As the mountain wind swept the scent of blood into the cave, Ye Fan was just stuffing the last de-gu pill into the old woman's mouth. His fingertips had barely brushed her wrist pulse when hurried footsteps shattered the silence of the night—sounding as if dozens of feet were trampling over gravel at once, each step carrying a wet, sticky squelch, like wading through a pool of uncoagulated blood.
"They're living people," Chǔ Hóngzhuāng suddenly wrinkled her nose, the silver bells in her hair jingling softly. She crouched among the awakening crowd, pinching a green gu insect the size of a mung bean between her fingertips. "The gu didn't sense any corpse aura. These people... must be controlled."
Before her voice faded, Su Qingxue had already laid the seven-string zither across her knees. Her fair fingertips brushed the strings, the music laden with a hint of cold poison. "Ye Lang, they've stopped thirty paces out." The tear mole at the corner of her eye quivered slightly with the movement. "Their breathing rhythm is too uniform, like dead soldiers in the military."
Chapter 250