The Strange Gu of Western Hunan: The Corpse-Suppressing Ridge

In the 17th year of the Republic of China, it rained for forty consecutive days in western Hunan. Overnight, black water flowed from the upper reaches of the Mengdong River at Corpse-Suppressing Ridge, and the water contained incomplete corpses with Gu bred in their bellies. Luo Qianyan, the last tomb robber of the Xieling lineage, had blinded himself to avoid 'Wang Sha' (gazing at evil spirits). He had dominated the border of Hunan and Guizhou for twenty years, commanding over three hundred 'Guashan guests' who made their fortune by robbing tombs. Yet he never dared to touch Corpse-Suppressing Ridge—not because he didn't want to, but because he didn't dare. Legend had it that the ridge was the ancestral grave of the Miao 'Gu breeders', and what was buried there was not a corpse, but a 'Gu mother'. At the same time, Cen Jiuchan, the sole heir of the Banshan Daoist lineage, followed the clues in the clan's remnant scroll 'Mountain Moving Art' to pursue a 'Soul-Devouring Golden Silkworm Gu' to western Hunan. The Banshan lineage had sworn since the late Ming to 'seek the pearl to quench thirst', but what Cen Jiuchan sought was not the Muchen Pearl, but the 'Wu King's Gu Cauldron' that could cure the 'Jue Si Gu' (curse of no offspring). Legend said that the Gu raised in the cauldron could alter bloodlines and continue family lines, and the decline of the Banshan lineage over the past hundred years hinged entirely on it. — Description from novelcodex.org