The moment that term surfaced in their minds, a few moments of absolute silence hung in the air.
“Is it the Potter’s Field?” the scar-faced man asked, though he had already confirmed it eight or nine parts out of ten in his heart, still finding it too hard to believe.
Bei Si gave a slight nod in response.
This exchange had already wasted several minutes; there was no telling when the members of the He clan might catch up to them.
“Don’t you have a clan head and a first elder?” Chi Xinyan asked, looking innocently curious. Yet his words made both the storyteller and the scar-faced man hesitant to underestimate him, prompting them both to ponder the underlying meaning behind his question.
The commotion earlier had been so massive, yet neither the clan head nor the first elder had shown their faces throughout. That simply shouldn’t have happened unless they weren’t anywhere near the manor.
“Follow me, I know where the Potter’s Field is,” the storyteller replied immediately, while inwardly steeling himself for the possibility of running into those two figures back at the graveyard.
Bei Si turned his head to look at Chi Xinyan, and the moment he met his partner’s eyes, he knew precisely what the other was about to say. Just as Bei Si was about to open his mouth, Chi Xinyan immediately lowered his eyelashes, his cat-like eyes narrowing into a pitifully mournful squint as he murmured, “It’s fine… Even though the road will be dark, surely I won’t get caught by anyone again.”
That utterly pathetic and miserable display made it impossible for anyone to harbor even a shred of annoyance; instead, it tugged unbearably at the heartstrings with deep pity.
Not to mention how fiercely protective Bei Si was of his beloved. The scene from earlier had been genuinely harrowing, and he dared not leave Chi Xinyan behind by himself again. Besides, his own cultivation was more than enough to protect the other effortlessly.
“You can rest assured following by my side. Just tell me if you get scared later,” Bei Si offered a helpless smile, wrapping an arm around Chi Xinyan’s shoulder, before turning his gaze cold and indifferent toward the others. “Let’s move.”
The storyteller immediately took the lead, though his mind replayed the fleeting smile that had just crossed Chi Xinyan’s face it carried the distinct flavor of a successful scheme. Oh well, he thought, just a bit of playful banter between a wedded couple.
The night was sinking and heavy, the woods deep and gloomy. A chill wind howled as it brushed past the treetops, carrying a rustling whisper. The closer they drew to their destination, the more desolate and eerie the surroundings became, overgrown with wild, untamed weeds.
Before they even fully arrived, a sickening stench of decay surged straight toward them, resembling a foul mixture of rotten eggs and spoiled meat, exceptionally revolting. And worse still, this place didn’t just hold a single corpse—it held tens of thousands, a horror no ordinary person could possibly withstand.
The storyteller cast a sidelong glance and found that this “mortal” was actually calm as water, completely unaffected by the foul stench, remaining far more composed than he, a cultivator, was. Caught off guard, he locked eyes with those light brown pupils that appeared unusually dark and heavy in the night, while the pupils themselves shone with a startling clarity. A chill crept over the storyteller’s heart.
A crisp sound of bones cracking rang out sharply. The storyteller shivered, looked down, and realized he had stepped upon a skull, crushing it completely into shards. Several sections of bone protruded halfway from the black mud, and a withered, curled hand jutted out sideways, blocking their path.
Being veterans who had witnessed bloodshed and killed before, the group pressed forward steadily. Skeletal remains were piled high like hills and stretched endlessly in an unbroken line. Writhing maggots crawled across decomposing corpses, flies buzzed in flight, and scavenging crows pecked at rotten flesh, their blood-red eyes staring fixedly at the newcomers.
“It’s He Yan!” the scar-faced man cried out loudly, startling a few crows into taking flight. Realizing his voice was far too loud, he hurriedly lowered his tone. “Over there!”
They saw a female cultivator lying on the outer perimeter of the corpse pile, her entire body smeared with fresh blood and surrounding filth, making it impossible to recognize her former yellow clan robes. Only her exposed face retained enough features to barely make out who she was.
Since the scar-faced man possessed an impulsive nature, seeing the remains of his fellow sect member completely shattered his composure, and he immediately dashed forward. The crows that had been pecking at the body were startled into spreading their wings and flying off, only to land a short distance away to continue watching.
Trembling, the scar-faced man stared at the corpse, which had barely retained any human shape. Her face was stained a purplish-red, and a gaping, bloody cavern marred the spot where her heart should have been—her heart had been completely gouged out.
“Why did they… why did they dig out her heart…”
The person who had been vibrant and full of life just yesterday was now reduced to this cold, lifeless skeleton. Past memories flashed vividly through his mind. He dropped to his knees, reaching out a hand as if wanting to touch the other person.
“Don’t move,” Bei Si commanded.
At any time and in any place, acting rashly and touching things arbitrarily before understanding the situation was always a major taboo.
The crows looked profoundly strange. Their gazes were observing every single move they made, as though… someone was monitoring their actions right through the eyes of those crows!
But it was already too late!
Though the scar-faced man heard the warning and tried to halt, his reaction was a fraction of a second too slow. His hand froze mid-air. Just as he wanted to ask what was wrong, he watched in utter horror as those tightly shut eyes snapped wide open instantly!
Red-rimmed pupils stared straight at him. Before he could even pull his hand back, He Yan’s half-decayed hand shot forward with terrifying force and clamped tightly around the scar-faced man’s wrist!
Having been dead for a full day, the body had grown strangely soft, yet her fingers were chillingly cold and possessed an astonishing, abnormal strength that made the scar-faced man’s hair stand on end.
He desperately tried to wrench his arm free. Despite possessing a sturdy physical build, he threw all his might into the struggle yet failed to break away at all. Meanwhile, the flock of crows went completely berserk, swooping down toward him in a frantic charge, snapping their beaks and pecking at him as if he were their feast.
Looking at that face, half-familiar and half-alien, he trembled at the lips, gritted his teeth, hoisted his broadsword, and slashed viciously down at the arm!
With a sharp crack, bone splintered apart, flesh and muscle tearing separate, yet that severed hand still clamped onto his wrist. The scar-faced man hurriedly shook it off and discarded it, swinging his blade to beat back the descending crows in mid-air.
The crows shrieked harshly, their caws sharp and grating. Channeling his inner energy down to his dantian, the scar-faced man let out an angry roar. A blast of turbulent air surged outward, blowing the crows away. Yet that wasn’t the end of it—more crows materialized from nowhere, attacking the four of them in an endless, continuous stream. Their black feathers blended seamlessly into the dark night, leaving only their glowing red eyes distinct. Countless pairs of eyes floated densely suspended in the air.
“Why are these crows attacking us?” The scar-faced man felt a wave of panic, wondering if his reckless action had triggered this disaster. As he fought back fiercely, he felt an unexplainable surge of physical exhaustion weighing him down. He muttered, “Is it because I touched that corpse?”
“Someone is monitoring us through the crows,” Bei Si stated calmly. His sword danced with exquisite precision, weaving a succession of glittering sword flowers that carved out a complete vacuum zone around him, preventing even a single crow from brushing against himself or Chi Xinyan.
With so many crows filling the air, continuing this stalemate clearly wasn’t a long-term solution.
“Ah!” the storyteller suddenly let out a startled scream. His foot had been caught by something, and the tightening pressure came from withered hands—skeletal hands protruding halfway out of the soil!
Two or three withered hands grabbed the storyteller’s legs, dragging him downward!
Thud, thud, thud…
The sound of churning earth broke out. Buried skeletal hands clawed frantically through the dirt, lunging to grab at them! Several sets of dry, brittle bones scraped their way out of the earth, scrambling up with trembling frames to launch a ferocious assault!
Outwardly keeping his head lowered, Chi Xinyan was actually observing everything around them with sharp, covert watchfulness. Seeing a skeletal hand about to brush against Bei Si’s side, he casually flicked his foot. That skeletal hand shot out like a cannonball, crashing violently clack, clack, clack into the other piles of dry bones in a brutal collision!
Hearing a sudden chorus of splintering bones, the other three turned their heads in astonishment, only to see that entire patch of skeletal remains knocked flat onto the ground like tumbling dominoes. The ones in front hadn’t even managed to climb up before the ones behind tripped over them, creating absolute chaos.
Chi Xinyan had merely intended to kick that single skeletal hand away, never expecting it to trigger a chain reaction.
“Impressive,” Bei Si praised with an indulgent, doting tone, and Chi Xinyan returned a shy, bashful smile.
The storyteller silently turned his head away, launching a flurry of violent attacks against the skeletal hands still clinging relentlessly to his trouser legs.
Dividing his attention, Bei Si fought back while searching for the mechanism behind the formation.
Standing right behind Bei Si, Chi Xinyan locked eyes with the glowing red eyes of the crows. A faint, crimson glint gradually bled into his light brown pupils. A few crows froze blankly in mid-air, flapping their wings a couple of times before turning around to fly against the current of the massive flock. Amidst the dark, swirling mass of birds, no one paid any attention to those few exceptions.
In the blink of an eye, his perspective shifted into an aerial view. Through the eyes of the birds, he surveyed a much wider expanse: the sea of corpses and bones seemed to stretch on infinitely with no end in sight, revealing that practically everything within his field of vision was piled high with the dead.
Bei Si’s remaining hand grasped Chi Xinyan tightly. As a sudden memory of suspicion surfaced, he retraced their steps: along their entire journey here, there had been no abnormalities whatsoever… until the moment the scar-faced man made direct physical contact with He Yan’s corpse.
During their earlier conversation, the storyteller had mentioned that He Yan had been killed by a sword piercing through her heart, whereas the scar-faced man had cried out in shock that her heart had been completely hollowed out.
They needed to examine that corpse.
Unwilling to leave Chi Xinyan exposed, Bei Si swung his sword in a wide arc to fend off the swooping crows and crawling skeletons, drawing closer to He Yan’s corpse—a task that required virtually no effort for him.
He glanced sideways and noticed that Chi Xinyan wore an expression of slight, uncharacteristic absent-mindedness, though it vanished in the blink of an eye as the other blinked and returned to normal.
The closer they drew to the corpse pile, the more oppressive and nauseating the stench of decay grew. Bei Si’s expression remained completely unchanged. “Close your eyes if you’re afraid.”
Chi Xinyan gave a slight nod in response.
Thud!
The heavy sound of a body hitting the ground echoed out. The scar-faced man’s knees buckled, driving him straight onto the earth. He planted his broadsword into the ground to barely support his weight, his lips turning pale white. The scars across his face began to seep fresh blood, dyeing his entire face crimson and making his appearance terrifyingly gruesome.
The storyteller was so startled by the scar-faced man’s condition that his quick-witted brain froze blankly for a full second, leaving an opening for a nearby crow. His head was viciously pecked a few times before he snapped back to reality, swinging his folding fan like a boomerang to bat away several crows, and lunged toward the scar-faced man, intending to reach him the very next second.
Yet he stopped himself abruptly, his brows furrowing deep. Up until they arrived at the Potter’s Field, everything had been completely normal. And now, out of the four of them, only the scar-faced man was suffering abnormalities. What distinguished the scar-faced man from the rest of them was the fact that he had physically touched that corpse.
Therefore, there was an extremely high probability that He Yan’s corpse carried a highly contagious poison one powerful enough that even someone with the scar-faced man’s cultivation level couldn’t resist it.
Leaving the scar-faced man behind was entirely out of the question. He could only circle around the scar-faced man, beating back the creatures swarming from the sky and the ground.
Struggling violently to brush away the closing crows, the scar-faced man felt a scorching, stabbing pain tearing through his internal organs. He couldn’t help gasping heavily for breath, resisting with extreme difficulty.
The swirling mass of crows filling the sky blocked Bei Si’s line of sight, preventing him from clearly assessing the scar-faced man’s current state.
The problem lies in that corpse.
Bei Si glanced briefly in the scar-faced man’s direction before turning his gaze back toward He Yan’s remains.
Two crows had landed directly upon He Yan’s body, inquisitively poking their heads out and pacing back and forth before finally coming to a halt right beside the gaping hole in her chest.
Bei Si watched these two bizarre crows, his eyebrows lifting in an almost imperceptible arch.
The two crows dipped their heads straight down into the gaping cavern, bobbing their heads up and down as if nibbling on something.
It was a Gu worm!
The worm was jet-black in color, dragged out by a bird beak and thrashing wildly in protest, only for the crow to swallow it down whole.
Almost instantly, the crows which had been flitting about with lively agility began to convulse violently, collapsing onto the ground as their breathing ceased entirely. Their complete physical forms melted away right before his eyes into a pool of black, stagnant water.
In the flash of a spark, realization struck Bei Si like lightning.