Chapter 493
Chapter 493
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 493
>Chapter Title: Fear
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With the old hag dead, the Fa Cult followers around them instantly snapped awake as if from a dream, scattering in panic toward the darkness beyond the village with cries of alarm.
The air was thick with the stench of blood and shit. Everyone stood frozen in place for a good long while before realizing they had won.
The tension drained from them, and many simply collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath. But soon the gasps were replaced by fearful sobs and nauseating retches.
Those who had come from Clear Wind Temple handled it better. Having traveled with Li Huowang all this way, they had grown accustomed to far worse.
Chun Xiaoman wiped the blood from her face, about to say something when her body suddenly went limp, and she collapsed to the ground, her whole body breaking out in cold sweat.
"N-nothing. The invited masters have left. This always happens after spirit possession."
Only when the kid and Gao Zhijian saw that the others who had been possessed were in the same state did they breathe a sigh of relief.
"Hey, Xiucai, you're no good at this. It's not even as useful as the treasure Senior Brother Li gave me. Good thing I didn't bother learning this useless crap." Gouwa boasted proudly, showing off the Tongue Ruyi in his hand.
"Fuck off! This was just the simplest incantation in there! You're only fit to compare yourself to that. If you've got the guts, wait till I learn the more powerful Two Spirits Diagram and Three Spirits Cultivation that come later! Let's compete then!"
"Oh! Listen to you! Fine, let's compare! What do we bet?"
"Gouwa, will you quit it? Is this the time for messing around? Hurry up and help us back to the courtyard! Can't you see Gao Zhijian is hurt?"
With help from the others, the rest of Niuxin Village regrouped in the Bai family courtyard. To guard against another sneak attack, torches were hung all along the walls, lighting up the entire yard as bright as day.
They had won, but a pall of quiet grief hung over Niuxin Village all the same. The reason was plain: the twelve cloth-shrouded corpses laid out in the center of the main hall.
Niuxin Village never had many people to begin with. For the survivors, even if those twelve weren't friends, they were at least familiar faces you'd exchanged words with.
"Puff, puff." Lv Zhuangyuan puffed gloomily on his pipe. Two of the dead were new disciples he'd taken on, including the one with the most talent. What a shame.
"Sigh, why did highwaymen have to show up out of nowhere? Isn't Great Liang at peace?"
"Those weren't highwaymen." Chun Xiaoman, having recovered, spoke up as she tended to the kid's wounds.
"They kept muttering about Yu'er God and Yu'er God. Looks like they'd fallen for some kind of superstition."
"Yeah, I don't think they were highwaymen either. My village dealt with highwaymen before. They go for the rich households, grab what they can, and bolt. They don't attack the tenant farmers like this." A seasoned village militiaman chimed in.
Lv Zhuangyuan knocked the ash from his pipe against a nearby pillar and stuffed it anew with dark yellow tobacco from the bowl. "Why go around killing when you could just live a good life? Talk about having too much time on your hands."
"If you want to know why they came after us, why not just ask them?" From outside the main gate, Gouwa dragged something inside as he spoke.
The others crowded close and recoiled in shock. The thing barely qualified as human. Its limbs and features were a total jumble, twisted every which way into a living monster.
"How about it? Pretty awesome divine needle, right? The moment it hit him, he was paralyzed on the spot—can't walk, can't even die. Perfect to drag back for questioning."
Everyone gathered around the thing, staring at it in silence for the moment.
"How do we even question this? Torturing people is something Senior Brother Li's always been best at, but he's not here right now."
"I'll do it!" Chun Xiaoman's fury ignited at the thought of dead Nan'er. She snatched up a bamboo broom from the corner and laid into him, beating him head to toe.
Once his deformed body was covered in bruises, purple and blue, she finally stopped and snarled viciously: "Talk! Why did you come to our village to kill?"
"Stinking whore! Kill me if you've got the balls! Kill me, and I'll become one of Yu'er God's ghosts! Emperor in my next life! You deluded fools deserve to be pigs and dogs, eating shit for eternity!" The Fa Cult follower ranted madly from the mouth beneath his arm.
"You really think I won't?!" Chun Xiaoman whipped out her sword with her one good arm and jammed it against the throat to the left of his ear.
Faced with the man's mocking grin, Chun Xiaoman's rage boiled over. She itched to hack him down right then and there.
"Hey, hey, hey, that's not gonna work. Watch how it's done." Gouwa said as he walked off.
When he returned, he was wearing a red Daoist robe, cradling an assortment of knives large and small in his arms.
"Senior Brother Gouwa, why are you wearing Senior Brother Li's robe? And why'd you grab my pig-killing knives?" the kid asked curiously.
"Quit yapping and watch!" Gouwa squatted down in front of him, cleared his throat a few times, and spoke in Li Huowang's voice: "I know you're not afraid of dying. But what if it's worse than death?"
As he spoke, he laid out the knives one by one in a neat row: a sharp blade for piercing pig hearts, hooks for hanging carcasses, a broad chopper for bones, and a little scraper for bristles.
The man's eyes twitched at the glint of cold steel from the blades, but he bellowed all the same: "Fuck your mother! Kill me if you've got the balls!!"
"Oh? Pretty tough mouth you've got. So, which one do we start with?"
In the end, Gouwa's hand didn't close around a single knife. Instead, he picked up a plain thick hemp rope. "Heh heh, didn't see the rope coming, did you? How about we use this for an appetizer?"
"This hemp rope isn't some fancy silk. It's rough—oh man, so rough." As Gouwa spoke, he scrubbed it hard against the man's skin, leaving it red and raw.
"In a bit, I'll thread this thing right through your crotch and saw it back and forth nice and slow like a saw. It's not a knife—it's rough. It'll grind away at you like ink on a stone, little by little, turning your skin and meat into pulp."
As Gouwa went on, terror dawned in the man's eyes, and his body began to tremble involuntarily.
"Oh, right—and it'll be going right through your crotch..."
As Gouwa tugged on the coarse hemp rope and described it in vivid detail, the man broke completely. Snot and tears streamed down his face. His body shook like chaff. "I'll talk! I'll talk!! I'll tell you everything! Please just kill me quick!! Waaaah..."
Seeing this, Gouwa slapped his thigh in excitement and spun around proudly. "Ha! How's that? See how capable I am!"
What met him, though, wasn't the awe and admiration he'd imagined, but looks of wariness and unease.
"Why are you all staring at me like that? Hey, I didn't even do anything. I was just imitating how Senior Brother Li talked back then."
(End of chapter)