Weird Cultivation, I have a five-organ temple

Chapter 419: Humanity, Immortal Medicine

In the kitchen of the lumberyard, the thieves found several people hanging from the beams. They were stripped naked, their bodies were covered with wounds, and they were rotting and stinking.

Maggots as thick as thumbs were wriggling on the bodies of these people, gnawing at the dead flesh around the wounds. From time to time, a maggot would fall from their bodies.

Under them was a stove with a large pot filled with boiling oil.

The maggots fell right into the boiling oil and were instantly fried to golden and crispy.

Seeing this scene, even the experienced thieves couldn't help but change color.

They had seen shady shops that used humans as "two-legged sheep", but this was the first time they had seen such a strange situation where humans were used as feed to feed maggots and then fried and eaten the maggots.

What's more, the boiling oil in that big pot was also not right. It gave off a fishy smell, and it was most likely human oil or corpse oil.

Several people who were hung on the beams as "feed" were still alive even though they were eaten by maggots to the point where their bones were almost visible.

Lines of witchcraft power entangled them, holding them alive. They could only watch themselves rot and be eaten away by maggots until they were reduced to skeletons.

The county soldiers from Longyou County heard the noise and rushed into the kitchen and saw the scene inside.

These county soldiers usually helped to suppress bandits and catch thieves, so how could they have ever seen such a situation? Many of them couldn't stand it and ran out of the kitchen, vomiting outside.

Several people on the beams heard the noise and opened their eyes with difficulty. After seeing Shang Lu and others, they were neither excited nor frightened. Instead, they showed a hint of relief.

They obviously mistook Shang Lu and the others for accomplices of the thieves and thought they were here to kill them.

For them, death is indeed a relief.

But soon these people found out that they were wrong.

Not only did this group of people not kill them, they also didn't torture them. Instead, they rescued them from the beams, helped them remove the maggots, dug out the rotten flesh, and applied an obviously expensive ointment to their wounds to heal them.

Shang Lu comforted them: "Don't be afraid, we are officials, we are here to rescue you, the thief has been caught!"

Thanks to Shang Lu's eloquence, several people finally believed that they were saved and immediately shed tears of excitement.

I wanted to say a few words of thanks, but I was too weak to make a sound.

In addition to these poor people who were used as "feed", Shang Lu and his team also found some witch talismans and residual spirits in the lumberyard.

It's obvious that these things were bought from the ghost market. It's impossible to find out the thief's origins through them.

If you want to find clues and breakthroughs, the key lies in those two thieves.

Fortunately, after receiving the news from Lu Dao, the interrogator from the Discipline Department rushed over as quickly as possible and tortured the two thieves severely overnight.

The torture of the interrogator not only amazed Shang Lu, but also made him exclaim that it was an eye-opener.

Several thieves who claimed to be experts in torture were shocked after watching this. They felt convinced that they were not allowed to torture the thieves and no longer felt that they were looked down upon.

The so-called layman looks at the excitement and the insider looks at the doorway.

Shang Lu, an outsider, only felt that the interrogators had many methods, and each one was very strange and scary.

Those who are good at using torture to get thieves are actually looking for the right trick.

In their eyes, these methods used by the interrogator were exactly what they had always dreamed of.

They gathered together, watching and sighing:
"Compared to the interrogator, our methods are just like children's play."

"These two strange babies can even withstand such torture. Our abilities are really not enough to do anything to them... It was right not to let us go."

The thieves knew very well that the methods used by the interrogators were all related to witchcraft, and with their level of cultivation, they could not learn it even if they wanted to.

But this did not stop them from watching the interrogator torture with admiring eyes, their intoxicated expressions were like watching an artist perform...

In a blink of an eye, the morning star appeared in the east and the sky gradually turned white.

At this time, Lu Dao received a message sent back by the two witch officials Zhan and Peng.

After reading the contents of the message, his face changed slightly. He first walked to the interrogator and whispered a few words, then found Shang Lu and Lu Yang and told them:

"Witch officers Zhan and Peng just sent back news that they followed the raft all the way to Guling County."

Lu Yang said, "It only took one night to float from here to Guling County? This speed is abnormal. The thief who rowed the boat must have used some kind of witchcraft."

Shang Lu nodded in agreement, but said nothing. He just looked at Lu Dao and waited for him to continue.

The two witch officials Zhan and Peng sent back messages, either saying that they had made some important discoveries or that some accidents had occurred.

It should not be just telling them that the raft entered Guling County.

Lu Dao continued, "After the raft reached Guling County, it stopped at a river bank. The thieves who were rowing the boat cast a spell and turned the children from wood into dogs, letting them go ashore and run away.

The two witches Zhan and Peng suspected that they had been exposed, so they took action to capture the boat thief. However, only a small part of the children who had turned into dogs were recovered.

The boat thief was very stubborn. The two witches Zhan and Peng tried to interrogate him, but they couldn't pry him open. Now they are bringing him back with the rescued child."

Shang Lu and Lu Yang looked at each other, both wanting to say something, but held back.

Although they didn't say it, Lu Dao knew what they were thinking.

"Witch officers Zhan and Peng were a little impulsive. The thief who was rowing the boat should not have noticed their presence, otherwise he would not have turned the child into a dog, but would have directly escaped to warn the enemy. I just hope they caught the man and didn't alert the enemy."

Zhan and Peng were both seniors in the Discipline Department. Shang Lu and Lu Yang did not say much, but just said: "The person has been arrested and it is impossible to let him go. The most urgent task is to find clues as soon as possible and catch them all before the thieves notice!"

Lu Dao agreed. He was just asking the interrogator to work harder and find clues as soon as possible.

At the same time, he told the two of them what he had found out so far:
"Based on what the two thieves said, we can basically confirm that they are in the same group as the group that sells rampant ghosts and soul flags in the ghost market. They came to our Baiyi County with a mission to kidnap a group of children under the age of five and take them back to be 'human crops'."

"Human?"

Although Shang Lu and Lu Yang heard the word "Ren He" for the first time, they could guess its general meaning from the literal meaning.

The word "禾" refers to crops in general. So "人禾" means taking people as crops?
But how should this man plant crops?
Is it also planted in the ground? What is the harvest after planting?
Are they just the rampant ghosts, soul flags, and five evil stones? Or are there other more sinister things?

This time, neither of them was in a hurry to interrupt and waited for Lu Dao to continue speaking.

“The thieves took the child back and used secret methods to accelerate the birth and cultivation. It is said that in just one year, the child can grow to be fourteen or fifteen years old.

Then the thieves will select some of the children who have been forced to mature as "seeds" and let them breed new human crops. As for the remaining children, they will be harvested. Take the blood from the apex of the heart as a guide, and use the flesh of the five internal organs to refine medicine!

This medicine is the purpose of their cultivation! As for the Five Evil Stones, rampant ghosts, and puppet corpses, they are just by-products of refining medicine."

Shang Lu and Lu Yang already had a rough guess about the thieves' behavior.

However, after hearing what Lu Dao said, he couldn't help but take a breath.

The behavior of this group of thieves can no longer be described as cruel. They are simply completely unscrupulous and inhumane.

This kind of evil magic of using people as crops to make medicine only exists in chaotic dark ages.

Lu Yang gritted his teeth in hatred and asked, "What kind of medicine are they refining?"

"It is said to be a medicine for immortality and for becoming an immortal."

Lu Dao snorted coldly and said sarcastically, "If the way of cultivating by eating human flesh could really make people immortal, the Dark Ages would not have been forcibly ended! Only these stupid and bad people would believe in the evil magic handed down from the Dark Ages and train themselves to become neither human nor ghost!"

Shang Lu remembered the demon he met in Guling County who called himself "Yuanying".

The appearance of the demon was quite similar to the two strange babies, and both of them were parasitic in human bodies...

Could it be that this group of thieves is also somehow connected with the Huangting Sect?

Or did they also buy this evil method of using humans as crops and refining them into medicine from the fairy market in the ghost market?

Shang Lu remembered that he had seen many strange skills and secret techniques in the Fairy Market. He was even quite interested in them and wanted to buy them at one point.

It was the city supervisor who stopped him, saying that those skills and secret techniques were full of evil. Although they were effective quickly, the training was cruel and it was very easy to go astray.

Shang Lu didn't think much about it at that time.

Now that I think about it carefully, the emergence of the Fairy Market and the reappearance of these evil arts that should have been destroyed after the end of the Dark Ages, could it be that there is someone, or some mysterious existence, deliberately guiding and promoting it?

What are the intentions of this mysterious being?
Do you want to plunge this world into chaos and darkness again?
While Shang Lu was thinking about this, Lu Yang was asking:

"Uncle Lu, have these two demons revealed the location of their lair?"

"not yet."

Lu Dao shook his head and said, "These two thieves are very cunning. They want to use the location of their lair and their companions as a condition for us to swear an oath and let them go."

"You can't agree to this!"

Lu Yang hurriedly said that he wished he could cut the two evil men into pieces and he firmly refused to let them go.

"Of course we can't agree to that, so the interrogator is still going on. Don't worry, no matter how hard these two monsters talk, the interrogator will find a way to pry them apart! The reason why our Discipline Department is so notorious in the eyes of outsiders is not because we are good at fighting, but because we are ruthless and our punishments are cruel. The nickname of the Hades' Palace is not for nothing!"

At this point, Lu Dao suddenly paused, then smiled and said, "Look, there's a result!"

Shang Lu and Lu Yang looked up hurriedly and saw the interrogator took out a magical device similar to a birdcage, chanted a spell, and put the two strange babies inside.

Countless wind blades emerged from the birdcage and started to hack at the two strange babies.

They were chopped until their flesh and blood flew everywhere.

But it won't kill them.

Because every time a piece of flesh was cut off, the witchcraft in the birdcage would take effect, causing new flesh to grow on the bodies of the two strange babies.

As long as the witchcraft continues, they will be forever tortured to death and will never die.

The two strange babies in the birdcage wailed and cursed in pain and despair.

The interrogator paid no attention to their curses and sneered, "Curse me? Even if I die and go to the underworld with you, I can still chase you two and beat you up and continue to torture you!"

Then, the interrogator came to Shang Lu and the other two.

"How is it? Have you found out the location of their lair and accomplices?" Lu Dao asked hurriedly.

The interrogator did not answer in a hurry, but glanced at Shang Lu and Lu Yang.

"They are from the department and just arrived."

Lu Dao gave a brief introduction of Shang Lu and Lu Yang to the interrogator.

"So you are one of us, then there is no problem. My name is Yan Tao. If you have any criminals to interrogate in the future, you can come to Zhenshun Peak to find me."

Yan Tao gave his own name, then made a witch gesture, causing a cloud of mist to appear out of thin air, covering the three of them to prevent others from eavesdropping or peeking.

"They confessed that their lair was located at the junction of Baiyi, Guling, and Bizhi counties..."

Lu Dao was very familiar with the geography of Ba State. When he heard about the border of three counties, he blurted out: "In Pingdu Mountain?"

"Yes, it is Pingdu Mountain. The mountains there are steep and the roads are difficult to travel. There is also poisonous miasma all year round. It is a poor and bad place that is despised by the three counties and is a no-man's land.

Many years ago, this group of thieves were just a group of evil beggars, wandering around, kidnapping children, and using the method of mutilation to turn the kidnapped children into disabled or monsters, forcing them to beg for money, or even selling them to brothels and wealthy families to satisfy the perverted desires of some people.

Later, by chance, they found a secret book of immortality and cultivation from a corpse lying dead on the roadside. Although the methods recorded in it were cruel and strange, after trying it, they found that it really worked, so they followed it without hesitation.

At first they still wandered around, but later they found that no one was in charge of Pingdu Mountain, so they ran to the mountain to build a site, opened up 'fields' and planted 'human crops'. It has been thirty years now..."

Lu Dao's face turned pale. "In other words, this group of people have been kidnapping children for more than 30 years? And we didn't even notice it?"

Yan Tao said: "They only kidnapped children in the first few years, and then used 'seed people' to breed new humans.

Going to the black market to sell demons and five evil stones has only started in the past two years, saying that he needs money to buy medicine that can relieve the pain of cultivation. At the same time, it is also to find an opportunity to enter a place called the Fairy Market, so that he can exchange for skills and treasures.

This time, it was because I received a large order in the ghost market, but the breeder hadn’t given birth to any new children yet, so I had to go back to my old job. As a result, I was targeted by you guys right after I started.”

Lu Dao did not say that the big order received by this group of thieves was a sting operation by people from Guling County. He only asked in detail about the thieves' lair, specifically where it was located in Pingdu Mountain.

He also asked what arrangements the gang of thieves had made in Pingdu Mountain.

Since the thieves have been operating in Pingdu Mountain for decades, the place must be run by them like an iron barrel.

If you fail to figure these out in advance, you will inevitably pay a heavy price, or even fail at the last moment and let the thief escape!
(End of this chapter)