Chapter 232: The Pharmacist’s Earthenware Pot
“It hurts, it hurts so much!”
Qin Mu landed, his entire body wracked with excruciating pain, forcing him to gasp sharply for air.
That monk’s Vajra Invincible Art had made his body incredibly hard, making it difficult even for spiritual weapons to harm him, and most divine abilities were nearly useless against him. This had made Qin Mu’s fight exceptionally grueling.
Half-Crazy Monk’s attacks were also terrifyingly powerful, tearing Qin Mu’s skin open. In particular, the nine golden rings had nearly shattered his skull. Fortunately, the monk’s attack methods were relatively simple, and in the end, he had died at Qin Mu’s hands.
“A cultivator at the Six Harmonies Realm is still quite formidable. I can’t underestimate them.”
Qin Mu touched the lump on his forehead, hissing as he drew in cold air. He activated the Overlord Body Three Dan Art to stimulate his blood and qi, preventing any stagnant blood from forming.
Two of his ribs had also been broken in his chest, and his back was a bloody mess—injuries sustained when Half-Crazy Monk had pressed down on him with a Sumeru Seal.
The Overlord Body Three Dan Art had an excellent effect on healing, but it still couldn’t compare to miraculous elixirs. Fortunately, these injuries weren’t fatal.
“For now, I’d better return to the village, heal my wounds, and then go find the demon ape.”
Qin Mu set his broken ribs back in place and left the monk’s corpse there. In the Great Ruins, there was no rule about burying bodies; the corpse would soon be devoured by beasts attracted by the scent of blood, leaving at most the bones behind.
If luck was bad, even the bones wouldn’t remain.
He returned to the village, picked several medicinal herbs from the pharmacy garden outside, and refined two batches of elixirs—one for external injuries and one for internal injuries. Then he asked the Dragon Qilin for some dragon saliva to mix the medicine.
The Dragon Qilin saw how battered he was and showed a hint of surprise but didn’t ask any questions.
This Dragon Qilin, just like at the Imperial Academy, sat crouched at the village entrance, guarding the gate without moving. Qin Mu felt that, in name, it was guarding the gate, but in reality, it was probably just too lazy to move.
The Capital Heaven Demon King still stood there stiffly. The Dragon Qilin was too lazy to move, while he was immobilized by the Deaf Elder.
Qin Mu focused on recovering from his injuries. By nightfall, the Deaf Elder still hadn’t returned, nor had anyone else from the village.
By the next day, the Village Chief and the others still hadn’t come back. Qin Mu’s lungs and internal organs still ached; he couldn’t breathe heavily, but his ribs and back injuries had healed.
“If I want my internal injuries to heal faster, the best way would be to steam myself, letting the medicinal vapor penetrate my lungs and organs. But there’s no one to help me start the fire…”
The young man activated the Overlord Body Three Dan Art, walking slowly, inhaling and exhaling gently to speed up the healing of his lung injuries. Suddenly, a question occurred to him. “After the New Year, will I be fifteen or sixteen?”
There had always been a debate in the village about his age. The Village Chief and Granny had argued about it several times, never able to agree.
Granny Si had found Qin Mu in the spring, when he was two or three months old, still wrapped in swaddling clothes. Granny Si believed Qin Mu was born before the New Year, but the Village Chief thought he was born after the New Year.
If he was born before the New Year, Qin Mu would be sixteen; if after, he would be fifteen.
Every New Year, they would argue about it, and he expected they would argue again this year.
Just as he was thinking, Qin Mu suddenly heard a buzzing sound. He looked up and saw several golden insects flying in from the forest outside the village.
Qin Mu blinked, and those golden insects suddenly buzzed away, disappearing into the woods.
Then more insects flew in, circling the village once before diving back into the forest.
“That woman from Three Wonders Fort has arrived!”
Qin Mu’s eyes flickered. That woman from Three Wonders Fort was far more powerful than Half-Crazy Monk. She controlled swarms of insects—gu insects—which she had refined to be as hard as steel, capable of gnawing even spiritual weapons to nothing.
That woman commanded thousands of insects. If they all swarmed at once, Qin Mu would be utterly outmatched, devoured in an instant, leaving nothing behind!
“Rather than letting her break into the village, it’s better to deal with her outside!”
Qin Mu looked around, then walked to the pharmacist’s medicine shop. Carefully, he picked up a broken earthenware pot. Inside the pot, several scorpions were clashing with their pincers, their tail stingers lashing forward as they fought over the elixirs Qin Mu had fed them.
Qin Mu hugged the broken pot and walked out of the village. The Dragon Qilin glanced at him and said in a muffled voice, “Cult Leader, where are you going?”
“To fight!” Qin Mu said fiercely.
“Fighting again…”
The Dragon Qilin showed little interest. “Don’t come back all beaten up again.”
Qin Mu carried the pot to the riverbank. Behind him, a few insects trailed him, lurking in the grass and among the leaves.
Qin Mu stopped and waited. Soon, more and more insects gathered, spreading across the river’s surface like a layer of gold.
These insects attracted the large fish in the Surging River. Several fish monsters excitedly leaped from the water, trying to eat the gu insects. But as the two-to-three-zhang-long fish jumped into the air, opening their terrifying jaws, the insects screeched and swelled to over a zhang in length. They pounced on the fish, gnawing away with a crunching sound. Soon, the fish were reduced to skeletons that fell back into the water.
Qin Mu’s eyelids twitched. The fish monsters of the Surging River were quite formidable, comparable to warriors at the Spirit Embryo Realm or Five Radiances Realm, but they were utterly helpless against the gu insects raised by the woman from Three Wonders Fort.
“Heavenly Demon Cult Leader.”
A voice came from the river. Qin Mu followed the sound and saw the woman from Three Wonders Fort, standing on a golden insect swarm, flying toward him from downstream on the river’s surface.
She wasn’t flying; the insects were. Countless golden bugs buzzed around her, and one large golden mother insect was much bigger than the others. The woman was standing on the mother insect’s back.
Qin Mu smiled sweetly and said, “What should I call you, sister from Three Wonders Fort?”
Qiu Yue stopped the insect swarm about a hundred zhang away from Qin Mu, looking curious. “The Heavenly Demon Cult Leader holds a high position, unrivaled under heaven. Why are you so polite to an enemy, calling me ‘sister’?”
Three Wonders Fort was famous for three things: insects, poison, and beautiful women.
This woman had a beauty that made one’s heart race. The first time you saw her, you would ignore the hair-raising gu insects and instead feel your heart suddenly pound twice, as if her beauty had struck the depths of your soul.
Qin Mu shook his head. “When I come to the Great Ruins, I am no longer the Cult Leader of the Heavenly Demon Cult, but a child of the adults in my village. Sister, if you can let go of this grudge, I’ll invite you into the village for the New Year. The New Year in the Great Ruins is quite lively.”
Qiu Yue said, “After I kill you, I can go home for the New Year…”
Her expression darkened, and her eyes grew sorrowful. “I forgot—my home no longer exists. It was destroyed by you and the Imperial Preceptor of Yan… My home was at Three Wonders Fort. My grandmaster was Tian Zhenjun, and my master was Tian Youfei. During the Battle of Daxiang City, the Heavenly Demon Cult teleported the Yan army into the city, killing countless of my senior and junior brothers and sisters. My master covered my escape, but she died at the hands of Champion General…”
She smiled as if laughing, yet seemed on the verge of tears. Her eyes, cold and sharp, fixed on Qin Mu as she said softly, “Heavenly Demon Cult Leader, by then, you were already the Cult Leader, weren’t you? Only you in the Heavenly Demon Cult had the power to mobilize so many experts. It was you who deployed the Cult’s masters to crush our righteous army’s cause and destroy my Three Wonders Fort!”
Her gaze turned icy. “I secretly returned to Three Wonders Fort, but it was already in ruins. My family was branded as rebels and beheaded in public! Heavenly Demon Cult Leader, tell me—should I kill you or not?”
Qin Mu sighed. “You should. But you shouldn’t have rebelled. When you chose to rebel, you should have foreseen what would happen to your family if you failed.”
Qiu Yue stepped forward and said sharply, “Justice always needs people willing to risk their heads to uphold it! Fairness always needs people willing to fight for it with their lives! Otherwise, where is justice? Where is fairness? Though I come from the demonic path, I am willing to be such a person! Heavenly Demon Cult Leader, enough talk. Please, let me send you on your way!”
Qin Mu’s expression turned solemn. “Different paths cannot lead to the same goal. Miss, please.”
Qiu Yue let out a fierce cry, her sleeves fluttering as countless gu insects surged toward Qin Mu from all directions. These insects were of many types, too numerous to count. They swelled as they flew, some reaching one or two zhang in length, others as small as a washbasin. A few insects didn’t expand but instead shrank.
These were the most dangerous kind. The smaller they were, the harder they were to guard against, sneaking into the body unnoticed to gnaw at the internal organs. Some could even devour souls or absorb the opponent’s yuan qi and cultivation.
Qin Mu lifted the lid of the broken earthenware pot and poured his yuan qi into it. Several scorpions leaped out, suddenly expanding to over twenty zhang in length. Their black shells were covered in magnificent and eerie runic marks that kept lighting up. Their terrifying aura shook the surroundings, and the swarming insects instantly fell like rain!
Qiu Yue was startled and immediately turned to flee. But suddenly, one of the giant scorpions lashed out with its tail stinger, which extended like an iron chain. In the next moment, it hooked the woman, killing her with a single strike.
Qin Mu sighed. He saw the scorpions fighting over Qiu Yue’s corpse, churning the river’s surface into massive waves. He quickly activated the pot, and the scorpions shrank, flying back into it, still scrapping with each other inside.
Qiu Yue’s body had already been torn apart, falling into the river and being swept away by the surging current.
Qin Mu carried the pot back to the Village of Wounded Elders. At the village entrance, the Dragon Qilin looked at him curiously. Seeing that he seemed a bit down, it said nothing.
Qin Mu set down the pot, dragged the Capital Heaven Demon King over, and started punching and kicking him. He also summoned wind and lightning, striking the demon king with dozens of bolts before stopping.
The Capital Heaven Demon King lay on the ground, unable to move, with over a dozen parts knocked off. He felt deeply wronged. “What did I do to provoke you this time?”
After beating the Capital Heaven Demon King, Qin Mu felt a bit better. Suddenly, he heard someone outside shouting, “The Heavenly Demon Cult Leader is here! Everyone, come quickly!”
Qin Mu’s face darkened. He went into Granny Si’s room, took her dressing mirror, and walked out of the village. A few cultivators were heading his way.
Qin Mu held the bronze mirror in his palm, pouring yuan qi into it, and shone it at the approaching cultivators. In midair, their souls scattered, and their bodies fell.
The young man returned to the village, placing the mirror back on Granny Si’s dressing table. He thought to himself, “Is there no end to this? Can’t I just have a peaceful New Year?”