A Face with Nine Eyes

Inside the stone chamber, the insect legs of the Soldier Gu "Split-Tooth" splayed out, scurrying back onto Liu Feng's back with lightning speed.

Liu Feng put away the medicine box on the ground, which contained thirty-six pills for nourishing blood and qi. He hadn't touched a single one, intending to gift them to Leng Qiuyue.

After all, he had obtained two Insect Crystals from Leng Qiuyue's parents, and since these blood-qi pills offered little benefit to him at his current stage, they were perfectly suited for her.

Setting the medicine box aside for the moment, he stared at the bloodstains on the floor, his eyes flickering with uncertainty.

Liu Xing might have successfully hatched a Strange Gu; he is a hidden threat.

As for Second Senior Brother, he wants a Soldier Gu, and since I beat up his two dogs, he is also a hidden threat.

After hatching a Strange Gu, I must see the old ghost Lu Huai. According to Third Senior Brother, perhaps only one person can survive...

After pondering this, he hesitated no longer. With a flick of his sleeve, a Strange Gu egg with a fiery red shell fell out.

I must prepare for the worst. I can only succeed, not fail. The one who walks out alive from that old ghost Lu Huai's place must be me.

If I become the fourth disciple of Insect Valley, I imagine there will be opportunities to handle affairs outside...

Liu Feng's gaze turned resolute. He pinched the "Fire Eater" Strange Gu egg; if he wanted to widen the gap between himself and ordinary Gu Masters, he could not rely solely on Buddha Eye Insight and a single Strange Gu.

His physique had become formidable after leaving the medicine garden; the hatching of his first Strange Gu was already a certainty, and he felt confident in planting a second one!

Of course, the key still lay in the Insect Crystals, which were sufficient to support the hatching of two Strange Gu eggs without leaving him completely drained.

Planting this "Fire Eater" today meant it would not hatch immediately, but the physical enhancement gained from the mere melting of the Strange Gu egg was enough to push his strength up by a significant margin.

A muffled groan echoed through the dim stone chamber.

The flesh over Liu Feng's heart was sliced open for the second time, though this time, it was by his own hand.

Dark clouds pressed down, and the overcast rain had not ceased for several days.

Inside Insect Valley, the intersecting paths were a sea of mud. The Gu Children were unusually idle, only needing to work for half the morning.

On the afternoon of this day, two Gu Children sat cross-legged under the stone eaves, attempting to find a sense of qi.

The next moment, they suddenly saw a figure stumble out of a stone cave.

"Ah..." A crazed howl rang out.

The figure charged into the curtain of rain, but before running far, he lost his footing and collapsed into the mire.

Both Gu Children were merely half-grown, and when they saw the man's appearance, their eyes went wide with horror.

"Mon... monster!"

"Quick, run! Notify Lord Steward to come!" The two Gu children shrieked as they fled.

If the Gu Children who had previously been responsible for moving cargo were still alive, they would have recognized the figure collapsed in the mud: it was none other than the team leader, Ma Kun.

Yet, this Ma Kun's appearance had undergone a heaven-shaking transformation!

"What kind of Strange Gu is this... to make me so deformed and hideous!"

Ma Kun knelt in the mud, his hands clawing frantically at his own face, as if he wanted to gouge out the clumps of "dead flesh" that had sprouted there!

At this very moment, he was not the only one in such a state.

Every Gu Child who had attempted to refine a Dead Strange Gu egg had either died or was clinging to life in a deformed state; the results had all been revealed at roughly the same hour.

In front of several cave entrances at the foot of the mountain, one crazed figure after another rushed out in succession.

"Steward Zhang, over there."

"Steward Xu, you should come and see this too."

"There are two more in the cave; they're dead!"...

About an hour later, almost all the Gu Children and Gu Servants in Insect Valley had appeared.

These Gu Children had only recently arrived at the valley and had not yet even found their sense of qi; they knew nothing of the many secrets within Insect Valley.

They had only heard the Stewards mention that of the previous batch of over 180 Gu Children, only 40 had emerged from the Gu Cave.

After more than ten days, only 14 of those 40 had survived!

In the last three days, some of those survivors had died miserable deaths, while those who remained had devolved into monster-like creatures.

In the crowd, a large-headed Gu Child stood blankly, followed by a group of Gu Children responsible for preparing medicinal mud.

Among them, two young girls were quite striking in appearance, looking much better than the other female Gu Children in their team.

Li Xiang'er's hands trembled as she clutched her sleeve tightly, whispering, "Sister Qiuyue, I heard they turned into that because they planted Strange Gu... Liu Feng, who helped you that day, should also be from the previous batch of Gu Children. He also..."

The mud had been wiped from Leng Qiuyue's face, leaving her small features deathly pale. She was not worried for Liu Feng, a person she had only met once.

"Their fate might be our fate in the future; there is no escaping it... My parents also..." Leng Qiuyue was worried about herself and her parents.

"It's all that damned old hag's fault. I only owed her a little silver, and she sold me to Insect Valley..."

In her terror, Li Xiang'er did not hear the word "parents" from Leng Qiuyue, and she continued to curse bitterly to herself.

At that moment, one of the "monsters" in the mud climbed to his feet and roared aloud.

"Liu Xing."

Following this, the other four rose one after another, the five monsters charging in unison toward a single direction.

As they scrambled to their feet, their deformed appearances were fully exposed, instantly drawing gasps of shock from all around.

In the eyes of the onlookers, these five—including Ma Kun—had arms that were either grotesquely swollen or as thin as hemp stalks, their flesh covered not only in bulging tumors but also in clusters of black nodules.

Those black nodules were about the size of human eyeballs, resembling eyes that had been gouged out and left to rot.

That was not even the worst of it; what was truly nauseating was their faces!

Their exposed features were like those of ghouls, as if chunks of flesh had been ripped away while they were still alive.

In the areas where the flesh was missing, three or five eyeballs were crammed into the gaps.

Counting them up, there were seven or eight extra eyeballs on their faces, as if some strange insect had laid its eggs upon them.

"Liu Xing, it was you who wanted me to go against the grain, who taught me to refine the eggs of the Dead Strange Gu."

"It was only because I listened to the devilish nonsense of you and Ma Kun that I ended up in such a state."

"Liu Xing, you... you have restored your appearance?"

Ma Kun, now transformed into a monster, along with the other four, all charged toward the entrance of a stone cave.

There, a figure with a slightly hunched back strolled leisurely, as if admiring the rainy day outside the cave.

The other Gu Servants present cast their gazes over, and when they saw Liu Xing today, they could not help but reveal looks of envy.

Had they not heard the name "Liu Xing," no one would have linked the cold, slightly hunched young man before them to the "Mad Dog" Liu Xing of the past.

He seemed to have been reborn!

His appearance was handsome; aside from his spine not yet being fully recovered, the tumors on his body were gone, and although his arms were still slightly thick, they were acceptable.

Watching the five "monsters" charge toward him, Liu Xing teased, "You wanted a way to survive, and I granted your wish. Not only do you not kneel and thank me, but do you intend to kill me?"

It would have been better if he had said nothing; the moment these words left his lips, Ma Kun was the first to erupt.

"Not only do I want to kill you, I want to eat you alive..."

The other four did not lag behind in the slightest; their ugly, twisted, and crazed appearances today were just like the "Mad Dog" Liu Xing of the past, perhaps even worse.

However, they had only charged halfway when the scene before them suddenly changed completely.

The scenery in their vision was torn apart, shattered into pieces, and haphazardly stitched back together.

Let alone killing Liu Xing, they could not even see the path beneath their feet, and unable to react in time, they tumbled to the ground one after another.

"I am already a Gu Master; from this moment on, I am no longer of the same path as you monsters."

Amidst the gasps of the Gu Children, Liu Xing had also changed his appearance without anyone noticing.

On his cold, stern face, a third eye had sprouted on his forehead, and four more eyes had appeared on his cheeks; combined with his original two, he had opened nine eyes in total.

Unlike the deformed, crowded eyeballs of Ma Kun and the others, Liu Xing, with his nine eyes, did not look ugly in the slightest; instead, he exuded a sense of mysterious majesty.