A Leaf Blinds the Eye

Foreword:

I know neither the height of the blue sky nor the thickness of the yellow earth; I only see the cold moon and the warm sun, which come to erode human life.

--Li He

[Part 1: Heartbreaking Pain]

"It's getting late," the doctor said to Jiang Xueming. "Shouldn't Zhang Guiren go and rest?"

Jiang Xueming brought a few peaches from the fruit plate, intending to take them to his room to eat, and then called the Zhao Brothers and Wu Xiuwen to go back to their room to sleep.

The physician was alarmed. The Jiali on the stage were posing seductively, drenched in sweat, while this Imperial Physician from the Nine Realms remained dignified and unmoved. He even called his porters to sleep with him?

"Hey! Hey! Hey hey!" The doctor immediately followed, asking in a low voice, "My lord, was the opera enjoyable?"

Jiang Xueming: "It sounds nice."

Doctor: "Is the beautiful girl pretty?"

Jiang Xueming: "It looks good."

Doctor: "That..."

"Does this mean I should marry a young lady?" Jiang Xueming spoke plainly, not wanting to waste time with pleasantries. "I'll treat Goddess Zhuzhu's illness and ensure her pregnancy, and then we'll be married off to Master Mu—a double blessing?"

"Ugh!" The doctor exhaled a sigh of relief and finally found the main entrance to the side room, leading Zhang Guiren into the bedroom.

Jiang Xueming: "Jianxiong, Jianying, you two stay."

"Huh?" Zhao Jianying, who had overheard everything, wondered what business it of theirs that their benefactor was getting married.

Zhao Jianxiong, on the other hand, looked rather gloomy. He had originally wanted to become the son-in-law of this wealthy man, Master Mu, and he too dreamed of sleeping with a beautiful woman in his bed—if his benefactor could marry, why couldn't he?

At that moment, Jianxiong couldn't suppress the resentment and jealousy in his heart, and started saying strange things.

"My benefactor, you want a girl to accompany you in bed, and I'm expected to stand by the bed and watch? To observe that 'skillful trick'? After the music on stage is over, I'm expected to listen to your amazing skills with 'that thing'? Serving you tea, water, handkerchiefs, and perfumed towels? Aren't you ashamed? Is this the custom of foreigners?"

Jiang Xueming ignored Jianxiong's sarcastic remarks and spoke to Wu Xiuwen.

"And you, you stay too."

Wu Xiuwen chuckled dryly, "Me? Hehehe."

The doctor was baffled. Why was Zhang Guiren crowding into the bedroom with so many people, a customary practice of choosing a son-in-law for marriage? Could it be that, as Zhao Jianxiong had said—foreigners have strange fetishes? Do they need others to watch them when they're intimate with women?

Jiang Xueming explained, "Doctor, I came to Great Xia alone to travel and wanted to go to the capital to broaden my horizons. I'm unfamiliar with the area, but luckily, Brother Wu Xiuwen helped me. The Buddha Sculptor asked me to help with the pregnancy of Goddess Zhuzhu. This is to repay Brother Wu Xiuwen's kindness."

"But if you want to arrange a marriage for the Mu family, this is not something I can decide alone, and I don't understand the customs of Xiabang. When we were watching the opera, I was a guest, and the girls were the hosts—I was just cheering and didn't feel comfortable saying anything."

"Now that all the brothers are here, please have the doctor call the girls in one by one. If there is a genuine intention to arrange a marriage, then it will be my turn to be the host and the girls to be the guests, to receive my hospitality."

The doctor suddenly realized that this black-haired rat had no idea about love and kinship in the mortal world. He had completely forgotten the proper separation between men and women, and had turned the topic of marriage into a business of selling flesh and selling brothels.

Apart from Wu Xiuwen, the Zhao Brothers didn't find anything wrong with it. Since they were young, they had seen people in the village bring pork as betrothal gifts in the morning, finalize the marriage by noon, and bring the woman over by evening, getting married in a coordinated manner. They had never seen anything as troublesome as Lord Zhang Congfeng.

"Hi! My apologies! My apologies!" The doctor bowed and retreated with a forced smile, adopting a servile demeanor as he slowly withdrew, saying, "I'll go and fetch the young lady right away!"

Jiang Xueming instructed, "Invite them in one by one, escort them to their homes, and I'll trouble you, Doctor, to wait in the hall. If this marriage doesn't go through, it won't damage the young lady's reputation—your refrain from listening, speaking, or comparing is the greatest respect you can show."

Lang thought to himself, "This foreigner really has the appearance of a Buddha. When it was his turn to choose from the ten daughters of the Mu family, didn't he just pick one who was gentle, virtuous, and good-looking? It's like choosing a good piece of meat in the slave neighborhood of Cai Family Village —why should he care about the dignity of female slaves? Respect? What a joke!"

"Fine! I won't listen! I won't talk!"

After a while, a delicate and frail woman entered the room.

After removing her rouge and powder, and taking off her theatrical costume and floral crown, this young lady was, in the eyes of the Zhao Brothers, a beautiful lotus emerging from the water. Even Wu Xiuwen, a Wu Xiuwen, was amazed—he never expected that such a beauty could be raised in this remote mountain valley of Black Wind Ridge.

"This humble servant greets Zhang Guiren and Young Master Wu."

She only bowed to wealthy people, behaving like a servant, and refused to look them in the eye.

Zhao Jianxiong was initially taken aback, but when he saw that the person who came was not the mischievous sister he had been longing for, he finally breathed a sigh of relief, though he was also tormented—hoping that his benefactor could finish arranging the marriage soon, so that he might still have a chance to exchange a few words with the beautiful woman he had fallen for at first sight, and perhaps even have a chance to have a relationship with her.

This hierarchy of seniority and status seemed to be deeply ingrained in Jianxiong's mind. His freedom to plead for love and ask for affection was like a pack of wolves dividing food, only daring to choose what Zhang Congfeng left behind.

Before the young woman could say anything, Jiang Xueming suddenly stood up, rushed over, closed the bedroom door, and turned back to stare intently at the young woman.

The young woman was initially flustered, then stammered, "Sir, why are you looking at me like that?"

The next second, Xue Ming had a knife in his hand, which came with the fruit plate and was also the small knife he used to shave the Zhao Brothers.

In the blink of an eye, he pulled the girl to the side of the door, facing the copper basin on the dressing table, grabbed the back of her neck with one hand, and stabbed her with the knife in the other!

The blade traveled down her spine, and the woman was restrained, unable to utter a single cry of pain, her throat gripped tightly by the iron hand.

Jianying's face turned pale, but he didn't say anything—his benefactor had saved him, so whatever he did was right.

Jianxiong cried out in alarm, "Zhang Congfeng! What are you doing!"

In the blink of an eye, thirty-three abscesses and lumps protruded from the spine of the woman's vest, her body began to swell, and her muscles and joints made strange cracking sounds, turning her back into the original form of a peasant!

The man shed a layer of human skin, which originally exuded a faint fragrance, but now it mingled with the muddy and pungent smell of the man's body. Jianxiong, who was nearby, was about to pull his benefactor away when he saw this bizarre sight and smelled that strong "manly scent"—he immediately vomited, emptying his stomach of all the fruits and snacks.

"My God!" Wu Xiuwen frowned, looking distressed. "It's a man in disguise!?"

Jiang Xueming released the painted-skin monster, finding it amusing.

--It's like meeting someone you met online and then taking off your disguise.

The "young lady" revealed her true form, twisting her body and turning her head, then cried out in an affected manner, "My lord! My lord! You're hurting me!"

By this time, the man hadn't seen his reflection in the bronze mirror and couldn't see his own image. He imagined himself wearing a soft, fragrant human skin, his robes cut open at the back with a short knife. He tugged at his skirt, feigning shyness and reproach, "You're too impatient, sir! You want me to undress, but you haven't even kicked the servants out! What about my innocence? Is my body something these two rough men can see?"

The rough men mentioned here refer to the Zhao Brothers.

Wu Xiuwen was first surprised, then burst into laughter.

Zhao Jianxiong's face flushed red and then turned pale, as if a bottle of aged vinegar had been poured over his head, making his eyes sting with sourness.

"What does the doctor want with you?" Jiang Xueming asked succinctly and directly, "Tell the truth, or you'll die."

The man remained lost in his beautiful illusions, unaware that he had revealed his true form.

"The doctor wants me to accompany the nobleman in doing joyful things, practicing blissful meditation, and acting as a pair of lovebirds."

It seems that this "Dan Ding Pain" is an incurable disease; the mind is not functioning properly and it cannot be cured.

[Part ②: Parting the Leaves, Tearing Off the Skin]

Without hesitation, Jiang Xueming grabbed the burly man, dragged him back to the dressing table, and stabbed him through the back of the head, severing the spinal cord. The man cried out in pain, his eyes rolled back, and he collapsed, defecating and urinating, dying instantly.

At this moment, Zhao Jianxiong didn't dare to even breathe loudly.

Jiang Xueming was still examining the body when he casually asked, "Jianxiong, I killed this beautiful woman, do you hate me?"

Jianxiong dared not accept; he had never witnessed his benefactor's ruthless methods.

--Only the Wu family father and son were present when Yuzhen the Immortal was killed.

"If you don't speak, it means you hate, but you dare not speak?" Jiang Xueming carefully unbuttoned the painted skin monster's clothes and saw the dantian on its back. He used a knife to cut open the fleshy tumor and saw the white "rejuvenating elixir" inside.

Zhao Jianxiong immediately said, "No! No, no, no! That's not it!"

While studying the elixir, Jiang Xueming continued to say to Jianxiong, "If I told you that I used an illusion to turn this beautiful woman into a rough man and then killed her with a single blow, would you hate me?"

At this moment, Jianxiong panicked; he had also thought about this.

My benefactor suddenly turned on me and killed the young lady of the Mu family village. All that immense wealth vanished in that one strike!

People tend to easily believe in the good and resist the terrible—he thought to himself, could it be that Lord Zhang used some magic to turn the woman into a man, and then made some excuses to ruin the marriage?

He was an accomplice to Zhang Congfeng, a criminal who preyed on innocent people. Yet, with Zhang Congfeng's single stroke, the beautiful woman had been transformed into this—how could he believe it? How could he convince himself?

Jiang Xueming broke off two pieces of wood from the bed and used them as chopsticks to extract the elixir from the body of the painted-skin monster.

Along with this elixir of flesh and blood, a strand of bright red silk thread also left the corpse's spine.

--It is unlike human blood vessels or tendons, and has no connection with connective tissue at all. It is the secretion of insects, like spider silk or silkworm silk. The Elixir of Rejuvenation uses these threads to gradually extract the vital essence from the human body and send it into these elixirs.

"Jianxiong!" Zhao Jianying tried to wake the second brother. "This place is a den of demons and monsters! Where did you get any beauties? If you find any, send them to Black Wind Ridge! Let the Hundred Eyes Great King steam or boil them all in one pot! Your benefactor is asking you! Why don't you answer! Don't you want to help your benefactor? Do you want to stay in Mu Family Village and live with these painted-skin demons?"

The eldest brother of the Zhao family also had ill intentions. He thought about the same things as the Zhao the Second, but he was a bit slower to speak. He wouldn't have spoken ill of his younger brother unless he was pushed to the limit.

This statement was very skillful; it instantly woke Jianxiong up, directing all the hatred towards Hundred Eyes Great King, and also "reminded" Zhang Congfeng that the demons on Black Wind Ridge were the main problem.

"Ahhh..." Zhao Jianxiong was in a state of confusion; he had suffered a tremendous mental shock. "What my elder brother says is true, what he says is true."

Xue Ming cut open the pill and saw that inside the thick, fleshy, waxy shell, there were more than a dozen White Lady larvae. As soon as they saw air, they crawled out of the pill, but soon they lost their strength and died without a sound.

Based on Xue Ming's many years of demon-hunting experience, this curse should combine soul power and spiritual energy to inject holy blood into mortals' bodies. Because of the effect of the Immortal Honey, the poison will not take effect immediately. The thirty-three rejuvenating pills will absorb the body's vital essence and become seeds of power. When others take these pills, the holy blood will germinate and sprout in their abdomens. Only then can the Blood Ceremony be considered properly completed.

This Blood Ceremony is highly efficient in spreading. Just one person can create thirty-three low-level power seeds of high quality and quantity. It is very similar to the blood-giving method of the Wings of Light, except that the Wings of Light use the psionic catalyst of the Chaos Seed as a carrier, and the Blood-giving Monster they create are stronger.

Compared to the blood donation traditions of Zero Platform, such as blood transfusions, planting the Vita Imprint, drinking the blood of specific calamity beasts, and manufacturing holy blood in the laboratory according to the formula, the demons of Xiabang have it far too much easier to refine pills.

Jiang Xueming turned the corpse over and then cut open the farmer's abdomen. He found that the stomach and intestines were empty. It seemed that at the moment of death, the sacred blood began to lose its balance and collapse. The White Lady inside the belly became a rabid glutton, and in order to struggle for survival, she began to frantically devour her own kind and the internal organs of the corpse.

The intertwined insect nest also proved Xue Ming's conjecture. The nest was shaped like a spider web, with blood-red knots at the intersection of the intertwined threads. All the knots pointed to a center, the core of which was the Crimson Blood Golden Pill, which was reddish-yellow and was also the inner elixir of the Qi Sea pursued by the Qi Refiners of the Great Xia. The Rejuvenating Elixir, which was nurtured in the Dan Ding acupoints of the spine, was the outer elixir of immortal medicine.

In other words, the hundreds of households in Black Wind Town have all been transformed into Blood-giving Monster by the Buddha Sculptor.

--They themselves were unaware of this, seemingly thinking everything was normal, still living a muddled life according to worldly rules, treating "Dan Ding Pain" as a family heirloom. After their children were born, they could eat the elixir from their parents, grow up under the protection of the Madness Butterfly, and naturally be healthy and strong without illness or pain. In their old age, the elixir in their spine would be drained, and they would give a portion to the Blood Jade Guanyin to exchange for Immortal Honey to suppress the pain of the elixir poison. Finally, they would take the elixir from their bodies and pass it on to their children who had already started their own families, and so on in a repeated cycle.

"Jianxiong!" Jiang Xueming washed his hands and handed the knife to Jianxiong.

Jianxiong was taken aback and involuntarily took a half step back.

Upon learning the truth, Jiang Xueming displayed a terrifying, furious, and blood-boiling expression. "I saved your life, and now I demand repayment. You killed this man, do you dare admit it?"

Jianxiong hesitated for a moment, his heart in turmoil, ready to accept the test.

"I killed him?"

Jiang Xueming: "How could I, a doctor who heals and saves lives, possibly kill someone? You're the one who did it. There are nine more girls coming in, and you're going to kill eight more."

Wu Xiuwen chimed in, "Yes, yes, yes! Yes! A doctor who heals and saves lives cannot kill! If Lord Zhang were to lay a hand on someone, even Goddess Zhuzhu wouldn't dare have him serve her. Second Master Zhao, you need to think this through. You two brothers dare to kill even a bear! But you wouldn't dare to kill someone?"

"Shut up!" Zhao Jianxiong's eyes instantly turned red. He had never killed anyone before, nor had he ever considered such a thing. But Wu Xiuwen's words gave him courage. "Even if I did kill someone, so what? It's just going to the execution ground, walking down the red platform! Washing my neck clean."

"Wake up!" Jiang Xueming found it extremely difficult to communicate with these primitive people; breaking down the locks in their hearts was simply too hard. "I'm a lawless person, what laws and moral principles are you talking about with demons? Did you hear me clearly just now? I asked him to tell the truth, and he even wanted to do pleasurable things with me, to be a loving couple—listen to that! Me? Me, a loving couple with him? Who's gone mad here?"

"The Buddha Sculptor and the doctor created these painted beauties to tease and test us, and they might even persecute or poison us—I'm sending him on his way so he can be reborn into a good world, find a blessed land, and a good family to end this painful cycle of reincarnation, and never return to this infernal hell of Black Wind Ridge, otherwise he'll be a human flesh furnace for generations to come, his blood and marrow sucked by demons for generations to come, never to die a good death."

These words were like steel nails piercing to the bone, each one penetrating Jianxiong's heart.

His eyes grew brighter and brighter. He gripped the blood-red knife and stood guard by the door. At first, his breathing was heavy, but later it became increasingly calm.

"My benefactor, call the next one!"