This was definitely problematic, the three of them could be certain. They even suspected it was related to the earth spring, as all three had been soaked in its waters. Otherwise, it made no sense that only the three of them in the entire Miao Qing Hall should suffer such physical discomfort.
Ever since getting wet with the earth spring water, Nan Zhu and Mu Aotie had harboured a nagging worry that something might go wrong. Now, it truly felt like their fears had come to pass.
In any case, this discomfort was not overly distressing. It did not affect daily life, nor did it affect cultivation. Everything was normal. But the psychological impact was enormous. Over time, it had taken a severe toll on the trio’s mental state.
If it were merely persistent discomfort, that would be one thing. The problem was the connection to the earth spring. Who knew what kind of mutation might occur?
The torment had continued until today, when the three brothers finally could endure it no longer. They finally decided to take a knife to themselves. Even if they had to cut open their own bodies, they had to see what was going on. Otherwise, the feeling of a sword hanging constantly overhead, ready to fall at any moment, was unbearable.
Once the scene was set, they shut the door for privacy, preventing irrelevant outsiders from seeing.
Nan Zhu threw Big Head into a basin of boiling water. Wu Hei was already long used to this and paid no mind to Big Head’s ability to ward off evil. His own and his son’s blood could also ward off evil.
Mu Aotie was sterilising a small knife over burning strong liquor.
Yu Qing stripped off his upper garments and lay prone on a long table, his chin resting beyond the table’s edge, his head hanging down.
Wu Hei immediately lent a hand, helping to hold up an extra lamp for better light.
Mu Aotie, pinching the small knife, stood at the head of the table. With one hand, he felt the back of Yu Qing’s neck, locating the protruding spinous process. He asked, “Ready?”
Yu Qing, lying there, smiled bitterly, “Go on, clean and quick. Whatever you do, don’t make it a slow slicing of flesh.”
Mu Aotie, “I won’t. Use your internal power to suppress the blood vessels, don’t let the blood seep out.”
Yu Qing gave a soft grunt and immediately drained the colour from the back of his neck, turning it deathly pale.
Mu Aotie grabbed the strong liquor and poured it over the back of Yu Qing’s neck. Setting down the liquor, he patted the area briefly with his palm. Once again locating the spinous process, the knife in his hand flashed, swiftly slicing open the skin on the back of Yu Qing’s neck. A thin line of blood appeared, but no obvious bleeding.
Yu Qing merely tensed the corners of his mouth, enduring the pain in silence. The strong liquor seeping into the wound was truly unpleasant.
Mu Aotie pressed two fingers against the wound, pulling it apart to the left and right, exposing the spinous process on Yu Qing’s neck.
The other two immediately leaned in close to look. After just one glance, the three exchanged glances. They then looked again carefully. They saw that this spinous process had turned two colours. Half was white bone, while the other half was shockingly a brilliant golden hue.
Mu Aotie raised the knife, gently tapping the golden area with the back of the blade. It actually produced a clear metallic clanging sound.
Yu Qing, enduring the pain as he lay there, heard something was wrong, “What’s the situation?”
The three said nothing, as they could not explain it clearly for the moment. Nan Zhu patted the back of Yu Qing’s head, indicating him not to move.
The three continued staring at the mutated area, observing closely. They discovered that the transition zone where the white bone met the golden bone was remarkably natural.
Mu Aotie suddenly made another cut, lengthening the wound further up and down to examine the other neck bones. The result showed that all other bones were normal. Only the spinous process had undergone mutation.
Having roughly understood what the itching under the skin was about, Mu Aotie began to clean Yu Qing’s wound, then bandaged his neck.
Yu Qing, now finished, got up. Shirtless, he felt the back of his neck and asked, “What happened?”
“You’ll see when you look.” Mu Aotie gave this reply, then indicated for Nan Zhu to take off his clothes.
Nan Zhu also cooperated. Once his upper garments were removed, that body of fat was remarkably fair and tender, beautiful!
Like Yu Qing, he lay prone. After a brief preparation of the back of his neck, Mu Aotie made another cut.
The examination results were more or less the same as Yu Qing’s. The spinous process on the back of his neck had indeed also mutated. However, the area of golden bone was clearly smaller than Yu Qing’s.
After cleaning and dressing the wound, Nan Zhu got up. It was then Mu Aotie’s turn to strip off his upper garments and lie prone, with Yu Qing taking the knife.
The result was the same. The spinous process on the back of his neck, where the itching under the skin had been, also showed a golden mutation. But his degree of mutation was the smallest.
After all three had taken a knife to themselves, cutting open flesh to examine, and comparing with one another, they had their answer. Wu Hei gave the conclusion, “Old Fifteen’s mutation is the greatest, Old Seven is next, Old Nine is the least.”
Having spent a long time together, he had caught up with everyone’s forms of address.
As the three silently put their clothes back on, Nan Zhu sighed, “It seems our guess was correct. It is indeed related to the earth spring. The degree of mutation perfectly matches the amount of spring water each of us was soaked in.”
Having confirmed the guess, Yu Qing felt guilty. Old Seven and Old Nine had been dragged into this by him. That was no longer important now. What mattered was the problem of the mutation itself. “I can sense that over these past few months, the area of mutation has been slowly expanding.”
Mu Aotie raised his hand to feel the bandaged wound on the back of his neck, “That’s right.”
Nan Zhu asked Wu Hei, “What will happen if this mutation continues?”
Wu Hei, “I don’t know. Even that strongman doesn’t know. My father previously asked the strongman, saying both of their brothers had soaked in the earth spring, so why were their conditions completely different? Even their transformed forms were different. The strongman said, people have a thousand faces, and the earth spring cannot make a thousand people into one face. Everything can only vary from person to person. Whatever kind of disposition one has, one will get whatever kind of result. It is difficult to predict beforehand. One may know a person’s face but not their heart.”
Yu Qing thought of what the iron-faced man had looked like after transforming, which was also different from the transformations of the three masters of Liegu Manor. He asked, “I recall you saying you did not want to continue this neither-human-nor-ghost existence with Little Black. You can also transform?”
Wu Hei nodded.
Yu Qing was curious, “What do you look like after transforming?”
Wu Hei brushed over it vaguely, “In any case, not good-looking.”
Nan Zhu, “If the mutation on our bodies continues to spread, will we ultimately also become neither human nor ghost?”
Wu Hei did not answer. He took the small knife from the side, cleaned it, then directly sliced open the back of his left middle finger. He pulled the wound apart, exposing the finger bone for the three to see.
The three were speechless after looking. They discovered that Wu He’s finger bone was also golden.
Wu Hei wrapped his finger wound with cloth, “All the bones in my body are like this. As for what you will ultimately become, I also don’t know. It may vary from person to person.”
Nan Zhu’s face twitched, “Don’t scare me. Even becoming like you would be fine. At least we know you are still alright, and you have lived long enough. What is happening to us? If the mutation spreads throughout the entire body and that becomes our death sentence, that would be tragic. Many patients are like that.”
The terror of the unknown, the unpredictable, is the most frightening of all.
Hearing him speak so frighteningly, Mu Aotie comforted, “Don’t scare yourself. It has only mutated this much over several months.”
What was the point of continuing to discuss when they would die, or when they would turn into what kind of monster?
The room suddenly fell silent. Everyone’s mood was heavy.
The door opened, and after they all came out, Wu Hei went to the study to watch his son practise calligraphy. Mu Aotie was tidying up the room.
Nan Zhu sat on the steps beneath the eaves, chin propped in both hands. Perhaps wanting to break the atmosphere, he muttered, “I wonder when Youya will post new missions. If we can complete a mission and exchange it for some money, it should help resolve our financial predicament.”
Yu Qing, arms folded, leaning against a pillar beneath the eaves, glanced toward the pitch-black direction of Youya and said blandly, “If missions are posted again, would you still dare to take them?”
Nan Zhu understood his meaning. The previous mastermind had already grasped some of their situation. Learning from past mistakes, they did not dare take Youya missions lightly. Going down this path made them easy targets. To stumble again down the old road would be their own foolishness.
They had originally wanted to go find some work. A group of Xuan-level cultivators going out to work for others should be able to earn quite a bit in a year. It would be better than sitting here eating away their reserves. Especially Wu Hei, an upper Xuan cultivator going out to work, the wages would be very high. Plus, if the shop sold some ice souls, they might scrape together next year’s interest money.
Speaking of which, this actually made them somewhat puzzled. A group of people working themselves to the bone, yet the money earned was all for someone else.
The problem was, let alone going out to earn wages, they did not even dare leave Youjiao Bu lightly now.
If the iron-faced man’s total annihilation meant the mastermind had been unable to grasp the situation in time, allowing them to smoothly return to Youjiao Bu, what about now? The mastermind definitely already knew of their return. Would the mastermind not want to know what exactly had happened?
But the strange thing was exactly here. Yu Qing had sent a letter via a Thousand-Li Messenger to Blue Treasure Lake. In reply, Ning Chaoyi and Shen Qingcheng informed him that they too were waiting for the mastermind to come find them. Yet these past few months had passed peacefully, with no abnormalities whatsoever. That pair of man and woman also found it strange.
Everyone could be certain that a mastermind definitely existed, and that the forces they could mobilise were vast.
After returning to Youjiao Bu, Yu Qing investigated the background of that Panlong Island Lord Su. The result was that Panlong Island had experienced an inexplicable conflict, and Lord Su had died tragically. Rumour was that he had provoked some unknown enemy. But Yu Qing and the others knew he had likely been silenced.
They also confirmed that the iron-faced man had been talking nonsense. He was not Lord Su at all. As Bai Lan had cursed at the time, Lord Su was human, not demon. The iron-faced man was a demon cultivator. Lord Su had died before the iron-faced man.
The power of an upper Xuan cultivator, silenced just like that, eliminated just like that. This was not something just anyone could accomplish.
Furthermore, to deal with him, Yu Qing, the mastermind had deliberately used Bai Lan and the other four demons as a smokescreen. This gave them the feeling that although the mastermind’s power was vast, they were extremely cautious, not daring to expose themselves in the slightest. Were they afraid other powers might also get involved?
Thinking of this, Yu Qing, leaning against the pillar, sighed. These past days, his mind had been turning over these matters. Unable to figure out who the mastermind was, it was difficult to make targeted precautions.
Now, having confirmed that the mutations on the three brothers’ bodies were related to the earth spring, his heart carried an added burden of guilt. He had harmed Old Seven and Old Nine.
All the way until the next morning, he was still restless, reclining on the couch pondering this matter.
Nan Zhu, however, came rushing over excitedly. He directly knocked open Yu Qing’s door, ran in and shouted excitedly, “Old Fifteen, look, look.”
Yu Qing sat up, not knowing what to look at.
Nan Zhu turned his back to him, pulling down his collar to show him the back of his neck.
Yu Qing looked closely, and was immediately stunned, thinking he had seen wrong. This fellow Old Seven’s neck actually showed not even a scar.