Chapter 20: The Poison of the Spider Gu 01
Sky Cloud, what peaks rise above the clouds? Blood in crystal, what changes within the blood? Though one may hold life lightly, public opinion is hard to win.
Imperial Plum Blade, does the blade emerge from Imperial Plum? Immortal body, is the body truly immortal? Each step lost is lost in that very moment.
Clear winds and bright moon, starlight twinkling—though it was night sky, it remained sparse and open. Looking up at it filled one’s heart with joy. The night scenery of Haoyun Mountain was as ethereal as fairyland, with a brilliant starry sky overhead, yet misty vapors flowing with the wind around one’s body. Walking within it, gazing at sky and earth, was like treading upon clouds, bringing a uniquely different state of mind.
“Woo—ahh—woo woo—” Waves of wolf-like howls and roars came from a building slightly left of center in Shanfeng Hall. The sound of battering against doors was incessant, as if a terrifying monster of immense strength was imprisoned within. Looking at the surroundings of that building, all doors and windows were sealed from the outside with refined steel, many large stones were piled outside the walls, and even the roof was covered with seven or eight zhang of steel wire fishing nets. Such preparations showed just how frightening the “thing” locked inside must be.
One person sat under a willow tree not far from the building. It was gradually becoming late autumn, and the willow was shedding its leaves. In the night, thin black shadows fell with the wind, landing on his hair and clothes in a most peaceful manner. This person wore gray cloth clothing and brand-new cloud-patterned soft shoes on his feet. His silver hair and very pale complexion marked him as Tang Lici.
The “thing” locked in the house like a wild beast was naturally Chi Yun, who had been poisoned by both spider gu and the Crimson Ghost Nine Hearts Pills. It had now been four days since he escaped from the Camellia Prison. With both poisons active in his body, he was suffering unbearably, and having lost his sanity, he was like a mad tiger. Shao Yanping had originally wanted to seal his pressure points, but he was severely poisoned—both the spider gu poison and the Crimson Ghost Nine Hearts Pills were not ordinary toxins. Prolonged pressure point sealing might cause the toxic substances to accumulate somewhere in his body, leading to irreversible consequences. After much consideration, he abandoned this plan and simply bound Chi Yun with ropes. But not long after the poison flared up, Chi Yun broke free from the ropes and began ramming about inside the house. Shao Yanping, fearing he might break through the house and rush out to kill people, had no choice but to cover the roof with fishing nets, nail refined steel over the doors and windows, and pile up many large stones, as if burying Chi Yun alive in the house. Though his heart was filled with guilt, there was nothing else he could do.
For four days, no one dared approach this house. Though food was delivered through a damaged window, no one knew whether he actually ate it or not. If he hadn’t eaten, even if his body were made of iron, he couldn’t hold out much longer.
Outside the house, pale moonlight shone on Tang Lici, creating an atmosphere of tranquil serenity.
“Young Master Tang, Master Shao sends word asking Young Master Tang to come to the front hall for tea.” The maid Zi Yun came gracefully from the other end of the courtyard, her brows slightly furrowed. Ever since Tang Lici had fainted for no apparent reason several days ago, she had been somewhat worried when looking at this young master.
Tang Lici raised his head and smiled gently, his expression warm and kind. “Please trouble Miss Zi Yun to reply to Master Shao that I don’t wish to drink tea right now.” Zi Yun’s face reddened slightly. “Young Master Tang need not be so polite with me. Just call me Zi Yun. If there’s anything you need, please feel free to ask.”
“Then… bring me a bowl of porridge that’s not too hot, with some chopped scallions and minced meat in it.” Tang Lici gazed at the building. “Then please have Master Shao give orders that from tonight until tomorrow midnight, no one is permitted to enter this courtyard.” Zi Yun asked curiously, “Just one bowl of porridge? From tonight until tomorrow midnight, Young Master Tang will only eat one bowl of porridge? How can that be acceptable?” Tang Lici smiled and changed the subject. “I’ve thought of a method to neutralize the poison. Miss Zi Yun just needs to tell Master Shao and make sure no one disturbs me while I’m detoxifying.” Zi Yun was overjoyed. “Young Master Tang has thought of a way to neutralize the poison? That’s wonderful! Hero Chi is saved! I’ll go tell him right away.” She turned and hurried off, running toward Shao Yanping’s study.
“Ahh—ahh—” The hoarse screaming inside the house and the sounds of battering doors and walls continued to be horrible. From the past few days until now, there seemed to be no relief whatsoever. What would the thing inside look like now if it were a person? And what would it look like if it were a beast? Tang Lici stood up and slowly walked to the front of the house, his hand touching the cracks in the wall that had been damaged by the impacts and the completely destroyed windows beneath the refined steel. “Heh…” For no apparent reason, he chuckled softly, a sound that somehow carried a cold, mocking tone.
When he laughed this once, the inside of the house fell quiet for a moment, as if the person inside had heard his laughter.
Tang Lici turned around with his back to the wall, leaning against the corner, and looked up at the starry sky. “Do you find this so painful already?” he said quietly. “If you live to be eighty, you’ll know that the pain your body suffers today will never compare to tomorrow’s… you’ll know that what makes you want to kill yourself today really isn’t much at all.” He gazed at the starry sky and slowly continued, “Can you hear me speaking?”
The inside of the house was briefly quiet for a moment, then suddenly “Woo—” came a wild roar. The person inside began violently ramming against the wall section that Tang Lici was leaning against. The banging sounds were incessant—even if there were a tiger inside, it would surely have battered its head bloody by now. Tang Lici remained unmoved, just leaning there, continuously gazing into the distance.
“Young Master Tang, the porridge is here.” Zi Yun came hurrying back carrying a bowl of porridge. “Master Shao says that since this is Young Master Tang’s instruction, within twelve hours, he absolutely will not let anyone step foot in this courtyard. Please rest assured, Young Master Tang.” Tang Lici nodded and took the bowl of porridge. Zi Yun bowed gracefully and then quickly departed.
“Ahh—” Another piercing scream came from inside the house. Then with a “bang,” a tremendous crash, this corner of the wall crumbled with earth and wood collapsing and dust rising. A hole the size of a human head had actually been broken in the wall. Tang Lici turned around to see a corner of a wooden table exposed through the hole—Chi Yun had actually hurled the wooden table over to break through the brick wall. Wood was soft and light, yet it could break through brick walls, showing that Chi Yun’s strength when frenzied was extraordinarily great. Tang Lici placed the bowl of porridge on the large stone where he had been sitting earlier, then returned to the front of the house. He heard a “crack” of trembling and splintering sounds, and the wall with the hole collapsed completely. A human figure, ghostly and terrifyingly ferocious in appearance, stood trembling at the opening left by the collapsed wall, hair disheveled and covered in blood, emanating a strange, pungent odor.
His entire body was covered in wounds—half from crashing into walls, half from clawing at himself. When the Crimson Ghost Nine Hearts Pills’ toxicity flared up, it caused red spots all over the body and unbearable itching and pain. With Chi Yun’s sanity lost, he was like a wild beast, naturally clawing himself bloody all over. Tang Lici stared intently at him, his facial expression showing a moment of tenderness. “Are you hungry?”
Chi Yun caught the scent of the porridge and suddenly let out a great cry. His eyes glared at Tang Lici with a sinister gleam as he crouched down on all fours like a wild beast and leaped up, pouncing toward the large stone where the porridge was placed. Tang Lici’s right hand reached for his back. Chi Yun’s body suddenly pressed even lower and slipped past like a flying squirrel. Tang Lici’s grab missed, and his rear elbow struck out, hitting Chi Yun squarely in the back. Chi Yun crashed to the ground with a bang and rolled several times before flipping up and jumping to his feet, his resentful eyes glaring venomously at Tang Lici.
Tang Lici raised his sleeve and extended it, holding something between his pale fingers. Chi Yun’s expression changed, and strange “eh eh” sounds came from his throat. What Tang Lici held in his hand was precisely the gray bottle containing the Crimson Ghost Nine Hearts Pills. Only the sound of wind passed by his ears as Chi Yun’s filthy fingers clawed through the air toward him. Tang Lici flicked his fingers lightly, and the gray bottle shot up into the sky with a whoosh. Chi Yun looked up to watch, and in that instant, Tang Lici swayed and darted in, striking with joined fingers repeatedly to seal several pressure points on his chest. With one lift of his hand, Chi Yun collapsed responsively and fell into his arms. Following this, there was a crisp “crack” as the gray empty bottle fell from the sky and shattered into pieces of porcelain all over the ground.
Even a deranged Chi Yun was still far from being able to fight Tang Lici. Even with his sanity lost, Tang Lici knew Chi Yun like the back of his hand. A strange smell assaulted his nose. Tang Lici lifted his sleeve and wiped Chi Yun’s face clean, gradually revealing Chi Yun’s features. His beard had grown wild, blood spots dotted his skin, and a face that had once been handsome and debonair had become ugly and terrifying, shocking and heartbreaking to behold. As Tang Lici’s sleeve wiped his face, Chi Yun viciously opened his mouth to bite. The moment his mouth opened, Tang Lici flipped his fingers and stuffed a pill into his mouth. Chi Yun suddenly froze—the pill had a pungent smell and contained a strange fragrance. It was a Crimson Ghost Nine Hearts Pill!
After swallowing the pill, it wasn’t long before Chi Yun was no longer frenzied, though his eyes remained confused. Tang Lici opened his pressure points and helped him sit down beside the large stone under the willow tree. He picked up the bowl of meat porridge and smiled slightly. “Open your mouth.” Chi Yun stared at him blankly, as if looking at a mass of clouds and mist. After quite a while, he actually opened his mouth. Tang Lici fed him a spoonful of meat porridge, and he swallowed it.
Before long, the bowl of porridge was finished. Chi Yun’s spirits recovered slightly. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but no sound came out. Tang Lici extended his finger, passing it across his lips to wipe away the porridge residue from his mouth. “Close your eyes, don’t think about anything, just get a good sleep first.” Chi Yun was extremely obedient at this moment. Upon hearing these words, he closed his eyes, lay down his head, and immediately fell asleep, not caring that there was only a block of stone behind him. Tang Lici looked at him and shook his head. Chi Yun was just a child—no matter how high his martial arts skills, no matter how many people he had killed, he was still just a child.
After sitting quietly for a while, the night wind grew cooler, and the mist became even more frigid. Tang Lici reached into his robes and took out a crystal wine cup. Holding it up to the moonlight, the cup was crystal clear and transparent. The pear-shaped body of the cup was quite long, like a pool of clear water, emanating a layer of mysteriously enchanting aura. This crystal wine cup was simply called the “Crystal Cup.” Legend had it that there were originally seven in the world, with Wanqiao Studio treasuring a pair, and this was one of them. Tang Lici rolled up his sleeves and drew his finger across his left wrist. The blood vessels in his left wrist ruptured, blood flowed out, and soon filled the cup. He wrapped the wound with a piece of white silk and placed the cup full of fresh blood on the ground, then sat down himself, leaning back against the large stone.
On one side of the large stone, Chi Yun slept deeply with even breathing.
On the other side of the large stone, Tang Lici sat leaning against the stone, gazing at the rubble and dust scattered all over the ground. After a long while, his gaze moved to the crystal cup filled with fresh blood. After another long while, he sighed softly. He rarely truly sighed, after all—there really weren’t many things that could move him to emotion. He had experienced too many intricate, tragic, and sorrowful stories in this world. Being hit by a secret attack and turned into a gu person, killing countless people—to Tang Lici this was nothing much, but for Chi Yun, it might be a blow he couldn’t bear.
Should he really be made to regain clarity?
Clarity, especially excessive clarity, was after all one of the most cruel things in the human world.
The night wind blew gently, mist dispersed, and a layer of white frost faintly condensed on the outside of the crystal cup filled with fresh blood. When mist drifted by, the white frost immediately scattered, but when the white mist drifted by again, the frost reappeared…
Like the hot blood in that cup fighting against the cold of clear autumn, like how even though it had left the body, it was still unwilling to grow cold.
After more than half an hour, the white frost outside the cup finally held firm, and the fresh blood in the cup gradually separated into three layers, with the color becoming lighter toward the top. Tang Lici raised his hand to grasp the cup. He could see the white frost on the outside of the crystal cup gradually thickening. Tang Lici applied soft and yielding force to lower the temperature of the fresh blood even further. The blood color gradually turned brown, the rich blood layer at the bottom slowly became blood clots, while the upper layer became clearer in color. When the blood layer completely solidified into clots, Tang Lici took out another crystal cup and poured the clear liquid from the upper layer into this crystal cup. He moved his wrist, shaking it evenly and rapidly.
His blood, due to special reasons, had antibodies against most poisons in the world, so if he extracted blood serum and injected immune serum into Chi Yun, it might be possible to neutralize the spider gu poison. Spider gu came in many varieties, and Haoyun Mountain lacked truly knowledgeable famous doctors and masters of this art. Rather than waiting helplessly for death, extracting immune serum was a relatively proper method. It was just that in this era, there was a lack of vessels and tools for preparing serum, and he had to substitute human effort for all the inadequacies. Whether the serum would work or not, no one knew.
Everything depended on Chi Yun’s luck, and whether curing him to death was his luck, or healing him to life was his luck—even Chi Yun himself would find this difficult to answer.
After the time it takes to burn a stick of incense, Tang Lici took out a small leather pouch, drew part of the clear liquid from the second crystal cup into it, then lifted Chi Yun’s left arm. Xiao Taohong flashed by, cutting a wound on the inside of his left arm that wasn’t large but was quite deep, and fresh blood immediately gushed out. Chi Yun felt pain and awakened with a start. Tang Lici supported his left arm and poured all the clear liquid from the leather pouch into his wound, then immediately extended his five fingers and firmly pressed that wound. A strong surge of true force blocked the wound so that fresh blood could not flow out. Chi Yun only felt severe pain in the wound on his left arm, and a stinging coolness flowed upward through his blood. Tang Lici’s true force penetrated through his arm and pushed that coolness to circulate throughout his entire body. Chi Yun let out a great cry, his whole body trembling uncontrollably. After a moment, he firmly grasped Tang Lici’s right hand and fainted.
The night was deep, the bright moon slowly disappeared behind clouds, and the courtyard was plunged into darkness. Tang Lici raised his hand and removed the gray robe he wore over his inner garment, along with prying open Chi Yun’s five fingers that were tightly gripping his arm, then sat down on the ground and looked up at the night sky where dark clouds were surging.
Before long, a layer of sultry heat rose from the ground, the dark clouds in the night sky grew thicker, and bean-sized raindrops began to fall. After another moment, with a great crash, it was already a torrential downpour. Haoyun Mountain had heavy moisture, and rain was a common occurrence, especially during this season when it would be clear skies one moment and thunder and lightning the next. Everyone was long accustomed to this and found nothing strange about it.
White rushing rainwater connected heaven and earth, the trees around them trembled, flowers and grass bent low, and the house that had partially collapsed earlier began gradually shedding more bricks, stones, and roof tiles. The rainwater all over the ground flowed into muddy streams, and their ears were filled with the heavy sound of rain.
Tang Lici did not take shelter from the rain, and Chi Yun was likewise exposed to the downpour. In the storm and lightning, the two of them—one sitting, one lying—allowed the rain to drench them completely. Their robes were soaked through, outlining every contour of their bodies, like two stone-carved, iron-cast Buddhas.