“Oh oh…” Jiang Yan turned around and ran towards me like crazy, “Brother Wu, help! Brother Wu…”
I knew I couldn't hide anymore, so I stepped out from the shadows and made way for Jiang Yan and the others. I waited until they ran behind me before I pointed my knife at the figure and asked, "Who are you?"
“Hehe…” The other person smiled and took two steps forward. When I saw his face clearly, I couldn’t help but shudder—he looked exactly like the old man who was fighting against Xuan Jingsi.
I shifted my gaze between him and the battlefield twice before asking in a deep voice, "Are you the first corpse chaser?"
The other party smiled and said, "My dear Wu, are you okay after we met in Sanxi?"
"Old man?" Only then did I hear the other party's voice clearly - wasn't he the old liar, Gu Piaoran, who had cheated me twice in a row and made Grandma Dou look for me in a big way
"That's me." The old man said calmly, "This is not the place to talk, let's go somewhere else! I happen to know a good place, but I don't know if you dare to come with me!"
I waved my hand and said, "Please!"
The old man walked past me quickly, and after he led us around twice, I gradually stopped hearing the shouts and screams from the Xuanjing Division, but I felt like I was walking in the direction of Panshe Village. "Old man, where are you taking us?"
The old man said: "Don't say anything, just follow me. If you stop now, your lives will be in danger."
Jiang Yan asked in a trembling voice behind us: "Brother Wu, if we just follow them, how can I…"
I yelled, "Shut up! I'll follow you if you ask me to. If anyone is going to die, I'll be the first to die!"
Jiang Yan didn't dare to follow us because the old man was dressed as a corpse driver. But now they had no choice but to follow us, otherwise they would die.
When people are extremely panicked, it is easy for them to develop a leader mentality, that is, they will follow the leader and run forward wholeheartedly, even if the other party is walking on a dead end, they will still follow.
I dared to follow Gu Laotou because there was no conflict of interest between us. The people in the rumor sect could deceive people to death, but they never did anything without benefits. Gu Laotou had the upper hand in both of my encounters, but he never had the intention to kill me because I did not affect his business.
The old man ran with us for a distance at a brisk pace, then pointed to a cave in front of us and said, "Come on, follow me in."
Xiangxi has many mountains, rivers and caves. Some caves are even like a maze. The banditry in Xiangxi in the past was related to the unique terrain.
The old man crouched down and went into the cave without waiting for my consent. After a moment's hesitation, I followed him into the cave. After I followed him for about ten meters, the originally winding and narrow cave suddenly became bright. Just by listening to the echo in the cave, I could tell that the cave was at least several hundred square meters in area.
Although there was no light in the cave, I could vaguely see a blurry human figure.
The old man stood in the darkness and said in a deep voice: "I am going to light the fire. But before that, you all need to be mentally prepared. What you will see soon will definitely not be a pleasant thing."
I sniffed softly, "It's just a few corpses. Light a fire!"
The old man took out a lighter and lit the oil tank on the rock wall. When the winding and rugged flames coiled up along the surrounding rock walls, the entire cave was illuminated as bright as day.
Although I had smelled the odor of decaying corpses in the air and had prepared myself mentally, I was still shocked when I saw the tragic scene in front of me. The cave floor was filled with corpses lying in all directions. At first glance, it looked like the entire village had been brought into the cave and massacred.
The girl hiding at the back of the team couldn't help but hold her head and screamed. I could only turn to Lu Xiaoying and said, "Xiaoying, help me control them."
The old man said to me calmly: "Take another look, is there anything else strange about this cave?"
As I looked forward along the pile of corpses, I saw a large altar with a golden giant snake statue in the middle. Half of the snake's body was hanging above the altar, and the other half was connected to the cave. At first glance, it looked like a golden-scaled python crawling out of a crack in the mountain.
I changed my angle and looked in the direction of the snake's body, but found that the snake's body in the crevice was not crudely made because it would not appear in front of the public. Every scale on it was carved meticulously, and even now it can still flash with dazzling golden light.
I drew out my long knife and approached the altar, tapping the golden snake's mouth a few times. The golden snake's originally closed mouth suddenly opened to the limit, revealing its pipe-like throat at the back.
I used a flashlight to look at the dark pipes: "Is this where the Miao people worship gods?"
"To be precise, it is the sacred place of Panshe Village. They worship the snake god here. The living snake god." The old man said, "The snake mouth you see is the entrance to the snake cave. When the snake god inside hears the call of the great witch, he will crawl out of the statue to enjoy the tribute, and when he is full of food and drink, he will crawl back to rest."
"Day after day, year after year, even if the spirit snake inside didn't practice, it should have become a god, right?"
I said in a deep voice: "You brought me here just to let me hear this?"
"Of course not." The old man said, "Just listen and I will explain it to you slowly."
The old man said calmly, "The people of Panshe Village believe that their gods can bless them with good weather and good harvests, so they sacrifice to the snake god at all costs, and sometimes even sacrifice living people. Over time, the snake god here has become a force to be reckoned with."
"After the snake god appeared in his dream, the witch of Panshe Village led almost all the people in the village into the altar, ready to accept the guidance of the snake god. However, someone broke into Panshe Village that time."
"He not only killed all the men, women and children in the village, but also took their gods away." The old man knocked on the statue on the wall and said, "So, this place is just an empty shell."
I frowned and said, "Keep talking!"
The old man said, "That foreign enemy fought his way in through the village gate. No one could stand up to him. Even the strongest guard in the village was stoned to death and his head was cut off. Of course, those who entered the altar were not spared."
"However, there are exceptions to everything. At that time, there was a child who was pressed under his mother, but he survived and became my employer. He hired me to find the real murderer."
I said in a deep voice: "When did the Panshe Village bloodbath happen?"
The old man said calmly: "A hundred years ago. The country had not yet been established."
I used a knife to pick up the clothes on a corpse on the ground and looked carefully at the corpse. Although I couldn't infer the exact time of death of those people, I could judge that they had been dead for some years.
I put down my clothes before saying, "Does this have anything to do with me?"
"Yes!" said the old man. "After several months of investigation, I can finally conclude one thing. That is, the murderer forcibly took the snake god away in order to cultivate an extremely domineering poisonous insect. He needed spirit snakes as nutrients for that poisonous insect."
"When I was tracking down the murderer, I accidentally discovered that someone was doing the same thing as me. We all knew each other's existence, but we tacitly avoided direct confrontation because they felt that they would not gain any advantage by fighting with me."
The old man pointed at Jiang Yan and the others and said, "Originally, I could still deal with them with the methods of Rumor Sect, but after this group of people broke in, the situation has completely changed."
"These people repeatedly broke into the places we considered important clues. Once they arrived, all clues disappeared. In the end, we were left with no other options but to prepare to cast a curse on them. But..."
The old man paused for a moment and said, "But before they could do anything, they left Xiangxi, and we found that the things we were desperately looking for were gone."
I said in a deep voice: "Are you looking for poisonous insects?"
"Of course!" The old man said bluntly, "Of course! Who wouldn't want such a powerful Gu worm? If you get it, you can be invincible, but at least you can dominate a region. However, the other group of people were furious and said they would sneak into the Central Plains to capture them all and force them to tell the whereabouts of the magic Gu."
"However, some people are certain that they will come back even without having to look for it. Because they carry the magic Gu with them. They are not the great witches of Miaojiang, and they cannot suppress or tame the Gu worms. Sooner or later they will have to come back for medical treatment. As long as we wait for them to come back, we can all use our own abilities to look for the magic Gu."
The old man said in a deep voice: "During the time they were away, we also made a plan. Because none of us knew who the mother insect of the divine Gu was, so I made a more fair plan."
"That is, we will take turns to attack them from the moment they come back. Each person will attack once and take one of them away to test whether they have the mother insect of the divine Gu. Whoever can get the mother insect depends not only on their eyesight, but also on their luck."
The old man said this and then looked at Jiang Yan and the others: "So, they are all prey. Once they are captured, it will be hard to say how to get the Gu out."
I narrowed my eyes and asked, "How many people want to hunt the queen insect?"
"As far as I know, there are at least three groups of experts." The old man raised his finger and said, "You have already met the people from the Yu Shi Sect and the Ling Gui Sect, but the Gu Sect has not made a move yet. However, I think they will make a move soon. Of course, you can also count me in, because I am also interested in the divine Gu."
I said in a deep voice: "I don't like beating around the bush. Just tell me what your purpose is in bringing us here!" (To be continued)