Human?!

At last, had one of these beasts recognized what she truly was?

Ziqing was jolted abruptly out of her killing frenzy, releasing the Nine-Tailed White Fox at once. The moment she let go, the fox scrambled away in a disheveled retreat, and Henggong Fish and the Roaring Hare both backed off as well, not daring to make a move.

Human!

She was actually human!

So this was what a human looked like!

Ziqing turned toward the voice, and saw that the speaker was, of all things, a golden, fluffy ball of fur — round and plush, with facial features resembling a qilin, yet with no visible limbs or tail at all.

At that moment, its expression was clearly one of shock. “You… you… you understood what I said?”

“What exactly are you, and how do you know I’m human?” Ziqing demanded coldly. Of course she could hear it — what a bizarre thing to ask.

“Aren’t you supposed to be a human Gu? You… you actually have your own consciousness!” The ball of fur’s shocked expression gradually shifted into something like fear, as though Ziqing were some kind of monstrous being.

A human Gu?

Ziqing couldn’t hide her own shock, and stepped forward abruptly — but the fluffy creature immediately shrank back in fright. “How could you possibly have your own consciousness? This shouldn’t be possible!”

“Why shouldn’t it be?” Ziqing shot back coldly. She sounded calm on the surface, but inside, she was practically frantic with anticipation — she hadn’t expected to encounter a beast that actually knew who she was!

This meant there was hope — hope of finding her way out of here!

“You’re a yin-natured being immune to all poisons. You were sent here to be cultivated into a human Gu. Didn’t the one who’s raising you devour your heart yet?” the fluffy creature asked, clearly startled.

“How do you know I’m immune to all poisons? What else do you know? And who exactly are you?”

As Ziqing spoke, she suddenly closed in on the fluffy creature, startling it into retreating again. “Stay back!”

“You won’t tell me?” Ziqing’s eyes narrowed, and she raised the dagger Liuguang. “If you won’t tell me, then I’ll simply slaughter every last poisonous beast in this entire world.”

This was precisely what the Nine-Tailed Fox had feared all along — these creatures clearly knew some kind of secret!

“No, no, no! Human, please calm down. If you promise to stop the killing, I’ll tell you everything!” the fluffy creature pleaded urgently.

Ziqing smiled. “Fine, then.”

Had she been the one doing the killing?

It had clearly been these beasts ganging up on her in the first place. She turned to look back at the big foolish bear, now collapsed from exhaustion, and yet its dull, gray eyes were still fixed on her, as if terrified something might still happen to her.

The fluffy creature glanced at the piles of corpses, the ground soaked in blood, and shuddered visibly several times before finally speaking. “Human, please, come with me.”

“No, I’ll stay right here.” Ziqing remained wary — the Nine-Tailed Fox had already proven itself cunning enough; there was no telling what tricks this final, most impressive beast to appear might have up its sleeve.

The fluffy creature nodded helplessly, then suddenly tilted its head back toward the sky. In an instant, an enormous qilin head burst forth from within its fluffy body — every horn, every whisker rendered in vivid, imposing detail, as though it were a genuine qilin’s head, and yet also somehow like a phantom projection, dignified and solemn, utterly untouchable.

It let out a thunderous roar toward the heavens. “AWOOO…”

The roar shook the very heavens and earth, so overwhelming that Ziqing instinctively covered her ears. At that very moment, every surviving beast fled in a mad scramble, and even Henggong Fish, the Roaring Hare, and the Nine-Tailed White Fox obediently shrank down to smaller size, waiting quietly off to the side.

Ziqing watched, utterly dumbfounded, finally understanding — this fluffy creature was the true sovereign of the poisonous-beast world, the most formidable of all the special-grade beasts.

As the roar faded, that massive qilin head withdrew back into the creature’s fluffy body, and every other beast had already vanished entirely.

Ziqing sat atop the big foolish bear’s head, sensing its fear, sensing that it too wanted to flee.

This was simply an instinct of beasts — an inherent awe and reverence for the powerful.

Ziqing quickly, gently stroked the big foolish bear’s ears, reassuring it not to be afraid, that everything would be all right. After a good while, the bear finally settled down.

“Can you tell me everything now?” Ziqing asked first, eager to know everything at last.

“Heh heh. I am the longest-living special-grade poisonous beast in this entire world — the Zizhu Great Beast! I’ve lived here for over a thousand years, and I know everything that has ever happened in this place. But you — you’re so strange. Why weren’t you brought under control by the one cultivating your Gu?” the Zizhu Great Beast asked, equally eager for answers.

“Why would I need to be?” Ziqing shot back.

“Among the people of the isolated island, those of yin-natured constitution, immune to all poisons, possess the most resilient of bodies, but the weakest of minds. To cultivate you into a Gu, one must first cultivate your mind and will — otherwise, the one raising the Gu wouldn’t dare proceed at all!” the Zizhu Great Beast explained earnestly.

At these words, Ziqing understood immediately — her guess had been correct all along!

That old crone was indeed the one cultivating the Gu; the pain in her chest had indeed come from that heart-devouring Gu worm. Fortunately, her mind and will hadn’t been the weak, fragile kind at all!

She was Han Ziqing who had crossed over from another world — not the original Han Ziqing at all!

How could that old crone possibly have known this secret? Her attempt to cultivate Ziqing’s heart and mind had been doomed to fail from the very start.

“If my mind and will weren’t cultivated, does that mean the Gu-raising failed?” Ziqing asked.

The Zizhu Great Beast hesitated, then shook its head. “I don’t know. No one has ever tried to raise a yin-natured human Gu before — this situation has never occurred before. It’s hard to say, truly hard to say.”

As it spoke, it studied the remarkably energetic Ziqing before it, then shook its head again. “But your body… your body…”

The Zizhu Great Beast’s hesitation was starting to irritate Ziqing. “What is it?”

“Your body… resembles a Gu very closely!” The Zizhu Great Beast’s eyes carried a flicker of genuine fear as it said this.

At that, Ziqing finally truly registered this fact herself — her body was indeed different from before. Not only did it no longer react to venomous blood, it could actually absorb that poisonous blood entirely.

And moreover — she had thrown herself into that battle fully prepared to die, and yet now, despite being covered in wounds, her energy remained remarkably strong!

Legend held that once a yin-natured human Gu was fully cultivated, it would become immune to all poisons, invulnerable even to medicinal toxins, its entire body saturated with poison, impervious to blade or spear — a single Gu’s power rivaling that of an entire army.

Now, though she wasn’t nearly that terrifying yet, she had already become immune to venomous blood, and her energy remained remarkably abundant.

Could it be… that what had just happened was, in fact, the very process of Gu cultivation!

At the thought, Ziqing looked down abruptly at the battlefield below — corpses piled everywhere, blood flowing like a river. A chill ran down her spine, and she drew in a sharp, startled breath.

Seeing Ziqing’s reaction, the Zizhu Great Beast finally spoke the words plainly. “Human, if you had continued on as you were just now, you truly would have slaughtered every last poisonous beast in this world, including all four of us special-grade beasts. At the fastest, a hundred days — at the slowest, a year — and your body would have genuinely transformed into a Gu. You must understand… even though your mind and will remain your own, once your body becomes a Gu, your mind will lose all ability to control itself! Without some outside force to control your will, you would become nothing more than a walking corpse, uncontrollable by anyone.”

Ziqing’s hands trembled. She forced herself to master the lingering dread in her heart, and asked, “What exactly is this place? What connection does it have to the isolated island? Why did I fall into this place? Where is the exit?”

This, after all, was what Ziqing truly cared about most.

At this point, the Nine-Tailed White Fox, the Roaring Hare, and Henggong Fish all pricked up their ears as well — they, too, wanted to know the answer.

The Zizhu Great Beast was the oldest of all the poisonous beasts, essentially the historian of this entire world. By comparison, all the others were mere juniors — by the time they were born, the poisonous-beast world had already long been exactly as it was now.

Only the Nine-Tailed Fox had once heard, from an ancestor of its own Nine-Tailed clan, that humans had once exiled countless Gu-beasts to this place, intending to wipe them all out — though the attempt had ultimately failed.