Confessions in a Secret Chamber (Part 2)
The secret room was dead silent, and the candlelight flickered restlessly, pulling and twisting the figures of the two people on the cold stone wall.
The sound of jumping finally rang out, so low that it seemed to be grinding from the ground, and every word was soaked with bone-chilling coldness:
"Eleven years ago, the Holy Fire Hall manipulated those medicine men who had just been tempered with secret medicine and joined forces with the minions of the Demon Cult..." His gaze was like an icy spike, piercing Su Baiwei's eyes. "They flattened the Qinglong Sect. My parents, and over a hundred members of the Qinglong Sect were all killed." His voice suddenly rose, piercing the deathly silence. "When those monsters rushed into the backyard, the child who was hiding in the rice jar and was dragged out alive... was me!"
Su Baiwei felt as if struck by lightning. Her face instantly turned pale as paper. She stumbled backward, her back slamming hard against the cold stone wall. A spiderweb of bruises suddenly appeared beneath her clothes over her chest. The light that had just ignited in her eyes was completely extinguished, leaving only a dead silence. Her lips trembled, but no sound came out.
"Those deadly puppets are your father's 'masterpieces'!" Tiao Tiao took a sudden step forward, and the blood feud he'd been pent up for eleven years surged out like a tangible cold current. The bottle of Gu he clutched tightly in his hand couldn't bear the weight, making a harsh creaking sound, and cracks instantly spread all over the bottle. "Now, what gives you the right—" He roared harshly, like a wounded lone wolf, "Why do you want me to help you?!"
This cruel truth was like a huge rock, completely crushing Su Baiwei. A huge sense of guilt instantly tore through her, and tears burst out.
"I... I don't know..." Her voice broke, trembling with panic, "These twelve years... I only knew that medicine men were horrible... but I didn't know... I didn't know that they had..." She choked and cried with every word, "Every day... I live in torment... thinking that maybe committing suicide could end it all... but looking at the faces that watched me grow up... I can't do it... I thought it was a temporary solution... but I ended up getting deeper and deeper into trouble... This is the sin committed by the Su family... It's a blood debt... I dare not ask for your forgiveness... I only ask for a chance to atone for my sins... I'm sorry..." She covered her face, and her suppressed sobs echoed in the stone chamber.
Tiao Tiao's chest heaved violently, his eyes filled with deep pain and long-buried hatred: "I'm not a saint, I hate Su Yuanshan! I hate him for trying to get the skin of a tiger and opening the Yama Palace with his own hands! He is the one who committed the sin and killed my loved ones and every life in Qinglongmen, no matter what his original intention was!" His knuckles were twisted and white due to the extreme force, "Snap!" With a crisp sound, the cracked bottle completely exploded in his palm.
The mucus wrapped around the madly twisting insect splashed everywhere, and it instinctively swam towards Tiao Tiao's wound.
Tiao Tiao's head jerked back, his Adam's apple rolling violently. His clenched fists dug their nails into his palms, and a drop of crimson blood quietly dripped. When he opened his eyes again, beneath the swirling hatred lay a long-settled clarity and resolve. His gaze swept across her pale face, past the deep scars on her wrists from blood-drawing. His pupils shrank slightly, finally resting on her eyes, filled with despair and guilt.
"But," he said hoarsely, enunciating each word with a clarity that pierced through time, "this blood debt should not be borne by you, Su Baiwei."
Su Baiwei's entire body trembled violently, and she looked at him in disbelief. His eyes held no trace of the shock that should accompany hearing the "truth," only deep pain and a sense of... the heaviness of a fate that penetrated him? He... had known this all along?
"Su Yuanshan's obsession, his path, his choices, are his karma." Tiao Tiao's voice was as cold as the north wind blowing through a cemetery. "The mistakes he made... have long been paid for. He was bitten by the venomous snake he trusted most, and died from the poison needle he personally taught him... His daughter suffered in this endless purgatory for twelve years..." He paused, his voice heavy as a thousand pounds. "This price... is enough."
Su Baiwei's tears flowed violently.
"Holy Fire Hall!" Tiao Tiao's voice suddenly rose, and the murderous aura was as sharp as a cold blade drawn from its sheath. "I will uproot it and grind its bones into ashes!" This declaration was a cry that had long been engraved deep in the bones and blood.
Before he finished speaking, something strange happened!
The frenzied Gu, about to burrow into Tiao Tiao's wound, froze in mid-air, as if being pulled by an invisible force. It curled up docilely, and was eventually pulled back into the empty bottle held by Su Baiwei.
Tiaotiao's pupils shrank, a horrifying yet only plausible answer on the verge of escaping. "You... implanted the mother Gu into yourself?!" he growled. This woman not only nurtured the core, but also transformed herself into a living Gu nest and testing ground.
Su Baiwei didn't answer. She grabbed a bottle of dark medicine next to her and drank it all in one gulp.
The moment the liquid entered her throat, her body suddenly arched, and she coughed violently. A mouthful of pungent, fishy black blood splattered onto the ground with a sizzling sound. Simultaneously, her body lurched violently, her face instantly turning pale, the remaining color on her lips fading. She was only able to hold herself back thanks to the stone wall. The sub-Gu in her bottle, as well as the secondary Gu next to it, covered in strange patterns, suddenly erupted with a faint blue phosphorescence, like a last glimmer of will-o'-the-wisp, flickering for a moment before extinguishing completely, vanishing into nothingness.
Tiaotiao was completely shocked!
She had actually used her body as a furnace to complete the final verification. Seeing her instantly decay, his heart felt like it had been struck hard.
"Crazy!" Tiao Tiao stared at her face with a hint of relief, his throat rolling, and finally he squeezed out a low laugh, with a resonance of mutual reflection in the abyss.
Su Baiwei raised her hand to wipe the blood from the corner of her mouth, raised her bloodshot yet unusually clear eyes, met his complex and insightful gaze, and slowly the same arc appeared on her tearful face:
"The same to you."
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