Chapter 47 Gu Pool "Oh dear, it's out of breath."

The strong smell of blood hit Xiao Jiang, who suppressed the urge to vomit.

Not far away, something was swirling around, making a sticky, slippery sound. In the silent underground space, it sounded extremely eerie, and Xiao Jiang quickly got goosebumps on the back of his neck.

She secretly opened her eyes while lying on the wooden board.

An irregularly shaped pool had been dug out of the ground before her, but instead of water, it contained a red, blood-like liquid. Swirling within the pool were countless black, soft-bodied worms she had never seen before, their plump bodies piled and tangled together in this pool no larger than a single room.

Besides the unknown insects, there were also people in the pond.

These people, with their eyes closed, floated and sank in the blood-soaked water, tossed about by the swarms of insects, their fate unknown. They were men and women, all very young children.

Black, fat worms clung to the human body, sucking away blood. No wounds were visible, but the worms visibly swelled. The disgusting creatures, satiated, stretched open the folds of the skin, making it glisten like giant leeches.

"Wow, this smell is too strong..." The young man was obviously here for the first time and couldn't stand it, so he leaned against the wall and started gagging.

"That's disgusting."

"Heh, you poor kid, you think this stuff is disgusting? You have no idea how popular it is with those big shots." The scarred middle-aged man couldn't stand his grotesque appearance, his disdain evident in his words.

The young man chuckled sheepishly, “The big shots have quite the appetite.”

"But they also have to come here by themselves, you know... these things?" The young man grinned, making a face that showed he found it hard to accept.

The scarred middle-aged man keenly sensed the probing intent in his words and immediately stopped him, saying, "Don't pry into their affairs. If you offend them by accident, we'll both be in deep trouble. You know they're not like the government; you can't just pay some money and get them imprisoned."

"Yes, yes, yes... We're just small fry, how can we expect to make a living by letting them slip through our fingers?" the young man said with a grin.

These words struck a chord with the scarred middle-aged man, who became delighted. "Absolutely! If some benevolent person were to offer a little guidance, we might even be able to enter the immortal realm and cultivate the path to immortality."

Talking couldn't interfere with work, so the scarred middle-aged man called over the young man to help. Together, the two of them were about to throw the two newly arrived goods into the pool.

They each grabbed one of the older girl's heads, holding her hands and feet.

Just as she was about to lift it up, the little beggar next to her suddenly jumped up and bit the hand that was holding Jinzhi hard.

The young man quickly shook off the hand, and when he saw that his hand was bleeding, he screamed in pain.

"You little brat... you're quite the actor," the scarred middle-aged man roared.

The young man was stunned for a moment.

The scarred middle-aged man didn't notice his dazed expression; he was only focused on grabbing the little beggar, but the little beggar dodged left and right, as nimble as a small fish.

The young man quickly joined the scarred middle-aged man, and together they went to catch the little beggar.

The underground palace was empty, except for a pool where insects were kept. There was nowhere to hide and no weapons to borrow.

Xiao Jiang had no weapons to defend herself, so she had no choice but to run towards the exit. She remembered there was a halberd rack outside with several bronze halberds stuck in it.

But her speed was much slower than before, and the two men were chasing after her, about to catch her. In desperation, she glanced at the candle burning on the wall, immediately took off her cloak, and swept it towards the flame.

Flames ignited the cloak, which was then draped over the two pursuers.

"Ouch, it's hot, it's hot..." the young man cried out in pain.

The fire burned them, causing excruciating pain. They could no longer worry about chasing after the person; they had to put out the fire first.

The young man swatted out the flames on his clothes, and a burnt smell of hair wafted from above. His expression instantly turned grim. He stared at the figure of the little beggar running wildly through the passageway. In the fleeting glimpse he had just made behind the cloak, he had vaguely seen a pair of golden eyes.

Xiao Jiang kept running; she wanted to get the bronze halberd to rescue Jinzhi. The two people behind her were just ordinary people, and with a weapon, she might be able to fight back.

The exit is just ahead, and the halberd stand is placed below the mural.

The daylight was still bright at the exit.

They were about to run away, just a hair's breadth away.

But the light quickly contracted in the next moment.

The door closed.

Only dim candlelight remained in the passageway.

Xiao Jiang turned around and saw the scarred middle-aged man in the passageway pressing a mechanism, smiling at her fiercely but smugly.

"Run! Let's see where you can run to!"

Behind him was a closed door, and in front of him were two swindlers; Xiao Jiang had nowhere to hide. After struggling desperately for a while, he was finally pinned against the wall by the two men, who tied his hands behind his back.

Her head slammed against the cold stone wall with a thud, making her nose sting and warm liquid flow down her cheeks.

It was only at this point that she truly understood the powerlessness of an ordinary little girl in the face of an adult man.

Power is an insurmountable chasm. No matter how she jumps around, she is nothing but a clown in the face of power suppression, just like she used to be fearless because of her spiritual power.

Her nasal cavity was filled with the smell of rust, and blood clung to it, forcing her to breathe through her mouth. Cold air was drawn in through her clenched teeth, the chill seeping into them.

Right now, she's just a helpless little girl, unable to do anything or protect anyone.

He once wielded a knife to resist thousands of troops, but now he can't escape the grasp of two ordinary people.

To make matters worse, the medication started to take effect.

My head started to spin from the impact, and my vision gradually blurred.

She ate less and took a smaller dose of medicine, so the effects of the medicine took effect only slightly slower than Jinzhi's. After this intense escape, the medicine's power was brought out more thoroughly.

The middle-aged man with the scar was furious; this unruly fellow had given him a hard time. His face was burned and burning, and he cursed inwardly, fearing that another scar would soon appear on his face.

Having finally subdued this guy, he won't be polite.

The scarred middle-aged man was about to slap Xiao Jiang.

The young man next to him grabbed her first, and under Xiao Jiang's increasingly unfocused but fierce gaze, he pinched her chin and examined her carefully.

Previously, her figure was obscured by the cloak, but upon closer inspection, it was discovered that the little one in her hands was actually a girl with golden eyes and messy, disheveled hair, with a few streaks of white showing through.

It looks somewhat familiar.

"You little wildcat, you've got a strong tongue, but I'm not here to play around with you." The young man swiftly chopped at the little beggar's neck, then scooped her up in his arms before she collapsed.

Seeing that he had already knocked the man unconscious, the scarred middle-aged man, saving himself the trouble of doing it himself, urged, "Hurry up and throw him in!"

The young man then obeyed and did as he was told.

It took a lot of effort to throw this unruly fellow into the Gu pool. The scarred middle-aged man had no time to deal with the next one and stood by the pool waiting for the Gu worms to absorb the fellow's spiritual essence.

The spiritual essence absorbed by the Gu worm is stored inside the worm for buyers to use. When a buyer arrives, the Gu worm must be broken open on the spot; the purer the spiritual essence, the higher the price it will fetch.

"Drain him dry, suck out all his spiritual essence, and see how he can still jump around like that!" The scarred middle-aged man cursed inwardly. This guy was really annoying.

We'd be doing him a disservice if we didn't squeeze every last drop out of him!

As soon as fresh food entered the pool, the Gu worms rushed to attach themselves, their tiny, black mouthparts piercing into the fresh food.

Time passed little by little...

After a while, none of the Gu worms grew larger; instead, they all left the body to find new targets.

"Damn it, why is it solid?!" The scarred middle-aged man finally couldn't help but curse.

A body capable of containing spiritual energy is considered hollow; a "solid" body specifically refers to mortals who have not cultivated at all. All are born of nature, and even if they cannot compare to those races favored by creation, mortals still possess some spiritual energy from heaven and earth. Those who have no spiritual energy at all can be considered the most foolish and dull-witted.

Encountering something so "solid" is truly disgusting.

The second person was thrown in, and it was the same scene again—another "solid" one.

The scarred middle-aged man flew into a rage, grabbing the young man by the collar and snarling, "You little brat, are you kidding me?! Tell me what all this stuff is! Others might deliver goods a hundred times and not even get a single 'solid' one, so why did you manage to find them all? Huh?"

"Are you deliberately trying to disgust people?!"

"You dare to ask for a price for this kind of stuff?" The scarred middle-aged man was so angry that he jumped up and down, the veins on his forehead throbbing, making him look even more ferocious.

The young man looked completely innocent, his ever-smiling face now devoid of any smile.

Faced with the facts, he had no face to argue anymore, and just said with a long face, "Do you think I wanted this? If I had known they were two 'solid' ones, why would I have bothered and wasted my whole day?"

The young man grew impatient. "Alright, alright, I won't calculate it for you this time."

"Forget it, you think it's that easy to let it go? If we can't gather enough spirit marrow and delay the delivery time, how am I supposed to explain this to them?! They could crush us with a flick of their finger!" The scarred middle-aged man was agitated. He wasn't in such a hurry at first, but receiving two "solid" offers in a row really made him lose his composure. If the next offer was also "solid," this deal would probably become his death warrant.

"No, go out and bring back a few more people. I don't believe we can be this unlucky."

The young man neither agreed nor refused, his face equally worried. "Tsk, this is troublesome. You know how things have been lately. If those two cultivators run into us, we're finished!"

He sighed heavily, frowned and thought for a moment, "How about this, you tell me when they're coming to pick up the goods, I'll calculate how many brothers I need to help, and try to bring more people so we can get the goods ready before they arrive."

Scarface was extremely anxious, his mind solely focused on delivering the goods. His reply blurted out, "They're coming in five days. Are you sure you can handle it?"

"Okay, five days it is."

The young man readily agreed, but the middle-aged man with the scar wasn't so easily appeased.

If it weren't for the fact that he had a fairly pleasant working relationship with this person in the past, these two "solid" things alone would have been enough to push him into the pool to be fed to the Gu worms!

The two bodies in the blood pool were pushed aside by the gushing worms, which looked quite disgusted with them.

"So what do we do with these two now?" the young man asked.

The scarred middle-aged man was annoyed just looking at the two guys. "What else can we do? They're two solid idiots. Keeping them around will only waste their lives. They'll just gossip when they get out. We might as well kill them."

Then, remembering something, the scarred middle-aged man immediately reminded him, "Don't do it here. Don't let those two idiots defile the spiritual essence within the Gu worms."

The young man readily agreed and then went to pull the two people out of the pool.

The one who bit him had his filth washed away in the blood, revealing a still somewhat immature but extremely beautiful face.

The young man was stunned for a moment, then smeared blood on her face, making her pretty face a mess again.

The young man by the pool checked her breath and pulse with his fingers and suddenly cried out.

"Oh no, it's out of air."