Chapter 168
Su Zhelan's feet stepped over the charred, half-hidden pieces of the threshold, and fell into the courtyard.
The instant his toes touched the flame-eroded earth, a chilling shiver shot from his feet to the top of his head! The desolate scene before him shattered his forced composure like a boulder thrown into a deep pool. Countless fragments of memories, sealed away by blood and despair, roared and dragged him into that crimson past, like ferocious beasts breaking free of their cages—
The violent banging on the door, the piercing screams, and the frantic roars jolted him awake from his sleep. In the dim light of the oil lamp, his father's face was ashen, veins bulging on his forehead. He grabbed a hoe from the corner of the wall and growled hoarsely at his mother, "Take the children and hide! Go!" His eyes were filled with determination and fear, an expression Su Zhelan had never seen before.
The mother trembled like a leaf in the wind. She practically threw herself onto the bedside, shaking her three children awake with undisguised terror on her face. "Ayou! Wake up!" Her voice was broken and choked with sobs. "You're the older brother! Watch over your younger siblings! Quick! Get up!"
The youngest sister was startled awake and burst into loud, shrill cries. The mother shoved the sobbing, unsteady-footed sister into Su Zhelan's arms, then pulled over the slightly older brother, who was stiff with fear and could only shed tears, and pushed them toward the back window.
"Climb out the...climb out the back window! Run into the woods! Don't look back! Don't make a sound!" The mother's voice was distorted with extreme fear.
Flames soared into the sky outside, and shadowy figures loomed like ghosts. Screams, maniacal laughter, and the crackling of burning wood mingled together, creating a hellish scene.
Su Zhelan was only six years old at the time. A tremendous fear washed over him like ice water, and his teeth chattered uncontrollably. But the hot tears of his younger sister in his arms soaked his clothes, and his younger brother's cold, trembling hands gripped his clothes tightly. A vague but heavy sense of responsibility overwhelmed his fear.
He bit his lower lip hard until he tasted blood, then used all his strength to pick up his sister, who was crying so hard she was almost exhausted. With his other hand, he grabbed his brother's wrist tightly and staggered out of the low back window.
A cold night wind, carrying thick smoke and the stench of blood, swept over them. Holding his younger sister and pulling his younger brother along, he stumbled desperately through the darkness, running in the direction his mother had pointed.
His sister cried her heart out in his arms. Her loud cries were like the most conspicuous target in the dead of night, each cry like a hammer blow to Su Zhelan's heart.
"This can't be...we'll die together..." A cold and clear thought, like a venomous snake, suddenly burrowed into his young mind. He saw a corner of a half-collapsed woodshed, with an overturned, empty, huge rice jar, its mouth cracked open.
He stopped abruptly, his heart pounding so hard it felt like it would burst out of his chest. He grabbed his younger brother and dragged him to the rice bin, practically shoving him inside. The boy stared in terror, tears streaming down his face, his little face deathly pale.
"Hide well!" Su Zhelan's voice was extremely low, yet carried an undeniable command. "Cover your mouths! Don't make a sound! Come out only when there's no sound! Run! Every one of us who can survive is a chance! Do you hear me!"
The younger brother trembled with fear, but nodded vigorously, covering his mouth tightly with his two little hands, forcing back even his sobs, only tears silently streaming down his face.
Su Zhelan took one last look at the direction where his younger brother was hiding. The look of terror and despair in his brother's eyes through that crack was etched into his heart like a brand. He turned abruptly, grabbed his sister who was crying so hard she could barely breathe, and ran with all his might in the opposite direction from the rice jar!
However, the child's strength was ultimately limited. He hadn't run far when he heard hurried footsteps and a sinister laugh behind him. "You little brat! Where do you think you're going!" A rough hand suddenly grabbed him by the back of his collar and slammed him to the ground! His younger sister was roughly snatched from his arms, letting out an even more piercing cry.
Su Zhelan struggled to lift her head, only to see several twisted, blood-stained faces, resembling demons in the flickering firelight...
When he regained consciousness, he found himself at the bottom of a dark, damp pit, reeking of blood, feces, and decay. His body was in excruciating pain, as if his bones were shattered. He struggled to sit up, his eyes struggling to adjust to the absolute darkness.
"Sister!" His first thought was to reach around. Soon, he touched a small, cold, trembling body. He groped his way to a tight embrace, his heart pounding so hard it felt like it would explode. He frantically scanned the blurry outline at the bottom of the pit again and again—no brother! No sign of him!
At that moment, amidst the immense fear, a faint, almost tearful, sense of joy arose: perhaps... perhaps his brother really had escaped! He had survived! This thought, like a firefly in the darkness, sustained his nearly collapsing nerves.
But this faint hope was quickly crushed by the hell that followed.
The grating sound of chains grinding against each other and maniacal laughter echoed from the top of the pit. "You little bastards! Want to live? Eat them!" Then, countless cold, slippery, writhing creatures were dumped down! Venomous snakes! Scorpions! Centipedes! And all sorts of unidentifiable, foul-smelling worms! They landed on bodies, burrowed into clothes, bringing excruciating pain and a nauseating sensation!
The pit erupted instantly with the heart-wrenching screams and cries of the other children! The little sister, in his arms, was so frightened that she couldn't even cry, only able to convulse and gasp for breath.
There was no food, no water. Hunger and thirst gnawed at their insides like two venomous snakes. Occasionally, when it rained, the muddy rainwater would flow down the pit walls, and Su Zhelan would desperately try to catch it with her mouth or scoop some up with her hands to feed her younger sister. More often than not, the other children in the pit died from poisoning, starvation, or killing each other.
To survive, for his sister's sake, Su Zhelan learned something even more terrifying in his despair—he used a sharp stone shard, trembling, to slice open the still-warm corpses of the newly dead, squeezing out the dark red blood. He would drink a sip himself first, making sure it wasn't poisonous, before carefully feeding it to his sister. The rusty, fishy smell made him vomit countless times, yet he had to force himself to swallow it.
He's gone mad. He can't die, and his sister can't die either!
Each time, he would rush to grab the most terrifying, wriggling, and brightly colored insects and stuff them into his mouth! He would use his own body to test for poison! He would feel the excruciating pain of his internal organs being torn apart, burned, and twisted! He would writhe on the ground in agony, foaming at the mouth and convulsing uncontrollably. Then, in the brief moments when the pain subsided and his consciousness blurred, he would desperately rummage through the nauseating pile of insects and snakes, searching for those that seemed less venomous or half-dead. With his last ounce of strength, he would crush them or squeeze out a little juice, carefully feeding it to his dying sister.
Later, more and more people died, and the bottom of the pit was almost a pile of corpses. The younger sister was so weak that she didn't even have the strength to swallow. Her face was ashen, and her breathing was so weak that it seemed like she might stop breathing at any moment. Su Zhelan trembled and cut open his wrist! Blood gushed out, along with a warm liquid that he didn't know if it was poisonous. He endured the excruciating pain and brought his wrist to his sister's chapped lips.
"Drink... sister... drink it..." he cried, pleading, his voice hoarse and barely audible, feeling his life slowly draining away with his blood. His sister sucked unconsciously, the faint sucking sensation being Su Zhelan's only solace.
But her younger sister was too small. In his arms, her body grew colder and stiffer. Her last, faint breaths ceased completely.
Su Zhelan held his younger sister's cold, small body, feeling as if he too were dead. An immense despair and hatred burned within him like poisonous flames! He hated! He hated those cultists! He hated this damned world! He wanted nothing more than to crawl out and tear them to pieces! He let out a beastly growl and slammed his head against the slippery pit wall!
With his last ounce of strength, he carved a crooked cross into the stone on the pit wall he was leaning against. Then, carrying his sister, he staggered down the pit, measuring this prison of despair. From the wall to the center, every step he took was over blood and corpses.
Finally, a voice came from the top of the pit again: "Listen up! You little brats in the pit! Kill the rest! Those who survive can come out! Otherwise, hehe, tomorrow I'll release poison gas and suffocate you all! Hahahaha!"
There was a deathly silence at the bottom of the pit. Then came suppressed breathing and low, beast-like roars.
In Su Zhelan's eyes, the last glimmer of childlike light was extinguished, leaving only a beastly coldness and murderous intent. He gently laid down his sister's cold body and pounced on the remaining children in the pit like a madman! Like a young beast driven to the brink, he bit with his teeth, scratched with his nails, and hurled stones! To survive, for that faint hope of perhaps escaping and avenging his sister! He forgot fear, forgot pain, only the instinct to kill remained!
When he stood at the bottom of the pit, covered in blood and swaying unsteadily, becoming the sole survivor, he was almost at his limit, his body covered in new wounds and his vision blurred.
The cultists excitedly hauled him out. The blinding sunlight made it hard for him to open his eyes. Once his eyes adjusted, the first thing he saw was several more… equally foul-smelling pits nearby! Each pit was surrounded by excited cultists, like spectators at a gladiatorial arena! His heart died completely at that moment. There wasn't just one… his brother… where was he? In which pit? Or… had he already been thrown into one of the pits, long since turned to dust?
Even his last glimmer of hope was utterly crushed. The world turned gray.
The cultists didn't kill him. They took him and the few other surviving children from the pit and imprisoned them in a more sinister stone cell. Every day, they were bound to cold stone beds and forced to drink various bizarrely colored, pungent-smelling poisons, or had wriggling worms implanted in them. Excruciating pain swept through their bodies; their internal organs felt as if they were being crushed and gnawed away! Their skin ulcerated and oozed pus, their fevers wouldn't break, and they were on the verge of death countless times. When their suffering reached its peak and they were delirious, the cultists would use even more potent drugs or worms to forcibly "detoxify" them, pulling them back from the brink of death, only to begin the next round of even more cruel torture. This cycle repeated itself endlessly, like a never-ending purgatory.
In the end, only Su Zhelan survived. His body became a vessel for countless poisons and pains, developing a strange resistance to many toxins, but also leaving behind countless incurable hidden wounds and ailments.
The cult revered him as a "holy son," binding him daily to a cold stone bed and using a specially made silver knife to cut open his veins, extracting his blood, which contained potent poison and strange resistance, to refine Gu poison. They also first implanted the most insidious and ferocious newly cultivated Gu worms into his body for testing... He lived a life neither human nor ghost, every breath accompanied by agony.
His only support was the hatred etched into his bones, and that faint, almost non-existent fantasy that his younger brother might, possibly, or even just happen to be alive—a fantasy like a candle flickering in the wind, yet it kept him from going completely insane.
How much time had passed, no one knew. The sounds of fighting, explosions, and towering flames shattered the deathly silence of this sinful land once more. Someone had stormed in! The stone cell door was smashed open, the chains cut. Without thinking, driven by the instinct for survival, Su Zhelan dragged his mangled, almost skeletal body into the chaotic battle! He instinctively dodged the flashing blades, desperately running for his life! As far as he could go! Escape this hell!
When hungry, he would dig out grass roots, insects, and even rotting animal carcasses from the mud and stuff them into his mouth; when thirsty, he would drink the sewage from mud pits. Like a filthy wild dog, he wandered through the wilderness, his wounds infected and festering, his high fever making him delirious, falling and getting up countless times. What sustained him was only the obsession with "surviving" and "leaving this place." Until his last bit of strength was exhausted, his vision went completely black, and he collapsed on a path covered with gravel.
When he woke up again, he found himself chained by the ankles with cold iron chains, locked in a dilapidated wooden cage that reeked of mold and urine. It turned out he had been picked up by a passing human trafficker.
Because he was emaciated, covered in festering sores and scars, and reeked of foul odor, he was practically dead and could not be sold. The traffickers, fearing he was a waste of food and also worried about the contagious poison he carried, abandoned him in a dark, damp corner, treating him like trash. Whipping, hunger, cold... he teetered on the edge of hell, barely clinging to life, his consciousness blurred, even his hatred fading.
The black market in the nearby town was a chaotic mix of good and bad, the air thick with the strange stench of cheap medicine, livestock, and sweat. Master Su Yan, dressed in faded, simple clothes, frowned as he carefully searched each stall. He needed several extremely rare, almost extinct medicinal herbs to concoct an antidote, which he couldn't find in ordinary pharmacies, so he had to try his luck in this chaotic place.
Gu Linzhao followed half a step closely beside him, his posture upright, his eyes sharp as a hawk's, silently scanning everyone who approached. He exuded a cold aura that kept strangers at bay, keeping a safe distance between himself and Su Yan from the crowded throng. He didn't approve of Su Yan coming to such a place, but knowing Su Yan's stubbornness, he could only protect him by staying close at all times.
In a corner of a stall piled high with various dried herbs, animal bones, and strange minerals, Su Yan's gaze was suddenly drawn to a plain-looking, half-dead, grayish-brown withered grass. He crouched down, about to examine it more closely, when his peripheral vision caught sight of a darker corner deeper inside the stall—
There were several dilapidated wooden and iron cages lying there, inside which huddled several children who were dying and looked sick, clearly waiting to be sold at a low price as "drug slaves" or "labor slaves".
Su Yan's gaze suddenly fixed on one of the most dilapidated cages.
A child was curled up inside, almost nothing but skin and bones, shockingly thin. His body was covered with hideous sores and scars, old and new, and his skin had an ominous bluish-gray hue. His breathing was so weak that his chest barely rose and fell, as if he would die at any moment.
But what made Su Yan's pupils shrink the most was that under the child's exposed skin, some strange, bluish-black lines could be vaguely seen, wriggling slightly like living things. These were signs that the extremely dangerous Gu poison had penetrated deep into the bone marrow and forcibly fused with some strange life force! In this state, one should have died more than ten times over!
The medicinal herbs in Su Yan's hand fell to the ground with a "thud." He stood up abruptly, almost disregarding his manners, and pushed aside the messy goods on the stall. He strode over to the broken cage, squatted down, and fixed his gaze on the child.
Gu Linzhao frowned immediately, quickly followed, placed his hand on the short blade at his waist, and warily scanned the stall owner and the surroundings, whispering, "Su Yan's tone was questioning and reminding."
Su Yan seemed not to hear him. He stretched out a slightly trembling finger and lightly brushed it across the child's festering wounds and strange veins. His eyes flashed with disbelief and an almost fanatical medical curiosity: "This... how is this possible?! Meridians completely destroyed, poison entering the marrow, life almost cut off... yet still clinging to life?! This... how bizarre is this?!"
The stall owner, a slick-looking middle-aged man, immediately approached Su Yan with a sly smile upon seeing his interest in the "junk," saying, "Oh, sir, you have a good eye! Don't let this kid's current appearance fool you, he's incredibly resilient! He won't die no matter what you do! He's perfect for testing medicine! Cheap! Only three qian of silver!"
Upon hearing this, Gu Linzhao frowned even more deeply, a hint of pity flickering in his eyes as he looked at the child, but his concern for Su Yan's safety remained stronger: "This place is not safe to stay. This kind of person of unknown origin..."
Su Yan abruptly raised his hand to interrupt him, his gaze never leaving the mangled body in the cage, his tone resolute and unwavering: "Buy it!"
Gu Linzhao's lips moved slightly. Looking at Su Yan's focused and stubborn profile, he remained silent for a moment before swallowing back all his words of dissuasion. He simply sighed heavily, flicked a small piece of silver into the stall owner's hand, and said in a cold voice, "Is that enough? Open it."
The stall owner was overjoyed and quickly took the silver, saying repeatedly, "That's enough! Thank you, sir! Thank you, sir!" He hurriedly used the key to unlock the old lock.
Su Yan carefully lifted the child, who was so light he was almost weightless, out of the dirty straw mat.
The child stirred slightly in his arms, struggling to open his eyes a crack. His gaze was empty and lifeless, yet it held a wild, dying vigilance. Then, he closed them weakly again, losing consciousness completely.
Gu Linzhao quickly took off his outer garment and handed it over, gesturing for Su Yan to wrap the child up. At the same time, he scanned the surroundings more warily and whispered, "Let's go quickly."
As Su Yan walked out of the black market, he looked down at the child's filthy yet still discernible features on the child's face, feeling the weak but unusually strong pulse. His eyes were filled with complex emotions—shock, pity, and awe for life.
Gu Linzhao silently followed beside him, his gaze sweeping over the child's exposed wrists covered in horrific scars. In the end, he simply said in a deep voice, "Let's go back first." His tacit approval stemmed from his absolute trust in Su Yan, as well as from the trace of compassion deep within his heart that had not been erased.
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