Chapter 32: Gu Malaria Paradise Tribulation
Lu Qingyang squatted on the cracked bronze Medicine Cauldron, his fingertips pinching half a piece of moldy rhinoceros horn incense.
The Dragon Seeking Compass, which he had pilfered from the Ghost Market last night, was spinning at the bottom of the cauldron; the rust on its surface reacted with the residual dregs inside the cauldron, steaming up a purple mist with a sweet peach blossom scent.
He exhaled into the mist, vaguely seeing his embarrassing past of selling fake foundation establishment pills three years ago, then suddenly kicked over the Medicine Cauldron: "Damn this bad luck!"
The cauldron overturned, hitting a hidden compartment, and from the flying bronze fragments rolled out a jade Gu pot the size of a rouge box.
Crimson threads seeped from the lid's crevice, wrapping around his wrist and actually embroidering peach blossom patterns on his skin.
The qingmu spirit pearl in his Dantian trembled slightly, and the blood patterns moved like living things towards the peach blossom patterns, dyeing his entire right arm a bizarre pinkish-gold.
"Daoist Lu, what a refined taste you have."
Su Li's Puppet Silk hung down from the beam, the silver needle at its end pointed directly at Lu Qingyang's glabella.
He held the jade Gu pot and shook it; a baby's cry suddenly came from inside the pot, startling the Puppet Silk into coiling uncontrollably around the beam: "Su Xianzi, this way of greeting, could it be a new technique learned from the Hehuan Sect..."
Before he finished speaking, the entire desolate house suddenly sank.
Peach tree roots surged from underground, wrapping around their ankles; human faces protruding from the bark twitched in sync with the qingmu spirit pearl's blood patterns.
Lu Qingyang pulled out his Dragon Scale Dagger and cut the roots; the sap gushing from the cuts condensed into blood-red seal script in mid-air—"Peach Blossom Secret Realm, those who trespass shall be fed to Gu."
When Yinghuo's silver bell sounded from the southeast, Lu Qingyang was using the jade Gu pot to collect tree sap.
The moment the sap touched the pot's wall, it boiled, and a village's phantom image appeared in the evaporating mist.
He dipped his finger in the sap and drew a crooked map on his palm: "This wretched Secret Realm hides three hundred jars of peach blossom wine, Su Xianzi, want to team up?"
As the three passed through the putrid peach blossom forest, Lu Qingyang's boot soles were already covered in insect eggs.
He deliberately lagged half a step behind, rubbing the insect eggs onto Su Li's Puppet Silk: "Su Xianzi, your silk threads are so well-maintained and smooth, perfect for Gu worms..."
A suddenly attacking peach branch shattered the latter half of his vulgar remark, and the green peaches falling from the branch hit the ground, transforming into fist-sized carnivorous beetles.
"Seven steps to the Kan position, avoid the Zhen palace!" Yinghuo's chensha stone fragments embedded themselves in the peach tree, temporarily halting the insect swarm's attack.
Lu Qingyang seized the opportunity to pry open a tree hole in one of the peach trees; inside, three jars wrapped in spider silk contained cremated remains.
He picked up some ashes and sniffed: "Foundation Establishment Cultivator's wrist bone powder, it can be exchanged for... on the black market."
Su Li's silver needle pierced through his sleeve, pulling him away from the suddenly collapsing ground.
Half a stone tablet was revealed beneath the decaying soil, its inscription detailing the Peach Blossom Village's tradition of live sacrifices.
Lu Qingyang caressed the words "Sacrificing the flesh and blood of a Golden Core Cultivator can ensure ten years of favorable weather," then suddenly grinned: "This is a profitable business, why don't we..."
The village ruins appeared in the twilight, with a bronze Medicine Cauldron hanging from the roof of every thatched hut.
Lu Qingyang kicked open a door carved with a Hehuan talisman; inside, on a rattan bed, lay a corpse with a ruddy complexion, tightly clutching a pottery jar containing a twin peach branch.
As he pried open the corpse's fingers, the peach branch suddenly bloomed, its pollen condensing into the face of a beautiful woman: "Would my lord like a cup of peach blossom wine?"
"Auntie, this hospitality..." He shook his empty wine flask, his fingertip subtly hooking the edge of the pottery jar, "Fill it up first, then we'll talk?"
The phantom of the woman suddenly became enraged, the peach branch piercing his loosely covered robe, but it turned to ash upon touching the qingmu spirit pearl.
At the bottom of the jar, half a scroll of the "Gu Cultivation Secret Records" was revealed, with a hand-written note from an Elder of Taiyi Pavilion folder ed between its pages.
When Yinghuo's silver bell shattered the Restriction of the western ancestral hall, Lu Qingyang was squatting by the well, studying the winch.
The well rope was not made of hemp, but rather some kind of Cultivator's meridians woven into a rope.
He pulled the rope with a little too much force, and the sound of chains rattling suddenly came from the bottom of the well—the wooden bucket pulled up contained seven Golden Cores, each inscribed with the character "Ye."
"The Ye family is running a wholesale business!" He picked up a Golden Core and examined it against the moonlight; the Impurities within the pearl suddenly condensed into Ye Wuchen's distorted face.
The qingmu spirit pearl spontaneously activated, actually absorbing the Golden Core into a grayish-white empty shell.
Blood patterns crawled up his neck behind his ear, and an ancient Dragon roar sounded in his Sea of Consciousness: "Devouring pills and souls, you shall be executed!"
Su Li's Puppet Silk wrapped around his wrist, the silver needle piercing the blood patterns to temporarily alleviate the backlash: "If you keep eating random things, you'll sooner or later become another Ye Wuchen."
Lu Qingyang spat out a mouthful of black blood, then casually wrapped the Puppet Silk around the well rope: "Su Xianzi, you're so concerned, could it be..."
A loud bang suddenly came from the direction of the ancestral hall; when the three rushed in, they saw Yinghuo playing chess with an old man wearing a peach blossom mask.
The chess pieces on the board were all living Gu worms; with each move the old man made, more cracks appeared on the ancestral hall's beams and pillars.
Lu Qingyang pulled out the jade Gu pot and placed it over the chessboard; the baby's cry from inside the pot startled the Gu worms into a frenzy, and the old man's mask shattered in response—revealing a face identical to the carving on the stone tablet at the village entrance.
"A three-hundred-year-old old bastard?" He picked up a fallen whisker from the old man, finding undigested foundation establishment pill residue clinging to the hair: "Relying on longevity pills pickled in boy's urine to cling to life, and not even finding it disgusting..."
The old man furiously chanted a spell, and a blood-red formation diagram appeared on the ancestral hall's floor.
Lu Qingyang pulled Su Li in front of him as a shield, while he himself rolled towards the bottom of the offering table.
As the hidden compartment under the table sprang open, he glimpsed the Sect secret scrolls sealed inside—Taiyi Pavilion had a century-long human-pill trade with Peach Blossom Village, and the cinnabar seal annotated at the end of the scroll matched the spirit pearl's blood patterns.
When Yinghuo's chensha stone shattered the formation eye, the entire village began to collapse.
Lu Qingyang hugged the secret scrolls and leaped onto a peach tree; the green peaches on the branches exploded one after another, each fruit pit a miniature human-head Gu.
He stepped on the falling beams and lunged towards the village exit; the evil-warding talisman on his back suddenly spontaneously combusted, burning the pursuing Gu worms into a sky full of phosphorescent flames.
At dawn, the three collapsed beside a faded boundary marker.
Lu Qingyang tallied their gains from this trip: a spirit pearl saturated with Golden Cores, secret scrolls detailing Taiyi Pavilion's scandals, and half a peach blossom jade pendant he had taken from the old man.
He held up the jade pendant against the rising sun, seeing a curled-up Nascent Soul remnant within the light and shadow—its features were seven-tenths similar to Su Li's.
"Su Xianzi, this thing..." He shook the jade pendant, drawing out his words, "Can it be exchanged for your help in curing the Gu poison?"
Yinghuo's silver bell suddenly shattered the jade pendant, and the remnant soul shrieked as it drilled into the earth's pulse.
Lu Qingyang picked up the fragments with a pained heart, only to find that each fragment reflected a different angle of Taiyi Pavilion's Forbidden Land.
The qingmu spirit pearl's blood patterns completely stabilized at this moment, and the pressure of the Nascent Soul Early Stage, mixed with Dragon breath, swept through the peach forest, startling three thousand drowsy carnivorous moths.
