Chapter 97: Trust is the worst poison
"But Leader Xin, you have to listen to us--" a guard speaks with fear on his face.
He is wearing full-body ancient Chinese armor of dark green color, with overlapping scales resembling those of river fish.
"I don't care what you're hearing, cries for help, pleas for mercy, you should stay on guard as I ordered and not come to bother me!!" Li Xin looks at the guards, who have horrified expressions on their faces, but he feels only anger.
He knows this anger is justified since these two were responsible for guarding Chen Wei's room, ensuring no one disturbed or attacked him and his wives, which wouldn't be a danger to a Rank 4 Gu Master but could lead him to kill the entire village in revenge.
This concern is so great for Li Xin that he confirmed with Chen Wei multiple times if he agreed with the idea, and how the guards would stay at a great distance to not hear anything they shouldn't, only guarding to ensure no interruptions. And that they were some of Li Xin's most trusted men.
But now they have betrayed this trust and the assurance he gave to Chen Wei with a smile on his face, coming to ask him to invade Chen Wei's room for a reason he didn't even bother to hear.
"Sir, it wasn't just screams--" The other guard tries to continue his friend's story but is silenced by an enraged look from Li Xin.
"Do you think I care?! One of those girls could have run to you crying for help; your responsibility is to take her back to Yi Zhan!!" Li Xin feels more indignant with each passing second.
It's not as if the guards were unaware of what would happen tonight. After Chen Wei warned him about the loud screams and cries coming from his room, he quickly informed the two guards to do nothing, no matter what, or they and their families would be severely punished.
Of course, Li Xin is fully aware that this is a cruel action and some might even call it demonic on his part, but so what? If these poor girls he hardly knows are the necessary sacrifices to keep the village safe, so be it. He doesn't like doing it, but he will.
And the guards had this in mind when they agreed with grim expressions but without hesitation, at least that's what Li Xin believed. But now, seeing these guards before him with expressions of horror, he feels foolish for trusting their hearts not to waver and regret it halfway.
"Sir, please understand, he is performing some horrendous and terrifying demonic ritual in that room!!" The guard forces himself to speak convincingly, even with Li Xin looking at him as if he might attack at any moment.
The two continue speaking until Li Xin, who starts to relax his angry appearance, begins to consider their words, letting them speak. "Believe me, I saw endless blood coming out from under the door, and a putrid smell of rotten blood fills the air!!"
"It's like the stories about demonic Gu refinement rituals!!" The guard says, trying to express all the fear he can muster on his face.
"...are you sure of what you saw? It can't be that he's really refining Gu..." Li Xin puts his hand on his chin, falling into deep thought, questioning the possibility of the guards' words.
"Yes, sir, we are sure!! We didn't get too close for precaution but we could hear a female voice screaming something like 'damned Gu!' multiple times!!" The guard recalls the words he had prepared earlier.
"Of course, I was prepared for what anyone would imagine was the reason for the cries of innocent ladies being brought to a demonic Gu Master's room at night..." The guard says, lowering his face and forcing an expression of pain and regret, "...and even though I felt disgusted by these acts, I still obeyed your orders, Leader Xin, for the sake of the village!!"
"But what followed was something neither he nor I ever expected, as not a sound came from the room before a strong, pervasive smell of blood emerged in the air...." The other guard continues, seeing his companion's ruse, "...but before we could understand why the smell of blood, the screams of terrified women, who seemed more like they were being killed than anything else, echoed without stopping!"
At this moment, he pretends to wipe sweat from his forehead while trying to "compose" himself.
"But as per our orders, we maintained our guard!!" Seeing his friend stop speaking, he continues immediately without hesitation, "But when we realized something, we knew it was a demonic Gu refinement, and we prioritized informing Leader Xin!"
The two guards who continue to speak without interruption finally finish their story before kneeling on the ground, trembling and praying that the village leader believes them.
"Damn, if this is indeed the refinement of a Gu by a Rank 4 Gu Master, these are matters of tremendous importance!! And you bastards only come to inform me now, you useless fools!!" Li Xin quickly heads towards Chen Wei's room without even looking back at the two guards, who are left behind.
"...." They exchange relieved glances at the village leader's vile and aggressive words, which at least indicate he believed their story.
"What are you doing, evacuate my family from my house now!!" Li Xin speaks indignantly as he turns his head to see the guards standing and staring at each other, as he throws them an insignia of authority.
Both take the leader's insignia to be able to enter his family's quarters, quickly adjusting their steps to "comply" with Li Xin's orders without daring to raise their voices against the village leader who believed their words completely, they imagine fortunately.
'Damn, if he really is refining a Gu, why did he call those women here tonight? And worse, if this refinement fails, it could pose a great risk to the village!' Li Xin, who quickly walks through the corridors of his house, feels his heart grow heavier.
He can't stop worrying because, even though he himself has only refined a few Rank 1 Gu over time, he knows enough to understand that failures usually lead to backlash if failed, which is already frightening at Rank 1, so he can't even imagine how terrifying they are at Rank 4 Gu.
In fact, the little he knows are just stories he has heard about how terrifying the backlash of a Rank 3 Gu failing in its refinement can be, potentially destroying everything within several meters.
And the worst part is that now there's the possibility of a Rank 4 Gu Master having a Rank 4 Gu fail in his house in the dead of night with his entire family inside, making him feel overwhelmed with helplessness and anger as he quickly reaches Chen Wei's room to see with his own eyes what is happening.
Of course, he wants to flee and just leave with his family, not risking staying in the same area as a possibly failed Rank 4 Gu refinement, but he knows he doesn't have that choice. If his and the guards' imagination is wrong, he could be hunted down by Chen Wei for his insolence in abandoning the house.
Well, this might not seem like a logical reason for someone to hunt another, but if there's one thing his many years of life have taught him, it's that demonic Gu Masters, due to past traumas or Gu with significant psychological effects, tend not to act logically and are extremely vengeful.
'Wait... what do I intend to do about these two possibilities?' Now, staring directly at the blood-soaked floor of the corridor, a question he hadn't asked himself emerges in his mind.
'Damn it!!' he screams internally, realizing that he had acted on impulse and now finds himself on an stupid path with no idea what to do.
The reason is clear. He let his decades-old instinct and habit as the unquestionable and untouchable leader in the eyes of the mortal peasants of Yu Village take control of his first instinct in an extreme situation that required a quick response.
So, he acted on instinct, as he has done for the past thirty years of his life when encountering a problem in the village. His reaction was simply to go directly to the problem to find a solution.
Of course since, most of these problems were trivial disputes among fishermen, where the mere presence of a Gu Master would resolve 95% of the cases.
But now he finds himself in shock at his stupidity for acting impulsively, for this time he is dealing not with a mere mortal fisherman but with a Rank 4 Gu Master at the pinnacle of the world, who can legitimately be considered at the absolute top of the Gu world.
'...well, it's not like I knocked on his door, I can still get out of here--!' But to crush the hope that Li Xin began to develop, the door to Chen Wei's room is violently kicked open.
Standing in front of the door is Chen Wei, covered in blood, with a focused, emotionless gaze, as if he weren't looking at a desperate human being but rather at a mere object standing in the corridor.
"Young master Yi Zhan, I can explain!! I came to check on your state out of concern because of the blood coming from your room!!" Li Xin speaks, instinctively retreating out of fear, while activating his Light armor Gu without even thinking clearly.
"I am truly grateful for your consideration..." Chen Wei points at Li Xin with his palm, which has a clear red blade tattoo, "...how about continuing with such consideration and surrendering your Gu to me?"
"Sir, young master, I swear I wasn't..." Li Xin, hearing Chen Wei's words, of course, recoils in fear while trying to explain, for Chen Wei's tone is not the tone of voice of a peaceful person, "...doing anything--!!"
"Argh!?" But before he could even react, unexpectedly, an attack comes not from the extended palm of Chen Wei but from the blood that had stained the entire floor.
A putrid black blood rises and, like a strong rope, ties him tightly while pressing mainly his joints, making his body contort in a horrifically cruel manner, causing him to scream loudly in pain.
He is shocked to see that his light armor Gu, although not a high-quality Gu, and now, since it is nighttime, also at half its strength, still should have resisted to help him, simply disintegrates as if it were nothing but weak, illusory light.
"So, the sooner you give me your Gu, the sooner this ends... so what will it be?" Chen Wei, who slowly walks towards him, asks in a calm voice, as if already knowing what his answer will be.
But unexpectedly to Chen Wei, he is shocked when the old man with a wise appearance begins to cry desperately like a baby, while urine soaks his pants and a strong smell of shit fills the air.
In truth, the terror and fear in Li Xin's heart are so strong and deep that if it weren't for the total shock of the situation and him being an old Gu Master who has known many terrors, he might have died of a heart attack from fear.
And the reason for all this is not the cowardice of the old man, who is actually quite courageous considering everything, but rather his fear of Chen Wei amplified many times over by the Lady's Torment Gu used by Wang Mei, who stands right beside Chen Wei.
"You? Ah, it seems the effect of Lady's Torment was really strong because of my simultaneous intimidation," Chen Wei says, frowning. "So give me your Gu or face a fate worse than death!!"
Chen Wei didn't need to say it again, as the once proud and wise-looking man, now in tears and desperation, hands over his two Gu without even trying to negotiate for some sort of truce to protect his life or that of his family.
"Well, as a great man of the past once said, 'Robbing is indeed the most efficient way to acquire resources while investing the least and running the lowest risks!'" Chen Wei says, animated by his new and highly efficient method of theft while refining Li Xin's two Gu.
While Li Xin begins to cough up a large amount of blood when his vital Gu is refined by Chen Wei, who heals him a bit to ensure he doesn't die yet.
"And look, I didn't even need to use your family as a threat," Chen Wei says in a simple tone, while looking at Li Xin's wife and two daughters, who are escorted by two common-looking guards.
But for Li Xin, he has a look of great shock on his face when he sees the two guards with smug expressions, whom he had almost absolute trust in and who had been guarding Chen Wei and came to warn him in desperation about the possible demoniac gu refinement.
Only now does he realize that the story was all along nothing but a trap to bring him here, causing panic and terror in his heart that seems capable of killing him at any moment.
And at this point, he wants nothing more than for this to be the case, while he curses the day this Yi Zhan set foot in Yu Village.
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