dense
As we approached the temple, the air became increasingly pungent, making us feel nauseous.
Perhaps seeing that Yu Tongan and Mingyu's expressions gradually became forbearing and ugly, the city lord unconsciously opened his mouth to explain.
"At first, everyone thought it was an epidemic, so when the number of people sick was small, they used incineration. But as the number of deaths increased, there was no energy to cut extra firewood, so they started using burial."
The city lord sighed, his voice becoming deeper. "Later, we came to the terraced fields. We had originally wanted to continue burying people, but there weren't many people strong enough to dig, and we had to go to the mountains to find food, so things gradually became like this."
The temple was also far away from the water source, and coupled with rumors circulating around Sulou County, the temple became a burial place.
The bright moonlight cast mottled shadows through the leaves. Under the full moon, the temple looked so sacred and illuminated everyone. However, the path leading to the temple was littered with corpses.
They were dressed differently and of different ages. Some were wrapped in cloth bags, while others were lying face up, and one could even see their rotting cheeks.
A few scavenger birds were startled by them, but they just jumped away and looked at them vigilantly without leaving.
Tears welled up in Mingyu's eyes from the smoke, and she couldn't help but cover her mouth with her thick veil to suppress the urge to vomit.
In the blur, she seemed to see the god sitting in the temple, looking at the tragic scene with sad eyes.
Mingyu felt as if her head was being hit hard and was buzzing. She seemed to hear her master saying something.
"Are you okay?" Yu Tongan didn't look much better, but he was more worried about Mingyu. For people who believe in gods, perhaps this shock is much greater than that of ordinary people.
"…It's okay." The constant nausea forced her to swallow several times, and she murmured softly, "I never believed that the gods could be so cruel."
The master's face had disappeared, but she was still in front of the temple.
Mingyu put down his hand and looked up at Yu Tongan: "Let's go, let's go see what's going on."
…
Walking among the pile of corpses startled a swarm of mosquitoes.
The Mingyu would stop only occasionally, and it was difficult for her to determine who had died of poisoning. For many of the corpses, it was impossible to tell what disease they had suffered from before they died.
If the poisoning was truly caused by corpses, how did it spread? It wasn't like no one had died in the terraced fields, but no one had been poisoned either. Even Mingyu and Doctor Wang were fine as they moved among the patients.
Assuming that the corpse caused the poisoning of the crowd, the only possibility was that something happened to the body after it was moved to the temple.
"Could someone have deliberately used a poisoned corpse to poison someone?" Yu Tongan followed Mingyu just in case.
"But how did the poisoning happen randomly?" Mingyu was looking at a corpse that had died of poisoning. The deceased looked like he was only eleven or twelve years old. The body had just begun to rot and looked very scary.
"Everyone drinks the water, and you brought in the food. There's no reason why people in the city would continue to be poisoned under these circumstances." Mingyu waved his hands, drove away the mosquitoes that had gathered because of their stay, and continued his analysis.
"If there was any leftover food, then given the temperature and humidity in Sulou County, it wouldn't make sense for the food not to have rotted after several months."
"Is it really possible to be poisoned just by looking at it?" Mingyu looked at the temple with some suspicion.
"That's really a curse." Yu Tongan approached Mingyu and helped drive away mosquitoes.
"Then let's go to the temple and take a look."
The Mingyu fled away from the corpse. Yu Tongan didn't say anything and followed it into the temple.
The temple is quiet and peaceful, perhaps because people still maintain their reverence for the gods. There is only dust accumulated inside the temple, and it feels no different from usual.
The poisoned people appeared in batches and time periods. Why did they come according to the time?
"What link went wrong?" Mingyu looked at the statue in confusion. She had also checked the water source but didn't find any problems.
Yu Tongan crossed his arms, tapping them with his fingers, and asked, "Could it be poisoned?"
"Will it be? The person who poisoned me is running back and forth in and out of the city?"
Yu Tongan was a little hesitant. Although it was his own idea, after thinking about it carefully, it was not very feasible. Could anyone really come and go freely during the ban?
"Could it be that we are going in the wrong direction?" Mingyu looked at the insect resting on the statue. She felt that her vision had become narrower and narrower, so narrow that she didn't know where she was.
"Young Master? It's already late, you should go back first." The people who were carrying the corpse had been waiting for them outside. Seeing that they were taking no time to come out, they came over and urged them to leave.
"Okay." Yu Tongan looked at Mingyu and said softly, "Mingyu, go back. You're very tired today."
The Ming fish watched the insects slowly flying away.
Is it because her vision is not high enough?
…
Back at the terraced fields, many people were still busy.
"Is someone in the city sick again?" The people who were traveling with him asked the person who was sitting on the side to rest.
"Yeah." The man seemed accustomed to it. He took a look and then closed his eyes.
A familiar figure squeezed out of the crowd, Mingyu's heart suddenly beat faster, and his eyes, which had been drooping, widened again.
The man came straight towards Yu Tongan and Mingyu. Mingyu saw more clearly that it was Wu Pi.
"Sir." Wu Pi, who was usually calm, showed a rare look of anxiety. "Xue Liu suddenly fainted."
Wu Pi glanced at Mingyu, hesitated for a moment, and then spoke.
"It seems like poisoning."
"What?" Mingyu doubted her ears. "She never visited the terraced fields since she came to Sulou County, and she rarely even left her residence. Later, she just followed him around, handing out food on the roads outside the city. Why her?"
Wu Pi glanced at Yu Tongan and said, "I don't know."
"I'll go take a look."
Mingyu left these words and walked quickly into the crowd. The crowd was sparse, with only two or three people surrounding him.
The face that usually had a smile on it when she saw him was now silent, which made Mingyu feel uncomfortable. The usually energetic Xueliu was lying on the muddy ground with only a thin layer of cloth between them.
"Doctor, you're here? We were just about to tell you that another person has been sent here." Wang Cailing's face was gloomy, and his voice was filled with haggardness and numbness.
"Why exactly?"
Mingyu stretched out his hand and placed it on Xueliu's pulse, only to find that he was shaking.
Yu Tongan was a step behind Mingyu and put his hand on Mingyu's shoulder.
"Don't be impatient."
Mingyu was a little deaf. Looking at the needle that had just been pulled out of Xueliu, he suddenly stood up and turned around to look at Yu Tongan, but he felt dizzy due to fatigue and staggered two steps.
Yu Tongan quickly supported her.
"Yu Tongan, how long have we been in Sulou County?"
Yu Tongan was stunned and roughly estimated the time: "Almost three weeks, more than half a month."
After he finished speaking, Yu Tongan could feel Mingyu's grip on his hand getting tighter.
"Xue Liu has been poisoned for almost three weeks."
…
Time began to blur, and Mingyu couldn't tell whether he was asleep or not.
When she closed her eyes, she saw the corpse outside the temple, and then she saw Xueliu's sleeping face; she saw the statue of the god, and then she saw her master, whose mouth was opening and closing, but no one knew what he was saying.
In the blink of an eye, she was standing in the empty mourning hall again, bidding farewell to her master, and was alone from then on.
Mingyu opened his eyes and felt a little dizzy. After thinking carefully for a while, he found that he had returned to his resting place in the terraced fields.
Mingyu washed his face with cold water and finally felt a little more alert.
There was some noise outside the house, but Mingyu ignored it. She hadn't been quiet for a long time. Suddenly, she missed the days when she curled up in front of the fireplace and watched the snow on New Year's Eve afternoon.
"What are you doing? The girl is still resting." Wu Pi's voice came in.
Seeing that she was not in a good mood, Yu Tongan did not chat much and asked someone to watch over her to sleep for one night as he had to go out to deal with matters outside the city.
"What are we doing? What are you doing? You won't force my daughter to work for you, will you?" A heavy snort came from the old man outside the door, and he was very dissatisfied with Wu Pi.
"Your daughter?" Wu Pi's voice was cold and unmoved. "Old man, don't think you can do whatever you want just because you're old."
"Of course it's my girl!"
"Master, if you suddenly say this, people will definitely not believe you." A young man's voice came, and it seemed that he was in the same faction as the old man.
"Whose side are you on? Your senior sister is being bullied, and you're still speaking up for them?"
Mingyu picked up his towel, walked out of the room, and saw an old man in a white robe beating a young man in anger.
Mingyu looked at the old man's robe and felt that it looked familiar, but his mind seemed to be fogged and he couldn't remember it.
"What's going on?"
It was not until the Ming Fish made a sound that they realized that the Ming Fish had come out.
The old man's eyes lit up and he walked quickly to Mingyu. Wu Pi was stopped by the young man and failed to stop him.
"I am so happy to see you well, nephew."
As he spoke, he held Mingyu's hand. The boy behind him touched his nose strangely, looking a little embarrassed.
"Hello?" Mingyu took a step back, not dodging. Seeing the old man meant no harm, he didn't pull his hand away. "Did you recognize the wrong person?"
"Wrong person? No? I wouldn't." The old man looked at Mingyu with eyes filled with the joy of a daughter growing up. "You are Mingyu, right? Your master is Gu Shuqi. You are twenty years old this year. Are you a shaman in the palace?"
As he spoke, Wu Pi forcefully pushed the young man away, pulled away the old man's hand, and stood in front of Mingyu.
Mingyu's head felt dizzy and swollen with pain.
She looked at the old man and suddenly remembered where she had seen the pattern on the old man's robe. It was in the deep of her master's wardrobe. Later, after her master passed away, she never saw it again.
"Who are you?" Mingyu wanted to grab the sword, but he forgot that he had left the sword in the room for the convenience of movement and did not carry it with him these days.
"I'm your uncle, your master's fellow apprentice, Gu Pingyuan." The old man didn't take Wu Pi's actions seriously at all. He happily pulled the young man over and introduced him, "This is my disciple, and also your fellow apprentice."
The boy smiled at Mingyu embarrassedly.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com