Chapter 271: Thousand-Person Pit

He ripped open the wrinkled, sagging skin covering the skeletal, emaciated corpses of Jiao Datou and Kong Liu.

Inside, two meat strips as thick as an adult's arm burst out, their ends intertwined, continuously spiraling.

Zhang Gui grabbed a meat strip and examined it closely, seeing that its tail was thicker while its head had already been broken.

Only a hollow at the neck remained, and a tiny seep of marrow fluid from the break, driving the meat strip to move in a procedural manner.

He then gestured with his finger and found that the size of the meat strip's neck hollow matched exactly the Human-Head Flesh Worm he had just "digested".

Obviously, the thick meat strip combined with the Human-Head Flesh Worm forms a complete body.

"It's a tail‑cut survival, a stitched monster of earthworm and gecko," he muttered.

Zhang Gui muttered while activating the Tai Sui Entering Spirit, spawning black ichor that devoured the two corpses along with the meat strips completely.

Then he dispersed the surrounding sandstorm, invoking the Main Divine Cluster's Crosswise As Desired to leap across several hundred steps.

He vaulted into the Liu County Magistrate's Residence in Shanhai County, where an entire family had perished.

Unlike the shabby, cramped layout of the yamen, the magistrate's residence featured five courtyards and three gardens, plus a stage dedicated to listening to music.

It was clear that the offspring of a Local Official's family had excelled in studies, falsified household registration to take the Imperial Examination elsewhere, and after high school used silver to return home and become an official—a model case.

Although since the founding of the Ming Song Kingdom, the founding emperor Zhao Zhusha had wisely issued a strict edict forbidding officials from serving outside their native region.

Violators faced light punishments such as removal from office and investigation, and severe ones like the "pulling the radish out of the mud"—direct beheading.

Such matters, persisting over time, are hard to conceal yet easy to verify.

If envious peers in the bureaucracy filed a complaint, the whole case would be lost.

Therefore, even those with divine sight would not break this taboo.

But in places like Shanhai County, where local officials sometimes abandon their prospects, flee with a seal rather than endure the hardships of a poor remote region, the situation differs.

Because this post is originally the "stinky dog‑pick" that no one in the bureaucracy wants.

Someone who voluntarily picks it up offends no colleague.

On the contrary, everyone else cheers, grateful that they will never step on the "dog‑pick" themselves.

More importantly, this "stinky dog‑pick" can be sold for silver.

It's a triple gain, so why not give it a try.

Yet even so, a native official cannot become the official who holds the seal.

Because the higher‑ups fear that these frontier officials' descendants, once they wield excessive state power, will merge authority and influence and cause disaster.

He walked through the magistrate's courtyard, watching as the bodies on the ground, skins revealing skeletal frames, lay before him.

Zhang Gui silently counted, "27, 58, 81"

This household, master and servants, nearly a hundred mouths, all turned into this shape.

In other words, about a hundred Human-Head Flesh Worms were produced, hidden on the ground, biting a person once and slowly petrifying them.

"This truly is a 'Earth‑Demon Human Calamity'," he said.

He thought that, yet a hint of uncontrollable smile crept onto his mouth.

He again activated the net‑like Main Divine Cluster in his head, "Heavenly Phenomena and Earthly Geography Grand Convergence".

He employed the "Pure Brightness Wind Arrives, Earth Things Transform and Generate" segment from the Twenty‑Four Solar Terms.

In an instant, a gentle clear wind brushed across the ground.

From below, a faint rustling began again.

And the hanging skin‑clad skeletons in the courtyard twitched as if cramping, rolling in all directions.

In fact, normally without coupling the Main Divine Cluster's Tai Sui Entering Spirit and relying only on the Heavenly Phenomena and Earthly Geography Grand Convergence, even a Great Divine Ability‑level power…

Because the Fifth Rank "Bing Shang Zhong" has such a shallow superhuman capacity, without fully urging it, it is hard to create such a "ghoulish" scene.

But today happens to be the exact day of the annual Pure Brightness Festival, perfectly aligned with the heavenly timing.

Everything naturally changed.

In no time, the entire five‑courtyard, three‑garden residence began to quake.

Countless broken corpses struggled, some poking heads out of the soil, extending severed limbs;

or continuously pushing the stone slabs on the ground, writhing.

Zhang Gui stared in amazement, his heart horrified,

"The Pure Brightness rites guard against buried dead shells underground; they do not decay, they generate new souls, becoming 'Living Ghosts'."

But under normal circumstances, a buried corpse's flesh decays completely within a year, turning into a skeleton.

In other words, the Earth Ghosts that crawled out of the Liu County Magistrate's Residence are from within the past year—no, at most a few dozen days of decay—already dead.

In a few dozen days, the house became a "Thousand‑Person Pit".

He still took his wife and child, along with servants and maids, calmly going to the yamen to serve as an official by day and returning to the residence to sleep at night.

"That Liu County Magistrate is either a fool or has another scheme!"

Thinking this, Zhang Gui again commanded the Main Divine Cluster's Tai Sui Entering Destiny to start turning.

From the Lu Gate surged black ichor, forming a fungal carpet that interlinked with the Heavenly Phenomena and Earthly Geography Grand Convergence.

The surrounding Living Ghosts began to twist and merge, becoming even more terrifying monsters, breaking the stone slabs on the ground as the earth layers surged up and down.

Suddenly, something strange occurred; under the chase of the deeper‑lying transformed monsters, a massive Human-Head Flesh Worm about a zhang long burst from the soil.

Zhang Gui rapidly activated the Main Divine Cluster's "Water‑Fire Confluence, Flaming Gold, Great Growth", transforming into a six‑armed, Ten‑Zhang Golden Body giant.

He easily grasped it in his hand.

On his face, larger than the wall behind the shadow gate, a terrifying, grim grin spread,

"Got it."

But even as Zhang Gui basked in triumph, the huge meat worm he held in his hand refused to go quietly.

Its body contracted and stretched, half its length springing forward, snapping toward Zhang Gui's wrist.

But a body blessed by the ancient gods and demons' Bloodline Divine Bush is completely unlike an ordinary one.

No matter how it gnaws, it cannot tear a single hair of Zhang Gui's golden body's flesh.

It was only the slick feeling that provoked his disgust,

"Good fellow, you really are courting death; in that case, I'll grant you your wish."

Six arms strained together, commanding the fungal carpet on the ground to sprout countless mycelia that slowly reached upward.

They clung to the body of the human‑headed giant insect that could no longer move at all.

This is, in fact, a kind of twisted torment.

After all, this worm belonging to the Earth Demon Hundred Races has taken many lives.

It is only natural for Zhang Gui, also a human, to take revenge on it.

But unexpectedly, as death approached, the human‑headed giant insect suddenly spoke human words and began to plead,

"Great Being, atone! Great Being, atone!

Spare me a life, and I will gladly serve you as a dog and horse in the future."

"You, you bird‑like thing, barely resemble a human at all."

Zhang Gui was startled by the words and made the most reasonable conjecture,

"Could this be fantasy spilling into reality?

This Earth Demon Hundred Races worm, having devoured human flesh and drunk brain fluid, inherited the victim's memories just like a sci‑fi film from a past life.

Thinking it had become a person."

But he knows his knowledge of the Earth Demon Hundred Races is severely lacking, so his so‑called 'reasonable' guess may run contrary to the truth.

Thus, adhering to the principle that excessive words lead to loss, he asked very succinctly,

"State your origin?"

(End of chapter)