Chapter 166 He wouldn't dare speak recklessly if the Ancestral Mountain didn't bear an eight or nine-tenths resemblance to it. ...
Master Fang was forced to stare at that terrifying face. Caught off guard, he almost choked to death on his own breath.
Master Fang was trembling with fear, and he really wanted to beat this scoundrel up: "Why did you bump into me?!"
"I didn't mean to."
Zhou Yaren knew something was wrong just from the mirror polisher and Master Fang's strong reactions, and asked, "What did you see?"
“Two corpses.” Bai Yuan approached the corpses calmly, staring at the one lying on its back. “The posture is a bit strange.”
This person's chin was held high, shoulders were raised, and neck was bent at an odd angle, as if it had been forcibly broken.
Master Fang stood beside Bai Yuan with a mixture of cowardice and courage, and upon seeing him, he exclaimed, "His neck is so long!"
The mirror grinder only dared to peek out from behind Master Fang: "Old Fang, two and a half of those are hitting your neck."
Upon hearing this, Lao Fang got goosebumps on his neck, but he didn't have time to argue with the other person because he felt that the man looked familiar: "Lao Jiang, look at him, doesn't he look like that long-necked mirage we saw in the mirage?"
The mirror grinder felt a chill run down his spine because the features looked similar: "So that mirage is him?"
Master Fang said solemnly, "A mirage is the image of the Taiyin emitted by the Yin Sui, which is the manifestation and illumination of all kinds of phenomena. If we follow what Tingfengzhi just said, that the resentment and evil energy here is affected by the Daoist energy in the Yin Sui, thus giving birth to a mirage ghost, then perhaps that mirage ghost is indeed transformed from this person's resentment and evil energy."
Seeing Zhou Yaren reach out her hand to that person, Master Fang exclaimed in surprise, "What are you doing?"
Because blind people cannot see, they naturally develop the habit of touching everything indiscriminately.
Bai Yuan didn't stop him. Zhou Yaren first touched the hunched shoulder, which was as thin as a rake, yet with hard bones. He used very light force, his fingertips slowly tracing the shoulder line up to the neck. With just a light touch, a snapping sound was heard. The fragile neck bones couldn't even bear the weight of a feather and suddenly broke.
His head, which had been tilted upwards, collapsed instantly and tilted to the side, where it was gently supported by Zhou Yaren.
Master Fang's breath caught in his throat.
The mirror grinder clutched his chest: "Don't scare me."
Although the person's neck bone snapped, a thin layer of skin and flesh connected them, preventing the head from being completely separated from the body.
The manner of his death was quite bizarre.
Zhou Yaren did not withdraw her hand, but instead stroked the man's neck bone more carefully and cautiously.
"Was this person killed by having their neck broken?" Master Fang couldn't help but ask. "Was their neck already broken, so it broke when you touched it?"
Zhou Yaren stroked the broken neck joints one by one: "This person's spine has an abnormality."
"Isn't it obvious?" the mirror grinder said. "I can see it now. Whose neck can grow this long? It's not a goose, it must be abnormal. Does it have several more bones than ours?"
Master Fang asked, "Was it innate?"
Zhou Yaren shook her head: "I don't know."
The mirror grinder added, "Was that snapping sound we heard earlier coming from his neck?" After all, he had been leaning back like that the whole time, and even if Tingfengzhi hadn't touched it, it was probably about time for it to break.
“Very likely.” Master Fang bent down to examine the body closely. “The body is not decomposed, so it must have been dead not long ago. Could it be a villager from the fishing village?”
“If he had just died, he shouldn’t be in such a withered and dehydrated state.” Bai Yuan had dealt with wronged spirits and seen many dead people. “Clearly, this is an incorruptible mummy. It’s hard to say how many years he has been dead.”
Moreover, she had just seen another corpse curled up with its knees drawn up, its dehydrated state similar to this one.
Zhou Yaren gently tugged at the corpse's clothes, and the rough linen tore easily, shaking out a thick layer of ash, which perfectly confirmed what Bai Yuan had said.
Dust billowed up, and Master Fang and the mirror polisher hurriedly covered their mouths and noses and leaned back to avoid inhaling it into their lungs. Who knew if these fine dust particles carried any kind of corpse poison?
"That's true," the mirror grinder said in a deep voice.
At this moment, Master Fang held the bamboo scroll that had been broken in two, and he opened his palm and said, "Could it be that these two people are sorcerers from Fang Immortal Sect?"
"No way," the mirror grinder said, somewhat incredulously, "you're saying they were people from the Qin Dynasty?"
Bai Yuan retorted, "Why not?"
When the mirror grinder was asked such a question with such a blank expression, he suddenly found it less unbelievable.
Bai Yuan turned around: "There are more than two mirages." She had just peeled eight off the villagers. Bai Yuan slowly walked into the darkness. "There must be more than just two corpses here."
The meaning of these words couldn't be clearer: there's a reason why the mirage demons are diving into this place.
Master Fang felt a pang of sadness. The night before, they were so shocked by the mirage that they didn't even count how many dark figures they saw. Now, let alone the number of mirage ghosts, the large and small handprints on the stone door alone were enough to tell that there were still many people inside the stone chamber.
Sure enough, a corpse was found lying face down five steps away. Judging from the clothing and the messy hair, it should be a woman.
Her withered, thin arms stretched forward, her five fingers bent into claw shapes, her nails already fallen off, and bloody claw marks remained on the ground beneath her, giving the impression that she had crawled on the ground before she died.
Although she was a woman, she was extremely tall, which made her limbs appear very thin and long, making her look rather incongruous and abnormal, inevitably reminding people of a spider.
Three steps away lay a corpse whose upper limbs were longer than its legs.
Master Fang was quite puzzled: "Don't you find it strange that the people who died here all seem to have physical characteristics that are somewhat different from ordinary people?"
“Indeed, no wonder those shadowy figures in the mirage were so terrifying and eerie.” The mirror grinder thought for a moment, “Were they specially chosen from among people with relatively special physical characteristics?”
Without informing anyone, Bai Yuan turned the female corpse, who was lying face down, over.
The mirror polisher suddenly saw that the female corpse's mouth was split open to her ears, revealing a row of jagged teeth, as if she were about to devour him. He was so frightened that he fell to the ground with a thud.
"Ah!" This appearance was absolutely terrifying. "Her mouth!"
Bai Yuan's heart sank. Upon closer inspection, he discovered that the person's mouth appeared to have been ripped open, filled with black blood that flowed down her chin and neck. The laceration had not healed, and a bloody scab had formed along her ear, suggesting that she had been screaming in agony until her death.
"If it were its own doing, the corner of its mouth wouldn't be torn like this, would it?" Master Fang couldn't bear to look at it. "It's too cruel."
"Who exactly are these people?" However, there was nothing to prove their identities except for a bamboo scroll that the mirror polisher had just found. "Are they sorcerers from the Fangxian Dao, or... could they have been harmed by those sorcerers from the Fangxian Dao?"
Bai Yuan raised his eyes: "You might have hit the nail on the head."
"What...?" the mirror grinder exclaimed in surprise.
Master Fang: "You mean, these people were really killed by Immortal Fang?"
Fang Xiandao's so-called immortality technique and his so-called immortality elixir have poisoned and killed many people. The boys and girls who tested the elixir were abandoned in the river tombs, and the undigested "elixir" dissolved in the corpse water, turning into the Wraith and the Gu Master to cause trouble, which led to this mess.
Bai Yuan, too lazy to say more, turned his head and found that someone was missing beside him: "Ya Ren?"
"Here," Zhou Yaren's voice came from the darkness, "come and take a look."
When the group arrived at Zhou Yaren's location with torches in hand, both Master Fang and the mirror polisher felt a chill run down their spines.
Zhou Yaren was seen squatting in a square pit about knee-high. Three corpses lay in the pit, their limbs intact, except for their faces, necks, and hands, which were torn and bleeding.
Zhou Yaren was feeling the face of one of the corpses: "This person's face is covered with wounds, the skin is torn and scabbed over."
Like muddy ground that has been drought-stricken for three years, cracked all over due to prolonged lack of water and exposure to the sun.
The already shriveled skin was covered with countless tiny cracks, and the scabs were woven into a messy, crisscrossing net-like pattern.
The mirror grinder was horrified: "How did this injury happen?"
“It’s hard to tell.” Zhou Yaren pulled open his shirt, revealing his withered skin covered in cracks. He then rolled up his sleeves and trouser legs, revealing the same cracks on his arms and calves.
Master Fang was astonished: "His whole body is covered in it."
The previous corpses had a leathery texture because their skin was dry and wrinkled. However, the three corpses in the shallow pit had cracks and scabs all over their bodies, so they felt like they were covered with an uneven, hard shell. They were very rough to the touch, and Zhou Yaren even felt like he was touching hard scales.
For some reason, Zhou Yaren frowned uncomfortably when she thought of this.
"Don't move," Bai Yuan said, his eyes fixed on the arm whose sleeve Zhou Yaren had rolled up.
Zhou Yaren paused, "What?"
Bai Yuan had already stepped into the shallow pit, bent down and squatted in front of the corpse, and raised his hand to roll up his rough and fragile sleeves.
Master Fang and the mirror polisher leaned over and watched as Bai Yuan scratched at the corpse's elbow a few times, prying off a piece of bluish-black scab, which he then examined closely between his fingertips.
Master Fang asked, puzzled and curious, "Is there something wrong with this scar?"
“It’s not a scar.” Bai Yuan rubbed his fingers together. “It’s scales.”
"What?" Zhou Yaren asked in surprise.
"Scales?" the mirror polisher asked in surprise. "What scales?"
Zhou Yaren: "How can a person have scales on their body?"
Master Fang followed suit and went down into the pit, spreading out his hands and saying, "Let me see."
Bai Yuan placed the small scale into the man's palm, then looked down at the man's elbow, where a few more scales were still scattered.
Zhou Yaren asked, "Did it rub against you?"
Bai Yuan scraped off a few green scales from his elbow: "They don't look like they stuck on; they look like they grew out."
"Grown?" The mirror grinder looked at the elbow with the scales peeled off, as if he had ripped off a layer of skin. "Really, how can scales grow on a person's body?"
“Elegant man,” Bai Yuan loosened the man’s belt and carefully examined his chest and abdomen, “roll up his trouser legs a bit.”
Zhou Yaren did as instructed.
Master Fang and the mirror polisher also went to undress the other two corpses. Although they looked terrible and were unsightly, they gritted their teeth and examined them closely.
On the three corpses, tiny patches of blue scales, no more than a third the size of a fingernail, were found on the elbows, ankles, knees, waist, abdomen, and back. These scales were mixed with dense scabs, and some even protruded from the cracks. They were difficult to spot without careful examination.
The mirror grinder muttered, "This is too strange, too strange."
“This place is by the sea, and the fishermen go out to sea to fish all year round,” Master Fang speculated. “Could it be that they have contracted some kind of ichthyosis?”
“While that makes sense, the mirror grinder, with a perfectly reasonable skepticism, “why do you think these are fish scales?”
"Aren't they just those long scales that swim in the water? What else could they be but fish scales?!"
The mirror grinder casually replied, "A snake."
As soon as he finished speaking, Master Fang suddenly froze, staring at the other person in disbelief.
Master Fang seemed frozen in place for a long while: "A snake?"
The mirror polisher, who had never seen him in such a dazed state, replied, "Ah."
"Snake scales?"
The mirror grinder nodded hesitantly: "That's possible."
Master Fang suddenly jolted awake, his face contorted with terror and horror, his complexion alternating between pale and flushed. He became agitated and flustered, stammering, "I know, the stone carving!" He hastily rose, tripping over the corpse in the pit, then scrambled up, his movements clumsy and agitated. "The stone carving! The one I just saw!"
The mirror polisher, seeing his appearance, almost thought he was possessed by a mirage: "Old Fang, are you still the Old Fang I know?"
"Quickly, let's go take another look at that stone carving."
The mirror polisher refused to go with him: "What's the point of looking at stones now..."
Snap—
The clumsy and stumbling old Fang took another tumble, and the mirror grinder couldn't even catch him in time.
This time, poor Taoist Master Fang bumped his forehead on the stone and saw stars. He even had a hallucination and vaguely saw the deity worshipped on the altar of his own Taoist temple—was this the spirit of the ancestor of mankind appearing?
The night before, Master Fang had just broken a tooth and was bleeding profusely. Tonight, he's bleeding from his head again. Even the mirror grinder couldn't bear to look: "Oh dear, old Fang."
Old Fang covered his forehead, his eyes glazed over.
The mirror grinder became worried: "Don't hit your head and make yourself stupid. What's the rush?"
Old Fang stared blankly back at him, his Adam's apple bobbing as he said, "Xi Huang."
The mirror grinder quickly pried his hand away from his head: "You were thinking about your Xi Huang, and now you have a bump, but thankfully the wound isn't too big."
As he spoke, he took out a handkerchief to wipe the blood from Lao Fang's wound, and then plopped down on a protruding rock next to him.
At this moment, Bai Yuan and Zhou Yaren had already caught up.
Master Fang was not hallucinating; there was indeed a deity statue sculpted in front of the stone wall. The statue's head was slightly raised, its expression lifelike, and it held a divination plate in its hand, with a Taiji symbol in the center. Scales grew from its waist and abdomen, transforming from its hips down into a long and powerful snake body, as thick as a person could embrace, with snake scales carved from dark blue stone, layered and dense.
Bai Yuan paused, stunned: "Fuxi."
Upon hearing this, the mirror polisher turned his head and noticed the stone statue behind him.
With a human head and a snake's body, wielding the Eight Trigrams, he was truly Fuxi!
The snake's body coiled in a circle, meandering and extending to—the mirror polisher followed the undulating, trailing tail of the snake, turned his gaze, and looked down to see what was under his own buttocks.
Good heavens! The slightly protruding, rounded, and curved stone he was sitting on was actually Fuxi's snake tail.
The mirror grinder slowly moved his buttocks aside and looked at the spot where Old Fang had fallen: "Old Fang, it was Xi Huang's snake tail that tripped you just now."
Old Fang turned his head and looked at the tip of the tail he had kicked. His eyes widened, and then he knelt down with a mournful face, saying, "This disciple was reckless. I beg Emperor Xi to forgive me."
Bai Yuan: "..."
Why did you even start worshipping them?
Zhou Yaren: "...Master Fang, are you alright?"
As Master Fang humbly kowtowed, the large bump on his forehead accidentally touched the cold ground, causing him to hiss in pain. He said plaintively, "Thank you for your concern, Tingfeng. I am fine."
Just then, a warm trickle slid down his forehead, and the mirror grinder immediately handed him a handkerchief: "Press it down, press it down."
Master Fang took the handkerchief and covered his bleeding forehead.
Bai Yuan didn't offer any words of comfort or concern: "You mentioned earlier that the stone carving reacted so strongly, did you discover something?"
"Yes, yes, stone carving." After kowtowing, Master Fang got up, not bothering to brush the dust off his knees and sleeves. A jumble of thoughts was swirling in his mind, and he didn't know where to begin. "How should I put it? Let me sort it out."
Seeing that he looked completely distraught and lost, Bai Yuan guessed that he had probably hurt his head, so he asked first, "Is it related to Fuxi?"
“Yes, yes.” Master Fang nodded repeatedly. “As you both know, I have been cultivating on Mount Renzu since I was a child. As the name suggests, the one worshipped on Mount Renzu is naturally Fuxi, the ancestor of humankind.”
Zhou Yaren nodded: "That's right."
Fuxi was the first of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, and the ancestor of all kings. He created the Eight Trigrams when the people were still ignorant, and from then on, civilization began. Therefore, he was revered as the ancestor of mankind.
The reason why Master Fang revered the ability to hear the wind was because Emperor Fuxi listened to the eight winds and drew the Eight Trigrams.
"Since things have already gone wrong, I won't lie to you. There's a river mound under our Ancestor Mountain."
These words immediately caught the attention of Bai Yuan and Zhou Yaren. Could it be that the River Tomb has some connection with the Ancestral Mountain?
Then Master Fang said, "For thousands of years, our Ancestral Mountain has been guarding that river tomb. Who knew that a few months ago, I had an accident and lost my watch, and the river tomb was stolen!"
Zhou Yaren asked, "Is it the time after you came out of the Taiyin/Dao Body, when you were knocked into the river and almost lost your life?"
"That's right." When he dragged himself back to Beiqu, barely alive, the ghost government office in Fengzhen had collapsed, the river mound had been dug up, and Master Fang stood on the banks of the surging Yellow River, completely dumbfounded.
He was familiar with the officials of the county government, and after some inquiries, he learned that many things had happened during his absence, and that the ones who were committing crimes in Beiqu were the Gu Master and Wang Xiang.
Before this, Bai Yuan and Zhou Yaren were unaware that the River Tomb was guarded, which is why those Wang Xiang who planned to sneak into the River Tomb had to deal with Master Fang first.
Bai Yuan asked, "And what is your reason for guarding the river tomb?"
"Firstly, it must be for the safety of Bei Qu, fearing there might be danger," Master Fang said. "Secondly, it's because there are things closely related to Xi Huang buried in the river tomb."
Zhou Yaren and Bai Yuan were both startled. They exchanged a glance but neither showed it.
Fuxi had a human head and a snake's body, while the one buried in the filthy soil of the river mound was the Gu serpent.
Zhou Yaren remained calm and tentatively asked, "What is it?"
"To be honest, I don't know exactly what it is, because even my master didn't know, and my master's master never explained it clearly. I only know that this thing is extremely important, enough to reproduce the miracles of the legendary Emperor Xi. Therefore, all disciples of the Ancestral Mountain are required to guard the River Tomb for generations to come without any mistakes." Master Fang looked worried. "The River Tomb has been peaceful for thousands of years, but I never expected that it would go wrong when it came to me, Fang Zheng'an. It is because I failed to guard it properly."
His home had been robbed, so he couldn't just sit idly by. He followed the trail of the Gu Master and Wang Xiang, while searching for clues related to the River Tomb and Xi Huang. He had to figure out what he had lost, otherwise what would he ask the thief for?
Bai Yuan had no interest in listening to his complaints: "What miracle?"
“The Eight Trigrams were drawn by Fuxi.” Master Fang said, “I always thought that what was buried in the river mound might be the Eight Trigrams of Fuxi, until just now, when I found stone inscriptions about Fuxi and these people in another secret room… Perhaps what is buried in the river mound under the Ancestral Mountain is not the Eight Trigrams of Fuxi at all.”
Bai Yuan and Zhou Yaren knew perfectly well that it was indeed not the Fuxi Bagua.
Master Fang continued, "The stone carving describes the deeds related to Fuxi. The key point is that there is a sentence carved at the end, something like, 'All things are born, but the sage is gone.' It also mentions 'being conceived,' 'solidifying the embryo,' and 'reshaping Fuxi's body.' I didn't have time to finish reading it before Old Jiang hurriedly dragged me away. Then those villagers from the fishing village who were possessed by the mirage ghosts came, along with you."
Bai Yuan and Zhou Yaren were deeply shaken and their emotions were in turmoil.
"Reconstruct the body of Fuxi." They vaguely understood.
Master Fang said, "Until just now, I saw those strangely shaped corpses. Perhaps they were not born that way, but rather that others used some means or did something to them, causing their bodies to mutate to different degrees. For example, that long-necked person, his neck bone is distorted, doesn't it look like a section of snake neck has been forcibly grown out?"
"Nonsense," the mirror grinder said. "Old Fang, isn't your statement a bit too outrageous?"
"Don't interrupt me, I have something even more outrageous to say," Old Fang said. "For example, those people whose skin was cracked and scabbed over, I dare to guess that they may also be undergoing some kind of mutation. The cracked skin may be a process of gradually turning into snake scales, or perhaps it can be understood as a kind of molting? Making people's skin crack and shed, and then growing snake scales again, the purpose is to make the human body snake-like, but the snake-like transformation failed, and only a few snake scales grew on their bodies, but they had to suffer the pain of their skin being cracked and torn, and in the end they could not survive."
The mirror grinder was completely dumbfounded.
Even though Zhou Yaren had thought of this, she found it difficult to process it in a short time.
Master Fang concluded, "The so-called reshaping of Fuxi's body might actually involve using these people to reshape Fuxi's body?"
Since the other party had brought it up, Bai Yuan simply confessed to him: "What the Gu Master dug out from the river mound was a kind of Gu snake talisman."
"What?!" Master Fang was taken aback. "How did you know?"
Because she had also been inside the river mound and witnessed the monstrous creature digging it up, and she herself had also taken a few snake eggs with her.
Bai Yuan avoided the topic and only addressed the important matter: "In that case, these people here must be afflicted by the Gu poison, and the Gu master is trying to use the Gu snake to create the body of Fuxi."
"Gu...Gu technique!" Master Fang's eyes widened in shock. "Gu technique can create...create Fuxi?"
"Isn't that what you just said?"
"I'm just speculating that these people were killed by the Gu Master who dug up the Gu Serpent from the river mound?"
“It doesn’t seem like it,” Bai Yuan thought for a moment. “Perhaps it wasn’t the person who dug up the snake bait, but the person who buried it back then.”
Master Fang asked, "Who buried it?"
Bai Yuan: "The Gu Master".
Master Fang: "Isn't this the same person who performed the Gu ritual?"
"How long have you disciples of the Ancestral Mountain guarded the River Tomb for generations? How long has that Gu Serpent Guide been buried inside? You just mentioned it's been thousands of years, right? Could the Gu Master who buried it and the one who dug it be the same person?"
Master Fang sighed inwardly.
Zhou Yaren understood that Bai Yuan did not mean to explicitly state that these people should have died a thousand years ago when Fang Xiandao was searching for the Boundless Secret Realm.
Perhaps the sorcerer who buried the Gu snake was one of those sorcerers who died in the Qin prison, or perhaps several of them—it's impossible to know.
After the Gu Master buried the Gu snake, he must have arranged for someone to guard the place. This person must have some connection with the Ancestral Mountain.
Otherwise, why has the Ancestral Mountain guarded the River Tomb for thousands of years?
Unfortunately, the disciples of the Ancestral Mountain have changed generation after generation, and even the master of Master Fang's master is unclear. If we want to trace the origins, it will be very difficult to clarify.
"Let's leave it at that for now," Bai Yuan said. "The Gu snakes buried in the filthy soil of the river mound were dug out from the bellies of several women. Legend has it that women who have been subjected to Gu magic can become pregnant with insect eggs, but I don't know the specifics."
Zhou Yaren suddenly remembered something: "Could it be a miscarriage?"
"Hmm?" Bai Yuan turned his head and immediately remembered what had happened to Tang Yuan.
At that time, the soul of the young Yang family member was in the snake womb. Zhou Yaren said, "Humans can be in snake wombs, and snakes can be in human wombs. Is the Gu Master using this method to make the women in the river tombs pregnant, so that the snakes can be in human wombs and thus give birth to the Gu Snake Guide?"
Bai Yuan said, "That is, through the process of human and snake conceiving and interbreeding, the Gu Snake was conceived, which could then be used to reshape Fuxi into a human-headed snake-bodied figure."
The mirror grinder was so confused that he could hardly describe his shock as he exclaimed, "What you're saying is absolutely terrifying!" It was utterly astonishing.
Unfortunately, no one paid him any attention at that moment.
Master Fang was starting to fall behind, but he vaguely remembered: "It seems that the stone carving mentioned something about a fetus, which should be what you're talking about. I really didn't have time to see it clearly at the time."
Bai Yuan said, "Where is that stone carving? Take us there to see it."
"Good, good." Master Fang had the same idea and couldn't wait to rush to the stone carving to see it clearly.
Unfortunately, after walking only a few steps, they encountered another mummified corpse sitting against the corner of the wall.
The mummified corpse was loosely draped in an outer robe, with the trouser legs rolled up to the knees, revealing two thin, stick-like legs.
Master Fang suddenly stopped, staring intently at the pair of withered, blackened calves: "These legs..."
“This person’s legs are covered with bulging veins.” Bai Yuan squatted down to examine the person’s condition. The veins crisscrossed under the grayish-white, shrunken skin, like messy tree roots floating on the ground. In some places, there were even many large and small bulges.
"Hmm?" Bai Yuan glanced down and noticed the man's ankle. "There's an injury on his ankle."
Master Fang's gaze followed Bai Yuan's words to the mummified corpse's ankle. He subconsciously swallowed, thinking of Constable Lu at that moment.
As usual, Zhou Yaren touched it with her hand: "No, this shouldn't be a meridian."
Master Fang's face turned pale: "If it's not meridians, then what is it?"
Without a word, Bai Yuan deftly sliced open the skin on the mummified corpse's calf with the sharpness of his fingertips, revealing the inside.
Master Fang and the mirror polisher both turned pale with shock.
"This—" the mirror grinder's tongue froze, "is this an insect?"
Bai Yuan immediately recognized what the long, thin thing was, because she carried a fresh one with her, which had only recently hatched from its egg.
Bai Yuan said, "It's a Gu snake."
Master Fang was dumbfounded and could not utter a single word.
“These people really will stop at nothing,” Bai Yuan said. “In my opinion, they must have tried all sorts of methods to reshape Fuxi’s body.”
“Old Fang,” the mirror grinder suddenly spoke up, “don’t you think this is related to that Constable Lu… oh…”
Old Fang suddenly grabbed the mirror grinder's soft side and squeezed hard, causing the grinder to yell out in pain.
Master Fang rushed over and rolled up the sleeves hanging on the sides of the mummified corpse to confirm: "Let me see his wrists."
This person's wrists and ankles had been severed, and there were bulging veins on all four limbs.
"Master Fang," Zhou Yaren had just begun to speak when Master Fang called out at the same time, "Listen to the wind and you'll know!"
Zhou Yaren asked, puzzled, "Is something wrong?"
“I’ve discovered,” Master Fang said, his throat tightening as if a hard stone were lodged in it, “that Constable Lu seems to have some health problems.”
Zhou Yaren's expression suddenly changed: "Lu Bing? You've seen Lu Bing? When? Where is he? What's wrong with his health? What happened?"
Upon hearing news of Lu Bing, Zhou Yaren tensed up instantly. The last time he saw Lu Bing in Shanzhou, Lu Bing's limbs were weak and limp, and the tendons in his hands and feet had been severed by a Gu master.
Master Fang knew very well about the relationship between Constable Lu and Tingfengzhi, so he recounted how he had encountered Lu Bing the previous night and how he had rescued him: "After we carried him out, we came here. Suddenly, he was in great pain, his limbs were trembling uncontrollably. I didn't know what was wrong with him. Then we rolled up his sleeves and trouser legs, and we saw... we saw that the veins on Constable Lu's arms and legs were all bulging, like... like this, and there were many knots in the veins." Master Fang became more and more panicked as he spoke. "At the time, I didn't know why he was like this. Now that I think about it, Constable Lu's condition was probably similar to this man's..."
Zhou Yaren couldn't control herself and yelled, "What do you mean by 'almost'?!"
Master Fang paused for a long time. If it weren't for the resemblance being eight or nine tenths, he wouldn't dare to speak recklessly.
Concerned, he knew that Tingfengzhi wasn't angry at him. Master Fang paused for a few breaths, giving Tingfengzhi a moment to process his anger, before continuing, "I saw a very thin snake crawl out of Constable Lu's clothes. Since we were in a dense forest, I assumed it was a snake from the forest that had accidentally gotten under Constable Lu's clothes, so I didn't pay any attention to it."
However, as he witnessed Bai Yuan tear open the flesh of this mummified corpse, the veins that bulged under the skin were not actually veins.
Zhou Yaren felt dizzy and her ears were ringing.
“Master Gu…” Zhou Yaren could barely stand.
What did the Gu Master do to Lu Bing...?
No, he had to go save Lu Bing. He couldn't let the Gu Master kill Lu Bing like this!
"Ya Ren." Bai Yuan suddenly stepped forward and stopped Zhou Ya Ren, who was about to kneel down.
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