Chapter 38 Father is under a spell!
Mu Fang carried Mu Yu and strode through the crowd back to the Anguo Princess's residence.
The Xuanjia Army's personal guards automatically lined up outside the mansion, shutting out all the noise.
The gate slammed shut, shutting out the cheers and shower of flowers that filled the city.
Inside the mansion, Xiao Beichen, Yan Ziche, Chu Chongjin, and others had already come out to greet them.
"Uncle Mu!"
"General!"
Everyone bowed in greeting, their eyes filled with undisguised admiration and joy.
Mu Fang nodded, but his gaze never left the little one in his arms.
"You've lost weight." He gently stroked his daughter's cheek with his rough fingertips, his voice full of heartache.
Mu Yu shook her head, her small hands still tightly gripping his armor.
She didn't speak, but simply tilted her head back and stared at him with her large amber eyes.
She wanted to see it more clearly.
Was the fleeting emptiness in her father's eyes a mistake, or was it real?
"What's wrong, Little Yu'er? Don't you recognize your father?" Mu Fang found her gaze amusing and deliberately put on a stern face. "Is it because your father has grown a beard and become ugly that our little princess doesn't recognize him?"
"No," Mu Yu said softly, "Father is the most handsome."
This is from the bottom of my heart.
In her heart, her father was the most majestic and handsome man in the world.
However, the black thread wrapped around her father's lucky aura made her feel very uncomfortable.
The banquet was held in the largest flower hall of the Princess's mansion.
Mu Fang changed out of his heavy armor and into a casual dark brocade robe, which made him look less fierce on the battlefield and more refined.
He personally carried Mu Yu to the main seat, and as each dish was served, he first tested it with a silver needle before placing it into his daughter's bowl.
"Little Yu'er, try this, Osmanthus Sticky Rice Lotus Root, your favorite dish from before."
"And this, steamed egg with hibiscus, was specially ordered by Doctor Xie to be made for you by the kitchen. It's very nourishing."
Mu Fang kept serving food to her daughter, but barely touched her own bowl.
Mu Yu ate in small bites, but her eyes kept glancing at Mu Fang.
Everyone at the table was talking happily.
Xiao Beichen recounted amusing anecdotes from his time in the military with great enthusiasm.
Yan Ziche would occasionally chime in with a sharp, mature-sounding comment that made everyone laugh.
Chu Chongjin sat quietly, his gaze gentle, occasionally handing Mu Yu a handkerchief to wipe her mouth.
Only Mu Yu, unable to taste the food.
The Eye of Fortune within her sea of consciousness has never been closed.
She could clearly see that the black line, as if it were alive, was slowly and patiently wriggling around Mu Fang's aura of good fortune.
It is absorbing its father's light.
Although it was slow, it was indeed eroding Father's good fortune little by little.
"Daddy, aren't you going to eat?" Mu Yu put down her small spoon and tilted her head to ask.
"I'm full just watching you eat," Mu Fang replied with a smile, his eyes overflowing with doting affection.
He picked up another piece of crystal pork jelly with his chopsticks, carefully removing the slightly fatty parts from the edges before placing it into Mu Yu's bowl.
Just as he lowered his head to focus on the piece of meat, Mu Yu's heart skipped a beat.
She saw it!
In Mu Fang's deep eyes, his dark pupils suddenly contracted in the center under the candlelight.
It is no longer a circle.
Instead, it turned into an extremely thin and short vertical line of ink!
Just like a cat's eyes!
No, it's even more eerie than a cat's eyes!
The vertical lines appeared for only a fleeting moment, so quickly that they seemed like a mere optical illusion created by the flickering candlelight.
The next second, Mu Fang raised his head, his pupils returned to their normal round shape, and his eyes still held that gentle galaxy.
"Little Yu'er, eat quickly, or it will get cold," he urged.
Mu Yu's face turned pale instantly.
It's not an illusion!
She saw it clearly!
That "bad thing" isn't just clinging to Father; it... it's already burrowed inside Father's body!
"I'm full." Mu Yu pushed away her bowl and slid off her chair.
"Why are you eating so little?" Mu Fang frowned.
"Little Yu'er is sleepy and wants to go to sleep." She tugged at Mu Fang's sleeve and whispered, "Daddy, will you tell me a story tonight? Just like before."
"Alright, whatever you say." Mu Fang immediately got up, picked up his daughter, and said, "Daddy will tell you the story of how we drove away the barbarian bear."
Back in Mu Yuxin's bedroom, Mu Fang placed her on the soft bed and covered her with a brocade quilt.
He sat on the edge of the bed and began to recount the border battles in his deep, resonant voice.
In his words, the bloody and cruel war was transformed into a childlike story of "disobedient villains getting spanked".
Mu Yu lay in bed, only her big eyes showing, quietly watching him.
She concentrated all her energy and activated the "Koi and Auspicious Clouds Record" in the sea of consciousness.
The scroll shone brightly, and she pushed the power of the Eye of Fortune to its limit.
This time, she no longer just looked at the surface of the aura.
She wanted to see through the skin and flesh, through the bones and blood, and into the depths of her father's body!
As her thoughts deepened, the scene before her began to change.
In her eyes, her father's body had become a collection of countless points of light.
The heart is red and full of life.
The bones are white, strong and upright.
Golden blood and qi flowed through his meridians, like a rushing river.
Everything was so healthy, so full of energy.
Where is the bad stuff?
Mu Yu searched diligently.
Finally, at the heart of her father, at the core of that most intense red light of life, she saw something that shouldn't exist.
That was a... bug.
A black insect, shaped like a silkworm pupa, but covered with countless tiny tentacles.
It curled up on Mu Fang's heart meridian, its fine tendrils, like deeply rooted trees, piercing deep into the flesh and blood of his heart.
The black line wrapped around the ball of good fortune originated from this insect!
It greedily devoured Mu Fang's vital essence and fortune, then fed back a cold, sinister energy into Mu Fang's body.
Heart-Eating Gu!
The Turtle Prime Minister once mentioned this to her while telling a story.
That was the most vicious Gu technique of the southern barbarians, fed with the caster's blood and sweat, planted into the enemy's body silently and without any antidote.
In the early stages, those afflicted by the Gu poison show no abnormalities, but as time goes on, the Gu worms slowly erode their minds, eventually turning them into mindless zombies who only know how to kill and obey the Gu poisoner's commands!
When did Father fall under the spell?
Was it on the southwestern battlefield?
Mu Yu recalled the vertical pupil that flashed in her father's eyes for a moment, and the abyss that lay there.
That's a sign that the Gu worm is trying to control Father's mind!
The aura of this Gu worm...
Mu Yu carefully examined the details, and suddenly, a familiar, nauseating feeling welled up in her heart.
This scent is seven parts similar to the scent of the drug that drove the Tiger King mad in the hunting grounds!
The evil aura emanating from the "Seven-Colored Phoenix" who was so terrified at the Hundred Birds Appreciation Festival bears a striking resemblance to her own!
She even shared a similar malice with Princess Jia Hui, who had made her cry from the burning onion, and the fleeting malice she displayed at that time was three-tenths similar!
All the clues, like beads on a string, snapped together in her mind.
The Third Prince, Chu Huaijin!
No, Chu Huaijin is only a thirteen-year-old boy; he doesn't have that much ability on his own.
He has someone backing him!
A person who is better at disguising themselves, more cunning, and more adept at hiding their true nature!
Who is it?
Mu Yu's little brain was working at a rapid pace.
Suddenly, a gentle and refined figure appeared in her mind.
That young master of the Suiyuan Marquis's mansion, Sikong Ming, who always followed Chu Chongjin like a kind older brother!
She remembered that once, Chu Chongjin took her to the Suiyuan Marquis's residence, and Sikong Ming offered her a kind of crystal-clear candy from the Western Regions.
She immediately noticed that the candy tasted a bit strange; it was sickeningly sweet and had a very faint, instinctively unpleasant odor mixed in with it.
At the time, she thought it was just that she couldn't get used to the taste, but now that she thinks about it, that aura and the aura of the Heart-Eating Gu in front of her are from the same source!
It's him!
It was him!
This man, who pretended to be the Ninth Prince's good friend from the very beginning, and whom everyone thought was a gentle and harmless young marquis, was actually the venomous snake stirring up trouble behind the scenes!
He wanted to control her father!
What if a powerful and invincible Duke of the Nation were to become his puppet...?
Mu Yu shivered and dared not think any further.
"...Then Father swung his knife and chopped the barbarian bear's buttocks into eight pieces, and it ran back to the mountains crying to find its mother."
Mu Fang finished telling his story and smiled as he patted his daughter's head.
"Sleep well, my little fish."
He leaned down and placed a goodnight kiss on Mu Yu's forehead, the kiss slightly prickly with stubble.
Mu Yu closed her eyes, behaving as obediently as a harmless kitten.
But her small fists, clenched tightly under the covers, had knuckles that had turned white.
Sikong Ming...
No matter who you are, if you dare to touch my father, I will absolutely... absolutely will not let you get away with it!
It's late at night.
Mu Fang blew out the candle and quietly left the room.
In the darkness, Mu Yu suddenly opened her eyes.
Those amber eyes were devoid of any childlike sleepiness, only a resolute light remained.
She can't wait.
Every day the Heart-Eating Gu stays in Father's body, Father becomes more dangerous.
Ordinary medicines were useless, and even the imperial physicians couldn't diagnose the problem.
She's the only one who can save her father!
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