Chapter 130 The Scoundrel: "I'll get my comeuppance too!"...
Lin Mu held the medicine and served it to the woman, making it easier for Elder He to feed her the medicine spoonful by spoonful.
"She was forced to have a miscarriage, and she was filled with resentment. In addition, she had not eaten or drunk for several days. She must have fainted on the boat and fell into the river."
Hearing Elder He's words, the farmer next to him looked distressed. He said with a pained expression, "I knew it. My little sister must want to go home. Otherwise, why would she have boarded the ferry back to Pinglu?"
"She's awake, she's awake." Lin Mu saw the woman's eyes roll around under her eyelids a few times before she slowly opened them.
Nong Han immediately knelt down beside the bed and called out with concern, "Xiao Yuan."
The woman looked around unfocusedly, finally fixing her gaze on her brother's face, and tears immediately streamed down her face: "...Big brother."
The farmer wept, saying, "Don't be afraid, brother. I will never let the Yang family get away with this."
"I thought I would never see you again in this lifetime."
"How could that be? Your elder brother is going to Shanzhou today to bring you home."
The brother and sister wept uncontrollably as they spoke, and Lin Mu and Elder He did not disturb them.
The farmer asked, "They locked you in the woodshed, so how did you escape?"
Xiaoyuan said with a face full of bitterness, "I set fire to the woodshed, and escaped while they were putting it out."
"How could you be so foolish? That's too dangerous, what if..."
Although she appeared gentle and weak, she possessed a ruthless streak. Heartbroken, she was filled with hatred: "Whether I'm burned to death or starved to death, it's all the same path. I might as well burn the Yang family down and take them with me."
Upon hearing this, Nong Han was heartbroken beyond measure: "How could the Yang family allow that concubine to cause trouble and persecute the wife, so easily believing the lies of an old woman, and even poisoning their own flesh and blood?"
Upon hearing this, Xiaoyuan gave a slightly cruel and bitter laugh: "Because the Yang family is destined to be childless."
“Xiaoyuan…”
“Brother, you don’t know this, but when Yang Qi was young, he also had a serious illness like this and almost died. So the family invited a shaman to tell the story, and she said that the fetus had been aborted.” Xiao Yuan spoke weakly. “Then they found the pregnant woman and burned the fetus to bring the soul back. Brother, you said that he himself survived because of such misfortune, so of course you believe it without a doubt.”
Lin Mu was furious: "This is outrageous! It's clearly a trick to harm people. Which old witch is doing such evil deeds? I'll bring her here and hold her accountable!"
Elder He pulled the hot-tempered boy aside and said with mature composure, "Could you tell me what symptoms a child experiencing miscarriage has?"
Xiaoyuan's gaze flickered slightly as she recalled, "That child was originally so lively and energetic. He was even catching the cat in the yard at noon. I had just come back from outside and almost bumped into him. I don't know why, but he got startled and fell down the steps. It was just one step, not very high. He suddenly fell ill in the afternoon. At first, he had a high fever that wouldn't go down, and then at night he started feeling chills, breaking out in cold sweats, and talking nonsense. It kept going back and forth, and he was never lucid. We couldn't wake him up, and it seemed like he was having nightmares, constantly terrified in his dreams."
At first, we thought it was a cold, so we consulted seven or eight doctors and gave him several doses of herbal medicine, but he still didn't get better. In the end, he couldn't even drink water.
The two elders of the Yang family suddenly remembered that Yang Qi had also suffered from the same disease when he was a child, and the symptoms were similar, so they immediately went to find a sorceress.
Unexpectedly, because she almost bumped into the child that day, and the child was frightened as a result, trouble came upon her.
It was that mischievous child who rushed out and almost bumped into her...
Xiao Yuan thought that it must be the concubine's evil scheme, aimed at her unborn child.
The problem is, if the wife, who is infertile, suddenly becomes pregnant, and if she gives birth to a boy, what place will the son of the concubine have left?
So the concubine devised this wicked plan, using her son's serious illness to harm her. Whether it succeeded or failed depended on the choice of the Yang family: to protect the eldest son they had raised for five years, or the baby in her womb suffering from plague.
If the younger child were to be born, it would surely be a jinx that takes the life of the older child.
Thinking about all this, Xiaoyuan felt as if her intestines were festering sores, already perforated and rotting: "Ever since they killed my child, Yuan's precious son's illness has not only not improved, but has instead..."
Elder He pressed further, "On the contrary, what?"
"Didn't they want to burn the fetus? Did they want to take out the soul from my belly and put it back into her son's body?" Xiaoyuan said, her eyes wide with a bitter laugh. "That's right, there might really be a fetal soul in my belly, but it's not his, it's the wronged soul of my poor child. My child was burned by them, so naturally it will haunt that wicked son of the Yuan family!"
Looking at Xiaoyuan's almost insane and morbid expression, coupled with her words, Lin Mu felt extremely shocked.
Elder He calmly asked, "Why do you think that?"
Xiao Yuan stared at Elder He, her eyes fixed, her dark pupils almost bulging out of her white skin: "Because that unfilial son has indeed woken up, but he doesn't recognize anyone."
Elder He: "Amnesia?"
“My child hasn’t been born yet, so he hasn’t seen the faces of these people in the family, and naturally he doesn’t recognize any of them.”
It took Lin Mu a while to realize that what Xiao Yuan was saying was that her child's spirit had possessed the five-year-old child.
Her thin, bony fingers gripped the bedsheet tightly, trembling slightly with the force: "He can't walk anymore, he can only crawl, crawl on the bed, crawl on the floor, and he doesn't even crawl on his hands and feet. He only uses his face, his chin, and his shoulders to push forward, arching his body, his waist and legs surging, crawling up in an arching motion, looking like waves, his bones are so soft. Sometimes when he's close to the ground, shuffling along the ground, he's so fast it's like he's gliding. He doesn't eat anymore, he just lies quietly on the ground, and if he sees a mouse or grasshopper, he'll suddenly leap up and bite it hard, swallowing it whole without chewing."
Of course, they would be stopped by Yuan Shi and the old woman who rushed up, otherwise such a big rat would definitely get stuck in its throat and choke to death.
“Who told that Yuan woman to harm my child? Now, don’t blame my child for harming her son,” Xiaoyuan said. “That child can’t speak anymore, and he makes hissing sounds from time to time. If anyone blocks his way, he will bite.”
The more Elder He listened, the more his brows furrowed: "That child, perhaps it really has been aborted."
Lin Mu turned his head: "What?"
“However, it’s not a human fetus that’s gone,” Elder He wasn’t sure at first, but after hearing these symptoms, “the child is probably a snake fetus.”
Lin Mu felt a chill run down his spine: "A snake fetus?"
...
In the dark and damp cellar, water has always seeped through the cracks in the walls, and a thick layer of moss has grown on the wet stone slabs and blue bricks.
A huge python was coiled on the damp moss. Its body was covered with yellow and green patterns, but the last two-thirds of the body was unusually swollen and bulging, which distorted the patterns.
The scales on its lower abdomen burst open, forced open by the swollen snake belly, and the soft flesh exposed between the scales is its weakness.
The female python was pregnant, and its belly was filled with many heavy little creatures, making its lower body unusually cumbersome.
“I’ve been raising it since I was a child,” Chen Ying said, walking to the python and squatting down to gently stroke its head. “I’ve raised this guy for many years, and I’ve grown attached to it.”
Lu Bing sat leaning against the corner of the wall, no more than three inches away from the python. He listened to Chen Ying's words without even glancing in their direction.
It's utterly ridiculous for "two cold-blooded animals" to talk about feelings.
The python's eyes were closed, only slightly open at a slit, and it appeared weary due to its heavy, swollen belly.
The python's head rested on its smooth, coiled body, seemingly unbothered by Chen Ying's caresses.
"Young Master Lu, it doesn't seem to reject you at all." Chen Ying tilted her head to look at him. "Then its offspring won't reject you either, right?"
Along the way, knowing what Chen Ying had done, Lu Bing felt extremely disgusted: "You can't be happy unless you're hurting people, can you?"
"What can I do? I'm a Gu master, I need to cure Gu."
Heaven is truly blind.
Perhaps because they had spent a lot of time together, and because Lu Bing knew her true colors from the beginning, Chen Ying became less and less secretive when she did evil, and she was less secretive in her words and actions, gradually revealing a lot of information. Occasionally, she would even open her heart to Lu Bing and expose her ugly and vicious heart.
This was the first time Lu Bingzhen had ever seen someone commit evil so openly, and he was no longer shocked.
“You used the child’s soul to enter the snake’s womb, and then made a gu yin.”
“Nourish the snake fetus with human soul to form fetal breathing, which is only the first step in controlling the Gu.” Chen Ying walked to the base of the wall to lift the jar. She said, “After more than 120 days, the fetus will be formed and lay eggs. After hatching the baby snakes, it will have to go through another round of snake-human fetus. This is called human-snake mutual pregnancy, which is indispensable.”
"A snake carrying a human fetus?"
Chen Ying rummaged through the filth in the jar: "You wouldn't understand even if I explained. Anyway, the process of making Gu is very troublesome, time-consuming, and laborious, and there's no guarantee of success. I've been working on it for so many years, but I've never succeeded."
Chen Ying sighed as she spoke. She carried the jar over and sat down next to Lu Bing, facing him. "Young Master Lu, whether we can succeed this time depends on you."
Lu Bing retorted sarcastically, "What, you expect me to get you pregnant?"
"You're a man, so you can't get pregnant, but Qin San's belly is fine."
Lu Bing's face suddenly darkened: "Why don't you get pregnant yourself?"
Chen Ying, as if possessed, was amused by Lu Bing: "A troublemaker like me can't have a son. Whoever marries me will be childless."
"That's not just about having no descendants, that's about the destruction of the family and the extinction of the entire clan."
“That’s right.” She reached out and took Lu Bing’s hand, then lifted his sleeve to check his injury.
Lu Bing could only let her examine the injuries: "You killed Shen Yuanwen's entire family, and even Sun Xiuniang was used by you to make a sacrifice at the Ghost Gate. And her husband, Qin Lao Er, was also killed by you."
"Officer Lu, I know I'm not a good person, but you can't pin all these murder and arson charges on me!" Chen Ying cried out. "That Qin Lao Er, his wife was slept with by some other man, he was so angry he went to beat him up, but he couldn't win. He couldn't swallow his anger, thinking he couldn't lose both his wife and his army, so he asked for some money and sold his wife to Shen Yuanwen. Apparently, he was planning to find a wife for his sickly older brother and prepare a generous dowry for Qin San. Who knows what he was planning? But he sold his wife, that's for sure. So Sun Xiuniang, in a fit of anger, chopped up that dog of a man. Isn't that understandable? Me too, she chopped up her dog, I chopped up mine. We're both women with miserable lives."
Lu Bing: "..." You're acting like you're unlucky! No one can be unlucky, you are!
“As for her going to the Ghost Temple to offer sacrifices, that’s none of my business. Don’t falsely accuse bad people,” Chen Ying said. “You can’t falsely accuse me just because I’m bad.”
"If it wasn't you, then who could it be?"
"That mirror grinder."
"What?" Lu Bing was completely taken aback. Ya Ren had indeed asked them to investigate the mirror grinder.
"Officer Lu, how do you investigate cases? Why are you only targeting me? Do you think my family does all the bad things in the world?" There are so many bad people out there, she's just a drop in the ocean. Chen Ying said, "Didn't Sun Xiuniang have a bronze mirror? She probably picked it up from the Ghost Bureau, then called a mirror polisher to polish it. While polishing it, she took the mirror to offer as a sacrifice. Don't you think that mirror polisher is suspicious?"
"What is the background of that mirror polisher...?"
"How would I know? Why don't you go ask him yourself?"
Lu Bing: "..." Where am I?!
“Even in your condition, you still have time to worry about Sun Xiuniang’s case.” After examining Lu Bing’s arms and legs, Chen Ying opened his clothes. “This wound medicine is indeed as good as its reputation.”
All the wounds she had inflicted on Lu Bing had healed. When Chen Ying saw this, the smile on her lips gradually faded, as if she felt a little disappointed: "I've been treating you well lately, haven't I? I haven't bothered you at all."
Lu Bing's lips twitched.
"Young Master Lu, let me tell you a story."
Lu Bing didn't want to hear it.
“Shanzhou is actually my hometown. If my mother hadn’t died, I should have had a younger brother.” Chen Ying stared at Lu Bing’s turned profile and slowly began to speak. “She was pregnant at the time, and everyone said she was carrying a boy, so my parents looked forward to his birth every day. But one day, a wealthy family from Shanzhou came to our door with an old witch, saying that my mother’s pregnancy had taken away the life soul of their son, and they had come to take the fetus away.”
Upon hearing these words, Lu Bing turned to look at Chen Ying.
“My mother was eight months pregnant at the time, and she was due to give birth in less than two months. But during the process of terminating the pregnancy, they took my mother’s life as well.” Chen Ying met Lu Bing’s gaze. “I still remember that the wealthy family’s surname was Yang, and the child who was miscarried was named Yang Qi.”
"So you...you've come back for revenge?"
Chen Ying smiled, revealing her pearly teeth: "So, Young Master Lu, do you think my background is also quite tragic?"
To be honest, Lu Bing felt no sympathy for Chen Ying's true colors. He only felt that he and those who had been harmed by Chen Ying were even more miserable.
Then the wicked woman laughed and said, "I was just passing by and dealt with the Yang family on the side. Who has the time to come all the way here for revenge?"
It didn't sound like she held any grudge against the Yang family at all.
Chen Ying didn't mince words: "After all, my parents weren't good people either. They beat and scolded me every day, saying I was a good-for-nothing. They treated me like a pig or a dog, and even wanted to sell me to a brothel. I was only a few years old then, and I didn't want to go from being a good-for-nothing to being a plaything for men's pleasure, going to that filthy place where women are abused. Just then, I met that old witch who performed abortions. She had a lot of skills that could harm and kill people, and I wanted to learn them..."
Lu Bing frowned upon hearing this; Chen Ying had indeed been psychologically twisted since childhood.
Others want to learn skills, but she wants to learn them with the premise of harming people and taking lives. It is true that evil is cultivated from childhood.
Lu Bingxin had a guess in his mind: "So, you actually killed your mother, didn't you?"
“Not everyone in this world is fit to be a parent,” Chen Ying said with an innocent expression. “Because they are not fit to be parents, the Yang family came to take back the fetus. They are just getting their comeuppance, Young Master Lu.”
"Aren't you afraid of retribution?"
Chen Ying readily agreed, saying, "I also have my own retribution."
Then, she winked at Lu Bing and smiled gleefully: "Maybe my retribution is you."
That might actually be true, Lu Bing stared at her: "Who says it isn't?"
Beneath Lu Bing's sharp, sword-like brows, his seemingly calm gaze concealed a ruthless intent to skin Chen Ying alive.
Caught off guard, Chen Ying's heart skipped a beat as he stared at her. She couldn't help but lean forward, stopping just inches away from Lu Bing, and whispered, "What should I do, young master Lu? I can't bear to do this to you."
Lu Bing felt a chill run down his spine because he was extremely averse to her getting close to him.
“If I had met you sooner, I wouldn’t have married Shen Yuanwen.” Chen Ying looked at his sharply defined face, which was handsome in every way. “You are definitely better than him and would not have let me down.”
"Stop trying to disgust me," Lu Bingdao said. "You actually have a sincere heart?"
"Why isn't it there?"
Sincerity requires a heart; someone like Chen Ying, who lacks both heart and lungs, cannot possess it.
Lu Bing was too lazy to listen to her nonsense and was about to turn his head away when Chen Ying firmly held his face in her hands.
"You..." Lu Bing only managed to utter one word before a pair of red lips suddenly pressed down, abruptly sealing his mouth.
Lu Bing stared in disbelief, his body suddenly stiffening.
He opened his mouth to bite, but Chen Ying held his jaw tightly, preventing him from biting.
Something cold and sinister slid into his mouth, sliding all the way down his throat. Lu Bing's eyes widened in fury, veins bulged on his forehead, and tears welled up in his eyes instantly.
Inside the jar placed before them, countless slender baby snakes hatched and slowly crawled out of the filth. In a short while, they had crawled onto Lu Bing's body, up his arms, up his neck, into his ear canals, and into...
Lu Bing's eyes widened in shock, anger, fear, and dread.
The slippery, cold substance, having passed through Chen Ying's mouth, had already crawled down Lu Bing's throat.
Chen Ying finally let him go.
"ah--"
"ah……"
"Ahhh—"
The cellar suddenly erupted with screams of agony, heart-wrenching and unbearable pain.
The enormous python, which had been quietly coiled to the side, raised its head and slowly slithered toward the person screaming in agony on the ground.
It dragged its swollen belly and tail, its tattered scales scraping against the damp moss, and curled up around Lu Bing, who was screaming incessantly. Its huge mouth opened to its limit as if tearing apart, and it stuck out a scarlet forked tongue.
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