The Saintess initially wanted to struggle and check on Chu Ruoqiao's condition. However, seeing the plaque destroyed by Su Muqing, she dragged her battered body in another direction. In her heart, her daughter never mattered as much as虚名 (xu ming - empty reputation) and power.
If not for her current crippled state, she truly wished she could have devoured Su Muqing's flesh and blood!
Chu Ruoqiao no longer held any extravagant hopes for the Saintess. She had just been severely injured by Su Muqing's palm strike. Currently, regardless of whether she breathed or not, she was in excruciating pain. Most importantly, she had to protect the two蛊 (gu - a type of venomous insect) sealed within her heart. She still relied on them for a slim chance of survival!
Le Yan'er noticed something wriggling beneath Chu Ruoqiao's veil. Fearing she might employ some new trick, she flicked her finger, dislodging the veil from her face.
Everyone saw that her face was covered in dark blue patterns. Moreover, it was swarming with half-exposed black insects that were constantly writhing. It was unclear whether they wanted to burrow in or crawl out.
The Saintess knew that Chu Ruoqiao was about to consume 美人线 (mei ren xian - beauty thread). Otherwise, those insects would begin to gnaw on her body. She began to crawl laboriously towards the other side.
Su Muqing found the 美人线 covering Chu Ruoqiao's face incredibly glaring. With a wave of her hand, she sprinkled some spiritual spring water on her face. Her intention was to liquefy those disgusting things.
"Ah~"
Unexpectedly, the spiritual spring water, which was a sacred antidote, fell onto Chu Ruoqiao's face. Instead of its intended effect, it was as if she had been splashed with sulfuric acid. Su Muqing was also momentarily stunned, unable to comprehend what was happening.
Le Yan'er watched the woman writhing on the ground and couldn't help but touch her own face. She tugged at Su Muqing's sleeve and asked cautiously, "City Lord, what did you sprinkle on her face? Why did she become like this..."
Su Muqing shook her head, her face filled with solemnity as she explained, "I don't know why it turned out this way. This is an antidote medicine, the same detoxifying water you drank. I had previously sprinkled it on the women in the dark cells, and they didn't exhibit such a reaction. Moreover, the medicine could dissolve those insects."
Chu Ruoqiao, before her eyes, had her face burned beyond recognition. It looked exceptionally terrifying. Su Muqing even felt as though she was melting along with those insects. How could the same substance produce such drastically different effects on them?
Seeing her daughter's flesh and blood on her face melting away, the Saintess's teeth gnashed in hatred. She stared fiercely at Su Muqing, "...Qianyi, Qianyi... Su... you... you venomous woman! I want to... kill you... to... avenge... her...!"
The Saintess, with a strength she conjured from nowhere, suddenly shot upright. At this moment, 217 issued another danger warning. Through her detector, Su Muqing saw the Saintess's heart rapidly inflating as if being pumped.
At the critical moment! Su Muqing raised her hand and blew the Saintess outside the hall, right above the heads of the Thousand Poison Cultists. She fell directly into the crowd, then with a "boom," she exploded into pieces.
Some of the cultists were also injured by the explosion. The Saintess had intended to perish together with Su Muqing by sacrificing her 본명蛊 (ben ming gu - life-bound gu). She never expected her plan to backfire, resulting in the deaths of a multitude of her own followers!
Looking at the tragic scene outside and hearing the cries of those women, the small dot belonging to the Saintess on the space detector completely disappeared. Su Muqing suddenly felt a pang of emotion!
Had the重生者 (chongsheng zhe - reborn person) just met their end like this? What was the meaning of her rebirth in this life? Was it just to give birth to a daughter and then manipulate and control her for twenty years? In the end, her life was worse than before, even more miserable than in her previous life!
Tianji Old Man thought Su Muqing was pitying those Thousand Poison Cult women. "Little friend Su, there's no need to feel bad. These people have committed countless evil deeds and plagued the world. They have caused the deaths of innumerable civilians. They are truly... deserving of death by everyone!"
"Tianji... do you feel you are worthy of facing my grandfather?" Chu Ruoqiao, with half of her flesh and blood corroded away on her face, turned to look at Tianji Old Man. Her voice was filled with agony and unwillingness.
"Utterly absurd! If I were to help you, how could I face those innocent people you harmed?" He closed his eyes, unable to bear recalling those pitiable half-human, half-corpse beings.
"I was forced..."
Destiny is determined by heaven, actions are guided by oneself. She was already a tragedy, yet she compounded her evil by inflicting suffering on others, merely to satisfy her own greed.
Thinking of the hidden weapons she had thrown earlier and seeing her attempt to elicit sympathy again, Su Muqing raised her hand, ready to end her. However, she was stopped by Tianji Old Man.
He asked Su Muqing if she wanted to send the person back to Shengjing to be personally handled by the Old Duke, lest future encounters cause discord within the family over this matter.
"There's no need! The Old Duke is advanced in age. What if his soft heart spares her life? I won't personally take action either. For such deep-seated hatred, let the families of the victims decide how to deal with her!" Su Muqing retracted her hand but did not agree to send her back to Shengjing.
If the Chu family were to have any grievances with her regarding this matter in the future, it would indicate that such a family lacked a sense of right and wrong. Any discord would be inconsequential, as she was merely a borrowed corpse returned to life. Moreover, Su Muqing had never intended to acknowledge kinship.
Hearing that Su Muqing had dashed her hopes of being sent back, Chu Ruoqiao could finally not contain herself. She urged the 본명蛊 within her body, trying to break free from the ropes. However, no matter how hard she tried, the ropes felt as if they had grown onto her.
Seeing that Chu Ruoqiao was still restless, Su Muqing raised her hand and severed her sinews in her hands and feet. She also expelled all the internal energy from her丹田 (dantian - energy center) out of her body. The pain caused her to faint on the spot.
Her detector scanned her heart area and found gu worms, two of them. The power of these worms was not insignificant. If she were to attempt a suicidal explosion, it would be impossible to guard against.
Su Muqing took out a small box, placed a drop of undiluted spiritual spring water near Chu Ruoqiao's nose. As expected! The gu worms, which had just been activated, began to stir restlessly within her body.
Stimulated by the piercing pain, Chu Ruoqiao opened her eyes. The 본명蛊 swam to her carotid artery. Everyone saw her neck pulsating. Then, two small black dots shot out at an extremely fast speed, landing in the small box and vying for the spiritual spring water.
Su Muqing quickly closed the lid and then repaired the wound on Chu Ruoqiao's artery. Although her life was saved, her internal energy was completely废 (fei - abolished). This way, there was no need to worry about her causing further trouble!
Without her 본명蛊, Chu Ruoqiao, if she managed to survive, would suffer the torment of ten thousand arrows piercing her heart for twelve hours every day. If she were to be beaten to death, it might even be a release.
Among the remaining sect leaders, more than ten of them had also cultivated 本命蛊, indicating they had consumed a large amount of 美人线. Su Muqing extracted their gu worms one by one and then locked them all together. The ordinary disciples had their internal energy abolished, were fitted with hand and ankle restraints, and imprisoned in the dungeon.
Just then, Su Cuiping rushed over to find her, saying that the condition of those people had suddenly become unstable. Su Muqing and the others hurried back to the dark cells.
If she could, she truly did not want to step into this human purgatory again. Seeing those pitiful women and children, Su Muqing couldn't help but want to kill Chu Ruoqiao with her own hands.
Gongsun Zan said that among this group, only the first woman's condition was slowly improving. The others showed a tendency to worsen. Especially the one who had accidentally been exposed to sunlight; her pulse could no longer be felt.
After carefully scanning the woman's body, Su Muqing discovered that her cells were rapidly replicating. Furthermore, the marks left by the insects crawling out were gradually fading. Was the body beginning to self-repair?
Su Muqing furrowed her brow, recalling that at dawn, this woman seemed no different from the others. She was as good as dead. Except that after she had poured spiritual spring water on her, the insects were dissolved...
Could that viscous liquid help their cells repair and regenerate?
Su Muqing took a small cup of the mucus from the large barrel in her space. Then she walked to the woman who had been exposed to the sun and poured a quarter of the liquid onto the woman's wound.
Su Cuiping suddenly cried out loudly, pointing at the woman's sun-scorched and rotten wound, and asked everyone, "Look quickly! Hasn't a membrane formed on her wound?"
Everyone saw that it was indeed the case. Su Muqing's eyes also lit up. It seemed her guess was correct. This mucus could indeed help them self-repair.
She quickly instructed people to tidy up some more spacious rooms, asking all irrelevant personnel to avoid them. All the women and children were divided into several rooms.
The women were to be supervised by Su Cuiping, Lin Rongrong, and Le Yan'er. The children would be overseen by herself, Lu Yuzhi, and Leng Ren. Each person held a small amount, and using facial brushes, they meticulously applied the mucus to their bodies.
While applying the mucus to those unfortunate children, Su Muqing's hands still trembled uncontrollably. She couldn't help but pray in her heart that their eyes could also regenerate, how wonderful that would be! But she knew this was almost impossible.
Everyone worked until the afternoon before finishing applying the mucus to all the women and children. Su Muqing then reluctantly took out a bottle of blood replenishment pills, qi replenishment pills, and wound healing pills. After dissolving them all in spiritual spring water, she fed a small amount to each of them.
Her idea was simple: she was snatching people from the jaws of death. She was now counting on these spiritual medicines to pull them back from the brink of death.
While searching, others made a new discovery. On another side of the rockery, there was another dark cell.
Inside was a large room with several wooden stakes. There were also blood-stained ropes hanging from them and several deep pits. It looked like an interrogation room!
Further inside were two deep pits, one on each side. The bottom of one pit was covered with white bones, as well as the fragmented remains of poisonous creatures. The other pit was filled with boiling dark red liquid and emitted a strong腥臭味 (xing chou wei - fishy and foul odor).
Su Muqing did not expect to see the legendary Myriad Snake Pit - 虿盆 (chàipén - a basin used for torture with poisonous creatures) here! However, the pit was now empty, the venomous snakes and scorpions had crawled away. It was likely that the group summoned by Chu Ruoqiao and the others earlier included these poisonous creatures.
As for the bubbling pool, it was likely their blood pool for cultivating poisonous arts. It could keep blood from coagulating for a long time, and it was unknown how many harmful things were put into it.
Le Xiong and the others all felt a chill down their spines, not expecting the Thousand Poison Cult to be so sinister and venomous in secret. Thinking back now, they felt a sense of lingering fear. They had been neighbors with such sinister and terrifying people for so long. They truly had to "thank" them for the grace of not killing them all these years!