Chapter 490: Fear

Chapter 490: Fear

With the death of the old crone, the surrounding cultists of the heretical sect seemed to awaken from a dream, scattering in a blind panic into the dark expanse beyond the village.

The air hung thick with the stench of blood and excrement, and everyone stood frozen in place, taking a long moment to realize that victory was theirs.

As the tension coiled within them finally snapped, many collapsed straight onto the ground, gasping for breath, but their gasps were soon replaced by the weeping of delayed terror and the wretched sounds of dry heaving.

Those who had emerged from the Temple of Clear Wind fared better; having followed Li Huowang all this way, they had grown far more accustomed to such horrors.

Chun Xiaoman wiped the blood from her face and opened her mouth to speak, but her body suddenly turned to lead, and she slumped onto the earth, her skin erupting in a cold sweat.

"It's... it's nothing. The masters we invited have departed. This is always how it goes after a spirit possession."

Only when the child and Gao Zhijian saw that the others who had undergone the ritual were in a similar state did they finally breathe a sigh of relief.

"Oh, Scholar, you're really no good at this. This isn't even as useful as the treasure Senior Li gave me. Good thing I didn't learn such useless stuff," Gouwa bragged gleefully, showing off the tongue-shaped ruyi in his hand.

"Get the hell out of here! This is just the simplest formula among them! You're only fit to compare yourself to this. If you have the guts, wait until I learn the more powerful Two-Spirit Diagrams and Three-Spirit Cultivation later! Dare to compete with me then!"

"Oh, listen to you boast! Let's compete then! What are we wagering?"

"Gouwa, have you no end to this! Is now the time to mess around? Hurry up and help us to the grand courtyard! Can't you see Gao Zhijian is injured!"

With the help of the others, the remaining residents of Niuxin Village gathered once more in the Bai family's grand courtyard. To prevent those people from launching another ambush, the walls were lined with torches, illuminating the entire courtyard as bright as day.

Though they had won, a subtle shroud of grief hung over all of Niuxin Village, for no other reason than the twelve corpses covered in white cloth laid out in the center of the main hall.

Niuxin Village had few inhabitants to begin with, and to the living, these twelve dead were people with whom they had exchanged words, if not outright friends.

"Puff, puff..." With a face full of sorrow, Master of Ceremonies Lyu puffed on his dry tobacco. Among the twelve who had perished, two were his newly recruited apprentices, and one of them had been the most talented of all; what a pity.

"Sigh... why did things have to be going so well, only for bandits to cause trouble? Isn't this Great Liang Kingdom supposed to be perfectly peaceful?"

"Those people weren't bandits," Chun Xiaoman said, opening her mouth as she helped heal the child after having recovered her senses.

"From the mouths of these people, they kept talking about some Yu'er God, Yu'er God. It looks like they've fallen prey to some superstitious belief."

"Mm, I also think they weren't bandits. My previous village suffered from bandits before; bandits usually target the wealthy households in a village, rushing in to rob them and then leaving, they wouldn't target tenant farmers like this," an experienced village soldier chimed in.

Master Lyu tapped his pipe against a nearby pillar, then dug some dark yellow tobacco shreds from his pouch to pack it anew. "Why must people kill when they could live good lives? They truly have nothing better to do."

"If you want to know why they wanted to harm us, wouldn't it be easiest to just ask them ourselves?" Outside the main gate, Gouwa spoke these words as he dragged something inside.

The others drew near and were instantly startled by the sight. This thing could barely be considered a human; its limbs and facial features were entirely jumbled across its body, twisted and warped into the living image of a monster.

"How about it? Is my divine needle powerful or what? This person was hit by my divine needle and collapsed right onto the ground, unable to walk or die, just perfect to bring back for a clear interrogation."

A group of people gathered around, staring at the mass of flesh before them, none of them speaking first for a time.

"How do we ask? Senior Li has always been the most adept at this kind of interrogation, but he isn't here right now."

"I'll do it!" At the thought of the deceased Nan'er, a fire of rage instantly ignited in Chun Xiaoman's heart. She immediately grabbed a bamboo broom from the corner by its head and began to thrash the person across the face and body.

Only when his deformed body was beaten black and blue did Chun Xiaoman finally stop, demanding harshly, "Speak! Why did you come to our village to kill people!"

"Stinking bitch! If you have the ability, then kill me! If you kill me, I can become a ghost of the Yu'er God! I'll be an emperor in my next life! While you oblivious fools are only fit to be pigs and dogs, eating dung for the rest of your lives!" This cultist mocked frantically with the mouth beneath his armpit.

"Do you truly think I dare not!" Chun Xiaoman drew her sword fiercely with her single arm, pressing it directly against his throat beneath his left ear.

Faced with the man's mocking smile, Chun Xiaoman's fury blazed anew. She truly felt an uncontrollable urge to hack this man apart.

"Aiya, aiya, this won't do for you, you'd better watch me," Gouwa said, stepping outside.

When he returned once more, he had already donned a crimson Daoist robe and held a pile of butchered knives of various sizes in his arms.

"Senior Brother Gouwa, why are you wearing Senior Li's clothes? And what are you doing with my pig-slaughtering knives?" the child could not help but ask curiously.

"Cut the chatter, just watch!" Gouwa crouched down in front of the creature, clearing his throat several times to mimic Li Huowang's tone as he spoke, "I know you're not afraid of death, but what if you're kept hovering between life and death?"

With that, he laid out those knives neatly, one by one. There was a sharp knife for piercing a pig's heart, a hook for hanging a pig, a broad-backed cleaver for chopping bones, and a small scraper for removing pig hair.

Watching these knives gleam with cold light, the man's eyes twitched, but he still shouted loudly, "Son of a bitch! If you have the guts, kill me!!"

"Oh? Your mouth is quite stubborn? Then which one should we start with."

In the end, Gouwa's hand did not grasp any of the knives; instead, he picked up an utterly ordinary, coarse hemp rope. "Heheh, you didn't expect me to take the rope, did you? How about we use this to give you an appetizer?"

"This hemp rope isn't silk or satin. It's rough, aiya, look at it, how rough it is." As Gouwa spoke, he took the hemp rope and rubbed it forcefully against the man's body, and the scraped area immediately turned red.

"Wait a moment, I'll thread this thing right through your crotch, pulling it back and forth from left to right like a saw. This hemp rope isn't a knife, you see; it's rough, so it will be like grinding ink, bit by bit, slowly grinding your skin and your flesh into mincemeat."

As Gouwa spoke, a look of terror gradually emerged in the man's eyes, and his body began to tremble involuntarily and gently.

"Oh, right, because it's threaded through your crotch..."

Just as Gouwa was clutching that coarse hemp rope and describing the scene with vivid detail, the man broke down completely, his face covered in tears and snot. His body shook like a sieve. "I'll speak! I'll speak!! I'll tell you everything!! I beg you to just kill me quickly!! Waaaaah..."

Seeing this state of affairs, Gouwa clapped his hands in excitement, turning around with a triumphant grin, "Ha! How about it, see how capable I am!"

Yet what greeted him was not the adoration and admiration he had imagined, but rather aversion and unease.

"Why are you all looking at me like that? Hey, I didn't even do anything, I was just copying how Senior Li talked back then."

(End of Chapter)

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