Looking at Xiang Xueyuan suddenly getting interested, Nie Qingkong and Xifu exchanged glances and quickly followed.
Xifu still had many unanswered questions about Nie Qingkong's inexplicable words the previous night.
Why did Nie Qingkong want her to leave?
Were there any problems with their current life?
Hadn't they always lived this way?
Wasn't their current situation much better than when they were in the orphanage?
She didn't want to leave, she only wanted to be with Nie Qingkong.
Why did she want her to leave?
Was it because of Xia Qingyu?
Did Xia Qingyu want to drive her away?
But Nie Qingkong's expression yesterday didn't seem like he was being forced by Xia Qingyu to drive her away, but rather that he had foreseen some danger...
Xifu didn't know, she was very panicked but dared not ask again.
This feeling seemed to take her back to her childhood, before her mother died, before her father was arrested.
"Will you leave with Mom?"
Xifu remembered that not long before her mother's death, one day she reached out to the girl who was playing with dolls: "Mom will take you to your uncle's house to play, okay? Do you remember your uncle?"
"Mm, okay." Xifu didn't think much of it. She just placed her hand in her mother's palm, revealing a sweet smile.
For Xifu, it didn't matter where she went.
So, they snuck away together, without telling her father. Her mother took her to her uncle's house overnight.
That night, she and her mother had dinner at her uncle's house. Her uncle seemed not to be on good terms with her mother, and her mother kept crying. Her uncle seemed to be very angry.
Her aunt seemed to be scolding her uncle, or perhaps her mother, she couldn't remember clearly.
It was just that the next morning, her father arrived. He knelt before her mother, slapping himself and crying and shouting, appearing very pitiable.
Then, her uncle and aunt put her and her mother back into her father's very old blue second-hand car.
Xifu was held in her mother's arms, and she could feel her mother trembling all over, her face deathly pale.
Xifu looked at her father outside the car window. She saw her father finish talking to her uncle, turn around, open the car door, and smile.
It was the same smile she had seen before.
Xifu didn't understand at the time. Her father, who had been slapping himself and crying uncontrollably at her uncle's house just moments ago, looking so sad and regretful, how could he suddenly smile in the blink of an eye?
That smile was bone-chillingly cold, making her fearful.
After they returned, Xifu found many people waiting at home, looking at her mother with lecherous smiles.
Her mother turned to run with Xifu, but her father caught her. He knelt and begged her mother to help him one last time, just one last time.
Her mother cursed him with words Xifu had never heard before, hurling insults at him.
It was all in vain.
Xifu stood by the door and watched as her mother was dragged into the room, her cries and curses drowned out by lewd laughter.
After that, her mother took her and escaped twice more. The first time was because she was hungry, and her mother went to buy her food. She was spotted by her father's friends, and soon they were caught and brought back.
That time, her father did not kneel and beg her mother. He raised his hand and hit her mother for the first time. He avoided her mother's beautiful and alluring face and hit her body.
The second time, her mother took her and ran for a very long time. They spent a week safely in a strange city until one evening, the police found them.
Her father reported to the police, saying that her mother had absconded with the family's money and his beloved daughter. He would give up anything but he had to find his daughter.
He claimed that he and her mother only had a small disagreement, and her mother had a mental illness. When she went mad, she might harm his daughter.
He knelt at the police station, wailing, begging them to help him find his deeply loved family.
Her mother roared madly that time, denouncing her father's crimes, but no one believed her.
After that, her mother despaired.
She stopped running and stopped crying.
She calmly faced and accepted every man who came to their home.
At that time, Xifu felt as if her mother had become a soulless doll.
She wanted to say something to her mother, but she didn't know what to say. She stood in front of her mother, thought for a long time, then squatted down, looked directly into her mother's eyes, and said, "Mom, let's run. This time, just you."
...
"Xifu?" Nie Qingkong looked at Xifu, who seemed to be zoning out, and nudged her with his elbow. "What are you thinking about? Watch your step."
"Hm? Oh." Xifu snapped back to attention and gave Nie Qingkong a dry smile.
She didn't know why she had been reminiscing about her childhood so often lately.
She looked around and realized they had passed through the waterfall and were now about to enter a dark stone cave.
"This should be where the Lu Miao Tang families chose to hide their treasures back then," Mad Doctor said, walking at the front with Xiang Xueyuan, fiddling with his instruments. "The air concentration and humidity ahead are very suitable for the Miao family to raise Gu worms. This first trial should be the Miao family's Gu."
"What a shame. Miao Er was captured by them. Otherwise, this trial wouldn't be difficult for him," Xiang Xueyuan thought of Uncle Miao Er at this moment. Uncle Miao Er had also secretly handled many people for him back then.
"Don't worry, I have a set of ultrasonic tools here. Once the frequency is loaded, it can cause those Gu worms to become confused and enter a dormant mode," Mad Doctor clearly had researched this part beforehand. He chuckled, looking as if he enjoyed watching the show. "When they wake up from their dormant mode, even the Miao people themselves might be attacked indiscriminately."
Hearing this, Xiang Xueyuan also chuckled, "Heh, interesting."
Mad Doctor tuned the ultrasound frequency and then had someone carry the square machine directly inside.
Not long after, they heard that person's sharp, eerie screams, seemingly attacked by Gu worms.
The sound was so sinister and piercing, lasting for a full 20 minutes. Even Xifu felt her scalp tingle and her body felt uncomfortable. Her face was pale, as if she had fallen into some bad memory, looking like she might faint at any moment.
Nie Qingkong frowned and reached out to cover Xifu's ears.
Xifu was slightly stunned and looked up at Nie Qingkong, her eyes shining brightly.
She knew it; Nie Qingkong had never changed.
"After being hungry for so long, we have to give those little guys something sweet to taste," Mad Doctor giggled dismissively, slowly adjusting the controller in his hand.
After another half hour, Mad Doctor led them inside.
There was no unusual activity, but the smell in the air was somewhat unpleasant.
It was like moldy soil mixed with the sourness of vegetation, with a hint of chilling bloodlust in between.
"Look, these little guys are all asleep." Mad Doctor wore a round searchlight on his forehead. Where the light shone, dense clusters of worm eggs and bodies could be seen, which was very horrifying.
Finally, the light source fell on a skeleton wrapped in clothes, its hand bone tightly gripping a square machine.