Jiangshan Fengwuzhi

Chapter 4: Outliers (Thanks to the leader of "Ai Ai Ta Jia Da Ke Ai Si Si")

The light was dim, making the papers scattered on the table look even more yellow.

Gu Jingnian didn't pay attention to what was happening outside the house. His attention was completely attracted by the pieces of paper he found.

It should be a page torn from a book. The paper has turned yellow and looks like it will break if touched.

When unfolded, it showed a picture simply sketched with ink and a few columns of small characters.

The first picture showed a strange beast, probably a Hydra, with a long coiled body and nine bloody mouths, as if it wanted to devour someone.

The breeze blew the oil lamp in Gu Jingnian's hand, the flame flickered, and the Hydra seemed to be dancing with it, ready to emerge from the painting at any time.

Next to it was written a line of words: "A male viper with nine heads, it moves back and forth quickly, and it swallows people to enrich its heart."

Below that, someone added a note in a different handwriting.

"The male viper is an ancient vicious beast with nine heads and a snake body that coils itself around its neck. It has eaten countless people and its spit turns into a swamp with a fishy taste that kills all other beasts. It multiplies in the wild swamps of the southwest..."

Gu Jingnian was not very interested in this, but he was very concerned about whether there were any records of other extraordinary people on these papers, so he turned to the next piece of paper.

There is a person drawn on this piece of paper.

Gu Jingnian became interested and looked at the small characters next to it, only to see the words "corpse leech" written on it. Then he looked at the person in the painting, who had his mouth wide open and spit out worms.

This is still not a strange person, but a strange beast.

There are also notes below.

"There are insects called corpse leeches, with animal heads and snake bodies, crawling in coils and worms, living in the internal organs, spitting out saliva and laying eggs, and then eating the flesh until they become insects."

Continuing to flip through the pages, he saw a map that he could make out was of a valley in the deep mountains over a hundred miles west of Shuyang.

As for the rest, they are all prescriptions.

Gu Jingnian couldn't help but feel disappointed. These things he had been investigating seemed to have nothing to do with the case in the General's Mansion.

At this moment, a loud noise was heard in the yard.

Gu Jingnian put the paper he found into his arms, turned around and walked out of the house. He saw that the mule in the stable was very restless and was banging against the fence desperately.

With another noise, the mule, despite its injuries, finally broke through the fence and rushed out without looking back.

In the kitchen, the low roar became louder and louder, gradually making people feel uneasy.

He walked over quickly and pulled Shen Lingshu, who was standing there and looking around, behind him.

"Don't touch me."

Shen Lingshu broke free from his hand and said angrily, "Don't you think I'm noisy? What are you doing following me?"

"Get out! This person is ill. Don't get infected with his illness."

Gu Jingnian was talking about the burly man who was unconscious.

This is a pharmacy. The man was brought back by the doctor and has been unconscious. Of course, he is most likely a patient.

"Listen." Shen Lingshu said.

Gu Jingnian glanced around the house and did not see any ferocious beasts.

As the moonlight shone in, all I could see was the burly man's belly heaving violently, and the roar seemed to come from inside.

"He is snoring." Shen Lingshu said.

This is probably the most reasonable explanation at the moment.

"I thought my father's snoring was the loudest in the world, but this man's snoring is really unpleasant, as if there is a beast in his stomach. He must be here to see a doctor for his snoring..."

Gu Jingnian ignored Shen Lingshu's noise, suddenly narrowed his eyes, took a few steps forward, and put the oil lamp in his hand close to the burly man's face.

He hadn't noticed just now that the burly man had a brand on his right cheek.

And he happened to be very familiar with this brand.

It was composed of three small characters "Xiao Yi Jun" and the character "Fu". If Gu Beiming's army captured an enemy soldier, they would often brand him with this mark on his face.

Feng Niang's words came back to his mind. It turned out that this burly man was not unrelated to the matter he was investigating.

"Strange assassin?"

"what?"

Shen Lingshu curiously moved forward to see what Gu Jingnian was looking at.

"This is……"

Suddenly, the burly man who was in a coma opened his eyes.

Those were a pair of emotionless, cold eyes, filled with red bloodshot, inexplicably terrifying.

Shen Lingshu was so scared that she grabbed Gu Jingnian's arm and took two steps back.

"Are you awake?" Gu Jingnian asked, "Are you from the Yong army? Were you captured?"

The burly man didn't say anything, but his stomach was still making a low and shrill roar, which was getting louder and louder, and more and more creepy.

He stared at the two people in front of him and slowly stood up, as if he wanted to come up and bite them.

Shen Lingshu felt that the man in front of her was scary, and she pulled Gu Jingnian and wanted to leave.

The burly man stood up and staggered after him.

He had his neck tilted, his face expressionless, his limbs stiff, and he staggered as he walked. He looked indescribably awkward.

Finally, he opened his mouth, but no sound came out, as if he had lost the ability to speak. Only roars continued to sound in his stomach.

The wriggling under his belly became more and more violent, as if there was a wild beast struggling to get out of his stomach.

A strong and strange stench emanated from his mouth.

Shen Lingshu suddenly felt nauseous.

"I...I feel a little dizzy."

Gu Jingnian also felt the danger, so he hugged Shen Lingshu and quickly walked out of the kitchen.

In the courtyard, A Yuan ran to chase the hound but failed to catch it, so he ran back and said aggrievedly: "Girl, the dog is lost...hiccup, let my girl go!"

She rubbed her eyes and saw Gu Jingnian holding Shen Lingshu in his arms. She immediately became anxious.

"Dengtuzi, what are you doing?"

"Hold on."

Gu Jingnian was just about to hand Shen Lingshu over to A Yuan, when the next moment, shouting was heard again in the yard.

"Don't even move!"

"The capital is investigating the case. No one is allowed to move!"

Eight policemen came in with swords in hand, wearing the black uniforms of the Shuyang government, and all of them had ferocious expressions.

"The capital is trying to catch a thief. Tell me your name... Stop right there!"

"I told you to stop. If you dare to take another step, you will be charged with resisting arrest!"

"Take it!"

This moment.

The sword flashed and the officers shouted loudly.

Gu Jingnian walked quickly, still holding the struggling Shen Lingshu.

A Yuan went forward to take it and suddenly his eyes widened.

The burly man opened his mouth and roared, and at the same time, his bulging stomach suddenly exploded.

Blood and flesh splattered all over the sky.

Gu Jingnian saw something coming out of the corner of his eye and subconsciously used his body to block Shen Lingshu.

Then, he felt severe pain in his back.

"You hurt me, let go..."

Shen Lingshu was still shouting when suddenly Gu Jingnian pushed her hard and she fell out.

The moment before she fell to the ground, she looked down and saw a pool of blood on Gu Jingnian's chest, with sharp horns sticking out of it... and then a terrifying snake head appeared.

It was a giant snake with sharp horns on its head. The snake's body was as thick as a human thigh, and it pierced Gu Jingnian's body.

The young man was still standing there, his face showing pain, but his expression was still confused. He looked at her with doubtful but determined eyes.

A lunatic, a coward, a coward...

Shen Lingshu suddenly remembered the words he used to curse Gu Jingnian today, and then fell to the ground.

"what!"

A Yuan screamed in fear and ran to help Shen Lingshu, crying.

"Snake!"

The giant snake slowly shrank back, leaving a big bloody hole on Gu Jingnian's body.

Through the bloody hole, you can see something dancing behind him.

Gu Jingnian looked down at his chest, was stunned, and fell heavily to the ground face down.

Only then did Shen Lingshu see what had happened.

That's not "a" giant snake.

Three giant snakes came out of the burly man's stomach at the same time, or rather, three snake heads sharing the same body.

Their bodies had no scales or skin, and their thick muscles were wrapped in mucus, twisting and dancing in the air, weird and terrifying. This was a monster that Shen Lingshu had never seen in the army.

Her eyes accidentally looked at the burly man's belly, and she could vaguely see that the blood and internal organs inside were completely empty. The end of the monster's body was connected to the burly man like a tree root, completely integrated into one.

The burly man was still moving. He was the monster's eyes, hands and feet; he was the monster itself.

While piercing Gu Jingnian, the snakehead also attacked the officers.

The bloody mouth bit off the neck of an officer and sucked hard. The sucking sound was so loud that people could feel the blood flowing out quickly.

"Monster... monster!"

One officer couldn't help but shout loudly, but the sound soon stopped.

"Kill!"

Some officers also swung their knives at the snakes, but as soon as they raised their knives, the snakes' stomachs had already been pierced by the sharp corners of the snake's head.

The rest turned around and fled, but one had not gotten far before his thigh was bitten and he was dragged back. He fell to the ground, crying loudly and holding on to the threshold of the corner door tightly. Then there was a loud noise, his thigh was torn off, and his body visibly lost its blood.

The giant snake picked up the drained body and threw it away.

"Oh!"

The wooden door of the inverted ward was smashed, and the patients in the lobby who were watching what was happening here suddenly burst into terrified screams.

"what!"

The monster heard the noise and began to twist its body excitedly, as if it had smelled a sumptuous meal.

--------

At the entrance of Tongluo Alley, a woman and a little boy were sitting on a stone bench diagonally opposite Renxin Pharmacy, talking in low voices.

The two people were Luo Quan and Tingqiao Bing who followed Shen Lingshu.

As the moonlight shone down, Tingqiao Bing saw the beautiful face beside him. He was stunned for a moment before he remembered that this was his rude colleague, and turned his face away again. After doing this several times, he couldn't help but mutter.

"Honestly, I'm hard."

"Hateful, little bamboo stick."

Luo Quan said angrily, and his voice was completely like a delicate woman's.

"That's enough." Tingqiao Bing asked, "How can you pretend to be so similar?"

"What's this?" Luo Quan sighed. "I used to be a servant in the Yi family, and I only learned some superficial skills. The Yi family's true disciples dress up exactly like them, so there's a lot of knowledge involved."

At this point, Luo Quan paused and continued, "I was thinking that it would be too easy to be discovered if I followed you."

"what?"

Hearing this, Tingqiao Bing said with disdain, "Who would be suspicious of me in this state?"

"Every time it's either an old woman taking care of a child, a woman taking care of a child, or an old man taking care of a child. Your appearance is too narrow, you know that?"

"Go, arrest Gu Jingnian and ask him how he found out we were following him."

"Shhh."

As they were talking, many officers holding torches came along the street, blocking and searching every house.

Luo Quan was afraid that they would alert the enemy, so he said, "I'll keep watching, and you go ask what happened."

"it is good."

Tingqiao Bing then walked toward the long street and asked the officer, "Where is your leader?"

"Little brat, get out of here..."

The officer was talking when he suddenly saw the badge of Kaiping Division. His face changed and he whispered, "This way, please."

Tingqiao Bing asked as he walked: "What happened?"

"We are also following the orders of the Kaiping Division to search. A thief knocked down two officers at a pharmacy ten miles outside the city and kidnapped a witness. The mule cart driven by the thief seems to be heading this way..."

Over there, Luo Quan waited for a while, and saw eight officers still broke into the pharmacy, and he couldn't help frowning.

Just as I was hesitating about what to do, I suddenly heard a loud noise.

Screaming, screaming, roaring...

He was greatly surprised and quickly took out the sword from under his skirt and strode into the drugstore.

The pharmacy was already a bloody hell.

The wooden wall was shattered, and there was blood and flesh everywhere. Some people were injured and fell to the ground. Some tried to escape but were pierced by giant snake-like creatures. Some were so scared that they didn't know what to do and curled up on the ground, trembling.

"Leech?"

Luo Quan murmured, somewhat confused.

He had only heard of this strange creature in the past two days, and today was the first time he saw it.

"careful!"

Seeing that the leech was about to bite Shen Lingshu in the corner of the yard, Luo Quan strode forward and chopped it down with a knife.

He was very nervous and focused all his attention on the knife, using all his strength.

"call--"

With the sound of breaking wind, the knife chopped directly into a snake head from the front, and blood splattered high.

Luo Quan was overjoyed, thinking that the leech was just a mortal. However, the knife in his hand was stuck in its head and he couldn't pull it out for a while.

The next moment, another snake head slammed into him heavily, and the blade pierced his heart fiercely.

He was lifted aloft and felt the fangs of the leeches sinking into his flesh, sucking his blood.

In mid-air, he could see corpses and body parts scattered on the ground, the three bodies of the leech twisting like giant snakes, and its host, a burly man.

He also saw a man covered in blood trying to stand up on the ground...

Everything went dark before his eyes, and Luo Quan was thrown out, hitting the wall heavily, and his body fell to the ground like a rag bag.

"aunt!"

Shen Lingshu saw a woman rushing up to save him but was knocked out by a monster, so he hurried over to help her.

She stretched out her trembling hand to feel the other person's breath, but found that it was a man with prickly stubble, and he was already dead.

"Run away girl!"

A Yuan suddenly burst into tears.

Shen Lingshu turned around and saw a bloody mouth biting towards him.

She wanted to escape, but her legs were so weak from fear that she couldn't even stand up. The stench was overwhelming and she didn't know what to do, so she had to close her eyes.

"puff."

There was no pain as expected. Shen Lingshu opened her eyes and someone was standing in front of her.

Gu Jingnian.

He was not dead yet, and once again used his body to block the monster's attack for her.

The blade pierced through his back, and he stood there, tall and firm as a mountain.

Then he raised his hand and thrust it hard into the two eyes on the snake's head.

The roar suddenly rose.

The monster felt pain and twisted wildly, but Gu Jingnian held its eye sockets tightly, preventing it from being pulled out of his body.

The other snake head then bit his neck hard.

Gu Jingnian suddenly let go, pulled out the knife embedded in the snake's head, and slashed with the knife.

His body was constantly bitten and pulled.

"don't want……"

Shen Lingshu couldn't bear to watch any longer and covered her face with her hands, but she still couldn't help sobbing, and big tears kept rolling down her eyes.

In her tear-blurred vision, Gu Jingnian chopped several times and cut off a snake's head. The monster's headless body danced wildly in the air, spraying blood like rain.

In a split second, Gu Jingnian rushed forward and slashed with his sword.

"puff."

This knife finally cut off the burly man's head.

Gu Jingnian was also staggering, his hand loosened and the knife fell to the ground.

However, the monster was not dead yet. With a tragic roar, the last snake head pierced through Gu Jingnian and pushed him directly against the wall.

There was a loud bang, and the yard fell silent.

There was blood everywhere. The burly man's headless body had fallen to the ground. The monster was still wriggling unwillingly, becoming increasingly powerless until it finally stopped moving.

Shen Lingshu had cried until she almost fainted. She couldn't bear it, but still used her last bit of strength to look at Gu Jingnian.

His body was stabbed all over and his neck was bitten in half.

Gu Jingnian is dead.

The rude lunatic who broke off her engagement and called her noisy died just like that.

　Thanks again for your support yesterday! After a month of going to bed early and getting up early, I now realize that my previous updates at 12 o'clock every day were really unfriendly...

　　
　
(End of this chapter)