Chapter 132: There Is a Traitor!

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“Still refusing to talk?”

Shang Lu gave the beast-hide whip a cold sneer and snapped it again. Several vicious strikes landed across the Blood-Year God’s body, tearing its hide and sending flesh and blood flying.

The Blood-Year God immediately became docile. “I’ll talk, I’ll talk! They gave me a packet of Qi-Eating Centipede eggs.”

“What are the eggs for?”

“They can be eaten directly, or hatched into Qi-Eating Centipedes. They help draw qi into the body and break through into the Qi Refining Realm.”

The Blood-Year God was filled with regret as it spoke.

If the Qi-Eating Centipede eggs had hatched sooner, allowing it to eat them, draw qi into its body, and break through into the Qi Refining Realm, how could it have ended up in such a state?

With the strength of the Qi Refining Realm, it would certainly have been able to slaughter Shang Lu, feast on his flesh and blood, absorb and refine him, and make him part of its own body.

Shang Lu, meanwhile, was overjoyed. He had already been planning to acquire more Qi-Eating Centipedes in preparation for drawing qi into his body later on. He had never expected the Blood-Year God to possess an entire packet of eggs that could be hatched.

He hurriedly asked, “Where are the eggs?”

The Blood-Year God did not want to tell him, but it dared not remain silent, nor did it even dare to lie.

It had truly been beaten into submission by the beast-hide whip.

The Blood-Year God obediently split open a seam in its body, revealing the Qi-Eating Centipede eggs hidden within.

The red eggs were clustered together like a bunch of grapes.

Wary that the Blood-Year God might be plotting something, Shang Lu did not reach out to take them directly.

Instead, he released two streams of blood energy from the Chong Meridian and Shangyang acupoints in his hand. The blood energy wrapped around the eggs and dragged them through the air into his grasp.

Ever since his spiritual sense had awakened, Shang Lu had been able to project blood energy outward and use it to control objects.

After opening all his meridians and raising his cultivation to the pinnacle of Meridian Opening, the blood energy he could project was not only greater and stronger, but also far more precise under his control.

Seeing Shang Lu retrieve the Qi-Eating Centipede eggs in this manner, the eyes covering the Blood-Year God’s body flashed with unwillingness and disappointment.

Shang Lu noticed at once and confirmed that the Blood-Year God had indeed been harboring malicious intentions.

He snorted coldly and swung the beast-hide whip again. The blows drove the Blood-Year God to beg repeatedly for mercy, swearing by heaven and earth that it would never dare do such a thing again.

Once he deemed the lesson sufficient, Shang Lu finally stopped whipping it and continued his interrogation.

“How are these eggs hatched?”

The Blood-Year God dared not play any more tricks and answered honestly:

“Put them in a box that lets in neither light nor air. At cockcrow each morning, open a small slit in the box and feed them with blood. After forty-nine days, they will hatch successfully.”

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Shang Lu nodded. “What about the box you used to store the eggs? Bring that out as well.”

The Blood-Year God hurriedly churned its body and “spat” out a wooden box. Its shape resembled a miniature coffin.

Shang Lu once again used blood energy to draw the box through the air into his hand, then placed the eggs inside.

At that moment, Du Feng and Liu Zhi, along with their official horses, were also found by the horses Shang Lu had sent out and brought back.

The condition of the two men and the two horses was extremely bizarre. At first glance, they looked like monsters. Their bodies were covered in rotting flesh and strange growths that continued to prey upon their flesh and blood.

Fortunately, Shang Lu had given them a packet of supplies earlier. The black dog blood, virgin’s urine, and various medicinal herbs inside had not destroyed the strange growths, but they had slowed their predation upon the body.

Du Feng and Liu Zhi, as well as the two warhorses, were truly ruthless.

The two men endured the excruciating pain and used knives to cut away the flesh infested with the bizarre growths, thereby hindering their spread.

The warhorses could not use knives, so they helped each other, biting and gnawing away at the affected flesh. Their mouths were now covered in blood.

It was only because they had been ruthless enough that they had survived. Otherwise, by now they would all have become fertilizer for the strange growths.

Seeing their condition, Shang Lu did not dare delay. He immediately cut flesh from the Blood-Year God’s true body and had the two men and two horses apply it externally and consume it internally.

The Blood-Year God, having had large chunks of flesh carved from its body, wanted to be angry but did not dare show it. It could only whimper, “You don’t need that much. A little would have been enough.”

After Du Feng, Liu Zhi, and the two official horses applied and consumed the Blood-Year God’s flesh, the strange growths parasitizing their bodies truly did stop spreading.

Immediately afterward, they began to wither. Du Feng and Liu Zhi no longer needed to cut them out with knives; the growths fell away on their own, becoming pools of foul blood.

At last, Du Feng and Liu Zhi escaped the piercing agony. They let out long breaths of relief and clasped their hands toward Shang Lu.

“Thank you, my lord.”

The two official horses were remarkably intelligent as well. They came up to Shang Lu and rubbed their heads against him wildly, covering him in blood.

Shang Lu pushed away the two affectionate horseheads. “There is no need for such ceremony. Rest for a while.”

The condition of the two men and two horses had looked grave, but after applying and consuming the Blood-Year God’s flesh, the injuries covering their bodies began healing at an astonishing speed.

It seemed that the Blood-Year God’s true body really was a treasure. Not only could it neutralize poison, it could also heal injuries and was likely beneficial to cultivation as well.

Shang Lu narrowed his eyes and looked the Blood-Year God up and down, apparently pondering where it would be best to cut next.

The Blood-Year God trembled and desperately tried to curl itself into a ball.

Shang Lu did not immediately carve off more flesh. Instead, he continued questioning it.

“Besides the villagers nearby, whom else have you deceived and controlled using the name of a false deity and your addictive carrion?”

The Blood-Year God hurriedly listed the names of several villages. Finally, it told Shang Lu that several clerks in the county office had also fallen under its control.

Those clerks had once inhaled Diyega after being enticed by the Black Wind Gang, and had become addicted.

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Later, after the Black Wind Gang had been wiped out, they could no longer obtain Diyega and suffered terribly for a time.

When the Blood-Year God came to Luoshui County and learned of their situation, it seized the opportunity and turned those clerks into its informants.

It was precisely those clerks who had informed it at the first opportunity that the county office was recruiting constables and local militia.

Those same clerks had also helped it obtain some information about the patrol arrangements on Cloudflower Mountain. Unfortunately, the information concerned only the outer perimeter and was of little use.

They had likewise told it that Shang Lu had been exceptionally promoted to county commandant and was responsible for assisting the witch official in guarding the secret realm.

That was why it had set its sights on Shang Lu. Its original plan had been to use those clerks to get Shang Lu addicted to poison, turn him into an inside agent, and make him work for it and provide intelligence.

It had never expected that before those clerks could even take action, it would encounter Shang Lu here, tonight.

The Blood-Year God had learned all about Shang Lu from those clerks. It knew that his cultivation was only at the entry level of Meridian Opening and that he had suffered a serious injury not long before.

That was why, upon seeing Shang Lu, it had stayed without hesitation.

The Blood-Year God had believed that a martial artist at the entry level of Meridian Opening who had only just recovered from an injury would be easy for it to subdue.

It had never imagined that it would kick an iron wall—and be the one subdued instead.

Whenever the clerks were mentioned, hatred filled the eyes covering the Blood-Year God’s body.

If they had not understated Shang Lu’s cultivation, how could it have underestimated him and ended up in such a state?

“There really are traitors inside?” Shang Lu said, his expression turning grim after hearing the Blood-Year God’s account.

He committed the clerks’ names to memory, intending to arrest them as soon as he returned.

At the same time, he would ask the witch official for help and use witchcraft to investigate the county office, determining who else had been bought off by demons, ghosts, or secret agents.

Just then, a sharp sound tore through the air from the darkness in the distance.

Something was speeding through the night straight toward them.

Du Feng and Liu Zhi, who had been circulating their power and regulating their breathing, hurriedly climbed to their feet. They took crossbow bolts from the backs of their horses and aimed them at the direction from which the strange noise had come in the night sky.

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