Chapter 18 The Southern Frontier Holy Son Obsessed with Gu Poison 18

Upon hearing this, Lu Yi was suddenly stunned.

If he wasn't poisoned by the love potion, then what about all the things he did for Xie Rong these past few days, and all those filthy fantasies he had about Xie Rong? Were they all from his own heart?!

He developed genuine feelings for a villain, a demon obsessed with torturing people.

As his confused thoughts gradually cleared, Lu Yi remembered the insect egg he had spat out.

Or perhaps he hadn't forgotten, but he had deceived himself so much that he actually believed it.

"You dare to play me?" Xie Rong said very slowly and calmly.

"I..." Lu Yi uttered a single word with difficulty as his neck was being choked.

He wanted to say that Xie Rong was even happier that no one had been seduced by the love potion.

He also wanted to ask, since he hadn't used the love potion, and since he was sincere, what was Xie Rong still dissatisfied with? Why was he so angry?

"You deserve to die, no, not just you, all of you deserve to die." Xie Rong shook off his neck and strode out of the secret room.

[Host, what are you going to do?]

"What can I do? What can I do?" Xie Rong smiled, her delicate eyebrows pressed against her eyes. "Of course, I'll do what villains do."

He stepped out of the bamboo house and saw several baskets full of oranges piled up beside the steps. Jin Jiuzhou, who had been sitting and waiting for a long time, stepped forward and said stiffly, "Valley Master, all the oranges have been picked. I really can't stay. I'm not a casual man like Lu Yi."

Xie Rong walked straight past him, her clothes fluttering, her silver ornaments jingling, and she exuding a fragrance.

Jin Jiuzhou thought, "It's like a butterfly."

By the time he came to his senses, he had already followed the poisonous butterfly to the Five Poisons Cave.

He watched as Xie Rong took the jade flute from his waist and held it to his lips.

The cold, harsh sound of the flute resounded throughout the Misty Valley. Jin Jiuzhou was still puzzled until the Gu worms in his meridians began to stir and began to gnaw at his meridians more fiercely than ever before.

He staggered and knelt on one knee, his face pale, and he forced himself not to utter a sound.

Bleeding seeped out little by little from the skin of the arm, and these blood spots connected to form the beginnings of veins.

The flute music still wasn't enough, so it continued.

[Host, stop right now!] the system urged urgently. [Your Extreme Yin Gu hasn't been refined yet; you can't keep bragging like this!]

The white slime followed Xie Rong's arm, trying to cause trouble and snatch his jade flute, but he coldly threw it to the ground.

[Host, stop!]

Xie Rong's heterochromatic eyes were unusually calm, and his fair fingertips skillfully manipulated every hole on the jade flute.

A trickle of blood slowly seeped from the corner of his lips.

Then the blood flowed from under the nose, to both ears, and finally even under the eyes.

Xie Rong seemed to feel no pain; his flute playing was steady and exhilarating.

Jin Jiuzhou crawled to his feet and hugged his leg tightly. "Stop... Can't I stay and be your male concubine?"

Xie Rong kicked the idiot away.

The flute melody shifted to a higher pitch, and venomous insects and snakes from the Five Poison Cave crawled out in droves, excitedly searching for food in all directions.

Jin Jiuzhou lay on the ground, but because he was too close to Xie Rong, the Gu worms bypassed him.

However, this did not prevent him from spitting out blood, and his pupils were so painful that they became unfocused.

Even if all the meridians in one's body were severed, it wouldn't be any worse than this.

Just as the flute music was about to reach its most exciting point, a sharp, menacing cry of a falcon suddenly came from the sky above, abruptly drowning out Xie Rong's flute playing.

Xie Rong suddenly looked up.

The cold moon hung high in the sky, and several eagles circled in the night sky. Suddenly, one eagle swooped down and snatched away a snake-like creature.

Then came the second, the third, the fourth...

His snake poison, the child he carefully fed with his blood, is about to be devoured by the eagle.

[How could this be?! How could the plot have moved forward by half a month?!]

Xie Rong's eyelids were red as if she had wept blood. She turned her head and grabbed Jin Jiuzhou's collar. Her beautiful face was contorted with rage, and her voice trembled, "Is it you, or Lu Yi?!"

“It wasn’t me,” Jin Jiuzhou looked up at the eagle in the sky and froze, “That was… an eagle from the Dark Guard Camp.”

The Dark Guard Camp was a place for training secret guards for the royal family. Now that the emperor is weak, the Dark Guard Camp only obeys the Empress Dowager.

Jin Jiuzhou knew that he and Lu Yi had spent too long in the Misty Valley and had not delivered any good news. The Empress Dowager had lost patience and was determined to capture Xie Rong, even if it meant that everyone captured in the Misty Valley would be buried with her.

"Aren't the Dark Guard Battalion members of your imperial court?"

Jin Jiuzhou: "Yes."

"You're all lackeys of the imperial court, and you still say you're not!" Seeing that another snake was about to be snatched away by the eagle, Xie Rong abandoned Jin Jiuzhou, her slender body crouching down, hurriedly protecting the snake in her arms, ignoring the scraped skin on her arm.

"Xie Rong!" Jin Jiuzhou leaned over Xie Rong.

The eagle swooped down and tore the flesh off the man's back.

If that claw had landed on Xie Rong's delicate skin, he would probably have lost half his life.

Jin Jiuzhou snapped out of his daze and stared blankly at the little devil he was holding in his arms.

What is he doing? Is he protecting Lu Yi's master?!

...

Inside a sealed room.

Xie Rong's shackles were very strong, and only his could open them. Lu Yi managed to break them open with great difficulty, but was then tormented by the restless Gu worms under the flute music, leaving him sweating profusely, pale-lipped, and with his meridians feeling as if they were about to explode with pain.

A wisp of choking smoke drifted in through the entrance to the forgotten secret room.

Lu Yi's expression changed drastically, and he struggled to get up from the ground.

As soon as he ran out of the secret room, he was choked by the thick smoke that billowed towards him.

He coughed and covered his mouth and nose as he ran out of the bamboo house, hurriedly fetched a bucket of water from the lake, and extinguished the fire on the orange tree.

Then he ran back to the bamboo house to put out the fire on another orange tree in front of it.

"Xie Rong? Xie Rong?!" Lu Yi looked around anxiously, but couldn't find anyone.

He carried a wooden bucket to fetch water to put out the fire while searching for someone.

Even after their clothes were burned through and their faces were blackened by thick smoke, they still couldn't find a single person.

It seemed as if he was the only person left in the entire valley.

Lu Yi stood in front of the empty Five Poison Cave, breathing rapidly, his eyes red.

He stood there like a lost dog, bewildered and helpless, unable to find his master and at a loss for what to do.

"Lord Lu." A shrill voice came from behind.

That voice shouldn't be here.

Lu Yi turned around and saw the chief eunuch in front of the Empress Dowager holding a whisk, disdainfully waving away the dust around him, followed by a large group of people, walking up to him.

"How did you manage to cross the poisonous forest unharmed, since you weren't poisoned by the curse—"

Lu Yi's words came to an abrupt halt. He no longer looked at the chief eunuch, his gaze sweeping over the crowd, his pupils suddenly contracting.

The prison cart, made of black iron, was heavily surrounded by the masked guards of the Dark Guard Camp.

Inside the prison cart, the slender figure leaned against the railing, her black hair disheveled, her tattered skirt unable to conceal the black marks on her knees, her silver ornaments blackened by soot, and her wooden clogs gone. Clutching the only snake in her arms, she muttered in unfamiliar southern Xinjiang dialect, soothing the snake in her arms without giving a single glance to those around her.

Lu Yi felt as if he had been whipped, all his reason stripped away.

He was the one who hated Xie Rong the most in the world, and he was the one who was tortured the most by Xie Rong. He didn't even have a chance to get revenge on Xie Rong, so why did these people treat him like this?

Lu Yi's eyes were bloodshot, and he breathed heavily. Like an enraged lone wolf, he kicked the head eunuch away and charged towards the cage.

"What are you all standing there for? Stop him! Don't let him ruin the Empress Dowager's plans!" The head eunuch shouted, scrambling to his feet and adjusting his official hat.