Chapter 329

It had always been others seeking his guidance; how could he have ever experienced such embarrassment as he did today?

"The ancestral scrolls mention..." As soon as He Lingchuan uttered these words, Dong Rui rolled his eyes. "... that the Chifeng mine cave in the northwest of the Chi Pa Plateau was once occupied by an unknown monster. It didn't just eat miners and villagers; it also devoured quite a few patrol guards who entered the cave to deal with it. It could combine a mother with the mine cave to turn it into a nest, so the structure inside was very much like a human body!" He Lingchuan pointed to these soft skins and said, "After the Flesh-Abuser makes the human mother lose consciousness, it uses these tendons to connect and transform her with the cave."

"A nest?" Dong Rui's brows knitted even tighter. "Like a human body?"

"The Flesh-Abuser is also a child of the gods," Zhu Xiuer replied faintly. "Among the gods, the Jin Du Mother cannot be considered powerful, but she can give birth to ghost cubs, the most formidable of which is the Flesh-Abuser, which even possesses the ability to surpass its mother! As soon as it is born, it will find a place to build a nest. Once the nest is built, it is very difficult for others to defeat it inside."

He Lingchuan showed a look of astonishment: "How do you know this?"

"I dealt with them in ancient times," Zhu Xiuer said proudly. "These so-called... Heavenly Gods!"

"The Jin Du Mother's divine child?" Dong Rui looked around. "Then where is that divine child—no, the Flesh-Abuser—now?"

"It should have been exterminated," Zhu Xiuer said. "When I moved into the demon nest, this place was already empty."

He Lingchuan was greatly surprised: "The Jia Na people were all eaten by it, and even this swamp is named after the demon nest it built. Who else could have exterminated the Flesh-Abuser?"

"The Beijia Nation."

This answer was somewhat unexpected.

"At that time, the swamp didn't just have the Jia Na people; there were seven or eight other tribes. Outside the swamp, in the Xishan Dang, villages and towns were scattered like stars, and there were signs of human life. After the Flesh-Abuser ate all the Jia Na people, it went outside to forage. In over a dozen years, it almost wiped out all living things within a radius of three hundred li. Later, this thing went west, and two military towns stationed by the Beijia Nation were also wiped out by it. With such a demon ravaging the national territory, the Beijia Nation could not sit idly by, so they sent strong men to eliminate it." Zhu Xiuer flicked her front claws. "Of course, this is all according to the survivors of the Jia Na tribe; I don't know the further details."

The Flesh-Abuser here was eliminated by the Beijia Nation?

"But, once the human mother placed on this platform loses contact with the cave, the stone cave should return to normal," He Lingchuan did not understand. "There is no one on this platform now, so why does the entire demon nest still maintain its original state and not change back?"

"I don't know." With Zhu Xiuer's extensive experience, she could only offer two guesses: "Either she has been lying here for too long, long enough to change the entire cave; or, this Flesh-Abuser was excessively powerful."

Regardless of the reason, she did not care.

Dong Rui carefully observed those so-called tendons and even took a knife to cut off several pieces: "Since it is related to the Jin Du cubs, this thing has value! Worth studying, worth studying."

He Lingchuan walked around the stone chamber and suddenly discovered a pile of rubble in the deepest corner, as if something had been buried.

When he walked over to look, a deep pit had been dug under the rubble, and a skeleton was buried inside, but a small half was exposed on the outside.

"I pushed this aside to look." When Zhu Xiuer came for the first time, this rubble was covered perfectly well.

Why would this skeleton be buried here?

In front of the small rubble mound, a square stone was erected, like a stele, but it was blank and wordless, with a pattern drawn on it.

It looked like half a maple leaf; he was not quite sure.

The lines were black, as if drawn with charcoal sticks.

He Lingchuan immediately remembered that since he walked into the underground palace, he would occasionally see various patterns on the stone walls, also drawn with charcoal sticks, imitating flowers, birds, insects, and fish, as well as various lines he couldn't understand, like a child's graffiti.

"Who drew this?"

Dong Rui also saw this pattern and said casually: "Perhaps some wild child from somewhere came in to play and scribbled randomly." He glanced at Zhu Xiuer and added, "Before these big demon monsters moved in."

Zhu Xiuer immediately retorted: "When I arrived, the entrance to this underground palace was sealed with sandstone."

He Lingchuan suddenly felt a chill run down his spine.

If no one had entered this cave after the Flesh-Abuser disappeared, who could have done these graffiti? Dong Rui didn't care about these trivial matters and squatted down to examine the skeleton: "Hmm, it's a woman. Judging by the bone age, she is about forty years old."

A woman who could appear in the central stone chamber of the demon nest? "Is she the Flesh-Abuser's human mother?" He Lingchuan turned back and pointed to the stone platform. "She should have been lying there originally. Who would bury her here?"

"Could it be that the Beijia people who wiped out the Flesh-Abuser buried her?"

"Perhaps." He Lingchuan, however, stared at the square stele.

He had just fought the Flesh-Abuser in his dream. There were still a few claw marks on the ground, very much like those left by the Flesh-Abuser.

What Dong Rui said was not unreasonable; burying the dead was an act only humans would do.

But deep in his heart, he had a strange and absurd speculation instead.

Is it possible?

"Alright, I have satisfied your requirements, and the medicinal materials have been transported. You should go to work for me!" Zhu Xiuer began to drive the two away.

She also knew the principle that haste makes waste, so she was not in a hurry. She had waited for thousands of years, so what was another month or two? On the way back to Dong Rui's workshop, He Lingchuan's mind was a mess.

He really didn't expect that the previous dream would actually connect with reality.

Two demon nests, two Flesh-Abusers...

Did they both truly exist?

Was it because the Great Fanghu discovered that he was about to drift into the demon nest swamp along with the Hanhe River water that it arranged the task of the Chifeng mine cave for him in his dream? Could it be to let him better understand reality?

He Lingchuan felt that it was more than that.

His tasks and actions in the dream were always being guided intentionally or unintentionally.

Who was doing this, the Great Fanghu? Does this divine artifact have its own consciousness? He Lingchuan's mind was filled with thousands of thoughts, and he always felt that some clue flashed before his eyes, but he just couldn't grasp it.

Just a little bit more.

Always just a little bit more!

This feeling is really maddening.

"Hey, we're here!" Dong Rui in front stopped and reached out to wave in front of him. "Has your soul been sucked away by Zhu Xiuer?"

Unless Zhu Xiuer was a fiery little beauty. He Lingchuan slapped his hand away: "What are you doing?"

"Helping, of course." Dong Rui pointed to the mountain of medicinal materials piled up in the corner and then pointed to two square stones larger than millstones. "First, build a stone mill and grind them all into powder!"

"Don't you have a medicine grinder?" Young Master He did not like doing manual labor.

"How big is my medicine grinder? It can't grind much medicine. You have to build me one bigger than a stone mill." Dong Rui squinted at him. "I specifically asked for you to be my assistant; if you don't do it, go back to Zhu Xiuer."

Hanging around in front of a man-eating spider demon was not a good thing; it was easy to arouse her appetite. He Lingchuan sighed and drew his sword to carve the stone.

This kind of work should not be done with a long sword, but they were in the center of the swamp and had no other handy tools. When had the Fusheng Sword ever suffered such grievances? He Lingchuan carved cautiously, fearing he would damage the precious sword.

The spider guards were at the door, supervising the two of them at work.

"After carving it flat, polish it. Yes, carve it flatter so it's convenient for you to use later." Dong Rui was busy classifying the medicinal materials, and his mouth was not idle either.

The spider demon also found them some human tools like axes and chisels. He Lingchuan took them and said: "Can you build another Number 34? What kind of base materials do you need? I'll find a way to get them for you."

Number 34 was the strange bird that had helped Dong Rui escape several times. The area around this demon nest was full of spiders; they would probably have to take to the sky to escape.

"Do you think I don't want to?" Dong Rui said irritably. "Before its transformation, Number 34 was a broad-nosed bat, but it had a trace of the bloodline of an ancient great demon. Do you know how many years I searched before I found such a one?! Do you think demon puppets are available whenever you want, like wooden puppets that are everywhere? Huh?"

The higher he spoke, the higher his tone became; he was clearly furious.

Without a demon puppet in hand, what kind of demon puppeteer are you? He Lingchuan smiled: "I see that the demon puppets you create are all obedient to you. Can you...?" Because there were spider guards outside, he didn't speak clearly, just pointed toward the direction of the heart chamber cave.

If Dong Rui could control Zhu Xiuer through body modification, that would be truly awesome.

However, if that were really the case, the first one to run away would be him, He Lingchuan.

"Dream on." Dong Rui sighed. "The demon puppets I modified in the past were either raised from childhood, simple-minded, or seriously injured with unclear spiritual sense, which made it easy to wash away their old memories and recognize me as their master. Zhu Xiuer is an ancient great demon; I'm afraid her soul is tougher than yours and mine by countless times. If I dared to do that, I'd be courting death."

"Then how much confidence do you have in creating the medicine she needs?"

Dong Rui did not speak.

He took the tendons left by the Flesh-Abuser and cut them into several portions, either burning them with fire, soaking them in medicinal water, or grinding one portion into powder.

Just when He Lingchuan thought this guy didn't intend to speak, he shook his head: "I can't say for sure. If the medicinal water you stole was still here, or even if I had obtained a small sample of the Jin Du cub's body, the success rate would increase."

He Lingchuan asked curiously: "Can Jin Du ghost cubs also come in handy?"

"Nonsense!" Dong Rui glared. "Jin Du ghost cubs are half-human and half-god; they are simply the prototypes of the Gui beasts! The gods created the Gui beasts; it's quite possible they used them as templates!"

He Lingchuan thought about it and agreed; Jin Du ghost cubs could walk in the human world, were almost fearless of elemental power, and possessed powerful and strange powers themselves. The Gui beasts that appeared in the early medieval period also possessed these characteristics.

"However, the Flesh-Abuser is not in the demon nest either; the only things left are these tendon-like tissues. Sigh, it's not easy to handle." Dong Rui also scratched his head. "Now hurry up and grind the medicine! By the way, catch the weakest spider demon in the corner!"

Five test subjects were already in place. Zhu Xiuer didn't feel sorry for her own offspring, so he had no burden when conducting experiments.

When the spider demon was sent over, it was tied up tightly. This one was even reddish in color, reminding He Lingchuan of the hairy crabs every September.

Who knew that Dong Rui would raise his hand and drop his knife, cleanly removing all eight of its claws, causing it to squeak in pain.

(End of chapter)