SWDnovel Chapter 17 A Deceased Friend's Last Words
Chapter 17 A Deceased Friend's Last Words
Half a month later, at dusk.
The maze at the entrance to Ghostly Valley was forcibly torn open by a bloodstained token. A young handyman with a missing left arm stumbled into the valley, falling heavily into the wet mud beside the boundary marker like a piece of rotten wood that had been chopped off.
Sun Cheng, who was in charge of guarding the man, frowned and was about to reprimand him, but after seeing the broken "grain transport" badge on the man's waist, he swallowed his curse.
Gu An emerged from the depths of the mulberry grove upon hearing the sound, carrying half a bucket of freshly collected silkworm excrement.
The one-armed servant's face was ashen, barely breathing. He struggled to open his swollen eyelids, his gaze focusing on Gu An, as if in a final burst of energy before death, desperately rummaging through his chest with his only remaining right hand.
"Senior Brother Gu..."
His voice was hoarse, with the gurgling sounds of ruptured alveoli.
Gu An put down the wooden bucket and squatted down. He recognized the man; he was Li Ergou from field number nine of the Bingzi family, who usually followed Old Zhang around, mooching cigarettes from him.
"Uncle Zhang... hasn't come back."
With trembling hands, Li Ergou pulled out a black wooden pipe soaked in blood and handed it to Gu An. "The grain transport team was attacked. Those bastards from the Blood Blade Sect used a corpse explosion technique... Uncle Zhang was blown to pieces while protecting us kids... Before he died, he asked me to give this to you."
Gu An didn't say anything, but reached out and took the pipe.
The tobacco pipe stem was warm, still bearing the patina left by Old Zhang's years of handling, and emanating a pungent smell of blood.
"He said... you're the only sensible person in District C. This thing would be wasted if left to his good-for-nothing nephew, so... you might as well have it."
Before he could finish speaking, Li Ergou's head lolled to the side, his hand fell limply to his side, and his last breath dissipated.
Sun Cheng clicked his tongue in displeasure and waved his hand dismissively, signaling two newly arrived handymen to drag the body away and dispose of it.
"Another one dead." Sun Cheng glanced at Gu An and saw him staring blankly at the tattered pipe. He couldn't help but sneer. "A broken pipe is worth treasuring? Alright, stop standing there and get back to work. Manager Zhao is coming to check the tobacco count in a few days."
Gu An slowly stood up, wiped the bloodstains off the tobacco pouch with his sleeve, and lowered his eyelids to conceal the cold glint that flashed in his eyes.
"Yes, Senior Brother Sun."
He turned around, his back looking particularly desolate in the twilight.
……
Back in the cave, Gu An lit a small oil lamp.
He placed the pipe on the stone table and stared at it quietly for a long time.
Old Zhang is dead. The old man who always squatted on the edge of the field, squinting and advising him to "endure slowly" ultimately couldn't survive this chaotic world and was eventually pushed into the battlefield of sectarian power struggles.
In this world of cultivation, the lives of low-level cultivators are like the flame on a lamp wick; a gust of wind can extinguish them, leaving not even a trace of smoke.
Gu An picked up the pipe, rubbing the rough stem with his fingertips. The stem was made from the root of a hundred-year-old purple bamboo; although not a spiritual material, it was still exceptionally tough.
Suddenly, his fingers stopped in the middle of the pipe.
Something felt off there. Although covered by a patina, the subtle vibrations from my fingertips told me that it was hollow inside, and that there was a very discreet seam.
Gu An's eyes narrowed slightly, and he exerted force with two fingers, twisting in the opposite direction along the seam.
"Click".
A very slight cracking sound. The pipe unscrewed, revealing a hollow inner layer.
Gu An carefully used tweezers to pick out a roll of parchment as thin as a cicada's wing from inside.
The edges of the parchment are yellowed and even show some burn marks, indicating that it is quite old.
Gu An unfolded it and examined it closely by the light, his pupils suddenly contracting.
The Fragment of Xiaozhuji Dan.
This is not one of those inferior pill formulas that you can buy anywhere, but a second-level pill formula manual that specifies the techniques of "neutralizing medicinal properties" and "removing erysipelas"!
Although the proportions of the main ingredients are missing, the details regarding the processing of the auxiliary ingredients and the control of the cooking temperature are extremely thorough.
Looking at the incomplete prescription, Gu An felt a surge of indescribable bitterness in his heart.
Old Zhang was stuck at the third level of Qi Refining his whole life, ridiculed for his poor aptitude and destined to be nothing more than an old farmer. But who would have thought that this seemingly resigned old man had hidden a fragment of a pill for breaking through to the Foundation Establishment stage in a broken pipe he'd picked up from who-knows-where?
This may have been a serendipitous encounter in his youth, or a wild ambition he never dared to reveal to anyone in his life.
He knew he had no hope left, so he left this last hope to Gu An.
"Old Zhang...don't worry...if one day I leave the sect, I will definitely go and see the elders of your Zhangjia Village for you!" Gu An murmured to himself, rolled up the parchment again, and put it close to his body.
This gift is too heavy. So heavy that Gu An must live on, and live better than anyone else, to be worthy of this life.
He also felt obligated to repay this favor.
Old Zhang has been away from home and in the sect for decades. Apart from a nephew who is a mine slave in the Green Wood Sect, he has no other relatives or friends.
I wonder if his family is alright.
……
Night was falling, and midnight was approaching.
The Yin energy within Youying Valley was extremely dense, and black mist rolled like a tide among the mulberry trees.
Gu An carried a jug of turbid wine to the crack in the ground at the bottom of the valley. He poured the wine on the ground as a tribute to Old Zhang.
"Uncle Zhang, may you rest in peace. I will watch over this chaotic world for you."
The liquid hit the ground and instantly froze into ice crystals.
Just as Gu An was about to turn and leave, a very slight tremor suddenly came from the ground beneath his feet.
"Buzz—"
It wasn't the sound of wind, nor the sound of the earth's crust being compressed.
The vibrations were extremely rhythmic, like a giant heart beating deep underground, or like a heavy magical artifact digging through rock strata.
Gu An froze, instantly entering the suspended animation state of the "Turtle Breathing Technique," pressing his entire body against the ground and his ears tightly against the cold, frozen earth.
Boom, boom, boom.
The sound came from the deepest depths and was rapidly approaching upwards.
The mutated silkworms around suddenly became restless, ceasing to spin silk and huddling trembling in their cocoons. This was a creature's instinctive reaction to a predator and immense danger.
At the same time, Gu An keenly noticed that the black gas gushing out from the fissure leading directly to the Yin vein was several times denser than usual, and it was mixed with a pungent sulfur smell and... the smell of blood.
Something's not right.
A thought flashed through Gu An's mind like lightning.
He suddenly pulled out the human skin map he had seized from the one-eyed demonic cultivator from his pocket.
Infused with spiritual energy, the patterns on the map glowed with a faint light.
The red line that originally pointed deep into the Valley of Shadows now began to writhe like a living thing, its color so red it was almost dripping blood.
Gu An traced the red line backward with his finger, and the more he looked, the more terrified he became.
This red line is neither a treasure map route nor a simple attack route.
It's a map of an underground tunnel!
The starting point is Black Wind Valley, thirty miles away—a frontline stronghold currently occupied by the Blood Blade Sect.
And at the end, the big "Yin" character is the Yin Vein node of Youying Valley right under Gu An's feet!
"What a brilliant move, a feint to the east while attacking in the west..."
Gu An felt a chill run from his tailbone straight to the back of his head, and his scalp tingled.
The Blood Blade Sect launched a large-scale attack on the periphery, even resorting to using the Blood Corpse Array to massacre the grain transport team, creating the illusion that they were going to fight to the death on the main battlefield.
In reality, their true main force, or the surprise force capable of turning the tide of the battle, is digging undetected into the heart of the Green Wood Sect from hundreds of feet underground, following the direction of the Yin Vein!
And Ghost Valley was their chosen point of attack.
Once this passage is breached, hundreds of demonic cultivators will strike the Green Wood Sect's weak point like sharp knives, bypassing the layers of defensive arrays at the outer gate.
At that time, the entire Bingzi Lingtian District, including Gu An, will instantly become minced meat in a meat grinder.
"Boom..."
Another muffled sound came from deep underground, clearer than before, and even the rubble on the ground seemed to tremble a few times.
That wasn't thunder; it was the roar of excavating tools striking the rock strata.
Gu An stared intently at the churning black mist beneath his feet.
The enemy is right beneath our feet.
It will probably only take a couple of days to complete the connection.
Run? Where to run? Sun Cheng is guarding the valley entrance, and the outside is a buffer zone with spies everywhere.
Report a message?
Even if Sun Cheng believed the ravings of a lowly servant, once the story was reported up the chain of command, someone like Zhao Feng would immediately think of running away with the Xuan Yin Silk, not organizing a defense.