Chapter 29: Flame Mountain Cocoon Man (2)

Li Yuanying asked the child what its name was. The child jumped and laughed and said, "Sister, you can just call me Fifteen. I was born on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month."

At the foot of Yanshan Mountain is the village of Chandi, which has a total population of about thirty people. There is no grass growing here, and the villagers mainly rely on the support of the imperial court to survive.

As to why they didn't leave, Li Yuanying didn't know. She only knew that this village had existed for hundreds of years and had always been the same, without any changes.

The villagers of Candi Village all had the surname Zhu, and were mostly male, with a few young girls. For example, the child before me, probably five or six years old, wore a thin cloth dress, had pigtails, and a dirty face.

When they arrived at the girl's home, it was a one-room mud house with only a long earthen bed in the room, on which lay the dying girl.

Li Yuanying walked over and checked the woman in front of her. She was shriveled and covered with dandruff, like a snake shedding its skin.

She lifted the woman's quilt and a foul odor hit her in the face. The woman's lower body was made up of pieces of skin attached to flesh. It seemed like she wanted to take it off, but the flesh and blood wouldn't fall off.

So, some of the flesh had begun to fester, and pus and blood were flowing all over the floor.

Li Yuanying covered the woman with a blanket and asked, "When did your mother become like this?"

Fifteen said, "My mother became like this after she gave birth to me. At first, she shed her skin, and then the flesh slowly fell off her body. The village elders were helpless."

"Is there anyone else in your village suffering from this disease?"

Fifteen shook his head. "I heard from the elders in the village that only women get this disease. I'm the only girl in the village, so I don't know."

Li Yuanying continued to ask a few more questions, but Fifteen was too young and she couldn't answer them.

"Can you take me to see the village chief?" Li Yuanying asked.

"The village chief went to Yanshan. They won't be back until tonight." Fifteen said.

"Going to Yanshan?"

"Yes."

"Then do you know what they are going to do?"

Fifteen shook her head: "The village chief said that I am a girl and don't need to know these things. I can just stay at home and wait to get married. But I don't want to get married. I just want to save my mother!"

"Sister, do you think my mother can be saved?" Fifteen looked at Li Yuanying eagerly.

Li Yuanying had never seen this kind of disease before, and she couldn't answer it for the time being. She had to ask the villagers what this woman had experienced before.

"Is your father here?"

"I don't have a father anymore."

Fifteen looked a little lost. Li Yuanying touched her head and felt a little distressed.

"Then is there any other villager you are familiar with? You can call him over and I will ask about your mother's situation."

"There are no other elders. I grew up with the village chief."

It seems that we really have to wait for the village chief to come back before we can find out the whole story. Li Yuanying looked at Zhang Qingchen, and they decided to stay at Shiwu's house first and wait for the village chief to come back.

One is to find out some information about the Polar Cold Lotus, and the other is to help Fifteen's mother see a doctor.

When Li Yuanying first entered the Chandi Village, she felt something strange. There was a flat land at the entrance of the village, which was built against the mountain. There was a deep well in the village, but the problem was that this area was in the shade of the mountain. Depending on the wind direction, the hot air from Yanshan would blow here. In addition, the Chandi Village was low-lying and had poor ventilation, which was not conducive to human habitation.

It can be said that the feng shui of this line is good, but this area is very bad.

This kind of repair method is more like the feng shui of a tomb, and is not suitable for a house.

She really couldn't believe that a century-old village would be built with this kind of feng shui system.

Zhang Qingchen also noticed these abnormalities.

When they entered the village, Zhang Qingchen noticed a child squatting at the entrance of the village rubbing the sand.

The sands were red in color, with rough particles and varying shapes and sizes. Occasionally some of them were black in color. They did not look like real sand, but rather like something that had been burnt into powder.

After entering the village, the red powder disappeared, and the land was all yellow, with hard black stones.

Apart from the child, Zhang Qingchen and Li Yuanying didn't see anyone else in the village. The villagers kept their doors and windows tightly shut, and they didn't seem to go out.

"Fifteen, where have all the villagers gone?" asked Zhang Qingchen.

"Some of them went out with the village chief, and some stayed at home. Generally, people in the village don't go out much because it's too hot."

Li Yuanying remained silent. Although the village was quite hot, wouldn't it be even hotter staying at home?

Such a reason does not hold water for Li Yuanying.

Suddenly, Li Yuanying felt that walking was not as easy as before. Her feet became heavy as if they were filled with lead.

She knew that her cold had worsened.

Li Yuanying looked at her hands and moved her fingers, but they didn't seem as flexible as before.

"This should be it, right?"

Li Yuanying heard a familiar voice.

She looked in the direction of the sound and saw a woman in red appear at the entrance of the village, with a young man in white standing next to her.

The boy was different this time. He was no longer wearing dark clothes, but white clothes with light green lace, which made him look very fresh and refined.

The young man noticed Li Yuanying at first sight. He looked at Li Yuanying expressionlessly without greeting him.

"Bingyi, Qilang, why are you here?" Zhang Qingchen asked.

"Is this your territory? Why can't we come here?" Bingyi said unhappily.

"My lord and I also want to see what the polar cold lotus looks like, so we came over to take a look. Is that not okay?" Bingyi snorted.

"Okay." Zhang Qingchen was speechless. It seemed that Qilang was indeed worried about his junior sister, but he was just being stubborn.

When Shiwu saw Qilang, she looked very scared and hid behind Li Yuanying.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm a little afraid of this brother." Fifteen said tremblingly.

Qilang glanced at Shiwu and snorted coldly.

Fifteen was so scared that he grabbed Li Yuanying tightly and secretly looked at Qilang.

"Don't be afraid, this brother is not a bad person, he won't hurt you." Li Yuanying comforted.

"Find us a place to stay." Qilang stared at Shiwu and said as if ordering her.

"Yes..." Fifteen answered hesitantly.

Fifteen walked in front, and a group of people followed behind. She took Li Yuanying and others to an empty house on the west side of the village and stopped.

"If there are guests coming to the village, the village chief will have someone bring them to stay here." Fifteen glanced at Qilang.

Qilang looked around the room. Apart from a few piles of straw, there was nothing inside. He frowned in disdain and said, "Then go away."

Fifteen ran away as if he had been pardoned.

"Brother Zhang, don't you feel unwell?" Qilang looked at Zhang Qingchen and asked.

When Zhang Qingchen was asked this question, he realized that he had felt extremely hot since he entered the village. He sweated profusely at first, but later the sweat became less, but his skin began to hurt.

Because he had been investigating the situation in the village with Li Yuanying, he did not pay attention to this detail.

After hearing what Qilang said, he lifted up his clothes and saw many red spots on his skin. These spots felt hard, painful and itchy.

"Hurry up and go inside. If you don't, the puppet in the dust will suck your blood dry."

After saying that, Qilang walked into the house.

Li Yuanying, Zhang Qingchen, and Bingyi quickly followed in. After everyone entered the house, Qilang sealed all the doors and windows.

"Aren't you all very powerful demon catchers? How come you don't know about sand puppets?" Bingyi asked in surprise.

Li Yuanying looked at herself. Perhaps because of the cold, there were only a few red spots on her body.

Sand puppet.

Li Yuanying had only seen it in books. It was a kind of monster that grew in the sand, called a sand puppet. The sand puppet looked very similar to sand. When the sun shone on them, they began to become active. When the wind blew, they flew up along with the sand.

Once they land on the skin of a creature, they will attach themselves to it and feed on the creature's blood until all the blood is sucked out.

Li Yuanying chanted a spell: "May all the people pray for eternal peace and prosperity. Purity!"

Afterwards, a lot of red powder fell from her and Zhang Qingchen's bodies. This powder was the same red powder they saw outside the village.

As expected, Yanshan is known as a forbidden area for demon hunters.

Over the years, many monster hunters have died here. In addition to the fact that the Polar Cold Lotus is a magic weapon that protects the mountain and cannot be taken away easily, the danger of Flame Mountain is also the reason why the Li family hesitated about when to take the Cold Lotus.

If Qilang hadn't told him in time, it might have been too late by the time Li Yuanying and Zhang Qingchen found out.

The sand puppet will release a lot of toxins while sucking blood. When the level reaches a certain level, even Hua Tuo will be unable to save the situation.

Zhang Qingchen has been practicing for many years, and his ability to resist poison is different from that of ordinary people. Although he has been contaminated by some sand puppets, he can still metabolize these toxins by himself.

Qilang ignored Li Yuanying. He found a corner, sat down cross-legged, and began to rest with his eyes closed.

Li Yuanying thought that the few of them would live in peace like this, and when the village chief came back, she could ask him for clues about the Polar Cold Lotus.

Unexpectedly, when the sun set and the moon rose above the treetops, something went wrong.

First, Zhang Qingchen developed a fever and collapsed in a daze. Li Yuanying lifted his clothes and saw that the black dots that had appeared during the day had turned black and were bubbling with black water.

Li Yuanying didn't have many dots, so there wasn't much black water either. She just felt very cold, nothing else.

But Zhang Qingchen was different. He quickly lost consciousness, his whole body was burning hot and his limbs were cold.

"Senior brother, senior brother, can you hear me?" Li Yuanying felt Zhang Qingchen's pulse, which was already very weak, and her face changed drastically.

"Qillang, what happened to my senior brother?" Li Yuanying didn't care about the unpleasantness between her and Qillang and spoke first.

Qilang looked lazy: "I don't know."

"Qilang, if I have ever offended you in any way before, that is between you and me, and it has nothing to do with my senior brother. Now his life is in danger, and the most urgent thing is to save his life."

Qilang nodded: "I understand. When you think I'm useful, you can use me. When you think I'm useless, you can ignore me."