Chapter 30

The woman of the Ge Pu clan shuddered, and after a long while, she managed a faint smile.

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

"It was just a woman, momentarily blinded by her own heart."

"Master Wu..."

As she reached this point, the woman of the Ge Pu clan turned her head to look at Squire Wu with infatuation and spoke softly.

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

"Ah?"

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

He didn't know where to begin.

The woman of the Ge Pu clan lowered her head, sighed, and began to tell her story.

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

This foreign girl is naive and eccentric, bickering with the young hero as they travel the Ordinary Jianghu together, slaying traitors and eliminating evil.

In the process, the two come to understand each other, eventually develop feelings, become partners, and create a legendary Ordinary Jianghu romance.

But, what if the person the foreign girl met back then wasn't a young hero?

This is the story of the woman of the Ge Pu clan.

She came from the Ge Pu surname of the twelve branches of the Miao territory and had inherited the witchcraft and Gu arts passed down by her ancestors since childhood.

The process of practicing witchcraft and Gu arts is extremely cruel and painful.

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

For example, one must release Gu to hunt living creatures every so often, or the Gu will turn ferocious and backfire on the host. Infecting a person can protect one from illness for three years, infecting a cow can protect for one year, and infecting a tree can protect for three months.

If one does not release the Gu, the Gu mistress herself will fall ill. If the Gu is not released for three consecutive years, the Gu insects will harm the host because they are not fed.

For instance, the Gu altar where one raises the insects cannot be exposed to wind or light, or it will also suffer damage.

If the woman of the Ge Pu clan had stayed in the village and never contacted the outside world, this life wouldn't have been too hard for her.

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

The woman of the Ge Pu clan was at a curious age then, so she pestered the merchant to tell her stories.

The merchant told her some stories from the Central Plains.

The merchant originally thought he was just telling stories to fool a child, but unexpectedly, it was these very stories that gave the woman of the Ge Pu clan a false perception of the world outside the village. She thought the outside world was as beautiful as in the stories.

By comparison, life in the village became increasingly unbearable.

So, on a night when she was sixteen, the woman of the Ge Pu clan ran away.

She wanted to go to the Ordinary Jianghu she had imagined.

But this Ordinary Jianghu was nowhere near as beautiful as in the storybooks. A naive, ignorant girl with no family or friends like her was simply like a piece of fat walking down 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 to kill, she killed the human trafficker who wanted to sell her.

The second time she killed, she killed the bandits blocking 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 anymore; she only knew that the person had money. And she needed money very much.

However, she remained cautious, knowing that killing could not be seen by others, so she always chose desolate wilderness areas, which is why she was never wanted by the government.

Just like that, she robbed money all the way until she arrived at this Pingshan Garrison in a daze.

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

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

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

At first, the woman of the Ge Pu clan 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. Suddenly, he became even more attentive to her.

So he started throwing money around.

He treated her to the best wine, the best snacks, the best music, and the most beautiful clothes. Squire Wu himself waited on her hand and foot, fawning over her.

The woman of the Ge Pu clan had grown up in a Miao village and had only struggled and fought since entering the Ordinary Jianghu; how could she withstand such an offensive?

After a while, 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' arrangement, and although he could only take her as a concubine, he only loved her in his heart.

The woman of the Ge Pu clan believed him again.

So she became Squire Wu's concubine, started learning the ways of a wealthy lady, stopped raising Gu, and changed her original accent and habits.

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

But, how could sweet talk be taken seriously?

Because she had practiced Gu arts since childhood, the woman of the Ge Pu clan had a deficiency in her Qi and blood, making it difficult for her to conceive. After changing her ways, she even lost the exotic charm that had originally attracted Squire Wu.

So, naturally, Squire Wu took another concubine, and then another.

The woman of the Ge Pu clan knew she had been deceived again.

But she didn't want to end it; she couldn't even tell if it was because she loved Squire Wu or because she couldn't bear to give up the comfortable life in the Wu household.

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

"Love Gu."

The woman of the Ge Pu clan whispered, "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 guard would damage the corpse that day, and the Gu insect would take the opportunity to burrow into his body."

"The Gu insect itself is poisonous, and he was already doomed. I thought, since a 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 three or four months of blood-feeding in secret."

She had already had blood on her hands while traveling the Ordinary Jianghu. In her desperation, how could she care about so much?

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

"Three lives. My Gu insect is only one step away. I thought that tonight, I would let the Gu insect kill someone in the Wu household, and I could refine the Love Gu."

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

"I didn't expect that it would be just one step away. My lord, you arrived."

"Sigh, Master Wu..." The woman of the Ge Pu clan raised her head and wiped the blood on her mouth with her finger, as if applying rouge.

"If only you hadn't lied to me."

Squire Wu couldn't hold back anymore upon hearing this; he fell to his knees with a thud and kowtowed to Li Miao incessantly.

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

"Today's matter is also my fault, and I am willing to be punished together! I only beg you to spare her life! I beg you!"

Seeing Squire Wu pleading for her, the woman of the Ge Pu clan also shed tears.

Li Miao finally finished listening to the woman's words. He had been standing still, but seeing their actions, he made a sound of disdain.

"Tsk."

Bang!!!

He struck out with a palm, hitting the woman of the Ge Pu clan squarely in the chest. This time, he did not hold back.

Struck by this palm, the woman's chest bones shattered, blood spilled from her mouth and nose, her head tilted to the side, and she stopped breathing.

Seeing this, Squire Wu was terrified, collapsing to the ground and trembling.

"I thought it was some fierce person or cunning scheme, but I didn't expect to be fed a mouthful of garbage about tragic love stories."

"You talk about love, taking other people's lives to feed Gu insects as gifts. Do you really think you're 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 paid for one, leaving two. You said you wanted to be punished with her..."

"Then for the remaining two lives, will you pay for one as well?"

(End of chapter)