Xie Family Village.
A taxi drove in along the dirt road at the village entrance. Inside sat a petite girl in Miao clothing, her features so exquisite that she looked like someone who had stepped out of a painting.
The driver's eyes bulged, his mouth hanging open as saliva dribbled down.
He had not been captivated by the girl's beauty. At that moment, a palm-sized house centipede lay inside his mouth.
It was a venomous creature resembling a spider, with a slender body covered in densely packed, long legs. A single glance was enough to make one's scalp crawl.
(House centipede: the inspiration for the spine bugs in Ling Cage.)
One of the house centipede's legs twitched, and the driver slammed on the brakes, as though the venomous creature had taken control of his body.
The girl stepped out.
Looking at the carnage beneath her feet-the severed limbs and bodies, the terrified faces of the dead-her expression did not change in the slightest. An indescribable indifference rested on her face.
Her nose twitched slightly.
A moment later, her clear voice rang out. "Granny Wu, Liu Qiushi... and this is... Zhou Qian."
"They're all dead. Did a Great Grandmaster come here in person?"
The girl took a few steps forward, searching for unfamiliar scents amid the blood and brains strewn across the ground.
Suddenly, she stopped before a broken straw doll. Staring at the bloodstains on it that had yet to dry, she pondered for a moment, then took out a blood-red, finger-joint-sized tube.
She opened the lid, and a translucent insect the size of a fingernail crawled out.
It was a Life Gu.
It fed on people's vital energy and severed their lives, and could be used for tracking and curse-killing.
The Life Gu licked the bloodstain on the straw