Chapter 171

Chapter 171

Locked in a Gu chamber from birth and forced to live completely cut off from the outside world, only to have their eyes gouged out and fed to Gu worms when they turned sixteen… Wasn’t that gruesome enough?

“There was more than one Gu Saintess in the village,” the proprietress continued. “I personally watched over three of them.

“I stayed by their side as they grew up and watched as two of them were taken away after turning sixteen. We knew their eyes were destined to be gouged out, but all of us had grown up in that environment.

“Immortal Gu was the object of worship and yearning for everyone in our village.

“Generation after generation had lived this way. Those deeply ingrained beliefs had long since enslaved us. We were told that after making a Sacrifice of their Buddha Eyes to Immortal Gu, the Gu Saintesses deserved to be treated well for the rest of their lives. They would be sent to Sacred Mountain behind the village, where they would live out their days in comfort.

“Sacred Mountain was where Immortal Gu was worshiped and tended. It was an incomparably holy place, and only Gu Saintesses were qualified to live there. Three months after the first Gu Saintess under my protection was sent to Sacred Mountain, an Old Locust Tree there was struck by lightning. I fought for the chance to go up the mountain and deal with the Old Locust Tree.”

At this point, the proprietress’s voice began to choke with emotion. “The truth is, I just wanted to see her. We practically grew up together, and I was only four years older than her. Faith came before everything else, but she’d lost her eyes. Of course I felt terrible for her. I only wanted to seize that one chance to see whether she was doing well.”

I could feel the turmoil in the proprietress’s heart. At that moment, her entire body seemed shrouded in an impenetrable sorrow.

I ventured to ask, “Was she not doing well?”

“No. She was doing very well. At least, when I saw her then, she certainly seemed to be.”

The proprietress continued, “We were brought onto Sacred Mountain at night. I was lucky enough to catch sight of her there. She was sitting in a courtyard, her head tilted toward the bright moon. Her Facial Features were serene, and her skin was translucent like fine porcelain. There was another woman beside her, attending to her.

“I only happened to pass by outside that courtyard. I didn’t even have a chance to say hello to her. But seeing that she seemed to be doing well put my mind at ease.”

Without warning, a tear slid from the corner of the proprietress’s eye. Only then did I realize her eyes had long since turned red.

I pulled out a tissue and handed it to her. She accepted it but made no move to wipe her tears, simply letting them fall one drop after another.

The proprietress had taken excellent care of herself.

She said she was three decades older than Gu Die. Gu Die was sixteen this year, while the proprietress was already fifty-two, yet she looked no older than her thirties or forties.

She was beautiful as well, and the sight of her crying made one’s heart ache.

I didn’t interrupt her or press her with questions.

This was the secret buried deepest in her heart — and her deepest pain.

She was slowly tearing open the scar with her own hands, revealing the bloody truth before me.

There was no doubt that the process was agonizing.

“I was such a fool!” The proprietress suddenly clenched her fist and slammed it hard against her chest. “I had only one chance, yet I failed to notice that something was wrong with her. And afterward, I even sent the second one in as well!

“It wasn’t until the year Gu Die turned six that someone escaped from Sacred Mountain one night. She collapsed in a mountain stream. I happened to be passing by and saw what looked like a mangled mass of blood and flesh writhing in the streambed, which had been dry for many years.”

A trace of terror crept into the proprietress’s eyes.

Even after all these years, recalling that scene still drained the color from her face. It wasn’t hard to imagine how horrifying it must have been at the time.
“There wasn’t an inch of intact skin left on her body. Hundreds-maybe thousands-of blood-red centipedes were writhing beneath her flesh. It was dark, and the flame from my tinder was so dim that at first, I mistook them for pulsing veins. It wasn’t until she begged me over and over to save her that I crouched down and moved closer for a better look.

“I recognized her. Her name was Xiao Qin, and she’d been sent to the Sacred Mountain several months earlier… There was nothing I could do. At first, Xiao Qin clung to me like I was her last hope, pleading with me to save her. But when she finally realized there was no chance of survival, she told me the whole truth about the Gu Saintess deception.

“It turned out that not every Gu Saintess possessed eyes worthy of being called Buddha Eyes. In fact, only one pair in ten thousand qualified. They kept each Gu Saintess captive, and once they determined that her eyes weren’t the Buddha Eyes they wanted, they implanted Blood Centipede Gu in her body and used her as nourishment to raise them.

“When a girl’s vital essence and blood were nearly exhausted, she would be thrown into a Gu fighting pit to battle other Gu Saintesses. Like Gu insects forced to fight one another, they would kill until only the strongest remained. That survivor would advance to the next round…”

I was utterly stunned by the proprietress’s story.

At first, I had only thought, So there are that many Gu Saintesses in the Shiwandashan Mountains.

If every Gu Saintess had a pair of Buddha Eyes, then Buddha Eyes couldn’t be all that rare.

Never had I imagined such a horrifying secret was hidden behind it all!

“I watched as those blood centipedes devoured Xiao Qin’s living body until nothing remained. At the very end, she left me with just one word-run!”

“And she was right. What else could I have done but run?”

“I couldn’t save anyone. The village was heavily guarded, and the Shiwandashan Mountains seemed endless-every mountain I crossed only revealed another beyond it. Escaping alone was hard enough. There was no way I could have taken anyone with me.”

“That night, I returned home and thought for a long, long time. My parents had passed away years ago, and I had no siblings. I could have simply left without looking back, but I couldn’t bear to abandon Gu Die.”

The proprietress clenched the tissue in her hand, her nails piercing holes through it.

She continued, “She was only six years old. I’d raised her myself, yet one day she would have to face the same fate as Xiao Qin. I… I couldn’t bring myself to leave her. In the end, I stayed for another two years to be with Gu Die.

“During those two years, I deliberately told her about things happening in the outside world, hoping to weaken — or even change-her faith. I also taught her what little hand-to-hand combat I knew. She learned quickly and showed intelligence far beyond that of an ordinary child.

“But it didn’t last. Two years later, her intelligence and quick wit drew the clan chief’s attention, and my own situation became dangerous. I realized that if I didn’t leave then, I might never get another chance.”

After hearing her story, my heart was a tangle of emotions.

So that was how she had escaped from the Shiwandashan Mountains and eventually made a home for herself in Wufu Town.

After arriving in Wufu Town, she had taken over the Teahouse from its previous owner and put down roots here.

“I escaped, but I’ve never stopped worrying about Gu Die all these years.” The proprietress collected herself before continuing. “I’ve been deeply uneasy since the beginning of this year because Gu Die turned sixteen. I didn’t know whether she was still alive — or whether she was alive but suffering a fate worse than death.

“I’d imagined countless possibilities. The one thing I never expected was for her to suddenly appear here in Wufu Town as well…”