Chapter 192

"I was just saying, with legacies like Mount Mount Mount Wudang and Shaolin, how could they not even produce a single Heaven-Man."

"So it wasn't that they couldn't, but that they didn't dare."

Li Miao said, looking at the two corpses, one monk and one Daoist.

Wang Zhi had already given up on persuading him and no longer had the strength to struggle. He just stared fixedly at the eyes beneath Li Miao's mask, trying to remember these eyes.

Li Miao didn't care and continued to walk forward, carrying Wang Zhi.

Corpses, the corpses of famous experts in the Wu Lin, hung on the walls on both sides, extending toward the front.

In recent years, about three-quarters of all Heaven-Men in the Wu Lin had died here silently and without dignity. After having their hearts dug out and their lungs removed, they were hung here like cured meat dried during the New Year.

Heaven-born talents, divine monks, demon girls, Daoist masters.

Swordsmen, fist masters, heroes, demon lords.

Intestines spilled, limbs broken.

Unable to speak, dying with eyes wide open.

This place is the hell of Wu Lin people.

The bloody stench grew heavier.

Finally, this road hung with corpses also came to an end.

What appeared before Li Miao's eyes was a wide hall.

In the center of the hall sat a large chair carved with dragons and lacquered in gold, with thirteen golden dragons coiled around the backrest, and the entire body carved with patterns like fire pearls, clouds, and scrolling grass—it was clearly a "Dragon Chair."

And the bloody stench reached its peak here.

Li Miao casually snapped Wang Zhi's limbs, threw him on the ground, and then walked over confidently. He had studied mechanism arts and saw the structure of this Dragon Chair at a glance; he raised his hand and grabbed into the void, pulling the secret compartment beneath the Dragon Chair out from a distance.

Swish—

Clatter.

The secret compartment opened, but it made the sound of water.

Li Miao looked closely and frowned.

What was contained in that secret compartment was actually full of blood, and worms like earthworms were winding and swimming within the blood.

And beneath the secret compartment sat a charcoal brazier.

A picture immediately appeared in Li Miao's heart—a middle-aged man wearing a dragon robe, sitting cross-legged on the Dragon Chair, his body wrapped in thick quilts. The charcoal brazier below burned, conducting heat into the blood in the secret compartment. Then the blood steamed up, turning into scarlet mist, enveloping the man...

Revealing only a pair of indifferent eyes, and a mouth and nose greedily devouring the blood mist.

The so-called "knocking on bones to suck marrow" should have been a rhetorical phrase, but here, it was the most straightforward description.

"Heh, as expected, I shouldn't have had any expectations."

Li Miao sneered.

"In my past life, they only said 'feudal society eats people,' but I never thought it was literal eating, and the Emperor was leading the way to eat."

Li Miao shifted his gaze to the surroundings.

He was all too familiar with the furnishings here.

In the northwest corner was a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, with countless broken limbs piled up; that horrifying bloody stench came from here. In the northeast corner were several broken jars; in the southeast corner were several cages cast from raw iron, within which stood several figures, their chests slightly heaving, still alive, yet seemingly having no reaction to the movements around them.

And in the southwest corner was a "Gu Pool."

Inside were countless Gu insects rolling around.

This place was a "Pupa Room," a "Pupa Room" no different from the Miao frontier.

A Miao King's Pupa Room that stored the legacy of witchcraft and Gu.

Li Miao turned his head to look at Wang Zhi, who was rolling on the ground and moaning in a low voice.

"Eunuch Wang, stop howling."

"I have a question to ask you; as long as you answer sincerely, I will turn around and leave immediately, sparing your life, how about that?"

Wang Zhi stopped howling.

Of course he wanted to live; people who become eunuchs don't have any noble sentiments, and no matter how well they do, they are just servants who won't make it into the history books. What they seek is nothing more than wealth and glory. And wealth and glory can naturally only be enjoyed by the living.

"Your Excellency."

Wang Zhi sighed.

"Whether I can answer depends on what Your Excellency is asking."

Li Miao chuckled.

"A very simple question; there is probably no one in this world who knows this question better than you, the eunuch of the Imperial Horse Bureau and the Emperor's confidant."

"What I want to ask is—the current Emperor..."

"Who is he?"

Boom—

Wang Zhi's brain exploded, and his hair stood on end.

After a long while, he spoke hoarsely.

"What do you mean, Your Excellency!?"

"What do you think?"

Li Miao walked a few steps to the side, leaving the entire hall in Wang Zhi's line of sight.

"Eunuch Wang might not have been to the Miao frontier, but I am familiar with it."

"The moment I came in, I felt it looked familiar... This place is clearly the most authentic, most traditional Miao holy land, the place where the legacy of witchcraft and Gu is stored—the Pupa Room. It is also the Miao King's lair."

"I would like to ask you, why would the Emperor build a Pupa Room in his own mausoleum? Where did the method for building this Pupa Room and the essence of refining Gu insects come from? And what are those Heaven-Man corpses hung outside used for?"

Wang Zhi did not speak again, just remained silent.

Li Miao chuckled.

"It seems I didn't ask clearly enough, so I'll speak more plainly."

"Fifteen years ago, the entire Embroidered Uniform Guard went south, bringing the Heaven-Men raised by the court to execute Ji Ji Ji Tianrui in the Miao frontier. At the same time, a group of Ming Cult members went to Shuntian Prefecture and were killed by the Embroidered Uniform Guard, and the Ming Cult declined and went underground."

"And what I want to ask is, was there really only one group of Ming Cult members who came to Shuntian Prefecture fifteen years ago?"

Li Miao walked toward the cages in the southeast direction again, looked them up and down, and struck them with a palm, smashing them to pieces.

The people inside fell forward and were caught by Li Miao, who gripped their pulse points.

Then, a sigh.

"Blood Qi is blocked from the Dazhui acupuncture point upward; accumulated over many years, the brain is already mostly ruined, no saving it."

"How hateful to press gold threads every year, only to make wedding clothes for others."

"I'll give you a quick end."

Squish.

With a light sound, Li Miao's hand had already inserted into that person's chest, groped for a moment, and suddenly pulled out. That person fell to the ground and died, losing all sound in a moment.

Li Miao walked to Wang Zhi, squatted down, and opened his palm.

Lying on his palm was a worm.

A Gu insect.

"Eunuch Wang, what is this thing?"

Without waiting for Wang Zhi to answer, Li Miao continued on his own.

"This thing is the Miao King's means of controlling and tracking 'furnace cauldrons.' It is also the reason why my subordinate tracked it here that day."

"Every cage here holds a 'furnace cauldron.'"

Li Miao said slowly.

"I won't ask what the Emperor uses these furnace cauldrons for; it's nothing more than extending life, practicing martial arts, and the like."

"But there is one question I must have Eunuch Wang clear up for me."

"The real Miao King died hundreds of years ago; the two Miao Kings in recent years were both hosts to the Gu insects on his body, gradually becoming more and more like his substitutes, borrowing a corpse to return to life."

Li Miao leaned into Wang Zhi's ear and whispered.

"And what I want to ask is, the current Emperor..."

"Is his surname Zhu, or—is it Ji?"

(End of chapter)