CH 45

The Thousand Legged Gu is as fast as lightning, and its venom is as fierce as a gale. If the bitten area is not immediately cut off, the poison will spread throughout the body, and you will only have fifteen minutes left to live,” cackled the black-robed man, waving his hand casually as the intelligent creature completed its mission and crawled back into his robe, demonstrating remarkable spiritual awareness.

“Brother Jian” Er Gou exclaimed, concerned about my well-being, as he ran over. However, upon examining my arm, he found that the bluish black color from earlier had slowly faded away, leaving only a drop of black blood seeping out of the plum blossom wound on my wrist.

I was also puzzled and patted Er gou on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, getting bitten by this bug doesn’t hurt at all. In fact, it’s quite refreshing,” I assured him.

Turning to face the black-robed man, he now appeared in my eyes as a benevolent Miaojiang doctor who held the well-being of all people in his heart. He was far from the cunning and ruthless Gu Master that I had previously imagined.

“Putting on a false show of power huh? how will you be able to laugh when the poison takes effect?” The black-robed man was dismayed to see me still lively and comforting others. He waved his hand and pulled out a reddish black ceramic jar from his robe.

“A Miaojiang person can only cultivate nine gu worms in their lifetime, and the first one nurtured with their blood is the Life Gu! Boy, if you die under this Gu bite, you can consider yourself lucky.”

As soon as the reddish black ceramic jar was brought out, the black-robed man’s aura grew even more fierce and eerie, with a sense of sinister energy swirling around his body. The poison gu inside the jar was not an ordinary creature, and seeing his confident demeanor, I became suspicious and dared not make any rash movements.

More than ten pairs of eyes were fixed on the black-robed man’s palm, and he did not disappoint them. After reciting a spell, the blood-red color on the surface of the ceramic jar deepened, and a giant moth pushed open the lid and flew into the sky.

That was no ordinary moth. It was the size of a palm, with six wings flapping and a human face grinning on its back.

“My Life Gu—the Facehugger Moth!” exclaimed the black-robed man.

I couldn’t tell if it was just my imagination, but after this creature appeared, the already dim alley grew even more eerie. The neon lights outside twisted, and something resembling willow catkins floated down from the sky.

“Hold your breath! The air is toxic!” I quickly covered my mouth and nose, but it was too late. I seemed to have inhaled something, and my throat felt itchy.

Turning my head, I saw that Erg Gou behind me, as well as Shi Youfu further away, were all pale and clutching their necks, gasping for air as if breathing was difficult.

“The Facehugger Moth is one of the Three Yin and Five Evils. The phosphorus powder it carries is highly poisonous. Without my antidote, you’ll suffocate and die within an hour,” the black-robed man said, laughing triumphantly. The people in the alley were writhing on the ground, unable to move except for me.

“Er Gou!” Ergou grabbed his own neck and squeezed it tightly. He clawed at the dirt on the ground, like suffering uninmaginable torment. But despite inhaling the phosphorus powder like the others, I only felt a slight itch in my throat. That was it.

“Do I have some kind of immunity to poison? Or have I just consumed too much gutter oil that I can resist poisonous insects?” It made no sense, but I picked up a brick and headed towards the black-robed man.

Never mind his sneaky tricks, let’s subdue him first. 

“You can still move? Your perseverance is admirable, even to me,” said the black-robed figure with a rare hint of admiration on his face. 

“Anyway, if you can walk five steps unscathed, I can consider giving you a comfortable death.” He proceeded to count my steps after warning me that my body was infested with multiple toxins and parasites that would only worsen if I moved too fast, given the fact that I had already been poisoned. 

“Five steps passed,” he said, shaking his head and slowly closing his eyes. “The insects will devour your heart, and the seven orifices of your body will bleed. I can already envision your agonizing death.” 

His words sent shivers down my spine, but I felt no discomfort whatsoever. With a newfound sense of bravery, I strode forward five steps, and to my relief, any discomfort had vanished, including the soreness in my throat. Had it not been for the gravity of the situation, I might have even burst into song.

“This doesn’t make sense. Er gou was in so much pain, why is the poison not affecting me?” I stared at the plum blossom mark on my wrist in confusion. “Could it be because of the Plum Blossom Gu from the Underworld Show?”

Judging from its appearance alone, the Plum Blossom Gu from the Underworld Show was like a dragon with a horn, and its level should be much higher than that of the black-robed figure’s Gu: 

“Could it be that the Plum Blossom Gu is too dominant and my body can’t accommodate any other Gu?” Lost in thought, I had unknowingly taken more than ten steps and was only a meter or two away from the black-robed figure. 

Hearing my footsteps, he opened his eyes wide in surprise: “What?! How come you’re not dead?” His voice, tinged with a hint of gloom, sounded rustic to my ears: “Brother, I’m also curious. How come my back and legs stopped hurting after you poisoned me? I can still walk so far without getting tired and swing a brick with such force!” 

“You’re not an ordinary person! You’re also a Gu Master?!” The black-robed figure exclaimed and took a step back. “I didn’t expect to meet a fellow Gu Master here. Well then, according to the rules of Gu Masters, I have to challenge you to a Gu battle!” 

He waved his hands, and three pottery jars fell from his black robe, arranged in the shape of the Chinese character “成” (chéng): “Let’s show our Gu!”

“Huh?” To be honest, if it weren’t for the fact that my friends, Er Gou and the others, were on the brink of death, I would have thought this guy in front of me had a severe case of chuunibyou, dressed in some cosplay outfit. 

“Merging the characters for ‘gu’, with the top representing the insect and the bottom representing the container, transforming the Yin energy into an insect and the container into the gu. Three Yin and five calamities…” the man in the black robe chanted incessantly, but I had already walked up to him by the time he finished. 

“Hey buddy, how about simplifying that spell a bit? I mean, I’ve already made it to you and you still haven’t finished; isn’t that a bit awkward?” 

The face of the black robed man, who had maintained a calm demeanor all the time, suddenly changed. He was just about to drop his blood into the jar when I attacked. “Bang!” 

Holding his bleeding head, the stubborn Gu Master fell to the ground, still chanting his spell. He trembled with his bony arms as he tried to reach for his pottery jar. 

“I really can’t understand your stubbornness,” I said as I subdued him with a grappling technique, flipping open his black robe to reveal a small, skinny middle-aged man who looked somewhat sleazy.

“Impossible! You’ve been poisoned; how could you possibly be unscathed? This is impossible!”

“What are you pretending to be, a big bad wolf? Hurry up and detoxify my brothers, or you’ll regret it.” I picked up a brick and, with some disbelief, quickly subdued the Gu master, who had poisoned over a dozen people, with a wave of his hand.

“Your time is up; the poison has taken hold! You’ll die within fifteen minutes. The Gu techniques of the Miaojiang are unparalleled, and you have no idea that death is right around the corner!”

The man in the black robe pointed at me and cursed me wildly, but I couldn’t be bothered to deal with him. I lifted the brick and gave him two hits on the forehead, saying, “What Miaojiang Gu techniques? What unparalleled? If you don’t detoxify my brothers, I’ll roast your worms with a lighter right now.”

With a few bricks thrown, the effect was immediate. The man in the black robe obediently detoxified each person one by one.

“Brother Jian, you are truly amazing. I almost thought I was going to die just now.” The man in the black robe was indeed quite skilled. If it weren’t for me, a freak who had been affected by the Plum Blossom Gu, the others wouldn’t have been able to fight him.

After detoxifying everyone, the security guards crouched in the corner, too scared to even make a sound. Their leader, Shi Youfu, who had been fierce just moments ago, now had a big smile on his face. It was like he was a completely different person, almost reminiscent of a historical figure, He Shen.

“It’s all a misunderstanding, brother,” he said, stuffing all the money he had in his pocket into Er Gou’s hands. Seeing me take out a cigarette, he hurried over to light it for me with a fawning expression.

“Brother, smashing your store was something we were instructed to do from above. We’re just errand boys with no power or influence. We can only follow orders. I’m really sorry. If there’s any loss, just let me know, and I’ll compensate you right away.”

Despite being in his forties, Shi Youfu begged like a child, with a flattering attitude that was almost too good to be true. After he handed over most of his savings, Er Gou and I didn’t make things too difficult for him.

We told them to leave quickly, and the dozen or so people surrounded the Gu master, who had been left in a sorry state with his black robe torn to shreds.

“I told the others they could go, but not you,” I had Er gou strip him naked and leave him in just his black briefs. 

“Holy cow.” A few of Er gou’s underlings were also stunned as they searched the man and found a dozen cloth bags and seven pottery jars of various sizes. It was unclear how he had managed to conceal them all. 

After a few minutes, the formidable and arrogant Gu Master was now crouching in the corner, naked except for a newspaper covering his chest, like a girl who had just been bullied. 

“Since I have fallen into your hands, it’s up to you whether you want to kill or torture me!” 

“Listen, buddy, don’t look at me with those hopeless, unwilling-to-die eyes. We’re not going to do anything to you. I just have a few questions to ask you.” We threw the Gu Master into the van and drove back to Ting Tang Road.
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