Chapter 36 Meatballs "This is the starter."
Zhou Yaren suffered multiple injuries, and blood was continuously seeping out. His body heat was also being lost, causing him to feel cold and dizzy, which were symptoms of excessive blood loss.
His movements were at least twice as slow as usual. If it weren't for the Xun formation's movement and repositioning, he would have been torn to pieces by this pack of ferocious elephants.
Zhou Yaren often felt fortunate to have mastered the art of wind manipulation. As long as he wrapped a killing talisman around his arm, the omnipresent wind of nature could become a blade he could easily wield. He couldn't let the blood he shed go to waste, so he simply formed it into a talisman, summoned a whirlwind to swoop down, and like a scythe, severed the head of a monstrous creature.
He originally planned to continue his efforts and kill a few more, but his energy was stagnant, and he was willing but unable to do so.
At the same time, another monstrous elephant pounced, its gleaming dagger plunging menacingly towards his chest.
Bang—
The dagger struck something hard and failed to penetrate his body. It wasn't that Zhou Yaren had suddenly become indestructible, but rather that he had a bronze mirror tucked into his chest. Zhou Yaren twisted his wrist, gripping Wang Xiang's neck, and plunged the dagger all the way into the man's throat, piercing his neck.
With a gurgling sound, the elephant spurted out a foul-smelling black liquid.
Zhou Yaren pushed it away, staggering and almost losing his balance. The bronze mirror in his arms slipped out, but he caught it in time with his blood-stained hands. A few drops of black viscous liquid were splattered on the mirror's surface.
Zhou Yaren glanced at it and saw a small crack pierced in the bronze mirror by the tip of the knife. Then he suddenly paused, and he could vaguely see a bright moon in the mirror, and a woman reflected in the moon.
Zhou Yaren was inexplicably startled and turned to look at Bai Yuan outside the Xun Formation. Bai Yuan's face was exactly the same as the woman's face in the mirror.
The vibrating pipe at her waist began to play intermittently and softly at some point, and Zhou Yaren's five senses seemed to be numbed, making her unable to react to either the pain in her body or the sounds from the outside world.
It was this hesitation that allowed the surrounding creatures to pinpoint his position in the Xun formation and launch a swarm attack.
Bai Yuan had already taken a few steps to the front of the Xun formation. Meeting the stunned gaze of the other party, he could tell that Zhou Yaren was already at her limit. Now, she was completely unresponsive to the group attack, probably because she was about to be petrified by the miasma.
Fresh blood energy continuously emanated from the Xun formation. Bai Yuan raised his hand and pressed it against the swirling wind vortex, condensing the moisture permeating the Xun formation into frost before Zhou Yaren was torn apart alive by the group of demonic creatures.
The chaotic energy subsided, and time and space seemed to freeze for a moment. The surging phantom was suddenly trapped in the frost and remained motionless.
Bai Yuan clenched his fist with all his might, nearly shattering the spiritual meridians that had been blocking his entire body, and gritted his teeth, cursing Zhou Yaren as a truly despicable person.
The water vapor in the Xun formation condensed into frost, freezing the Wangxiang within it all at once. The water monster hidden under the human skin slowly froze into an ice block, and then Bai Yuan squeezed it with all her might, shattering the ice block of Wangxiang closest to her into pieces.
Bai Yuan, wounded and sealed, could only unleash limited power. Thus, the moment she finished displaying her power, the frost condensed within the Xun formation melted into raindrops, falling in droves and crumbling upon contact. Wang Xiang, simultaneously released from their seals, turned to Bai Yuan in fear, as if encountering a natural enemy. The instant she took a step forward, they abruptly retreated, scattering like birds and beasts, lifting their coffins and fleeing with lightning speed.
No one had the energy to chase after them, as they were all struggling to protect themselves. Bai Yuan even felt dizzy and disoriented.
Zhou Yaren's long hair was disheveled and she was covered in blood. She could barely hold the bronze mirror, and her arm felt as if it weighed a thousand pounds.
His gaze was fixed intently on Bai Yuan.
Just moments before, he had vaguely heard the music Sun Xiuniang played when she offered her life as a sacrifice at the Ghost Gate. It was indistinct and intermittent, but he finally remembered the tune of the wind music. The sacrificial text in the wind read: "The Taoist priest has completed his mission, the Taoist gods have returned to him. He sought refuge in the world and died in the Taiyin realm, and was reborn and did not perish."
Bai Yuan endured the dizziness and turned to check the dug pit: "Wang Xiang dug something out of here."
Zhou Yaren, struggling to maintain her swaying body, moved over with stiff, unsteady steps: "What is that?"
Four skeletons lay horizontally in the excavated pit, and in the abdominal cavity of one of the skeletons, a lump of flesh that was neither rotten nor decayed was strangely protruding.
The meat chunks were covered with a red and white, fishy, sticky substance, wrapped around them like tendons, tightly encasing the meat in the belly of the skeleton, giving the illusion of a skeleton pregnant.
The fascia, like the roots of grass and trees, burrowed into the filthy soil, seemingly absorbing the flesh and blood of the dead rotting in the river mound.
Bai Yuan bent down and directly used his hands to peel away the layer of fishy, sticky fluid, revealing a whole mass of bloody red flesh.
It was actually a bit disgusting, but Bai Yuan didn't care. Her movements were slow and deliberate because of her caution: "It looks like the White Bone Demon has been pregnant for several years, with a ghost baby that has not yet been born in her belly."
After saying that, she inexplicably felt like a midwife squatting in a graveyard, helping the White Bone Demon give birth.
"These might be pregnant women who were buried alive." However, after the pregnant women died, they turned into a pile of bones, while the fetuses inside their wombs survived by clinging to the "nutrients" in the filthy soil. Zhou Yaren's numb fingers trembled as she recalled Bai Yuan's earlier words.
Many unscrupulous sorcerers, mostly lacking in virtue, will seek out extremely yin places in great rivers in order to achieve certain goals.
What do you want with this?
The pregnant woman buried alive in front of you is the answer.
Bai Yuan remained noncommittal. The pit was surrounded by array stones, forming a small array pool, allowing the fleshy mass inside the skeleton's abdominal cavity to absorb the yin energy of the unclean land in this river mound. It was clearly man-made.
To raise these several ghost babies?!
“This is a complete placenta,” Bai Yuan carefully wiped away the reddish-brown grime from the mass of flesh. After cleaning it, he could almost see through the nearly transparent placenta to the inside. Bai Yuan examined it closely for a moment, somewhat unsure, “But what’s wrapped inside seems to be…”
Zhou Yaren's knees were so stiff she could barely bend them, so she couldn't jump into the pit and couldn't help but ask, "What?"
There should be a child inside the placenta, but Bai Yuan couldn't see clearly: "It looks like a strangely shaped ghost fetus."
"Strangely shaped?" Zhou Yaren asked. "How so?"
"It doesn't look like a normal baby at all. Should I tear it open and take a look?"
Zhou Yaren did not respond immediately, looking hesitantly at the lump of soft flesh in Bai Yuan's hand. Because she was unsure what was inside, she found it difficult to decide. What if it only caused harm after being torn open? In their current state, they were not confident that they could deal with it.
"Don't act rashly," Zhou Yaren pondered, "What if it's a monstrous creature gestating inside?"
That's why those charlatans in human skin came to pick us up with a coffin.
This guess seems quite reasonable, and Bai Yuan bluntly stated: "Then let's nip it in the bud."
"Wait..." Zhou Yaren had barely uttered a word when Bai Yuan's gaze suddenly swept past him to look behind him, and he warned, "Be careful."
Qin San, disheveled and looking neither human nor ghost, gripped a dagger that appeared out of nowhere and, like a madman, stabbed at Zhou Yaren's nape.
Her limbs were like those of a puppet on strings, even more stiff and inconvenient than Zhou Yaren's, so this sneak attack failed.
Zhou Yaren dodged to the side and grabbed the other person's thin wrist holding the dagger: "Qin San."
Qin San's pupils were bloodshot, his face filled with a near-distorted hatred, and the muscles under his eyes twitched uncontrollably: "You killed my elder brother, you killed my elder brother."
"Your older brother is already dead."
Qin San's scarlet pupils almost bulged out of their sockets, his gaze like fangs biting Zhou Yaren, as if he wanted to devour his flesh and chew his bones. He said with a stubborn and sinister certainty, "He's back."
"Qin San..."
"He's back." All she knew was that her older brother, who had raised her bit by bit, had returned. Whether he was a man or a ghost, she didn't care, as long as her brother was back. But, "you killed him again."
Zhou Yaren, of course, understood what she was insisting on: "It wasn't Qin Da who came back..."
Qin San ignored her and gripped the dagger, intending to stab Zhou Yaren fiercely. However, her wrist was firmly held by the other woman, who stubbornly resisted, saying, "He's dead, and you killed him too. Give my brother back to me!"
Bai Yuan, observing Qin San's distorted features, spoke up: "This girl has lost her mind... um... the time has come..."
Half an hour later, exactly half an hour later, a turbid wave swept over them, crashing down and instantly engulfing the river mound. The group felt as if they had no foothold; the once fertile, land-like soil transformed in an instant into a raging torrent.
The three were as insignificant as grains of sand, drifting with the current in the torrent, and were eventually washed ashore by the churning waves.
"...Hey...hey...blind man...hey...wake up..."
Zhou Yaren lay dying on the riverbank, severely wounded and bleeding profusely until his body was ice-cold, yet he stubbornly clung to life, refusing to die. He heard distant calls echoing in his ears, and struggled to wake up, but his mind was a chaotic mess.
Bai Yuan gently patted his face: "Blind man, Zhou Yaren, wake up."
Zhou Yaren felt her body sinking heavily downwards, while her soul floated lightly upwards, experiencing a tearing sensation as if her soul and body were about to separate.
He certainly didn't want his spirit and body to separate, as that would inevitably lead to a fatal calamity. So, with all his might, he tore open the chaotic consciousness, pried open his tightly closed eyelids, and opened a narrow slit in his eye.
"Awake?" Bai Yuan breathed a sigh of relief, finally able to bring him back to his senses. "How are you?"
It took Zhou Yaren a long time to process what he was going through before his mind gradually returned to normal. He was still somewhat confused: "Cold."
The bone-chilling cold chilled him to the bone, and he instinctively raised his hand to find a source of warmth, but the object he touched was also completely cold.
Bai Yuan glanced at the back of his hand that was pressed against his and said in a low voice, "I'm not warm either, and I can't warm it up. The girl who wanted to kill you is still alive. If you need, I'll go and drag her over so you can hold her."
Zhou Yaren, whose head was spinning, finally came to her senses: "No, no need."
"What's wrong?" Bai Yuan asked. "Isn't it cold?"
Zhou Yaren gritted his teeth and propped himself up. He was actually in more pain than cold. He couldn't remember how many holes Wang Xiang had pierced. At this moment, his whole body was aching and he absolutely couldn't stand the human heater.
Because the floodwaters suddenly swallowed up the river mound, they were caught completely off guard. Zhou Yaren was still worried about the amniotic sac, but seeing that Bai Yuan's hands were empty, she asked, "Where is the amniotic sac?"
“It was smashed by a huge wave.” Bai Yuan said, pulling out a handful of grayish-white, oval-shaped objects about the size of a pigeon egg from his sleeve and handing them to him. “This is what was wrapped in the placenta. I only had time to fish out a few. Take a look, can you recognize what it is?”
Zhou Yaren was taken aback: "Not Wangxiang?"
"no."
“But I can’t see them.” Zhou Yaren took the two grayish-white “pigeon eggs” and stroked them carefully. The shells were not brittle or hard; they were thick membranes with a leathery texture and were slightly elastic when squeezed.
Bai Yuan could only describe it to him, and under the moonlight, he could see that there were a few faint blood streaks on the grayish-white leathery surface.
"Blood streaks?" He frowned, judging from Bai Yuan's description and the feel of the flesh, "Could this be... a snake egg?"
"What?"
"How could there be snake eggs inside the placenta?" How could that be? Even if the pregnant woman who was buried alive wasn't carrying a stillborn ghost baby, it shouldn't be snake eggs. Zhou Yaren asked in a deep voice, "Was the placenta intact?"
Bai Yuan personally dug out the lump of flesh, and she was absolutely certain: "It's intact, without any tampering." It was just as perfectly intact as if it were still inside a pregnant woman's womb, with no signs of damage or re-sewing.
But how could a human possibly give birth to a belly full of snake eggs?
Zhou Yaren suddenly looked up, his mind reeling as if struck by lightning. He remembered the body of Shen Yuanwen, the eldest son of the Shen family, covered in pustules: "This is a Gu Yin."
Is the legendary, mysterious art of Gu poison really used in this way to induce Gu? In the river mound, using impure soil and a pregnant woman…
Zhou Yaren connected the dots: "If this package of placenta contains snake eggs, then it must also contain leech eggs, because the 'Gu Yin' planted in Shen Yuanwen's body is a blood leech. The Wangxiang is a kind of formless and shapeless water monster. If it wants to come ashore to the land, it must have a body to move around in the world, so it uses blood leeches to hollow out human flesh and then take over the nest."
After listening to his analysis, Bai Yuan lowered his eyes and stared at the snake egg in his hand: "So Wang Xiang carried the coffin into the river tomb because he was heading for the Gu Yin."
Zhou Yaren looked up and stared directly at her, her gaze sharp as a needle: "Weren't you also after the Gu Yin?"
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Author's note: I suspect that Nezha was born wrapped in the amniotic sac as a lump of flesh.
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