Chapter 30

Ge Pu-shi shuddered, and after a long while, she managed a forced smile.

"My lord, what plans or motives could I have? And I have no accomplices."

"It was just a woman, momentarily possessed by a ghost."

"Master Wu..."

When Ge Pu-shi reached this point, she actually turned her head to look infatuatedly at Squire Wu and spoke softly.

"Do you know, I did all this for you..."

"Ah?"

Squire Wu was stunned upon hearing this: "I... when did I... you..."

He did not know where this was coming from.

Ge Pu-shi lowered her head and sighed, telling the story slowly.

In some of the stories told by storytellers, a certain plot often appears: a foreign girl with strange arts, while traveling in the Jianghu, meets a young hero who upholds justice.

This foreign girl is naive and quirky, bickering with the young hero, traveling the Jianghu together, and slaying the treacherous and evil.

In this process, the two understand each other, eventually develop feelings, become partners, and achieve a legendary Jianghu romance.

But, what if the foreign girl didn't meet a young hero at that time?

This is Ge Pu-shi's story.

Ge Pu-shi was born into the Ge Pu surname of the twelve clans of the Miao border and had inherited the witchcraft and Gu methods passed down by her ancestors since childhood.

The process of practicing witchcraft and Gu is quite cruel and painful.

Not only must one constantly cut wounds on their body to feed the Gu-insects with their own blood, but there are also many restrictions.

For example, one must release Gu to hunt for living creatures every so often, otherwise, it will stimulate ferocity and backfire on oneself. Infecting one person can ensure three years of health, infecting one cow can ensure one year, and infecting one tree can ensure three months.

If one does not release Gu, the Gu-woman herself will fall ill. If she does not release the Gu for three consecutive years, the Gu-insect will harm the Gu-raiser if it does not get food.

For example, the Gu-altar where one raises the Gu-insect cannot be exposed to wind or light, otherwise, it will also be harmed, and so on.

If Ge Pu-shi had stayed in the village and never contacted the outside world, this life would not have been too hard for her.

But one day, a merchant from the Central Plains came to the village.

Ge Pu-shi was at a curious age then, so she pestered the merchant to tell her some stories.

The merchant told some stories from the Central Plains.

The merchant originally thought he was just telling some stories to fool a child, but he did not expect that it was these stories that gave Ge Pu-shi a wrong perception of the world outside the village. She thought the outside world was as beautiful as in the stories.

Comparing the two, life in the village became increasingly unbearable.

So, on a night when Ge Pu-shi was sixteen, she ran away.

She wanted to go to the Jianghu she imagined.

But how could this Jianghu be as beautiful as in the storybooks? A girl like her, naive, ignorant, and without any relatives, was simply like a piece of fat walking on the street.

Soon, her money was swindled away, and she was tied up, ready to be sold to a brothel.

Fortunately, she still had her Gu-insects.

The first time she used Gu-insects to kill, she killed the human trafficker who wanted to sell her.

The second time she killed, she killed the mountain bandits who blocked her path.

The third time she killed, she killed the hooligan who wanted to swindle her money.

But from the fourth time on, she didn't know who she was killing; she only knew that the person had money. And she needed money very much.

However, she was still cautious, knowing that killing could not be seen by others, so she always chose to kill in the wilderness, and thus she was not wanted by the authorities.

Just like that, she robbed money all the way and walked in a daze to this Pingshan Garrison.

By then, she already knew that this Jianghu was not like what the merchant had told her. She had believed a false story, escaped the village, and from then on, she could only live in such a daze.

On the first day she arrived at Pingshan Garrison, she found a tavern to eat and met Squire Wu.

Squire Wu saw that her appearance was different from that of the Central Plains people, having a kind of exotic beauty, very different from the women he usually saw. He fell in love and stepped forward to strike up a conversation.

At first, Ge Pu-shi was very vigilant and ignored Squire Wu.

Squire Wu was wealthy and had a good reputation in Pingshan Garrison; he had never seen such an attitude before. For a time, he became even more attentive to Ge Pu-shi.

So he started throwing money around.

He invited Ge Pu-shi to drink the best wine, eat the best snacks, listen to the best music, and wear the most beautiful clothes. Squire Wu himself waited on her hand and foot, fawning over her.

Ge Pu-shi grew up in a Miao village since she was a child, and after entering the Jianghu, she had only struggled; how could she withstand such an offensive?

After a few times, she fell in love with Squire Wu.

Squire Wu told her at the time that he already had a legal wife at home, but that was his parents' order. Although he could only take her as a concubine, he only loved Ge Pu-shi in his heart.

Ge Pu-shi believed him again.

So she became Squire Wu's concubine and began to learn the ways of a wealthy lady, no longer raising Gu-insects, and changed her original accent and habits.

She thought she was finally going to live the life in the stories.

But, how can fleeting sweet words be taken seriously?

Ge Pu-shi was already deficient in Qi and blood because she had practiced Gu arts since childhood, making it difficult for her to conceive. After changing her ways, she didn't even have the temperament that originally attracted Squire Wu.

So Squire Wu naturally had the next concubine, and the next.

Ge Pu-shi knew she had been deceived again.

But she didn't want to end it; she couldn't even explain clearly whether it was because she loved Squire Wu or because she couldn't bear to leave the affluent life of the Wu Fu.

Finally, one day, she remembered that she still had a way.

"Love Gu."

Ge Pu-shi said in a low voice: "I want to refine a Love Gu, so that Master Wu will only love me forever."

"I started raising Gu in secret, letting the Gu hunt livestock, and then I refined them."

"But who would have thought that the old gatekeeper would break the corpse that day, and the Gu-insect took the opportunity to burrow into his body."

"The Gu-insect itself is poisonous; he was already doomed. I thought, since a human life had already been lost, I shouldn't waste it, so I used his corpse to refine the Gu-insect."

"I didn't expect that the first time I used a human to refine a Gu-insect, the effect would be surprisingly good, faster than the blood food I had secretly accumulated for three or four months."

When she was walking in the Jianghu, she already had many human lives on her hands. In a hurry, how could she care about so much?

So it was the next one, the master. The next one, the coroner.

"Three human lives, my Gu-insect is only one step away. I originally planned to let the Gu-insect kill someone at the Wu Fu tonight, and I would be able to refine the Love Gu."

"So that Master Wu would only love me from then on, and I wouldn't have to use this damn Gu-insect anymore."

"I didn't expect that it was just this one step away. My lord, you came."

"Sigh, Master Wu..." Ge Pu-shi raised her head and used her finger to smear the blood on her mouth, as if applying rouge.

"If you hadn't lied to me, it would have been fine."

Squire Wu finally couldn't hold it anymore when he heard this, fell to his knees with a thud, and kept kowtowing to Li Miao.

"My lord, my lord, please spare my wife's life! I will compensate the families of the three who died, five hundred taels! Five hundred taels for each family!"

"Today's matter also has my fault; I am willing to be punished together! Just beg you to spare her life! Please!"

Seeing Squire Wu pleading for her, Ge Pu-shi also shed tears at this time.

Li Miao finally finished listening to Ge Pu-shi's words. He had been standing there silently, but seeing the two acting like this, he made a sound of disdain.

"Tsk."

Bang!!!

He struck with a palm, hitting Ge Pu-shi squarely in the chest. This time, he did not hold back.

Ge Pu-shi was hit by this palm, her chest bones shattered, blood overflowed from her mouth and nose, her head tilted, and she stopped breathing.

Seeing this, Squire Wu was horrified, slumped to the ground, and trembled.

"I thought it was some fierce person or tricky scheme, but it turned out to be a load of dog-shit, trashy romance stories."

"You talk about love, but use other people's lives to feed Gu-insects as a gift. Do you really think you are some kind of romantic?"

Li Miao walked to Squire Wu's side, grabbed his head with one hand, and stroked it back and forth.

"Five hundred taels... what a grand gesture."

"Three lives, she pays for one, two remain. You said you wanted to be punished with her..."

"Then, will you also pay for one of the remaining two lives?"

(End of chapter)