Chapter 145: Heart-Eating Gu

Chen Zheng's face was filled with astonishment, and within that astonishment there was a hint of despair and confusion.

Only we understood why Dong Yumin attacked Chen Zheng, because she was controlled by the gu worms.

In the span of a breath, I and Pangzi had already arrived before Chen Zheng, Pangzi summoning the Five Thunder Flower Characters into his hand, preparing to strike Dong Yumin.

"Don't move..." Chen Zheng suddenly grabbed Pangzi's hand tightly, anxiously saying: "Don't hurt Yumin."

"She's already a worm-fed corpse," Pangzi said with a mournful face, helplessly looking at Chen Zheng.

"I don't care if she's alive or dead; anyway, Yumin is still alive, you absolutely must not harm her!" Chen Zheng said firmly, with no room for negotiation.

At the same moment, Dong Yumin moved, like a puppet, her face devoid of any luster. Yet the knife in her hand was unbelievably fast. Just as it was about to pierce Chen Zheng, I hurriedly stepped in front of him to block.

But at that critical moment, Dong Yumin's knife suddenly halted in midair. She seemed to hesitate, a hint of pain appearing between her brows. Immediately, before anyone could react, Dong Yumin actually drove the sharp blade into her own chest.

"Yumin!" Chen Zheng roared furiously, shoved Pangzi aside, rushed forward and caught Dong Yumin's falling body.

Dong Yumin's ashen face suddenly spat out a mouthful of fresh blood, she looked at Chen Zheng weakly and said: "Zheng, hurry and leave, I'm in great pain, I can't control myself... I... I don't want to hurt you, hurry and leave."

Although Dong Yumin's complexion remained pallid, her eyes had regained a hint of clarity. Pangzi probed her forehead, and after a moment he involuntarily drew a breath of cold air, slowly uttering three words: "Heart-Eating Gu."

Heart-Eating Gu, also called Ten Thousand Ants Heart-Eating Gu, this gu is refined from countless ant queens, also called Life-Continuing Heart-Eating Gu. Because ants possess tenacious vitality, this gu can prolong life for those whose vitality is fading. But don't forget, after life-continuing come the two words "heart-eating"; this gu resides in the human heart, and when it flares, the heart suffers the agony of being devoured by ten thousand ants. Moreover, while causing heart-eating, it also controls a person's consciousness,

I never imagined that Dong Yumin had been implanted with this gu, and to my surprise, she was actually able to break free from its control; at the critical moment, she reversed the knife aimed at Chen Zheng and drove it into her own chest.

"Hurry, Ah Zheng... hurry, don't trust him, absolutely not!" The Dong Yumin who had broken free from the gu worms' control, her gaze gradually turning bewildered, she merely urged Ah Zheng to hurry and leave.

This does not mean Dong Yumin is still lucid; rather, her condition resembles that of an idiot. She can speak because of her obsession and her love for Chen Zheng.

"Yumin..." Chen Zheng tightly embraced Dong Yumin, lowered his head onto her soft hair, and whispered sobs.

Suddenly, Dong Yumin's body began to spasm involuntarily, and simultaneously a network of red veins appeared crisscrossing her face; her eyes seemed to contract rapidly, gradually approaching the pupils of an ant.

This scene looked a bit eerie; I couldn't help but retreat two steps. Chen Zheng was also afraid, but his fear stemmed from worry for Dong Yumin's safety. After Dong Yumin's abnormality appeared, Chen Zheng completely lost his composure, panicking like a seven-year-old child, frantically shaking her shoulders.

Pangzi frowned, said "move aside," picked up a silver needle and prepared to stab Dong Yumin. But because Chen Zheng clung tightly to Dong Yumin, Pangzi couldn't accurately locate the acupoint. What's more laughable is that Chen Zheng actually held Dong Yumin tight, as if fearing Pangzi would harm her, refusing to let go.

Finally, Pangzi shouted at Chen Zheng, "Let go, I'm saving her," and only then snatched the gu-poison-stricken Dong Yumin from the dazed Chen Zheng's hands.

After Chen Zheng let go, Pangzi picked up the silver needles and inserted them one after another into Dong Yumin's acupoints, scattered and numerous; even Pangzi couldn't count how many he had inserted, and when the final needle was in, the moxibustion box that originally held over a hundred silver needles was left with none.

After Pangzi inserted the needles, the red veins on Dong Yumin's face gradually faded, her pupils returned to normal, but soon she closed her eyes and fell into a coma.

"Pangzi, why didn't you completely eradicate the gu worms?" I wondered, and with my eyesight I could naturally see that Pangzi was using silver needles to suppress the gu worms anew in a part of Dong Yumin's body, preventing them from spreading.

But isn't the Ghost Gate Needle Technique specifically for hysteria and gu worms? Why not just pull them out directly.

At this moment, Pangzi wiped the sweat from his forehead, helplessly saying to me: "The Heart-Eating Gu is lodged in the heart; it cannot be expelled at all—if we tried to expel it, it would be tantamount to digging out her heart."

Saying this, Pangzi grew somewhat dim, glanced at Chen Zheng, who was standing guard by Dong Yumin's side with tears in his eyes, and silently closed his mouth.

"That means there's no way!" I sighed gloomily.

Just as Pangzi opened his mouth, he glanced at Chen Zheng, then immediately changed his tone, hesitantly saying: "It's not that there's no way; perhaps the person who planted the gu has some method after all."

The one who planted the gu... must be the mastermind behind the scenes.

Holy shit, how did I forget the black-robed kid.

Just now I was focused on treating Dong Yumin's wounds, and I forgot about the black-robed kid. When I turned around and searched the courtyard, his trace was already gone.

"We'll pursue... just now he took a palm strike from you, was injured, fell to the ground and sprained his foot; a person with a sprained foot can't run far." Pangzi said in a low voice.

Having said that, he immediately headed toward the outside of Chen Zheng's ancestral home.

I followed behind Pangzi, walked out of Chen Zheng's ancestral home, just as Pangzi said, the black-robed kid's foot was already sprained. When Pangzi and I chased out, far away we saw a staggering figure at the end of an alley; no need to discern, from that silhouette we knew it was him.

I pursued from behind, while Pangzi went around to flank him. Just as he was about to escape the alley mouth, Pangzi descended from the sky, and together we blocked him from front and back.

Upon seeing him, Pangzi without a word bellowed and charged up. His fists fell like raindrops, dense and relentless, overwhelming him and completely cutting off his ability to control the worms. Then Pangzi knocked him out with a knife-hand strike and dragged him back to Chen Zheng's ancestral home.

"Wake him up with water..." Chen Zheng, standing guard by Dong Yumin's side, had a grim face, his eyes fixed on the black-robed kid filled with murderous intent.

Pangzi ran straight to the well to draw water, while I pulled off the black-robed kid's black robe.

After pulling off his black robe in one go, I recoiled several steps at the sight of his face. The black-robed kid's face had suffered severe burns, his facial flesh was horribly destroyed, almost no intact flesh remained; on his head, lumpy masses of flesh clung together, oozing unburst blisters—truly eerie.

Pangzi, who had brought the water over, shouted "Holy shit" and was also startled by his appearance. At that moment, Chen Zheng actually took the water bucket from Pangzi and dumped the water onto the black-robed kid's face.

When the black-robed kid slowly woke up, seeing us three tightly surrounding him, eyes gleaming with menace, he let out a terrified scream and kept backing away in fright.

With that scream, the white flesh on his face trembled, the grooves undulating like waves. It's truly unclear whether he scared us or we scared him.

Before we could even speak, the kid gave Chen Zheng a resentful, poisonous glance; as his gaze swept over us, a flicker of panic flashed in his eyes.

"You... you can't kill me, otherwise my master won't let you off," he said, his whole body trembling, his voice to Chen Zheng shaking slightly.

Chen Zheng's reply was blunt: he stepped directly on the kid's foot with a crack, breaking his left leg. Ignoring the kid's painful howls, Chen Zheng coldly said: "You... serve no purpose. As long as the treasure remains in my hands, he will surely come looking for me."

In that instant, a sinister gleam flashed in Chen Zheng's eyes; he clenched his fist and launched a barrage at the black-robed kid.

Although wounded, the black-robed kid's reaction was not slow either; he erupted with latent power, barely managing to dodge Chen Zheng's domineering punch.

"Master, save me, save me!" he cried while retreating, pleading for help in panic.

Suddenly, as he retreated, he let out a miserable shriek; blood poured from his eyes, nose, and seven orifices. Clutching his head, he writhed on the ground in anguished cries.

"Not good, fall back!" I grabbed Chen Zheng, who was about to pursue, and pulled him back.

This scene, I couldn't be more familiar with it—when Ou Yaofeng was devoured by the worms inside his body, it looked exactly like this.

In our horrified gaze, his body fell like a stone slab, accompanied by the sound of earthen tiles shattering; his skull slowly split open, and as his wails faded, a worm as thick as a bowl emerged from his head.

When I and Pangzi got a clear look at the worm's species, we involuntarily sucked in a breath of cold air,

This gu king, it turned out to be the Centipede Gu King, a centipede!