Huang Jiu crouched on my shoulder and lowered his voice, saying, "I've been here for a while now. I saw that person waiting to harm you by the third dragon mouth!"
I stopped in my tracks.
The third dragon mouth was located within the fake mountain in the backyard—an easy place to hide.
Huang Jiu continued, "That person is strange, wearing all black. He moves silently and even flies, like a giant bat."
Fly?
I turned to Huang Jiu, "Are you sure you didn't mistake it for something else?"
While martial arts don't have the same supernatural abilities as Daoist techniques, I could believe that someone might have exceptional physical abilities, such as running or jumping better than an average person. But to fly? That sounded too far-fetched.
Huang Jiu raised his hand and swore, "I swear he really can fly. He shocked me earlier."
Without hesitation, I turned and walked toward the fourth dragon mouth.
If he could fly, I wasn't going to meet him head-on—that would be asking for death.
At the fourth dragon mouth, I saw a toad the size of a palm, which looked extremely vulgar. Upon seeing it, I immediately concluded that the person was using the "Five Poisons."
The "Five Poisons" refers to five creatures—snakes, scorpions, centipedes, toads, and geckos—not because they are particularly poisonous, but because they attract yin energy and are commonly used by practitioners of sorcery, especially in the Miao region. Some even use them to brew poison wine, famously known as "Five Poisons Wine."
I glanced at the toad and asked Huang Jiu, "Do you want to eat it?"
"Do you want me to die?" Huang Jiu looked at me warily.
I couldn't blame him for his suspicion; after all, he used to put anything in his mouth.
Since Huang Jiu didn't want it, I didn't hesitate. The toad was lazily lying on the dragon mouth, absorbing the return dragon qi, much like a snake basking in the sun on a winter day.
I threw my Blood Piercer at it, pinning it to the ground. However, toads are quite resilient, and it didn't die immediately. Its four legs flailed wildly.
Its skin was toxic, so I didn't dare use my Blood Piercer to finish it off.
Worried about wasting too much time and that the person might come after me, I quickly glanced around. I spotted a nearby pond with ornamental lotus flowers.
I ran over, scooped up some mud, and threw it on the toad, wrapping it up like a beggar's chicken.
There's an old rural remedy where, if a child is frail and doesn't grow well, the elders would bury a toad in mud and roast it. After the mud dries out, they break it open, and the toad's skin comes off, leaving behind tender meat. I'm not sure if toad meat actually helps children gain weight, but when I was little, my family was poor, and my friend Little Fatty and I often caught toads and roasted them. The meat was delicious.
Once the toad was wrapped in mud, I used my Blood Piercer to move it off the dragon mouth.
After dealing with this dragon mouth, I turned around and headed back to the villa.
Huang Jiu asked, "Aren't you going to take care of the others?"
I replied, "I've dealt with six dragon mouths. If he's using Five Poisons, he can only channel the poison through these five mouths. With one of them disrupted, I can't tell what's wrong, but something feels off."
With that, I entered the villa.
As soon as I stepped inside, my second uncle shouted, "Watch out!"
His sudden shout startled me, and I froze. Just then, a heavy crystal chandelier crashed down with a loud bang, shattering into pieces on the marble floor less than half a meter away from me.
My face turned pale, and my legs started to tremble. Huang Jiu on my shoulder was completely paralyzed from shock.
It took me a while to regain my senses.
My second uncle exhaled, saying, "Step carefully through the gap."
I quickly calculated the positions of the gaps in the villa and ran over to my second uncle.
I had already disrupted three of the Five Poisons, and the poison's power was weakening. Su Dazhuang had already regained consciousness, but his face was dark and unrecognizable.
Su Dazhuang weakly said, "That chandelier has been installed for years by a professional company. How could it…?"
"Grandfather, take a rest for a moment," I told him.
Some things may seem like coincidence, but this incident was no accident.
After calming down, I realized my second uncle's position was deliberate. He was standing in the exact center, which aligned with the villa's feng shui—right at the north. With Su Dazhuang's energy suppressed, the northern part of the house was experiencing the "Three Killings" formation, which could counteract the evil qi generated by the return dragon mouth.
The toad's poisonous energy had likely caused Su Dazhuang's face to darken, and the poison was still lingering in his body. But now that the evil qi had been mostly neutralized, a short rest would be enough for him to recover.
This method was so effective that, had I not seen my second uncle use it, I wouldn't have thought of it myself.
Moreover, my second uncle's shout had made me avoid the falling chandelier. That was no coincidence.
He couldn't have been watching the chandelier the whole time, which meant he had some kind of foreknowledge.
It suddenly dawned on me—my second uncle could truly predict the future.
There were still two more dragon mouths left, and the person who could fly was still lurking in the courtyard. I didn't have time to ask about these things. I quickly told my second uncle about the Five Poisons.
After listening, my second uncle remained silent for a few seconds. Then, he grabbed Su Dazhuang's head and pulled open his eyelids.
In the light, I saw something strange under Su Dazhuang's eyeballs—small black threads moving around like living creatures.
That was a sign of being poisoned by a worm.
"Grandfather is poisoned by a corpse worm!" Huang Jiu and I both exclaimed in shock.
I breathed a long sigh of relief. If I had killed the toad on the dragon mouth, Su Dazhuang would already be dead. His face hadn't just turned dark from virtual poison, but from actual poison—the larvae of a corpse worm were wreaking havoc inside him.
In Miao sorcery, there's something called "corpse worms." These worms are bred together, like twins, and they can sense each other's existence. If one of them dies, the other will die instantly.
Su Dazhuang's poison was most likely a "six-linked worm," related to the five poisons outside. The enemy's goal was to make me hesitate over whether to kill the toad, forcing me to disrupt the dragon mouth while trying to suppress the poison. But I, a novice, had stupidly gone and killed three of the toads. Fortunately, I had realized something was wrong and stopped before it was too late. Otherwise, the corpse worm inside Su Dazhuang would have killed him, and no one could have saved him.
Now I understood why Left Dao Ran had warned me back when I was trying to break the spell.
Poisoning with worms—I wasn't very familiar with it, and I didn't know what to do about it yet.
But my second uncle was completely calm and calm now. He gave me instructions: "Yangyang, go close the main door. Don't meet that person yet. Let's solve the worm inside Su Dazhuang before anything else."
I didn't hesitate, running to close the main door while stepping carefully through the gaps.
As soon as the door closed, all the lights in the villa went out.
My second uncle said, "Don't worry about it. The northern three killings formation is now at its strongest, able to suppress half of the evil qi from the return dragon mouth. That person won't dare to come in."
The servants were already too frightened to be of any help. I quickly found a few candles and lit them. My second uncle came from the kitchen holding a bag of salt. Without saying a word, he shoved salt into Su Dazhuang's mouth.
Su Dazhuang choked and coughed for a few moments, pushing my second uncle away with tears in his eyes. He yelled, "Li Er, are you trying to kill me faster?"
My second uncle gave him a grim smile and said, "If you die, I'll inherit the estate."
The combination of the poison and my second uncle's blunt remark nearly caused Su Dazhuang to faint.