'), then another compose to run xpath:

xpath(xml(outputs('Compose')), '//Item'), which returns Item array.

' doesn't seem to have problem with xpath, & I code it as ZZZ then convert it back with replace function when I use it to send email. The tricky part is with angle brackets,< and >. The workflow fails when the text field has < or >.

The error is: Unable to process template language expressions in action 'getAllItems' inputs at line '1' and column '14916': 'The template language function 'xml' parameter is not valid. The provided value cannot be converted to XML: 'The 'Name' start tag on line 1 position 168 does not match the end tag of 'Milestones'. Line 1, position 175.'. Please see https://aka.ms/logicexpressions#xml for usage details.'.

How to escape angle brackets to allow xpath to work? When there are angle brackets in XML, convert to JSON doesn't work either.

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