Chapter 92: I’m going to kill today (1)
“Bajiao Village, located in Ping’an County, the southernmost part of Huang Tian Prefecture. Six months ago, people there started dying mysteriously every few days. Autopsies revealed that most of them died from excessive blood loss, but there were no obvious wounds on their bodies.”
Ruan Lingyu began to read the detailed information about the next “haunted event” and subconsciously glanced at Qi Huang after finishing.
“Ping’an County?”
Qi Huang was slightly stunned. Wasn’t that her hometown? Moreover, some distant relatives from the Huang family lived there. Although they didn’t interact much, they were still related by blood, weren’t they?
“This doesn’t look like a haunting! It looks more like a vampire zombie.”
Yun Fei immediately made a deduction.
“Who knows? But since they’ve asked for our help, whether it’s ghosts or zombies, we’ll eliminate them all.”
Shen Yuan confidently raised her treasured sword.
“I like your confidence, even though I don’t know where it comes from.”
Su Qing said sarcastically.
‘I hope Bajiao Village isn’t really haunted!’
This time, Qi Huang didn’t want to make friends with ghosts and monsters, at least not in Bajiao Village.
Not long after, Qi Huang followed her senior sisters to Bajiao Village. The scene before them made the women exchange glances with each other, because the entire village was unusually quiet, with only occasional weak groans coming from some corner.
Qi Huang and her senior sisters felt something was wrong, so they quickly found a yard where a groan was heard and walked in. A foul smell immediately assailed their noses, like the stench of decaying human corpses.
“Is anyone here?”
Ruan Lingyu called out tentatively.
A moment later, a woman in her early twenties walked out of the main hall. Although she was wearing a linen dress, she also wore a mask and gloves, covering herself tightly. However, the skin revealed by her eyebrows and eyes was fair and tender, and her figure was well-developed, not like a pure villager at all.
Qi Huang felt that the woman’s eyebrows and eyes looked somewhat familiar, but she couldn’t recall it for a moment.
“Who are you?”
The woman asked in a muffled voice, her tone still polite.
“Hello, we are disciples of the HongHua Sect. We received the plea for help from your Bajiao Village a month ago, so we have come to help.”
Ruan Lingyu explained.
“So it’s the Immortal Elders from HongHua Sect! Please sit down! Please sit down! My name is Li Shi, and I am a villager of Bajiao Village.”
The woman hurriedly took off her mask and then looked around for a stool.
‘Li Shi?’
Qi Huang immediately recognized her identity. She had visited Bajiao Village several times when she was young and made some friends. This young woman named Li Shi was one of them. However, she later heard that the woman had moved to a big town with her parents to open a medical clinic.
“Miss Li Shi, what about the haunting in Bajiao Village now?”
Ruan Lingyu asked impatiently after sitting down.
“The haunting has been resolved. Immortal Elders from the HeYi Sect came to handle it not long ago. It was a zombie causing trouble, but…”
Li Shi stopped speaking as if she had something to say.
Just as Qi Huang was about to ask what, she heard groans coming from the main hall again.
“Who is groaning?”
Shen Yuan asked directly.
“Alas!”
Li Shi sighed, a look of desolation on her face. “It’s my father.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
Qi Huang eagerly asked, as she was concerned about an acquaintance.
“It should be some kind of contagious skin disease.”
Li Shi took a deep breath, trying to hold back the tears in her eyes.
“Contagious?”
The Immortal Elders exchanged glances, their faces showing surprise, as they were also human.
“Then why don’t you take him to see a doctor?”
Qi Huang pressed for details.
“Because our family has been practicing medicine for generations, but even so, my father has tried his best to figure out what kind of skin disease this is. Now, most of the villagers have died, about seventy to eighty percent.”
Li Shi’s eyes showed a look of desolation.
“What? What about the Huang family?”
Qi Huang quickly asked. Although they were distant relatives, they were still relatives, weren’t they?
“The Huang family? You mean Huang Kaifu and his family? They’re all gone!”
Li Shi shook her head with regret.
“What?”
Qi Huang’s body trembled, and she clenched her fair fists, her sharp fingertips digging into her palms.
The senior sisters looked at each other, their faces full of doubt, wondering why their junior sister knew someone from Bajiao Village.
“What exactly is going on?”
After a long time, Qi Huang asked through gritted teeth. Her Huang family relatives were already few, and every time she lost one, she felt a void in her heart, a feeling of a broken bloodline connection.
“This matter probably started about a month ago. Wasn’t Bajiao Village haunted then? The Immortal Elders from the HeYi Sect came to investigate and found the zombie. So the villagers tied it up and burned it in a grave. But since that night, some people in the village started developing a skin disease. This skin disease is extremely severe, festering in two to three days and taking a person’s life in three to four days. It’s also contagious. The villagers had no choice but to come to the Prefecture Capital to seek help from my father, as our family has been practicing medicine for generations.
My father and I couldn’t bear to see our fellow villagers suffering from this terrible disease, so we returned to Bajiao Village to help. However, after we returned, we couldn’t figure out what kind of skin disease it was. We could only watch as everyone fell one by one, and now even he (my father) is sick.”
Li Shi’s eyes turned red again as she spoke.
Qi Huang was extremely saddened. Although she was not a doctor, she instinctively began to sort out the matter.
“Several Immortal Elders! Since you are from an Immortal Sect, you must have a way to treat these difficult diseases. I beg you on behalf of our villagers.”
Li Shi suddenly knelt down without warning.
“Get up quickly!”
Ruan Lingyu quickly went to help her up and said, “Take us to see him first.”
Li Shi was overjoyed and led the women into the main hall.
“Shouldn’t you take some protective measures first?”
Li Shi said with some worry.
“It’s alright, our physique is strong.”
Ruan Lingyu shook her head lightly. Indeed, even the weakest cultivator in the Juling Realm had a physique far superior to ordinary people and would not be easily affected by diseases.
Qi Huang followed behind and soon saw Li Shi’s father. Then she almost vomited. His exposed face was already horrific, with large and small rashes covering his scalp, densely packed like the poison glands on a toad. And they were an eerie purple. Some places were scratched open, and pus and blood were flowing out, emitting a smell similar to the stench of a corpse.
Qi Huang couldn’t stand it and quickly turned her face away. The other Immortal Elders also gasped.
After observing for a moment, the Immortal Elders couldn’t find any clues and had to retreat for the time being because the smell in the house was too unbearable.
“Several Immortal Elders, how is it? Did you find anything?”
Li Shi hurriedly asked, a trace of hope in her clear black and white eyes.
The Immortal Elders looked at each other. Although they were knowledgeable, they were not omniscient. They had never seen this type of skin disease before.
However, Qi Huang was still racking her brains to find clues, and the terrifying purple rashes in her mind kept lingering.
‘Purple? That’s not right! Why is this color so familiar?’
Qi Huang suddenly realized this, and then she thought of the “Ghost Tomato” in her travel bag.
‘I remember that in the “Compendium of Strange Plants and Animals in the Cultivation World,” it was mentioned that this Ghost Tomato is highly poisonous. If a person touches it, it can cause severe skin inflammation.’
Qi Huang began to piece things together step by step.
‘And the villagers started developing this skin disease after burning the zombie. Since it’s a place where zombies can be born, it must be a place of extreme yin. If there were Ghost Tomatoes growing there and someone happened to touch them…’
The threads in Qi Huang’s mind were gradually becoming clearer. Although all of this was speculation, the current situation could only be treated as a last resort.
Ruan Lingyu and the other Immortal Elders discussed for a long time without results, and their faces became increasingly embarrassed.
“Why don’t we just be honest with her? There’s no point in dwelling on it here.”
Shen Yuan suggested.
“No! If we say we don’t know the disease, how will others view the HongHua Sect? How will they view us?”
Ruan Lingyu immediately rejected her.
“Then what do you think we should do? If we don’t know, we don’t know. We can’t pretend to know something we don’t. That would harm people!”
Shen Yuan asked helplessly.
“I might know what’s going on!”
Qi Huang suddenly spoke.
“Really?”
Ruan Lingyu and the other senior sisters rejoiced, as if they had found a lifesaver.
“I have some ideas, but I need your help to confirm them. Can you take me to the zombie’s grave?”
Qi Huang turned to Li Shi and said.
