Gu Worm Backlash

Gu Worm Backlash

I gripped the wooden rack tightly with both hands. With just a little force, I could have toppled it to the ground.

The black-robed Daoist's face was livid. "I didn't expect two little thorns. I really underestimated you."

Xiao Yudao said, "You blindly chase quantity. The Miao people have more than a dozen kinds of Gu worms, and the Dong People have plenty too. Every Gu worm has to be fed with blood. Gu worms all produce Sha Qi and resentment, and all of that affects your body. In other words, you're already extremely weak."

After Xiao Yudao's words, fine beads of sweat seeped out on the black-robed Daoist's forehead. He looked at her in disbelief. "Little girl, you understand raising Gu?"

Xiao Yudao lifted her head. "A child from a Miao village knows a bit of common knowledge, that's all. You raised so many Gu worms in one breath, and you also want to raise a Golden Silkworm Gu. Clearly, you're frantic for revenge. Unfortunately, you're greedy for quantity, not quality. With so many raised like this, not a single one will succeed. From what I see, your revenge is hopeless!"

While Xiao Yudao was speaking, I placed one hand at my waist and called softly, "Three-Corpse Snake Gu, help me suppress the venomous snakes around Xiao Yudao. Don't hurt Xiao Yudao."

The black-robed Daoist's expression grew even uglier. He clutched his head with both hands, his eyes terrifyingly red, and shook his head violently. "Impossible. Could these past few years have been wasted? The Gu worms I raised are all useless."

I glanced at Xiao Yudao and raised my brows, signaling for her to jump out quickly. Xiao Yudao understood what I meant. With a light leap, she jumped out of the snake swarm's encirclement, circled over from the other side, and gripped the wooden rack with me.

The black-robed Daoist's greatest wish was revenge. Now that wish had been pierced through by Xiao Yudao, his fighting spirit loosened, and his whole person had already reached the edge of collapse.

My heart hung in midair, and my hands trembled a little too.

"No... impossible!" the black-robed Daoist screamed wildly. "Who sent you to ruin my plan? You all deserve to die! You'll all bleed from your seven orifices and die with a hundred insects drilling into your hearts. I'm going to use you to raise Gu."

The black-robed Daoist's hair was disheveled as he pounced over like a man possessed.

Xiao Yudao and I exerted force at the same time. The wooden rack left the stone wall and smashed onto the ground. It rang out with clattering cracks, and shards from the yellow jars and black jars tangled together.

Yellow liquid and black liquid mixed together. More than a dozen unformed Gu worms crawled rapidly, and then there was a buzzing sound. A black insect flew out of a black clay jar. Looking closely, it was a dragonfly. But the black dragonfly's body was wrapped in fine, dense scales.

It was the Dragonfly Gu!

"My insect sons!" The black-robed Daoist opened his mouth and spat black blood. Black lines instantly crawled all over his pale face. His body went limp, and he collapsed straight onto the ground. Black liquid and yellow liquid smeared over him.

With a whoosh, the Dragonfly Gu landed beside the black-robed Daoist's ear.

The black-robed Daoist reached out hard to grab the Dragonfly Gu, but it was already too late.

The Dragonfly Gu burrowed straight into his right ear. The black-robed Daoist's body tilted, and he fell to the ground, his expression twisted. It was clear he was in terrible pain. His body convulsed constantly, and the black lines on his face grew thicker and thicker.

From the broken jars on the ground, more than a dozen unformed Gu worms appeared again: a toad with only half a head, a Silver Snake Gu without a tail, a centipede missing legs, a blood spider without eyes...

They all began to drill into the black-robed Daoist's body. They seeped in through the skin on his hands, burrowed into his chest, and slipped into his mouth.

Raising Gu worms was like a woman carrying a child. If the time had not come, yet it saw the light early and came into the world, that was premature birth. Gu worms might not survive. These Gu worms that had broken out of their jars had drunk the black-robed Daoist's fresh blood and were familiar with that scent, urgently wanting to return into the blood they knew.

At this moment, driven by a powerful will to survive, they began madly drilling into the black-robed Daoist's body. The black-robed Daoist was attacked by the Dragonfly Gu and had no strength to break free, so he became the "vessel" for these incomplete, prematurely born Gu worms.

The black-robed Daoist screamed wildly, "Why! Heaven, you're too unfair to me, Gu Xiucheng... Why are you treating me like this..." The black-robed Daoist's strength grew weaker and weaker, and his appearance became more and more unbearable to look at.

I shouted, "Don't... don't move around. I'll help you get the Gu worms out. I'll save you."

Xiao Yudao grabbed me. "You can't save him. No one can save him. He raised so many Gu worms that his bloodline was damaged long ago. He can't last much longer. If he doesn't die today, then another day, when the Gu worms break their jars, they'll still take his life."

I was deeply shaken. Just now, he had wanted to use Xiao Yudao and me as "vessels," but in the blink of an eye, he himself had become a vessel for Gu worms. This was the first time I had witnessed Gu worms invading the body of the one who raised them. It was too horrible to watch. It could be seen that in dealing with Gu, the slightest carelessness would send one into eternal damnation.

"Let's go!" Xiao Yudao clenched my hand. "The black qi inside is getting thicker and thicker. If we stay any longer, our lives will be in danger too."

The black-robed Daoist Gu Xiucheng lay on the ground, the light in his pupils scattering. His face was covered with black lines, and he muttered, "Innate Insect... In my next life, I, Gu Xiucheng, will kill you again... No, I can't die. I still have an unfulfilled wish."

In those eyes that had lost their light, a bewitching green insect shadow suddenly flashed, gone in an instant.

My soul nearly flew from fright. My body went stiff, and I could not move.

Xiao Yudao pulled my hand and ran outside. The light inside the cave was shrouded by black qi and grew darker and darker. Xiao Yudao dragged me along, stumbling and bumping, crashing into the stone wall several times.

The venomous snakes in the tunnel began rushing toward the depths of the cave like a tide.

"Da Xiao, the snake swarm is charging inside!" Xiao Yudao's sharp voice rang out.

I jolted awake, put my hand on the yellow jar, and shouted, "The Three-Corpse Snake Gu is here! All of you, make way at once!"

The venomous snakes split apart and passed by on both sides.

The two of us ran out of the forbidden ground, and the moon hung in the sky.

"Such a huge thing happened inside the cave, so why did those extremely venomous snakes just now still go in? Aren't they afraid the black qi will poison them to death?" Xiao Yudao's beautiful face had lost all color. Her face was pale, and she had not recovered.

I said, "When you have the power to tame snakes, they'll submit to you. But the moment something happens to you, those venomous snakes will rush to eat your body clean. They surged in like a tide because they were fighting to divide and eat the flesh on that black-robed Daoist Gu Xiucheng. Never be friends with venomous snakes."

Xiao Yudao was so startled her mouth fell open wide enough to fit an egg inside. Only after a long while did she say, "Then... then won't Gu Xiucheng turn into a pile of white bones? The Gu worms backlash once, and the venomous snakes eat him again. That's too frightening."

I looked back at the forbidden cave. Dense black qi was seeping out from above the cavern. Xiao Yudao was right. Gu Xiucheng, who had hidden in the forbidden ground for many years, was definitely dead. Only heaps of white bones would remain.

There was no way to verify the things he had spoken of either. His deep hatred would go with him to the underworld. If he were still alive, I would definitely make him understand that Master Hei Moyun was a good person, not a bad one.

But more questions still filled my heart. What origin did that Innate Insect that killed his beloved have? Was that Luo Daiqing he mentioned real or fake? And that bewitching green insect shadow that flashed in his eyes before he died—what exactly was going on?

All kinds of mysteries wrapped around my heart, but for the moment, there was no way to investigate them.

I slapped my forehead. The most urgent thing right now was curing the Golden Silkworm poison. On this risky trip into the forbidden ground, I had not figured out the great Gu master's steps for raising the Golden Silkworm Gu, nor the insects and materials used. I had basically come back empty-handed.

I asked, "Xiao Ma, when ordinary people are infected with Golden Silkworm Gu, how many days can they hold out at most?"

Xiao Yudao took two steps to the side, putting a little more distance between us. "Now that we're out, you don't need to call me Xiao Ma anymore. Ordinary people can hold out for one day. You can probably hold out for three."

I said, "There are still two days. I believe Heaven never seals off every road."

Xiao Yudao took out an old yellowed book from her waist, waved it in front of me, and said, "This is the book the great Gu master left behind. When Gu Xiucheng flipped through it, I recognized it. Just now, when the book fell on the ground, I picked it up in passing. With this book here, I guarantee you won't be able to die even if you want to."

After saying that, Xiao Yudao was the first to laugh.

I could not help freezing for a moment. So she had been teasing me. I started laughing too. Before Gu Xiucheng raised the Golden Silkworm, he had followed an old book step by step. That book definitely contained the Golden Silkworm's secret methods. It looked like the Golden Silkworm poison could be cured.

I joked, "You set dogs on me before, so why don't you want me dead now?"

Xiao Yudao put the book away and said coldly again, "I'm just a strange person. One moment I want to kill you, the next I want to save you. How could there be so many reasons?" After rolling her eyes, she snapped off a tree branch and handed it to me.

I thought to myself, the two of us had barged into forbidden ground and at least gone through life and death together for a while, so how could she change her face just like that? I really could not figure it out. Leaning on the branch, I returned to the cave where I was staying. By then, the sky had already begun to brighten.

After Xiao Yudao helped me cook a pot of rice, she returned to Camellia Village.

After eating a few mouthfuls of rice, I looked at the poisonous scales on my body. In the places where I had scraped them off with the steel knife, the poisonous scales had grown back again. Although I had let out black blood, the Golden Silkworm poison had not weakened in the slightest.

Some time ago, when Ma Huoxin had been afflicted by the Blood Mantis, letting out the poisonous blood had brought some improvement in a single night. But this Golden Silkworm poison showed no sign of getting better. On this point alone, calling the Golden Silkworm Gu a "divine Gu insect" was not the least bit excessive.

I touched the black scales with my hand and carefully felt them. Compared with yesterday, they were a bit harder still. At the seams between the scales, they had all hooked into the flesh. Forcing them off would not be easy.

I let out a long breath. I could no longer make sense of my own physical condition. When the Golden Silkworm poison and the Innate Insect flared up, it was no different from death. But once they quieted down, strength seemed to return to my body again. Turning round and round between life and death was truly tormenting.

When noon came, around twelve or one, the Gu poison would flare up again, and I would once more spend a while wishing I were dead. I could only hope Xiao Yudao could find a way to cure the Golden Silkworm poison sooner from the book left behind by the great Gu Master.

Fatigue washed over me. I leaned against the stone wall and sank heavily into sleep. When I woke from this sleep, the sky outside had already darkened.

I was puzzled. Strange. The Golden Silkworm poison should have flared up at noon, so how had I slept safe and sound until now?

"Big Brother Xiao Kunlun... Big Brother Xiao Kunlun, my Uncle Huoxin asks you to come over." An anxious shout came from outside the cave.