"Stop joking. Lift up her clothes and look at her chest and back. Do you see any purple marks that look like little purple snakes?"
"Come here." Li Yijin was afraid and didn't dare to lift Zhou Qian's clothes.
"I'm a man, it's inconvenient for me." Ye Xingchen said with exasperation, "With your guts, you dare to try and go on an adventure? What were you thinking?"
"Let me do it." The girl named Yingying was the bolder one. She lifted Zhou Qian's clothes, looked at her chest, and couldn't help but gasp.
"What's wrong?" Li Yijin asked quickly.
"Zhou Qian, she... she has purple marks on her chest, like little purple snakes. What's going on? Did we encounter a snake demon?" Yingying was so frightened that her face turned pale and she started trembling.
"Alright, I understand what happened." Ye Xingchen said, "It's not a big problem, don't worry about her."
"Then, how do we wake her up?" Yingying asked, somewhat apprehensive.
"Bring me a bowl of clean water."
"I'll go get it." Yingying quickly fetched a bowl of water and brought it over.
Ye Xingchen grabbed Zhou Qian's finger, took out a silver needle, and stabbed it into her right middle finger.
A drop of blood, as black as ink, dripped from her fingertip and into the bowl.
In an instant, a bowl of clear water turned purplish-red.
With blood flowing from all ten fingers, Ye Xingchen then used his finger techniques in the air to stabilize the situation. After all that effort, the girl on the hospital bed finally woke up.
"Zhou Qian, how are you feeling? Are you feeling better?" the two girls asked anxiously.
"Much better." Zhou Qian nodded, her expression still very weak.
"Let her rest more, and then when it gets light, get some realgar, dissolve it in water and let her drink it."
"She really encountered a snake demon?" Li Yijin's face turned pale.
"There's no snake demon, but there's definitely something wrong with the back mountain. I'll go investigate and find out what's going on."
"Explain yourself clearly what happened," Li Yijin asked.
"Did you encounter a snake in the back mountain?" Ye Xingchen asked. "It had red and white rings on its body and was three feet long?"
"There seems to be a snake, but it's too dark to see clearly," Li Yijin pondered.
"This is snake gu, which is something that someone deliberately feeds on with various poisonous insects and herbs," Ye Xingchen said. "This thing is covered in poison, and once you get close, you will be poisoned by snake gu."
"If not treated in time, the person poisoned by the Gu will die from the poison within a week, and the body will be taken back by the person who cast the Gu and made into a mummified corpse."
"This..." The three girls in the room turned pale with fright when they heard Ye Xingchen's explanation.
"Why would they turn them into mummies?" Yingying asked, puzzled.
"After being eroded by snake venom and then soaked in herbs, the mummified corpse becomes a medicinal corpse," Ye Xingchen said. "It has many uses: corpse refining, puppets, poisonous corpses, furnaces, or..."
At this point, a thought flashed through Ye Xingchen's mind, and he blurted out, "Life for life?"
"What does it mean to exchange one's life for another?" the group asked, puzzled.
Ye Xingchen remained silent. He suddenly remembered that the girl who had disappeared before was captured by the Three Heroes of Yinshan for some ulterior motive.
However, after the girl was rescued, it alerted the Xuan Yu Pavilion, and now the investigation is strict, so the Three Heroes of Yinshan have no chance to make a move.
So they changed their strategy. Instead of focusing on creating poisoned corpses, they randomly laid out poisons and saw which unlucky person would run into them.
They need girls, aged thirteen to eighteen, so high school becomes their first choice.
The snake gu used today was most likely planted by them to refine medicinal corpses, and the medicinal corpses refined with snake gu have a very strong purpose.
This reminded him of Jiang Yongkang, the Ghost Doctor of Mingshan. Mingshan and Yinshan are too close, and the two lineages have a good relationship.
However, Mount Ming has a unique skill called Seven Corpses for Life, which involves turning a person into a medicinal corpse, sealing their soul in the body, and then using a secret ritual to exchange seven medicinal corpses for the life of a person on the verge of death.
Now, Jiang Yongkang is a VIP guest of the Ye family; he is there to treat Ye Taihe's terminal illness.
Could it be that the Three Heroes of Yinshan were commissioned by Jiang Yongkang to refine the medicinal corpse in order to exchange seven lives for one life to save Ye Taihe?
Thinking of this, Ye Xingchen's face showed a hint of anger. If this was true, then Jiang Yongkang was too heartless and insane.
"What's wrong?" Seeing Ye Xingchen's pale face, Li Yijin's heart skipped a beat and she became a little scared.
"It's alright, don't go to the back mountain, I'll go scout it out first." Ye Xingchen said, "Be careful, don't go to sparsely populated places alone at night, understand?"
"I understand." Li Yijin nodded pitifully. "Could you...stay with us? We're scared right now?"
"It's perfectly safe here, don't be afraid. I'm going to take care of some things, and I'll come back later." Ye Xingchen said, then turned and left.
After arriving at the back of the mountain, Ye Xingchen stopped in front of a small hill. He took a deep breath and slowly released his spiritual energy to observe everything happening around him.
On that day, in order to block Ding Yulong's sword, Ye Xingchen forcibly broke through his realm, causing his realm to drop from Celestial Phenomenon to Heavenly Realm. Therefore, his divine sense is limited, and he can only use his spiritual power to observe the surrounding situation.
However, despite his decline in cultivation level, ordinary celestial experts still couldn't do anything to him.
Moreover, Ye Xingchen's previous advancement was too rapid, defying the heavens and causing his foundation to become unstable. Although he could break through to the Celestial Phenomenon realm again at any time, he did not intend to do so.
He wanted to stay in the Heavenly Realm for a while to solidify his foundation.
Suddenly, his mental energy locked onto a spot in the middle of the hill, where there was a faint movement.
He flashed across the night sky and arrived at that place.
This is a pile of rubble, with several huge stones scattered around it in a disorderly manner, just like a megalithic circle.
In the very center of this megalithic structure, a cluster of red and white banded snakes writhes, clearly forming a snake den.
As expected, these were Gu snakes, and Ye Xingchen recognized them as the work of the Three Heroes of Yinshan.
The venomous snake is here, so the person who released it must be one of the Three Heroes of Yinshan. They've been hiding in the shadows for so long, and Ye Xingchen is determined to find them today.
With a swift grab of his right hand, Chi Xiao appeared in his grasp. A sword light streaked across the night sky like a shooting star, and with a hiss, the pile of Gu snakes' flesh and blood flew everywhere, cleaved into several pieces.
Although this thing can still twist after being cut, it's no longer a threat.
As Ye Xingchen slew the snakes, an angry roar came from above the hill: "Who dares to harm my Gu snakes?"
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