Bab 84: Under threats, they all act like pigs
I just wanted to know, did you like this new cover art? I haven't changed much but I've made enough changes to be a new art so I'd like to know your opinion :)
And I recommend that everyone read a new fanfic with the premise of taking place 800 years after the disappearance of all the Venerables called Reverend Insanity: The Insidious Demon by FLACKO
As well as a new Reverend Insanity fanfic with Fang Zheng as the protagonist written by a veteran author of some questionable novels that you degenerates must love called : Reverend Sanity by inkyug
Also don't forget to check out the discord, we have good discussions about Reverend Insanity there, as well as almost all RI fanfic authors being there and talking routinely as for the code : 5efZtawZKC
And don't forget to check my patreon : patreon.com/CreedFollower
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"Argh..." Yu Fu murmurs weakly as he begins to regain consciousness after an unknown amount of time to him.
'What...?!' Yu Fu thinks, his vision blurry and unable to see anything clearly. His hearing is filled with a constant high-pitched ringing, and it feels like the whole world is spinning.
Before he has time to regain his senses, he feels an excruciating, throbbing pain in his right arm, which is badly broken at the elbow, twisted in an unnatural way.
Instinctively, Yu Fu tries to get up and use his left hand to check the state of his right arm, but he quickly realizes he's unable to do either. Both his legs and hands are tightly bound, and a cloth is covering his mouth, preventing him from making any noise.
"Hey, you're finally waking up?" Yu Fu hears a muffled voice amidst the ringing in his ears, causing him to quickly enter a state of extreme panic.
"Argh!" Yu Fu screams with all his strength, throwing his body forward and falling face-first to the ground. He doesn't stop there, trying to crawl away despite having his arms tied behind his back.
"It will be better for both of us if you don't do that..." Yu Fu hears Chen Wei's muffled voice approaching before he is grabbed by the shoulders and forcibly sat down against the cut trunk of a tree. "...come on, you know you can't escape in this state; it's a futile effort."
In this moment of total despair, Chen Wei holds Yu Fu against the tree trunk in the middle of the campsite, preventing his movement and wiping the dirt off his face after he fell.
"This will ease the pain a bit. I recommend drinking some..." Chen Wei removes the cloth from Yu Fu's mouth and offers him a bottle of wine that he recognizes as belonging to one of his fishing companions.
Yu Fu looks at Chen Wei with fear, while he sees him now wearing some of the clothes that were drying on the camp's clothesline, but he obeys and drinks the wine, fearing what Chen Wei might do if he doesn't.
*Cough* *Cough* He coughs hard, struggling to drink the wine due to his fear, which leaves his throat dry, especially because of his stress and fear at this moment.
"Sorry about the broken arm. It really wasn't my intention for that to be necessary. I only meant to strangle you until you passed out," Yu Fu hears while slowly regaining his clarity, seeing the honest expression on Chen Wei's face, as if his original plan to choke him unconscious was a kind act.
"Well... putting that aside, my name is Yi Shu. Nice to meet you," Chen Wei says, moving away to check a cauldron cooking something over the now-lit fire. "...what's your name, friend?"
From an outsider's perspective, Chen Wei cooking by the campfire with various materials around him, including Blood Orchid and other plants, might just look like a friend making an exotic meal for the other to eat.
Yu Fu, on the other hand, feels immense surprise at the sudden polite and cordial actions of the man who broke his arm and strangled him until he passed out, his surprise overshadowed only by the endless panic and fear he feels while listening to Chen Wei's every word.
"...." Yu Fu struggles to get the words out of his throat, which seems to be blocked by fear. "...it's Yu Fu... my name is Yu Fu."
"Hmm, your parents really wanted a fisherman's life for you with that name, right..." Chen Wei says, using a spoon to stir the liquid in the cauldron. But when the spoon comes out completely red, Yu Fu realizes the liquid it's pure blood.
After another great shock, he understands where all the blood is coming from. Next to him, in the middle of the camp, lies a medium-sized boar with a large hole in its neck and chest where its heart used to be.
"You... you're a bandit, aren't you?" Yu Fu tries to suppress the horrible pain in his arm, pushing it to the back of his mind while trying to think of a way out of this situation.
"Well... technically, yes," Chen Wei says, pointing to the clothes he's wearing.
"I'm right to assume there are four of you here... including you, of course, right?" Chen Wei grabs a knife but, to Yu Fu's relief, walks towards the boar instead of him.
"Y-ye-yes... there are four of us in total," Yu Fu stammers repeatedly, nervous.
"Alright... when exactly will they return from setting up the fish traps?" Chen Wei asks while skillfully using the knife to cut off the boar's tusks.
Yu Fu's body freezes, his throat drying up, finding it difficult to speak again because he knows where these questions are likely leading. As he doesn't believe this bandit will leave a witness alive.
So he firmly believes Chen Wei intends to kill him, and now he wants to know about the only people who might save his life. However, seeing how skillfully Chen Wei handles the fish-cutting knife, not telling him what he wants to know might be even more painful than death.
"Believe me, in the end, you will talk... so it's better to do it with the least amount of pain possible," Chen Wei says casually, as if it isn't a big deal, while walking over to the cauldron full of blood with a boar tusk in his hand.
"...they left a few moments before you arrived... they usually take two hours to return from setting up the traps," Yu Fu says, trembling with fear under Chen Wei's careful gaze, analyzing his every move.
"Does any of them have any combat training?" Chen Wei asks, carefully placing the Blood Orchids into the cauldron of boiling blood. "...and tell me where you found these orchids?"
"Our leader, his name is Lu Tai... he's a martial arts master, one of the best in the village," Yu Fu says, watching Chen Wei's actions, confused. "...he was the one who got these orchids to take as a gift for his wife."
"From where?" Chen Wei asks, carefully submerging the boar tusk in the boiling blood, which has now completely dissolved the orchids he had added earlier.
"I don't know, I wasn't with them at the time!" Yu Fu quickly says in desperation, seeing Chen Wei leave the tusk to soak in the boiling blood, pick up the knife again, and start walking towards him. "I was taking care of the camp, but it was upstream, towards the north!"
"You seem to be coming from the north, following the river south..." Chen Wei calmly approaches, stopping in front of him with the knife still in hand. "...your village is to the north, right? How far? Also, what other villages or clans are in this area? Tell me everything I need to know."
Hearing these words from Chen Wei, Yu Fu's body freezes, his desperation increasing tremendously. But he is completely helpless against Chen Wei, who doesn't seem willing to accept that he won't answer his questions.
Of course, he's more than willing to provide all the information he knows about the other villages or the imposing Gu Master clan in the area since Chen Wei with a knife in hand is an excellent motivator to open his mouth.
But when it comes to his home village, it's a different story. He can easily imagine that Chen Wei's intentions are not good, probably wanting to gather information to pass on to the bandit group he belongs to, making it easier for them to raid.
With his parents and loved ones in mind, as well as the suffering that ordinary mortals face when their villages are raided, Yu Fu looks at Chen Wei, determined not to reveal any real information about his village and to do his best to deceive him, even if it puts him at great risk.
"You know, in my home village, I worked on a pig farm..." Chen Wei says, placing one hand on Yu Fu's right shoulder and the back of his knife against Yu Fu's thigh as he sees the look in his eyes. "...it wasn't the most dignified job, you know, cleaning pig shit and castrating them routinely..."
"I also wasn't the best worker, I admit..." Yu Fu feels Chen Wei squeeze his shoulder forcefully, sending sharp pains through his broken arm. "...I never managed to castrate a pig without making a mess... blood everywhere, the animal screaming in pain."
"My hands were just too heavy and imprecise, and I ended up painfully killing many pigs that way..." Yu Fu can only watch in desperation as Chen Wei's knife gets closer and closer to his intimate areas. "...but it brings back so many good memories of simpler times, you know."
"So, tell me..." Chen Wei looks directly into Yu Fu's eyes, where he sees deep panic and fear, and speaks in a serious tone. "How do you want to act at this moment as a someone honorable... or as a pig?"
"...." Yu Fu feels completely helpless as he sees Chen Wei easily reading his previous intentions just by looking at him. He knows from his tone that this isn't a bluff, but a warning of how he will extract this information from Yu Fu, giving him the option to save Chen Wei's time and avoid great suffering for himself.
Without wasting a second, Yu Fu looks into Chen Wei's eyes and speaks with determination. "There are three villages in the vicinity. My village is Yu Village, about three to four days' walk upstream, after a fork in the river where you need to turn right."
"To the east, after a week of walking, is Ba Village, located just below the mountain peak..." Yu Fu feels disgusted and disappointed in his own cowardice as these words leave his mouth. "...and to the south is Fe Village, which is almost three weeks' walk, right at the end of this river."
"My village has a Rank 1 Gu Master who is the village leader. He's an old man with greenish-white hair who lives in the largest house in the village center..." Yu Fu says, feeling like a despicable coward for betraying his village. "If I'm not mistaken, he has a powerful Gu capable of emitting yellow light blades."
"And what about the other villages?" Chen Wei asks, his knife still in the same place.
"I don't know much about them, but they likely also have only a Rank 1 Gu Master as their leader," Yu Fu says quickly, feeling the knife pressing slightly against his groin.
"Are there many fishermen along this river?" Chen Wei asks, something crucial for his plans.
"Not many, maybe none, depending on the occasion, as most choose to fish in the main river where there are better fish," Yu Fu answers honestly, not trying to hide anything from the man who is one arm movement away from castrating him.
"Who is this supposed martial arts master named Si Ga?" Chen Wei asks, still trying to handle any possible threat, no matter how small.
"He's an old monk who settled in the village and teaches martial arts to anyone who wants to learn at a dojo he also uses as a temple...." Yu Fu shows clear admiration in his eyes while saying these words, hoping Si Ga can easily deal with the raiders since rumors say he can defeat even a Rank 3 Gu Master in direct combat.
Of course, Yu Fu has never seen him personally fight a Gu Master, but he still has complete confidence in him since all the guys in the dojo confirm the rumors, despite none of them having seen it personally either. However, after seeing Si Ga's demonstrations, they believe he has those capabilities, so Yu Fu didn't warn Chen Wei about this to ensure he and his band of raiders are caught off guard by Si Ga.
"Tell me in detail about the great warriors and hunters you know in your life," Chen Wei says, not caring much about this monk since one of them teaching martial arts to mortals is common in this world where strength is everything, with some charlatans even claiming to be able to defeat Gu Masters.
Seeing this question, Yu Fu immediately starts explaining for several minutes everything he knows about mortals with a reputation for great martial strength, leaving nothing out under Chen Wei's careful gaze, which doesn't leave him for a moment during the entire situation.
"Well... lastly, tell me in detail about the clan that dominates this mountain," Chen Wei says simply, knowing that if this mountain is securely inhabited by mortals, there must be at least one Gu Master clan maintaining order.
"The Huo Clan... I don't know much about them except that a Gu Master from this clan occasionally comes to the village to check on its condition," Yu Fu says honestly, as for him, the existence of a Gu Master is something legendary. "...but I know their techniques mainly involve fire."
"Besides that, I've heard recent rumors that their leader is about to advance to the Legendary Rank 4, becoming the first in the clan's history to do so!" Yu Fu says with great admiration for the woman described to him as a celestial beauty with crimson hair.
Of course, he also emphasized his words to try to use the reputation of a Rank 3 Gu Master at the peak, almost reaching Rank 4, to discourage these raiders from attacking one of their subordinate villages like Yu Village.
But if he knew the man in front of him was a Rank 4 Gu Master, not even the heavens would compare to the size of his shock.
"Well, it seems I've learned almost everything I needed to know..." Chen Wei says, standing up and walking quickly to the cauldron full of blood, which leaves Yu Fu relieved. "Sorry I need to take care of my pot quickly."
"In fact, boy, you're quite a good cook, that much I'll say," Chen Wei says, pointing to an empty wooden bowl. "...I really need to reward you for giving me the information, and since I ate all your food, allow me..."
Yu Fu's eyes shine with fear as he sees Chen Wei pick up an iron funnel they used for transferring liquids, then grab the cauldron by its handles, walking slowly with it towards Yu Fu.
"Wait...!" Seeing this, Yu Fu struggles desperately, trying to free himself from his bindings and run away, but in the end, he can only watch helplessly as Chen Wei approaches with the cauldron of boiling blood, which Yu Fu is sure can't be anything good for him.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone