The book contained detailed descriptions of Gu arts, even with illustrations. Just looking at it was enough to make one feel nauseous, let alone reading it while eating. Yet, Nan Shiying read with relish, even eating half a bowl more rice than usual.
Gu, though a potent异术 (unusual/foreign art), was also extremely cruel and painful for the practitioner during the raising process.
Especially for the Yin clan, from childhood, ten children would be selected, and the mother worm would be placed inside their bodies. While their bodies nourished the Gu worms daily, the Gu worms would also secrete substances that eroded the children's bones and blood. These children lived in constant torment until they reached adulthood. Only then would the clan elders remove the mother worm, a process no less agonizing than being carved by a thousand knives.
Some could not endure and died.
The mother worm would also perish with its host, and often, only one in ten survived.
Yet, even with such a brutal method, the Yin clan continued generation after generation because cultivating one mother worm allowed them to control hundreds, even thousands, of other Gu worms.
As Nan Shiying read, she marvelled, but also felt a pang of sympathy. It was no wonder Si Nan Yue had refused to let her learn Gu arts. It wasn't learning; it was courting death.
The book "Gu Shu" detailed every type of Gu art mastered by the Yin family. The methods for removing Gu were almost negligible, as Gu was difficult to remove unless the host died. As for the love Gu planted by Mu Baiyu, only the Lan family of Miao Jiang excelled at it. Most of that lineage were women, and while their Gu arts were not strong, when it came to controlling people's hearts, the Lan family was the most formidable.
Besides killing the host, there was only one other way to remove the Gu: the infected person must genuinely fall in love with another. If, while infected, they uncontrollably fell in love with someone else, the Gu could naturally be dispelled.
This…
Nan Shiying found it rather difficult.
Love above all?
She was somewhat dismissive.
Nan Shiying thought for a moment, tucked the book "Gu Shu" into her embrace, and pushed open the door to leave.
Snow had begun to fall outside at some unknown time. Crystal snowflakes drifted down, painting the treetops with a touch of white. Du Lao sat by the open door, roasting himself by the fire. Seeing Nan Shiying emerge from the room, he lifted his eyelids and asked indifferently, "Finished?"
Nan Shiying tightened her fur coat and nodded. She actually wanted to ask Du Lao why he possessed the Yin clan's Gu Shu, but the words died on her lips, and she swallowed them back.
Du Lao clicked his tongue and gestured for Nan Shiying to sit.
Nan Shiying glanced at the small stool beside Du Lao, said nothing, and sat down.
"I... I'm not surnamed Qin."
The charcoal fire inside crackled like firecrackers. The firelight illuminated Du Lao's face, filling the lines on his face with fiery red light and shadow. He lowered his head, watching the burning charcoal, the flickering light falling into his eyes, stirring up distant memories he had long buried deep in his heart.
Du Lao's surname was not Qin, but Yin.
Yin of Yin and Yang.
Sixty years ago, the patriarch of the Yin clan in Miao Jiang had a new son.
He was named Yin Meng.
Meaning "encompassing Miao Jiang."
From the moment of his birth, the mother worms within the bodies of the Yin clan members wriggled and rejoiced, conveying a single message to all Yin clan members: the Gu worms had found their most suitable host.
Not long after his birth, the mother worm was injected into him prematurely. From his earliest memories, every Gu Yu festival, he would fall into endless torment, but for his elder brother, his suffering became the greatest reward.
Ever since Yin Meng was born, whether it was the clan members or people from other tribes, it was implicitly understood that Yin Meng would become the next patriarch and leader.
To secure the position of leader, his elder brother, a year before Yin Meng reached adulthood, mixed a certain herb into his food. This herb was not an acute poison but a chronic one, which he consumed for a full year.
"On the day of the coming-of-age ceremony, when the patriarch's elders were to extract the mother worm from my body, they discovered that the mother worm had already fused with my bone marrow and could not be extracted. That herb was not a poison, but a herb that stimulated the mother worm to secrete fluids madly. In reality, I should have died, but I was indeed the most suitable host for Gu worms. Even after a year of consuming the herb, the mother worm did not completely drain me. Instead, we became one."
"In fact, the reason why the various tribes of Miao Jiang would extract the mother worm after we reached adulthood was not only to further refine the mother worm after it had fully formed by soaking it in herbs, but also to alleviate our suffering. After the mother worm was extracted and reinserted, the fully formed mother worm would no longer secrete fluids and would not cause the host pain. But... since my mother worm could not be extracted, it meant that my torment would never disappear."
"And this torment would deepen with my age."
"After reaching adulthood, I fell out with my brother because of this matter, but having been unable to extract the mother worm, I had lost all value. Even when my father learned the truth of the matter, he did not punish my brother. Instead, because my brother had successfully cultivated the mother worm, he passed the position of patriarch to him."
"I could no longer stay in that place."
As Du Lao recounted this unknown past, he spoke with a detachment that made it seem as if he were talking about someone else's story. But did he truly not care? In fact, his reaction when Nan Shiying mentioned Gu masters was enough to show that this past was like a festering wound, deeply buried and wrapped in his heart, never able to heal, long rotten and cancerous.
It wasn't a question of whether it could heal, but whether it would be fatal.
"Later, I absconded with the Yin clan's 'Gu Shu,' changed my identity, and eventually went to Yaowang Valley to control the Gu worms within my body."
"The events that followed... are probably not worth mentioning."
Du Lao did not elaborate on what happened after joining Yaowang Valley. If Nan Shiying had not mentioned Gu masters and Gu arts, he might have kept this matter buried forever.
But...
"Miao Jiang was annihilated long ago, wasn't it?"
When he heard about it back then, Du Lao had returned. But that place, the place where he was born and raised, had already turned into ruins under the ravages of war. It was devastated and desolate, with no signs of life.
"Perhaps..."
Nan Shiying was about to say perhaps there were survivors, but then she changed her words: "There might still be survivors."
She glanced at Du Lao, pondered for a moment, and then asked, "Du Lao, if survivors from Miao Jiang entered the capital and harmed my friends..."
"Then kill them!"
A ruthless glint flashed in Du Lao's eyes. Before Nan Shiying could finish, the single word "kill" fell, carrying with it a surging killing intent.