Chapter 19

Chapter 19

At the critical moment, a warm arm suddenly wrapped around my waist.

Risking his life, Jiang Haoyan dove into the water and dragged me back to the shore. Hua Yuling quickly reached out and pulled us both onto the bank.

My entire body was stiff and unable to move. Jiang Haoyan carried me on his back for a distance, not daring to stop until the deep pool was out of sight.

He laid me down on the soft grass. He and Hua Yuling collapsed beside me, gasping for breath.

Hua Yuling flipped my eyelid open.

“That’s strange. Why isn’t Qiao Moyu moving? Does she need mouth-to-mouth?”

Jiang Haoyan’s handsome face flushed red.

“I’ll do it then.”

He leaned down, his breath hot against my face, his thick eyelashes trembling slightly.

His lips stopped just an inch above mine.

Hua Yuling reached out, grabbed him by the neck, and yanked him back.

“You Qing Dynasty relic! Weren’t you the one saying men and women shouldn’t touch? Get lost, I’ll do it!”

“I’ve had professional training! You’re not allowed to touch Qiao Moyu-”

Jiang Haoyan tried to pull Hua Yuling away again. She swung a fist at him and accidentally stepped on my stomach.

These two idiots!

The pain made me curl up, and I coughed up a large mouthful of water.

“Stop fighting… Hua Yuling, I’ve been poisoned.”

My lips were purple as I explained what had just happened. Hua Yuling knelt beside me and lifted my shirt, revealing a section of my slim, pale belly.

Jiang Haoyan quickly turned his head away, shouting angrily, “Hua Yuling, don’t just look at her like that!”

Hua Yuling retorted, “I’ll look if I want to! I’m not just looking, I’m touching too!”

“You two are so annoying! Can’t you just give it a rest?”

Hua Yuling used the Golden Cicada Gu inside her body to help neutralize the poison. After resting for a while, the three of us supported each other as we headed back to Maogou Village.

Maogou Village had become a living hell. Blood was everywhere on the courtyard walls, and severed limbs were scattered across the ground.

There was no one left to lead us to the Paris polyphylla.

I performed a ritual for the villagers to transcend their departed souls. While I did so, Hua Yuling paced around the Ancestral Hall. Suddenly, she pointed curiously behind the statue of Shennong.

“Qiao Moyu, look. This painting looks like the Ghost Mother…”

I hurried around to the back of the statue to see.

The Shennong statue was about two meters tall. Behind it were three paintings. The first one looked somewhat like Wang Cuiping, depicting a standard Ghost Mother form.

In the second painting, the Ghost Mother was no longer giving birth to a Ghost Child. Instead, she was producing countless small snakes. These snakes had fleshy lumps on their heads and were entwined with one another. At the center was a Jiao-dragon snake with horns on its head.

In the third painting, the Ghost Mother had swallowed the Jiao-dragon snake and proceeded to devour everything in the world. Finally, she gave birth to a son-a being with a bull’s head and a human body, clutching a weapon.

Hua Yuling’s eyes widened.

“So the legends of the Jiuli Tribe are true. The Ghost Mother is the primordial creator, and Chiyou was born from her.”

I stared at the Jiao-dragon snake in the painting, frozen in place as a chill ran down my spine.

So, this was the truth behind Chiyou’s resurrection.

The man-eating snakes we encountered in the Ghost City of Xinjiang were also known as Moon Fiends. ‘Moon’ represents the ultimate Yin; they are formed from the Yin energy of mass graves or refined from extracted living souls. A hundred souls make one Fiend. I couldn’t imagine how many lives were sacrificed for that dense swarm of man-eating snakes.

The people of the Chiyou tribe didn’t want to resurrect the dead Chiyou; they wanted to recreate the Ghost Mother so she could give birth to Chiyou again.

The Ghost Mother in the Ghost City was clearly of a higher level than Wang Cuiping. She had been buried under the sand pit, and the day she emerged would be the day the world suffered.

Fortunately, I had stumbled through back then, using the Heavenly Tribulation Token to wound the Ghost Mother and the Zhou Tian Xing Dou Grand Array to heavily damage the Jiao-dragon snake, delaying their plans. To recover from those injuries, they would need a massive amount of living souls.

There would be no peace in the days to come.

Hua Yuling shook her head and sighed.

“These ghosts and monsters aren’t the scary part. They’re heavily injured and only dare to hide in the deep mountains and old forests. What’s truly terrifying is that some people are so blinded by greed that they’re willing to work for them and murder the innocent.”

No matter how powerful a demon or ghost is, they are still bound by the laws of heaven and earth. The most terrifying thing will always be the human heart.

“If that Black Mao was one of them, staying near Shennongjia for so long was probably to guard this Ghost Mother. In the end, we killed it before it could even grow up. It looks like the heavy responsibility of maintaining world peace falls on our shoulders now.”

I patted Hua Yuling’s shoulder appreciatively. She jumped in shock.

“That’s slander! You killed it; I was just passing by!”

Hua Yuling ran a few steps away, cupping her hands around her mouth and shouting, “I don’t want to ruin your plans! I’m innocent! I have absolutely nothing to do with Qiao Moyu-!”

“Comrade, your level of political consciousness is a bit low!”

I chased after Hua Yuling, not noticing a grey figure flashing past the back of the Ancestral Hall.

Not long after, a photo of Hua Yuling was placed on a table.

An aged hand gripped the photograph.

“The Miaojiang Saintess, capable of commanding ten thousand insects? Interesting. Kill her.”

The photo fell to the ground, and a foot stepped heavily onto it.`n`nThe End.