Jiagu’s gaze slid back and forth for half a circle between the steaming pot on the table and the muffled, struggling village chief, finally deciding to sit down and drink some soup first before talking slowly.
“How did you… capture him?” Jiagu scooped a spoonful of soup and clicked his tongue at the heat. “Does he know how troublesome it is for the village chief to go missing?”
“I kindly helped expel the poison from Liaozhen, but who knew he would burst in halfway through and try to attack me. I didn’t want to alarm others, so I could only tie him up and bring him here first.” Changling glanced at the village chief struggling on the ground. “Martial Uncle, didn’t you say you knew the village chief? I think it would be more appropriate for you to clarify this misunderstanding.”
Jiagu subtly conveyed a look that said “I can’t resolve this situation either.” Changling pretended not to see it. Jiagu had no choice but to put down the corn in his hand, crouch in front of the village chief, and remove the cloth from his mouth. Before he could speak, he heard the village chief curse, “I once believed you were an enlightened monk who could save our village from fire and water, which is why I allowed you to reside permanently on the mountain. Who would have thought you were all birds of a feather! You brought them all in here—what are your intentions?! Are you planning to destroy our Yanling Village and seize the Manual?”
“No, no, this poor monk isn’t in league with her. Their entry was purely coincidental—this poor monk knew nothing about it.” Jiagu first cleared himself of involvement, then said amiably, “However, rest assured, although they caused quite a commotion, this poor monk has already severely criticized them. The secrets of Yanling Village will absolutely not be leaked to outsiders…”
The village chief looked completely unconvinced. “Fine, then let me go.”
Just from the murderous look on the village chief’s face, Jiagu didn’t dare let him run off easily. He smiled awkwardly and was racking his brains for reasonable wording to keep him here when he suddenly heard Changling say, “Martial Uncle, they said that Monk Liaozhen was originally an outsider, and the corpse gu in his body was planted by them. If we release the village chief now, he’ll definitely try every means to use the same trick again. Once we all become green-eyed monsters, naturally we’ll be tied to the same rope as them.”
“You’re talking nonsense!” The village chief shouted with guilty conscience. “If we wanted to poison you, we would have done it on your first day in the village. Why would we wait until…”
“That’s because you haven’t found the opportunity yet.” Changling directly cut him off. “I examined Master Liaozhen’s poisoned wound today. His blood is poisoned, but his internal organs are not. This means the corpse gu can only be planted through blood. In other words, to poison us, you’d first have to make us bleed… Am I right?”
The village chief’s expression changed. Jiagu seemed to recall something and, forgetting about being a monk or not, said with sudden realization, “No wonder when I first entered the village, you had me go look at the rice in the fields, and several blind old fools kept swinging their sickles at me. So… that’s what you were scheming!”
“You allowed my martial uncle to live on the mountain only because you feared his martial prowess was too high. Even if your entire village pooled its strength, you couldn’t defeat him. Later, when my martial uncle accidentally glimpsed the truth of the Myriad Flowers Manual, you had no choice but to compromise…” Changling smiled slightly. “Village Chief, you never truly believed anyone could cure your corpse gu, did you?”
“You…” Having his sore spot exposed, the village chief’s face alternated between green and white, his face flushing red as he couldn’t utter half a word.
“Then we really can’t let him go…” Jiagu looked at Changling. “Little Ye is at a critical juncture in his practice. If someone disturbs him, all his efforts could be wasted at any moment.”
Changling was stunned. “He’s already reached that level?”
Jiagu nodded gently, then said with difficulty, “But if we keep the village chief confined like this… those villagers, even if they don’t come today, will certainly come tomorrow…”
Changling pondered briefly, then said to Jiagu, “Martial Uncle, since yin and yang qi can expel corpse gu, why must we fixate on the Myriad Flowers Manual?”
Jiagu was startled. “Martial Nephew means…”
“Monk Shenle said the Myriad Flowers Manual could resolve it because once this mental cultivation is mastered, one can simultaneously possess both yin and yang qi. Even so, Monk Shenle still required Senior He to also practice this technique, which means a single source of yin and yang qi is still insufficient—at least two streams of yin qi and two streams of yang qi are needed to expel it…” Changling stood up. “Just now, while expelling poison for Master Liaozhen, I had a sudden inspiration. Since this is the case, as long as Martial Uncle provides two streams of yang qi and I provide two streams of yin qi, simultaneously injecting them into the body of the afflicted person, perhaps it would work just as well?”
Jiagu frowned and thought for a moment. “This is originally a good line of thinking, but these villagers aren’t people with deep internal energy. Receiving four streams of extreme yin and extreme yang qi simultaneously, they could easily be unable to withstand it and die from body explosion…”
The village chief, hearing them discuss the village’s secrets as if counting family treasures, was already so angry he nearly exploded on the spot. Hearing the words “die from body explosion,” he could no longer restrain himself. “After you obtained the Myriad Flowers Manual, do you want to use this as an excuse to destroy our Yanling Village?!”
Changling ignored his existence and walked before Jiagu, saying, “The Nanhua needle technique can not only expel poison in time but also disperse externally invading true qi in a short period. As long as we protect the Shenting acupoint with golden needles while channeling our energy, then disperse it through the Quchi, Zusanli, and Taibai points, this way the four streams of true qi can circulate throughout the body without damaging the internal organs.”
The corner of Jiagu’s eye twitched. He narrowed his eyes and said quietly, “How confident are you that this won’t harm them?”
“Ah, at least forty percent, I suppose.” Changling thought about it and changed her answer. “To be conservative, thirty percent?”
Jiagu: “…”
At least she didn’t say only ten percent.
In truth, Jiagu had considered alternative approaches before, but previously he was alone and couldn’t casually gamble with people’s lives. Now that such proficient Shimo true qi had been delivered to his doorstep, perhaps it was exactly the right opportunity.
However…
Jiagu still found it difficult to say, “Who should we test this on?”
Changling naturally looked at the “ready-made” person tied up on the ground. “Is Martial Uncle afraid one isn’t enough to test on? Do you need me to catch a few more? Alright then, wait here, I’ll be right back…”
“Don’t, don’t, one is enough.” Jiagu wiped away cold sweat and clasped his hands together, muttering several phrases of “Amitabha,善哉善哉.” The village chief, seeing his life was in danger, hastily tried to wriggle toward the door to escape. Changling grabbed his collar and threatened, “Don’t resist stubbornly. Be obedient and let us try whether we can expel the poison. Perhaps Yanling Village can gain new life. Otherwise…”
“Aiya, don’t manhandle people like that. We Buddhist disciples are compassionate and merciful…” Jiagu said as he walked before the village chief and said gently, “Village Chief, rest assured, we’ll definitely do our utmost and won’t let you feel too much pain…”
Before he finished speaking, seeing the village chief try to bite him, Jiagu nimbly dodged and sealed the major acupoints throughout his body with lightning-fast fingers, then said to Changling, “See, communicate properly, and naturally people can understand our good intentions.”
Changling didn’t even bother rolling her eyes this time.
She moved the village chief onto the bed, had him sit cross-legged, moved the wooden table over, and arranged the silver needles in a row. Just as she was about to review the steps of channeling energy with Jiagu once more, she saw Jiagu press his left middle and index fingers into the village chief’s back and begin without even a sound.
Changling was a bit dumbfounded. “Martial Uncle, you…”
“I’ll first enter the first stream of yang qi through the Dazhui acupoint. You enter the first stream of yin qi from the front through the Tiantu acupoint. When I inject the second stream of yang qi into the Shendao acupoint, you enter the second stream of yin qi through the Zigong acupoint.” Jiagu said this much, then added, “Don’t stand there dazed—quickly!”
If this were someone else, they would have to shout “stop” first and clarify the sequence before proceeding. But Changling happened to be someone without much patience either. When Jiagu said “quickly,” her first finger also descended without a trace of hesitation—it was precisely this clean decisiveness that coordinated perfectly with Jiagu. The two of them, four hands moving from top to bottom, gradually infused true qi into the village chief’s major acupoints, merging with his blood circulation. In an instant, the village chief’s entire body suddenly turned bright red, steam faintly rising from his head, like a shrimp being roasted, wanting to curl up but unable to—
Jiagu seized the right moment and gave the order: “Apply the needles—”
The Nanhua needles emerged at the perfect time, accurately and precisely piercing the acupoints. The swelling qi within the village chief’s body instantly found an outlet, mixed with copious hot sweat evaporating. Changling saw the opportunity and made cuts on his ten fingers, faintly seeing drops of black blood seeping out… Jiagu, seeing the blood flow too slowly, simply made another cut on his wrist—instantly, black poisoned blood gushed forth abundantly, splashing all over the ground.
Changling frowned. “Won’t he bleed to death like this?”
“The poisoned blood from the corpse gu isn’t the key—the key is the gu worm…” The village chief’s eyes were fixed intently on the village chief’s wrist. Suddenly seeing a gu worm the size of a fingernail flow out mixed with the poisoned blood and fall onto the bed, he quickly grabbed the teacup lid from the table to cover it, then said to Changling, “Stop the bleeding!”
At this moment, whether from excessive blood loss or pure fright, the village chief had already passed out. Changling sealed the wrist acupoint with a golden needle and wrapped it tightly with cloth strips, saying in a deep voice, “The bleeding is stopped. Now I don’t know if this counts as complete detoxification. Otherwise… Martial Uncle… could you please stop playing with that worm?”
Jiagu crouched by the edge of the bed, carefully lifting a corner of the cup to watch the green gu worm slowly wriggling. “I’m just curious—what kind of gu worm is so miraculous that it can make people turn into beastmen with tremendous strength at night… Cough, what did you ask again?”
Changling raised her eyebrows irritably. “I said, does this count as detoxification?”
“Without this corpse worm controlling the brain, even if he wanted to become a green-eyed person, he couldn’t.” Jiagu crushed the worm with the bottom of the cup. “However, they’ve been controlled by corpse gu for a long time, so inevitably there are still residual toxins in the blood that can only be gradually expelled. As long as they don’t penetrate the internal organs, there shouldn’t be any danger to life.”
Changling hadn’t expected this method to work so effectively and immediately stood up. “Since it works, why don’t we seize the time and expel the poison from all those villagers?”
Jiagu was startled. “Now?”
“This time we forced the village chief into submission. He must be displeased. Even after he wakes up, he may not believe his corpse gu has been resolved. Rather than wait for him to go down the mountain and rally people to make things difficult for us, we might as well strike first.” Changling said, “After we save more people, naturally the villagers will trust us. Then if Ye Qi wants to practice, no one will come up the mountain to obstruct him.”
“Oh, so you’re doing this for Little Ye…” Jiagu showed a trace of a smile. “However, if we rashly go down the mountain like this, how should we bring up this matter with them?”
“What’s there to bring up?” Changling raised her hand. “There’s a room full of wounded patients down the mountain. We go in, cut through the mess quickly, seal all their acupoints, and directly expel the poison.”
The Second Young Master Yue’s courage had always been quite substantial, acting on impulse. If Ye Qi were present, he would definitely formulate a more thorough strategy. Unfortunately, Jiagu was also quite unconventional. With her suggestion, he also couldn’t suppress his eagerness to try. The two of them tied up the village chief again with rope, covered him with a quilt, and just went down the mountain like that.
Jiagu originally thought they would encounter at least some obstacles and had mentally prepared for many unexpected situations along the way. Who would have thought that all the way to the foot of the mountain and into the village doctor’s home, things went incredibly smoothly—those several elders weren’t present either, so sealing the acupoints of this room full of disabled patients required almost no effort at all.
The two followed the method used on the village chief, copying the process exactly, one after another expelling the corpse gu from these people’s bodies. Originally it was just passing qi through acupoints, not requiring much true qi expenditure. Later they became increasingly proficient, and since these villagers witnessed with their own eyes the corpse gu crawling out from other people’s bodies, their attitude toward them greatly improved. Saving more than ten people in one go turned out to be even easier than imagined.
By the time Changling withdrew the needles, it wasn’t yet dark. Her heart was concerned about Ye Qi, so she no longer paid attention to the room full of grateful people and urgently wanted to head back home—Jiagu was also in quite a good mood and even had the leisure to grab a few sweet potatoes along the way, saying he wanted to celebrate with extra food.
Who knew that the two had only walked a short distance when they sensed something was wrong.
At this hour, most people should have returned home and been busy cooking, but as they stood in the fields and looked around, not a single household had smoke rising from their chimneys.
The sky was tinged slightly blue, the sunset had fallen, and faintly they could see scattered points of firelight moving through the mountains.
Changling’s heart jumped—when did those villagers go up the mountain?!
“They, they don’t go out at night, do they?” Jiagu found it simply incomprehensible. “Why did they all do the opposite today?”
Changling said nothing, her feet moving like the wind as she drifted forward.
However, before reaching the mountain foot, they heard a bell sound coming from the mountain valley.
“Dong,” “Dong,” “Dong.”