Something wrong with the weapons? Nan Zhu and Mu Aotie were startled and did not react in time, staring at the bloodied hand that had been scratched.
Apart from the weapons, Yu Qing could not think of any other reason for the moment.
Of the nine people who had entered together, only the three martial brothers were unharmed. Logically speaking, that was rather unlikely. The biggest difference was that the three of them had not picked up weapons from the ancient tomb, and he had earlier seen the three constantly scratching the hand that held the weapon. Hence this suspicion.
However, having taken up that weapon, such bizarre symptoms appeared in such a short time. How would he dare let his two martial brothers touch them?
“Water, give me water!”
That person’s pleading voice grew increasingly anxious, his voice increasingly hoarse. The torch and knife in his hand fell to the ground together. His vision seemed to have blurred. He felt he could no longer see the three of them clearly. His hands groped and trembled in the air, searching.
He was no longer scratching, yet he was thirsty to the point of desperation.
“Thirsty, give me water!”
The other two labourers whose eyes had turned black also spoke up one after another, also approaching the three martial brothers one after another, shouting that they were thirsty and demanding water.
Yu Qing swept his hands back, blocking his two martial brothers as they retreated together, not letting the three men touch them.
Nan Zhu then tugged Yu Qing and Mu Aotie again, preventing the two from bumping into the three people sitting cross-legged behind them.
The martial brothers slowly retreated from between the six people.
Clang, clatter.
The weapons and the last two torches being held also fell to the ground. None of the six torches went out. They all burned on the ground, but the light inside the passage had already dimmed considerably.
The three people sitting cross-legged also seemed to have an unbearable urge to scratch again. One could see they were desperately restraining themselves, seemingly exerting their skills with all their might to resist. One could also see that something was greatly interfering with their concentrated resistance.
The three trembling, swaying, vision-impaired men drew closer and closer to the three sitting cross-legged.
Mu Aotie pointed and gestured, silently asking whether they should pull the three men away to avoid being bumped into.
Before a reply could come, the first person to undergo the strange change already went weak in the legs and thudded to the ground. His body convulsed. Something seemed to be stuck in his throat. He could no longer speak. Even his hoarse voice could barely come out. His hands clutched at his neck.
Soon after, his hands went limp. His convulsing body also relaxed. The person suddenly went completely still.
One after another.
The other two also collapsed in succession. After a bout of convulsions, they too went still.
It looked as though they had already died suddenly. The three martial brothers dared not reach out to touch them and check whether they had stopped breathing.
Yu Qing also dared not touch the torches they had held. He extended an unlit torch, borrowed the flame on the ground to light it, and walked lightly to the knife that had fallen on the ground. He knelt on one knee, brought the torch close to the large knife for light, and bent down to stare and observe carefully.
Nan Zhu and Mu Aotie also wanted to know what was happening. They also walked over and squatted down to look.
Under the torchlight, the three discovered something abnormal on the knife handle. There were fine threads on the handle, like the thinnest spider silk, about a finger’s length, and black in colour. In this environment, one would not easily notice them without careful observation. Even if one touched them, one probably would not feel them without paying special attention.
The biggest discovery was that these fine threads seemed to be alive. They seemed to have some sensitivity to temperature. When the torch drew near, the black threads immediately drifted slowly, like sunflowers turning towards the sun.
After this discovery, Yu Qing pressed the torch against them. He found that though the thing yearned for warmth, it feared high temperatures. It scorched when touched by fire.
Yu Qing immediately used the torch to burn the blade all over, kicking it with his toes to turn it and burn it repeatedly.
“What are you doing?” Nan Zhu asked in alarm.
Yu Qing, “If we do not figure out exactly how people are being affected, we will not know how to defend against it. How would we dare continue charging inwards? If we do not find another exit in the ancient tomb, we will be walking to our deaths if we go out.”
Nan Zhu and Mu Aotie exchanged a glance. They had to admit, that was indeed the case.
After thoroughly passing the blade through fire, after burning it fiercely once over, Yu Qing dared to reach out and take the handle. Then he stood up, walked to the labourer who seemed to have died, knelt on one knee again, observed the handle in a circle, and brought the place with black threads close to the back of the dead man’s hand.
Nan Zhu and Mu Aotie immediately came over and also knelt on one knee to observe.
The dead man had not been dead long. His body still retained some warmth. The black threads on the handle indeed sensed it again. They drifted softly and slowly touched the back of the dead man’s hand. The pores of the human skin emitted heat. After the black threads briefly touched the dead man’s skin, they accurately located the positions of the pores. The ends began to slowly seep in along the pores.
So that was it. The three martial brothers raised their heads one after another and looked at each other. They had finally figured out the cause of the victims’ fate.
“What kind of devilish thing is this, to silently and invisibly take a person’s life so quickly?” Nan Zhu muttered.
Yu Qing released the knife in his hand. “Indeed fast. It has only been a short while. The most fatal thing is that when one’s body is clearly abnormal, scratching oneself until bleeding, one actually does not notice anything wrong. One does not even know to react. After this thing enters the body, it also affects this place.” He pointed at the dead man’s head, then pointed at the three people sitting cross-legged.
If those three had not witnessed their companions’ condition with their own eyes, forming a clear contrast with themselves, they probably would not have realised they had been affected either.
However, those three people seemed to have slowly stabilised. They no longer had that abnormal restlessness. The pores in certain parts of some people’s bodies were already oozing blood.
Those who knew the trade understood at a glance. Mu Aotie said in a deep voice, “Good, they have stabilised. They are currently using their skills to force the poison out of their bodies.”
Nan Zhu had to remind in a low voice, “Their cultivation is far higher than ours. If it were us, it might be very strenuous.”
This sentence did remind Yu Qing. He called out, “Insect repellent medicine, give it to me.”
Having just witnessed the verification, knowing their little martial brother was not messing about, Mu Aotie did not hesitate. He immediately pulled out an iron disc from his bosom.
Yu Qing, “Open it.”
Mu Aotie pried open the iron disc, revealing the waxy yellow medicinal paste inside, emitting a pungent, spicy odour.
This was precisely the small item that people of the martial world carried when travelling to guard against mosquito bites and insect stings.
Yu Qing picked up the knife again and brought the black threads on the handle close to the medicinal paste to observe the reaction. The result was that the black threads reacted very strongly. The moment it drew near, it immediately shrank back.
Yu Qing extended the back of his hand holding the torch. “Smear a patch on the back of my hand.”
Mu Aotie roughly understood his meaning. He did not listen to him. He scraped a finger of medicinal paste and directly smeared it on the back of his own hand. After spreading it, he presented the back of his hand to Yu Qing.
Yu Qing was not polite either. He again brought the black threads on the knife handle close to the back of Mu Aotie’s hand, wanting to see whether human body temperature could tempt the black threads to break through the medicinal paste’s defence. The result was encouraging. The black threads dared not touch the human body smeared with medicinal paste. The medicinal paste had an obvious defensive effect.
“Alright, this thing is not that terrifying after all.” Yu Qing felt relieved.
However, the corpse before the three of them reacted at this moment. The corpse actually moved. The corpse’s throat made gurgling sounds.
The three people’s gazes snapped towards it. They saw the corpse’s neck was bulging, swelling. His cheeks were also puffing up. And the corpse was rapidly withering.
What the devil? The three hurriedly stood up, observing the corpse’s reaction, slowly retreating.
Suddenly, the corpse opened its mouth. A snake-like thing shot out from within.
The three were startled. Looking closely, they discovered it was not a snake. It was a black plant, growing rapidly at a speed visible to the naked eye, quickly branching and leafing out. The corpse supporting it was rapidly withering.
One could clearly see that the reason this demonic black plant could grow so quickly was that it was absorbing from the corpse below.
The plant’s growth speed and the corpse’s withering speed were directly proportional.
Not just one plant. The other two corpses were also withering. Black plants also successively grew from their mouths.
The plant soon grew taller than a person, its posture bewitching and winding, like a vine branch. Each branch only grew one dark leaf. When it grew to about a zhang in height, it stopped. The tip began to bloom with a faint white light, a grain of rice glowing with a faint, translucent brightness.
The three martial brothers beneath the vine branch were thoroughly shocked. They looked up, witnessing this scene for the first time in their lives.
The three people sitting cross-legged beneath the vine branch kept their eyes closed and hearts detached, concentrating wholeheartedly on resisting the thing inside their bodies, with no attention to spare for anything outside.
At the tip of the demonic plant, that grain of rice was rapidly growing larger, gradually reaching the size of an egg, still continuing to expand. The light body also grew larger and larger.
The supporting corpse had completely turned to skin and bones, already withered like a skeleton. Yet the light sphere it supported was still expanding.
On the other two plants entangled with the first vine branch, light also successively bloomed at their tips.
The larger the light sphere grew, the more beautiful it became. The light was soft and pure white, illuminating this passage space, making the torchlight feel ashamed by comparison. It made people feel very pure, pleasing to the eye, truly beautiful.
It was also hard to imagine that such a demonic plant could produce such a beautiful thing.
The light sphere continued to expand, growing larger and larger. Only when the surface attachments were separated by space did people discover that the surroundings of the light sphere were covered with fine, snow-white soft threads. Every drifting thread emitted a holy, soft white light.
As it expanded, the base of the soft threads, the sphere supporting their growth, grew increasingly transparent, like a glowing, radiant glass cover.
The light sphere at this moment looked like a giant dandelion.
Just when the light sphere had expanded to the size of a washbasin.
Bang!
Like a blown-up sphere, it suddenly exploded.
The sound of the explosion was not loud, but it was too abrupt. In this quiet underground space, it made people’s hearts jump.
Countless snow-white soft threads flew in all directions, all emitting soft and holy white light, drifting towards all directions. Each one waved in the air like ripples, like a large school of fish hatching from their sacs and swimming towards freedom in all directions. The scene was so beautiful it broke one’s heart.
Yet Yu Qing and the other two dared not peacefully appreciate this beauty.
No one who had witnessed the growth process of this demonic plant dared to.
Hearing the explosion, seeing this situation, the three martial brothers immediately flashed backwards, avoiding being touched by the soft white light threads.
“Those three!” Mu Aotie pointed at the cross-legged meditators being lightly kissed by many white lights.
Yet at this moment, the three martial brothers’ pupils contracted almost simultaneously. They had no time to worry about those three cross-legged meditators and rapidly flashed backwards.
Only because the countless light threads drifting this way were gradually extinguishing the radiance on their bodies. From beginning to end, they shed their light and turned black.
Without the light affecting vision, the true size of the threads themselves was exposed. They were precisely the black fine threads Yu Qing and the other two had seen on the knife handle earlier. How could they not be alarmed? How would they dare let them touch them?