CHAPTER 382: CHAPTER 379: SUBSTITUTE TONGUE GU

Hu Ma saw the little girl’s surprised expression and decided to sit down beside her, grabbing her palm and placing a Blood Food Pill into it.

At the same time, fearing she wouldn’t eat it, he poured one into his own palm and swallowed it.

It was a small psychological suggestion. Seeing this, the girl named Wuya felt she must eat the Blood Food Pill too. Feeling a bit dazed, she mimicked Hu Ma’s actions, stuffing the pill into her mouth and puffing up her cheeks.

Hu Ma felt relieved. These Witch people in the village had their skills, of course, but their roots were shallow, their influence thin, and they rarely interacted with the outside world. Thus, they had few opportunities to see superior nourishment like Blood Food, which he hoped would help improve their relationship.

Thinking this, he looked at her again, smiled, and asked once more, "Can you speak Mandarin?"

"Careful?"

Wuya tentatively spoke, blushing slightly. "I’ve never left the forest. My dad doesn’t allow me to talk to people from outside, so I’m not good at it."

"But I used to learn it from my brother. My brother speaks Mandarin even better than my dad, and I learned it from him, so I picked it up!"

Hu Ma indeed heard that she could speak it, although it seemed she spoke it infrequently, making her tone a little strange. But coupled with her pretty and cute appearance, this odd Mandarin had a unique charm.

"You speak very well already. Talk more, and we won’t even notice the difference."

Hu Ma laughed as he chatted with her for a while. "Do you all have to learn Mandarin? Did your brother learn it from your dad?"

"My brother always knew it."

Wuya thought for a moment and said, "He always said he wanted to go out more, but for some reason, he never did. My dad has always been angry with him, and they stopped talking a long time ago."

Chatting with this girl, Hu Ma felt a slight stirring in his heart and slowly said, "Today, hearing you all talk, it sounds like your brother is a very scary person..."

Upon hearing this, Wuya suddenly fell silent.

She seemed a bit dejected but did not refute it. After a while, she quietly said, "The people in the village all fear my brother. They say he harms people, but he’s always been good to me. However, I haven’t seen him in a long time."

"Last time, I went into the forest, hoping to see my brother, but he didn’t meet me and told me to leave quickly."

The time has come... Hu Ma could sense the little girl’s emotions, and he carefully asked the most critical question, "So now your dad wants to refine gu and kill your brother. What do you think?"

"My brother..."

Faced with such a blunt question from Hu Ma, Wuya’s expression was a bit flustered, her eyes reddened with agitation. After a pause, she replied, "I..."

Hu Ma was also nervously waiting for her answer.

To determine whether the Wugong Clan Chief or Monkey Wine was lying, Wuya was undoubtedly the key. Both of them accused the other of being the most evil person, while only Wuya knew who truly was the most evil.

This was the most straightforward and effective method Hu Ma could currently think of.

It was obvious that when asked this question, Wuya’s expression was somewhat flustered, and she hesitated to speak. Just when Hu Ma felt he was about to get an answer, he saw Wuya slightly lower her head and suddenly say:

"I want to help my dad."

"Brother Wu Song has been kind to me, but he’s not good to others. He enjoys killing people to refine gu and has killed many, many people..."

"Dad advised him many times before, telling him not to kill others, saying our Witch people are few and weak in power, and if we offend outsiders, we would be driven away, or even completely slaughtered..."

"But my brother never listens and kills more and more people. He’s... he’s gone mad, so mad that everyone in our village fears him..."

"Even Lord Witch God issued a decree to kill him..."

"This time, Dad is serious. Before coming, he asked the villagers for heart blood and promised them he would definitely kill my brother this time, so the villagers would no longer be afraid—afraid of him refining gu to harm others, and afraid he would bring disaster to our village..."

Listening to Wuya speak, Hu Ma felt something was off. He instinctively glanced at her, and suddenly his pupils quivered.

Now, apart from lacking some Blood Food, his cultivation for Entering the Mansion was long completed. His Seven Apertures were no problem, and through the process of refining life, his eyesight was much better.

Even though it was nighttime and Wuya had her head lowered, with this glance, Hu Ma still saw clearly. She spoke slowly, but a hint of panic and pain had already flashed across her face.

Most importantly, looking at her mouth movements, it seemed more and more awkward. Her mouth movements didn’t match her words at all. It was like a film where the sound didn’t synchronize with the picture, creating an inexplicably bizarre effect.

Upon closer attention, Hu Ma was even more shocked to see that Wuya’s tongue had somehow turned into a forked tongue, like that of a snake. This forked tongue quivered, producing the sounds she was now making. This sort of thing would have been easy to spot in everyday conversation, but her Mandarin was not very standard in the first place, which had concealed it. If it weren’t for his extraordinary vision, he might not have discovered this strangeness even now.

He made no rash moves, silently listening as Wuya finished speaking. After a long while, he nodded slowly. "I understand. In our Han people’s words, it’s called cleansing the door."

Wuya nodded silently, still not lifting her head to look at Hu Ma.

"It’s getting late. You should get some rest. Help your dad refine the gu, so you can stop your brother from doing more wrong things..."

Hu Ma didn’t say much more, smiled, got up, and bid farewell to return to his room. After closing the door behind him, his expression slowly changed. He turned around, peered through the crack in the door, and saw Wuya still standing there, a bit lost, glancing towards the vicinity of the shack.

From the shadows beside her, a pale-faced young man emerged, giving Wuya a deep look and saying in a low voice, "Wuya, Elder is calling you over!"

Wuya slowly stood up, carefully reaching into her mouth and touching her tongue. As if she had committed some terrible blunder, she slowly, gingerly moved toward the shack where the gu was being refined.

In the room, Hu Ma urgently pondered. What kind of skill is this? Could it be that while someone is talking, their tongue gets switched? Is someone using someone else’s mouth to say what they want to say?

He had encountered various techniques but had never seen anything so bizarre. This strange scene reminded him of that so-called united heart gu that Monkey Wine had mentioned.

If these words from Wuya were not what she originally intended to say, then what did she want to say? Why use Wuya’s mouth to say these things at this critical moment? No one would know about the Reincarnator secret between Monkey Wine and himself, but others might think that as a junior manager from the Red Lantern Society, he might be suspicious of the happenings here. So, was this to reassure him? If that were so, things would become simple...

He took a deep breath and sat back on the edge of the bed, drawing out the saw-toothed knife full of notches from the package by the pillow. The current situation was certainly eerie, but a Shousui man’s approach was always simple and direct.

"Manager Hu..."

Just then, someone suddenly knocked on the door, accompanied by a cautious call. Hu Ma nodded, grasping the knife as he turned around. "Come in!"

The door was pushed open, revealing Mine Chief Zhuang and his two apprentices. Upon seeing Hu Ma’s menacing demeanor, they visibly jumped for a moment before quickly addressing him, "There’s an urgent matter in need of your decision..."

"Clan Chief Wu is now performing a Gu Worship, but he says that the red lanterns hanging outside affect the gu refining process. He wants to know if we might temporarily take down the red lanterns..."

"Once the gu is refined, he will kill Wu Song, and then we can hang them back up as we please..."

Upon hearing this, Hu Ma was momentarily stunned, then began to laugh. He sheathed the knife, holding it under his arm as he exited the room. "Let’s go together."

Following them directly to the shack at the valley’s front, they saw the Wugong Clan Chief cradling the clan’s hundred gu bowl, seated before the gu altar, his expression obscured in darkness.

The girl Wuya and the pale-faced youth stood on either side of the altar, silently looking outside the valley.

"Respected Manager, once we take down the red lanterns, I can start the Gu Worship."

Inside the shack, the Wugong Clan Chief spoke in a low voice, "But with the red lanterns removed, Wu Song will undoubtedly attack us. He will know that I am refining a gu to counter him and will surely try everything to stop it."

"Wuya and Nengneng will deal with his gu, but their skills are somewhat lacking, and I won’t be able to intervene while refining the gu. I’m afraid we’ll need you to use your Shousui abilities to support us, to have a chance against Wu Song’s Twelve Paizi Gu."

Hu Ma focused his gaze, observing that the pale-faced youth stood silent and expressionless, while Wuya had her head lowered, obscuring her expression.

He smiled and said, "Then take it down."

"As long as we carry out our tasks well, I believe Red Lantern Lady won’t mind this minor matter."

Saying this, he glanced at Zhou Datong, who had followed him. Zhou Datong understood, his body agile like a specter, leapt onto the archway, and removed the red lantern.

As the red lantern was taken down, the eerie red glow that had been shrouding the valley for days vanished instantly. While it was hanging, no one knew what use it had, but now that it was removed, they felt a void in their hearts, as if they had lost some form of protection.

At this very moment, a sudden RUSTLING and FLAPPING arose from outside the valley as a flock of dark crows took flight from the woods.

Mine Chief Zhuang, standing close, was suddenly assailed by a foul stench. Startled and panicking, he shouted, "Get away! That’s the same kind of thing that injured me before!"